Just keep on the firing line
If you win the battle you must surely fight
So keep on the firing line
- Sara Carter, "Keep on the Firing Line" (pronounced like "foreign line")
Neil has been posting about President Bush's Veterans Day speech in which he attempted to further polarize the country over the Iraq War: President Commemorates Veterans Day, Discusses War on Terror White House Web site 11/11/05.
Referring to himself in the third person as "the Commander-in-Chief", Bush rattled off a couple of statistics about how much his administration is spending on veterans services. He assured us of his support for the urgent national security priority of "a constitutional amendment to ban flag desecration."
And he cast his grand Mesopotamian crusade in Iraq as a spectacular battle against Evil:
Some might be tempted to dismiss these goals [of The Terrorists] as fanatical or extreme. They are fanatical and extreme - but they should not be dismissed. Our enemy is utterly committed. As Zarqawi has vowed, "We will either achieve victory over the human race or we will pass to the eternal life." (Applause.)
The applause is indicated on the White House transcript. I wonder what the crowd thought he was saying when he quoted the alleged leader of "Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia" (which name may be an invention of Pentagon propagandists) saying, ""We will either achieve victory over the human race or we will pass to the eternal life." Odd that.
And the civilized world knows very well that other fanatics in history, from Hitler to Stalin to Pol Pot, consumed whole nations in war and genocide before leaving the stage of history. Evil men, obsessed with ambition and unburdened by conscience, must be taken very seriously - and we must stop them before their crimes can multiply.
So, of course, those who dare to criticize Bush the Magnificent, Liberator of Peoples and Hooder of the Unrighteous, are agents of Evil.
Bush was playing to his hardcore base, of course. And he as explicitly as ever packaged the threat from The Terrorists and equivalent to the Cold War against the Communists:
The murderous ideology of the Islamic radicals is the great challenge of our new century. Yet in many ways, this fight resembles the struggle against communism in the last century. Like the ideology of communism, Islamic radicalism is elitist, led by a self-appointed vanguard that presumes to speak for the Muslim masses. Bin Laden says his own role is to tell Muslims, "what is good for them and what is not." And what this man who grew up in wealth and privilege considers good for poor Muslims is that they become killers and suicide bombers. He assures them that this road - that this is the road to paradise - though he never offers to go along for the ride. (Applause.)
You would think a guy with Bush's military service record would be hesitant to criticize anybody else for not putting his own life on the line. Who is he trying to kid with this stuff? Was Tommy Franks riding the lead tank rolling into Baghdad? Has Dick Cheney been out there living in a "spider hole" like Saddam Hussein? Is George Bush leading the charge into Fallujah on his trusty stallion, sword held high? Can even drooling-at-the-mouth Republicans take this seriously?
And for the guy who will forever be remembered as having run the Torture Administration, who decided it was a good idea to remind everyone about the Soviet gulag, especially just after published news reports that the CIA is using former East European Communist detention centers to torture terrorist suspects?
These militants are not just the enemies of America or the enemies of Iraq, they are the enemies of Islam and they are the enemies of humanity. And we have seen this kind of shameless cruelty before - in the heartless zealotry that led to the gulags, the Cultural Revolution, and the killing fields.
I suppose I've become so used to this kind of cynical rhetoric from Dear Leader Bush that I often fail to notice the rank hypocrisy of so much of it. But the following is about the most shameless piece of hyprocrisy and cynicism and balls-out scamming the public as anything I've ever heard of from a US president:
And our debate at home must also be fair-minded. One of the hallmarks of a free society and what makes our country strong is that our political leaders can discuss their differences openly, even in times of war. When I made the decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, Congress approved it with strong bipartisan support. I also recognize that some of our fellow citizens and elected officials didn't support the liberation of Iraq. And that is their right, and I respect it. As President and Commander-in-Chief, I accept the responsibilities, and the criticisms, and the consequences that come with such a solemn decision.
While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. (Applause.) Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war. These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs.
They also know that intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein. They know the United Nations passed more than a dozen resolutions citing his development and possession of weapons of mass destruction. And many of these critics supported my opponent during the last election, who explained his position to support the resolution in the Congress this way: "When I vote to give the President of the United States the authority to use force, if necessary, to disarm Saddam Hussein, it is because I believe that a deadly arsenal of weapons of mass destruction in his hands is a threat, and a grave threat, to our security." That's why more than a hundred Democrats in the House and the Senate - who had access to the same intelligence -- voted to support removing Saddam Hussein from power. (Applause.)
The stakes in the global war on terror are too high, and the national interest is too important, for politicians to throw out false charges. (Applause.) These baseless attacks send the wrong signal to our troops and to an enemy that is questioning America's will. As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their elected leaders who voted to send them to war continue to stand behind them. (Applause.) Our troops deserve to know that this support will remain firm when the going gets tough. (Applause.) And our troops deserve to know that whatever our differences in Washington, our will is strong, our nation is united, and we will settle for nothing less than victory. (Applause.)
So, if Dear Leader really wants to unite the nation, here is the way he could best do it. And I'm being very serious here:
1. Address the nation and say frankly that the mission he foresees in Iraq will take the commitment of a large number of troops for five to ten years.
2. Accept that for a realistic chance of stabilizing Iraq, the US will have to commit up to 500,000 troops on the ground, around three times the current levels. And institute the broad conscription (draft) that would be necessary to bring troop levels up rapidly to make that feasible.
3. Unambiguously declare an end to torture in the Bush Gulag. Process the current prisoners in Guantánamo and all the other overseas stations of the gulag under the rules of the Geneva Conventions. Start scrupulously observing the Geneva Conventions across the board. Appoint special counsels to prosecute all civilians, soldiers and military officers involved in the torture crimes. Fire Alberto "the torture guy" Gonzalez as Attorney General.
4. Fire Karl Rove and demand that Dick Cheney resign. Say straightforwardly it's because they mishandled national security information in wartime, and that a soldier who blabbed about secret information the way they did would be court-martialed and severely punished.
5. Fire the worse-than-useless Donald Rumsfeld. Appoint a respected figure like Richard Cohen, a former Republican Senator who served as Defense Secretary under Bill Clinton, as Rumsfeld's replacement.
6. Recognize that war costs money and make meaningful tax decisions in line with that reality. Kill the current Republican bill to further slash taxes for the wealthiest Americans. Demand that Republican Congressional leaders accept strong legislation to limit war profiteering - and make sure everyone understands that it will be enforced against Halliburton, as well.
7. Demand that his service-age daughters Jenna and Not-Jenna join the Army as a model for other draft-age Americans. If he institutes a draft to achieve the level of forces needed in Iraq to accomplished his announced stabilization goal, Jenna and Not-Jenna would be subject to the draft anyway. A draft like that couldn't possibly be restricted to 19-year-olds, or to men only.
Now, being a partisan of the reality-based community, I realize that it's unlikely in the extreme that Dear Leader Bush and his Republican Party would ever go so far as to demand sacrifice of wealthy Americans for the Iraq War. They support the war, but certainly not that much. In fact, it's much more likely that we'll see Dubya and Laura dancing nekkid on the White House lawn with Rick Santorum and Rick's dog.
But if Bush were genuinely serious about uniting the country behind a war effort in Iraq that either he or his Party believe is critical for the security of the United States, he would do something very like what I've outlined. But we all know he won't.
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