Who's Sorry Now?
It was a pleasant weekend for those of us who have been against the Iraq War from the beginning. The Washington Post had an article on the bitterness and regrets of those in the Bush administration who concocted and ran the war and have now left. Some of them have nightmares. Nothing like the nightmares of the prisoners of Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo or the Black Sites, but hey, a few nightmares are progress. Maybe they will have more, and then they will have mental breakdowns and they can experience electroshock therapy -- that would be a nice payback for them. In the New York Times magazine, there was an article about Kanan Makiya, an exiled Iraqi scholar who was a big cheerleader for the war, and who seems to have given Bush and Cheney a rationale that they could use as a cover for their real motives. At the end of the article, there's an interesting interview with Ali Allawi, who was the Minister of Finance in the Iraqi transitional government in 2005 and into 2006. Allawi was opposed to the war, but went to Iraq to try and put Humpty back together again. He failed. And, of course, there's Blackwater. Whoops. Americans have recently gotten a good look at our very own right wing death squad (paid for by us to the tune of 445,000 per soldier, per year), and we know there are more RWDSs where that one came from. And I loved the headline of David "the Pig" Brooks' op-ed in last week's Times, "The Republican Collapse" -- is there a lovelier phrase? I used to send letters to David Brooks asking when the New York Times was going to fire him. He never responded.
All the same, though, the emerging consensus (another vast rightwing conspiracy to my mind) is that everyone's intentions were good, if not great. Makiya, for example, knew all the horrors that Saddam Hussein had committed against the Iraqis and the Iranians, and just wanted to get him out of there, even if the odds, as he calculated them, against actually establishing a stable government were 20-1. He thought Ahmed Chalabi was going to be the Nelson Mandela of Iraq. And the same for Meghan O' Sullivan, who was about THIRTY when the fates of the Iraqis were put into her hands -- she just wanted to help. As for Karl Rove and that Permanent Republican Majority -- well, he didn't mean to hurt anyone -- really, the one who's been hurt here is Karl himself (also the refrain of Clarence Thomas).
What I see here, especially when you add in the Israelis and the Neocons and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, is a perfect storm of opportunism, opportunism compounded of ignorance, greed, self-regard, power-lust, and sheer shallowness. "Opportunism" is when you use someone else for your own ends, thinking that you will pretend to give the other guy what he wants and in doing so, you will get what you want. I think the World Champion Opportunist Award these days goes to those Israelis who ally themselves with the American Rapture people, knowing full well that in Rapture theology, the wholesale conversion of the Jews is the prerequisite for the Second Coming of Jesus. These Israelis will work with people who anticipate another Holocaust -- who hope for it -- in order to get American money and arms for Israel. That is opportunism taken to a new level -- but not that new.
The Iraqi exiles thought they would use the American government and military to get their country back. The Neocons and Israel thought they would use the Americans to get rid of Saddam and remake the Middle East so that Israel would be more secure. Rove thought he would use "war" to entrench his power base. Cheney thought he would use the exiled Iraqis to get access to Iraqi oil fields and to establish an authoritarian presidency in the US. Bush thought he would use everyone to get a sense that he had both avenged his father and outdone him. Tony Blair thought he would use his alliance with Bush to press some of his own programs, like helping Africa and distinguishing Britain from Europe. Rumsfeld thought he would use the war to remake and outsource the army, thereby enriching his friends. Erik Prince thought he would use the American taxpayers to get rich and also to move toward an American theocracy. The religious right thought they would use the war and consequent "patriotism" issues to consolidate, fleece, and militarize their base. The Free Market theorists thought they would use taxpayer money to experiment with privatizing the Iraqi economy. The result is failure and recrimination, not to mention a refusal by almost every one of these people to take responsibility for what they've done. As they see it these days, bad things in Iraq just happened somehow.
