Thursday, September 19, 2002
President Bush exposed as a secret peacemaker
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
Dr Paranoia tells a story of a bar encounter with a Texan, a self-proclaimed Republican, who loudly complained about our President warlike Iraq policy. " As we say in Austin, the man needs to populate his matrix. He don't get granular enough. And he has to tune up his counter-intuitive thinking, he's no Reagan. .Just leveraging those hostile ideas don't fly in the world of of the towel-heads. There's no strap there, and no exit policy" Taken aback, Dr. P asked about the apparent Texanisms. Turned out respondent works for EDS, and the language is IT (information technology, what used to be data processing). Strap means strategic planning. .
When asked who his ideal President would be, the Texan declared, without hesitation: "Clinton, with a better zipper." Pretending to be totally shocked , somewhat like Capt. Raynaud upon discovering that there is gambling in Rick's Café, the good doctor asked for an explanation. "Come now, you know that Clinton is one of us, a moderate Republican. If he hadn't run the country with both hands tied behind his back and his gonads otherwise occupied, we would have a different world. That wife of his with her universal medical care fantasies, the babes of the week, and my own party tying him up with investigations, accusations, indictments and impeachments, it is a miracle anything got done in those eight years. That's the beauty of a two party system, two sets of characters with no ideological differences wying for one set of jobs, and stopping each other from performing. .It's not the pay, it's the influence that drives them. Jobs first, country second. I pass." Since the man was clearly unbalanced and in need of medical attention, Dr. P. retreated, to call 911. When he returned, the Texan was gone, leaving behind the delicious aroma of Maker's Mark bourbon and a trace of cowchips on the floor. Clearly a problem case.
Regarding the Iran policy, Dr. Paranoia has his own theory. Deep down, George W. does not want war, he wants Saddam to submit. Hussein, sees it as a bluff, and won't blink. To scare the Iraqi dictator, George W. has to act as a reckless mad dog, foaming at the mouth, the more opposition in Europe, the more in Arab countries, even in the US, the better for that image. He has tools to escalate it, such as convening the hapless Iraqi opposition leaders for a conference, tele-chaired by VP Cheney ( the leader of the potentially 70,000 Kurd fighters, Masud Barzani, did not come, for fear of another poison gas retaliation by Hussein). He ignores the oppositionists in his own Republican party, such as Richard Armey, who warns that under the cover of the American attack, the Israelis may attempt to expel the Palestinians from the West Bank, and the Indians may wipe out the Pakistani forces threatening Yammu & Kashmir.
The attack on the Saudis as supporters of the Muslim radicals, voiced in a Defense Policy Board meeting early in August by Laurent Murawiec an unknown Rand consultant, was a warning to the seven rulers and 5,000 princes to cool their ardor. (Murawiec, a former French intelligence agent, variously described by partisans as a Sharon person and an operative of the shadowy anti-Israeli racist Lyndon LaRouche, has been recently denounced by the latter. Go figure!) Although the Board is described as a quasi-official body, its chairman, Richard Perle, has been the voice of the Washington hawks, until Cheney and Rumsfeld escalated the stakes in September by speaking up themselves.
So far, the hawks have given the MidEast dictators cover, by not pressing them into anti-Iraq service. Outright support of the Bush policy would certainly threaten the governments of Egypt, Jordan, the Saudis and all the little princes in the Gulf states and the rulers of North Africa, given the amount of anti-American radicalization of the street Arabs that al Quaeda and Palestinian propaganda has generated. (Deep down, the sheiks want al Quaeda and the radicals to fail; Addam's Iraq is no longer a theat to them,as long as the US and Britain watch over their interests.) And there's denial - BBC interviewers find many educated MidEasterners insisting that 9/11 was an Israeli or CIA plot, despite the disclosures in the bin Laden group's own videos and statements. The Office of Global Communications has a job of marketing in its hands (America as the land of opportunity is not a bad sell to the people who burn the US flag one day and stand in line for a US visa the next.)
Dr Paranoia also maintains that there is also a bad cop/good cop psychology at work. Secretary Powell dangles unconditional admission of UN arms inspectors as the ticket of peace, and Scott Ritter goes even further. The former head of the UN team who withdrew it from Iraq in 1998, when Saddam Hussein totally inhibited its actions, has maintained that Iraq does not have the means to be a deadly threat to Israel and the West. This ex-Marine and admitted former (ha!) secret CIA operative has made five trips to Iraq, at the invitation of its puppet parliament, during the latest of which, in September, he invited them to open the doors to inspectors, in order to prevent annihilation. The President's speech, declaring that Saddam is still in contempt of the UN resolutions and claiming carryover authorization from the 1991 gulf war to initiate a change in Iraqi goverment, also leaves the opening. A good oilman, Bush 43 knows that Bush 41 did not pursue the gulf war for fear of leaving a vacuum of power in Iraq and swinging the MidEast balance of power toward Iran, not to forget the potential of destruction of the oil sheik regimes.
All this play-within-a-play should not give Saddam Hussein too much comfort. His brutal power rests on the support of the small tribe which he heads. To begin with, this secularist who puts on the Muslim mantle at his convenience, when needed, is still a long-term target of bin Laden's true Islamists, as are the plutocrat sheiks and rulers of the Arab states who keep their underdog happy by feeding funds to their young radicals, exported to expend their energies on subverting the great democracy of the West, US, where the tradition of civil liberties saves them from peremptory executions for treason, the tradition in their native countries.
And, second, Bush 43 may still lose his patience, should his last-minute public display of attempted multi-lateralism meet with continued outright refusal from Iraq, and blow the 22 million inhabitant Iraq to smithereens. Saddam has only the 80,000 Revolutionary Guard to trust (the half-million men Army is poorly trained and motivated.) How long can he wait for the OGC to turn the Mid East around.
