Tomgram: Bush's Faith and the Middle East Aflame
The Force Is Not with Them
The Middle East Aflame and the Bush Administration Adrift
So, as the world spins on a dime, where exactly are we?
As a man who is no fan of fundamentalists of any sort, let me offer a proposition that might make some modest sense of our reeling planet. Consider the possibility that the most fundamental belief, perhaps in all of history, but specifically in these last catastrophic years, seems to be in the efficacy of force -- and the more of it the merrier. That deep belief in force above all else is perhaps the monotheism of monotheisms, a faith remarkably accepting of adherents of any other imaginable faith – or of no other faith at all. Like many fundamentalist faiths, it is also resistant to drawing any reasonable lessons from actual experience on this planet.
The Bush administration came to power as a fundamentalist regime; and here I'm not referring to the Christian fundamentalist faith of our President. After all, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, and our Vice President seem not to be Christian fundamentalists any more than were Paul Wolfowitz or Douglas Feith. Bush's top officials may not have agreed among themselves on whether End Time would arrive, or even on the domestic social issues of most concern to the Christian religious right in this country, but they were all linked by a singular belief in the efficacy of force.
In fact, they believed themselves uniquely in possession of an ability to project force in ways no other power on the planet or in history ever could. While hardly elevating the actual military leadership of the country (whom they were eager to sideline), they raised the all-volunteer American military itself onto a pedestal and worshipped it as the highest tech, most shock-and-awesome institution around. They were dazzled by the fact that it was armed with the smartest, most planet-spanning, most destructive set of weapons imaginable, and backed by an unparalleled military-industrial complex as well as a "defense" budget that would knock anyone's socks off (and their communications systems down). It was enough to dazzle the administration's top officials with dreams of global domination; to fill them with a vision of a planet-wide Pax Americana; to send them off to the moon (which, by the way, was certainly militarizable).
Force, then, was their idol and they bowed down before it. When it came to the loosing of that force (and the forces at their command), they were nothing short of fervent utopians and blind believers. They were convinced that with such force (and forces), they could reshape the world in just about any way they wanted to fit their visionary desires.
And then, of course, came 9/11, the "Pearl Harbor" of this century. Suddenly, they had a divine wind at their back, a terrified populace before them ready to be led, and everything they believed in seemed just so… well, possible. It was, in faith-based terms, a godsend. Not surprisingly, they promptly began to prepare to act in the stead of an imperially angry god and to bring the world -- particularly its energy heartlands -- to heel.
First, however, because they had long been People of the Word, they created their sacred texts, their doctrine. In the form of "preventive war" and keeping other potential superpowers or blocs of powers from ever rising up to challenge the United States, they enshrined force at the apex of their pantheon of deities in their National Security Strategy of 2002. (The term "preventive war" was in itself reasonably unique. Usually even the most aggressive dictators don't label their planned wars with terms that creep right up to the edge of "aggressive" and then promote them that way to the world.) At the same time, the President then began speaking out about the need not to wait until the threat of destruction was upon us as in his 2002 State of the Union Address where he said: "We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."
Soon enough, his advisors began raising Iraqi mushroom clouds over American cities and describing fantasy Iraqi unmanned aerial vehicles that might spray those cities with chemical or biological weapons in order to make an already scared populace and cowed Congress into believers as well. This was, of course, in the period when their long-time supporters and a supportive corps of pundits, radio talk-show hosts, and communicators of various sorts were speaking proudly, even boastfully, about the United States as the sole "hyperpower" on the planet or the globe's New Rome; when even a liberal Canadian commentator, Michael Ignatieff, could publish a piece in the New York Times Magazine extolling George Bush's U.S. as "a new invention in the annals of political science, an empire lite, a global hegemony whose grace notes are free markets, human rights and democracy, enforced by the most awesome military power the world has ever known." He wrote as well of the necessity of Americans shouldering the "burden of empire" in Iraq. (Historically, there's only one such "burden," by the way – and it's Rudyard Kipling's nineteenth century "white man's burden.")
Those, of course, were the good times when "neoconservatism" (partially a shorthand term for this religious bent, for the love of "the most awesome military power the world has ever known") was truly ascendant. That term was also shorthand for an imperial mission to be shouldered by officials convinced that our empire should stand tall, alone, and on one leg -- the leg of "force."
In any case, having enshrined "preventive war" at the heart of the Bush Doctrine, they went in search of someplace to loose it on the world, someplace that might look militarily strong enough and heinous enough, but would be weak enough to make a point fast. They needed a roguish country, preferably run by a nasty dictator, preferably smack in the oil heartlands of the globe, that could be taken down quickly as a demonstration of that "awesome military power," a place that could be shock-and-awed into instant submission. It would be both a cakewalk and a case in point for the rest of the region about what a group of determined fundamentalists might do to anyone who opposed their religion and their wishes.
Well, we know the place; we know how they first shock-and-awed Congress and the American people into an invasion; and we all remember how they put their plan into practice -- with a confidence and lack of planning for any alternative possibilities or realities that was typical of true believers. And so, on March 20, 2003, they loosed their cruise-missile-styled lightning bolts on Baghdad because they knew one thing -- that the force was with them and that, because the United States was the military superpower of all superpowers in all of history, it was theirs alone…
Stock and Awe: The Force of an Anxious Market ...Cont
continua / continued
The Middle East Aflame and the Bush Administration Adrift
So, as the world spins on a dime, where exactly are we?
