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TechnoratiWASHINGTON -- While the nation has been fixated on the fiasco of Don Imus, a virulently self-obsessed radio/TV shock jock who should have been fired long ago for trying to pose as an adult, a much more serious breach of intelligence has occurred:The Bush White House has been in desperate search of a "war czar."
Four years -- and counting -- into a war that was begun for reasons that have never been explained, with thousands killed, tens of thousands maimed for life and U.S. credibility in shreds, the Bush White House admits that it needs a high-profile overseer to plot the future course of the war in Iraq -- what The Washington Post has dubbed a "war czar."
Never mind that the course of "czars" has never run smoothly in this country, or any other. (Drug czar? Anti-terrorism czar? Education czar? Russian czar?)
What is stunning is that the White House actually is, unbelievably, incredibly, announcing to the world that it doesn't know what it is doing in Iraq and hasn't a clue what to do next, let alone how to get out of the quagmire it created.
Although anyone would have to be certifiable to take the job of overseeing this war as long as President Bush insists nothing will change, we're assured by the White House staff that this is all under serious consideration.
Witness Dana Perino, the current White House spokesman, speaking about a "possible reorganization" within the National Security Council and confirming that the position of a war overseer is an option: "We are talking to people; there have been no decisions made."
But apparently at least three retired four-star generals were unofficially felt out about taking such a job. None accepted.
The Decider, as Bush confidently called himself, to the delight of comedians everywhere, is supposed to be the commander in chief, especially since he fired the generals on the ground who disagreed with him about how the war was going. In truth, it has been Vice President Dick Cheney who has been -- and still is -- calling the shots in this appallingly misguided war, especially with the departure of his soul buddy, former defense chief Donald Rumsfeld. Now even Cheney is flummoxed about how to get out of one of the most stupendous messes in U.S. history.
With stunning chutzpah, the White House is suggesting that the war has been guided by a mid-level bureaucrat named Meghan O'Sullivan, who has toiled for Bush in near obscurity in the National Security Council, first under Condoleezza Rice and now under Stephen Hadley, who also wants out.
O'Sullivan is leaving her job, and, the White House says, that opens the door to replacing her with someone who would "oversee" the war on a much broader scale. Such a person would have the power to dictate to all kinds of government agencies. (Is there some kind of new constitutional crisis arising here?)
This is amazingly surreal (yes, I know I'm blowing a year's worth of adjectives) for a democracy where we're not supposed to have "war czars" who have unspecified powers over life and death.
While Bush gives speech after speech insisting the war is going OK, if not well, and paving the way toward democracy in the Middle East and giving terrorists everywhere nightmares (all evidence to the contrary), the pursuit of a war overseer is proof enough the White House policy is in total chaos.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates' new order that current deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan will extend to 15 months shows that this nation is in a bizarrely Romanesque state of overextension.
The Army, admits Gates, is stretched. The tour extension affects more than 100,000 men and women and means they will have the longest combat tours since World War II. Meanwhile, every day -- every single day -- more U.S. men and women are being blown apart by explosive devices carefully placed to wreak as much carnage as possible on the human torso.
We are in one of those periods of history that, in retrospect, will seem totally perplexing to our descendants trying to make sense of how we went to war to save the world from terrorism, ended up in Iraq and couldn't figure out how to get out. There may even be an entire chapter in the history books on the concept of a "war czar" if anyone is foolish enough to accept Bush's offer.
Imus' inexplicable racist, sexist rant against Rutgers University's women's basketball team has shown how far we have to go toward being competent adults in how we treat each other. The "war czar" disaster has shown how far we have strayed from our ideal of being a global moral leader.
What a week.
Scripps Howard columnist Ann McFeatters has covered the White House and national politics since 1986. E-mail amcfeatters@hotmail.com.
© 2007 The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Published on Saturday, April 14, 2007 by The Seattle Post-Intelligencer
20 Comments so far
Show AllAhh, the War on terrorism.
Who is the enemy?
The enemy of who?
Are we Liberals now the enemy for speaking our minds(comforting the enemy?)
In Bush lingo, could we now be considered enemy combatants?
Will the war Czar be fighting a war IN Blackwater USA?
Would it be better to have a czar start the draft up for the 3rd war in Iran?
