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Four-star Nightmare for a Celluloid Cowboy
bishop
Kenneth
Lamb
10/17/2003
When somebody lies to you, you probably get more than a little angry with the liar. After all, it's an insult to your intelligence and dignity.
Apparently, that basic concept in human relations escapes the Defense Department, and the president's closest advisers. Being lied to - and knowing you are being lied to - is the main reason members of Congress - including very prominent Republicans - are up in arms over the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq.
The charade began to unravel shortly after the so-called end of the war when the president did his Top Gun impersonation on an American aircraft carrier circling within sight of the California coast. America needed a punctuation mark for closure ending the Iraqi operation. The president obligingly gave the people what they wanted and preened in his stratospheric popularity ratings.
Only it wasn't the end of the killing. Day after day, America saw its favorite sons and daughters brought home on flag-draped stretchers off-loaded at Andrews Air Force Base.
Finally, the facade could endure no more reality. A brave general finally said what the White House couldn't: We are still at war in Iraq. It's been downhill ever since for Rummy, Wolfie, Dickie, Condi and Karl "The Rover" Rove.
A couple of weeks ago, Congress thought the straight-faced lies had finally hit the extreme when L. Paul Bremer, Rummy's handpicked man on the scene in Iraq, told oversight committees on the Hill that "Baghdad is not a city in chaos."
If you've never dealt with a member of Congress, let you warn you that humility, and lack of self-esteem, are not part of their psychological makeup. They are constantly surrounded by sycophants schmoozing up close, staffers jealously guarding access to "The Boss," and a polite public unwilling to speak honestly when in their presence. The first thing that happens to nearly every member of Congress is that they quickly loose the benefit of having any "children" around to shout, "The Emperor has no clothes!"
So when the duty-bound Mr. Bremer told his tall tale to these individuals of self-perceived high intelligence - well - they were flatly insulted. See the first sentence of this column to get a picture of their reaction.
You see, just before Mr. Bremer tried to defy the Laws of Gravity in order to float this lead balloon, the UN mission had just been bombed; the Jordanian embassy had also felt the quake of explosive detonation. Americans were getting gunned down nearly every day, Humvees were soft-skinned sitting ducks for rocket propelled grenades, a member of the Iraqi governing council had been assassinated, Shiite clerics were in cahoots with Saddam's Sunni diehards, bin Laden wannabes were flooding across the county's porous borders, and speaking of bin Laden et al. - he - and the WMDs, and Mullah Omar, and Saddam himself, were all still floating around making violence against our troops.
If that isn't a chaotic situation, what more does it take?
So someone in the White House got together with someone in the Pentagon and decided to counter-attack all this dismal reality with a PR campaign. If you can't beat 'em with the truth, try The Big Lie.
This week two Big Lies blew up in the White House's face. First, the Gannett newspaper chain found an amazing case of pre-written form letters floating around to different small-town newspapers being submitted as one-of-a-kind original compositions by the soldiers in the field. Passed out by the Army's PR officers and aspiring majors looking for eagles on their shoulders, the scam came unglued when some of the signers objected to being used as fodder for Rummy's power plays.
But now, courtesy of a toady congressman from Washington state's 5th congressional district, George Nethercutt, the depth of illusion being pitched to the Congress and the American people came off the pages of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer with the full-fury of a 50-megaton bomb. He got caught telling a town hall meeting that, in effect, getting Cheney's old Halliburton buddies billions in contracts going, is a " . . . more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day."
I want to be there when George shows up at the front door of a deceased soldier's parents to tell them the success story of Cheney's cronies cashing in at the Treasury Department is a " . . . more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day." Make sure there's an ambulance outside to take his mangled body to the hospital when the parents get done venting their disagreement on this disconnected-from-reality representative.
But that raised an interesting question: why did Mr. Nethercutt think things were just sunshine and roses in the Sunni Triangle?
Well, that's part two of the Big Lie strategy. Seems like our congressional members have been getting bamboozled on their so-called "fact-finding' trips with tour guide Paul Bremer.
I could spell it out for you, but the Washington Post, citing the military's "newspaper of record," Stars and Stripes, beat me to the punch in its October 16 edition, from which this is quoted:
"But Stars and Stripes raised questions about what those visiting dignitaries saw in Iraq. " Many soldiers -- including several officers -- allege that VIP visits from the Pentagon and Capitol Hill are only given hand-picked troops to meet with during their tours of Iraq," the newspaper said in its interview with (Iraq commander Gen.) Sanchez. "The phrase 'Dog and Pony Show' is usually used. Some troops even go so far as to say they've been ordered not to talk to VIPs because leaders are afraid of what they might say."
"The newspaper also noted in that interview that its reporters were told that some soldiers who had complained of morale problems had faced disciplinary actions known as Article 15s, which can result in reprimand, extra duties and forfeiture of pay. Sanchez said he did not know of any such punishments, but he added that they would have been handled at a lower level."
There you have it. Nothing like an Article 15 to keep the troops quiet.
But the real tragedy is that our congressional members came back home telling their constituents the Big Lies they'd been told. The public's reaction? See the first sentence in this column - again.
Before long, Rummy and The Rover will be putting their front man - George W. - up for re-election.
But the White House cast is looking more like the Stooges than the Sages. Dickie is still trying to delude us into believing his lies about WMDs and al-Qaeda connections; Rummy and Condi are having a lover's quarrel about who's running Iraq's reconstruction; Wolfie's creditability is lower than mud at the bottom of the ocean when it comes to making accurate predictions about the future in Iraq; and Paul - well, his stage-managed tours are somewhat less worthy of a congressional member's time, let alone the sought after "I know because I was there" credibility that makes these junkets justifiable to the public - once the word is out that the member is just sucking up a "dog and pony" show.
George W. has a problem. Humpty Dumpty is teetering on the edge of the wall, and all his White House horses, and all his White House mentors, might not be able to put him back together again. It's a real four-star nightmare they see rising up in the loyal opposition: Certifiable hero versus celluloid cowboy, and all that.
Oh well, as the adage goes: "The fruit doesn't fall far from the tree." Poppy got "Saddamed" out of office, and now it looks like W might just follow in his footsteps.
And that's no lie.
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Kenneth E. Lamb
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