The Hypocrisy of it All
Playback Editor
As the possibility of an American defeat in Iraq looms large, revisionist history abounds. Today's news hubs read as if a mass murderer named Hussein never existed, towers never toppled and all the world's troubles are attributed to an idiot savant's holy quest for "Texas style" revenge. Because we live in an age of short attention spans and an ignorance of history, rats are jumping ship with pointed fingers. The tragedy is that most will succeed.
Our American Idol driven culture offers little gig space for details. We are a soundbite society and we may be about to take it on the chin, big time. In the shadow of withdrawal, realizing the potential magnitude of the loss, I would like to memorialize lessons I have been learned watching this sequence of events unfold.
The first lesson is that the media is a business. News outlets no longer reports news but editorialize it. Uncle Walter and his methods are as extinct as the T-Rex. In an age of exceptional competition, each outlet has become an editorial center churning out it's own sensationalized interpretation of events. Each having their own style and cast of characters. Some are more dramatic or theatrical than others. All are in the business of making money and that always means "audience" share. You can no longer believe anything because you "saw it on the news" or "read it in the paper." Digest the information and filter it accordingly. We're in the laissez faire news age.
The second is there is no such thing as "allies." The term, a holdover from the Cold War, is as antiquated as the World War propaganda films that harvested it. We are no longer at war with the Axis. The Iron Curtain is kaput. In today's world, globalization and the Internet have changed the landscape. Today, as always, countries form alliances driven by economic agendas. Each grandstanding motion at the U.N., the steps of an embassy steps or the Rose Garden is a device structured to massage the public. The real cause and effect behind national policies are negotiated backstage, now as always. That being clarified, please, no more "we're losing our allies." To say such a thing displays one's ignorance once you've passed the age of twelve.
The third is as long as we are an oil driven society, this mess is going to get much worse. Every major industrialized nation's foreign policy is resource driven. Oil tops the list. Michael Klare spelled this out in his fine book Resource Wars. China, Russia, India, Japan, the E.U. or the rest are absolutely no different than we are. Each of us makes it's our best concentrated effort at getting as much access to oil as possible and the competition is each other (see no such thing as allies, above).
This equation shifts from complication to mess due to the fact that the world's oil supply is centered in the Middle East, the world's most volatile region. Here jet-setting dictators of underdeveloped nations hold their hopeless populations in check by using various channels to deflect hatred at the United States and Israel. Not nice, fair or a great long term strategy but maintenance on a 200,000 sq. ft. palace can get rather expensive.
Our nation is addicted to oil. George Clooney could not fly his private jet to Italy without it. Republicans and Democrats have done nothing to wean us off this addiction for over fifty years and it is a disgrace. Ultra-powerful lobbies control this world-altering issue. The fact that neither party has managed to stop this addition reeks of hypocrisy and a complete lack of integrity.
There are other options to oil and they have been intentionally submarined for decades. This is the inexcusable crime committed against families who have lost loved ones in Iraq. It's easy to blame Bush for reacting to repercussions, but he's not the root. That guilt runs fifty years deep and there is tons to pass around. I have yet to see one politician have the guts to make a career-defining stand on this issue and it fills me with disgust. Not one significant politician is without his or her share of blood on their hands. It is due to this cultural addiction that we are forced to placate countries we really would prefer not to even know, a feeling that is mutual.
As far as supply goes, oil is a natural resource. Logic dictates that the supply is not endless. We are consuming it at a greater rate than ever before. Only a very small handful have a clue as to how much may actually exist and they are keeping their cards really tight to the vest. We better wake up fast and force some serious and difficult decisions before they are made for us. I personally have never had to hunt for food and the thought is a bit scary.
As I read today's New York Times surgical dissection of President Bush, I wonder what are they really thinking. They realize that the article printed below is intended to further steer American support away from the war. That is their right, but I keep asking myself, what are their thoughts for an alternative strategy? Once Iraq is lost, what's next?
No matter who occupies the Oval Office in January of 2008, they are going to face one hell of a set of problems. Hilliary will only be able to blame it on Bush for the first 100 days. After that, she's up against the Mullahs, Sadr, Hezbollah, Hamas, Assad, Osama, Omar and the other half billion. I'm not comfortable with a welfare state/peace sign mentality going up against guys who chop off heads around a water hole. I'm not inclined to bet on the daises.
There lies the rub. We live in a society with a thirty second attention span. The media is 90% left, 99% of that anti-Bush. It's 10 to 1 at this time that Iraq fails and Bush is a dead man. The potential catastrophe that the media-driven left may be forging is not going to go away with a change of parties in 2008. Remember, Bin Laden and team massacred 3000 civilians at a time of peace after eight years of a thumb chewing Bubba who did fight hard for Middle East peace and did save thousands of Muslims from genocide in Bosnia.
Maybe the Left is right. Maybe negotiations will Iran and North Korea will lead the way to peace. Maybe the differences are not irreconcilable. Every sane person must root and fight for it. However, ever since the Internet allowed poverty stricken Abdullah in Pakistan to see Jessica Simpson in shorts, he's wanted her too. The genie is more than out of the bottle, it is jammed down throats worldwide. Knowing that something exists and that your circumstances prohibit even the dream of having your taste breeds a deep, dangerous, easily manipulated resentment.
I hope The New York Times is right, that common ground can be established and that West 44th Street does not end up a radioactive graveyard.
In Europe and Elsewhere, Bush’s New War Strategy Is Greeted With Skepticism
By ALAN COWELL - New York Times
Published: January 13, 2007
LONDON, Jan. 12 — Whatever the impact of President’s Bush’s new strategy for Iraq in Baghdad or in Baquba, it has won few converts across a worried world, where dismay and hostility toward the American expedition have grown while support trickles away.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/13/world/europe/13react.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
