US in a Predicament of Its Own Making
Having talked this nation into an invasion of Iraq with false claims--Iraq has weapons of mass destruction and Saddam has a connection to Osama bin Laden, etc.--this nation under the short-sighted leadership of the Bush Administration now finds itself in a situation that has the odor and configuration of Vietnam. While the Bush administration is in absolute confusion, albeit with a stiff public upper lip, their talking heads--Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perl, Rice--are not as loquacious as they once were, which indicates the confusion in this White House.
Life is full of unforeseen bumps and turns in the road. Bush came to the White House pursuing a course of action as if he had some mandate from the people. Most Americans thought that under the conditions he ascended to the office of the presidency, he would assume the presidency and unite the people with a centrist, middle of the road agenda, reaching out to all the people. But reason failed this president from the start. Having been placed into office by the Supreme Court, he acts as if God himself placed him there to do His work and he will listen only to God.
Bush's stalwart determination and unwillingness to hear or heed the voice of the world concerning the US invasion of Iraq was astounding to many Americans and startling to most of the world. It was as if this nation, having at long last gone away from its crude and vulgar past, was regressing back into the bad old days of American imperial ignorance, where, since we possess might over small nations, we are right in whatever we do as long as we find a cogent veneer to cover us from those hideous things that we do.
"We won the Cold War," or so we declared to the world. At least we were the only nation capable of having a trillion dollar military capable of fighting small, demoralized nations in a non-nuclear battle. This new found non-nuclear ability poses grave problems for presidents of limited perceptions. And we have had quite a few.
The problem is this, after the US part of the war was declared ended, the Iraqi part started. And it is a war where American soldiers die at the hands of shadowy lots that are hard to see; a war that Bush said does not exist; a war that has now connected, not the dots, but the terrorists, who were never in Iraq but have come to Iraq to kill Americans. And our talking heads, declaring the invincibility of American power, as youths in their ignorance vainly promote themselves, are in disarray, even as Iraq is in chaos--weren't these Iraqis supposed to welcome us? Weren't we supposed to find weapons of mass destruction? (No one has forgotten about those pesky old WMD.) Weren't we supposed to have deposed, arrested, or killed Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, and other masterminds of evil and terror by now?
With U.S. masterminds' vaunting America's supremacy and mastery of minds and all things human, only those crowing the most believe their own theme-songs, which are sung for the consumption of others. Was it not American self-deception about its competency and might that took us into Vietnam? The same deception has us in a quagmire in Iraq.
Americans are great talkers about themselves and how great they are; they frequently and exhaustively overstate our claim of fame and the size of their shoes; they talk a good show, but real life is not Hollywood, and Hollywood is not real life. In Hollywood, Arnold Schwarzneggar saves the day against all odds; he is the man, but that is Hollywood, and there are no random variables there, but those variables occur in real life.
Americans cannot, by and large, tell the difference between televised reality and life's reality. Ronald Reagan came into office as a grade B actor, and America went mad after him; he was a hero in movies and by simple deduction, he would be a hero in life and his presidency.
But a strange thing happened: the Reagan deficit bills became due after he rode off into his blue yonder, and Bush-One took over and had no idea what to do to pay those deficit bills racked up by our movie star president. Now Bush-Two has come, and he has no clue at all about the economy and most other things. He and his talking heads are about posturing and talking the world into their realities.
When Bush-Two took office there was a $1-5 trillion surplus from the old evil, wicked, and immoral Clinton Administration. Now that we have Bush-Two, we have a $280 billion deficit this year, a $500 billion war thus far and a projected $1 trillion total for a war that was to pay for itself. With Clinton's immorality that disturbed so many righteous Americans, this nation was in no significant wars, our soldiers were not dying daily, (2,500 killed; 25-30,000 wounded thus far) our children were going to colleges they could afford and with futures that looked promising; our parents were working; life was better in America than we had known for a long time--better than these hard times of our virtuous man Bush. But the odor of Clinton's personal deeds was too odorous for our tender decencies to bear. We prefer the pretentiously righteous, even if he comes heavily wrapped in packaging that has incompetence written all over it.
This nation can usually tolerate incompetence, but Bush/Cheney may test that tolerance beyond what we can bear. He has needlessly gotten this nation into a situation that promises to cost US taxpayers $1-3 trillion over the next 10 years to rebuild Iraq and the American economy.
America cannot rebuild Iraq alone, but this administration, through its self-willed invasion and insistence that Iraq be made its colony in the name of a military-forced Democracy, has greatly alienated rich nations that were once our allies so they will not help us rebuild Iraq. This is a serious problem for US diplomacy and for the future financial health of this nation. What we see is that a foolish man in the presidency can harm this nation for years to come. And Bush is a very foolish-acting man.
America is in a predicament of its own making, and the Bush White House is in disaster mode, as they have finally begun to see what they have done and what their blind military madness is going to cost this nation its standing in the world and maybe its life. But Bush, his warlords, and the talking heads would not listen to rational voices even in his own administration; nor would they listen to the counsel of the world, consequently, our children--the boys and girls now dying in Iraq daily and their children, if they make it back in peace to have children--will suffer because this ill-begotten administration, in six short years, has gravely harmed the financial health of this nation by an indebtedness that will haunt us for years after Bush rides back into his Texas blue skies. []
Frank A. Jones
7/17/06 Republished