N. Korea, Iraq, Foley
Anything in Common?
Now with the North Korea crisis erupting, it strikes me that there are some similarities among Bush's crises.
In all three cases--North Korea, Iraq and Foleygate-- the Republican establishment knew something was wrong but failed or declined to address the problem. And the reason for the inaction was mostly a desire to keep the public in the dark so as better to win elections.
In North Korea, Bush knew that there was a brewing problem. He was not honest with the American people about it. He needed to work with China, which asked for such cooperation. He did not. In part this is because of his dislike of negotiating even indirectly with a member of the "axis of evil." In part it was about winning elections by posturing.
In Iraq, Bush knew that the security situation was collapsing and that his policies were failing. He needed to be honest with the American people about the growing crisis. He was not. He needed to work with Iran and Syria, among other neighbors. He did not. Again, he was paralyzed once he declared Iran "evil." And, again, it was about winning elections by putting lipstick on the pig.
In the case of Foley, the Republican leadership in Congress knew there was a problem. They needed to be honest with the American people about it. They were not. They needed to cooperate with their Democratic colleagues in addressing these ethics lapses. They did not. They covered up the problem and went it alone. It was about winning elections. They actually cared more about Foley's seat than they did about his excesses.
A kind of party unilateralism and disregard for the realities, along with a singleminded pursuit of victory at the ballot box (and all the wealth it can bring if properly arranged) seem at work in all three cases.
posted by Juan Cole @ 10/10/2006 12:33:00 AM
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17 Comments:
Anything Common?
Used to be, we had the "best and brightest" (or so we thought, were led to believe) who took up the helm of government and controlled the direction of the Ship of State through all sorts of weather and seas. What we've seen so far in the last six years is the usual juvenile tendency to take this Ship through every possible storm and cruising perilously near rocks, shoals, ice bergs, sand bars, whathaveyou, just to see if it can be done without causing too much damage to the craft. We've all seen the "hot dogs" who've raced their speedboats without regard to anyone or anything else in the area, acting as though they own it all and can flout the rules at will.
As we've seen during this time, the United States government has tried to get away with anything and everything, from deficits, to unwarranted wars, to a sort of regality of government, to keeping their scandals (and now First Brothers) closeted. The results of this sort of behaviour are quite predictable, with those on the other sides seeing nothing but green lights, taking advantage of each and every situation, engaging in a game of "chicken," just to see who will turn away at the last moment, or, perhaps seeing who will be able to survive should the speedboats collide. This is also evident in various "entertainment" programming, from "Jackass" to other "extreme sports," including "Bumfights" and other "funny videos" in which someone gets hurt needlessly simply because they are challenging the limits of reason and seeing just how far they can push the limits.
Whether it's the Buscists or the Kims or the Iraqis or even the Fooleys [sic] or those who enable them, it's the sense of adventure that appeals to them. Last evening Jon Stewart had James Baker III on his "Daily Show" and JBIII made mention of Kim Jong Il as being a "flake" (as was his father). Now, JBIII has been known to know some father-son flakes, the ones who have had little or no regard for the average person, so long as their personal and social agendas have been satisfied. Reading currently histories of BNL and BCCI (not forgetting Iran-Contra and the Mujahadeens), we can see where the geneses of "flakiness" were.
And, of course, Stewart got his interview going by "blaming" everything on "Clinton," the model for whom was exception to the declining intellect in government. JBIII even applauded the feigned jibe, knowing what that the Knuckleer-headed Knumbskulls on both sides of the Pacific were kept at bay and in check until about 2001. Folley [sic] was not unanticipated considering there have been other "brothers" in the Republican Party that have been closeted for years, and even another scandal known as the "Franklin Cover-up" tied to the Reagan-Bush White House years. BNL and BCCI, of course, go right back to the same period of time as does the continuing sparring with Iran.
There's really nothing "new;" it's just that everyone is used to the same people walking around with slop on their ties. The common observors have come to consider it not gastronomic ineptitude but some sort of unintentional (unintelligent) design, sort of like the 60ies' "mod" but in gravy browns and catsup reds and egg whites and yellows. Decorum and perceptiveness have been left somewhere else, leaving us with the Merkel grope, the Blair chat chomps, and the Chinese door checkers, providing innumerable hours of entertainment or embarrassment, depending on how one chooses to look at things.
