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A Peek
Inside Bush's Post-War Diary: "F*** Impeachment!"
June
18, 2003
Satire by Bernard Weiner, The
Crisis Papers
Dear Diary:
The war went well. We licked those Iraqi towelheads real
quick. We didn't get Saddam, though, which is more than a
little embarassing, since we also didn't get Osama in Afghanistan.
Makes me look bad. Also makes me look like I'd rather have
those guys out there, scaring Americans...hee, hee, hee!
The worst thing is that some columnists and Democrats and
even some disloyal Republicans are yapping like hungry dogs
about the damn WMD thing. Poor Blair may even lose his job
over the bullshit intelligence we sent his way. Now there's
one good loyal puppydog; he knows which side his international
bread is buttered on.
There's even talk of impeachment here. Do they really expect
me to come right out and say it? "Ladies and gentlemen, we
knew Saddam's forces were weak and that they had nothing to
hit us with, no WMD, no air force, no navy, no nothing. We
just needed a pretext to invade, anything would do, and WMD
was a good and scary reason. We went in there to demonstrate
to his A-rab neighbors (and to the U.N.) not to mess with
us; we want oil to stay at a certain price, in U.S. dollars,
and securely in Western-oriented hands." No way I'm going
to admit that in public. Let those idiots try to get an impeachment
resolution through the Congress we control. F*** 'em!
The point is that our policies of "shock&awe" and invasion
worked, just like it got drawn up. It's a clever twist of
the old Nixon/Kissinger strategy: better think twice about
geting the U.S. riled up, we're "crazy" enough to start raining
bombs and missiles on you.
Syria seems to have learned the Afghanistan/Iraq lessons,
along with a good share of the other A-rab states, backing
away from their harsh anti-Americanism and open support for
terrorists.
So Rummy and Wolfowitz and Cheney and the rest of the Project
for the New American Century boys were right: We can do what
we want in the world, there ain't nobody big enough or strong
enough to stop us. Next stop Iran, or maybe Syria, or we go
after Hizbollah in Lebanon, or, if we have to, that mad midget
in North Korea.
But, dang it, not everything is working out the way we want.
Here we are moving into the 2004 election mode, and Iraq is
starting to look like Vietnam guerrilla warfare - including
the oil pipelines being sabotaged - and we may be bogged down
there for a long time, right into the election cycle. Not
good. And the longer we stay, the more we have to be an OPEN
occupational force rather than the quiet one we were as "liberators."
Also not good.
The whole idea of these military operations is to pick weak
countries, make our point, get our troops in and out quickly,
install a U.S.-friendly regime in power, make the corporate
deals with that government, and move on to the next operation.
Having to keep 100,000 or more troops in a country like Iraq
is not good; too many Americans keep getting attacked and
killed each day - and things are also heating up again in
Afghanistan - and that could start parents of those boys asking
too many questions about why we went there in the first place.
(On the other hand, as Karl keeps reminding me, having American
GIs shot at regularly guarantees rally-round-the-flag patriotism
that keeps our domestic program running.)
And then there's the Middle East. Talk about quagmire! We
announced our "road map" plan because we had to do something
before we invaded Iraq - the A-rab leaders needed some movement
toward a just peace in the Mideast, to keep their Islam populations
under control - even if all we were buying was a year or so
of relative quiet. But the extremists, on both sides, can
tear that plan into pieces any time they want with some major
violence and terror - and that's where we are right now: Israel
tearing up the place with rockets and bulldozers, Palestine
sending over wave after wave of suicide bombers.
Sharon has a road map all his own. He doesn't want peace
- he's after restoring Biblical Israel - and he's backed by
my fundamentalist Christian supporters here in this country.
The more warfare and destruction and oppression, the better,
so the prophecy goes. As for Arafat and Hamas, they also have
their own map, and it doesn't include the existence of Israel.
They don't want peace; they still want to make Israel disappear
and believe they can pull it off through suicide bombing.
Poor Abbas is in the middle; he and the rest of the moderates
are going to get so wiped out when the civil war between Palestinian
factions begins big-time.
Poor Abbas? Poor ME! Everyone warned me not to get near
Palestine/Israel, that it's hatred-quicksand there and every
American president that's gone near it has been pulled down
into the vortex of violence and revenge. But it was a great
and timely photo-op and we couldn't resist; besides, we're
buying some pre-election time.
What I should do - withdraw (or at least threaten to withdraw)
aid to Israel and get them to leave the Occupied Territories
and abandon their settlements - I won't do, for very good
political reasons. First, I support Israel out of principle.
Second, we need Israel as our friend in that region, the one
pro-Western military force that we can count on, and that
can handle the A-rabs. Finally, the American population supports
Israel by a huge majority, for all kinds of good and sometimes
crazy reasons, and we want to lure the Jewish vote over to
the Republican side.
If we can calm things down enough to slide by Election Day
2004, then the Jews and A-rabs can go on slaughtering each
other big time, I don't care. Maybe I'll send Colin over there
soon to see what he can do; at least it'll get him and Rummy
apart for a few days (talk about civil war!...whew!).
At home, Karl seems to have everything under control, using
threats and spin and a marvelous bag of nasty tricks - and
a possible October surprise waiting in the wings. The guy's
a genius. The Democrats remain flummoxed, not quite knowing
how to attack us, since Karl's got all the bases covered and
all the potential scandals under control. 9/11 investigations?
Never going to get us. WMDs? We can drag that one out, and
can find a patsy at the CIA or somewhere, if it comes to needing
a scapegoat. Cheney and energy? Enron? Harkin? Halliburton?
Westar? Impeachment? All dead in the water. It's not about
sex, we don't have to worry.
The American people - or at least enough of them - are properly
frightened to accept whatever we say. They understand that
in a war against terrorists, lying is just a natural part
of the game. It's just a few malcontent columnists and those
internet wackos going after us, and we can pretend to not
mind all that - see, we're not fascists, Krugman and the website
writers are still writing uncensored. If, after the election,
those guys get too effective in stirring up opposition, Ashcroft
can always take care of them; and, when Patriot 2 gets passed,
if we don't want them imprisoned here, we can always revoke
their American citizenship and deport them to Estonia or somewhere.
No, we're sitting pretty. We've starved the government for
money to operate social programs and have messed up the liberal
agenda so bad - with more to come after Election Day, goodbye
Medicare and Social Security and Head Start - that even if
the Democrats ever were to come to power again, maybe after
Jeb's presidency, it would take them forever to change what
we've done domestically and out in the world. And we've planted
the seeds of our longterm success with our new appointed judges.
Oh mama, life sure is sweet.
Bernard Weiner, a poet-playwright and former writer/editor
with the San Francisco Chronicle, has authored numerous
"diary" satires, including peeks inside those of Cheney, Rumsfeld,
Powell, Rove and others; for links to those articles, see
The
Crisis Papers, where he is co-editor.
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