George Bush -- draft-dodger, college cheerleader, all-round coward -- gives bloodthirsty blood-and-guts rant to Cabinet -- as long as it's someone else's blood and guts
- From: "Kickin' Ass and Takin' Names" <PopUlist349@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2008 17:40:27 -0700 (PDT)
Shocking Bush 'Pep Talk' to His War Cabinet on Iraq: 'We Are Going to
Wipe Them out!'
By Tom Engelhardt, Tomdispatch.com
Posted on June 1, 2008, Printed on June 2, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/86890/
Here's a memory for you. I was probably five or six and sitting with
my father in a movie house off New York's Times Square -- one of the
slightly seedy theaters of that dawn of the 1950s moment that tended
to show double or triple feature B-westerns or war movies. We were
catching some old oater which, as I recall, began with a stagecoach
careening dramatically down the main street of a cow town. A wounded
man is slumped in the driver's seat, the horses running wild. Suddenly
-- perhaps from the town's newspaper office -- a cowboy dressed in
white and in a white Stetson rushes out, leaps on the team of horses,
stops the stagecoach, and says to the driver: "Sam, Sam, who dun it to
ya?" (or the equivalent). At just that moment, the camera catches a
man, dressed all in black in a black hat -- and undoubtedly
mustachioed -- skulking into the saloon.
My dad promptly turns to me and whispers: "He's the one. He did it."
Believe me, I'm awed. All I can say in wonder and protest is: "Dad,
how can you know? How can you know?"
But, of course, he did know and, within a year or two, I certainly had
the same simple code of good and evil, hero and villain, under my
belt. It wasn't a mistake I was likely to make twice.
Above all, of course, you couldn't mistake the bad guys of those old
films. They looked evil. If they were "natives," they also made no
bones about what they were going to do to the white hats, or, in the
case of Gunga Din (1939), the pith helmets. "Rise, our new-made
brothers," the evil "guru" of that film tells his followers. "Rise and
kill. Kill, lest you be killed yourselves. Kill for the love of
killing. Kill for the love of Kali. Kill! Kill! Kill!"
"Wipe Them Out!"
Kill! Kill! Kill! That was just the sort of thing the native
equivalent of the black hat was likely to say. Such villains -- for a
modern reprise, see the latest cartoon superhero blockbuster, Iron Man
-- were not only fanatical, but usually at the very edge of mad as
well. And their language reflected that.
I was brought back with a start to just such evil-doers of my American
screen childhood last week by a memoir from a once-upon-a-time insider
of the Bush presidency. No, not former White House press secretary
Scott McClellan, who swept into the headlines by accusing the
President of using "propaganda" and the "complicit enablers" of the
media to take the U.S. to war in 2002-2003. I'm thinking of another
insider, former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Lieutenant General
Ricardo Sanchez. He got next to no attention for a presidential
outburst he recorded in his memoir, Wiser in Battle: A Soldier's
Story, so bloodthirsty and cartoonish that it should have caught the
attention of the nation -- and so eerily in character, given the last
years of presidential behavior, that you know it has to be on the
money.
Let me briefly set the scene, as Sanchez tells it on pages 349-350 of
Wiser in Battle. It's April 6, 2004. L. Paul Bremer III, head of the
occupation's Coalition Provisional Authority, as well as the
President's colonial viceroy in Baghdad, and Gen. Sanchez were in Iraq
in video teleconference with the President, Secretary of State Colin
Powell, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. (Assumedly, the
event was recorded and so revisitable by a note-taking Sanchez.) The
first full-scale American offensive against the resistant Sunni city
of Fallujah was just being launched, while, in Iraq's Shiite south,
the U.S. military was preparing for a campaign against cleric Muqtada
al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia.
According to Sanchez, Powell was talking tough that day: "We've got to
smash somebody's ass quickly," the general reports him saying. "There
has to be a total victory somewhere. We must have a brute
demonstration of power." (And indeed, by the end of April, parts of
Fallujah would be in ruins, as, by August, would expanses of the
oldest parts of the holy Shiite city of Najaf. Sadr himself would,
however, escape to fight another day; and, in order to declare
Powell's "total victory," the U.S. military would have to return to
Fallujah that November, after the U.S. presidential election, and
reduce three-quarters of it to virtual rubble.) Bush then turned to
the subject of al-Sadr: "At the end of this campaign al-Sadr must be
gone," he insisted to his top advisors. "At a minimum, he will be
arrested. It is essential he be wiped out."
