by Trowbridge H. Ford
Barring a general uprising by the people of Iraq, George W. Bush seems poised to win re-election in November despite all the horror stories and hoopla to the contrary. Instead of pouring over the papers for all the stories about how the White House has botched the war in Iraq readers should be thinking about what should be the slogan of the current campaign: "It's the result, not the economy, stupid!" If they don't soon, they will be confronted by another four years of nation-building around the globe, and a new lease on life for their indentured servants in Britain, Blair and his servile supprters.
Instead of grabbing for all the red-herrings, deceptions, and wishful thinking that the White House and Downing Street have thrown out about the war against Saddam Hussein - all the stuff about WMD, building democracy, making a peaceful multi-ethnic Middle East, promoting human rights, finally getting the process right, etc., ad nauseam - people should see what they are really attempting, and what they possibly can achieve.
The necons in Washington and London are aiming to build a cordon of national republics in the fashion of the Turkish one around Israel at the expense of Sunni-dominated Syria, the mullahs in Iran, and the monarchs of the Gulf states - regimes which will cough up their oil at rock-bottom prices, let the IMF and the World Bank dictate their social and economic policies without a whimper, follow NATO's demands at the drop of the hat, and snuggle up to Tel Aviv any time the Mossad makes a murmur.
In order to achieve this gigantic project, Washington, London, and Tel Aviv had to adopt a most long-term strategy, one where they would first break down any pan-Arab interests in the region; then get rid of the troublemakers, starting with Saddam, one by one; coerce each country into adopting some kind of republic at the expense of any political interest in Islam, open up their economies to Western capital, and consumer goods; and finally become part of a still expanded NATO which would take on the rising Chinese and their Asian allies.
To achieve this agenda, Washington, London, and Tel Aviv were willing to fan any fear, engage in any deception, promote any false assurance, utter any lie, and enlist any devastating corrective. All their cultivation of false claims, lack of preparation bordering upon incompetence, promises to do better, efforts to seek more reasonable assistance, proceedings which might lead to their criminal undoing, etc., were nothing more than sops to still the uninvolved, inattentive, and unsophisticated.
They know that their own societies can be led like sheep to endorse whatever they are attempting when called upon at the appropriate time.
How many more books by people like Paul O'Neil, Richard Clarke, and Bob Woodward do the American people have to gobble up before they get the idea and the message - we have been set up to expect false solutions to our difficulties? How many more fumbling press conferences by the President do they have to endure before they get the idea that he is merely providing cover for Cheney and his ilk to do their damndest? How many red-herring threats of criminal prosecutions of these people do they have to hear of before they give up on the whole empty remedy? How much carrot-and-stick maneuvering by L. Paul Bremer III, Colin Powell, and John Negoponte do they have to witness before they get the idea?
In Iraq, this means seeing the the Coalition as an invader which is slowly hammering íts disparate people into a malleable whole which will ultimately so do its bidding that it can be left to do it on its own. This means dividing and ruling the Kurds, Sunnis, and Shias so that they will give up their aims of independence, national identity, and Islamic orientation. The crushing of Sunni nationalists in Falluja is essential if this objective is to be achieved, and the Americans are pounding the city in order to force its more moderate citizens to muzzle them. Moqtada Al- Sadr and his Islamic Mahdi are being corralled into Najaf where they will be rendered harmless, preferably by other mullahs disarming and decommissioning them. The Kurds will be kept on tender hooks about a national homeland, and oil of their own until it is too late.
Despite all the apparent bad news for the White House's re-election chances, George W. Bush seems increasingly likely to be returned by the electorate in November, showing that Americans are more influenced by myths, dreams, and patriotism rather than facts and reality when it comes to national well-being. Apparently, the worse the war on terror gets, the more dogged American orneriness, their outstanding quality, becomes. Under the circumstances, Senator Kerry's fears of former President Clinton torpedoing his chances of gaining the White House proved the far greater threat than any Mossad assassination squad.
Evidence of Kerry's slipping on every front in the polls is manifest, once viewers turn their casual
attention away from Iraq and Palestine to the home front. Admittedly, almost all the sources of information are biased in favor of Bush - and those which aren't mostly feel that Kerry is worse - but still the polls show a steadly drop in the Senator's support. It is only bound to get worse as election day approaches with the administration having all kinds of opportunities to manipulate its input and outcome - what could cause almost one-fifth of the possible electorate not included in the current calculations to vote for the incumbent at the last minute.
