Gonzales is out, or very nearly so. As some wag has probably suggested by now, I’m sure, he’s headed back to Texas to spend more time waterboarding and warrantless wiretapping the wife and kids. With his departure and that of Rove, both lobes of Bush’s substandard brain will have shuffled down the highway to the land of yellow roses, god help it. The old Texas mafia is disbanded, and Dubya now nearly stands alone amongst assorted replacements and second tier “Bushies”, like Condi Rice and Chertoff. (Media child that I am, this reminds me of the final seasons of “The Waltons,” with no mother, no grandma, no grandpa, an ersatz “John-Boy”, somebody named “Miss Rose”, and the guy who played Patty Duke’s father.) The only constant is Cheney, and he’s very much alive in this embattled White House, at the very center of greatly expanded presidential powers and, paradoxically, greatly diminished presidential influence around the world. Even after monumental failures of judgment, Cheney is still driving policy, pushing the same discredited and disastrous agenda that has cost so many lives overseas and consumed so many resources at home.

True, Cheney is one of the most strongly disliked, unpopular political figures in America. But don’t think that fact will slow him down. There are troubling signs that our cockeyed VP is pushing for war with Iran as soon as this Fall; another full-blown marketing campaign, like during the run-up to the Iraq war, may ensue in the coming weeks. (See this posting on Juan Cole’s valuable blog.) Now that the press has offered limp mea culpas over their complicity in whipping up war fever in 2002-03, you may be tempted to believe that they will not repeat the same sorry performance again so soon. Don’t get your hopes up. If the administration wants war, the mainstream media will be right on board. Per Cole, Barnet Rubin reports that “the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, Fox, and the usual suspects” will be leading the charge, per Cheney’s “instruction”, delivering a “heavy sustained assault on the airwaves” to generate support for war on Iran. Hypersensitive media institutions like the major broadcast networks, NPR/PBS, and major newspapers will fall in behind these drunken admirals of the gutter press, even if they are leading us into the reef. All it will take is a cry of treason or two to make them snap to attention.

Given the climate of the country today and the bankruptcy of Dubya’s current endeavor in Iraq, it seems unlikely that even a well-crafted scare campaign could drum up majority support for yet another war. But they don’t particularly need or want majority support. It would be nice to have, I’m sure, but they don’t really care that much. If they can keep the hardcore reactionary base on board, they’re fine with that. Barnett’s sources suggest that they consider 35-40% enough of a mandate for them to attack another country without provocation – that this level of public consent is “plenty.” I suppose it’s not surprising. They’re in the final 18 months of their reign and from their point of view, they’ve accomplished everything they set out to do. We now effectively have a permanent presence in Iraq, our public sector institutions are crumbling around us, hundreds of billions of tax dollars have been squandered on well-connected contractors, and trillions have been added to the national debt, making major “structural adjustment” of the U.S. economy far more likely in the coming years.

In short, these fuckers don’t need public support. If they did, they’d never get anything done.

luv u,

jp

I feel like Rip Van Winkle in reverse; like I’ve awoken years in the past instead of years in the future. Dubya Bush going from VFW to military academy assembly selling the Iraq war. Democrats hedging their positions, hoping to land on the winning side. Pro-war ad campaigns funded by arch-reactionary swift-boaters. Improbably optimistic National Intelligence Estimates, at least in their highly redacted declassified form. What is this, 2002? Are we starting from scratch yet again? This is the product of our political culture’s “ballgame” approach to foreign policy adventures, wherein the central question becomes “will it succeed?” Is this the question we ask when someone commits murder and holds a family hostage? Do we console our consciences with the notion that, well, he did kill that old man and that baby, but at least he’s finally got that household under control? (Right – before someone jumps all over my shit, let me make it clear that I don’t consider our troops to be the “murderer” here. They are the weapon, the instrument of policy that is initiated by our democratically elected leaders, so ultimately it is we who bear responsibility for what they are ordered to do.)

In his speech to the VFW, Bush drew some analogies between the Iraq war and the wars in Korea and Vietnam. (I should say his speechwriters drew the analogies, since he clearly knows nothing about U.S. foreign policy, past or present.) One point was that, like Vietnam and Korea, Iraq is an “ideological” struggle. This is truer than he knows. Both Korea and Vietnam – while very different wars – were fought over the establishment of a U.S.-led global economic system. Iraq was invaded to breathe life into that same superannuated imperial body. The “ideology” of which Dubya speaks was perhaps best articulated by his father – “What we say goes.” That position faces the opposing ideology of “yankee go home.” We fight for freedom – the freedom to do what we want with other people’s lives and property. They fight for, as Robert Fisk puts it, “freedom from us.” So in that way Bush is unintentionally correct, though he and his conservative pundit supporters (like the little fuck on the PBS News Hour) appear to know nothing about the Vietnam war (nor, apparently the Iraq war).

The rest of Bush’s selling points are just laughable, frankly. Grim as the situation is, I couldn’t resist a guffaw when I heard Dubya tossing around that hallucinogenic contention about how we left Vietnam too soon. (Strange argument for someone who did his level best to avoid going there himself.) He raised the specter of the “boat people” and the “killing fields” that await our departure from Iraq. Not sure if he’s quite been paying attention over the last four years, but that scale of human catastrophe has already been taking place in the unfortunate land he chose to invade, with more than 2 million external refugees, a similar number of internal refugees, and between 500,000 and 1 million killed, plus god knows how many grievously wounded, orphaned, widowed, etc. This is an upheaval easily on the scale of that which accompanied and followed our criminal invasion and destruction of Indochina. (See journalist Nir Rosen’s recent articles for some on-the-ground reporting on this.) So since what Bush claims to be his worst fears have already been realized, why are we staying in Iraq?

This is old wine in new bottles, folks. We are not wanted in Iraq, we have no right to be there, and we should leave with all deliberate speed. Once we get that underway, we can talk about reparations… and accountability.

luv u,

jp