George Bush vs. Vietnam

The ordinary person learns from experience. The wise person learns from the experience of others. But the fool never learns. I’ll leave it to the reader to guess which group George W. Bush belongs to. It is clear, however, that Bush exhibits about as much sagacity in military matters as Inspector Clouseau demonstrates in law enforcement. The draft-dodging Bush, never served in Vietnam, but he has no compunction about Swift Boating veterans like John Kerry and Max Cleland, casting them as weak-willed surrender monkeys.

John Kerry, of course, served and was wounded in a war he opposed. George Bush, on the other hand, was gung-ho about a war he took pains to avoid serving in. Which contradiction is more ironic? Kerry’s experience taught him that America’s involvement in Vietnam was misguided from the start, which led him to pose the following question intended to end the war:” How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?” It is a tragedy of historic proportions that Bush, the man who failed to serve in Vietnam, and has thus failed to learn the lessons of Vietnam, has gone on creates an even more tragic blunder in Iraq.

There are many eerie parallels between Vietnam and Iraq. The Gulf of Tonkin incident was as phony as Saddam’s phantom WMD, and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara was as flaky as Donald Rumsfeld. In both cases, it seems, the “reason” we kept fighting was to avoid defeat. America’s leaders during the Vietnam era acknowledged this privately, but Johnson’s determination not to be the first president to lose a war meant that tens of thousands of U.S. troops would die for a cause that was unwinnable.

Bush believes America lost Vietnam because our leaders lost their nerve, not because the war was strategically misguided and misconceived. By failing to understand the lessons of Vietnam – that America’s involvement was predicated on false premises (like the Domino Theory: if Vietnam fell all of South East Asia would become Communist) – Bush has “succeeded” in creating a quagmire potentially even more insidious as Vietnam.

The invasion of Iraq was predicated on similar false premises, most notably the Reverse Domino Theory: once we establish democracy in Iraq it will sprout up all across the Arab world, thus reducing the impetus for terrorism. But so far the invasion has had just the opposite effect; it has discredited democracy and fed the forces that spawn terrorism. Put simply, democracy does not thrive without certain cultural habits, institutions, and a vibrant middle class, none of which exist in Iraq. At best, implanting democracy takes a generation or more, but our botched occupation has set that dim prospect back considerably.

Bush is going to get Swift Boated by History. His “mission accomplished” antics, his intemperate rhetoric (“bring it on”), and his feeble historical revisionism will catch up with him. Bush was AWOL during Vietnam. And Bush will be doing his best evade responsibility for the consequences of Iraq too.

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George and Jesus

Is George W. Bush proof that we live in a universe devoid of intelligent design? Bush, of course, is famous for asserting that Jesus was his favorite political philosopher. He has also claimed that God wanted him to be president. Perhaps the Almighty has a sense of humor, because it looks increasingly certain the George W. Bush will go down in history as presiding over the most incompetent, corrupt, and disastrous administrations in U.S. history.

We now know that the Bush administration’s missionary zeal to spread democracy across the Arab world, beginning in Iraq, was just part of a larger effort to export its libertarian ideology and Christian values into the heart of the Middle East. God knows, the Saddamists and Islamicists could do with a little more capitalism, but more religion?

Seriously, though, the fact that the Bush administration used a litmus test to select the diplomats and officials that would oversee our nation building crusade in Iraq proved to be a fatal mistake. Put simply, the administration vetted State Department officials and other relevant personnel according to the following criteria: are you pro-life? That is, those espousing a pro-life philosophy would be sent to rebuild Iraq while those possessing expertise in Middle Eastern and Arab affairs (but not hewing to the president’s pro-life agenda) were relieved.

It’s a little ironic that so many in the pro-life movement were so gung ho about an invasion that failed to meet the standards established by Christian philosophers for a “just war.” For instance, according just war theory the use of force must meet four criteria: 1) it can only be waged by a legitimate authority, 2) it must be in self-defense only, 3) it must be a last resort, and 4) it must be proportional (the good achieved must outweigh the injuries inflicted).

Leaving aside the question of Bush’s legitimacy, momentarily, it is abundantly clear that Bush’s invasion of Iraq failed to meet three out of four criteria the just war theory requires. For instance, it is evident that Iraq posed no serious, direct, or imminent threat to the United States. Second, Bush unilaterally withdrew the U.N. weapons inspectors just weeks before they were due to complete their mission, thus precluding the possibility of a peaceful outcome. Further, the invasion has “succeeded” in spawning a civil war in Iraq, which means Iraqis are far worse off now than they were under Saddam.

Questions regarding Bush’s legitimacy are worth raising. Bush asked for and got a blank check from Congress authorizing the war, but the wording of the resolution called on the president to exhaust all means short of war first. Bush failed to do this, just as he failed to get a second U.N. resolution explicitly authorizing the invasion. Put simply, Bush used the vaguely worded U.N. resolution he obtained earlier as a blank check, though most international law experts believe Bush acted illegally. It is also worth noting that Bush’s path to the White House was extremely dubious. His ascension to the Oval Office owed more to legal sophistry and a partisan Supreme Court, which essentially nullified the will of the American people (as expressed by the majority of Americans who voted for Al Gore and the majority of Floridians who cast their ballots for Gore as well).

Bush is a throwback to leaders who operate according to the discredited theory from the Dark Ages known as “the divine right of kings.” According to this deeply irrational idea the monarch is acting as God’s representative on earth and his decisions are divinely guided. Bush’s disastrous reign is a reductio ad absurdum argument against this theory. However, Bush has brought great credit to the sole political teaching of his favorite political philosopher, Jesus: Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s. In other words, George has proven that Jesus was right about keeping religion out of politics.

