DETROIT -- Built on the rotten wood of lies, the staging is collapsing. The once-eager actors in the media are refusing to follow the script. The American people, so thoroughly choreographed for years, are now scooting away from the deceptive dance steps they followed for far too long. George W. Bush's political theater is a flop.
Tragically though, for the American people and our neighbors around the world, this horrible play is guaranteed a run of 197 more weeks, barring the merciful hook of impeachment or resignation -- "a consummation devoutly to be wished."
Unlike Shakespeare's Hamlet, our Prince George is incapable of doubt, self-reflection or remorse. He's going to keep on mouthing his stale, memorized lines -- "stay the course," "we will not rest," "no peace without victory," "historical mission," "these extremists," "confront radicalism," "the seeds of freedom," "complete victory." When he recites these lines, Bush sees himself as a 21st-century Winston Churchill, when he is, in fact, a hapless Pee Wee Herman talking with a Texas twang. Forgive me, Pee Wee.
Bush's thoroughly rehearsed teleconferenced "conversation" with troops in Tikrit last Thursday shows just what a shallow and hollow commander in chief we have. Has he ever had a real conversation with a soldier? Will one of them please have the guts to object to being shamelessly used as a prop for political purposes? Will one brave soul stand up and say, "Mr. President, our situation in Iraq is hopeless. The dying will never stop as long as we are here. When are you getting us out of the mess you created? We want to go home."
Instead, we get a completely scripted and transparently disingenuous sideshow aimed at boosting public support for the futile war and occupation of Iraq. National Public Radio played the audio of the troops being prepped and rehearsed. We know the Busheviks never do anything that isn't scripted, but I found the sound of it confirming, even funny, although tragic.
Allison Barber, a Defense Department flack, can be heard coaching the soldiers on every question to be asked and who will ask it.
"This is an important time. The president is looking forward to having just a conversation with you," she told the 10 handpicked GIs from the Army's 42nd Infantry Division. What disgusting condescension. The troops are exploited and used as cheap props for another scene in Bushevik political theater.
Every detail is orchestrated. Spontaneity and sincerity are forbidden. It was an event suitable for a two-bit dictator -- Saddam Hussein, for instance. But Hitler's propaganda minister, Dr. Joseph Goebbels, so skilled in public manipulation, would have scoffed at the rank amateurism of the event.
After the rehearsal, the "real" conversation with the president seemed silly. Later I saw the video, and many soldiers were smiling as they heard the Shrubster recite his questions and they dutifully recited their scripted responses.
Master Sgt. Corine Lombardo was quick to put the infomercial on track.
"We began our fight against terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks and we're proud to continue," she proudly proclaimed to the president. Bush smiled, probably thinking, "Gee, I could have said that."
Lombardo also gave an upbeat assessment of the training of Iraqi troops, boasting to the president, "I can tell you, over the past 10 months, we've seen a tremendous increase in the capabilities and confidences of our Iraqi security force partners." By golly, if battle-seasoned soldiers are talking like that, maybe the rest of us have it all wrong. Iraq will soon become the "cakewalk" the Busheviks once promised. Not really.
You see, Lombardo is with U.S. Army Public Affairs. While others in her unit wear flak jackets, she is a flack, a military PR operative whose duties include taking reporters out to lunch and setting up staged events like the "conversation" with the president.
Bush looked awkward pretending to chat with the troops, his acting skills fading as the stench of failure and corruption overwhelms his administration. The silly smirk and arrogant swagger are now replaced with blinking and twitching, symptoms of the realization that his lies finally did catch up with him and he really doesn't know what the hell he's doing.
Hurricane Katrina washed away the myth of Bush competence. Karl Rove, the president's political "brain," and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, are facing indictments as soon as this week.
Desperate to thwart right-wing opposition to his crony, Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, Bush says her "religion" was an important factor in his selection of her. The president of the United States publicly admits he used a "religious test" in selecting someone for one of the most important positions in our government. By the way, Miers proved herself unfit for any high office when she said Bush is "the smartest man she's ever known." Even Laura and Babs had to laugh.
Bush vows to use his first-ever veto if the House passes the Senate version of the defense appropriations bill that bans torture and the "cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment or punishment" of prisoners and detainees in accordance with the U.S. Constitution and Geneva Conventions. Bush and his neo-fascist friends feel rules, laws, democratic tradition and human decency will cramp their style. They're right.