Not long after that, the President "launched" what an evidently
bewildered Sanchez politely describes as "a kind of confused pep talk
regarding both Fallujah and our upcoming southern campaign [against
the Mahdi Army]." Here then is that "pep talk." While you read it, try
to imagine anything like it coming out of the mouth of any other
American president, or anything not like it coming out of the mouth of
any evil enemy leader in the films of the President's -- and my --
childhood:
"'Kick ass!' [Bush] said, echoing Colin Powell's tough talk. 'If
somebody tries to stop the march to democracy, we will seek them out
and kill them! We must be tougher than hell! This Vietnam stuff, this
is not even close. It is a mind-set. We can't send that message. It's
an excuse to prepare us for withdrawal.
"There is a series of moments and this is one of them. Our will is
being tested, but we are resolute. We have a better way. Stay strong!
Stay the course! Kill them! Be confident! Prevail! We are going to
wipe them out! We are not blinking!'"
Keep in mind that the bloodlusty rhetoric of this "pep talk" wasn't
meant to rev up Marines heading into battle. These were the
President's well-embunkered top advisors in a strategy session on the
eve of major military offensives in Iraq. Evidently, however, the
President was intent on imitating George C. Scott playing General
George Patton -- or perhaps even inadvertently channeling one of the
evil villains of his onscreen childhood.
American Mad Mullahs
Let's recall a little history here: In the nineteenth century, Third
World leaders who opposed Western imperial control were often not only
demonized but imagined to be, in some sense, mad simply for taking on
Western might. Throughout the latter part of that century, for
instance, the British faced down various "mad mullahs" in North
Africa.
Later, such imagery migrated easily enough to imperial Hollywood and
thence into American movie houses. But here was the strange thing: In
the Vietnam years, that era of reversals, a president of the United
States privately expressed, for the first time, a desire to take on
the mantle of madness previous reserved for the enemy in American
culture (and undoubtedly many other cultures as well). It was not just
that President Richard Nixon's domestic critics were ready to label
him a madman, but that, in his desire to end the Vietnam War in a
satisfyingly victorious fashion, he was ready to label himself one.
"I call it the madman theory, Bob," Nixon aide H.R. Haldeman reported
the President saying. "I want the North Vietnamese to believe I've
reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We'll
just slip the word to them that, 'for God's sake, you know Nixon is
obsessed about Communism. We can't restrain him when he's angry -- and
he has his hand on the nuclear button' -- and [North Vietnamese
leader] Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for
peace."
Henry Kissinger, Nixon's national security adviser, was equally
fascinated with the possible bargaining advantage of having the enemy
imagine the President as an evil, potentially world-obliterating
madman. "Henry talked about it so much," according to Lawrence Lynn, a
Kissinger aide, " that the Russians and North Vietnamese wouldn't run
risks because of Nixon's character." What made this fascination with
the idea of a mad president more curious was that it fused with fears
held by White House aides and advisers that Nixon, finger on the
nuclear button, might indeed be impaired or nearing the edge of
derangement. "My drunken friend," "that drunken lunatic," "the
meatball mind," or "the basket case," was the way Kissinger referred
to him after receiving his share of slurred late night phone calls.
So, in a historic moment almost four decades ago, a desperate
president suddenly found it strategically advisable to present himself
to his enemies as a potential nation slaughterer, a world incinerator
(and his aides were privately ready to think of him as such); the
leader of what was then commonly termed "the Free World," that is, was
considering revealing himself as a mad emperor, a veritable Ming the
Merciless.
Skip ahead these several decades and, presidentially, things have only
gotten stranger. After all, we now have a president who has openly,
even eagerly, faced the world as the Commander-in-Chief of Enhanced
Interrogation Techniques, Extraordinary Rendition, and Offshore
Imprisonment; a Vice President who appeared openly on Capitol Hill to
lobby against a bill banning torture; and key cabinet members who,
from a White House conference room, micromanaged torture, down to
specific techniques in specific cases. Talk about Ming the Merciless.