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Why Bush’s Military Surge is Fizzling

General Petraeus and the men under his command are being asked to do the impossible; buy time for a political reconciliation among Iraq’s warring factions. Most observers agree that General Petraeus’ counterinsurgency techniques have improved the security situation for many Iraqis, but only at the cost of increasing the number of U.S. casualties. Virtually no one believes, however, that the Iraqi government is moving in the right direction when it comes to settling sectarian differences. Because the surge cannot be sustained indefinitely, however, any military progress that is not accompanied by diplomatic progress will be in vain.

General Petraeus, as the cliché goes, wrote the Army’s counterinsurgency manual. According to his estimation, successful counterinsurgency efforts generally take at least eight to ten years. This means that pacifying the insurgency, which is a virtual prerequisite for a political settlement, could happen around 2015 at the earliest. And this assumes that Bush’s successor – not to mention the American public – will continue to back the current strategy, an untenable proposition.

In democratic countries different factions agree to settle their differences peacefully through power sharing arrangements and compromise. In the Middle East, however, power and politics are a zero-sum game. Put simply, in the Arab world power only changes hands through violence. The Bush administration claims the invasion of Iraq was intended to establish a new precedent for the Arab world, where leaders come to power through the ballot box rather than through bullets. But the invasion that violently overthrew Saddam Hussein contradicted the lesson the Bush administration insisted it was trying to teach. Actions, no doubt, still speak louder than words.

Historians will tell you that democracy is a generational enterprise. That is, it takes decades before a given people can absorb and exhibit the state of mind, habits, and cultural practices associated with self-government. Absent the requisite educational levels, institutions, and cultural factors (free markets, separation of church and state, and a vibrant middle class) self-government usually breeds mob rule and tyranny. To put it bluntly, Iraq was probably one of the least promising places on the planet to try and plant democracy.

It is not surprising, then, that the Shiites and the Sunnis each seem determined to settle their political differences through force. To complicate matters, the U.S. has been arming Sunni forces (which previously had been shooting at U.S. troops) as a counterweight to al-Qaeda in Iraq, but also to counterbalance the Iranian friendly Shia dominated government we helped install! Arming Sunnis forces, needless to say, makes tactical sense (in so far as they want to kill al-Qaeda), but it may also backfire strategically because it undermines the Shia led government we are counting on. As military historian Andrew Bacevich puts it, the Bush administration’s strategy amounts to arming one gang to check another. This is unlikely do anything for law and order. Sooner or later, Bacevich argues, whomever we’ve armed may turn their weapons back in the cops (which would be us).

Imposing democracy on Iraq is proving about as feasible as a shotgun marriage. Just as an obligatory ceremony, some official looking documents, and the unavoidable vows about working together won’t keep a warring couple from killing each other after the “honeymoon” is over, so the façade of elections and a Constitution are not going to forestall Iraq’s warring factions from slaughtering each other, if that’s what they are determined to do.
Bush’s surge strategy is almost entirely predicated on the Maliki government reaching a political accommodation that will satisfy Iraq’s rival factions. However, the man Bush has tapped, as the “right guy” for Iraq, is either unwilling or unable to reach beyond the sectarian divisions and forge a genuinely inclusive government. As Iraq’s former interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi observes: “It is past time for change at the top of the Iraqi government. Without that, no American Military strategy or orderly withdrawal will succeed, and Iraq and the region will be left in chaos.”Every astute observer, Democrat or Republican, expresses exasperation over the lack of a diplomatic surge to accompany the military surge. Why isn’t George Bush sending one or more of America’s best negotiators – James Baker, George Mitchell, or Dennis Ross (to name a few) – to try and hammer out a political settlement or broker a backroom deal with the parties? It is very likely that Iraq is one mess that even a consummate political fixer like James Baker can’t clean up. But if the man they call the “velvet hammer” could pull it off, then it would certainly make up for his role in securing Bush’s “election.”

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Bush's Catch-22

George W. Bush has always been something of a contradiction. In 2000 he lost the popular vote but “won” the election in the Electoral College. His campaign argued that the most accurate recount procedures violated the equal protection clause, which the Supreme Court accepted as a valid reason for terminating a manual recount. However, Bush’s “victory” in the depended on the fact that votes are weighed unevenly in the Electoral College. To heap insult upon injury, the “states’ rights” candidate effectively got the strict constructionist majority on the Supreme Court to behave as activist judges by intervening in the internal procedures of a sovereign state. It is now abundantly clear that George Bush twisted the law like a pretzel to override the will of the voters. George Bush’s “win,” needless to say, has been America’s loss.

Following Bush’s election America finds itself a universe where Alice in Wonderland logic applies. Only on the wrong end of the rabbit hole could the following things occur:

The draft-dodging duo of Bush/Cheney painting war hero John Kerry as a wimp.
Massive Bush tax cuts in a time of war are followed by the biggest increase in Federal spending in American history (if you don’t think there will be a reckoning for Bush’s financial follies I have a couple of bridges I’d like to sell you).
Bush claims, “the U.S. does not torture. Period. End of discussion.” At the same time, Cheney extols the virtues of water boarding on Rush Limbaugh’s show.
The Attorney General of the United States, Alberto Gonzales, commits perjury in his Congressional testimony and his so unconvincing that even Republicans and officials at the Justice Department believe he’s incompetent. But the president still believes he’s doing a heck of a job.
Bush would decry nation building as a candidate but then attempt nation building in Iraq (all the while managing to paint political opponents who opposed his nation building exercise in Iraq as flip-floppers and historical revisionists).
Bush declares the end of all major combat operations before Iraq explodes into a cauldron of violence and U.S. casualties soar.
The invasion of Iraq was supposed to defend against a threat that never exist (Saddam’s non-existent WMD and alleged but discredited ties to al-Qaeda) while creating the kind of failed state and terror haven the Bush administration said the invasion was meant to meant to forestall. Meanwhile, the U.S. invasion, which was supposed to engender a wave of democracy that would sweep through the Middle East has in fact discredited democracy, spawned and radicalized a new generation of terrorists, and enhanced to fortunes of our chief adversary in the region, Iran.

