Hubris
Ye see yon birkie ca'd 'a lord,'
Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that?
Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a cuif for a' that.
Robert Burns
And so King George is crowned anew. With all the pomp and circumstance that he does so richly not deserve! And his speech, which he actually managed not to mangle, was as ringing as it was hollow. It was, “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.”
George W. Bush reminds me of what I saw earlier this about Louis XVI of France. All up in that about himself, but zero virtue or substance. Like the French monarchy, he is cocooned in his own sense of infallibility, so that he is insensitive to the noises of anyone outside of his little entourage of self-seeking sycophants, that he cannot hear the cries of those who really suffer from his blind and shameless self-aggrandizement. And once more he has found time, four years of time to use the people for his and his friend’s purposes. His inaugural speech was a comedy of hypocrisies.
“At this second gathering, our duties are defined not by the words I use, but by the history we have seen together. For a half century, America defended our own freedom by standing watch on distant borders. After the shipwreck of communism came years of relative quiet, years of repose, years of sabbatical - and then there came a day of fire.”
And on that day King George chose to become Inspector Clouseau, always going after the wrong suspect, while the culprit consistently gets away behind his back, and under his nose.
“We have seen our vulnerability - and we have seen its deepest source. For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny - prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder - violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders, and raise a mortal threat.”
When the world responded along with us in righteous wrath after 9/11, and we went after Osama, in Afghanistan, King George said he wanted him “dead or alive”. And did he go about in a serious manner? No! he chose to farm out the job! And he did so to those trusty Afghan warlords! You know I mean, that the ones that can be BARGAINED WITH? They have such a reputation for bargaining that Osama established a long-term RELATIONSHIP with them! And he used that loyalty to escape justice.
And when King George saw that it was haaard woooork to capture bin Laden, he decided, as is the prerogative of every king, that Osama was no longer worth it, despite the fact that he was the man who murdered 3000 innocent civilians, and that every American’s greatest wish is to kill bin Laden. What mattered was that we have
Afghanistan, the warlords have their unrestricted private enterprise, - in opium poppies that is, and that we have the Afghan oil.
And so King George of the House of Clouseau saw that we needed a new villain. And who would this evil beast be? Saudi Arabia, who funded terrorists? North Korea with it’s nuclear weapons? No! it was Iraq, a land with no threat to us whatsoever. He claimed that there were weapons of mass destruction where there was nothing. He went into Iraq with only enough troops to invade the country, but not enough to hold it, and secure it.
“So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.
This is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary. Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities.”
Yet King George invaded a country unprovoked, did not wait to hear the word of our allies, and when he found that he could no longer hide his treachery behind WMDs, declared that he invaded simply because Saddam was an evil man, and we had the right to “free Iraq”. We freed Iraq alright, we freed it for the international corporations while we removed all safety and union regulations. And what happened to nation building? Out of 50,000,000 Iraqis he surely could’ve found a few to employ in rebuilding the hierarchy of the country. Saddam certainly found plenty of skilled hands to build his palaces, his missile bases, etc. And by the way, it is strange that there seem to be no more qualified Iraqis left to rebuild the country, how could Iraq have built any WMDs? Nuclear, or otherwise it would taken many armies just to produce weapons grade material, or even to smuggle it. And yet, King George felt once again as in Afghanistan, that he had to farm out the job of rebuilding Iraq to people he can trust, this time international corporations. And the people of Iraq are left to be poor, and directionless, and weak. Freedom? “Chosen, and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law”? What was “chosen” by the Iraqi people? “Defended by citizens”? Name me one Iraqi who will stand with our troops these days other than the paid puppets of the neocons?
“America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling.”
But that is exactly what King George is doing. He is trying to create the same kind of privatization here in America, as he is trying to create in Iraq. So both countries get the same kind of “freedom”!
“America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies.”
But Your Royal Majesty, you already have your Bastille, in Sarpooza, Bakubah, Abu Ghraib, and Camp Delta! There are hundreds of incidents reported emerging from the FOIA request of the A.C.L.U. Perhaps a quote from one of the reports should balance things out.
Excerpt from “Department of the Army 43rd Military Police Detachment (CID) (FWD) 10th Military Police Battalion United States Army Criminal Investigation Command Operation Iraqi Freedom APO AE 09323-2647” related Agent’s Investigation Report dated 20 Nov 03:
“BASIS FOR INVESTIGATION: This office was notified by the Staff Judge Advocate, 4ID, camp Iron Horse, Iraq, that Mr. XXXXXXXXXXXX detained Iraqi Local National, was shot and killed at Camp Packhorse, Iraq, SPC XXXXXXXXXXX
About 1900, 15 Sep 03, SAXXXXXXXXX obtained a Serious Incident Report (SIR), and a 15-6 investigation packet conducted by MAJ XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX 720th Military Police Bn, Camp Iron Horse, Iraq, which disclosed SPC XXXXXXXXXXXXXX was in violation of the U.S. Army Use of Force policy and Task Force Iron Horse directives concerning the use of deadly force. (See SIR and 15-6 investigation packet for details)
About 23 of 03, SAXXXXXXXXXXXX advised SPC XXXXXXXXX of his rights, which he invoked and requested a lawyer.
