The President let it slip toward the end of his recent news conference. The moment was a stunning throwback to Vietnam. It happened when the commander in chief was blissfully deferring to everyone from Army generals to Iraqi parliamentarians about what would or could happen in Iraq and when.A reporter asked the tap-dancing Texan if, without tying himself to a specific deadline, he could at least assure Americans that all U.S. troops will eventually be withdrawn from Iraq. He couldn't. The man who mired his nation in a war of his own choosing more than three years ago allowed that while bringing home all the "kids" he's put in harm's way is "an objective," he'd leave it to "future presidents and future governments of Iraq" to figure out how to do it...
A commenter at smirkingchimp.com, formen, responded to Ms Johanek, saying
""Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, IT IS THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO ALTER OR ABOLISH IT, and to institute new government.""
- The Declaration of Independence.
America is stuck with this Dominionist lackey until the people find the will to react!
My response to formen is to not forget the kicker in that paragraph in The Declaration of Independence:
"...But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
I have always loved the "it is their duty" line, which took me aback when I first realized what it was saying. I heard it 40 years ago as a call to alertness and preparedness for action. As does formen, I believe Americans are on the verge of reacting in ways more than with their keyboards. But I wouldn't yet start to hold my breath waiting for that to happen.
Alas, we are just a little bit too soft, too lamb-like, too unlikely to take to the streets in a general strike or its like. We haven't had it hard enough; we all think it will just go away on its own, or some activist types will do it for us . . . hahahahaha, revolution by stand-ins. . . .
It is not enough that this is our third George; the men in Philadelphia, of course, had their own mad George III. It is not enough that our mad king's "long line of abuses and usurpations" is as long as was that delusional fool on the throne in London do long ago. It is not enough that our bold experiment in democracy is going up in flames while the Neos fiddle. It is not enough that we have become nearly an entire nation of taxation without representation (how many people are actually aligned with anything that their "representatives" in Congress do or say "on their behalf"?). It is not enough that the vote of people has been replaced by the vote of the ka-ching! It is not enough that our King George's March Madness of three years ago continues into its fourth March to kill our sons and daughters for an undefined cause, for people who don't want them there, and which benefits no one in the world except defense contractors and the oilogarchs. It is not enough that this successor to a man impeached (but not convicted) for lying has been himself caught in hundreds of specific lying moments to Congress and fraud against the Congress and the United Nations Security Council. But for his enablers on both sides of the aisle, the man would have long since had his mug shot taken.
No matter what happens to an addictive formality, he cannot continue doing it unless he has enablers who repeatedly lie to themselves that confronting him with his problem would cause him even more problems, so they avoid it. Enablers are avoiders. Enablers are cowards.
Those who say it is the American people who are to blame that we are again looking for the light at the end of the tunnel are only a little bit right. We citizens have been lulled into thinking that because we voted (regardless of outcome), that there is someone who will champion our causes in the halls of importance; that it is too much too expect of us wee ones to fight our own fights.
But we are not the ones enabling the immature one, the addictive one, the string man.
Our champions are doing that, and they are doing it well: he has been fully enabled.
Mark my word.
But, like weak parents, it is not enough to enable him.
It will only be enough when we disable him.
The time is fast approaching when we will have to apply some tough love to the Resident-in-Chief of the United States.
* * * * * * * *
Bush's "way out" is to "go toward the light", the "light at the end of the tunnel" . . . another hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
It would be funny if our weapons of mass destruction (our military) weren't destroying so many humans, including many of our own.
Military action is terrorism. Any who don't believe that should go to Iraq and ask the people there if they do or don't feel terrorized by our soldiers and their weapons. Three years of it.
It has been true throughout history of all people occupied by a foreign army, and it is true today: There are three types of dealing with occupation: fight it, submit meekly, or collaborate. 95% of the people submit, because they are terrorized. 5% collaborate, often to their own eventual demise. And 5% fight it. The fighters are usually labeled "terrorists". Even Hitler called the French Resistance fighters "terrorists". Bush and Cheney are in good company there.
It is not even certain that they are aware that what they started is a war of occupation. It is certainly not a term they would use in public, is it? But what do you call it when you start a war without an exit strategy? Not exiting an invaded country is, by any definition I know, an occupation.
And what IS the exit strategy for an occupation?
Ms Johanek says,
What is most disturbing are the regular upticks in American casualties as Iraq continues to convulse into a full- blown civil war.Iraq was in a state of civil war the moment we disbanded their military. The "insurgents" have been battling U.S. forces since then. "But," you say, "fighting the U.S. forces doesn't constitute a civil war!" When we broke their military, when we deposed their government, when we decided that we were running things there, we the U.S. became the governors of Iraq. "When you break it, you own, it, you fix it". The pretend government in Baghdad is only a puppet regime in place because the U.S. is propping it up.
We stay there (as we thought in Viet Nam) for one reason and one reason only: We are certain that when we leave, all hell is going to break loose. We stay there "to keep a bloodbath from happening". Well, that is the ONE Viet Nam era redux that has not yet hit the main stream media. In Viet Nam we said the same thing, and it turned out to be true. Will it happen in Iraq, too? Of course it will.
As in Viet Nam, our choice is only to extend the time period (of war) before the bloodbath begins. Had we left Viet Nam 5 years earlier, many fewer lives would have been lost - and the bloodbath would have happened then, rather than when it did. Had we stayed another 5 years, the bloodbath would have happened 5 years later, with even MORE needless casualties.
It is our choice how many will die before the bloodbath.
It is the Iraqis' choice how many will die IN the bloodbath.
Postponement is cowardice and irrational - but it (the postponement) will happen, anyway.
Let us be completely clear:
The hand wringing is not about exiting. The hand wringing is about the bloodbath to come. And no one wants that on their heads. LBJ didn't want it, and Nixon didn't want it. Gerry Ford (Les King) didn't have a real say in the matter, but then, he exited Viet Nam before anyone could accuse him of owning it. So he didn't have to pretend he needed to fix it.
And that was the best thing he could have done for the Vietnamese people.
They still had their bloodbath. And their purges. And their re-education programs. All in the direction of that evil way of life, Communism. That was our reason for being there.
And now? Viet Nam has one of the most thriving economies on the planet.
Iraq does not stand a chance until we leave and give them a chance to purge and let blood and re-educate themselves in whatever direction they select (even if it is Communism!). They will go through hell, but it will be their hell.
Right now, they are stuck in our hell. And so are we.
. . . . TD
