I was posting a comment to Bruce's piece Unexplained Mysteries, and before I knew it, my comment had become long and spacious, and I figured I should just make a post of my own.
I totally love Helen Thomas. I've admired her ever since I was young, and flunking out of journalism school. She comes into my store every so often and I always make sure she gets the best service. She is a class act.
Today, Helen Thomas actually got to ask George Bush why. Why did he invade Iraq?
There are a lot of theories. The theory of the week going around Washington is the Strong Commander in Chief theory. The theory goes something like this:
Dubbya would never have been able to get his agenda passed without the war. As the neocons learned from Margaret Thatcher, people tend to give the leaders a lot of slack when the country is in the middle of a conflict. In fact, as early as 1999, Bush's biographer said that Bush told him of a desire to invade Iraq. He probably believed Cheney and Rumsfeld when they told him it would be a cakewalk. Having no actual firsthand experience of combat, he had no reason to question his advisors.
But if you believe that theory, why after the first signs of instability, didn't they change course? If you want to look like a strong war president, why did they let the situation continue to degenerate? The Commander in Chief of the most powerful military on earth looks pretty much like a first class chump if he's losing a war against a handful of guys armed with home-grown explosives and old AK-47s. And if the situation of a long war is what they intended from the start, then you have to ask the next question.
Who profits from a long impossible war?
There are a few answers to that question, but mainly the profiteers are DOD, and the military industrial complex that supports them. Among them are Halliburton/KBR, (Dick Cheney profits directly) Bechtel, (Daddy Bush, and just about every other former Joint Chief and retired General from both the first Bush Presidency, and the Clinton years), Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, and all those K Street firms that grease the political wheels of Washington. Getting funding for our troops is a no brainer, they ask for additional funds every six months, and they get it, no Democrat can be caught denying money to our brave men and women fighting for....uhmm....freedom, and democracy.
Was it really oil and currency? Maybe. But I think it was a lot of other things too. I think that some of it was theater, the backdrop of war, the intensity of danger, all of tough phrases like "Bring It On", and "Let's Roll". The sound bytes from that stage sound a lot more dramatic and macho than Clinton trying to explain how he didn't boink the twenty year old in the Oval Office.
The other theory of the week in Washington is the End of Days theory. That theory is a bit hard for me to understand, because it basically says that the Fundis really want instability in the Middle East, because they think it will hasten the Second Coming. I don't really buy that theory, because I don't think that George Bush seems like a Christian. And if the other Christians think that some kind of Armageddon is a good thing, then yikes, what sort of people live in America, those who wish for plagues and bloodshed?
The mamby pamby Democrats in Congress are probably so scared shitless, that they don't know what to do. I can't really blame them.
Think about it.
Our way of life and the global economy depends on oil to keep it running. As much as we would like to think that we can cut our dependence on foreign oil, there is no solution in the short term. When the oil stops, our income stops with it. Our food supply, all trade, our jobs, our homes, our families, our savings, all of it stops when the engine of the world economy runs out of fuel. The fire we have started in Iraq is about to spread to the rest of the Middle East, and our way of life is almost certainly going up in flames.
The Pandora's Box is open. If I were a Senator on either side of the aisle, I'd be completely flipped out, because the situation we face today is a crisis with no easy solutions.
While I applaud Helen Thomas for asking why, I think we need to move past that question, and ask how.
How do we move forward from here? How do we make it right again? How do we find the solution?