America’s predicament in Iraq, of course, represents the ultimate Catch-22. We have inadvertently helped install a Shiite dominated government, friendly to Iran, that is trying to squash Sunni insurgents (who were once our adversaries but are now our allies against al-Qaeda). The Shia government, needless to say, is wary about our arming their Sunni adversaries. And the Sunnis, no doubt, are worried that will sell them out to their Shia adversaries. Meanwhile, the Saudis are arming the Sunnis and the Iranians are arming the Shia. And just in case this wasn’t complicated enough, the Shia are fighting among themselves.
All this means we have to stay put in Iraq, or things will get worse. But we can’t stay put without breaking our military. That’s some catch, that catch-22.

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Bush’s Brain Resigns

Karl Rove, the man known as Bush’s Brain, seemed to provide the mental ballast an intellectual lightweight like Bush needed. With the Bush administration sinking like a Russian submarine, Rove’s political genius suddenly seems of a lower order; like a contestant smart enough to win “The Price is Right,” but not someone you’d mention in the same breath as Einstein, Mozart, and Shakespeare.

Still, for a guy who never managed to finish college Rove did manage to accomplish quite a lot, including engineering a political realignment that will make Democrats the majority party for a generation or more. Too bad Rove is a Republican.

Rove deserves credit as the chief architect of the most spectacularly unsuccessful, incompetent, and unpopular administrations in American history. It’s no easy feat to have a wartime president with unparalleled public support, to have control of both houses of Congress, and yet accomplish virtually nothing of lasting significance on the legislative front. On Bush’s signature issues – the privatization of Social Security, immigration reform, faith-based initiatives, replacing Medicare with health savings accounts, and educational reform – only the No Child Left Behind Act was passed. No Child Left Behind, incidentally, is due to expire in a matter of months, and there is little enthusiasm to renew it.

Bush legacy won’t depend on his domestic achievements, thankfully. There’s no telling how bad Bush might have messed up the United States had he not been preoccupied with screwing up Iraq. To be fair, Karl Rove did not play a significant role in foreign affairs, so there’s no sense in blaming him for the “brilliant” idea to invade Iraq as a prelude to remaking the Middle East in America’s image. However, Karl Rove reportedly presided over a domestic policy review process that was so lackadaisical and undisciplined that one observer described it as like watching kids roll around on the White House Lawn.

Rove, it appears, was a genius when it came to reading polls, but a mental midget when it came to policy. His divide and conquer mentality, which led him to portray Democrats as fifth columnists in order to galvanize the Republican base was destined to be self-defeating. Put simply, Rove treated the Republican base the way Pavlov treated his dogs, or as B.F. Skinner treated his pigeons: as mechanistic cogs that could be trained to respond the same way every time to the same stimulus. Ring the bell before dinner and Pavlov’s dogs would soon be drooling every time they heard the bell. Mention “defeatocrats,” gay marriage, and tax and spend liberals and Rove could be certain that those who made up the Republican base would be foaming at the mouth as they pulled the correct lever in the voting both.

Rove’s approach was self-defeating for several reasons. First, his rhetorical appeals (“stay the course,” Democrats had failed to learn the lessons of 9/11, There’s no difference between Saddam and al-Qaeda, for instance) were basically pitched at the lowest common denominator. As Lincoln observed, “You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” At some point, Rove’s insipid slogans, empty clichés, and gross over simplifications were bound to alienate the more educated and sophisticated portions of the electorate. A movement that deliberately marginalizes the best and brightest in order to mobilize reactionaries, the superstitious, and the narrow-minded is not going to sustain itself over the long term.

Rove failed for many other reasons. He failed to build a broad-based coalition, he eschewed consensus building, and he did not establish sound decision-making procedures within the policy-making apparatus. As a result, everything about the Bush administration has proven brittle. Rove was like the general who had the perfect plan on paper, but it fell apart at the first whiff or reality. There's very little doubt that the Bush administration's IQ will decline with Rove's departure, but that may not be a great loss since the administration's collective IQ was not very high to begin with.

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Bush's Economics and the Credit Crunch

In banana republics the financial meltdown usually doesn’t occur until the first family has left office and is safely ensconced in another country. Mexico’s peso crisis, for instance, didn’t materialize until after Carlos Salinas had passed off the palace keys to his successor and bought a one-way ticket to Ireland. So I’m inclined to believe that the current liquidity crisis, accompanied by a fairly precipitous drop in the Dow Jones, is only a momentary phenomenon. The current volatility should not force prudent investors to rethink their retirement portfolios. And it shouldn’t cause them to hoard canned foods, automatic weapons, and medical supplies in anticipation of global economic depression. No, any economic clouds Americans are likely to face are almost certainly days if not months away. After all, if the Bush Administration can avoid impeachment and avoid accountability for the disastrous war in Iraq, then it can certainly avoid any kind of financial reckoning until January of 2008.

There is, alas, little doubt that most Americans are poorer than they were when Bush/Cheney took office. After all, we’ve been borrowing money to pay for: tax cuts, the war in Iraq, and to repair our dilapidated bridges. Actually, we’ve been neglected investing in our bridges and roadways, which is one reason 25% of them are rated structurally deficient. That leads to the inescapable conclusion that our highways are more dangerous than the terrorists. But just as most Americans would rather buy a giant screen TV (for no money down) than fix a leaky roof, so the Bush/Cheney Administration would rather nuke Iran than fix America.

