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Bush Hates Timetables
Well, see, I think I get where Bush's basic aversion
to the idea of it is--he wasn't so good in math back in
the day, so of course he hates timetables. But
I think the problem is also with that idea of a benchmark.
Sounds like something a so-so athlete would leave
behind him, unless he took up something he excelled at
...like cheerleading. How long will this mediocrity's
childhood failures prejudice him against progress?
Why oh why does he hate winning?
The deepest, darkest secret that I believe lurks
in the heart of the man occupying the White House is a sense
that a valid report card which he can not help
but submit to the American people would at long last do him in.
It's an ingrained impulse of a person so deeply,
truly, staggeringly unprepared to do this job, or any other job,
particularly well, that he has to b.s.-- his
first instinct must be to lie, because he knows, knows as a fact, knows
like the back of his tender, white, soft, not-a-cowboy-nor-a-soldier-hand,
knows - that he has not done his
homework, and will somewhere be tested, and will
anyhow fail. It's a certainty, and all he can do is delay the
inevitable. If there were a measurement
for success in Iraq, then he would know for sure how low his score is.
So he says some vague thing about a future victory...but
never actually outlines what that will be.
Let's remove ourselves from this "artificial timetable"
of which he disparagingly speaks and discuss the reality:
there is no one, easily definable, destructible
and extractable, enemy--there are several factions who hate us,
but guess what? If we are rebuilding Iraq--those
are what we have to work with. All the people with the
means to leave--left. Something like 2
million people are refugees. Something like half a million people died.
From the people still there, the plan appears
to be: Let's build a functioning self-defending nation.
Okay. Sounds a little like making bricks
without straw, Moses, but I'll give it to you--the people who stayed
wanted to. We probably have some patriots
amongst the insurgents. Mostly among the Shia militia, good thing,
since they are the folks behind al-Maliki...oh
wait, but they also are the bad guys, since the White House
(that means Dick Cheney, by the way) and the
think tanks who inform it, want a war with Iran, and also
oppose any talks with Syria, which we'd probably
be straightaway at war with in short order after Iran.
Okay, scratch that, let's build a nation with
the Sunnis who are...oh that's right, either Baathists we couldn't
bring back in or Al-Qaida in Iraq. Darn.
Oh well, the first reason we ever went there was
to fight terror and do away with WMD's.
Oh, wait. Terrorism is up and there never were
any WMD's. How ever could this lunacy come to pass?
Why, because a little lab experiment was carried
out, a test of the pre-emptive war strategery. Our on-the-job,
mediocre scholar, Bush tried to reproduce the
results he saw in right wing propaganda in the real world, and not
surprisingly...he's failed. And now all
he wants in the world is to never be graded...never have to see that bad
report card.
Damn timetables. Well, for our Bush the Younger,
a little lesson on the timetables--3624 (coalition) military fatalities
as of 5/1/2007, times reality, is 3624 human
beings on our side who have not come home alive. Two million refugees,
times reality, is a whole middle and professional
class of workers who could be setting things to right there, but won't
be.
A half million or so civilians dead times reality,
is a tragedy so gut-wrenching that that society will mourn for a damn
long time. And the time we have occupied Iraq
plus the time we will continue to occupy Iraq = too long. And something
like 87% failure to complete projects in rebuilding
Iraq = Billions of dollars US taxpayers are getting no return on--for
anyone not motivated by the human toll.
But oil is still being pumped, unmetered, by god.
There's math maybe Bush can do, with tutoring.
Just a grim thought.
~Jen in Philadelphiaree
sure would.