Where the buck don’t stop – The Bush Whitehouse and the culture of arrogance

Last night the people of the United States once again had to endure another portion of cowboy rhetoric and belligerent posturing from the present occupant of the Whitehouse as he stubbornly sought to convince citizens that he and his regime didn’t drag the nation into another hopeless quagmire of death and destruction in a far off land. George W. Bush and his handlers must be tuned-in to a whole other reality. They’re still trying to convince voters that invading Iraq made the U.S., and the world in general, safer from terrorism, when in fact, just as so many people warned, it had the opposite effect.

Remember that poster of Osama that ran in the New York Times and appeared all over the place prior to the invasion? Pointing at the reader like old Uncle Sam, bin Laden says: “Go ahead. Send me a new generation of recruits. Your bombs will fuel their hatred of America and their desire for revenge. Americans won’t be safe anywhere. Please, attack Iraq. Distract yourself from fighting Al Qaeda. Divide the international community. Go ahead. Destabilize the region.” Well, there you go. That’s exactly what the Bush regime has done: they’ve dragged us down into the quicksand that has taken the lives of over 600 U.S. soldiers and maimed nearly 3,000, while reportedly killing close to 10,000 Iraqi civilians, all of it making the world less safe from terrorism. Good work, George.

Will the boy emperor ever own up to his team’s monstrous miscalculation? I guess first one has to ask if it even was a miscalculation; maybe the Bush regime actually wanted to increase the threats against the so-called homeland, better to keep U.S. citizens in line, a trick as old as government itself. But, owning up isn’t exactly the regime’s high card, is it? Note their utter failure to take any blame for allowing Al Qaeda to initiate their deadly plan on September 11, 2001. During last night’s press performance, Bush avoided an apology to the American people or any possible admission of failure with such staggering effort we thought the man might actually meltdown. No such luck. And, last week, viewers and listeners in the U.S. got the same act, albeit more polished, when National Security Advisor, Condi Rice went before the 9/11 Commission pointing fingers of blame in every possible direction other than the Oval Office. Just as the bogus “growing threat” of Saddam was the party line for invading Iraq, a highly suspect no “imminent threat” from Al Qaeda is the line for not connecting the dots regarding 9/11.

The two issues, Iraq and 9/11, are of course interconnected both in their relation to terrorism (the invasion of Iraq leading to more horrifically potential 9/11 scenarios) and in their exploitation by the neo-cons as invented rationality for the invasion. But, the people don’t need a Project for a New American Century kick-off event like 9/11 to know there’s something rotten beneath the Beltway. All they have to do is turn on their TV or radio and listen to their hearts. That’s where the buck really stops.

See: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/05/17/attack/main509471.shtml

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/comment/0,12956,1036687,00.html

http://www.nthposition.com/theprojectforthenew.php