In a sane world we probably wouldn’t borrow money from China, so that we can but oil from Saudi Arabia, so that Saudi Arabia can afford to purchase our high-tech weapons, so that we can keep our military-industrial-political system going, which we need to defend us in a world awash in weapons but scarce in oil. But as the reader may have noticed for him or herself, this isn’t a sane world, not even remotely. Which is why the Bush Administration kind of makes sense, in a tragic Shakespearean kind of way, because we need someone more foolish than us to enact our foolishness for us so that we might recognize how foolish we are, before it is too late.

The Bush Administration has mortgaged America’s future by selling China promissory notes so it can pour resources into a money pit like Iraq. But Americans have long been living beyond their means and ignoring and denying the emerging energy crunch, the climate crisis, and our decrepit infrastructure. We’re on course to spend more than a trillion dollars on Iraq, with nothing to show for it. And we owe the Chinese $ 1.3 trillion for the money they lent us so we can buy their poisoned toothpaste, deadly dog food, and flat tires. One day we’ll wake up and find that we’re poor and stupid. If you don’t believe me, then I have a bridge (in either Baghdad or Brooklyn) to sell you.

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Bush's Madness in Mesopotamia

The Bush Administration’s announcement of a $20 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia makes about as much sense as giving a heart patient a bucket of fried chicken. Sure, a big arms deal with the Saudi sheiks is a nice way to recycle all those petro profits to American contractors that make up what’s left of Bush’s base. But selling our shaky allies a smorgasbord of weaponry is only going to make a volatile region even more unstable. Of course, the fact that we’re sending arming the Sunni Arabs in Saudi Arabia is symptomatic of the fact that our invasion of Iraq has inadvertently backfired to the advantage of the Persian Shiites in Iran.

The Washington Post, incidentally, is reporting that the Pentagon cannot account for 30% of the weapons it has handed over to the Iraqi government. As one expert put it, this "likely means that the United States is unintentionally providing weapons to bad actors." The fact that the U.S. military is battling forces supplied by U.S. taxpayers – the U.S. has spend nearly $20 billion supplying Iraqi security forces – puts a new twist on the administration’s banal old cliché that as “The Iraqis stand up, we’ll stand down.” Can there be any doubt that Bush is to the war on terror what Inspector Clousseau is to law enforcement?

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Bush's Bridge to Nowhere

Presidential historians will tell you that great presidents demonstrate political courage and wisdom. JFK, for instance, resisted hawkish advice during the Cuban missile crisis. His defiance of right-wing elements in his own administration convinced many he was an appeaser, but his approach proved remarkably sensible in so far as his cautious incrementalism averted a nuclear war. Likewise, truly great presidents like Lincoln and F.D.R. managed to shape and articulate a vision of what America could be as they guided the nation through perilous challenges. In each of these cases, the United States emerged stronger and more resilient as a result of the decisions these exceptional leaders made.

It is increasingly unlikely that anyone will associate political courage and wisdom with George W. Bush. It is true, of course, that Bush has staked his legacy on the invasion of Iraq, a brash gamble to remake the Middle East. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq, however, was a popular gambit, one that that was initially supported by 75% of the electorate. It also helped the Republicans win the mid-term elections in 2002 by painting Democrats as soft on national security. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq was audacious, but it was not politically courageous because he had everything to gain politically and little to lose in launching the war.

Many observers argued Iraq “was the wrong war at the wrong time.” They have proven prescient. Bush’s invasion has precipitated the very conditions it was meant to forestall. And we are fighting in Iraq to achieve negative goals – i.e., preventing a full-scale civil war, mass genocide, and a wider regional conflagration. Nothing about the Bush Administration’s invasion of Iraq seems to have been handled with the least bit of sagacity.

The imprudence of invading Iraq is compounded by the fact that America is literally falling apart even as our nation building efforts in Iraq are foundering. We are spending at least half-a-billion every week in Iraq, but we can’t even provide reliable electricity in Baghdad. Meanwhile, America’s basic infrastructure (our highways, bridges, and power grids) is crumbling before our eyes. Not to mention the fact that the United States is facing a crisis in healthcare and health insurance.

In all probability, history will judge the folly of Bush’s misplaced priorities harshly. National security experts like Stephen Flynn have been arguing for some time that America is losing its resilience, its ability to withstand ecological events, terror assaults, and even normal wear and tear. Failing to invest in our critical infrastructure means puts citizens at risk, reduces our competitiveness, and leaves us more vulnerable to terror attacks and extreme weather events.

Extreme weather patterns associated with the climate crisis are all but certain to expose the weaknesses in America’s ailing infrastructure, which will further highlight how foolish the Bush Administration has been in ignoring the scientific consensus on global warming. To put it bluntly, invading Iraq has proven to be a vicious cycle that siphons America’s strength, breeds more terrorists, and diverts resources from sensible endeavors. Bush contends it will be decades before America realizes how farsighted and sagacious his decisions were. His track record as a prognosticator, however, does not inspire much confidence.

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Gonzales vs. the Truth

Most Americans would probably sooner trust Michael Vick with their dogs than trust Alberto Gonzales to tell the truth about his role in the administration’s illegal warrantless wiretap program and the firing of federal prosecutors for political purposes. Even leading Republicans recognize the nation’s chief law enforcement officer has perjured himself, but the hapless attorney general still retains the confidence of the President. In large measure this is because Gonzales is Bush’s firewall. After all, imagine what would happen if an impartial AG enforced Congressional contempt charges against administration insiders, Bush might have to pardon himself before getting impeached.

