President Bush decided we’re going to surge 20,000 more troops into the abyss of Iraq and one can’t think he’s doing anything more than tossing more bodies into the volcano.

Casting Caskets


In Theater of Blood, author Gary Kamiya explains Bush’s tragic need to be right in his revenge:

The story of how the Bush administration used that
primordial rage to build a Rube Goldberg-like bridge all the way to
Baghdad is an age-old tale of wartime hysteria, racism and ignorance.
Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, but it was part of the Arab/Muslim
world, and in conditions of hysteria it becomes possible to sell people
on grand clash-of-civilization theories.

After 9/11, the neocons in the
Bush administration insisted that the Arab/Muslim world had become an
incubator of terrorism and violent religious extremism, and we needed
to punish it. Traumatized and enraged by the terrorist attacks, and
ignorant of Middle Eastern history and politics, Congress and most of
the media went along. And most of the American people, looking for an
enemy to blame, went along.

Casting Caskets

Kamiya continues:

Just how potent the forces of vengeance and resentment are
can be gauged by the wild popularity of right-wing figures like Rush
Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly and Michael Savage. These
resentful demagogues — who sounded like Conrad’s demented Kurtz,
hysterically calling for Bush to take the gloves off and exterminate
the brutes — gave voice to the inchoate passions of millions of
Americans, who correctly perceived that the Bush administration, for
all its fancy talk, was really bent on good old all-American revenge.
Once unleashed, the desire to take vengeance is very hard to stop.

The
violent self-righteousness of war supporters like Andrew Sullivan, who
accused opponents of making up a coastal Fifth Column, stemmed from
their certainty that revenge was not just morally justified, but
necessary. America was finally unshackled, its noble and “authentic”
fury unleashed; anyone who got in the way was a combination of Neville
Chamberlain and Tokyo Rose.

We remain ensnared in an infinite bloodthirsty space — never-ending — never moving.
We are in perpetual Check without a Mate in sight.
We are caught in a Mobius strip existence.
Even the war dead are spinning in their graves.

Casting Caskets

32 Comments

  1. David- Have you read Michael Moores take on the latest “speech?” http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?id=204
    Bush’s stance is older than the age of the earth according to fundamentalists. 1. Provoke a supposed attack, 2. say you’re fighting for “God,” 3. Punish anyone who doesn’t go along, and 4. Call them un-patriotic. This tactic has never failed so far. $ 20,000 spent by the government for each U.S.houshold and instead of giving the needy food, clothing and shelter and cleaning up the environment, we get this. i posted some things along this line at the end of yesterdays posts. If we are “leaders” we should lead the race to disarm and save the world $1,000,000,000,000 every year in war, and $5,000,000,000 promoting peace by the U.N. Two sides against the middle for a change. Thanks.

  2. There is one small part of me that hopes this might just solve the problem, end the war, end the whole difficult situation – then the other 99% of me says that this whole excercise is doomed to failure and that he is doing the military equivalent of “throwing good money after bad” and that it is a lost cause and a total waste of a generation, money and opportunity.

  4. Hi Nicola!
    I think he’s just playing for time. Two years is nothing in the scope of life. He wants to perpetuate the war so he won’t have to withdraw on his watch. Then he can blame the new Democrat president for losing the war in Iraq.
    Gail Sheehy wrote in VANITY FAIR that Bush, throughout his life, always changed the rules of the game so he could win. If you were playing to 11 and he was behind, you’d play to 15 or whatever number he wanted to wear you down and call himself the victor. That’s the mentality we’re dealing with here — it’s the classic alcoholic personality in action.

  5. Nasty piece of work all around ………..
    We shouldnt really let anyone who exhibits those qualities become President in the first place.
    Maybe we need a new tests for Presidents and Prome Ministers ?

  6. I agree, Nicola!
    In this Christian Nation, however, there’s nothing better than a Salvation and a turnaround from drugs and drinking to the Straight Life.
    If you play it right, you can swing votes in your favor by appearing to be “Healed by God” even if you are not.
    It was the Evangelical Christian vote that elected Bush both times.

  8. Now you see this is where I have my fundamental disagreement with organised and politicised religion.
    We are told to live by the 10 commandments –
    6. Thou shalt not kill ……….
    10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.