Opportunism often looks good on the surface, but it is based on manipulation rather than relationship, and masks an absolute misunderstanding of human nature. What happened with the Iraq war was no mistake and no accident. It grew out of the failure of conservatives, from the time of Ronald Reagan, at least, to understand and accept the necessity of government in a complex and populous society, and therefore to think about what government could and should do. The more they refused to think about it, the less they knew. Reagan, with his smiling soothing phrases and his tone of benign condescension, served as an appealing front man for what the nasty and unlamented Lee Atwater himself called "ruthless ambitions and moral decay". Reagan Republicans thought of government as a mechanism for increasing their own power and wealth. They never accepted that the US has many different regions, ethnicities, and enclaves, all of which have equal claim to citizenship. From at least the 1960s, the Republican Party has worked actively to pit region against region, class against class, and ethnicity against ethnicity, and to reap profits therefrom. Men like Karl Rove came to think habitually in terms of propaganda, manipulation, and deceit.
These were the people Makiya and Chalabi turned to for help against Saddam. These were people who were so cavalier that they didn't bother to read the reports of their own experts about how difficult the aftermath of the invasion would be. Allawi was smarter, though. He says in the Times, "Ahmad Chalabi, Kanan Makiya, all of these people became media stars, but their influence on decision making was next to nothing. I can't believe that a person like Wolfowitz or Cheney or whoever it was in the neocon cabal would allow themselves to be manipulated... They are far too cynical. They have their own agendas. And these agendas were boosted by Iraqis who seemed to be singing from the same song sheet. The Iraqis gave them credibility, gave them substance. But I don't think they were influenced by them."
Various rightwingers maintain that if the Iraq adventure had worked out, we would all be praising the Bush administration. What they don't understand is that it could not have worked out because of how it was conceived and the shallowness of the motives behind it. This was evident in 2003. In fact, it was evident in 2000. When the vote in Florida turned out to be rigged, or at least suspect, Bush and Cheney did, not what honorable men to, but what opportunists do -- they used intimidation (against the vote counters) and influence (on the Supreme Court, notably with Clarence Thomas) to seize what might or might not have been theirs by right (everyone who has read The Best Election Money Can Buy knows that Jeb and Katherine Harris also set up the Florida vote ahead of time, but I think it was in the counting that the real theft took place). Bush could have exerted himself both publicly and privately to make the vote count as scrupulous as possible. He did not. The apple was offered to him and he bit it. He never understood what elections represent in the US -- not seizure of power but acceptance of responsibility -- and so he has never understood his position or his job. His idea and Cheney's idea was that they were going to use their jobs to get what they could for themselves and their powerbase, just as they used the election controversy to get the job. They have surrounded themselves with people of like mind and those who don't think this way have left or been forced out.
The clusterf**k of opportunism that is the last seven years was bound to end in a cluster of fingerpointing and grievance. People hate feeling used and betrayed, even as they are using and betraying others. Remember when Bush expressed his annoyance at the ingratitude of the Iraqis? And have you noted the resentment of the religious right at being the last to know that nobody in the Bush administration actually cares about their agenda? Were the Republicans grateful to Katherine Harris? Nope -- they let her humiliate herself in front of the whole nation. Those Iraqis -- they sure don't show much loyalty to Blackwater. Even Alan Greenspan has done what he can to divorce himself from the very people he sucked up to five years ago.
Is it possible to have no sense of civic responsibility at all? Yes -- that's what Free Market theory, and the last generation of Republican culture is about. It elevates commerce and deal-making above every other human activity, and therefore glorifies opportunism. A generation of coaching by Free Market gurus has robbed Americans of the means of a decent existence.The reason we can't get out of Iraq is that none of the opportunists dares to admit why he or she wanted to make a war there in the first place, and so we, the American people, don't actually know what the goal was and can't ever judge whether it has been achieved. Though Cheney's goal was to secure the oil, he can't admit that to the Iraqis, who don't want to give up the oil. If the Iraqis' goal was to use our military to fight the battle and then take over themselves, they ceded that goal every time they flattered the Americans. If the Israelis consider their existence to be worth every American sacrifice of money, corruption, and human life, they dare not say so. If the military industrial complex really is happy to profit from death and destruction, do they actually pretend to their children that they are human? A lot of PTSD says they do. I could go on.
In order to gain power, the Republicans long ago (and knowingly, thanks, Mr. Atwater and others) handed the citizenry, and themselves, a bill of goods, a set of philosophical and economic ideas that were bankrupt. The citizenry, suckers that we were, bought it because it appealed to their worst selves. The price we have paid and will continue to pay in Iraq for this bad bargain is a steep one, and could break the bank. But if we don't understand how we got here, we could buy it again, because the politicians and the pundits still have it for sale.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
Opportunism is what your seeing with the Free Trade. They are rushing in to steal all the Natural Rseources of every country they can and soo the citizens of that country will rise up and kick them out. When they realize how little their Government is getting in Royalities for the Resources that are being destroyed.
