|
Winning the Hearts and Minds of Americans: The Battle for Democracy in Our Homeland, Part VI
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
Sixth in a Series of BuzzFlash Editorials
Iraq, For All Practical Purposes, Will Become America's 51st State. In More Ways Than One.
It's hard to separate fact from propaganda about how our forces are faring in Iraq.
But it's pretty clear that the Bush Cartel ramped up both the speed of the attack and the intensity of "victorious" public relations coming out of its propaganda headquarters in Qatar.
One thing is sure, however: Iraq is far, far from conquered.
Nonetheless,
the Observer (London) is reporting that "the US is
ready to install the first leg of an interim government for the new Iraq
as early as Tuesday, even while fighting still rages in Baghdad."
(See: http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,930794,00.html)
Why would the Bush Cartel declare an "interim government" when the war is far from over?
First of all, it's a classic Karl Rove tactic. When questions are being
raised about the capabilities or veracity of the Bush Cartel, shift the
attention of the public to something that either scares them half to
death or is so upbeat that it drowns out any criticisms.
(Just call it the manic/depressive Grand Hypocrisy Party propaganda strategy.)
Not that anyone is rooting for Saddam Hussein, but a lot of generals and former CIA intelligence officers were calling into question the military strategy of Bush and Rumsfeld. It was a war plan put together by people with no combat experience, including the cowardly chickenhawks Bush and Cheney, who believed that they knew better how to run a war than the actual generals with battlefield experience. It was the ultimate Neo-Con hubris.
The second reason for the premature creation of a U.S. run administration in Iraq can be found in what happened in Florida while Al Gore was disputing an election that he won nationally by more than 540,000 votes.
It started when Gore's lawyers first challenged the vote and asked that Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris refrain from certifying any results until the vote challenges were resolved. A colorful lobbyist for the Jeb Bush corporate cronies, Mac Stipanovich, was called in to be Katherine Harris's "handler." The Bush Cartel was worried that the ditzy Harris might actually follow established legal procedure and thus hold up George W's ascent to the White House. In short, she might not keep advancing the football down the field. (If the Bush Cartel doesn't convert on a fourth down, it still holds on to the ball anyway. The Bush Cartel doesn't believe in playing by the rules. But it doesn't really matter, because, as the Supreme Court evidenced in 2000, the Bush Cartel owns the referees anyway. So they don't have to steal a fifth down, the referees (judges) will just give it to them.)
"You have to bring this election in for a landing," Stipanovich told Harris, according to Jeffrey Toobin's book on the Florida recount, "Too Close to Call." No legal niceties -- such as one-person, one-vote -- would get in the way of George W. Bush taking over the White House. Just "bring this election in for a landing."
Move the ball down the field, own the referees, and declare victory -- that's the Bush modus operandi.
And so the Bush Cartel, with the Iraq War far from over, is bringing the "war in for a landing." As in Florida, when Bush met with his "transition staff" and dropped names of potential cabinet appointees while the election was still being contested, the Bush Cartel is now going to "assume governmental" control of Iraq. Just replace Al Gore with the U.N. here. This action will pre-empt U.N. involvement in a "transitional government" by creating "a fact on the ground."
One thing that you can say for the Bush Cartel, they don't vary from their standard "playbook."
So now, as in Florida, declare that you are the government and just keep barreling down the field. All those U.N. wimps can just slobber as the big boys from Texas show them how to run a country.
And don't expect the Democrats to mount any criticisms of tactics or strategy. Once again, all of us think Saddam is a bad man, but there are still an abundance of questions to be raised about how this war was sold to the American public and how it was conducted.
In the insightful book ("Bush's Brain") that explores the Machiavellian thinking of the most powerful man in America, Karl Rove, the authors quote an unnamed Washington insider:
"It is almost eerie, what Rove has done," one Washington consultant said. "He dismantled the Democrats so effectively that they just stood there, dumbstruck. He silenced their opposition with intimidation, picked apart institutions, just basically destroyed dissent, and he wrapped all of that in patriotic hues."
Rove's strategy of government by deceit is predicated, as "Bush's Brain" points out, on the timidity and passivity of the Democratic Party leadership.
Rove "has created a politics of pretense. Neither Rove nor the Bush administration give the electorate credit for being sophisticated enough to call them to account. If they were concerned about being caught, Rove would reduce the president's exposure to claims of hypocrisy and broken campaign pledges."
In short, if Bush's credibility became an issue, his entire administration would be on life support. But the Democrats are entirely ill-equipped to call into question Bush's veracity, even though the administration's lies are so overt you could pick them from a tree and eat them for lunch. Sometimes, the Bush Cartel lies so brazenly and so recklessly, it almost makes you think that they are just taunting and humiliating the Democratic Congressional leadership for fun.
The Tom Daschles, Joe Bidens, Dick Gephardts and Joe Liebermans of the world represent the failed Democratic leadership of mildly dissenting advisers in a royal court. They may, at times, disagree with the policy of the God King, but they never challenge his legitimacy or accuse him of lying. They enable the big lie day after day.
To restore democracy in America -- and win the hearts and minds of Americans -- the Democrats are going to have to start doing what Karl Rove has successfully bet that they don't have the guts to do.
If they don't expose Bush's fundamental and chronic lying and hypocrisy, the Democrats will not return to govern this country, at any level, for years to come.
The Bush Cartel, as early as Tuesday, may establish a provisional American government in a foreign country. They, no doubt, will eventually install a "strong man" dictator to run the country, while creating the public relations appearance of a "democracy." An actual democracy would be much too risky for the Bush crowd.
Iraq, for all practical purposes, will become America's 51st state. In more ways than one.
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
* * *
Also see:
Winning
the Hearts and Minds of Americans: The Battle for Democracy in Our
Homeland, Part I: The "Infallibility" of America's God
King
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/03/31.html
Part
II: The Democratic Leadership Doesn't Even Have a Clue
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/04/01.html
Part
III: These Men Died in Vietnam While George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
Avoided Combat Like Cowards
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/04/02.html
Part
IV: John Kerry, Don't Apologize For Telling The Truth: The Future
Of Democracy Depends Upon Exposing The Chronic Lies And Deceptions
Of The Bush Cartel
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/04/04.html
Part
V: OPTION 3c
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/04/06.html
* * *
The
Perfect War
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/03/27.html
We
are in a Nation Ruled by Madmen Who Will Bury the U.N.
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/03/21.html
Endgame
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/03/17.html
The
U.N. "Win-Win" for
the Bush Cartel: Security Council Supports Iraq War Or U.N. Disbands
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/03/04.html
George
W. Bush Can't Tell the Difference Between a Democracy And a Puppet
Government
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/03/03.html
There
Tom Daschle Goes Again
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/02/06.html
In
Just Two Weeks, Rumsfeld Insults, Disparages and Demeans Veterans,
the French, the Germans and the Joint Chiefs of Staff: The Ship of
Fools
is Running Our Ship of State
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/01/27.html
Welcome
to the Muscle Beach Party
http://www.buzzflash.com/editorial/03/01/23.html
