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What
Year is This?
March
1, 2002
By grl2watch
 We're
in a lingering recession and an overseas war. As CNN displays
maps of a small desert country, Ross Perot appears on Larry
King Live. George Bush is the sitting president.
What year is this? For you and I, it's 2002. For Messrs.
George Bush, the year is, and always will be, 1991.
While the election coup was in the works, Bush the Elder's
former secretary of state, James Baker, appeared as spokesghost
in Florida. Who knew that he was still alive? Not only that,
he seemed to be completely in charge of things. Bush the Younger
was neither seen nor heard.
Old faces from the past emerged like wraiths as the cabinet
was formed. Powell, Rumsfeld, Rice - and Cheney. Virtually
ignored during the campaign, Cheney was merely the first of
a pantheon of luminaries from the time of Bush the Elder.
Colin Powell, again flinging the gauntlet at Iraq, announced
that the Bush administration is not yet finished with the
Gulf War, or rather, the repercussions of the war. For the
record, there is only one Bush administration, with a brief
interregnum.
The major players from Gulf War, Act I have been assembled.
The central player, conspicuously absent, is none other than
Bush the Elder, the missing link to understanding the current
crisis.
I submit that the disaster now unfolding is the design and
plan of Bush the Elder. No one has ever accused Mr. Bush of
being a mental lightweight. In fact, the press and public
have repeatedly underestimated the intelligence and resolution
of this man. Mr. Bush, once the head of a shadow agency, might
well be the shadow leader of the current administration.
If the difficulty in distinguishing between 1991 and 2002
is not convincing evidence, and the cast of former characters
interesting but not conclusive, consider the following:
How did Bush the Younger become the only serious presidential
candidate for the Republican party? Why was Richard Cheney
selected for his running mate? Why was a major foreign policy
revision regarding Iraq made almost immediately after the
inauguration? Why did Britain and America conduct a joint
bombing mission on Iraq in March 2001? What has Bush the Elder
been doing for the past ten years, and what is he doing now?
All of these ruminations lead to the most important question:
Why is the focus on Iraq?
Mr. Bush, who enjoyed record high popularity during the war,
was defeated in his bid for re-election, not by Clinton, not
by Perot, but by the Republican party. Ostensibly, the reason
given for the party's disenchantment was the 1991 tax increase.
This misstep did not, in retrospect, accord with the vicious
and swift turn against him. After his defeat, Bush was never
seen at Republican gatherings, in an era dominated by the
new republicans, not the old. Was he banished?
I contend that Mr. Bush, in his own mind as well that of
his peers, disgraced himself by not bringing the Gulf War
to a 'successful' conclusion. His decision to work within
a coalition, to not invade Iraq, was a betrayal of the image
of America, leader of the new world order, held by the coterie
of the elite. The continued existence of Saddam Hussein is
an affront and cause for shame. In the tone and manner of
those railing against Iraq, there is the sickened intensity
of frothing dogs.
What we now have is a son attempting to wash away his father's
shame with Saddam's blood. The first step was to assemble
the players. The next step was to ignite the spark. The first
pretext was weapons of mass destruction, then culpability
for 9/11, then complicity in the anthrax scare. Now the pretext
is support of terrorism. None of the reasons presented have
any basis in fact. But short of sinking the Maine again, some
canard must be found when war is at the top of a nation's
foreign/domestic/psychiatric agenda.
If all goes as planned, the world will again witness the
ageless, meaningless slaughter which burdens the earth. This
folly, this cavorting of demons, has nothing to do with geopolitics,
hidden weapons, or oil. As always with despots, it is purely
personal.
What year is this? For you and I, it's 2002. For Messrs.
George Bush, the year is, and always will be, 1991.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/01/23/ensor.debrief/index.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,649917,00.html
The author says We Were Heroes in Hart's War when Collateral
Damage sent our Blackhawk Down. War is well.
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