Parting Shot

It’s disgusting, but fitting, that in the last days of the Bush Administration, another Middle East country should be pre-emptively invaded.
It is surprising that Sarah Palin didn’t know how to accurately describe the so-called Bush Doctrine, because it can be summed up with the kind of bumper sticker wisdom that she loved: Sh-- Happens.
Don’t tell me that the U.S. had nothing to do with this latest misadventure. Don’t be so naïve as to believe that Israel didn’t act now, because otherwise they would have had to deal with a new administration, and a new President who may not have been so willing to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to another dose of ‘shock and awe’.
Neither am I so naïve as to believe that the soon-to-be Obama Administration isn’t relieved that they won’t have to take the blame for allowing this to happen on their watch. And I am not happy that President-elect Obama has not condemned this escalation of the Palestinian conflict: instead he has played the cynical political game of ‘deniability’.
But as ‘W’ goes out the door – looking much the worse for wear, let’s be clear: this invasion was another – hopefully the last, in a series of so-called policy decisions (never mind that it was yet another decision to do nothing) of the Decider, and an administration that almost always placed ideology above the welfare of the individual.
The people of Iraq, and Afghanistan, and the entire Muslim world – in the eyes of the Bush Administration, don’t deserve basic human rights.
The people of New Orleans – in the minds of the kinds of conservatives that ‘W’ placed in key roles in FEMA and in many other government agencies critical to the welfare of less fortunate Americans, got what they deserved.
The people of California lost billions of dollars to piratical entities like Enron, because the Bush Administration believed in letting the chips fall where they may (never mind that the game was played with your money).
Tens of millions of retirees saw their pensions destroyed in a matter of weeks, because the Bush administration believed that everyone should have an equal chance to be screwed by the corporation of their own choosing.
Exxon-Mobil and their cronies claimed they could do nothing to slow rising gas prices – asserting that it takes months for changes in production to affect costs. But did you notice that when the American people began to drive less, the price came down immediately?
The Bush Administration could have stopped the invasion of Gaza, but why would they? The invasion of Gaza is Iraq in miniature. Our intervention in Gaza is why Hamas took power there in the first place. It was the Bush administrations’ hypocritical embrace of ‘democracy’ that helped bring about the elections there. And then, when Hamas was the surprise winner of that election, Bush’ alleged love of democracy was unmasked as political cynicism, pure and simple, and the Bush Administration tried to starve Hamas into submission. When that didn’t work, ‘W’ turned to his second favorite foreign policy tactic: he put his head in the sand and hoped that when he next looked up the world would have changed. Instead, of course, without an ongoing, constructive effort on the part of America in the area, the situation deteriorated.
As the dust begins to clear in Iraq, we are looking at nearly a decade of conflict, hundreds of thousands of American and Iraqi dead, over a trillion dollars spent, a more powerful Iran, and a Middle East as fragile as we found it.
When the bombs stop falling on Gaza there will be probably about a thousand more Palestinians (and a few dozen Israeli) dead, several thousand wounded and – much worse, a city of over a million already desperate people without electricity, water, homes, schools, medicine, food, and with even less hope for the future than they had one month ago.
In such an environment only radicalism can flourish. After such an episode, the prospects for peace will have been pushed back, once again.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Are the Israelis so stupid as to repeat both theirs, and our, recent history: believing they can conduct war on a timetable, believing their bombs are so smart they can pick and choose who they kill?
The Intifadah. The Insurgency. The Taliban. Ramallah, Fallujah, and soon, Kabul?
The only thing missing is George W. in a leather aviator jacket, standing on an aircraft carrier, with a giant banner proclaiming, “Oops, I did it again.”
Goodbye George, and good riddance