  14. I LOVE IT, NICOLA!
    That’s the proper role for the Arts and the Media: Question authority and put the hard questions out for the public to answer!
    I hope people pay attention to the results and they do Bush and Cheney next!

  15. You may be able to watch it over the internet – some of their programmes you can – if you have the right equipment.

  19. OK – I think we have the technology to record it and put it on DVD – that means we should theoretically have the technology to file share it in some way – it will be a horrendously large file though .
    Will see what I can arrange ……… I need to ask a man who knows about the strange silver boxes in the corner and what they can do!

  23. I think the bird knows how to make a DVD from the saved program on the TV – think ot might be easiest option.

  25. Hi David,
    I’m not sure what to think anymore.
    I don’t think we’re going to do what needs to be done — if we ever did — to get the war done the right way once it was started. There isn’t a political will to make the hard choices to prosecute the war to win — a requirement once any war is started.
    What is the best solution to solving the situation?
    If we bail out and say “bye bye suckers” the second Iran-Iraq war will immediately begin in the form of a Sunni/Saudi Arabia vs. Shia/Iran type of conflict. Throw into the mix a possible Israeli attack against Iran at some point in the future — there have already been denied threats of dropping some low-yield nukes on Iran’s nuclear labs. Not a good situation considering that a disruption to the oil supply or nuclear warfare in the Middle East is sure to disrupt the world’s markets and cause a global depression.
    If we stay, some troops will continue to die.
    Of course, if we leave, maybe someone will take charge and knock out the bad actors because nobody will care as long as the U.S. isn’t winning. The Ethiopians seemed to do a good job taking care of the Somalian problem recently.

    Staff of the Ethiopian embassy in Kenya and Ethiopians living in Nairobi expressed happiness over the victory achieved by the Ethiopian government over the terrorist group in Somalia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

    Source: All Africa.
    I wonder if we could find a similar proxy to do the things in Iraq that we didn’t have the political will to do. Will a country in the Middle step up and take care of the problem in the backyard if we declare victory and helicopter away from the roof of the American Embassy in Baghdad?

  26. Hi Chris —
    As long as we are in the Middle East we are the targets for blame and terrorism.

    If we bail out and say “bye bye suckers” the second Iran-Iraq war will immediately begin in the form of a Sunni/Saudi Arabia vs. Shia/Iran type of conflict.

    That’s already happening with the US troops in the middle of it. If they want to kill each other, then so be it. We tried. We couldn’t win the peace. Let them fight their own war.
    We’ll surge, the bad guys will sit on their ammo, and when we’re out, they’ll start shooting each other again. Enough!

  27. Hi David,
    We need to figure out how to get away from oil so we don’t have to fool around (and finance all the craziness that goes on) in the Middle East to keep the SUVs filled.
    I saw we should go back to nuclear power. It’s good enough for everywhere else in the world, why not here? Nuclear power and teleconferencing — instead of driving everyplace — could be the solution to our oil problems.
    And, what ever happened to all of the hybrids we all were supposed to be driving? They all seem to weak and too expensive and for the small fuel savings they get. We need a car that gets 100 MPG, instead of the 30 MPG to 40 MPG current hybrids get. My regular Kentucky-made Toyota Camry gets 33 MPG on the highway. The hybrid only gets 38 MPG, per the U.S. government. See previous link. The hybrid Lexis gets 28MPG on the highway. My big V8 Canadian-made Mercury Grand Marquis used to routinely get around 30 MPG using cruise control and traveling at a steady 55 MPH, according to its computer. I don’t think we’re really serious about making alternative-fuel vehicles.
    If we didn’t have to rely on the Middle East for oil, it’d probably get as much attention from us as we gave “Africa’s World War.”

    The widest interstate war in modern African history, it directly involved nine African nations, as well as about 20 armed groups, and earned the epithet of “Africa’s World War” and the “Great War of Africa.”

    I think the media missed this one because I don’t remember hearing anything about it. Must not have been any oil in that region.

  29. Hi Chris!
    Yes, you were Akismetted!
    I agree we need to run from foreign oil. We need to use the sun, wind, water and ethanol to power all our needs. Nuclear power is also a necessity.
    There’s big money in black gold, though, and all the powerful US families are generationally in bed with the oil-rich nations. It’s going to take a catastrophe of an incredible magnitude to wean those lips from those teats.

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