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Cheerleading at Annapolis
By Mike Whitney
11/30/05 "ICH"
-- -- It’s pathetic to see the world’s most powerful
man, shunted into prearranged venues so he can pitch his snake-oil
to college aged boys. That said, Bush’s appearance today at the
Naval Academy has got to be a new low for the White House public
relations team. Apparently the only people buying the
huckster-in-chief’s bedraggled vision of a democratic Iraq are
rosy-cheeked young men who dream of battlefields instead of
girlfriends.
Is this the last place Bush can count on a round of applause without
body-scanning everyone who enters the door?
“Setting an artificial deadline to withdraw would vindicate the
terrorist tactics of beheadings and suicide bombings and mass murder
and invite new attacks on America,” Bush boomed.
Bush loves the applause. He luxuriates in the warm glow of human
affection. In many ways he is the consummate politician feeding his
fragile ego with the ephemeral praise of complete strangers. Too
bad, his only springboard to fame has been as bullhorn for
right-wing fanatics and war-mongers. Now, he finds himself toddling
on a narrower and narrower ledge, peering down into the abyss of
defeat and disgrace.
“To all who wear the uniform, I make you this pledge: America will
not run in the face of car bombers and assassins so long as I am
your commander-in-chief.”
Who could have dreamed that events would overtake Bush so quickly? A
hawkish congressman takes the floor of the House and whispers
“Withdrawal” and suddenly the whole neocon master-plan begins to
unravel like a ball-o-yarn skittering across the kitchen floor.
The Bush team knows they’re losing ground; and fast. That’s why they
dispatched poor Rummy to 4 TV talk shows on one morning alone. That
must be some kind of record. Rumsfeld was reduced to rehashing the
same lame gibberish the administration has been slinging for years,
only this time, no one is buying. The air is hissssing out of the
tire; the momentum has shifted. The country is tired of Bush, tired
of war, and tired of Iraq.
Bush-fatigue has set in like an oily pall hanging over the nation.
“At this time last year there were only a handful of Iraqi
battalion’s ready for combat,” Bush thundered. “Now, there are over
120 Iraqi Army and police combat battalions in the fight against the
terrorists, typically comprised of between 350 and 800 Iraqi forces.
Of these about 80 Iraqi battalions are fighting side-by-side with
coalition forces, and about 40 others are taking the lead in the
fight.”
Lies, lies, and more lies. Mountains of lies; oceans of lies; an
entire constellation of lies where every twinkling point of light is
just another fraud issued from the raspy larynx of the master of
mendacity, George W. Bush.”
This is Bush’s “Victory Strategy”; stacking one deception on top of
another like cord-wood and hoping the wary public will believe it;
hoping they’ll approve another zillion dollars for earth-poisoning
ordinance; hoping they’ll send another 2,000 sons and daughters into
the Iraqi meat-grinder; hoping they’ll sign off on the genocidal
attack on Iraqi civilians.
Bush “war-whoop” has lost its resonance; its allure. The
bubble-president has become a shadow of his former self; a tattered
coat on a stick. Perhaps, he doesn’t know that the battle is lost.
All around him a palpable sense of desperation is setting in. Cheney
and Rove are already manning the bunkers for next tsunami of bad
news. Still, Bush is sent on his fool’s errand; trying to appear
popular in the last remaining bastion, where support is reflexive
and perfunctory.
The war in Iraq is lost. John Murtha said it best:
“Oil production and energy production are below pre-war levels. Our
reconstruction efforts have been crippled by the security situation.
Only $9 billion of the $18 billion appropriated for reconstruction
has been spent. Unemployment remains at about 60 percent. Clean
water is scarce. Only $500 million of the $2.2 billion appropriated
for water projects has been spent. And most importantly, insurgent
incidents have increased from about 150 per week to over 700 in the
last year. Instead of attacks going down over time and with the
addition of more troops, attacks have grown dramatically. Since the
revelations at Abu Ghraib, American casualties have doubled. An
annual State Department report in 2004 indicated a sharp increase in
global terrorism."
Iraq is over; we lost. Someone had better tell Bush.
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