by Don Hynes
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| Vantage Point | Culture and Politics by Don Hynes |
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"No man is prejudiced in favor of a thing, knowing it to be wrong.
He is attached to it on the belief of its being right; and when he sees it is not so,
the prejudice will be gone." - Tom Paine
May 12, 2003 Flying Boy Grounded Narcissism is a grandiose sense of self-importance that expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievement. Sound familiar? Apply the definition culturally to the US addiction to image over substance and to why the President’s photo opportunity on the carrier US Lincoln wasn’t tarnished by press investigation. The media lionized the President’s supposed fighter pilot manner. Like the flying boy of myth, his ascension to military hero has little ground in experience, his past military record well-documented. Despite the lack of energy in investigating the President’s previous shortcomings Senator Robert Byrd took the President to task for use of the gravity of war to further political ambition. Howard Zinn voices a more rational and sentient patriotism in his essay My Country the World. No Weapons of Mass Destruction Weapons of mass destruction, those threats of grave and immediate danger to the United States and the world community that the President his Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense used to browbeat the United Nations into garnering support for the US invasion of Iraq, haven’t turned up. Rather than intensifying the search as President Bush promised from the carrier flight deck, the frustrated US intelligence teams are actually disbanding. The WMD intelligence was highly questionable, as Seymour Hersh writes in detail in his essay Selective Intelligence. Weapons of mass destruction that were used in Iraq are receiving no coverage in the US press and little or no attention by the ccupying military force. Commonwealth reporters aren’t forgetting WMDs nor the US affront to our allies. Iraq in Chaos With little or no public explanation the Bush Administration is dismantling the Iraq governance group it installed just weeks ago and sending in a replacement team headed by L. Paul Bremer III. I don’t personally know any people who have Roman numerals after their name, but Bremer was President Reagan's ambassador-at-large for counterterrorism and though he’s touted as a State Department veteran, one of his previous day jobs was as managing director of Kissinger Associates who were deeply involved in the BCCI scandal and again in the BNL scandal that financed the Iraq military in 80s. Are these resources and exploitive experience what Iraq needs? The aftermath of the war in Iraq one month in is still being covered in detail in the foreign press where what is actually happening within Iraq is more important than the flight deck imagery and the branding of success so important to our government. The "liberation" of Baghdad included the Al Rashad State Hospital for the mentally ill including a maximum security facility for severely psychotic and dangerous individuals, a facility recently rebuilt by the Red Cross but severely damaged by the US military during the invasion. The security of the facility was compromised when the Marines “broke in” to the hospital and set up camp in the adjacent nursing school, and 1100 of the 1400 patients “escaped” in the chaos of military occupation and the severe looting and arson which followed. Southern Iraq is in limbo, while the previous subdued welcome of the US in Basra has turned to fury. Radiation sickness has broken out in villages near the looted Iraqi nuclear facilities while fundamentalist Christian millionaire, Cheryl Reagan, produces Arab Television for the US government. New Alliances I linked last week to Putin challenging Blair over WMD, but this story demands a reprise. The fact of our key allies in Europe forming a non Nato military force isn’t just diplomacy gone sour, the Bush Administration’s forte, but a gravitational shift in our basic and until now most dependable foreign alliance. The euro vs. dollar petrocurrency issue was a key factor in the invasion of Iraq, so the French are playing their remaining cards. Iraq's main debtors are France and Russia with each out 8 billion, in addition to 35 billion in disputes loans from the Arab Gulf states. American corporations are finding a European frost to their endeavors because of Iraq, and this lack of relationship won’t be healed any time soon under the current US Administration. Asian Times reports that Central Asian countries have been meeting with Vladimir Putin to “re-establish” relations after the disappointment of no U.S. follow through after Afghanistan war, and the NYT reports the resurgence of the Taliban in Pakistan. Fascism American Style Questionable and counter productive writing on the internet equates our present government with Nazism, arguments that don’t hold up if you’re looking for the guy with the moustache and soldiers in kinky uniforms. What we need to be concerned about is fascism American style, which begins with the narcissistic belief that we are somehow superior, elevated above the rest of humanity, with a “special role” as world savior. Where did “Bush 43” come from? The juxtaposition of name and number is too close to the Bible for me, the one book the President seems to have read often enough. But take heart, librarians are stepping into the breech, shredding records before Ashcroft shreds any more of our rights. Fascism was supported and funded in the United States in the 1930s & 40s. The corporate side of terror doesn’t get airtime on the history channel, and currently we’re sliding into a similar condition with corporate control of the media and war machine. Halliburton’s expanded role in Iraq was revealed this week amidst further concerns about Richard Perle’s profiteering from the Iraq war. And this story of dis-enfranchising African American voters in the last presidential election deserves careful citizen monitoring. Take Action The best direction for an aching heart is to take a positive step for change. Here are just a few of the resources that are available on the web. Each of these links will let you make your voice heard on key issues of the day. Schools Environment Corporate controlled media Grass Roots Education and Advocacy Break the chain of oil dependency Peace. *** |
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