Heck of a Job, Bushie
By PAUL KRUGMAN
NY Times Op-Ed: December 30, 2005
A year ago, everyone expected President Bush to get his way on Social
Security. Pundits warned Democrats that they were making a big political
mistake by opposing plans to divert payroll taxes into private accounts.
A year ago, everyone thought Congress would make Mr. Bush's tax cuts
permanent, in spite of projections showing that doing so would lead to
budget deficits as far as the eye can see. But Congress hasn't acted,
and
most of the cuts are still scheduled to expire by the end of 2010.
A year ago, Mr. Bush made many Americans feel safe, because they
believed
that he would be decisive and effective in an emergency. But Mr. Bush
was
apparently oblivious to the first major domestic emergency since 9/11.
According to Newsweek, aides to Mr. Bush finally decided, days after
Hurricane Katrina struck, that they had to show him a DVD of TV
newscasts to
get him to appreciate the seriousness of the situation.
A year ago, before "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job" became a
national
punch line, the rising tide of cronyism in government agencies and
the rapid
replacement of competent professionals with unqualified political
appointees
attracted hardly any national attention.
A year ago, hardly anyone outside Washington had heard of Jack
Abramoff, and
Tom DeLay's position as House majority leader seemed unassailable.
A year ago, Dick Cheney, who repeatedly cited discredited evidence
linking
Saddam to 9/11, and promised that invading Americans would be
welcomed as
liberators - although he hadn't yet declared that the Iraq insurgency
was in
its "last throes" - was widely admired for his "gravitas."
A year ago, Howard Dean - who was among the very few prominent
figures to
question Colin Powell's prewar presentation to the United Nations,
and who
warned, while hawks were still celebrating the fall of Baghdad, that the
occupation of Iraq would be much more difficult than the initial
invasion -
was considered flaky and unsound.
A year ago, it was clear that before the Iraq war, the administration
suppressed information suggesting that Iraq was not, in fact, trying to
build nuclear weapons. Yet few people in Washington or in the news media
were willing to say that the nation was deliberately misled into war
until
polls showed that most Americans already believed it.
A year ago, the Washington establishment treated Ayad Allawi as if he
were
Nelson Mandela. Mr. Allawi's triumphant tour of Washington, back in
September 2004, provided a crucial boost to the Bush-Cheney campaign.
So did
his claim that the insurgents were "desperate." But Mr. Allawi turned
out to
be another Ahmad Chalabi, a hero of Washington conference rooms and
cocktail
parties who had few supporters where it mattered, in Iraq.
A year ago, when everyone respectable agreed that we must "stay the
course,"
only a handful of war critics suggested that the U.S. presence in
Iraq might
be making the violence worse, not better. It would have been hard to
imagine
the top U.S. commander in Iraq saying, as Gen. George Casey recently
did,
that a smaller foreign force is better "because it doesn't feed the
notion
of occupation."
A year ago, Mr. Bush hadn't yet openly reneged on Scott McClellan's 2003
pledge that "if anyone in this administration was involved" in the
leaking
of Valerie Plame's identity, that person "would no longer be in this
administration." Of course, some suspect that Mr. Bush has always
known who
was involved.
A year ago, we didn't know that Mr. Bush was lying, or at least being
deceptive, when he said at an April 2004 event promoting the Patriot Act
that "a wiretap requires a court order. ...When we're talking about
chasing
down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we
do so.
It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think
Patriot
Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing
what is
necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."
A year ago, most Americans thought Mr. Bush was honest.
A year ago, we didn't know for sure that almost all the politicians and
pundits who thundered, during the Lewinsky affair, that even the
president
isn't above the law have changed their minds. But now we know when it
comes
to presidents who break the law, it's O.K. if you're a Republican.
***
Pentagon propaganda program orders soldiers to promote Iraq war while
home
on leave
By DOUG THOMPSON
Publisher, Capitol Hill Blue
Dec 29, 2005, 05:44
Good soldiers follow orders and hundreds of American military men and
women
returned to the United States on holiday leave this month with orders to
sell the Iraq war to a skeptical public.