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New Slogan Needed for Iraq War

The Bush Administration, finding itself stymied by slow pace of progress in Iraq, has been conducting a top-secret search for a new slogan that will rally public support for the war. If you are one of the 25% of Americans that still support Bush/Cheney, then your help in selecting this new cliché is urgently needed. Please vote for the platitude you believe will resonate in the heartland and bolster support for Bush’s war in Iraq. Just think, which hackneyed phrase would you most like to hear from Bush ad naseum:

a) “Bring it on. We’re in Iraq to the last man.”
b) “If we don’t win in Iraq we’ll have to face Hillary at home”
c) “It’s the oil, stupid. If we don't win in Iraq, then gas will be $100 a gallon."
d) “The road to victory goes through Tehran.”

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Bush Multiple Choice Test II

Not content to rewrite history, the Bush Administration is busy devising tests that will be used by future school children to test their knowledge of American history fifty years from now, when George W. Bush is universally recognized as one of the greatest presidents ever!

1). Which military figure was vindicated by history?

a) Reichmarshall Herman Goring: He boasted that although WWII had ended badly for the Nazis, Germany would build him a monument within thirty years time.

b) General Armstrong Custer: He vastly misunderstimated Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse when he urged them to ‘bring it on.’ But the numerous Hollywood depictions of his courageous death lead many historians to hail him as a pioneer of the so-called “surge.”

c) George W. Bush: The public re-evaluates Bush, but only after an aging Tom Cruise plays the former president in the straight to video movie “Top Gun IV: Mission Accomplished.”

d) None of the above

2). In retrospect it’s pretty fortunate that “Scooter” Libby avoided jail time in a federal pen because:

a). Dick Cheney and George Bush admitted to putting “Scooter” Libby up to lying after the next president, Hillary Clinton personally dunked the duo.

b). Pulitzer prizewinning journalist Matt Drudge uncovers ironclad evidence that Saddam Hussein had in fact bid on a Nigerian uranium mine offered on e-bay, but was outbid at the last second by American counter terrorism officials working out of the vice-president’s office. Ambassador Joe Wilson’s Op-Ed in the NYT almost exposed the super-secret Cheney/Rumsfeld operation, which used the online auction site to snag would be terrorists bidding on everything from Pez dispensers to fissile material.

c). Dick Cheney’s secret plan to “liberate Libby” using Special Forces, had he been forced to implement the operation, might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back, particularly since the shotgun wielding VP was preparing to lead the assault himself.

3). Bush’s top-secret nickname for his friend Vladimir Putin was:

a) Mr. Soul
b) Count Vladymre
c) Poison Lips

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The Libby Verdict -- Scooter Gets Off Scot Free

“Our entire system of justice relies on people telling the truth. And if a person does not tell the truth, particularly if he serves in government and holds the public trust, he must be held accountable.” – George W. Bush

If hypocrisy if the tribute vice pays to virtue, then George Bush is lavishing double standards with as much gusto as a shopaholic who just won the lotto. Cheney’s “Cheney,” as Lewis “Scooter” Libby was known, was undoubtedly the fall guy for the vice-president. That’s the conclusion the jury reached when they reluctantly convicted Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice. It was clear they believed that Cheney, Rove, and Bush deserved to be in the prosecutor’s crosshairs.

Libby’s crime, as prosecutor Fitzgerald characterized it, was like throwing sand in an umpire’s face (a new twist, incidentally, on the notion that justice should be blind). Which is why Fitzgerald asserted, “there is a cloud hanging over the vice-president’s office.”

Actually, the sandstorm that is hanging over the entire White House is Iraq: how America was led to war under false pretenses, how the administration slimed its critics, and how the administration rigged the system to circumvent the Constitution.

The Libby case encapsulates the Bush Administration’s relationship to justice: it uses legalities to undermine the law. Cheney’s office, for instance, was responsible for crafting the dubious legal rationales that justified the use of torture against enemy combatants. These unprecedented interpretations of executive authority were fashioned, at least in part, to immunize leaders like Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Bush from being charged with war crimes. Of course, if there was any serious chance of Bush being held to account for violating the Geneva conventions you can be sure he’d find a way to preemptively pardon himself.

Eliminating the possibility that Libby might spend time behind bars ensures that he won’t cut a deal with Fitzgerald in exchange for leniency. Thus, the commutation makes certain that Cheney, Rove, and Bush will not be implicated in any further proceedings relating to the improper disclosure of a CIA agent’s identity. Bush’s commutation is a self-serving obstruction of justice that undermines the idea that all citizens are equal under the law.

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George W. Bush -- Multiple Choice Test

One day, perhaps fifty years from now, the story of the Bush Administration and the Battle for Iraq will figure prominently in the history books. American schoolchildren will be given multiple-choice quizzes to test their knowledge of this crucial period of American history. Deconstructing Demagogues has obtained an advance copy of the still top-secret examination.

1). Which country was NOT part of the coalition of the willing that liberated Iraq from the evildoer Saddam?

a) Moldavia
b) Atlantis
c) The Republic of Tonga

2). Saddam’s missing WMD cache was eventually found where:

a) An antique shop right outside Tikrit where Donald Rumsfeld said they were all along.
b) A gun show held in the parking lot of a 7-Eleven in Waco, Texas.
c) A 4th of July fireworks display at Disneyland.
d) We think they were actually in Iran, but it may be centuries before we can shift through the radioactive rubble to confirm this hypothesis.

3). Which public relations event revived the Bush presidency in the eyes of both the public and historians?

a) President Bush in a wet suit and a snorkel looking for survivors after Katrina II.
b) The unveiling of Bush’s statue in Baghdad after the president issued an executive order declaring Iraq was America’s 51st state during the final days of his term.
c) Bush heroic last words, “Yipeekayeeee Mother Earth,” just before the secret space shuttle he was piloting tragically crashed into the international space station.