Since we are installing "anti missile" missiles within target range of Russia, should we fear what Russia is now fearing- Nuclear war?
Does Russia have Oil? Yes, very much so.
Would the same czar transition into a 2008 Democratic win/administration so as to keep wars going?
Is bush pushing the end times?
A nuclear war czar?
A war czar does not make peace.
It's time to impeach Bush and Cheney, try them for war crimes before this gets any more out of control.
Ann Mcfeatters' essay makes a solid contribution to our understanding of Bush's war, and for that I thank her. My only suggestion is that she look up the word "rant" in the dictionary before misusing it again.
no more war funds-indictments and impeachments.
Tony Christini: What the f**k are you talking about? That's the same old conservative "cyclical history" crap that the cynical have been pushing for centuries. Kept reading your post hoping that you were being ironic. Can't understand what you're doing here and not in uniform over in Iraq. Doesn't matter how old you are, they're desperate and probably will take you, maybe even as the new fall guy czar.
War is failure and can you spell nuclear holocaust?
I've got an idea: Let the American Enterprise Institute select the War Czar, whose responsibility will then include recruiting troops and lining up investors to pay for the war. Let's privatize the war entirely. It would be taking Republicanism to its logical conclusion.
I recall Commander in Chief, Bush, saying that he was the "War President". This suggests that he was the czar. He directed his Secretary of Defence to wage war. Rumsfeld, when in a bit of trouble, said, "we go to war with the army that we have, not what we would want". Has this been any way to conduct a war? Our War President is now searching for a war czar--what were his and Rumsfeld's bravado ideas of waging the Iraq war? Bush won't throw in the towel and admit defeat, so Congress should simply cut of his war-making funds. Then, let whoever is left in the State Department, to start a process of diplomatic solutions to restore peace.
WTF? A war czar? What does the Secretary of Defense do all day?
OuterBeltway, what piece to fix first? The value system of America. Trade the bad values for good values and then the energy will be directed in postive directions. So we bring back K-12 civics class and teach kids to ensure that institutions operate true to the new value system. It's everyone's responsibility. The value system is like the genetic code from which the new society grows. People-oriented values, and progress-oriented values, together, have to be put into practice and provide the basis for action to prevent and solve problems.
Globalization, for example, is only marginally good for people and has many potential pitfalls. So it is implemented in a highly constricted way. All we're doing is acting as a filter to select the good and reject the bad using people/progress oriented values as the basis. Pursuits of power/control conflict mightily with the people/progress value system, so much energy has to be applied to put down pursuits of power/control. Howard Roark has to get responsibility, which Ayn Rand would label oppression. Kids are taught in civics class to deflect such manipulative propaganda.
The identity pride that causes Americans to cling to their failed policies has to make room for progress. The stubborn resistance is faced down by the kids who are endowed with the responsibility to implement the value system in policy. Freedom has to be redefined to fit the value system. When we value people we stop exploiting them. We stop trash things. We expand our self-preservation instinct beyond self. It has to start at the grass roots level. Don't expect "dear leader" to deliver.
The trouble with this "War", is that it isn't a "War".
When GWB stood on the deck and called "Mission Accomplished", the "War" was over.
In a normal world someone in Saddams Government would have signed Surrender documents, and a normal Occupation would have taken place.
Since the Right doesn't believe in Government or governing, that wasn't done. Instead they tried to put their friendly shadow govenment in place. It didn't work. So they just kept muddling thru.
For GWB and the Right it was good. George could be "War President" till the end of his term. All the Rights friends would get cushy contracts in Iraq and make tons of money (oversight wasn't needed, they trusted each other).
Well we see where that has taken us.
Someone should just say: show me the papers?
The CPA was illegal, out in place by the White House.
The UN said that the "War" was illegal. GWB had no legal authority to invade.
Take them to Court, before they get another Justice in or we may have GWB as President For Life...
I watched a show tonight featuring the usual ranking-media establishment types (NPR, Washington Post, Newsweek) discuss the unraveling of the Iraq campaign, and the White House's distress while seeking a new champion to direct their war -- no one wants the job.