Like Bolivia took thier Government back from the corruption.
Great article. Reagan found a GREAT WEALTH built into the U.S. System and then transferred all of it he could to the Private Sector.
All those years the people and the businesses had worked to build this great country only to have some "JOHNNY COME LATELY" and greedy control freaks destroyed it all.
Don't forget Hugo Chavez, he took control of oil, for schools, roads, health care, for his people, instead of record oil co profits and obscene bonuses. The have's he displaced are still in control of the media and bad mouth him, forcing him to clamp down on the "Freedom of the Press" What an anti American bad boy dictator!
What a wonderful/
It seems essential for us to separate ourselves from those who have used us and betrayed us for their own goals. Impeachment, in a considered, non-circus manner is the only way to get our country back and notify the world that we repudiate the actions of our government during the past six years.
I have always wondered why so many Americans have praised the reign of Reagan. He wasn't even any good as "the gipper" when he was young and energetic. He STUNK as pres. It's like a warm shower to read obvious truths like those in this piece... I had feared that ALL Americans had lost their minds.
What a weird society you are. You humiliate a great president 'cause he got a blow job, but you don't impeach the current lying, thieving creeps who have wrested power from you nice people. Get the sobs... don't let them get away with it just by losing your next election. Punish them big time, even after they're out of office... if you can. They have so much of YOUR money now, you can probably never touch them again. Bush and his gang of immoral bandits are laughing at you all, and I doubt you can ever touch them... the bastards.
If the readers of this site voted for a Best Post of the Year, this one by Smiley would be a lock for the 2007 short list.
I was especially struck by the passage that discusses "...the failure of conservatives, from the time of Ronald Reagan, at least, to understand and accept the necessity of government in a complex and populous society, and therefore to think about what government could and should do."
The failure was deliberate, more malignant than incompetent.
Just about every sane person agrees with old Tom Paine in his opinion that government is a necessary evil. But it's a matter of emphasis: Liberals dwell on the word "necessary," conservatives can't get past the word "evil."
Very sad but very true Jane. An earlier poster mentioned the media's role- well that's no surprise when you consider who owns the media. You have to really work at getting the truth and it's not easy. The media is busy now force feeding us the top tier candidates.
The middle class is distracted- fighting to survive, keep a job and feed their families.
The quality of life for the middle class has declined rapidly in the Bush adminisration. The middle class is clobbered by higher income and property taxes, skyrocketing health care costs and energy costs - while the rich and the corporation just rake it in. Some Republicans are jumping ship but there is still that almost delusional, authoritarian base thatt still supports Bush. The Elizabeth Hasselbeck's of the world that actually think that Bush has made us safer. I have a neighbor that way- minus the religion but plenty of bigotry. She doesn't even know what a NeoCon is- so talking about PNAC is totally over her head. It is so intriging to me that any middle class person would ever vote Republican. What are the values of the "Values Voters"- greed, corruptions, hypocrisy?
Magnificent. You left out one of the scariest set of opportunists who have profited the most from the Iraq war: Al Qaeda. We know that UBL expected the counterstrike in Afghanistan. That's why he assasinated the leader of the Taliban's natural enemy, the Northern Alliance, on 9/10/01, by having a suicide bomber pose as a TV interviewer. Pretty serious evil genius there. Makes you wonder if he foresaw the invasion of Iraq. It seems to great a gift to Al Qaeda to have fallen in their lap accidentally. Surely he had some plants in the CIA's Middle East branch, aka the Saudi royal intelligence apparatus.
Note too, Al Qaeda's main and public gripe about the West prior to 9/11 was the presence of American bases on Saudi soil (which the opportunist UBL portrayed as abhorrent due to the presence of sacred Mecca, but we know for him it's about the oil and wealth too - after all, he's Saudi royalty too). Note how quickly after 9/11 we "cut and ran" and withdrew our entire military presence in Saudi Arabia. Iraq has been such a gift, that UBL appears essentially to have turned his attention to establishing new bases of operation in the Sudan, where the opportunist janjaweed are his unholy ally, as they hack the citizenry to bits with machetes and throw the villagers' babies into fires after they rape the mothers and little girls.
