DETROIT -- Mold, rot and vermin. Those words -- repeatedly used to describe the deplorable conditions at a building at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., where wounded soldiers are treated -- perfectly describe the Bush administration in its dying days.
Stories in the Washington Post exposed the filthy living conditions at the hospital and embarrassed Pentagon types. Generals promised quick action to clean up the mess.
In a dramatic departure from the Busheviks' usual creed -- deny it or blame someone else -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the situation is "unacceptable" and "with responsibility comes accountability." Gen. Richard Cody, the Army vice chief of staff, admitted, "We've had a breakdown in leadership."
It would be dandy if such principles were extended right up the chain of command to the great decider himself. Captain Bush, master and commander Cheney and the whole crew of their ship of fools would sink. Workers rushed to paint walls, repair plaster and plug leaking ceilings as TV cameras captured the surge of repair work, and the corporate media dutifully reported the quick response. If only the rest of the mold, rot and vermin President George W. Bush has brought the world could be dealt with so neatly and with such dispatch.
As the American masses dwell on Anna Nicole Smith's rotting corpse, Britney Spears' departed hair, the Florida hiccup girl and "American Idol," the fiasco in Iraq worsens and plans to attack Iran are in high gear. The troop escalation in Baghdad has done little to quell the civil war. Some of the Shiites took a short break, but the Saudi-supported Sunnis found new ways to terrify their religious foes, lobbing chlorine-laced bombs at them.
The invasion and U.S. occupation unleashed hostilities that have led to the reintroduction of chemical warfare in Iraq. Recall how many times Condoleezza Rice justified the war because Saddam Hussein had used gas "on his own people." The irony is as searing as the chlorine is in the lungs of its victims.
The Brits are packing up and going home, leaving southern Iraq in the hands of Shiite militia and allowing them to expel Sunnis in the neighborhood. Bush's "coalition" was always a joke, and as the Tommies say toodles, we are now officially on our own, except for those six Bulgarian medics.
Bush and his minions often say, "If we leave Iraq, they will follow us here." I guess that means we will soon see the Mahdi army rolling into Piccadilly Circus and the Sunni insurgents converting Westminster Cathedral into a mosque.
Iraq is lost and will continue to disintegrate. The only reason we are now there is to use the mess as a pretext for attacking Iran. The BBC reports that targets have already been chosen and the air strikes will go well beyond Iran's nuclear fuel production sites.
The more Bush says he is not planning to attack Iran, the more reason we have to believe he is. Remember the Downing Street Memo, which documented how Bush had made his private decision to invade Iraq as he publicly talked diplomacy and claimed war was his "last resort."
The BBC reveals the attack plan on Iran "would include Iranian air bases, naval bases, missile facilities and command-and-control centers." The consequences would be catastrophic and make the region even more dangerous and deadly.
Sir Richard Dalton, the former British ambassador to Iran, told the BBC the attack would "backfire badly by probably encouraging the Iranian government to develop nuclear weapons in the long term." Bombing Iran would enrage Russia. Iran is one of Russia's major trading partners, and another U.S. aggressive move into the Middle East would make Russia flex its nuclear muscles and set off a new arms race.
It's a measure of just how off-course we are in the world when Russia's neo-Stalinist President Vladimir Putin has to lecture us about how dangerous Bush has made the globe.
Putin recently denounced the United States trampling on international law and called U.S. military action "unilateral" and "illegitimate." The Russian president said American global aggression "brings us to the abyss of one conflict after another. Political solutions are becoming impossible."
The truth is, Bush the bully and his master, Vice President Dick Cheney, have no interest in seeking political solutions. They prefer sending other peoples' children to die in their mad military experiments and attempts to dominate the oil-rich Middle East.
Cheney got as far away from Washington as he could last week, hoping to be out of town when the jury decides Scooter Libby's fate. There is no doubt Cheney's former top aide lied to the grand jury about his role in telling reporters that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA.
Libby lied to cover up for Cheney, who ordered the dirty deed as an act of retribution against Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson. He disputed the administration's claim in the runup to the war that Iraq sought to purchase uranium in Niger to use in a nuclear-weapons program.
Cheney went to Asia and Australia, and in a speech in Tokyo Bay aboard the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk, he did some bellicose bellowing, proclaiming that "the American people will not support a policy of retreat."
Then big Dick, who had spoken to "Tricky Dicky" in a seance the night before, said we will complete the mission in Iraq, and in Nixonian tones pledged, "We want to return with honor."
Nixon got elected with the promise that he had a plan to end the war in Vietnam, and proceeded to escalate the war and cost 20,000 more Americans their lives. That was his idea of bringing "an honorable end to the war in Vietnam."
Cheney is Nixon minus the charm and honor. At least Nixon resigned and admitted he made some mistakes. The infallible Cheney will never admit the lies that brought us to war in Iraq and the intractable mess it is.
In Australia, Cheney chided China for its arms developments and new weapons. He said, "Last month's anti-satellite test and China's continued fast-paced military buildup are not consistent with China's stated goal of a 'peaceful rise.'"
Cheney consistently acts as if hypocrisy were a virtue. Maybe he thinks the Chinese aren't paying attention to the unprecedented U.S. military buildup. Cheney and Bush's budget calls for spending $481 billion on defense. That does not include $145 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. You can tack on another $20 billion to the Department of Energy for research on how to build bigger and better nuclear weapons.
U.S. military spending now exceeds the rest of the world's combined, and the Busheviks are still keen on a missile-defense program based on uncertain technology at best -- but certain, obscene profits for military contractors.
While money is spent without restraint for the weapons of war, the victims of war are shortchanged. Chris Adams, a reporter for McClatchy Newspapers, wrote a chilling investigative report after reviewing mountains of records from the Department of Veterans Affairs showing how people returning from the war are provided inadequate mental-health treatment.
Adams reports the VA "counts post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, the most prevalent mental health malady -- and one of the top illnesses overall -- to emerge from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."
But Mark Boal's article in "Playboy," "The Real Cost of War," shows the Pentagon is systematically refusing to give PTSD victims permanent disability status, and the illness is "being underdiagnosed on a fairly wholesale level."
While the Busheviks talk about supporting the troops, like to wear American flags and display yellow ribbons, they are not willing to spend the money needed to care for traumatized veterans.
Chris Adams found an appalling lack of care: "Despite a decade-long effort to treat veterans at all VA clinics, nearly 100 local VA clinics provided virtually no mental-health care in 2005. Beyond that, the intensity of treatment was worsened. Today, the average veteran with psychiatric trouble gets one-third fewer visits with specialists than he would have received a decade ago."
It's good life may become a little better for those suffering at Walter Reed as a result of a war of choice that will never be won militarily. But our nation will take much longer to heal from the damage of an administration that has brought to our public life and relations with the world nothing but mold, rot and vermin.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | February 27 2007 |