Saturday, March 20, 2004
War Theater of the Absurd
The Bush Dynasty's Ministry of War Theater along with their embedded Pentagon psyops at CNN and MSGOP (the same folks who brought us the fabulous multimedia CakeWalk Show one year ago) have done another fine job of whooping up the battlefront dramaturgy. Production credits going this time to President Gen. R. Good-buddy Pervez Musharraf of the great theo-kooky nation of Pakistan. Who, it so happens, decided to treat our own celebrated State Department highstepper Colin Powell to a grand hunting expedition in the wilds of the Northwest Frontier.
Of course Gen. R. Good-buddy Musharraf has the unenviable task of playing to both sides of the bed. On the one hand he has the Bush administration breathing hotly all over the back of his sweaty neck while whispering in his ear -- "Serve us up the head of bin Laden on a silver platter or we will turn your country into Cambodia, circa April 1970" -- while at the same time keeping a nervous twitching eyeball on his own likely pro-al Qaeda ISI (intelligence service) poised to chew his nut-sack off should he wander too far from the madrassa door. Kind of like catering a wedding in Belfast between a Catholic schoolgirl and a Ulster Unionist police chief.
Anyway, Musharraf knew he'd best put on a frilly apron and offer up some kind of goodwill hunting banquet on behalf of the traveling Powell hippodrome. And what better way to impress the visiting American huzoor than a strapping wild boar safari in the untamed outlands of the batty Islamic Republic? Hey, what's he gonna do, invite Powell over for a shrimp cocktail and round of bumper pool in the rumpus room? So, sound the trumpets, unleash the curs, and announce that we've got the hydra headed beast cornered in hills! And by shrieking saviour it's the mother of all beasts! The Evil One hisself - maybe. Hi-ho! hi-ho! its off to the thickets we go.
Ok....that works on the imagination, and of course the official story-line boob-tube news barkers at CNN and MSGOP and wherever will go-a-dashing off in hot pursuit of whatever shiny object is dangled before them. Nothing new to that old chase scene.
Meanwhile, back at the GOP campaign revival tent, our mountebank pResident George W. "Billy Sunday" Bush will make busy strutting hither and fro across the boards delivering up the usual hurly-burly of economic alchemy and stage managed Christian avenger blare that his hero worshipping flock of hymn singing hossana shoutin' bah-lambs gobble up like so much stock fodder.
I suspect this current squall in Pakistan will eventually wind down and go sputtering off into an Indus sunset like a dying dust whirl. Tora Bora rewind. At least for the time being. The ISI and al-Qaeda supporters in Musharraf's midst are not going to cack up bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri on behalf of a visit from some showboating US entourage or on behalf of their frightened leader or on behalf of anyone else for that matter. Not without a serious bloodbath. And Musharraf knows it too. Musharraf also knows that if it comes down to a choice between, 1- protecting Islamic fundamentalist power interests in Pakistan, or 2- knuckling under to US pressure to give up al-Qaeda big shots --- he stands a pretty good chance of being dispatched to a shallow hole in a courtyard should he chose wha'ts behind door number 2. There are plenty of powerful fellers in his very own house who would be glad to grant him such grim reward.
And, as I write this, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has already downgraded the supposedly beseiged and so storied valuable evil doer prey squatting in the highlands to "semi-senior" status. Whatever the hell that means.
So there ya go. What's next? Does the US really believe that bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri are actually in Northwest Pakistan? Is a full scale Force 121 springtime invasion of the region being incubated whether or not Musharraf or anyone else in Pakistan likes it? Got me. I guess we'll find out. I'll bet the Indians can hardly wait for that thrilling adventure to unfold should the little monster hatch itself in coming weeks. Who wants to play toss the nuke button should that scenario come to be?
The most pitiful part of this whole sad mess is that the Bush administration could have pursued the task of hunting down al-Qaeda honestly and efficiently with the world firmly behind them if they'd wanted to. But instead, like all greedy deceitful con artists, they couldn't resist the self serving opportunistic chance to hoodwink the entire planet in order to foreclose on Iraq. To steal away with a souvenir they'd been eyeballing for years prior to 9/11. To pick the world's pocket while eveyone else was still poking through that smoking wreckage in New York. To make off with a little boodle under the cover of mindless patriotic hooting and concerns for national defense, homeland security, and protecting the world from terror.
They arrogantly lied to the American public and the entire international community for the sake of their own narrow gains and wasted valuable resources in the effort to rein in those responsible for 9/11. They recklessly wasted valuable resources in human lives, diplomatic good will, and any shred of credibility they may have had with respect to such efforts. They chose to lie and scheme and swindle the world with respect to the danger of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And now we have Madrid Spain. Someone fill me in again on why these crooked racketeers are good on foreign policy or even remotely capable of leading a sincere global war on terrorism.
What's more, like shifless thieves, they don't even have the integrity or strength of character to answer for their own misappropriations and deceptions after being caught flat out misappropriating and deceiving. So much for honesty and accountability.