The key word and concept is "common," something that is easily defined as unremarkable and without any special attributes, like a coin or a lower denomination currency bill. Scuffed, scratched, wrinkled, torn, faded, inglorious, the "lowest common" is now confused with the "least common" denominator, attesting once more to the declining average American intellect that seeks to commune with the "common" man in the White House. Everyone gets to pass the coins or bucks around, with no need to worry where it stops. Just so long as that Evinrude doesn't hiccup, everyone's on board for the ride and the thrills, chipping in for gasoline (except for the "Skipper" and his Gilligans).
Of course, this is "common man" routine is all artifice, considering that the Buscist agendas are all-important, regardless of how they are achieved, even if it means wrecking the "Speedboat of State." Whether it's Kim's nukes or Foe-ly's [sic] follies, or being between Iraq and a hard place, having the cynic's perspective attests to the "Dear Leaders' (George, Jong-Il, Saddam, Mark, pick one)" underlying goals of putting people at risk to just satisfy their dangerously cliquish egos. Of course, as Stewart made so clear, it's "Clinton's" fault, "Clinton" being the new generic bogey-man scapegoat fall-guy patsy who provided, in real life and time, much of the needed cover for the Republicans and their covering up of their various nefarious faily tales.
A "Clinton" is, as we now know, the worst thing that could happen to the United States and government, the sort of fellow who passes tests on his own and "gets" things without having to resort to cue cards, crib sheets, or electronics to urge him toward the right answers. The best thing is, of course, a person who does things on the spur of the moment and expects everyone else to pick up the pieces (and the stranded passengers) once the "Skipper" gets lost, asea, loses his bearings, has his mind seize up, throw a rod, suck a valve ... all due to a lack of foresight and prudence when it comes to maintenance and upkeep, all that unusual technical stuff.
Hi!
I think that this Foley trip is just a scam of sorts.
The Republicans were well on the way of losing majorities in both houses and it would of been seen as a referendum on Iraq. The American public would of demanded immediate changes to "Stay The Course".
But, the media has now turned it into a referendum on morals.
When the Democrats win a majority, they will be called upon to immediately begin legislating laws of morality and the Iraq war continues.
Calm
NB: Holy Jeeze! A lotta work just to post a comment. Now I got a blog address which I'll never use.
Right... They are corrupt, and if not for the fact that they MAKE the laws, they'd be indicted under those same laws. Many members of congress fit this mold as well.
"A kind of party unilateralism and disregard for the realities, along with a singleminded pursuit of victory at the ballot box (and all the wealth it can bring if properly arranged) seem at work in all three cases.
Agreed. Take the desire for power and add an agenda and any three or four catastrophes of the Bush-kind can be explained. Agendas include the literalist Christian apocolypse movement, pro-Israeli gangster capitolism, repressed anger towards Afro-Americans expressed as open hostility towards Muslims/Arabs/Brown_people, and the most curious, sadism. There is an element of sadistic consequences in all the Bushite's programs which cannot be explained by lust for power. Ergo, torture, stem-cell rules, strip searches, deprivation, religious humiliation and the mangling of speech, free and otherwise.
Our government is led by people stuck in a three-year-old's fascination with disembodied flies' wings.
All I can say is "God Bless America's married women!":
But today they [married women] favor the Democrats, by 53 to 42 percent, a key feature of the Democratic lead. Focusing on the war in Iraq helps Democrats with married women.
Could you further explain how you think the NK situation should have been handled, I am not seeing the parallel to the Iraq and Foley issue.
Certainly Bush's "Axis of Evil" comment was not conducive to calming the situation, however it is my understanding that the US wanted multilateral talks with NK, which would have included China and others while NK wanted to speak only with the US.
Can anyone else comment on what the US should have done to prevent NK from getting the bomb, a quest which has unfortunately failed.
Curiously, the American administration appears almost "shamed" by North Korea, relations with which have gone nowhere but south since Mr. Bush took office in 2001 ~ the American president himself going to great lengths to shame the then leader of South Korea, ending all progress and bright prospects apparent. That, and their awkward first contact with China (you will recall how the American "spy plane" was dis-assembled by the Chinese and returned as so many crates?) seem almost forgotten, now that Wal-Mart, Best-Buy, and Home-Depot are defacto distributors for the greatest Republican 'Red State' on the crony capitalist BLOC.
Unlike Mr. Putin, Mr. Bush is no Jiu Jitsu master; For if he were so, he would realize that when an opponent leans too far forward, the best response is to cease pushing against him yourself, and allow him to fall at your feet...