The most shocking thing about this steady erosion of Kerry support is how his Vietnam service has been used against against him - another clever example of how the White House carefully chooses its ground to attack any opponent. First, there was the false photograph of the Senator having been with Jame Fonda at an anti-war rally. Then there were claims that he threw all his Vietnam medals away. Then there were doubts that he really deserved three Purples Hearts, as if getting wounded or killed in any conflict is the highest award one can aspire to. Finally, other veterans said that he had bad-mouthed American forces in Vietnam, claiming that they had executed prisoners, raped women, and committed a variety of war crimes.
It was only with this claim that political correctness came home to haunt the Democratic candidate. Of course, everyone who knows anything about the war and its host of atrocities is aware of the validity of Kerry's claims. In fact, the other Senator Kerrey, the former one for Nebraska, got in a heap of trouble recently for his alleged participation in such activities, and Lt. Calley's famous massacre of villagers was by no means a one-off event. And what would one call carpet-bombing vast amounts of real estate, and making whole areas uninhaibtable by spraying Agent Orange? Still, the Massachusetts Kerry has been forced by demands of political correctness to amend his claims of atrocities into merely unsubstantiated hearsay in order to soothe the veterans with most foggy memories.
Kerry's backpedalling on the wars in Iraq, and in Palestine has been fatal blunders for the sake of political correctness, though it is hard to see how he could have avoided them, and still be a viable candidate. A principled person who has been opposed to these conflicts throughout would have about as much chance of being nominated by a major party, much less elected, as one of the Founding Fathers of the Republic. Those aspiring for the White House must adhere to the doctrine that the King can do no wrong, and our President is the closest America can come to royalty. This means that realistic candidates are coopted into the process, and can hardly be more than a Johnny-come-lately with amendments to whatever is well in progress.
The leads to all kinds of flip-flopping over policies, what Bush is now exploiting with relish at Kerry's expense. The most painful ones for the Senator, though, must be those over Ariel Sharon, and his wall to imprison the troublesome Palestinians - what has been worked out with former Clinton officials Sandy Berger, and Dennis Ross, and is being sought legitimization by Jewish vote-getter and former Vice Presidential Candidate Joseph Lieberman. In the process, the Israeli Prime Minister is snubbing Kerry with a vengeance for having only second thoughts about such vital interests regarding Israel.
Clinton's backing Kerry into this corner - what I have long feared - is just the tip of the iceberg he had created to make it almost impossible for anyone to unseat Bush. Clinton, while he was President, stoked up the fires for a war in Iraq by claiming endlessly that Saddam was building up a vast aresnal of weapons, especially biological ones, for settling scores with the West because of the Gulf War. Anyone who even glances through the pages of Tom Mangold's Plague Wars, and Judith Miller's Germs: The Ultimate Weapon - works before the current war which everyone is understandably avoiding - can be in no doubt after the matter.
To give their flavor, here are some of their choicer bits:
"Whenever President Clinton travels around Washington an anonymous black van tucks itlself itself discretely inside the tail of the extensive motorcade. It is President's personal anti-biological warfare attack amublance." (Mangold, p. 8)
"Iraq is fully capable of producing terrorist quantities of biological agents on demand." (p. 3)
"In a bone-dry statement early in 1999, Clarke said: 'We're not doing this just because people in the White House like to read thriller novels and watch movies that have exciting plots. We're doing it because we understand the nature of the poltential threat. It's a real potential threat. We are not exaggerating it.' " (p.. 12, emphasis Clarke's)
"One Sunday morning, Bill Cohen unveiled his simulated weapon of mass destruction - a five-pound bag of sugar. 'Anthrax,' he said, stunning the normally loquacious Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts into momentary silence. If Saddam Hussein spread this amount of anthrax over a city the size of, say, Washington, D.C., ' it would destroy at least half the population of that city.' " (Miller, p. 216)
"In December 1997, six years after the Persian Gulf War, the Pentagon announced that it had decided to vaccinate its 2.4 million soldiersand reservists against anthrax." (Opening sentence to Miller's book, p. 13)
Little wonder that Clarke was little more than grist in Bush's mill when Clinton so testified secretly before the 9/11 Commission - what even persuaded the current President and Cheney to so testify jointly before it - leaving Kerry with hardly a pot to piss in. Clinton has rendered any further measures by the Mossad unnecessary.