The nation's fiscal health is horrible as Bush and the radical Republicans in Congress continue their borrow-and-spend madness, selling our growing debt to foreign banks, and burdening our children and grandchildren with the bill.
The Council on Foreign Relations issued a chilling report last month warning of the serious consequences of Bush's fiscal recklessness and his failure to admit he's way off course.
Over the last 20 largely Republican years, the United States has transformed from the world's largest creditor nation to the world's largest debtor nation.
Bush's tax cuts for the richest, his sacking of the U.S. Treasury to get the money to pay for them, and his addiction to operating deficits spell a considerably weakened dollar, inevitable fiscal disaster and economic chaos. Inflation is also starting to nudge up and will continue to do so as public debt soars.
Delphi, the nation's largest auto-part supplier, declared bankruptcy, threatening the jobs of thousands of workers in Western New York and across the nation. The workers who do survive will have their wages dramatically slashed and be forced to pay for significantly reduced health insurance benefits.
Bush and the radical Republicans have done nothing to help the suffering manufacturing sector of the economy. In fact, their tax policies favor exporting American jobs. The Busheviks loyally serve their corporate sponsors, and screw working class families in the process.
Finally Bush's madness is exposed and his inattention and ineptness add to his undoing. New polls show his approval rating is below 40 percent and fewer than three out of 10 Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction. Among African-Americans, Bush's job approval rating is a stunning, but well-earned, 2 percent. African-American recruits, long a cornerstone of the U.S. Army, are backing away from Bush's Iraq war. In 2000, 23.5 percent of Army recruits and 26.5 percent of Army Reserve recruits were African-Americans. This year, the numbers have plunged to 13.9 percent and 18.4 percent respectively.
I'm sure droves of College Young Republicans and Young Americans for Freedom will be lining up at recruitment offices and volunteering for military service to help cover that shortfall. I'll make special mention in this space for those who do. Just send us a copy of your military contract.
Unlike Cheney, Rove, DeLay, Limbaugh, O'Reilly, Bennett and the new generation of Chicken Hawks, British poet Wilfred Owen knew the horrors of war firsthand. He fought in the trenches in World War I, frequently experiencing mustard gas attacks. In "Dulce Et Decorum Est," Owen described a gas attack and the "fumbling" of soldiers putting their masks on in a hurry. One of Owen's mates didn't do it quickly enough and plunged at him "guttering, choking, drowning." The glory of war eluded the young man as he gasped for life. Owen wrote:
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin.
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as a cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues.
Such a naked description of war would never drift into a Bush theatrical production. Too harsh, too unscripted. Owen died in a German attack seven days before the Armistice.
Saddam Hussein did conduct poison gas attacks on the Iranian army and Kurdish rebels in the 1980s with the blessing and support of Ronald Reagan's administration. We helped him get the chemicals and Reagan's special envoy, Donald Rumsfeld, provided the satellite photos for our pal Saddam to use to pinpoint the human gas-attack targets.
But that grim history and truth be damned. Condoleezza Rice repeatedly used the argument that a prime reason for war with Saddam was that "he used chemical weapons against his own people." At last count, Rice made that argument 8,778 times, never once mentioning the historic context of the cozy deal.
In these horrible days, inspired theater and great writers deserve our honor and gratitude. In his great body of work, Britain's Harold Pinter has consistently enriched our understanding of ourselves, seeing an impending sense of doom in our absurd follies.
Pinter often has his characters use confused language or silence to reflect the absurdity of a situation. The Busheviks thrive on confused language, and silence is their shield against the truth.
Last week, Pinter won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Earlier this year, he was honored with the Wilfred Owen Award. On that occasion, he noted that, since Owen's death, "the world has become more savage, more brutal, more pitiless."
Pinter says we have learned nothing from Owen's war experiences.
"What would Wilfred Owen make of the invasion of Iraq? A bandit act, a blatant act of state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of International Law. An arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public. An act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading -- as a last resort (all other justifications having failed to justify themselves) -- as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands upon thousands of innocent people."
Pinter's life and theater reach for truth and understanding. Bush's absurd act hides from truth and only understands power and violence.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Oct. 18 2005 |