A story has circulated, and the White House hasn't denied it, that last week in Australia the president said "We're kicking ass" in Iraq. It would have been helpful had he specified who's ass it is we're kicking, if indeed there are asses being kicked independent of our self-kicked asses.
But what the hell. It was just George talking, and for some inexplicable reason this president isn't required -- not by his keepers, not by Congress, not by the Fourth Estate -- to tether his musings to reality. He's permitted to just go his own way, in his own little world, uttering imponderables with impunity.
In Hawaii yesterday, on the way home from his excellent Anbar adventure, the president promptly gave a repeat performance of his existential disconnect, saying he "came back from Iraq encouraged by what I saw."
What he saw, of course, was nothing more than the friendly faces of 10,000 American troops and the inside walls of a heavily armed American fortress. In similar circumstances I, too, would have been encouraged, I suppose -- encouraged that I just might get my ass out of Iraq alive and in one piece, unlike the non-fortress-dwelling American troops patrolling the internecine streets of Baghdad and other Iraqi vacation spots.
But what the hell. It was just George talking, and no one really expects the president of the United States to make sense, appear coherent, or accurately gauge reality. It's come down to that. Things are that bad.
To his encouragement he added, "I believe we're doing the right thing there for the security of the country and for the peace of the world."
Here was a splendid example of how ruthlessly the repeated deployment of Orwellian doublespeak et al can strangle the mind and make the real a stranger.
I have no doubt that after all these years of vulgar distortions, George actually does believe that the "security of the country" depends on its continued insecurity and the "peace of the world" depends on a global conflagration. It's called mental resolution -- the human ability to justify the most ignoble, the absolutely dumbest, of one's actions, by convincing oneself that the original actions were, in fact, noble and smart.
Add (more than) a pinch of a messianic complex, mix in some Orwellian speechwriting to reinforce the delusion -- and presto, you've a marvelous recipe for national ruination.
Still, the nation must be willing to participate in its own suicide. And that's where Congress and the Fourth Estate come in.
It is the sheerest of follies, of course, to expect any of this democratic "We the people" crappola to play a decisive role. Instead, We the sheep will follow the automated news from sophisticated journalists that Congress, the poor dear, is helplessly and hopelessly divided: that war-funding filibusters are simply not possible; that antiwar Democrats have done all they can do; that, in short, although the nation has collectively raised the gun to its own head, it's powerless to lower it.
The Assman the Madman is in charge, you see, because no one else is. Our steadfast national decline is more than a failure of imagination; it's the triumph of Orwellian delusion by default.
Hence the unreal -- the free-falling surreal -- has become our real ass-kicking reality.
It is a singular talent of this cretin, Bush, that he can crap out of his mouth....And ours, that we can continue to listen to it!!!!!
Posted by: Rich | September 09, 2007 at 09:59 AM
Delving a little more into George's mind, I imagine he's thinking the following:
George's Lament
Time rushes it's End, yet Dawn's not unfurled
God in his Place and all reich with the World.
I've tried, how I've tried, with lies and in scorn,
To heed His whisper: "Corrupt and suborn,
Reshape all this land as feudal in mold,
And make highly noble the Corporate Fold."
The tools I was given were ancient, yet bold,
The same long employed by barons of old:
Terror and Fear, sown Division and Shame,
All proved fabulous used in my name.
That I mastered them well I offer as proof
That Wrong is now Right, and Lying is Truth.
The Past I've turned clay, and molded to shape
A tale of History that's but its rape.
And all the Dead lying in wait of Charon
Died not in vain but for cause of my own
As good sheeple should. For God has decreed
Me the Decider, they, fuel for my leede.
So why are my minions all falling away,
Treacherous scum, in confused disarray?
And over those things so small and pic'yune
It boggles the mind: mere Torture's the tune
They're playing on strings, while sobbing in pain
Like delicate schoolgirls caught in the rain!
It sure would be funny if not for the gall:
They're "terrists", stupid, not human at all!
And, as for the Rights in that faded old Bill?
They only apply if there's no one to kill.
So, save all your 'plaints and your quaintness of Law,
God says I am Master. Regard me with awe.
Posted by: M van der Veer | September 09, 2007 at 11:09 AM
The whole concept of ass-kicking is so repulsive it defies any comparison. Whose ass are we kicking? Iraqi ass? Why? Because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time! A bullie's answer is Petraus' answer. George Washinton must be turning in his grave!
Posted by: JoeCaribe | September 10, 2007 at 01:56 AM
That's George Washintong, I'm sorry!
Posted by: JoeCaribe | September 10, 2007 at 02:01 AM
George Washington
Posted by: JoeCaribe | September 10, 2007 at 02:08 AM
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart....Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
10 My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Posted by: Percy Bysshe Shelley | September 10, 2007 at 11:17 AM