Back in the 1960s and 1970s, you had one president whose critics would
call him a "baby killer" -- "that horrible song" was the way President
Lyndon Baines Johnson referred to the antiwar chant, "Hey, hey, LBJ,
how many kids did you kill today?" -- and another ready to take on the
mantle of madness for purposes of private diplomacy; and each was
reportedly brought to the edge of private madness while in office. But
both were also uncomfortable with imagery of themselves and
exceedingly awkward in the televisual world of politics that was
already starting to surround them; neither imagined himself "in the
movies."
Last Screen Appearance?
Usually Ronald Reagan, an actual actor, is seen as the president who
spent his time in office playing the role of a lifetime, but, as it
happens, he had nothing on George W. Bush. From the moment the attacks
of September 11, 2001 gave him his "calling" as a "wartime" president,
he has been deeply embroiled in acting out his cartoonish version of
the role of the century. In fact, he has often seemed like little more
than an overgrown boy plunged into his own war movie and war-play
memories.
Let's remember that, soon after 9/11, this President launched his
"crusade, this war on terrorism" with an image of a poster from some
generic Western of his childhood. ("Bush offered some of his most
blunt language to date when he was asked if he wanted bin Laden dead.
'I want justice,' Bush said. 'And there's an old poster out West I
recall, that said, Wanted, Dead or Alive.'") For years, he visibly
glowed when publicly dressing up in a way that was redolent of the boy
version of war (that is, doll… er, action figure) play. While Abraham
Lincoln never put on a uniform and an actual general, Dwight D.
Eisenhower, put his in the closet in his years as president, Bush
uniquely and repeatedly appeared in public togged out in military
wear, looking for all the world like a life-sized version of the
original 12-inch G.I. Joe action figure -- whether "landing" a jet on
the aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, and stepping out in a
nifty flight suit, or appearing before massed hooah-ing troops in
specially tailored jackets with "George W. Bush, Commander In Chief"
carefully stitched across the breast. (In fact, more than one toy
company did indeed produce G.I. Joe-style Bush action figures.)
Evident above all, from September 14, 2001 -- when he climbed that
pile of rubble at "Ground Zero" in New York City and, bullhorn in
hand, to "USA! USA!" cheers, wiped out the ignominy of his actions on
the actual day of the attacks -- was just how much he enjoyed his role
as resolute leader of a wartime America. While his Vice President and
top advisors were grimly, if eagerly, preparing to whack Saddam
Hussein and taking the opportunity to create a permanent commander-in-
chief presidency, the President was visibly having the time of his
life, perhaps for the first time since he gave up those "wild parties"
of his youth.
A rivulet of telling details about his behavior has flowed by us in
these years. We know from Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, for
instance, that, after 9/11, Bush kept "his own personal scorecard for
the war" in a desk drawer in the Oval Office -- photos with brief
biographies and personality sketches of leading al-Qaeda figures,
whose faces could be satisfyingly crossed out when killed or captured.
In July 2003, frustrated by signs that the Sunni insurgency in Iraq
wasn't going away, he impulsively offered this bit of bluster to
reporters (as if he were the one who would take the brunt of future
attacks): "There are some who feel like the conditions are such that
they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on."
In those moments when he spoke or acted spontaneously, there are
plentiful clues that Bush took deep pleasure in finding himself in the
role of commander-in-chief, and that he has been genuinely thrilled to
do commander-in-chief-like things, at least as once pictured in the on-
screen fantasy world of his youth. He was thrilled, for example, to
receive from some of the troops who captured Saddam Hussein, the
pistol that the dictator had with him in his "spiderhole." Back in
2004, TIME Magazine's Matthew Cooper reported: "'He really liked
showing it off,' says a recent visitor to the White House who has seen
the gun. 'He was really proud of it.' The pistol's new place of
residence is in the small study next to the Oval Office where Bush
takes select visitors." Similarly, he returned from one of his brief
trips to Iraq "inspired" by a meeting with the pilot who shot off the
missile that incinerated Bin Laden wannabe Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
On and off throughout these years, you could glimpse just what a
cartoon-like white-hat/black-hat persona he imagined himself to be
playing. This was true whether he was in his blustery tough-guy mode,
as when, in September 2007, he arrived in Australia publicly
proclaiming that the U.S. was "kicking ass" in Iraq; or when, as
commander-in-chief, he regularly teared up with genuine (movie)
emotion as he handed out medals, some posthumous, for bravery; or even
when he discussed his own wartime version of "sacrifice" -- he claimed
to have given up golf for his war. As he told Mike Allen of
Politico.com: "I don't want some mom whose son may have recently died
to see the commander-in-chief playing golf. I feel I owe it to the
families to be as -- to be in solidarity as best as I can with them.