4). Global Warming turned out to be less of a big deal than expected because:

a) Water from melting polar icecaps helped extinguish wildfires that nearly consumed the entire state of California.
b) When temperatures hit 150 degrees in Baghdad during the summer of 2008 the insurgents sued for peace in exchange for U.S. commitment to install frozen slurpee stands in every mosque in Iraq.
c) Cheney’s Ark proved to be the one project the vice-president championed that left the naysayers looking foolish.

5). The U.S. Mint replaced George Washington’s likeness on the $1 bill with George W. Bush’s mug because:

a) The dollar is now worth a fraction of what it once was
b) New treasury department slogan -- “It’s your money. You paid for it.” Which replaced “In God we Trust” – seemed a better fit with Bush’s portrait than Washington’s
c) $$$ with Bush likeness proved a brilliant economic policy in so far as eager foreigners scooped up cheap paper currency, which proved more cost effective than Kleenex tissue and other household paper products.

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Free Libby Letter by Ahmad Chalabi

Lewis “Scooter” Libby was sentenced to 30 months in prison for perjury and obstruction of justice. The court received hundreds of letters recommending leniency for Libby from top officials and ordinary citizens. The following letter, which was initially marked TOP-SECRET, was obtained under the freedom of information act.

To: The Honorable Reggie B. Watson:
From: Ahmad Chalabi
Subject: Leniency for Lewis “Scooter” Libby

Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s conviction for perjury and obstruction is the greatest miscarriage of justice since Paris Hilton was forced to shed her pink gown for prison garb. Let’s be frank, Scooter’s scalp is merely a political trophy for those who’d like to see Dick Cheney and George W. Bush in the dock. The mushroom clouds, aluminum tubes, and yellowcake uranium from Africa turned out to be mere mirages in the desert. But then so was the crime of leaking that Libby’s lies were meant to cover up. You follow me? I hope not, because the more confusing the criminal case the stronger the case for acquitting, pardoning, and exonerating Scooter becomes.

I ask you to bear in mind, your Honor, that the jury that convicted “Scooter” believed he was the fall guy. There are conspiracy theorists that believe that Libby misled prosecutors in order to thwart the leak investigation until after the 2004 election. But even if this were true does this justify jail time for the guy who was asked to fall on his sword for his bosses. Isn’t this a form of double jeopardy? Do we really want to criminalize politics? Has my Persian penchant for paradox perplexed your proclivity for moral clarity?

You Americans think the world is black & white, but we in the Middle East recognize reality is paradoxical, shrouded in contradictions, and veiled in ironies without end. If the war had went well do you think Libby would be heading for a cell? Saddam believed he was lying when he said he didn’t have WMD, but he was telling the truth (even if no one believed him). Bush was untruthful when he insisted Saddam had WMD, but he believed his own falsehoods, which means he was misleading himself, but not lying to the American people. But if Bush had told truth Saddam might still be in power and still trying to acquire WMD. So you see, lying and telling the truth are not all they are cracked up to be. That's reason enough, it seems to me, to set Libby free.

Karl Kraus once said that wars are started when politicians lie to journalists and then believe those same lies when they seem them in print. But the Iraq War was well underway when Libby was accused of misleading reporters. Therefore, it’s patently unfair to try and make Libby a poster boy for “a war based on lies,” which is precisely what critics of the war are trying to do. Freeing Libby won’t win the war in Iraq. But it may convince critics of the war to abandon all hope of ever holding the Bush Administration to account for waging this noble war.

Sincerely,

Ahmad Chalabi (from Tehran)

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Top Ten Reasons to Free “Scooter” Libby

10) We need precious prison space to house the really dangerous criminals, like Paris Hilton, Lindsey Lohan, and Brittany Spears.

9) Pardoning Scooter so he can go back to work at the Bush Administration would be punishment enough.

8) Scooter’s boss, Dick Cheney, is getting kind of lonely at his own secure location without his old bunkmate.

7) A short white guy named “Scooter” doesn’t stand a chance in a Federal pen.

6) “Holy Halliburton. I just realized the same private contractors that ran Abu Ghraib are running the Scooter’s slammer too. Ask Jr. to ask Alberto where we keep those get out of jail free cards.” – Dick Cheney.

5) “If Scooter starts crooning like a canary before going to Sing Sing I’m afraid the whole White House band may be playing Hail to the Chief from behind bars.” – Karl Rove

4) “I agree that Scooter should get off Scot free, but why hasn’t anyone recommended a straight-jacket for Donald Rumsfeld?” – Sigmund Freud

3) “Scooter Libby is fine public servant whose only crime is that he was working diligently on behalf of the American public. And for this he has been hounded from his duties and treated like a criminal. It’s not as if he had sex with an intern.” -- Ken Starr (Special Inquisitor)

2) “Scooter is being treated like an enemy combatant. He has no rights. This is torturing his family. And it’s a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions.” -- Alberto Gonzales

1) Locking up a small fry like Scooter makes about as much sense as locking up Tony Soprano’s accountant while the big enchilada goes about his business like nothing happened.

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Secret New Directive Allows Bush to Torture Language

President Bush signed a super secret executive order that authorizes him, in his role as commander-in-chief, to torture the any member of the Axis-of-Information (language, reason, or truth) without court approval. Previously, according to long-standing American tradition, any president who wanted to stretch language to the breaking point, douse the truth, or shock reason had to go before a special magistrate in order obtain a writ of verbias corpus.

Most Americans would probably be surprised to learn that beneath the White House bunker is a secret chamber where men in black hoods use sharp instruments to chop words, dissect logic, and mince meaning. As one former linguistic inquisitor put it: “We have the tools to make language talk. We may have to get a little rough, but we’ll get those damn words to open up. When we’re through with them they’ll tell us everything we want to hear.”

