Best column in a while from Justin?
If you think I'm going to miss EastEnders in order to hear the "State of
the Union" address you are wrong, wrong, wrong. Why bother, when I know the
state of the union sucks?
No sooner did Hans Blix open his mouth then the Dow started tanking; our
war birds had hardly begun their latest chorus of banshee-like screeching
when speculation began as to how Saddam would strike back. So we're going
to hear about how some until now totally unknown Al Qaeda "affiliate,"
Ansar al-Islam, is supposedly backed by the Iraqis – in the U.S.-protected
quasi-independent statelet of Kurdistan. I might as well go to Debka.com
and get the latest Israeli propaganda straight from the horse's mouth.
Yawn.
I'm sorry, but I just can't get up even a modicum of enthusiasm for the
incoherent squawking of our marionette-in-chief. I hate it when he
scrunches up his forehead and squints out at us with that simian
belligerence, like General Ursus in "Planet of the Apes." Helen Thomas is
right: he is the worst President we've ever had, in every respect. His
presidency will go down in history as the last gasp of the old Republic,
right before it degenerated into an empire more vulgar than Rome, and more
short-lived than Alexander's.
Who wants to see the nation's number one chickenhawk "rally the nation" to
war, as one breathless news report put it? No thanks, I'll pass. I choose
to ignore the baboonish Bush, and instead urge you to heed the words of
Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander of our 1991 drive-by shooting in
the Gulf.
In an extraordinary interview in the Washington Post, Schwarzkopf continues
the Pentagon's offensive against this war, much more effectively than all
the peace demonstrations from here 'til kingdom come. Skeptical of the
administration's rationale for war, the General is said to be
"Worried about the cockiness of the U.S. war plan, and even more by the
potential human and financial costs of occupying Iraq. And don't get him
started on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld."
Schwarzkopf's resentment of Rumsfeld, who seems to enjoy his reputation as
a blowhard – albeit an entertaining one – is palpable. The General
complains that the objections among senior military personnel were simply
brushed aside in the rush to war. That heedless arrogance was entirely
absent when Dick Cheney was in charge, but
"Rumsfeld, by contrast, worries him. 'It's scary, okay?' he says. 'Let's
face it: There are guys at the Pentagon who have been involved in
operational planning for their entire lives, okay? . . . And for this
wisdom, acquired during many operations, wars, schools, for that just to be
ignored, and in its place have somebody who doesn't have any of that
training, is of concern.'"
This is not just a fight over turf, however, but over two polar opposite
conceptions of military and foreign policy. Schwarzkopf shares the
opposition of many officers to the post-9/11 military strategy of this
administration, which is to pit the U.S., Israel, and possibly Turkey
against the entire Arab world:
"It's obviously not a black-and-white situation over there" in the Mideast,
he says. 'I would just think that whatever path we take, we have to take it
with a bit of prudence.'"
The General also isn't buying the idea that we can turn Iraq into a
Jeffersonian democracy any time soon:
"I would hope that we have in place the adequate resources to become an
army of occupation, because you're going to walk into chaos."
Never to walk out of it.
Schwarzkopf's critique is fixed, not on the short-term prospect of an
American "victory," but on the inevitability of defeat in the long run. It
is a fundamental difference between the old-line pre-imperial era senior
officers, who see their task as defending America, and the civilian
leadership imbued with a vision of conquest. The Vietnam syndrome is
supposed to be dead and buried, but it lives on in the military, which
knows, from bitter experience, that the politicians will take credit for
the victories, however Pyrrhic, while the grunts take the heat in defeat.
As Georgie Chickenhawk rallies the nation behind yet another American
incursion onto the Asian landmass, the horrified and increasingly vocal
reaction of Schwarzkopf and his allies in the top ranks of the military is
not hard to fathom. They have opposed this war from the beginning, and it
is not too late for the President to heed their wisdom. He may be the slave
of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, he may be Ariel Sharon's gofer, but
even a sub-literate reformed drunk, whose brains have been sautéed in
alcohol, knows he can't win a war without the top brass.
We keep hearing that war is "inevitable," but you'll notice how they keep
pushing back the date. First it was going to happen right around Christmas,
and then at the end of January, and now they're saying the Ides of March.
If so, then perhaps one of the President's more historically-inclined
advisors will tell Caesar to beware.
To the soldiers out there, consider General Schwarzkopf's warning next to
the ignorant ravings of our bellowing Boy Emperor, who slithered out of the
draft and is now striking a Napoleonic pose. Which one do you trust to make
the decision to go to war?
Listen up, soldier. You have the power to stop this war before it starts.
Imagine the panic that would set in if the ranks started echoing and acting
on the warnings of their senior commanders. The President may be a slave to
the War Party, but you sure as hell aren't: you're an American citizen who
has the right to speak out. Isn't that what they're supposedly sending you
overseas to fight and die for?
Or is it?
To all who agree with General Schwarzkopf, and side with prudence over
Rumsfeldian recklessness, here is how you can spread the word. Just
download the speeches and statements of the generals who have spoken out
against this war, and share them with your friends. The speeches of former
Secretary of the Navy James Webb, General Anthony Zinni, and retired Marine
colonel Larry Williams can't get you in any trouble: if they start treating
Colonel David Hackworth like some kind of subversive, then we know we're in
big trouble.
The most "subversive" activity you can engage in, however, is to keep
yourself informed. Having arrived at this site, you're already on the right
track….
POSTSCRIPT
Okay, so I did watch the speech, and taped EastEnders, and wasn't I right?
The phony connection made between Iraq and Al Qaeda, even murkier than I
imagined: the braying bellicosity, the furrowed brow, the mean squint. I
must say, however, that I was taken aback when the President opined:
"Throughout the 20th century, small groups of men seized control of great
nations … built armies and arsenals … and set out to dominate the weak and
intimidate the world. In each case, their ambitions of cruelty and murder
had no limit."
A Freudian slip? An antiwar mole among the speechwriters? Or a single
moment of honesty amid a fusillade of lies? What Bush is describing is his
own rotten regime, up to and including the neoconservative cabal that has
seized the reins of power in Washington, and set us rushing off to war. The
whole point of the President's demagogic tirade was to intimidate the
world, and most of all the American people. Conjuring up the
self-fulfilling prophecy of an Iraqi attack on the U.S., the Bushies expect
us to quake in fear – and surrender ourselves helplessly to their war plans.
After this display of demagogy, Helen Thomas must be feeling vindicated.
Yes, he's "the worst President in all of American history," as the state of
the union, 2003, demonstrates beyond any doubt.
– Justin Raimondo
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j012903.html