And I think playing golf during a war just sends the wrong signal."
The Washington Post's Dan Froomkin has pointed out that even Bush's
callow sacrifice of golf wasn't real -- he kept on playing -- but that
hardly matters. What's crucial is that all this real life play-acting
still moves, even thrills, him. Recently, for instance, he gave a
graduation speech at the U.S. Air Force Academy, where he once again
compared Iraq to World War II (and so, implicitly, himself to
President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston
Churchill, a bust of whom he has kept in the Oval Office all these
years). As Associated Press reporter Ben Feller commented: "Bush noted
it was his last military academy commencement speech, and he seemed to
savor it. He personally congratulated each cadet as cheers bounded
across the stadium." Note that word "savor," when linked to the
military and his commander-in-chief role. It's been a quality evident
in the President's ongoing performance these last seven years. The
photos of him goofing around with Air Force Academy graduates after
his speech tell the story well.
In all this, you can sense a man in his own bubble world, engrossed
in, and satisfied with, his own performance -- both as actor and, as
in childhood, audience. What Gen. Ricardo Sanchez has added to this is
the picture of a man who, even in 2004, was already dreaming Vietnam
disaster ("This Vietnam stuff We can't send that message."); who,
perhaps sensing that his blockbuster was busting, like Richard Nixon
before him, proved willing to mix the white-hat and black-hat codes of
his movie childhood in remarkable ways. Under the strain of a failing
war, in private and among his top officials, he didn't hesitate to
take on that "guru" role and rally his closest followers with a call
to kill, kill, kill!
A confused pep talk indeed. Even if Bush is still exhorting his top
officials not to "blink," Americans should. After all, there are
almost eight months left to his presidency, and a man of such stunning
immaturity, who confuses fantasy with real life, and is given to
outbursts of challenge, bluster, and bloodlust should be taken
seriously. Nixon's "mad mullah" stayed private until transcripts of
the Watergate tapes and memoirs started coming out. For us, the
question remains, will this President be able to take a final turn on-
screen before his term ends, playing the "mad mullah" in relation to
Iran?
Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com, is
the co-founder of the American Empire Project. His book, The End of
Victory Culture, has recently been updated in a newly issued edition.
He edited, and his work appears in, the first best of Tomdispatch
book, The World According to Tomdispatch: America in the New Age of
Empire (Verso), which is being published this month.
[Note for Readers: As far as I know, the key passage in Sanchez's
memoirs quoted in this piece was first noticed and commented upon by
that indefatigable Iraq reporter, Patrick Cockburn. Unlike the key
passages in Scott McClellan's memoir, this one from Sanchez's book has
been little attended to. However, Dan Froomkin (cited in this piece),
who does the Washington Post's online column, White House Watch, also
noted its existence. That's not surprising. He seems never to miss any
important development when it comes to the Bush administration. I link
to his invaluable column often. As far as I'm concerned, it may be the
most striking example of the sort of service a sharp columnist for a
major paper can offer in the online world. I find it a daily must-read
and recommend it strongly. Finally, if you want to know more about Mad
Mullahs, American war movies, and a host of other subjects from World
War II through the Iraq War, check out my recently updated book, The
End of Victory Culture.]
Copyright 2008 Tom Engelhardt
Tom Engelhardt, editor of Tomdispatch.com, is co-founder of the
American Empire Project and author of The End of Victory Culture.
© 2008 Tomdispatch.com All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/86890/
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