"I can believe anything provided it is incredible." -- Oscar Wilde.
DETROIT -- Wilde would find these times deliciously incredible, although the abundance of extraordinary events and rot he'd find among modern American politicians might be too easy to pounce upon and unworthy of his considerable literary talents. On second thought, he probably couldn't resist.
"America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between," Wilde once cracked. But he was only looking at the Gilded Age in the second half of the 19th century -- times of relative civil decency compared with what President George W. Bush, along with a supporting cast of crass politicians, Republican and Democrats alike, has done in the 21st century.
Every day things happen that strike me as simply incredible. It usually happens in the morning as I go through my daily ritual of reading the papers, listening to the radio and scanning the wire services and blogs.
In doing that, especially tracking the corruption, malfeasance and incompetence of the Bush administration, the incredible has become the routine.
I have taken to using the Italian form of the word when I learn of the latest Bushevik assaults on human decency and our threatened national traditions and institutions.
"Incredibile," I now mutter when I learn of the latest incredible outrage. Like most Italian words, it sounds better than the English, evoking a greater sense of emotion and outrage.
Just a small sampling, mostly from one week's worth of crap from our incredible State Department, makes the point. State Department investigators offered immunity to the Backwater security guards, the highly paid mercenaries involved in the deadly shooting last month that left 17 Iraqis dead and scores wounded.
Though the offer was "limited use immunity" -- a deal where the suspects cannot be prosecuted for anything they say to interrogators as long as the statements were true -- the move is premature at best and done without the knowledge of State Department superiors.
The Iraqis already hate us and most want us to leave immediately. So now we do something to further imperil the troops there. In addition to her monumental policy failures, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is a disaster as an administrator. So far, she claims, she can't find out who authorized the immunity offers. She must think the American people are incredibly stupid.
Rice also is considering forcing career foreign services officers to take unwanted assignments in Iraq. There are enough volunteers to staff postings inside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone, the "Emerald City," largely isolated from the reality of endless war and sectarian violence.
But volunteers for duty in the provinces are not meeting needs. Jack Croddy, a career foreign service officer, told the Associated Press why: "It's a potential death sentence."
Rice is attempting vainly to cajole people to sign up before issuing mandatory assignments. But Croddy and many of his colleagues understand their reluctance and how professionals in the State Department don't believe Bush's incredible vision of a future pacified Iraqi people content under the guns of an imperial U.S. master, with 21st-century Hessians murdering people who happen to get in their way.
While the Buskeviks would prefer professional diplomats suckled on the incredible crap the neoconservatives churn out, with no thought of personal risk, they fail consistently to produce their own faithful, let alone progeny willing to risk their own hides. Find me a soul named Bush, Cheney, Rice, Kristol or Limbaugh applying for foreign service training, preparing for a career in public service to save us from the waves of "Islamofascists" -- the incredible, illogical term the neocons invented to bumper-sticker the "enemy."
"It's one thing if someone believes in what's going on over there and volunteers," Croddy said. "But it's another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment. I'm sorry, but basically that's a potential death sentence."
Foreign service officers take oaths to serve. In 1969 an entire class of entry-level diplomats was sent to Vietnam, where they served valiantly and many died. But that was a doomed effort in which the diplomats, like the soldiers, were willing to risk and give their lives as dedicated Americans who saw some hope of doing good, serving their nation and helping the Vietnamese people.
When the truth emerged decades later, we learned President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger could have ended the war "anytime we want," in Kissinger's words.
Instead they chose a cynical chess game, playing international and domestic politics to serve their vanity and vile purposes. Contemporary foreign service officers tend to read those accounts and ask themselves, "Do I want to die for Bush's naked aggression and failed experiment in nation building? I guess not."
"She has done a remarkable job," Condoleezza Rice gushed about Karen Hughes, the undersecretary of state who's quitting the administration and retreating to Texas to enjoy the turd blossoms and look for cover (under a turd would be my first suggestion), along with co-conspirator and former Bush "brain," Karl Rove.
Hughes and Rove can take full credit for bringing us our present and indefinite days of infamy. The former TV reporter sold Bush -- a guy with a famous name, a failed businessman and semi-dry drunk -- as a decent, hardworking chap with the credentials to run the great state of Texas and then the nation.
The incredible lie Hughes sold has left the nation and world in a shambles and in pain. After spending a couple of years peddling lies as Bush's White House media nanny, she returned to Texas. She used the threadworn "want to spend more time with my family" line.
After a rest, she returned to the evil empire to head up the State Department's efforts to make the world better understand the monster she helped create. When Hughes took over the job of selling America to the world, especially to Muslim nations, we were despised.
Two years later the situation is demonstrably worse. But such truth wouldn't deter Rice from praising Hughes for her "great job of transforming public diplomacy at the State Department." Oscar Wilde would delight in such an incredible declaration and the literary fun it would provide.
I again am drawn to the Italian. Che palle! An apt idiom: literally, "What balls!" figuratively, "Bulls--t!"
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Nov. 5 2007 |