uTopianTurtleTop

BASTARDS

I recently lost my notebook. First time for me. Interesting experience, confronting my intellectual vanity. The writing-item I most miss is a 20-ish page long rant written a year ago about the imminent invasion of Iraq. Every night before going to bed I would write a couple few pages, for about a week. I stopped when the invasion started. I had thought about posting it here on the anniversary of the invasion, but now I can't. Probably just as well. A lot of it was ad hominem invective.

I speculated about the psychology of our bastard executive branch and their addiction to "shock and awe." ("Bastard" as in "illegitimately produced.")

"Chickenhawks" was a good description for the bastards, but I liked "bully cowards" better. Cowards, because those of them who needed to put energy and ingenuity into avoiding combat in Viet Nam, the invasion of which they supported. Bullies, because now that they have their cowardly fingers on the levers of war, their strategy is to try to scare the crap out of their perceived and real enemies and send American soldiers out to kill the ones who won't be intimidated. Bully-cowards, because, in their blindered narcissism, they assumed that the threat of death, which shocked and awed them, would "shock and awe" their adversaries. Pathetic, disgusting, ignorant, and to use a macho-speak that doesn't typically occur to me -- these people are weak. Weak minded, weak spirited, weak in courage. Weak.

The bully-cowards' justification for the war ended up hinging on whether the WMD's existed. That bar is appallingly, indecently, absurdly low. Before we knew that the WMD's didn't exist, we knew that containment worked against Saddam. He was a canny fascist who had clawed his way to the top. He knew how he got into power, and keeping it was his top priority. He wasn't an undeterable suicide-killer. To the extent that this wasn't common knowledge, it was easily deduced.

There's still an outside chance that a human-rights-based democracy will emerge from the Bully-Cowards' Folly. Signs aren't good, but we can hope. How many Iraqi, American, and allied dead would such an outcome be worth? Who is qualified to answer such a question?