4-29-06 Blinded By The Light

When George W. Bush focused the might of the American government upon the task of taking the Global War On Terror (GWOT) to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq, it was not without the support of the American people. On that day when the TV news showed pictures of the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down, and the faces of Iraqi's cheering the American troops as they rode through Baghdad, it was difficult for even the most hard core peace advocate to deny the seeming rightness of the gambit.

Today we are seeing the results of our government's incredible lack of true character, allegedly based in the moral high ground that underlay the American people's willingness to support these actions. As the mug shots of administration officials, congressmen and high profile supporters of this administration continue to line up, one after another, we can see the dirty underbelly of this "one party system" that's taken over in Washington. As the billions and billions of dollars appropriated by congress to support the military actions in the middle east continue to magically disappear into corporate black holes; as even the billions appropriated to address the storm disaster in New Orleans somehow evaporated into these same corporate black holes, one has to wipe the glint of the moral high ground out of their eyes, sooner or later, and demand that this bullshit come to a stop.

The dirty underbelly of the Iraq invasion was the modus operandus of big business. The plan was that the American invasion would miraculously result in oil production going up in Iraq, and that this would pay for the reconstruction of that country.

In three simple words, it didn't work.

Now that the American government has clearly demonstrated that it's completely incapable of doing the larger job of building (as opposed to destroying) a country, the simplicity of fourth generation warfare is that the cat is out of the bag. Now too many people realize that it's so much easier to destroy than it is to build. Consequently, we now have individuals and small, relatively disconnected groups running around all over the world effectively shutting down huge and complex systems by destroying small and simple targets. A well placed bomb on a pipeline out in the middle of nowhere, for instance, effectively shuts down the whole pipeline. Since the pipeline's down, trucks might be used to transport the oil instead, but all it takes are a couple more well placed bombs on the highway and it's then difficult or impossible to find anyone to drive the trucks. The whole face of this so-called Global War On Terror has been morphed into something that this administration never bargained for.

They never bargained for the possibility that they would end up being the enemy against which the majority of the world would fight.

Without the dirty underbelly, without the criminality, without the chronic lying, without the piling up of scandal after scandal, perhaps this administration could've maintained the support of not only the American public, but that of some major portion of the rest of the world's governments as well. But the tide has not only turned, it has been washing up on the shore for some time now. It's a tide of recognition that this administration's actions over the past five years have been adding up to one of the worst disasters ever to beset this country. The disaster threatens to crash our economy, destroy our basic freedoms, and basically turn this whole world into a much worse place.

The shining light of freedom that this country has been for so many decades has been severely dimmed by the administration of George W. Bush. I might easily be convinced that he believes what he is doing is the right thing for the American people and for the world. But history has shown, over and over again, that the most evil acts ever perpetrated in this world were done by people who, just like George W. Bush, were convinced that they were doing good.

To quote Robert A. Heinlein...
"Goodness without wisdom invariably accomplishes evil."

And if we take a look at both sides in all of this, the neocons and christianists here and the terrorists and islamists around the world, this quote from Blaise Pascal says it all...
"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction."

I think that the majority of the American public would still have remained behind our government's actions so far, if the plan (as originally conceived) had ended up working. If the oil fields in Iraq had been recovered and put into full production, hardly anyone can argue that the current price of oil would have ever reached the ridiculouos heights that we see today. But, as I said in three simple words earlier... it didn't work.

Just yesterday, this article appeared in the Washington Post...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/28/AR2006042801082.html

Unfortunately, the judgement of what has been done by this administration has to be upon the actual result, instead of the apparently intended result. The actual result is that the entire basis of our economy, the affordable cost of the energy that everything runs on, has been sabotaged. The American Dream is not based upon philosophy or ideologue, it is based on the opportunity of the common man or woman to be able to get to work. Everything else depends on this foundation of affordable energy.

We can pontificate upon the rightness or wrongness of our government's actions from high moral ideas, with personal beliefs from liberal or conservative angles, and we can choose to be hawks or doves. But if it costs too much to get to work, to heat our homes, to pay for the transport of the goods we buy in grocery stores, then we find our very way of life threatened. It's not threatened from without, it's threatened by our leaders in Washington who have clearly been the sole authors of this current situation.

If this result had not been coincident with the administration's base in the oil industry, perhaps we could dissuade ourselves from blaming them. But the fact is that both Bush Sr and Bush Jr are "oil men", along with Dick Cheney, and many others, even Condoleeza Rice... Oil industry people, all. That the current situation gives the oil industry record profits is too much of a coincidence to ignore.

It reeks of corruption.

If this corruption were the only stink coming out of Washington in this past five years, perhaps even then we could dissuade ourselves from believing that George W. Bush's presidency has effected the worst disaster this country has ever had to suffer.

But this is hardly the case.

The one thing that could really push the price of oil into the upper reaches of insanity would be for our government to attack Iran. When we attacked Iraq, the country with the THIRD highest proven oil reserves, and those reserves were eventually sabotaged, rather than put into production, the benefit to the oil companies was demonstrated, and is still being demonstrated, with the over $70 a barrel price.

If they attack Iran, the country with the SECOND highest proven oil reserves in the world, second only to Saudi Arabia, there will be one definite, predictable result, ie- the price of oil will more than double AGAIN.

This will definitely, predictably give the oil industry even higher profits.

So, we can continue to believe that George W. Bush is "blinded by the light" of his consistently voiced convictions regarding the GWOT, or we can observe the obvious. This man is not working for the good of the American public, the safety of the American public, or the championing of freedom in the world. Behind the well-rehearsed "down home guy" we see on TV resides the character of an oil industry slime-ball, feeding his cronies the river of cash they have been enjoying this past five years.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating.