Lord knows George W. has made his share of mistakes [and then some]: he has branded regimes as members of an “Axis of Evil” [which is similar to the damaging invective Chavez used in his UN speech, in which he called Bush a sulfur-smelling Devil]; he invaded Iraq when it posed no threat to the US while he diverted resources from Afghanistan [thereby losing two conflicts at once]; he continues to conflate 9/11 with Saddam Hussein; he relies on corporate polluters to make voluntary pro-environmental decisions [that one is a doozy]; he reserves tax reductions only for those who already make more than enough; and he relies on oil exploration to the exclusion of oil conservation [and then accuses us of being “addicted to oil”!!] – the list goes on and on. In fact, it’s difficult to identify one good call Bush has made. Give that man a set of facts and he’ll reach the wrong conclusion. It’s amazing and predictable – there should be some way of betting on it. At least then, we could win our bets, providing some consolation, as the Nation slides deeper down the tube.
Part of the fault [dear Brutus] lies in the advisors Bush selects. Fingers point to Cheney and Rumsfeld often enough as the originators and/or implementers of major pieces of the Bush Mess. These two old pros began their White House careers back in the 1970s with Nixon and Ford. The Cheney-Rumsfeld “cabal” is not new. They were with Nixon when Vietnam was still raging. The idea of “appeasing” that enemy was never considered back then and the idea of “appeasing” the enemy in Iraq doesn’t get much traction with these two today. What a surprise. Another little surprise, highlighted in Bob Woodward’s new book, is the involvement of another “blast from the past” in the Bush Mess. It’s Henry A. Kissinger! One of the architects of Vietnam. He of Cambodian Bombing fame. Supporter of Pinochet and the murderous regimes in South America of that period. His quote on Iraq, taken from the Washington Post, is straight out of the 1970s, “Victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy.” That’s a strategy he followed for years on Vietnam – and you know where that got us. Lord, save us.
On a related aspect of Bush’s reliance on these “oldies but goodies,” Christopher Hitchens, a writer on current events [much more than a pundit] has written wonderfully and extensively on the “crimes” of Henry Kissinger. But Hitchens has also written extensively on the evils of Saddam Hussein and radical Islam. Hitchens was an impressive leftist writer in days gone by. Today he is a Bush supporter. So also today, Hitchens finds himself allied with Kissinger on the problems of Iraq and Islam. Now there is a set of strange bedfellows.