The Department of Linguistic Conformity, which was set up during the last days of the Nixon Administration, remains one of the most secretive and sensitive institutions in the bowels of the government. Most officials refuse to confirm or deny its existence, but recently an unlawfully detained detainee, who for the purposes of protecting his identity we will identify only as Straw Man, has come forward to expose horrific examples of linguistic abuse.

“They’re bending logic like a pretzel, they’ve turned meaning inside out, and they’ve had common sense tied up without a let up for more than six years. They picked me [Straw Man] up around election time and flailed me until I was of no use to them anymore. I was putty in their hands. But you should have seen what they did with a couple of guys nicknamed Bait & Switch. They roughed them up so bad they switched sides and are working for the administration. Talk about flip-floppers. One thing I know for sure, they [the administration] are not interested in the truth.”

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Carter: "Bush is the Worst President Ever "(Bush Sr. Responds).

Stung by former president Jimmy Carter’s assessment, that George W. Bush will go down in history as the “worst president ever,” the president’s daddy, George H.W. Bush, leapt to his son’s defense, saying that G.W.B. will eclipse J.F.K., F.D.R., and S.O.B as “simply the greatest, most splendiferous, supercallifragallisticexpialidocious commander-in-chief ever.” (Several historians consulted believe S.O.B refers to William Jefferson Clinton).

The elder Bush, now 83, could scarcely contain his rage as he repeatedly referred to Carter, a one-time peanut farmer, as “Mr. Peanut Head.” The senior Bush, has been reluctant to offer advice, or make public comments regarding his son’s sagging poll numbers, but aides say he is privately agonized by the criticism from “egg-head historians, al-Qaeda-coddling commentators in the media, and flip-flopping American couch potatoes.”

“When I went in and nabbed Pineapple Face (a reference to the capture of Panamanian strongman Manuel Noregia following the U.S. invasion) I was criticized for getting Ali Baba, but leaving the Forty Thieves. But Jr. got that joker, Saddam, and almost the full deck of the fifty-two evildoers in the Iraqi house of cards. That certainly trumps getting that other guy, Obama, what’s his name? You know the tall skinny guy with the funny name.”

The former president may have been confusing Barack Hussein Obama, a leading democratic presidential candidate, with Osama bin Laden, America’s most wanted fugitive. In any event, Bush Sr. remembers that his son has always attracted a lot of naysayers. “There were those who said he couldn’t hold his liquor, couldn’t find oil when he was a prospector, and couldn’t win a championship with the Texas Rangers. But by golly look at him now, he’s the leader of the free world. I’m so proud I could cry.”

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Who is to Blame for Iraq ?

The slow pace of success in Iraq disappoints President Bush. He knows the Congress didn’t vote for failure when it authorized the war, but someone must be held accountable for the fact certain Democratic defeatists might de-fund the war before we can say Mission Accomplished. Therefore, it is essential that we find a scapegoat, a complete schmuck who will bear the entire moral, political, and historical responsibility for getting us into this nation building exercise in Iraq without an exit strategy. This is where you come in. We need your help in pinning the tail on the @$$hole that got us into Iraq. Please vote for the schmuck of your choice. No write in candidates. Ballots are not subject to recounts. And the Florida State Legislature and/or the United States Supreme Court may reject any and all ballots for any reason whatsoever.

__ Paul Wolfowitz (aka Wolfowitz of Arabia) – Insisted oil revenues could finance Iraq’s reconstruction with enough petrodollars left over to cover his girlfriend’s salary. Underestimated troop requirements by half-a-million and then managed to look ridiculous combing his hair with his own saliva in Michael Moore’s film Fahrenheit 9/11.

__ Donald Rumsfeld – “Freedom is messy.” “Stuff Happens” “You go to war with the army you got.” “We know where they [the non-existent WMD] are. They are in Tikrit and the area around Baghdad.” This guy is more talkative than “Baghdad Bob,” but he makes less sense.

__ Condoleezza Rice – “We can’t wait till a smoking gun becomes a mushroom cloud.” This has to be the mother of all mixed metaphors. Miss Perfect failed to pass on urgent warnings to her boss that could have prevented 9/11. And then failed to be an honest broker between the intelligence community (which had caveats about Saddam’s WMD) and the axis-of-disinformation (Cheney, Rumsfeld, & Chalabi).

__ George Tenet – They say white guys can’t jump, but this Clinton retread would leap through hoops to ingratiate himself with the new team. It’s a slam dunk this guy will make a great patsy.

__ Alberto Gonzales – This guy has “piñata” written all over his face. He can’t even remember if he’s the Attorney General or the President’s Counsel anymore. He called the Geneva Conventions quaint, but now insists he was referring to local customs he experienced during family vacation in Switzerland. Deporting him would make a great twofer (it will please the anti-immigrant base and the anti-war left).

__ Douglas Fieth – This obscure Neoconservative policy wonk working in the Defense Department was once described by General Tommy Franks as “the stupidest motherf##ker on the planet.” He proved the general right by recommending the de-Baathifaction process to Paul Bremmer, which everyone agrees ignited the insurgency.

__ Paul Bremmer – A presidential envoy that reports to Donald Rumsfeld, talk about mixed messages. Bremmer set himself up as the viceroy of Iraq. He reported to the president, but took his orders from the Defense Department. Except, of course, when he made decisions on his own initiative, like his brilliant decision to disband the Iraqi Army.

__ Dick Cheney – Draft dodger with gay daughter already has approval ratings in the single-digits. This guy has got no political future. Multiple misjudgments and off target comments might make him the chump to dump. After five deferments and hiding out in secure locations it’s about time this guy took a bullet for his boss (figuratively speaking, of course).

