Whacked Out

After stumbling across this story yesterday, one could be forgiven for grasping at a glimmer of that hope which according to reliable sources springs eternal.

So, he's going to "cut and run" after all. The coke and Jack Daniels didn't destroy so many brain cells as to render him permanently disabled. There's room for optimism.

Not.

The other shoe drops when you read Seymour Hersh's article in this week's New Yorker: "Up in the Air". It reveals that our Beloved Leader, like an earlier King George (number three), is a hopeless lunatic.

George III at least had an excuse. Medical experts today believe that when he ran naked through the hallways of Windsor Castle at night, or angrily raved incomprehensible gibberish for hours on end, he was exhibiting mental manifestations of a physical problem, a chemical imbalance, possibly porphyria.

But our George's malady is strictly mental and spiritual. He has become convinced that, like Moses and Muhammed before him, he is God's delegated representative on earth, chosen by the almighty to deliver democracy, town meetings, Diebold, and Wal-Mart to the heathen savages of Iraq.

He's completely whacked out.

Seymour Hersh writes, "Bush’s closest advisers have long been aware of the religious nature of his policy commitments. In recent interviews, one former senior official, who served in Bush’s first term, spoke extensively about the connection between the President’s religious faith and his view of the war in Iraq. After the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the former official said, he was told that Bush felt that 'God put me here' to deal with the war on terror. The President’s belief was fortified by the Republican sweep in the 2002 congressional elections; Bush saw the victory as a purposeful message from God that 'he’s the man,' the former official said. Publicly, Bush depicted his reëlection as a referendum on the war; privately, he spoke of it as another manifestation of divine purpose."

And how, precisely, does he plan to accompish this divine purpose? Not with infantry; we've already noted that he plans to pull the troops out next year. Hersh reveals he plans to replace them with air power.

Remember Vietnam, 1969-1974? As Mark Twain said, "History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes."

"Within the military, the prospect of using airpower as a substitute for American troops on the ground has caused great unease," Hersh says, after laying out the main outlines of the plan (do yourself a favor and read the whole thing). "For one thing, Air Force commanders, in particular, have deep-seated objections to the possibility that Iraqis eventually will be responsible for target selection. 'Will the Iraqis call in air strikes in order to snuff rivals, or other warlords, or to snuff members of your own sect and blame someone else?' another senior military planner now on assignment in the Pentagon asked. 'Will some Iraqis be targeting on behalf of Al Qaeda, or the insurgency, or the Iranians?'"

I'd only add to what the senior military planner asked, remember what a resounding success "Vietnamization" and the Vietnam air war of the early 70's were?

But wait! There's more!

It seems that now, as documented by the references in this article at Billmon's Whiskey Bar, that U.S. forces in Iraq have begun using "The Salvadoran Option," i.e., using Iraqi death squads to target suspected insurgents and various other troublemakers. Most of the members of these squads are Shia, so it should come as no surprise that their victims are primarily Sunni.

The random shooting of civilians by uniformed Iraqis we've been seeing on TV might be part of the work of these "Salvadorized" units.

So there it is -- "Vienamization" and "Salvadorization," and after you strip away the euphemisms, the kinds of crimes that were committed by Hitler and Josef Stalin. It seems we're determined, under the leadership of a certifiable lunatic (just like Hitler -- just like Stalin) to go down that path.

May I be forgiven for being pessemistic, and for believing that things will only get worse?

Or can we go home now?