George W.Bush, a class act

"Fuck Saddam.  We're taking him out." --George W. Bush, March 2002

"Do you want to know what the foreign policy of Iraq is to the United States? (Gives the finger.)  Fuck the United States!  That's what it is--and that's why we're going to get him." --George W. Bush, September 2002

"Kick ass!  If somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out and kill them!  Our will is being tested, but we are resolute.   We have a better way.  Stay strong!  Stay the course!  Kill them!  Be confident!  We are going to wipe them out!  We are not blinking!" --George W. Bush, April 2004

I've gone on before about how George W. Bush used our pain and grief over the 9/11 attacks to maneuver the United States into a war with a country that had nothing to do with the attacks, a country  which he fully intended to invade before 9/11.

Even after it was known that Iraq was not behind the attacks, and even after it was known by anyone who cared to look at the evidence that Iraq had no "weapons of mass destruction," George W. Bush exploited the natural desire of a people to follow their president in a time of war.

And now that the war is over, we can reflect on the fact that more Americans died in that war than died in the attack that George W. Bush was pretending to avenge.  George W. Bush was willing to have others make that sacrifice on his own selfish behalf.  He is a bad man.

We also know that George W. Bush was a worse than mediocre president, a fact that anyone should have been able to predict from his career up until that time.

George W. Bush is not a man who cares about the consequences of his actions.  He is not an intelligent man.  He cannot speak a coherent sentence.  If such a drab little person can move a country into a war it should never have fought, what might he have done were he articulate and if he had even a thimbleful of charisma?

Because we can?

I'm no expert on foreign policy, to be sure.  I may have mentioned here before that I was startled to find out that there are American troops in somewhere around 150 countries.  That little fact has been percolating in my brain, mostly unconsciously, and it has prompted me to dimly wonder just what we mean when we talk about national defense.

There is a range of defense stances the most powerful country in the world can take.  The most limited would be to maintain our military at some minimal, but safe level, and be vigilant for signs that our people or our country might be attacked.  The other extreme would be to try to keep the rest of the world so locked down that nobody anywhere could even begin to get the wherewithal to attack us.

So it occurred to me to wonder just what our defense posture really is.

In the March 2013 issue of Harper's, Andrew Bacevich has written a letter to Paul Wolfowitz "Occasioned by the tenth anniversary of the Iraq war," which speaks to this question.

According to Bacevich, Wolfowitz is a disciple of one Albert Wohlstetter, described as a "nuclear strategist," and "the quintessential 'defense intellectual.'"

Bacevich presents Wohlstetter's "precepts" as follows:

First, liberal internationalism, with its optimistic expectation that the world will embrace a set of common norms to achieve peace, is an illusion.

Second, the system that replaces liberal internationalism must address the ever-present (and growing) danger posed by catastrophic surprise.

Third, the key to averting or at least minimizing surprise is to act preventively.

Fourth, the ultimate in preventive action is dominion.  The best insurance against unpleasant surprises is to achieve unquestioned supremacy.

Lastly,  by transforming the very nature of war, information technology--an arena in which the United States has historically enjoyed a clear edge--brings outright supremacy within reach.

Wolfowitz's ambition, says Bacevich, was and is to put Wohlstetter's ideas into practice, thereby preventing "the reemergence of a new rival" (after the crumbling of the Soviet Union.)

The actions taken by the Bush administration in waging war on Iraq are a direct result of Wolfowitz's influence.  The results of the Iraq war, as Bacevich rightly points out, are nothing like the tidy outcome Wolfowitz's ideas predicted.

Indeed, says Bacevich, the question is this:  How did preventive war undertaken by ostensibly the strongest military in history produce a cataclysm?  (Italics his.)

Aside from the question of whether preventive war works, my concern is with its morality.  How much is the United States entitled to tyrannize the rest of the world in order to protect itself?  Our actions remind me of the days of colonialism and the convulsions the world is still going through as a result.  With power comes responsibility, but in ways I don't think the right wingers understand.  The practice of preventive war will give us a lot to answer for.

 

 

 

Supporting the troops

People are falling over themselves and each other in an effort to be the most supportive of the troops.  For those of you too young to remember Vietnam, this may or may not seem remarkable.  Here's a little history of how the modern attitude came about.

You may have learned in History class that the Vietnam war was an unpopular one, and indeed it was.  It didn't start out that way, at least for most people.  There was a sharp, very acrimonious division between the pro- and anti-war camps.  As the war dragged on, more and more Americans moved to the anti-war side.

There was a widespread attitude at the time that the key to ending any war was for enough people to refuse to participate as soldiers.  I had a button that read, "Wars will cease when men refuse to fight."  Buffy Sainte-Marie wrote a song called The Universal Soldier, that put the blame on each individual who willingly went to war.

By the time it was over, the Vietnam war was at its most unpopular, and when the soldiers came home, the customary public thank-yous and patriotic parades did not happen.  As time went on, many people became ashamed of their treatment of the Vietnam veterans, and today's soldiers are the beneficiaries of a more extravagant appreciation.

I thought we were done with Whom and Whomever.

I remember reading, a few years back, that the word "whom" was fading from use, and that "who" was beginning to "sound" correct, even in the objective case.

Something odd has started to happen.  I've noticed that a lot of people, perhaps because they think it makes them sound more educated, are using "whomever" a lot.  The problem is, they seem to be guessing when to use it, and guessing wrong.

One error that people often make is the following:

"I will give a piece of pie to whomever deserves it."

They realize that the words that follow "to" in the sentence constitute the object of the verb "give."  They also, perhaps, know that "whomever" is in the objective case.  What they don't realize is that what the clause "whomever deserves it" needs is a subject.  "Whoever," the nominative form, belongs there.

"I will give a piece of pie to whoever deserves it."

So, in this case, using "whomever" actually makes the speaker sound less educated.

I'm all for the disappearance of "whomever."  Even when it's correct, it sounds stilted and archaic.  So if you're using "whomever," and you're not sure why, my advice is to say "whoever" every time.