Dr Paranoia tells a story of a bar encounter with a Texan, a self-proclaimed Republican, who loudly complained about our President warlike Iraq policy. " As we say in Austin, the man needs to populate his matrix. He don't get granular enough. And he has to tune up his counter-intuitive thinking, he's no Reagan. .Just leveraging those hostile ideas don't fly in the world of of the towel-heads. There's no strap there, and no exit policy" Taken aback, Dr. P asked about the apparent Texanisms. Turned out respondent works for EDS, and the language is IT (information technology, what used to be data processing). Strap means strategic planning. .
When asked who his ideal President would be, the Texan declared, without hesitation: "Clinton, with a better zipper." Pretending to be totally shocked , somewhat like Capt. Raynaud upon discovering that there is gambling in Rick's Café, the good doctor asked for an explanation. "Come now, you know that Clinton is one of us, a moderate Republican. If he hadn't run the country with both hands tied behind his back and his gonads otherwise occupied, we would have a different world. That wife of his with her universal medical care fantasies, the babes of the week, and my own party tying him up with investigations, accusations, indictments and impeachments, it is a miracle anything got done in those eight years. That's the beauty of a two party system, two sets of characters with no ideological differences wying for one set of jobs, and stopping each other from performing. .It's not the pay, it's the influence that drives them. Jobs first, country second. I pass." Since the man was clearly unbalanced and in need of medical attention, Dr. P. retreated, to call 911. When he returned, the Texan was gone, leaving behind the delicious aroma of Maker's Mark bourbon and a trace of cowchips on the floor. Clearly a problem case.
Regarding the Iran policy, Dr. Paranoia has his own theory. Deep down, George W. does not want war, he wants Saddam to submit. Hussein, sees it as a bluff, and won't blink. To scare the Iraqi dictator, George W. has to act as a reckless mad dog, foaming at the mouth, the more opposition in Europe, the more in Arab countries, even in the US, the better for that image. He has tools to escalate it, such as convening the hapless Iraqi opposition leaders for a conference, tele-chaired by VP Cheney ( the leader of the potentially 70,000 Kurd fighters, Masud Barzani, did not come, for fear of another poison gas retaliation by Hussein). He ignores the oppositionists in his own Republican party, such as Richard Armey, who warns that under the cover of the American attack, the Israelis may attempt to expel the Palestinians from the West Bank, and the Indians may wipe out the Pakistani forces threatening Yammu & Kashmir.
The attack on the Saudis as supporters of the Muslim radicals, voiced in a Defense Policy Board meeting early in August by Laurent Murawiec an unknown Rand consultant, was a warning to the seven rulers and 5,000 princes to cool their ardor. (Murawiec, a former French intelligence agent, variously described by partisans as a Sharon person and an operative of the shadowy anti-Israeli racist Lyndon LaRouche, has been recently denounced by the latter. Go figure!) Although the Board is described as a quasi-official body, its chairman, Richard Perle, has been the voice of the Washington hawks, until Cheney and Rumsfeld escalated the stakes in September by speaking up themselves.
So far, the hawks have given the MidEast dictators cover, by not pressing them into anti-Iraq service. Outright support of the Bush policy would certainly threaten the governments of Egypt, Jordan, the Saudis and all the little princes in the Gulf states and the rulers of North Africa, given the amount of anti-American radicalization of the street Arabs that al Quaeda and Palestinian propaganda has generated. (Deep down, the sheiks want al Quaeda and the radicals to fail; Addam's Iraq is no longer a theat to them,as long as the US and Britain watch over their interests.) And there's denial - BBC interviewers find many educated MidEasterners insisting that 9/11 was an Israeli or CIA plot, despite the disclosures in the bin Laden group's own videos and statements. The Office of Global Communications has a job of marketing in its hands (America as the land of opportunity is not a bad sell to the people who burn the US flag one day and stand in line for a US visa the next.)
Dr Paranoia also maintains that there is also a bad cop/good cop psychology at work. Secretary Powell dangles unconditional admission of UN arms inspectors as the ticket of peace, and Scott Ritter goes even further. The former head of the UN team who withdrew it from Iraq in 1998, when Saddam Hussein totally inhibited its actions, has maintained that Iraq does not have the means to be a deadly threat to Israel and the West. This ex-Marine and admitted former (ha!) secret CIA operative has made five trips to Iraq, at the invitation of its puppet parliament, during the latest of which, in September, he invited them to open the doors to inspectors, in order to prevent annihilation. The President's speech, declaring that Saddam is still in contempt of the UN resolutions and claiming carryover authorization from the 1991 gulf war to initiate a change in Iraqi goverment, also leaves the opening. A good oilman, Bush 43 knows that Bush 41 did not pursue the gulf war for fear of leaving a vacuum of power in Iraq and swinging the MidEast balance of power toward Iran, not to forget the potential of destruction of the oil sheik regimes.
All this play-within-a-play should not give Saddam Hussein too much comfort. His brutal power rests on the support of the small tribe which he heads. To begin with, this secularist who puts on the Muslim mantle at his convenience, when needed, is still a long-term target of bin Laden's true Islamists, as are the plutocrat sheiks and rulers of the Arab states who keep their underdog happy by feeding funds to their young radicals, exported to expend their energies on subverting the great democracy of the West, US, where the tradition of civil liberties saves them from peremptory executions for treason, the tradition in their native countries.
And, second, Bush 43 may still lose his patience, should his last-minute public display of attempted multi-lateralism meet with continued outright refusal from Iraq, and blow the 22 million inhabitant Iraq to smithereens. Saddam has only the 80,000 Revolutionary Guard to trust (the half-million men Army is poorly trained and motivated.) How long can he wait for the OGC to turn the Mid East around.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 3:47 PM 
