What Does Conservativism Run Amuck Look Like: Iraq.

November 5, 2006 by mugsy.

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“Introduction of a flat tax.”

- Former Iraq viceroy L. Paul Bremer when asked of his greatest achievement while in charge of Iraq.

Friday, one of the architects of Bush’s invasion of Iraq, former Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Perle, publicly criticized the war in Iraq and his former boss Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld:

“I think if I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, ‘Should we go into Iraq?,’ I think now I probably would have said, ‘No, let’s consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.“

So nice of the former PNAC founding member and lead chickenhawk to finally come around 2,800 dead US soldiers and one burgeoning theocratic terrorist state later.

Just days ago, a manic sounding President Bush declared that Rumsfeld’s and Cheney’s jobs were safe throughout the end of his presidency. Probably the two greatest examples of incompetence and catastrophic pigheadedness in the entire administration, and President Bush is assuring us that their jobs are safe & secure, when in fact, theirs should be the first to go. (On Monday, November 6th, a slew of ACTIVE Top military brass will be publishing an Op/Ed in the “Army/Navy/Marines/Air Force Times” magazines calling for Rumsfeld’s resignation.)

Of course, we’ve seen this before. On December 14, 2004, President Bush awarded L. Paul “take your guns with you, Mr. Iraqi Soldier” Bremer, General Tommy “plenty of troops” Franks, and George “Slam Dunk!” Tenet, the Presidential Medal of Freedom… the highest award that can be bestowed upon any civilian, to three of the most conspicuous fuckups in the entire Iraq debacle. Reporter/Author Bob Woodward titled his latest book “State of Denial” after a long series of events such as these. The worse things get, the more shrill and manic they become, as if giving out medals to three colossal failures, and throwing all of your support behind two more still in your administration, will make everybody go, “Huh, maybe I was wrong about them. I mean, if they’re getting awards for what great jobs they did and the President is steadfast supporting them, maybe they really DID do a great job!” The scientific term for this condition is called “Irrational Exuberance”.

When I was a kid, I used to love playing “Video Blackjack” on my friends’ “Intellivision“. I found that I could usually bluff the computer into folding if I just kept raising the stakes, no matter how bad my hand was. Eventually, the game would decide: “maybe I really DID have that fourth ace”, and fold. The problem with my strategy though was that sometimes the computer KNOWS you’re bluffing because IT has the missing card it knows you need to win. So I’d keep increasing my bet and the computer would match me, until I ran out of chips and ended up loosing to a pair of Two’s. “Irrational Exuberance”.

One thing I noticed about the NeoCons long ago: When Reality doesn’t meet up with their expectations, either Reality is “wrong“ (ex: some outside influence if affecting the result - see: “foreign invaders“) or “more time” is simply needed till they are proven right (see: “Stay the Course”). So deep is their denial, not even hard facts can change their minds. This is what it means to be an Ideologue.

Iraq was to be their grand experiment. A blank slate upon which they could construct a “Conservative Utopia”, implementing every Right-Wing dream into reality… a country that was to blossom out of pure Conservative ideology: Privatize everything. Limited government. Minimal taxation to foster business growth… you name the Republican philosophy, they were going to impose it on Iraq. And Iraq would bloom into a thriving monument to Democracy and Capitalism in the heart of the Middle East!

But that’s not what happened. The Iraqi economy collapsed, joblessness skyrocketed, chaos ensued and Civil War broke out.

Problem is, you can’t have a Free Market without stability, and Iraq never got it. Soon after the ouster of Saddam Hussain and the collapse of every government institution, generations of bottled up repression exploded to the surface in rampant looting and chaos. But rather than impose order and show the people that chaos would not be tolerated, Coalition forces were told to stay out of the way and not interfere. When asked about the looting, SecDef Rumsfeld uttered his now famous “Stuff happens!” response. “Free people are allowed to commit crimes and do bad things!” he told reporters. It’s all been downhill ever since.

After the 1929 stock market crash here in the U.S., President Roosevelt instituted a range of Government Work Programs that would be regarded unbridled Socialism today. And in fact, that’s what it was. But it got Americans back on their feet, earning money and reconstituting the shattered tards of their lives. Once Americans were on their feet again, the market was allowed to take over and the American economy grew like a Victory Garden. But you’ve GOT to have stability first, and Iraq never had that as soon as the government was decapitated and there was nothing to take its place.

Iraq is where it is today because when 70% of the country is unemployed, electricity and water/sewage service is sporadic at best, and you have nothing to do all day except swelter in the 120′ heat with no air-conditioning as you watch foreigners in your country take what few jobs there are… which they obviously are not doing because you are still without water and electricity… you have nothing better to do than dust off the AK-47 you took with you after they disbanded the Iraqi army, and take to the streets killing every foreigner you see. And eventually, “foreigner” takes on a whole new meaning, as in “anybody that doesn’t believe the same as you”… including fellow Iraqi’s of a different religion, that seem to be getting preferential treatment or want to claim part of what is rightfully yours as theirs.

The American people have finally had enough. They are finally seeing the “State of Denial” for themselves, as violence spirals out of control in Iraq and President Bush continues to reassure voters that “things are going just great in Iraq”. Three years on in a war we were promised would take no more than days or weeks and be paid for in Iraqi oil revenues, and was a war of “last resort” only because of how certain we were that Saddam had “Weapons of Mass Destruction” that could be used against us if we didn’t act ASAP, the people are finally saying “enough is enough!”

If you bluff the dealer too many times, eventually you’re gonna loose.

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