Another opportunist left our here is the Iranian Shia theocracy, using repressed Iraqi shiites for its own ends, as though they didn't suffer enough from Hussein's massacre after the 1991 uprising, which we failed to support because we are opportunists, and we had already secured Kuwait's oil fields.
You could do an extended analysis of the benefits to Russia (rising) and China in all of this too.
Opportunism employed with astounding levels of mendacity knows no bounds, neither ethnic, national, or religious.
Touché JCP,
Frankly, I have some suspicions that China is quite happy to have the janjaweed clear the land in Sudan so they can continue their oil exploration and extraction.
http://new
Jane thank you for posting . . .this is the best summation of the illegal invasion of Iraq ever. It was most definitely opportunism compounded by greed, irresponsibility and a total lack of any moral or human considerations.
America has a moral responsibility to find ways to help the Iraqi's to rebuild their country and the shattered lives of its citizens and keep its greedy hands off their oil . . .
It is more than time that the US pulled the plug on Israel and big time! Israel is a terrorist country and the real threat to peace in the Middle East.
Right on, Macready!
"What I see here, especially when you add in the Israelis and the Neocons and Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, is a perfect storm of opportunism, opportunism compounded of ignorance, greed, self-regard, power-lust, and sheer shallowness. "Opportunism" is when you use someone else for your own ends, thinking that you will pretend to give the other guy what he wants and in doing so, you will get what you want. I think the World Champion Opportunist Award these days goes to those Israelis who ally themselves with the American Rapture people, knowing full well that in Rapture theology, the wholesale conversion of the Jews is the prerequisite for the Second Coming of Jesus. These Israelis will work with people who anticipate another Holocaust -- who hope for it -- in order to get American money and arms for Israel. That is opportunism taken to a new level -- but not that new."
What is taken to a new level is Smiley's ignorance and bigotry. The Israelis had NOTHING to do with Bush's fiasco. The Israeli intelligence establishment told him that Iraq was contained and that Iran was a bigger problem, and the Mossad itself refused to support the conclusion that Iraq had WMD. (AFTER giving Bush this view clearly, Sharon feared retaliation and set up a few clowns in his own office to liase with Bush staff & tell them what they wanted to hear. But then the Israelis aren't the only ones Bush bullied.)
As for evangelicals, they've hardly called for a second Holocaust. In fact, I think the ones who salivate for a second Holocaust are the anti-Semites (like Smiley) who abound on the left.
I am so SICK of fanatical Israel advocates jumping in at the first hint that someone doesn't slather at their agenda I could just -- well, actually, nothing. Time to just calm down and watch the passing parade.
screenname's conclusions that Jane is bigoted, ignorant and anti-Semetic are not warranted. It is too late for the Israeli intelligence establishment to claim it warned Bush off of Iraq now when there was none of it in the press then. Show us a link O Wise One or we can only assume this is another prevarication. http://www
The right wing, as Jane rightly points out has no credibility at the moment. The tactic of smearing the messenger as he does here is, like the poisonous fruit, indicative of the tree from whence it cometh.
Evangelicals not calling for a second Holocaust is dissembling too. Those of us who have seen the blogger-jo
Actions speak louder then words. What Ms. Smiley refers to here are actions Israel set in place, nothing more. The policies they have sorscribed to, and the people it has supported. The conclusions that arise to judgement are anyone's to surmise, but just because Ms. Smiley states them does by no means make her an anti-semit
Come on, people, get real. Ms Smiley does not have an agenda here, except to want to lay out the facts for what they are and what they have amounted to... Pretty damn accurate, successful and effective, if ya ask me.
Damn good post, Ms. Smiley. Thank you.
Why is anyone who criticizes Israel automatically an anti-Semite? That you see Ms. Smiley's comments about the Israeli government, which has in fact been exercising its own agenda in manipulating policies in the Middle East for decades and everyone knows it, as bigoted, clearly demonstrates a lack of objectivity in your reading of her assessment. Further, you contradict yourself by stating at once that Israel had NOTHING to do with the Iraq war and then stating that Sharon had his government "tell Bush what he wanted to hear." This only reinforces the argument that Israel was indeed using Bush, as Smiley asserts, in order to protect its own interests.