It was remarkable, because the fear and emergent sense of impending calamity hung over them like thick smoke. They looked beaten, and one of the key Bush neo-con allies (Krauthammer) was a no-show.
I wonder where the Bush strategist are meeting right now, and what the mood of the inner circle is. Are they tilting toward desperation?
I'm thinking that Act II of this play is upon us: the Realization. Our entire country, over the next few months, may be about to comprehend just how badly damaged our nation has become.
The desperation of the Bush cabal may signal the beginning of the end of the Empire's dementia. International economics and politics will likely deal it a swift blow, and it may be a crippling one.
While I'd love to celebrate that event, my thoughts immediately move on to the question of where to begin, what piece to fix first.
Where would you start?
---------------------
For some interesting, related reading, I recommend William Greider's recent piece, here on Commondreams, on the question of Globalization. Here's the link:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/04/14/523/
Innovation, anyone?
wilmoor, beware of self fulfilling prophesies. And Wolfowitz is too dumb to recognize when he's being set up as a scapegoat.
But I agree that this administration looks like it's coming unglued. Actually, that's scary, because I think their acts will get desperate.
"Four years — and counting — into a war that was begun for reasons that have never been explained, with thousands killed, tens of thousands maimed for life and U.S. credibility in shreds, the Bush White House admits that it needs a high-profile overseer to plot the future course of the war in Iraq — what The Washington Post has dubbed a "war czar.""
The only reason they need a war Czar is to have someone to hang the blame on when it all collapses.
Lobo Gris
In l990 Ted Turner sponsored a writing contests for visions of the future, preferably with a humanitarian bent. (Unusual events led me to an agent in NY who was just then doing the copy for the New York Times.) I managed to drum up a novel that consisted of "stories" of the future. Initially I called the work AFTER THE TRANSITION, but I wasn't sure, in l990 what that Transition would be about. I did know (it's in the text) that outspoken intellectuals and activists would be imprisoned. Living in the Florida Keys and watching people lose property over the "zero tolerance" application of the "War on Drugs," was also a litmus test of what the public would tolerate as suddenly "authorities" were stomping over Constitutional rights and liberties, like privacy and the presumption of innocence. We now know that 2.2 million ARE incarcerated in America, a great many over nonsensical small drug related issues. What if this has all been a ruse to get the beds ready? What if the Russian MODEL has been studied? Excuse the metaphor but our national birthday of July 4 makes us a CANCER entity, and Cancer rules the stomach. It's all about eating and consuming, and you would argue that American-style corporatism without conscience is not a veritable cancer to the world? This president is also a Cancer sun-sign, and in the astrological community, the planet Saturn (it rules the authoritarians) is considered at its detriment in CANCER where Bush, Jr has it. Sun-Saturn Cancer is signature of the UNFEELING PRESIDENT as Doctorow termed it. The pervasiveness of rightwing commentary in media, the prison beds, the homeland security state, the unitary executive who would have all attorney generals and all department heads answering to HIS "decider" status bidding. There is nothing that has not been mismanaged, lest the goal is not only to shrink government and drown it in a bathtub (dear Grover), but to ensure that the new pharaohs (corporate heads) get to render the rest of us slaves... and will imprison any who call the beast what it is. This is also why those who study mysticism and SEE outside the paradigm, outside the box that most minds live in, outside the religious theologies are either brandished, brutalized, silenced, or marginalized. The authoritarians hide behind their version of God (Mars, all about war and hatred and divisions among the family of mankind) and brook NO opposition. But singing songs of freedom and liberty are always cherished embellishments.
Up to now the conduct of the war has been the responsibility of the Department of Defence, which was a very strange state of affairs. What is needed is an entirely new department in the US government. It could be called the Department of War, headed by a Secretary of War, who will be a member of the president's cabinet. The war in Iraq would then be the responsibility of the Secretary of War. This would have the added benefit of freeing up the Secretary of Defence to deal with the defence of USA.
Mark Marshall
Toronto
Wow! I admire the eloquence of your words as much as I disagree with their content. The form is so incredibly beautiful, with a sentence such as, "Words are not bullets in the flesh, but missiles in the mind," that I could be swept along by the intellect and creativity that enfashioned them.
