Why George W. Bush Made Me Sick Yesterday

If I wanted to write a longer title, it would be Why Bush Made Me Sick Yesterday and Why I Hope I Never Have To Apply A Double Standard to Barack.

Bush was on the tube talking at some military installation. Behind him sat the cream of America, as the politicians say, callow faced, largely expressionless youth, few of whom seemed to me to change their look as Bush called a roll of evident militaristic applause lines.

He kept at it.

Whenever he said something particularly ugly and militaristic, there emerged from the crowd in front of him a high-volume animalistic response, as though our country was built on the veneration of blood lust and attack. (Wistful chuckle.)

It was nauseating.

Today's New York Times calls the response of the soldiers at Fort Campbell thunderous applause.

I call it mindless, guttural, barbaric roaring and keening -- the sort of thing we associate with visceral athletic events.

After 9/11, which happened a few miles from where I live, I wrote something called Amnesia. It was my refusal to believe Bush had done what he did following 9/11. In Amnesia, Bush acted as any reasonable person should have. He took a step back and figured out what a decent and honorable response would have been.

Like sending some Sherlock Holmes into the mountains to find out where the hell Osama was, instead of beginning the ramp-up to Iraq. And setting the stage for a huge denouement of the very worst angels of our complex spectrum nature.

If anything, Bush, on the way out, is trying to salvage a few points for his actual, mindless, knee jerk response to 9/11. He has dressed it up in the simple, powerful idea that democracy is a value worth spreading around the globe.

But:

For George Bush, democracy is bulling through a Florida decision which makes his government only borderline legitimate from the gitgo. It is forcing "change" with soldiers rather than friendly persuasion. It is pandering.

It is the worst sort of ego-bolstering, appropriate to totalitarian logic.

And:

For George Bush the issue was never democracy, though he managed to doublespeak it in a way that elicits guttural cheers, even with his 20 percent popularity rating. The issue has always been America the Powerful, wrapped up in the language of the value of democracy. A sheer and palpable hypocrisy he himself believes. This belief enables him to sleep at night. And to dream that one day people will see him as a great man.

CUT TO BARACK.

Will I eventually be watching Barack making the same mistake?

He has said what he will do. To "keep us safe", we must ensure that Afghanistan is not retaken by the terrorists.

Here are some things that might suggest Barack is not going down the road of George Bush. And that he will not sicken me with Bush-like patriot gore material.

1. He will have Hillary and others work to ensure that we are not more than one third of any force in Afghanistan going forward. We are currently almost half the total, so adding forces would amount to maintaining a "unilateral" interest.

The United States has about 32,000 troops in Afghanistan. Approximately 13,000 of them are in the NATO-led force of more than 50,000 troops. SOURCE

2. He will deal directly with the Taliban. This incidentally would be about his only way to get to Bin Laden. The Taliban are priest-motivated juvenile delinquents moving toward Hells Angel's venerability. They implement nasty things that penalize women and girls just for being. They are not poplular with the Afghans. Bin Laden for some form of amnesty, versus a take out effort by a resolute and unified force.

See the Agonist's thoughtful analysis of talking to the Taliban. SOURCE

3. He will present this to us not as anything other than a very messy solution to a very messy problem, venerating our services but never once trespassing into the pandering, guttural zone of George W. Bush.

I am a Barackophile who will go to the mat with many of the radical intelligentsia who pick at him daily and believe they have the right to organize him.

Afghanistan is the stickiest thing Barack faces, worse even than the economy. The nation happens to care about ten times more about the economy. Which means that this is the best time of all to think moderation and tamp down patriotic nonsense.

I hope I never have to witness the stony, somnambulant faces behind Barack as he tries to ramp up applause among military recruits who are part of the ignorant armies of Matthew Arnold's prophetic damningly prophetic Dover Beach:

... the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

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Comments

[Lucious]

I share some agreement here with only a couple of exceptions. Your observation of the "gutteral, barbaric, mindless keaning" but your tone was a bit too derogatory, but then if you have never been in the military your perception is understandable. Soldiers, during shrub's administration, are both hero and victim. The gutteral noises that sickened you are an historic characteristic reflex of warriors. It's preparatory behavior of the warrior psyche that must bond to go out and kill other humans. Native Americans would paint the face to become warrior. And coincidentally the most often "gutteral" noise issued by soldiers is the extended expression "Hoo-Ah", which the white man adopted from the Seminoles of Florida.

My only other exception is with your expressed purpose of W's motivation being something about an "all powerful America" wrapped up in spreading democracy. I could not disagree more. I've been studying this guy since 1999 and my extensive shrub library tells me something more sinister. I think George is the most easily observed and transparent member of a class of American citizens who believe they rule. The richest top 1% of the top 1%. I think George is an embarrassment for these people because he is emotionally arrested at psychological age of seven, but they haven't hesitated to use him to further their agenda. Oil rules.

[Stephen C. Rose - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks very much for this illuminating response. No, I have never been within miles of the military milieu though I have been in harm's way and generally not known it. That was during the civil rights days and before. I do understand though that the prep for a bonding and killing mission would require something like the things we see stereotyped in films. Semper fi and all that. I confess that I am repelled by this to the point that I even think the book of Esther should be seen as a brief for slaughter, not as an exemplary text regarding a heroine. Oddly, I am not a total pacifist because I think it is unnatural not to admit to the same impulses that are part of us all. I think the only way to end war is one by one rejection of the exercise in the context of a cultural revulsion toward violence. I am not holding my breath.

Whatever it is that motivates Shrub it most certainly is not a valuing of democracy in itself.

Thanks again, S

[cclowe]

Barack Obama committed himself pretty strongly and IMO wrongheadedly to escalating U.S. involvement in Afghanistan (along with unsustainable other expansions of military spending) during his campaign. It is unrealistic in the extreme to think that he can get NATO allies never mind anyone else to expand *their* involvement even more dramatically, which is what would be required to achieve your 1/3 maximum U.S. proportion of "any force" under the conditions Senator Obama called for in the campaign. How exactly is Hillary Clinton or anyone else going to "ensure" that others not only match but raise U.S. force expansion? Not going to happen.

[SirReal1]

As a recent military retiree (2003) who served in what might arguably be called "the greatest military force ever seen on this planet", I am utterly ashamed, dumbfounded, and appalled at what "W" has done to my former comrades and the institution I loved and served for 20 years.

For all his mistakes, Reagan pushed through a modernization of the force that was precisely targeted to provide the best tools available for a President who knew how to use them. Many on the right will debate me, but having lived through it I feel I can reasonably state that Clinton then instituted a "fine tuning" while at the same time making optimal use of these tools by keeping us OUT OF A MAJOR CONFLICT for 8 years, while still providing for America's security.

America's Army, under these two Presidents, became capable of virtually any mission. We could perform precision strikes with near surgical skill, as well as be the "blunt instrument" that could bludgeon an enemy force with the kind of "shock and awe" that enticed the NeoCon's to the point of distraction. We could be a force for peace, by insuring stability to entire regions through "police actions" or we could wreak havoc and chaos on any force that sought to stand against us.

[Sumocat]

The post-election rhetoric from Obama has really impressed me. The focus of his message has shifted from hope and change to responsibility. Rather than going into the White House saying "that's not my problem", his approach has been "it's my problem now". Quite refreshing.

[eden4barack08]

How 'bout that ey?

[tcagle]

Going into Afghanistan was a fool's errand. I hope Team Obama realizes this earlier rather than later.

[Sumocat]

Whether it was a fool's errand is irrelevant at this point. The problem now is how to get out, and I think the three points laid out here are critical elements to ending the conflict responsibly.