About 20 Nov 03, SA XXXXXXXXXXXXX coordinated with CPT XXXXXXXXXXXX SJA, who opined there was probable cause to believe SPC XXXXXXXXXXXXXX committed the offense of Murder when he failed to obey SOP and fire his rifle at Mr. RADAD, killing him. CPT XXXXXXXXXX stated there was already an article 32 hearing where SPC XXXXXXXX was already being charged for offense of Voluntary Manslaughter. She stated the results of the hearing concluded that SPC XXXXXXXX would not be tried at a courts-martial. She stated that on 12 Nov 03, SPC XXXXXXXX was reduced to the grade of E-1 and received a Chapter 10 Discharge from the U.S. Army. ///LAST ENTRY///”*
“Some, I know, have questioned the global appeal of liberty….”
No one questions liberty truly won and truly given. But King George’s kind of liberty, the liberty of the type the Robber Baron gave to the labor serf is not true liberty, just a way of turning the people into a modern version of the old French Third Estate, with him as King and Haliburton for nobility.
“And all the allies of the United States can know: we honor your friendship, we rely on your counsel, and we depend on your help.”
King George is so far in the hole, what with China beating our ass in sales of electronics and so forth. Our dollar is weak against the Euro, and thanks to his asinine behavior in the Middle East we have no street cred left in the world.
“Our country has accepted obligations that are difficult to fulfill, and would be dishonorable to abandon. Yet because we have acted in the great liberating tradition of this nation, tens of millions have achieved their freedom.”
We accepted the obligation to hunt terrorists, not to spin forlorn dreams of world revolution as the neocons want. Yet King George persists in his delusion:
“By our efforts, we have lit a fire as well - a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world.”
What you lit was a conflagration of revolution in the Middle East. Or maybe Peter Bergen can put it better:
“What we have done in Iraq is what bin Laden could not have hoped for in his wildest dreams: We invaded an oil-rich Muslim nation in the heart of the Middle East, the very type of imperial adventure that bin Laden has long predicted was the United States' long-term goal in the region. We deposed the secular socialist Saddam, whom bin Laden has long despised, ignited Sunni and Shia fundamentalist fervor in Iraq, and have now provoked a "defensive" jihad that has galvanized jihad-minded Muslims around the world. It's hard to imagine a set of policies better designed to sabotage the war on terrorism.” **
And to add to that, despite fair warning from wiser heads, we left our military so ill equipped as to allow the enemy to build up his forces and turn Iraq into the largest terrorist training camp in the world. It is now officially a quagmire we shall be there for years to come because we dare not leave it to bin Laden.
As for: “…the idealistic work of helping raise up free governments ...”: What “governments”? Those twelve company men we installed in that fiction we call the government of Iraq? We can’t even get together a decent police force. We have to hide the identities of the candidates for our so-called “election” because we know we can’t protect them. Not when our men have to scrounge for “hillbillie armor” to put in personnel carriers! King George could spend $43 million on his coronation, but forget spending a dime on keeping our troops safe! Still King George beats his chest when it comes to “our men and women in harm’s way…” :
“Some have shown their devotion to our country in deaths that honored their whole lives - and we will always honor their names and their sacrifice.”
King George did not honor them when they lived. They died for a lie. I’m sure King George still remembers that “funny” joke he made about looking for WMDs under the table. How many thousands of them are wounded, seriously, their lives altered all for the greater glory of the neocon dream? The Glory of Privatization? The Rich Man’s Playground? If just one of those floats used in the Inauguration parade had carried one wounded soldier to safety, I could’ve excused it. But you gave a gesture for the troops, threw them a ball, and so I’m sure you slept well. A Kingly gesture George.
But the Kingly largesse will also flow to the – PEOPLE!!! Listen:
“In America's ideal of freedom, citizens find the dignity and security of economic independence, instead of laboring on the edge of subsistence. This is the broader definition of liberty that motivated the Homestead Act, the Social Security Act, and the G.I. Bill of Rights. And now we will extend this vision by reforming great institutions to serve the needs of our time. To give every American a stake in the promise and future of our country, we will bring the highest standards to our schools, and build an ownership society. We will widen the ownership of homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance - preparing our people for the challenges of life in a free society. By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear, and make our society more prosperous and just and equal.”
I think he speaks of Social Security. You know, that thing that ain’t broke so we shouldn’t be fixing it? What he doesn’t say is that even the most partisan of privatizers says that people should only be allowed to invest in a few government chosen stocks, bonds, and Treasury bonds are still the most secure thin in the world. Very few out 53 million Americans will know how to invest competently. But King George’s courtiers in Wall Street will see the prosperity!
“In America's ideal of freedom, the public interest depends on private character - on integrity, and tolerance toward others, and the rule of conscience in our own lives. Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self.”
Could King George be saying “He that governs least, governs best?” Or could he be simply saying to his rich pals, “It’s OK for you to guard the henhouse. All the dogs are in Iraq now!”
And in the end King George mouths a few platitudes to sop the masses with, and irony of ironies lets out the one thing we can judge his reign by:
“From the viewpoint of centuries, the questions that come to us are narrowed and few. Did our generation advance the cause of freedom? And did our character bring credit to that cause?”
Well, did we? Your Majesty? What did we advance then?
*
A.C.L.U. FOIA documents
**
Mother Jones "The Wrong War by Peter Bergen
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