Creative Destruction: Welcome to George W. Bush's moral gutter

[babylonsister]

Creative Destruction: Welcome to George W. Bush's moral gutter
by Robert C. Koehler | Aug 16 2007 -



Heckuva job, fellas!

The monster called Iraq that the Bush administration has bequeathed humanity was created with a breath-sucking mix of high-tech ruthlessness, messianic ideology and sheer, FEMA-quality incompetence -- and, it turns out, a little help from the Italian Mafia.

I hope what has happened these last four years -- this abominable exercise in what neocon theorist Michael Ledeen called "creative destruction," back in those heady days immediately after 9/11 when most of the American public was intoxicated with vengeance and nationalism -- is a lesson we don't forget. That's our only hope: that we smell the racism and self-interest the next time a demagogue pushes war, and that we remember not just the horrors of this one but the irony. The Bush administration's "war on terror" is a terrorist's best friend.

Consider the boondoggle of the 190,000 missing weapons -- rifles, pistols, machineguns, grenade launchers. They're not really missing, of course. They're all over the Middle East, in the hands of religious fanatics and run-of-the-mill criminals; and, of course, they're mostly still in Iraq, where U.S.-distributed weapons guarantee that anyone with a grievance, including a grievance against American troops, can add bodies to the carnage. Our timetable for bringing democracy to Iraq may be lagging, but Ledeen's "creative destruction" is in full flower.

As I write, the day's headlines splash more blood on our consciences: "Four truck bombs exploded in two Iraqi villages in a Kurdish-speaking area near the Syrian border on Tuesday," according to the Aug. 15 New York Times. "At least 200 people had been killed. . . . (An) Iraqi officer described the scene as apocalyptic: 'It looks like a nuclear bomb hit the villages,' he said."

We struggle to extricate ourselves from this mess -- that is to say, from awareness of and responsibility for the consequences of our pre-emptive war. We retreat back to the cliches that intoxicated us in the first place. "The reality is that you do not achieve peace through weakness and appeasement," says Rudy Giuliani, the "mayor of 9/11." Behold, the dead horse rises as he beats it! There are still listeners. There is still media coverage.

Weakness and appeasement, Rudy? Rhetoric aside, that's the essence of the Bush administration's game plan. Every "High Noon" move it has made, every act of faith-based violence, has made us weaker. For instance, we've bestowed arms on Iraq as though they were Bibles: something good for the Iraqi people in and of themselves.

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http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/9381

[Joanne98]

1. Excellent! K&R!

[zehnkatzen]

2. k/r. N/T.