Das Kapital (ist Kaput)

This Gary Leupp piece in Counterpunch has an interesting quote--and link to an article by Russ Baker--as to a certain position taken by one G. "Dumbya" Bush in 1999:

"One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief. My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade---if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency."

Um, dream on, Mr. pResident.

However, in light of the Downing Street Memos, the quote is particularly enlightening. As Leupp points out, Bush was looking for an an ad hoc (not that he'd really know what that meant) reason to attack Iraq some year and a half or more prior to being, um, not exactly elected in 2000. Fixing intelligence was, to this administration, merely like rounding third base.

Unfortunately for Team Bush, they were under the impression that one score would win the game--which turned out to be decidedly wrong. In my archives, I've used that metaphor before--along with another one noting the differences between Football (American Rules) and Football (the game as known to the rest of the world). Well, metaphors can be more--or less--apt, but the reality is still the same: Bush was itching to invade Iraq, and Baker's article--he cites Mickey Herskowitz (who was initially hired by Team Bush to produce the fawning bio that Karen Hughes eventually cranked out)--offers some additional insight as to why:

According to Herskowitz, George W. Bush’s beliefs on Iraq were based in part on a notion dating back to the Reagan White House – ascribed in part to now-vice president Dick Cheney, Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee under Reagan. “Start a small war. Pick a country where there is justification you can jump on, go ahead and invade.”

Bush’s circle of pre-election advisers had a fixation on the political capital that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher collected from the Falklands War. Said Herskowitz: “They were just absolutely blown away, just enthralled by the scenes of the troops coming back, of the boats, people throwing flowers at [Thatcher] and her getting these standing ovations in Parliament and making these magnificent speeches.”

Republicans, Herskowitz said, felt that Jimmy Carter’s political downfall could be attributed largely to his failure to wage a war. He noted that President Reagan and President Bush’s father himself had (besides the narrowly-focused Gulf War I) successfully waged limited wars against tiny opponents – Grenada and Panama – and gained politically. But there were successful small wars, and then there were quagmires, and apparently George H.W. Bush and his son did not see eye to eye...

In December 1999, some six months after his talks with Herskowitz, Bush surprised veteran political chroniclers, including the Boston Globe’s David Nyhan, with his blunt pronouncements about Saddam at a six-way New Hampshire primary event that got little notice: “It was a gaffe-free evening for the rookie front-runner, till he was asked about Saddam’s weapons stash,” wrote Nyhan. ‘I’d take ‘em out,’ [Bush] grinned cavalierly, ‘take out the weapons of mass destruction…I’m surprised he’s still there,” said Bush of the despot who remains in power after losing the Gulf War to Bush Jr.’s father…It remains to be seen if that offhand declaration of war was just Texas talk, a sort of locker room braggadocio, or whether it was Bush’s first big clinker. ”

The notion that President Bush held unrealistic or naïve views about the consequences of war was further advanced recently by a Bush supporter, the evangelist Pat Robertson, who revealed that Bush had told him the Iraq invasion would yield no casualties. In addition, in recent days, high-ranking US military officials have complained that the White House did not provide them with adequate resources for the task at hand...

Hmmm. War for the sake of political expediency...don't know about y'all, but I'm not terribly surprised.

Oh, and just for fun, here are a few other items Herskowitz passes along:

In 2003, Bush’s father indicated to him that he disagreed with his son’s invasion of Iraq.

Bush admitted that he failed to fulfill his Vietnam-era domestic National Guard service obligation, but claimed that he had been “excused.”

Bush revealed that after he left his Texas National Guard unit in 1972 under murky circumstances, he never piloted a plane again. That casts doubt on the carefully-choreographed moment of Bush emerging in pilot’s garb from a jet on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln in 2003 to celebrate “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq. The image, instantly telegraphed around the globe, and subsequent hazy White House statements about his capacity in the cockpit, created the impression that a heroic Bush had played a role in landing the craft.

Bush described his own business ventures as “floundering” before campaign officials insisted on recasting them in a positive light.

OK, I'll admit that most of that stuff is, at least for me, further proof that Bush is an incompetent twit (that might sound different if said in a Texas accent). But, back to the underlying cause for war in Iraq, let's be clear: Bush was disassembling (sarcasm)/dissembling as to the reason/rationale the moment he began blathering about Saddam Hussein. National security was NOT on his mind--a victory lap was.

If the war was so damned important, you'd think that the Bush daughters would be setting an example and volunteering. The same goes for all the other neo-con chickenhaws--they should be pushing their kids--or, if young enough, themselves--to go enlist. The fact that they don't is proof positive that the "war" is mere window dressing--and, in this case, window dressing minus the prep work--slip shod, badly done, and falling apart. Like most of the neo-con program.

But, like another blow-hard who envisioned himself a great leader, Bush did at least have the temerity to tell us in advance (well, sort of--Herskowitz made his material public in 2004). And I do wonder--if the sand initially wasn't hitting the fan--and fouling the gears, fuel lines, valves, manifolds, etc., what would be the reaction of the public? I assume most folks either didn't care or thought the 1953 CIA covert op in Iran was a jolly good idea--even though the rise of the mullahs there is directly related to that event.

It'd be nice if the public would take care to see what their leaders are doing in their name.