The program, coordinated through a Pentagon operation dubbed "Operation
Homefront," ordered military personnel to give interviews to their
hometown
newspapers, television stations and other media outlets and praise the
American war effort in Iraq.
Initial reports back to the Pentagon deem the operation a success with
dozens of front page stories in daily and weekly newspapers around the
country along with upbeat reports on local television stations.
"We've learned as a military how to do this better," Captain David
Diaz, a
military reservist, told his hometown paper, The Roanoke (VA) Times. "My
worry is that we have the right military strategy and political
strategies
now but the patience of the American public is wearing thin."
When pressed by the paper on whether or not his commanding officers
told him
to talk to the press, Diaz admitted he was "encouraged" to do so. So
reporter Duncan Adams asked:
"Did Diaz return to the U.S. on emergency leave with an agenda -- to
offer a
positive spin that could help counter growing concerns among
Americans about
the U.S. exit strategy? How do we know that's not his strategy,
especially
after he discloses that superior officers encouraged him to talk
about his
experiences in Iraq?"
Replied Diaz:
"You don't. I can tell you that the direction we've gotten from on
high is
that there is a concern about public opinion out there and they want
to set
the record straight."
Diaz, an intelligence officer, knows how to avoid a direct answer. Other
military personnel, however, tell Capitol Hill Blue privately that the
pressure to "sell the war" back home is enormous.
"I've been promised an early release if I do a good job promoting the
war,"
says one reservist who asked not to be identified.
In interviews with a number of reservists home for the holidays, a
pattern
emerges on the Pentagon's propaganda effort. Soldiers are encouraged to
contact their local news media outlets to offer interviews about the
war. A
detailed set of talking points encourages them to:
--Admit initial doubts about the war but claim conversion to a belief
in the
American mission;
--Praise military leadership in Iraq and throw in a few words of
support for
the Bush administration;
--Claim the mission to turn security of the country over to the
Iraqis is
working;
--Reiterate that America must not abandon its mission and must stay
until
the "job is finished."
--Talk about how "things are better" now in Iraq.
"My worry is that we have the right military strategy and political
strategies now but the patience of the American public is wearing thin,"
Diaz told The Roanoke Times.
"It's way better now (in Iraq). People are friendlier. They seem more
relaxed, and they say, 'Thank you, mister,'" Sgt. Christopher
Desierto told
his hometown paper, The Maui News.
But soldiers who are home and don't have to return to Iraq tell a
different
story.
"I've just been focused on trying to get the rest of these guys
home," says
Sgt. Major Floyd Dubose of Jackson, MS, who returned home after 11
months in
Iraq with the Mississippi Army National Guard's 155th Combat Brigade.
And the Army is cracking down on soldiers who go on the record
opposing the
war.
Specialist Leonard Clark, a National Guardsman, was demoted to
private and
fined $1,640 for posting anti-war statements on an Internet blog. Clark
wrote entries describing the company's commander as a "glory seeker"
and the
battalion sergeant major an "inhuman monster". His last entry before the
blog was shut down told how his fellow soldiers were becoming
increasingly
opposed to the US operation in Iraq.
"The message is clear," says one reservist who is home for the
holidays but
has to return and asked not to be identified. "If you want to get out of
this man's Army with an honorable (discharge) and full benefits you
better
not tell the truth about what is happening in-country."
But Sgt. Johnathan Wilson, a reservist, got his honorable discharge
after
he returned home earlier this month and he's not afraid to talk on the
record.
"Iraq is a classic FUBAR," he says. "The country is out of control
and we
can't stop it. Anybody who tries to sell a good news story about the
war is
blowing it out his ass. We don't win and eventually we will leave the
country in a worse shape than it was when we invaded."
© Copyright 2005 by Capitol Hill Blue