My next reaction was to ask if you were merely being ironic, for instance if you thought that the first act of a fascist state is to impose thought control, so that only the State is allowed to influence the minds of its subjects (formerly its citizenry, until it all became a Nazi experiment in mind control, with the human being as the ultimate lab rat).
Mr Tony Christini, you may be my opponent, but you are not my enemy. Your thoughts and words sharpen my own, albeit in contrast. Please go on to make those points that my own mind's missiles seek to torpedo. Let everyone see the great display of words as "bombs bursting in air" happens all over the internet. Let them join in the conflagration. And if it is our DNA design and free will choice to make war, let us do it in words, not in bullets.
May it be!
Is the Bush-Cheney administration in a total meltdown? Are they like a wounded and cornered animal who is becoming more desperate, disoriented and dangerous?
They seem to have been so gung-ho to send our troops to war based on fabricated intelligence and a need to appear "macho" ... even though all of the major chicken hawks in this group have avoided combat themselves.
Hopefully, other elements within our government and society will step up to the plate, take responsibility and make intelligent decisions to save us from the Bush-Cheney gang.
The Bush-Cheney administration seems to be coming to an end that is just as disturbing as its beginnings.
Now, will these individuals be held accountable for their actions? Food for thought at:
"Iraq War Psychology: Exploring hearts and minds of U.S. officials, press, profiteers"
PopulistAmerica.com
February 15, 2007
http://www.populistamerica.com/iraq_war_psychology
- - -
"A serious Congressional inquiry on Iraq is necessary"
PopulistAmerica.com
December 24, 2006
http://www.populistamerica.com/a_serious_congressional_inquiry_on_iraq_i...
Oh, but wait! Wolfowitz may be dumped from the World Bank. He can be crowned the new War Czar.
Marlow is absolutely right. Just watched a show on History Channel on exactly that (History Channel is wonderful; you don't have to bother with all that tiresome reading). At the end, Hitler blamed the German people for not living up to his vision. I strongly suggest the Bushistas will come to a similar conclusion. Cheney has already said pretty much that. The Right will pick up the talking point and will blame us for years to come, just as they have blamed the "cowardly politicians" for losing the Vietnam war which they continue to believe we could have won if he hadn't lost our "will and courage."
Is it possible for these folks ever to grow up?
Hmmmmm, interesting. Think for a moment about the increasing number of czars in American government. Next, witness as well the increasingly used term "show trials" to describe, among other things, the military tribunals of Guantanamo Bay. Do you think these are the only resemblances we bear to Russia?
Now, read this article:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aYwEWGaGzqIc&refer=h...
Tomorrow in the USA is today in Russia. The very next day could find us to be like China, our protests silenced as they were in Tiananmen Square.
As an individual with critical thinking skills, the best thing I can do right now is help others connect the dots. Voting in this last election cycle has not yet turned things around. However, it has forestalled what the powers that be would like to portray as inevitable, and it has taken away the illusion that there is no public debate or opposition to our current political and military practices.
Many intelligent people in the United States do not vote because they feel that it perpetuates a flawed system. I agree with them in one sense, that all politicians are whores, and that many or most would sell their own mothers into slavery if it benefited their own careers. For instance, take the recent Commondreams.org article mentioning how Pelosi, Obama, and Clinton all support nuclear power as a "safe" alternative to petroleum. Or that Obama won't even show enough courage to take a stand and say whether he thinks that gay marriage is or is not "moral".
Then why bother to vote at all? It is because "our whores," namely the progressive wing of the Democrat party, are less insular and more permeable to the public will than are the opposition. For this reason, we must:
a. vote for them first. Then,
b. pressure them constantly to follow a more progressive route
I close with two quotes. Our choice these days seems to be one or the other:
1. "We have met the enemy and he is us." - Walt Kelly
2. "If the people lead, the leaders will follow." - Bumper Sticker from the 60s
www.raycarlson.com
What we are witnessing now is a spectacle that I can't recall the world seeing since Hitler: a leader unable to face the reality of his defeat. Just like Hitler was marshaling entire divisions for the defense of Berlin that did not even exist, and ordering young children into the fight against battle hardened soviet troops, our Cowboy Caligula keeps sending our troops into a meat grinder we lost control of years ago. Who would expect any sane general to assume command over insanity?