...perhaps delivering a quick coup to the back of the head as your opponent stumbles?
At any rate, the best defense against Communism is well-known. It is not armed conflict but faith in Capitalism itself, which, again ~ few Western leaders seem to have. If they did have faith in the power of consumption rather than destruction, they would stuff North Korea with not only oil and grain but also every conceivable consumer doo-dad available, rendering them helpless, thus in the face of CocaCola and McDonald's, as hooked as the rest of the civilized world is on two burgers, fries, and a coke.
Instead, Mr. Bush appears to wish to diminish North Korea's nuclear bomb, all but saying "puny", this being an apparent cover for The West's own inability to respond in any way other than "puny", themselves.
What is peculiar is how Mr. Rove has failed to see what a political gift the Korean leader has given George W...
...the President's first response should have been to immediately raise the ALERT LEVEL lantern (especially effective when it comes at an awkward evening holiday hour, all the more noticeable by the inconvenience caused).
Then, Parade That Pacific Fleet! Get lots of video out there of ships steaming, fighters whooshing off carrier decks, gun turrets swivelling: "the American umbrella is doing its duty to defend against this threat to our allies Japan, South Korea, et al!"
Third, kick faux news into high gear, get those Talking Points out: l'affaire Foley fades away; the conversation is all about Republicans fending off FEAR, again; the sub-text is "We can protect you, the Democrats can't!"
North Korea appears to have blown up something. The Republicans appear to have simply BLOWN IT ;-)
Charlie Cook, an old friend of mine, calls the Foley Scandal an "inflection" point. And so it is, but not in and of itself, the underlying cause of America's loss of faith in Bush and his CoverUp Congress.
Like Katrina, the Foley scandal leads Americans to a fresh look at an old problem, THE problem driving the decline in confidence is Iraq.
in the opening paragraph of an article in Newsweek:
Oct. 16, 2006 issue - When Iraq's current government was formed last April, after four months of bitter disputes, wrangling and paralysis, many voices in America and in Iraq said the next six months would be the crucial testing period. That was a fair expectation. It has now been almost six months, and what we have seen are bitter disputes, wrangling and paralysis. Meanwhile, the violence has gotten worse, sectarian tensions have risen steeply and ethnic cleansing is now in full swing. There is really no functioning government south of Kurdistan, only power vacuums that have been filled by factions, militias and strongmen. It is time to call an end to the tests, the six-month trials, the waiting and watching, and to recognize that the Iraqi government has failed. It is also time to face the terrible reality that America's mission in Iraq has substantially failed.
TIME'S UP
Piper's Invoice to Bush - PAST DUE
What I find troubling is that the Washington Times had some anonymous intel analysts saying this was likely not a nuclear device. I'm sure that leak was targeted to relieve some conservatives that the Bush administration is not whistling past the graveyard on this one.
The fact is that this bomb was likely a nuclear blast. We'll bag (or we won't) radioactive signatures and we'll know more.
No, nothing in common. NK would present the same "lose, lose" problems under the watch of either US party. "Beloved Leader" has no partisan preference. There are Foley problems with both parties, just as there are in many churches, schools, scout troops, and businesses. The only solution is to institute anti-pedophile rules and education (aka: read the Riot Act) to all people in power). Regarding Iraq, there is very little distinction between the current US policy and what Biden or Clinton present as "alternatives." A can of worms is a can of worms, is a ...
Absent defense of an authentically different policy towards Iraq, criticism comes across as mere vindictiveness. Beware, lest the Democrats end up in charge with no clue on how to proceed. Were a Democrat to win in 2008, perhaps the best approach would be to re-appoint Rumsfeld & Rice, let them take the blame, and then concentrate on domestic policies.
Speeding Elephant: You ask what way the Korean situation could have been handled better.
At least four ways:
1. Don't try to muscle South Korea out of its attempts to develop better relations with North Korea.
2. Don't list North Korea as one of three nations comprising an "axis of evil" when you plan to invade the first and threaten to attack the second. Unless number three is totally comatose--and I don't know of any nation so isolated that it is--they will figure out what weapons to build to defend themselves against your threats.
3. Don't label the development of a primitive nuclear weapon "a threat to world peace" when you are asking for funds to increase your own store of nuclear arms and develop new uses for them. In the real world that's called being a hypocrite.