__ The American Public – 70% of the public believed Saddam was responsible for 9/11 and that invading Iraq was a good idea. Now, only 28% of the Americans approve of the war and their commander-in-chief. Talk about flip-floppers.

There you have it. An exhaustive list of everyone who we can say has done a “heck of a job” on Iraq, if you know what I mean. We need you help in narrowing this list down to one patsy who will be fall guy when the verdict of history is rendered. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has no jurisdiction here, so we can’t just blame the usual suspects (Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, the Clintons, or Saddam Hussein). Just remember absolutely no write in candidates, no recounts, and you can only vote for one schmuck per ballot (unless you live in Florida, in which case you can vote for any schmuck you like as often as you like).

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Interpreting Evil

The face of evil may be jolly and full of life. This lesson, and many others, is brought home by the remarkable experience of Richard W. Sonnenfeldt, one of the last living witnesses to the Nuremberg Trials that followed the collapse of the Third Reich after WWII.

Sonnenfeldt, a Jew who escaped Germany in 1938, and later fought as a private in the U.S. Army during the Battle of the Bulge, served as the chief interpreter during the Nuremberg Tribunals. His job put him face to face with the architects of evil from Hitler’s empire, men like Hermann Göring, Rudolph Hess, and Albert Speer.

So what is it like to look into the eyes of evil? Sonnenfeldt, now 83, is struck by the banality of evil, the sheer ordinariness and often mediocrity of the men who built and operated the machinery of death that would constitute the most gruesome war crime the world has ever witnessed. Take Hitler’s Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, a former champagne salesman who was forever spouting inane platitudes, and was so lacking in gravitas and substance, that almost everyone he met with wondered how he could have risen so far. Hitler, as one insider from the Third Reich explained to Sonnenfeldt, had never noticed Ribbentrop’s vacuity because the dictator did all the talking when meeting with his foreign minister.

Hitler, from what Sonnefeldt was able to piece together, was a political genius who surrounded himself with yes men and political toadies. He was able to create Germany’s pre-WWII economic miracle through deficit spending. And he then consolidated unchecked power through deceit, legal chicanery, and brute force.

“All of my means are rationale. Only my ends are insane.” So said Melville’s Captain Ahab. This motto might explain Hitler’s methodology – efficient, but utterly lunatic. With a few exceptions the functionaries he surrounded himself were like the mindless cogs in a machine, human drones did their work with great zeal, but little human understanding. For instance, one nazi was asked if he was responsible for killing three-and-half millions Jews; he replied, nonchalantly, that the true figure was only two-and-half million, the rest had died of disease and starvation. Another anecdote Sonnenfeldt relates involves the accusation that a death camp commandant had allowed German guards to steal gold fillings from Jewish victims. “What kind of man do you think I am” was the nazi’s indignant reply.

Stalin one said, “one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.” Sonnenfeldt’s testament is a reminder that power separated from the rule of law is an invitation to evil. Conversely, there is a wonderful Jewish proverb – “If you save one life, you save the world entire” – that I believe stands as an eternal antidote to evil. If you are seeking insight into human nature, evil, and how simple decency can triumph over barbarism, then I highly recommend Sonnenfeldt’s book Witness to Nuremberg.

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When History Comes Calling

When History finally catches up with George W. Bush it is likely to be in a foul and unforgiving mood. Demagogic scoundrels, to be sure, have run their countries into the ditch before. But the sheer scale of the Bush Administration’s blunders, coupled with its transparent sophistry, takes the breath away. Future generations are likely to gape in awe at Bush’s gall and how he and his minions could continue to get away with it all.

A stolen election, ignoring urgent pre-9/11 warnings, the intelligence fiasco surrounding Iraq’s non-existent WMD, an illegal war, a bollixed reconstruction, a corrupt occupation, the torture and sexual abuse at Abu Ghraib, the P.R. disaster of Guantánamo, unlawful domestic wiretaps, a loony Defense Secretary, a scatterbrained Attorney General, the botched federal response to Katrina, and the failure to address global warming all represent a mind-numbing litany of crimes and errors.

The one thing the Bush Administration has excelled at, however, is in avoiding the consequences of its mendacity and incompetence. It’s approval ratings may be in the low thirties – an indication its credibility has cratered – but democrats are still fearful that Bush will somehow manage to pin the failure in Iraq on their posterior, making them look likes the asses that lost the war.

The Bush strategy in this regard is simple: paint the opponents of the war as insincere defeatists who want America to lose. This amounts to demonizing the opposition as fifth columnists that represent as grave a threat to America’s national security as al-Qaeda.

Bush strategy here is craven. Bush rejected the recommendations of the bi-partisan Baker-Hamilton commission – which offered him a face-saving way of extricating America from the misadventure in Iraq – opting instead for a risky troop surge that few military experts believe has any chance of succeeding. The move may serve little military purpose, beyond postponing the inevitable, but it does manage to turns U.S. troops into political pawns. If the democratic Congress tries to shut down the war, then Bush can always accuse democrats of not supporting the troops. No doubt, Bush’s spiel about “politicians in Washington” overruling the generals on the ground is getting thinner than Karl Rove’s hair, but the president has already proven he’s willing to stay on a given course of attack with all the mindless tenacity of a dead-ender.

It’s mission impossible to imagine a happy outcome in Iraq. Put simply, Alberto Gonzales has a better chance of holding on to his job than Nuri al-Maliki has of holding on to his. The democrats who gave Bush a blank check may have a lot to answer for, but Bush is the one that will be called to account by History. He was the cheer-leader-in-chief who led the charge against phantom stockpiles of WMD. He donned the flight suit and unilaterally declared the end of major combat operations. He made “stay the course” his mantra until it was apparent his stale cliché was leading nowhere. History will catch up with George W. Bush. Bring it on.

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