As a man who is no fan of fundamentalists of any sort, let me offer a proposition that might make some modest sense of our reeling planet. Consider the possibility that the most fundamental belief, perhaps in all of history, but specifically in these last catastrophic years, seems to be in the efficacy of force -- and the more of it the merrier. That deep belief in force above all else is perhaps the monotheism of monotheisms, a faith remarkably accepting of adherents of any other imaginable faith – or of no other faith at all. Like many fundamentalist faiths, it is also resistant to drawing any reasonable lessons from actual experience on this planet.
The Bush administration came to power as a fundamentalist regime; and here I'm not referring to the Christian fundamentalist faith of our President. After all, Karl Rove, Donald Rumsfeld, and our Vice President seem not to be Christian fundamentalists any more than were Paul Wolfowitz or Douglas Feith. Bush's top officials may not have agreed among themselves on whether End Time would arrive, or even on the domestic social issues of most concern to the Christian religious right in this country, but they were all linked by a singular belief in the efficacy of force.
In fact, they believed themselves uniquely in possession of an ability to project force in ways no other power on the planet or in history ever could. While hardly elevating the actual military leadership of the country (whom they were eager to sideline), they raised the all-volunteer American military itself onto a pedestal and worshipped it as the highest tech, most shock-and-awesome institution around. They were dazzled by the fact that it was armed with the smartest, most planet-spanning, most destructive set of weapons imaginable, and backed by an unparalleled military-industrial complex as well as a "defense" budget that would knock anyone's socks off (and their communications systems down). It was enough to dazzle the administration's top officials with dreams of global domination; to fill them with a vision of a planet-wide Pax Americana; to send them off to the moon (which, by the way, was certainly militarizable).
Force, then, was their idol and they bowed down before it. When it came to the loosing of that force (and the forces at their command), they were nothing short of fervent utopians and blind believers. They were convinced that with such force (and forces), they could reshape the world in just about any way they wanted to fit their visionary desires.
And then, of course, came 9/11, the "Pearl Harbor" of this century. Suddenly, they had a divine wind at their back, a terrified populace before them ready to be led, and everything they believed in seemed just so… well, possible. It was, in faith-based terms, a godsend. Not surprisingly, they promptly began to prepare to act in the stead of an imperially angry god and to bring the world -- particularly its energy heartlands -- to heel.
First, however, because they had long been People of the Word, they created their sacred texts, their doctrine. In the form of "preventive war" and keeping other potential superpowers or blocs of powers from ever rising up to challenge the United States, they enshrined force at the apex of their pantheon of deities in their National Security Strategy of 2002. (The term "preventive war" was in itself reasonably unique. Usually even the most aggressive dictators don't label their planned wars with terms that creep right up to the edge of "aggressive" and then promote them that way to the world.) At the same time, the President then began speaking out about the need not to wait until the threat of destruction was upon us as in his 2002 State of the Union Address where he said: "We'll be deliberate, yet time is not on our side. I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."
Soon enough, his advisors began raising Iraqi mushroom clouds over American cities and describing fantasy Iraqi unmanned aerial vehicles that might spray those cities with chemical or biological weapons in order to make an already scared populace and cowed Congress into believers as well. This was, of course, in the period when their long-time supporters and a supportive corps of pundits, radio talk-show hosts, and communicators of various sorts were speaking proudly, even boastfully, about the United States as the sole "hyperpower" on the planet or the globe's New Rome; when even a liberal Canadian commentator, Michael Ignatieff, could publish a piece in the New York Times Magazine extolling George Bush's U.S. as "a new invention in the annals of political science, an empire lite, a global hegemony whose grace notes are free markets, human rights and democracy, enforced by the most awesome military power the world has ever known." He wrote as well of the necessity of Americans shouldering the "burden of empire" in Iraq. (Historically, there's only one such "burden," by the way – and it's Rudyard Kipling's nineteenth century "white man's burden.")
Those, of course, were the good times when "neoconservatism" (partially a shorthand term for this religious bent, for the love of "the most awesome military power the world has ever known") was truly ascendant. That term was also shorthand for an imperial mission to be shouldered by officials convinced that our empire should stand tall, alone, and on one leg -- the leg of "force."
In any case, having enshrined "preventive war" at the heart of the Bush Doctrine, they went in search of someplace to loose it on the world, someplace that might look militarily strong enough and heinous enough, but would be weak enough to make a point fast. They needed a roguish country, preferably run by a nasty dictator, preferably smack in the oil heartlands of the globe, that could be taken down quickly as a demonstration of that "awesome military power," a place that could be shock-and-awed into instant submission. It would be both a cakewalk and a case in point for the rest of the region about what a group of determined fundamentalists might do to anyone who opposed their religion and their wishes.
Well, we know the place; we know how they first shock-and-awed Congress and the American people into an invasion; and we all remember how they put their plan into practice -- with a confidence and lack of planning for any alternative possibilities or realities that was typical of true believers. And so, on March 20, 2003, they loosed their cruise-missile-styled lightning bolts on Baghdad because they knew one thing -- that the force was with them and that, because the United States was the military superpower of all superpowers in all of history, it was theirs alone…
Stock and Awe: The Force of an Anxious Market ...Cont
continua / continued
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 12:29 AM
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