4. And finally--duuh--when the North Koreans ask to hold bilateral talks with you, HOLD THE G-D TALKS. What's to be gained by not meeting with your enemy?
The bottom line is that we are conducting a failed dishonest self centered policy for our own people and the people of the world.
The difference that we don’t see is, that the world sees our conducts and laughs in fear but our own people are shielded from the truth through our own media.
therefore we don’t share the same view with the rest of the planet.
We think if we are the biggest economy in the world, if we have the biggest military power in the world,If we are the most advance country in the world, we have the right to be the most arrogant people in the planet and everybody else should submite to our views or else.
Look how our administration calls ourselves and a few other western or western dominated countries the international community where is that come from, in one world arrogance.
What the North Korean/Chinese did they made clear to the world that we are just a super paper tiger who’s running out oil, correctly the world had enough of our huff and puffs
It is about time that we come to the same conclusion as the rest of the world and start an honest truly just international policy if we care to preserve our standing
with rest of the planet. As world opinion showed the biggest fear in the world today is US it is time to ask ourselves why.
Ulrici :
Didn't you leave out way number zero?
0. Don't put North Korea back on the path toward nuclear weapons by scuttling the light water reactor for no weapons plan worked out by the previous administration.
I supply a talking point memo for John Koch.
The common thread is more specifically a refusal of responsibility. Refusal to take responsibility for dealing with problems, refusal to take responsibility when inaction or poor action results in undesired results. Refusal to be responsible for learning for one's betters, or from one's mistakes.
In general, we are led by a group of 10- to 17-year-olds who will NOT be told by their mothers to clean up their rooms.
More sarcastically,
My President's Learning Curve Is A Flat Line
At 6:59 PM, copy editor said...
What I find troubling is that the Washington Times had some anonymous intel analysts saying this was likely not a nuclear device. I'm sure that leak was targeted to relieve some conservatives that the Bush administration is not whistling past the graveyard on this one.
The fact is that this bomb was likely a nuclear blast. We'll bag (or we won't) radioactive signatures and we'll know more.
(...)
Well, funny you should mention the Washington Times... consortium news just republished an article from year 2000 on how, albeit indirectly, the Washington Times helped fund NK's weapons program. If this is true, and the information has been public for 6 years with no lawsuits flying, then the WashTimes would have a pretty vested inteest in seeing this story played "close to the cuff", just like Kim Jong Il.
Has anyone mentioned that Kim Jong Il likes to play poker? (...and I understand he's quite good at it.)
Its [HERE]
Prologue:
U.S. intelligence documents reveal that Washington Times founder Sun Myung Moon gave millions of dollars to North Korea's communist leaders in the early 1990s as they were scrambling for resources to develop nuclear weapons and other sophisticated military hardware. But Moon also put large sums of money into Bush family pockets -- and has escaped legal complications.
For the full story on how money creates strange international bedfellows, go to Consortiumnews.com
Again, that's [HERE]
How many people remember the Republican's "Contract With America"?
Don't you wish you could sue for breach of contract?
It's called impeachment. The problem is that the whole Bush administration, every single person appointed, whether voted in by congress or not, needs to go.
The corruption is so endemic, so... expected, that hardly anyone even notices that Donald Rumsfeld is on the Board of Directors of the European company which built the 2 reactors that created the fissionable material for the North Korean nuclear weapon.
We are literally creating our own straw boogymen and then financing a military-industrial economy, complete with burgeoning police state to beat the stuffing out of them (cf. Saddam Hussein) and scare the American populace into a state of fearful conformity.
From scoop.co.nz:
Phil Rockstroh: Six Flags Over Neo-Nuremberg
"Karl Rove, Roger Ailes, et al, are not evil geniuses. Well, at least, they’re not geniuses. They’re simply cocktail party variety, confidence artists of the electronic age. They're media professionals who understand the proto-fascistic fantasies of the populace of the consumer state.
Hitler and Goebbels grasped what any advertising copywriter is taught early on: People can be manipulated, if an appeal can be addressed to modern man’s yearning to break free from the constraints of his existence as an economic animal . . . Whether it’s the promised dawning of the Thousand Year Reich or the empty facsimile of freedom promised by the purchase of a new automobile, both provide the feckless sucker with the illusion of shaking up the old order; hence, the quotidian prison will collapse, allowing one’s imprisoned longings to escape to freedom over the rubble. But first, paradoxically, one must surrender their rational mind to the individuality-destroying agendas of the state and/or corporation."
[MORE]
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