Compassion,
Everybody in the Middle East has sought to protect their own interests:
Treacherous Alliance:
The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States
http://www
So our good friends, the Israelis saw the disaster Bush was walking into and kept their mouths shut because, what - they didn't want to jeopardize the Iranian solution? Will they (and you) wash their hands of that disaster too?
As for your friends the evangelicals, you might want to look into the fate of the Jews in the Right Religious Rapture. Whole lotta holocaust.
Call me an anti-Semite if you want. What other defense could you possibly conjure for the savage opportunism Smiley describes?
ascreenname: Sounds like you are inwittingly confirming Ms. Smiley's argument. Yes, the Israelis always saw Iran as the much bigger threat and believed Saddam contained. So why did they support Bush? You guessed it: oppportunism, as defined above.
But then again, you have already disqualified yourself with you unsubstantiated claim that Ms. Smiley is an anti-Semite (didn't take you long to pull out that one) and wants a second Holocaust.
Bye Bye.
Wow. I read Ordinary Love and Moo and a few short political pieces, here I think, but those didn't prepare me for this. I think that's one of the best brief indictments of the administration I've read.
It's the tone, IMO, that's about right. By making various realpolitik assumptions about criminal/legal issues, the article is able to focus on the big picture ethics of the last couple years. The changes brought about by the adminstrat
This needs to be preserved. It leaves the 'opposition' party conspicuously off the hook, but nevertheless, this blade needs to be preserved.
Because I am not optimistic, I think space is probably the way to go. Put it in a capsule. Send it around the sun once or twice, by the scenic route.
By the time it finally comes back around, they'll say, 'some anyway, had their eyes open and told what they saw'.
I couldn't hold my breath that long if I bothered to try.
Opportunism means using a situation primarily as an opportunity to advance your own ambitions. Its a form of exploitation. Its what corporations do by law.
As one of the worthiest living novelists Smiley must be extraordinarily sensitive to the nuances of words. I found this essay a little confusing because she didn't reinforce the root meaning of opportunistic (the root being opportunity) exploitation as opposed to, say, sadistic exploitation.
Yet its absolutely true that opportunism is the giant spiked wheel upon which the neocon engine rolls over the world.
(was that metaphor insensitivity?)
WHAT is wrong with us? Why do we worry about being impolite towards world class criminals?
They deserve nothing but contempt, a short knock, a quick take down, and a fast trial.
Oh...these are our neighbors! I am sorry, but fascists are undifferentiated. They subvert democracy and piss on the Constituti
The Quisling bushists count on lawful people doing NOTHING.
We must disabuse them of that notion.
Action must be co-ordinated. Action must be deliberative. Action has to be acted upon, NOW.
We are either slaves to the corporate masters, or we decide how to contend with the criminals in the White House.
American patriots have deferred responsibility for too long, and culprits have entered the void.
My charge is not a warning...
I gave warning in 2000, and ever since.
The criminals now have power. They will not go quietly. Civic minded individuals will have to kill some of the dead-enders. This is inescapable. The bushists are fanatics. They would rather have the entire country be destroyed in a conflagration than admit a mistake. They are sociopaths.
A few "clarifications" are in order, I think...
(1) It isn't just the Republicans; isn't just the Democrats. Isn't just the President; and so on.
(2) "Ike" Eisenhower warned us explicitly about this in 1961. As a man who earned his way to five (count 'em, five) stars THEN became President, he Knew. He was a highly-qualified expert when he warned us.
(3) Multiple crimes have been committed: high crimes. The Constitution gives the power of impeachment against "any civil officer," and I don't think that this LAW ENFORCEMENT duty is "a prerogativ
Now that we understand the problem... we do NOT have to live with it. Rather, we must expunge this lawlessness from our midst. "It has nothing to do with politics now." It's simply law-enforcement.
Wellsaid and necessary-for our own preservation as a democracy-as opposed to corporate fascism.
Without a media to actually report things (like facts and the truth) other than what Drudge and GOP blastfaxes and pundits say, most if not all of this wouldn't have happened. They still don't bother, and just as Dubya makes Nixon look like a lightweight, they ensure the next GOP administration will be even worse--and we can't afford worse.
This nightmare has been going on since December 11, 2000.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
