Part One
Part Two
It's been awhile, but I remember when then Governor Bush was running for president. He talked a good game about restoring civility and dignity to the Oval Office. He made you feel as if there might actually be a snowball's chance in hell he wasn't corrupted by the fat cat lobbyists . Liar, liar, pants on fire. President Bush was awash in cash like no other has been before, and all from big corporate donors greasing both sides of the fence strategy akin to “In Case of Emergency, Break Glass” with soft money contributions. Campaign reform, my foot! It seems the laws that come out of Washington always make the situation markedly worse than what they set out to “correct”.
There's an old saying that to the victor goes the spoils; cronyism is nothing new, however, it is more expensive and expansive than it used to be. Every government system experiences some level of inherent corruption, but the Bush Administration seems to be taking cronyism to creative new highs - and pathetic lows.
Like grape clusters on a productive vine, it's hard to decide which ripe corruption bunch to start harvesting – there are so many debacles to choose from!
- Hurricane Katrina
- Military contracts
- The Medicare drug vote buying scandal
- Cronyism being mistaken for competency
- September 11, 2001 attacks
- The “War on Terror” (question of torture and illegal military tribunals)
- Reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq
- Poor choices for critical U.S. Supreme Court appointments
- Inability to control spending and an astronomical national debt
- Cronies hiring other cronies
- Mass exodus of seasoned professionals from various governmental organizations due to politically appointed senior hacks making their lives a living hell. Most notable fields of critical “brain drain”: CIA and the FBI.
- The Lynyrd Skynyrd policy of “don't ask me no questions, and I won't tell you no lies”, which was formally adopted by the White House under the auspices of Karl Rove. Damn those special prosecutors!
If we start working backwards to the most recent cluster fudge, it's without a doubt the political bombshell the White House was having a religious experience over: praying the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) would never see the light of day (especially pre-November elections). A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks. Well, doesn't this just bite the big twinkie! It's a hole in the condom of containment, and now the world knows the rabbit died. Can you say, “shotgun wedding”?
In the face of sixteen intelligence agencies' collective opinions, President Bush continues to enjoy the scenic ride down the river in Egypt – denial.
“ To suggest that, if we weren't in Iraq, we would see a rosier scenario with fewer extremists joining the radical movement requires us to ignore 20 years of experience. ”
There is a filament of logic in his statement, however, it quickly snaps when one looks into the policies we've been pushing in the Middle East for the past thirty- five years. The downside to having a single four-year term leader is often reflected in our inability to “stay the course” in foreign policy matters.
For instance, if we look to the time when Israel surrendered the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt on the promise the USA would come and defend their borders if attacked, when Israel was finally attacked and called us on the promise, the State Department said they couldn't find the agreement. This isn't the first time a government or a group of countries promised to protect a border and then left the invaded country holding the bag – Czechoslovakia learned this game the hard way in World War II.
“President Benes said the Czechs could mobilize 17 active and 17 reserve divisions, with enough supplies to enable them to resist for five months. Furthermore, the French general staff had assured him that France would invade Germany if the latter attacked the Czechs .”
We have to stop making long term promises we have no intention of keeping. It's not ethical behavior for a first world super power. In simplistic terms, our foreign policy has all the appearances of being written up by a bunch of revolving psychotics, and we question why do things “happen” to us? It's embarrassing to realize the whole world knows we're arrogant and ugly, and we see our actions as “civilized”.
It is completely and utterly astounding the White House and intelligence agencies are getting around to graciously informing the American public and the residents of the world what we already knew: OUR aggression spawned a wave of retaliatory dissident groups to combat OUR global neo-conservative expansionist philosophies. How many millions of dollars was spent on the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate? Tell us something we don't know!
