Dystopian Paradox

The financial crisis has deflected U.S. media attention away from Iraq. But it’s still here.

Al Jazeera reports that levels of violence in Iraq had reached a four year low but has again picked up in recent weeks. The news agency reported the following events:

Friday, a suicide bomber in Baghdad killed 31 people.

10 people were killed and 30 wounded in a series of attacks in Baghdad, including a twin car bombing in a business district.

Eight people were killed and 25 wounded by two bombs in west Baghdad.

A makeshift mine killed three people and wounded 13 in east Baghdad. Another bomb in Baghdad killed a civilian and two of his bodyguards.

Another mine in Baghdad killed one an wounded five including three policeman.

A makeshift mine wounded six including three soldiers.

Three people were killed and one wounded by armed men in Kirkuk,

A woman suicide bomber killed 34 and wounded 22 in Diyala at a festival.

We are now a year and a half into the surge. The surge was an all-in Bush strategical move which he sold as being temporary. Bush never intended for it to be temporary. If John McCain has his way, the surge is here to stay.

This war continues to destroy lives and is costing taxpayers billions every every month for dubious stated objectives. One such objective is to preserve the reputation of the United States throughout the world. Bush doesn’t seem to understand that the war itself is what destroyed our reputation.

GW Bush should put the country ahead of his fantasies. His agenda post 9/11 if not before, was to nation build and the nations must be democratic. God allegedly created the world in seven days. GW can’t turn even one country into a democracy in seven years. But he can push through legislation that has chipped-away at our Bill of Rights.

All major challenges facing us are linked and shouldn’t be viewed as mutually exclusive of each other or only tangential. Bush has allowed capitalism to mutate into a cancer that may destroy our society. That malignant capitalism is an integral part of our involvement in the Iraqi war.

Hitler was doing drugs in the Third Reich’s last days. I wonder what Bush is doing to cope. Perhaps the intoxication of power has sufficiently marginalized his perception of reality that he doesn’t need mind-altering substances to make it through the day. Or maybe he lacks the intellect to understand the nature and consequences of his malfeasance.

Bob Woodward revealed today in an interview on 60 Minutes that one of the main reasons violence has subsided in Baghdad is because of a new secret U.S. weapon. Woodard said he would not describe what it is because to do so could compromise the U.S. efforts there. He likened its impact on war making ability to the tank or airplane. However, no weapon system has ever remained secret for very long, so our technological advantage may be short lived.

Woodward also said that the U.S. knows essentially everything that Maliki says because of this new technology, keeping him under constant surveillance. Big brother really is listening. Woodward said Bush fired Rumsfeld against Cheney’s advice, replaced General Casey with Bates, and strong armed Maliki into going along with the surge.

Woodward said that the Bush administration has deemed General Patraeus fireproof, meaning that no succeeding president could remove Patraeus because he’s done such a great job. Sounds like a General MacArthur in Korea scenario.

Woodward said that G.W. Bush has not been able to understand the attitude of the Iraqi people, why they are not grateful for our military liberating them. Bush apparently lacks empathy or the ability to engage in a reversing roles, what-if exercise: the U.S. is occupied by a European alliance that took out the Bush administration under the pretext of restoring civility to our federal executive branch. The alliance continues to occupy the U.S. because of insurgent American’s who don’t like being under the domination of a foreign power.

Bush also told Woodward that his advice to the new U.S. president would be “Don’t let it fail.” That means that if Bush had his way, we would keep another country under our overt control in perpetuity if that’s what it took to avoid Bush’s concept of failure. If a madman has the power to remove the freedoms of a foreign power and does so, it would follow that such a person would have no compunction in removing the freedoms of the people of his own country, especially those who threaten him or her politically.

The Bush administration has proceeded to diminish our guarantees under Bill of Rights. It’s stacked the Supreme Court with ideologues. It’s perpetuated and implemented policies that are destroying our middle class.

Woodward’s revelations give us all the more reason not to elect McCain, who has resorted in his campaign to demonizing the good works of others while his audiences cheer him on a la Hitler or Mussollini.

Hitler invaded Poland under the pretext of Poland attacking Germany. Hitler staged that attack. So where’s the WMDs? Like minds think alike.

Check out an excerpt of the Woodward interview on YouTube

Ridge Dickey