...The administration has no strategy for Iraq or for the coerced American Army plodding endlessly across the desert. Rep. Tauscher wonders when the House Armed Services Committee, along with the rest of Congress, will learn anything from the Bush administration that might be considered factual: "They are never persuaded by the facts. Nobody can tell you what their plan is, and they don't feel the need to have one."
Rep. Tauscher is quite right. But then, many of us have been saying the exact same thing since day one, when congress authorized Maximum Leader's excellent adventure on October 2, 2002. Saner voices screamed "rush to judgment" and "show me the facts" -- and we knew, we inherently knew, that the Nazi-style rhetoric in the rush to war didn't match the dog-and-pony show.
Nearly two and one half years since a cowed congress lit votive candles at the altar of the Cult of Bush,
Since the moment the sabers started a public rattling against Saddam, a few Generals have been brave enough to point to the fact that not only does the emperor have no clothes, but his coterie are dancing around fairly naked themselves. It's depressing to note that those few who have been possessed by the audacity to question the wisdom and staffing levels of the preemptive invasion of a previously sovereign nation no longer occupy their positions of influence. But then, Führerprinzip allows for no dissent. Bush's own loosely organized (but highly effective) Sturmabteilung makes sure the sheep remain in a relatively straight line.
The saner voices that can grab media attention and a microphone (or a column-inch worth of ink on page A-23) are still marginalized, despite clear evidence that the U.S. military is becoming broken beyond any short term repair. Yet even this morning, the propaganda blustering continues: "...shifting troops to a training mission", "...Iraqi self determination", "...Iraqi army responsible for security". While it can be agreed that all of these are noble goals which need to be achieved, none are going to happen in the near future. And it's way past time for BushCo to be upfront about the challenges which lay ahead.
Here's what I see happening: BushCo has woven a web of lies that are spinning in a tighter and tighter circle. The dynamics of lying are thus - to continue an illusion, a little lie must be supported by increasingly larger (and more shrill) lies, and finally (in most cases) the entire web of lies crashes like a pyramid scheme under its own weight. Any eight year old child can attest to this inherent dynamic of lies and deceit. Perhaps BushCo is starting to become concerned, because the date that the lies compress to a critical mass is fast approaching.
While January 30th certainly doesn't represent a line of demarcation (in that I don't expect the BuchCo Lie-bomb to go "prompt critical"), the concentration of lies, particularly on impact to the readiness of U.S. armed forces, will have wound tightly to the inelastic center. There's not much room left for "give" or compression.
On this Holocaust Memorial Day 2005, it's a good time to reflect on the causes of and precursors to an event that is universally acknowledged as not only a failure of the people of a single country, but of mankind as a whole.
The systematic extermination of 6 million souls, and the loss of millions of more lives in the military folly of a madman, began with small lies that seduced a nation with jingoistic superiority.
