Asia Times: Boy president in a failed world?

[Frederik]

By Tom Engelhardt

On Thursday morning, with the London bombings monopolizing the TV set, I watched our president take that long, outdoor, photo-op walk from the Group of Eight (G8) summit meeting to the microphones to make a statement to reporters. Exploding subways, a blistered bus, the dead, wounded, dazed and distraught just then staggering through our on-screen morning, and there he was. He had his normal, slightly bowlegged walk, his arms held just out from his side in a fashion that brings the otherwise unusable word "akimbo" to mind. It's a walk - the walk to the podium at the White House press conference, to the presidential helicopter, to the Rose Garden microphone - that is now his well-practiced signature move. For some people, a tone of voice or a facial expression can tell you everything you need to know; that's how the president's walk acts for him. And nothing puts spine in that walk the way the "war on terror" does. Each horror is like a shot of adrenalin.

He said nothing to surprise. He offered "heartfelt condolences to the people of London, people who lost lives"; he spoke of defending Americans against heightened dangers ("I have been in contact with our Homeland Security folks. I instructed them to be in touch with local and state officials about the facts of what took place here and in London, and to be extra vigilant, as our folks start heading to work."); he extolled the strength of resolve of the other G8 leaders by comparing it to his own ("I was most impressed by the resolve of all the leaders in the room. Their resolve is as strong as my resolve."); and he presented for the umpteenth time his Manichaean vision of a world of good and evil in which he and his administration are unhesitatingly the representatives of all goodness. ("The contrast couldn't be clearer between the intentions and the hearts of those of us who care deeply about human rights and human liberty, and those who kill - those who have got such evil in their heart that they will take the lives of innocent folks.")

(...)

Before the war in Iraq, and again before the recent election, he, his handlers and his top officials played the "war on terror" card domestically with impressive effectiveness. All of this is well known. So why wouldn't they return to it as the early months of his second term begin to look much like those in-the-doldrums early months of his first one? As London demonstrated all too painfully - as his policies in Iraq and elsewhere help to ensure - we now live in a Kamikaze world. After all, as he always says with a strange pride, he made Iraq into "the central theater in the 'war on terror'." Remember, whatever else Iraq was, before the invasion it was a country that had never experienced a suicide car-bombing (though Baghdad was evidently car-bombed by the Central Intelligence Agency in the 1990s via the Iraqi National Accord, the exile organization of the future prime minister of occupied Iraq, Iyad Allawi) or sent a suicide car bomber anywhere else on Earth; and don't forget our now seemingly endless and bloody occupation of unreconstructed Afghanistan, and so many grim policies elsewhere, most of which impact heavily on the largely Arab oil heartlands of the planet. All of this has so far been, speaking purely practically, as London may demonstrate once again, useful to the president domestically, even if his policies are helping produce it, even if those of us who live in the large cities of the world are never again likely to get on a subway or a bus without suppressing that second or two of doubt about what might happen next.

(...)

"The 'war on terror' goes on ..." You might imagine that such a sentence, especially at that moment, would have been the most mournful, the saddest of statements. But in the president's mouth it had none of that quality. Though far more subdued, what it hinted at was one of the president's most childish comments, now almost forgotten. Back in July 2003, when the Iraq war that should have ended was just turning into an insurgency that wouldn't end, he taunted the Iraqi insurgents, saying, "Anybody who wants to harm American troops will be found and brought to justice ... There are some who feel like the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GG12Aa02.html

[KoKo]

1. A long read, but worth it. Excellent description of Bush...and very sad

that he and the rest of the BFEE have brought us to this. The "training wheels" comments, his carefully practiced "walk" and his constant language of American Empire are all so well stated in this article.

I'm ashamed of these people who "rule" America. I'm ashamed of those who still don't see what our country has become under these "children."

When Clinton was President the RW said "Where are the Adults?" We should have known that they were preparing us in their usual perverse way of turning around their liabilities into strenghts that they would replace the "Adults" with the very "children" that they accused the Clinton Administration of being. This article is the best I've seen in pointing this out.

Bush's comment about the "Iraqi's getting off the training wheels" after the election and his own bicycle incident in Scotland are also interesting points in this article. Bush lives out his own Karma while dragging all of us into it. Rather than "Karma" it might be "Psychodrama" is the better word. :-(