They probably could have been real heroes. Led an honorable charge as they say. Perhaps. But instead they chose to be what they really always were all along: Duplicitous looters drunkenly careening down the road in a stolen get-a-way van. And now we have Karl "Hanna the Handler" Rove primping, preening, and posing George "the Great Pretender" Bush as some kind of heroic hard tack ship biscuit example of steady leadership royal.
Born swindlers they are - nothing but duplicitous born again swindlers.
*
Of course Gen. R. Good-buddy Musharraf has the unenviable task of playing to both sides of the bed. On the one hand he has the Bush administration breathing hotly all over the back of his sweaty neck while whispering in his ear -- "Serve us up the head of bin Laden on a silver platter or we will turn your country into Cambodia, circa April 1970" -- while at the same time keeping a nervous twitching eyeball on his own likely pro-al Qaeda ISI (intelligence service) poised to chew his nut-sack off should he wander too far from the madrassa door. Kind of like catering a wedding in Belfast between a Catholic schoolgirl and a Ulster Unionist police chief.
Anyway, Musharraf knew he'd best put on a frilly apron and offer up some kind of goodwill hunting banquet on behalf of the traveling Powell hippodrome. And what better way to impress the visiting American huzoor than a strapping wild boar safari in the untamed outlands of the batty Islamic Republic? Hey, what's he gonna do, invite Powell over for a shrimp cocktail and round of bumper pool in the rumpus room? So, sound the trumpets, unleash the curs, and announce that we've got the hydra headed beast cornered in hills! And by shrieking saviour it's the mother of all beasts! The Evil One hisself - maybe. Hi-ho! hi-ho! its off to the thickets we go.
Ok....that works on the imagination, and of course the official story-line boob-tube news barkers at CNN and MSGOP and wherever will go-a-dashing off in hot pursuit of whatever shiny object is dangled before them. Nothing new to that old chase scene.
Meanwhile, back at the GOP campaign revival tent, our mountebank pResident George W. "Billy Sunday" Bush will make busy strutting hither and fro across the boards delivering up the usual hurly-burly of economic alchemy and stage managed Christian avenger blare that his hero worshipping flock of hymn singing hossana shoutin' bah-lambs gobble up like so much stock fodder.
I suspect this current squall in Pakistan will eventually wind down and go sputtering off into an Indus sunset like a dying dust whirl. Tora Bora rewind. At least for the time being. The ISI and al-Qaeda supporters in Musharraf's midst are not going to cack up bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri on behalf of a visit from some showboating US entourage or on behalf of their frightened leader or on behalf of anyone else for that matter. Not without a serious bloodbath. And Musharraf knows it too. Musharraf also knows that if it comes down to a choice between, 1- protecting Islamic fundamentalist power interests in Pakistan, or 2- knuckling under to US pressure to give up al-Qaeda big shots --- he stands a pretty good chance of being dispatched to a shallow hole in a courtyard should he chose wha'ts behind door number 2. There are plenty of powerful fellers in his very own house who would be glad to grant him such grim reward.
And, as I write this, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has already downgraded the supposedly beseiged and so storied valuable evil doer prey squatting in the highlands to "semi-senior" status. Whatever the hell that means.
So there ya go. What's next? Does the US really believe that bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri are actually in Northwest Pakistan? Is a full scale Force 121 springtime invasion of the region being incubated whether or not Musharraf or anyone else in Pakistan likes it? Got me. I guess we'll find out. I'll bet the Indians can hardly wait for that thrilling adventure to unfold should the little monster hatch itself in coming weeks. Who wants to play toss the nuke button should that scenario come to be?
The most pitiful part of this whole sad mess is that the Bush administration could have pursued the task of hunting down al-Qaeda honestly and efficiently with the world firmly behind them if they'd wanted to. But instead, like all greedy deceitful con artists, they couldn't resist the self serving opportunistic chance to hoodwink the entire planet in order to foreclose on Iraq. To steal away with a souvenir they'd been eyeballing for years prior to 9/11. To pick the world's pocket while eveyone else was still poking through that smoking wreckage in New York. To make off with a little boodle under the cover of mindless patriotic hooting and concerns for national defense, homeland security, and protecting the world from terror.
They arrogantly lied to the American public and the entire international community for the sake of their own narrow gains and wasted valuable resources in the effort to rein in those responsible for 9/11. They recklessly wasted valuable resources in human lives, diplomatic good will, and any shred of credibility they may have had with respect to such efforts. They chose to lie and scheme and swindle the world with respect to the danger of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And now we have Madrid Spain. Someone fill me in again on why these crooked racketeers are good on foreign policy or even remotely capable of leading a sincere global war on terrorism.
What's more, like shifless thieves, they don't even have the integrity or strength of character to answer for their own misappropriations and deceptions after being caught flat out misappropriating and deceiving. So much for honesty and accountability.
They probably could have been real heroes. Led an honorable charge as they say. Perhaps. But instead they chose to be what they really always were all along: Duplicitous looters drunkenly careening down the road in a stolen get-a-way van. And now we have Karl "Hanna the Handler" Rove primping, preening, and posing George "the Great Pretender" Bush as some kind of heroic hard tack ship biscuit example of steady leadership royal.
Born swindlers they are - nothing but duplicitous born again swindlers.
*
