How The White House Will Manipulate Events and Emotions to Maintain GOP Executive Branch Control in 2008
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
Okay, let’s look at some Bushevik assaults on democracy this last week:
Bush and Cheney Make the Novel and Totalitarian Assertion that the Department of Justice is Prohibited from Investigating a Congressional Contempt Citation Over Anyone (Even if They are No Longer Working for the Government) Asserting Executive Privilege
Bush’s PR Operation Claims to Issue a New Document Forbidding Torture, When the Details Actually Just Reconfirm the Right of the CIA to Continue Renditions and Torture
A Bushevik Partisan Hack Judge Throws Out the Plame Civil Suit Against the Bush Administration, Just as the Same Bush-Appointed Judge Has Made Partisan Decisions Before that Favor Bush
A Pentagon Official Who is a Former Cheney Aide Accuses a Sitting U.S. Senator (Hillary Clinton) of Being a Traitor for Exercising Her Rights to Receive Military Readiness Information
Bush Accuses the Dems of Holding Up Funds and Safety Equipment for Our Troops When the White House Told the GOP to Sink a Bill Last Week That Would Have Mandated Proper Preparedness, Proper Training, Adequate Rest, and Adequate Protective Gear. The Republicans, Under White House Orders, Defeated the Bill that Would Have Supported Our Troops.
That’s a lot to swallow in just one week, and those are just some egregious examples of the slow creep into fascism that never seems to halt no matter how badly Cheney and Bush fare in the polls, and no matter how strongly Americans oppose the Iraq War.
The Democrats MUST remember this most important axiom about Bush, Cheney and Rove: Their interest is not necessarily to stay in Iraq forever; it is to ensure that the Republicans can hold onto power indefinitely.
The quagmire in the battle against terror, in which the Busheviks have prima facie failed by being unable to beat back a relatively small hardcore Al-Qaeda movement, is really only a strategy from which they see opportunities to maintain power, not defeat. (Even if the NIE this past week stated another offense for which Bush and Cheney should be removed from office: After years of lies, hundreds of thousands of lives of Iraqis and Americans lost, hundreds of billions of dollars wasted, Al Qaeda is stronger than ever. What Bush and Cheney have done, through their failure, is make Al Qaeda into some sort of "Superman" Force. In short, the perception of Al Qaeda is strengthened by the Bush Administration’s ineptness in dealing with them.)
But the failure of the Bush Administration’s "war on terror," which was mounted to achieve goals having nothing to do with halting terror, is not causing the Bush Administration – as the partial list of last week’s actions indicate – to back off from their assault on the American Constitution?
Why?
It would be a mistake to think that Bush’s ongoing chipperness and indifference to public opinion can be attributed to his sociopathology alone. It would also be an error to think that Dick "Dr. Evil" Cheney is simply becoming more hunkered down in his delusions that he is the power behind the throne, the rabble in the Congress be damned.
So why are the Busheviks continuing to proceed full steam ahead in seizing absolute powers and barreling ahead in Iraq?
BuzzFlash speculates that one of the reasons relates to their confidence in their ability to continue to manipulate events and emotions. Although the mainstream media has started to expose more of the reality of the utter debacle of the Iraq War, it still is more likely than not to give a White House spin to headlines and stories, as it did in Bush’s completely hypocritical and mendacious attack on Democrats for allegedly not legislatively "supporting our troops."
In a crisis, moreover, the mainstream media, which surfs the news cycles without a nano-second of historical context, is likely to completely hop aboard the White House propaganda express again, as it did post-9/11 – and is it did for nearly four years of a record of failed declarations and promises in the Iraq War.
Rove knows that one big event that is perceived as a military challenge to America can erase all the accumulated negative perceptions of Bush for enough time to ride the next Republican presidential candidate through an election cycle (or according to the worst fears of some, suspend the elections based on Executive Branch emergency powers that Bush has been incrementally accumulating through executive orders and with the consent of Congress.)
So what might these precipitated "rally round the president" crisis events be?
Here are three options – and they are not the only possible ones – that we are sure that Rove and Cheney and others are mulling over:
1) A short-term military assault on the Pakistani "tribal lands," bordering Afghanistan, where the Saudi dominated Al-Qaeda has allegedly been living openly and freely --- and where Osama bin Laden has possibly been ensconced for several years. If Bush were able to score a real or propaganda hit on Al- Qaeda, the Democrats would have little alternative but to congratulate him for doing what they have been advocating all along. The mainstream media would applaud Bush for finally accepting a need for recalibrating the "War on Terror."
Potential risks of this action: Rove would be worrying that it could backfire if they don’t come up with significant Al-Qaeda members. There is also the very real risk that a U.S. incursion into Pakistan (remember the impact of Kissinger’s secret bombing of Cambodia leading to the emergence of the Khmer Rouge) could result in an Islamic fundamentalist overthrow of the Musharraf regime. Finally, because of the strain on forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, there might not be a sufficient special force capability to launch such an attack.
2) An air attack, likely employing nuclear weapons, on Iranian nuclear facilities. Cheney and his Neo-Con cheerleaders are just dying to pull this one off. It would precipitate a right wing echo chorus of the need to rally behind the president in a time of war and that only traitors wouldn’t support our troops in combat. It would further bolster the "U.S.A. # 1" empire contingent and play to the wounded egos of Americans who don’t like to lose wars, as is the case in Iraq. Also, the Iranian Prime Minister has made himself especially unlikable, so the Busheviks have another bogeyman to demonize.
Potential risks of this action: All Hell would break loose in the Middle East. Hezbollah and Hamas would probably launch a full-scale assault on Israel, backed by Iran. The Iranians would start to directly engage U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Syria would probably be drawn into a full-scale Middle East war. The strong pro-democracy movement within Iran would be suppressed almost immediately, as Iranians patriotically rally around their leadership, however, distasteful, just as Americans would rally around Bush. Iranians would probably launch surrogate terrorist attacks against American interests.
3) A 9/11 repeat attack on U.S. soil. Despite the fact that such an attack would make a mockery of the often stated Bush mantra that "we are fighting them over there, so we don’t have to fight them over here," the Republicans would – in their usual disciplined message point fashion – quickly blame the Democrats for not supporting the Iraq War. The mainstream media would disseminate the Republican message points pretty much intact. Bush would be positioned as having been right "all along" about the ongoing terrorist threat and seen as a seer and leader, who was wrongfully scorned. In fact, more than one Republican leader has implied that they would welcome a terrorist attack on the U.S., because – as their twisted and destructive desire to hold power dictates – it would "validate" the Bush/Cheney war strategy.
Remember, it can be completely illogical, but the Republicans, under Rove in particular, know how to ride the power of emotional reactions to events as seen through the prism of a mainstream media that surfs the emotional tug of unfolding events. Of course, the debate on to what extent the Bush Administration is responsible for not preventing 9/11 rages on, with their being guilty of malfeasance – at a minimum – because Bush and Rice were warned in August of 2001 of impending terrorist hijackings and did not one thing to warn airports or intelligence agencies to take preventive actions.
But anyone who has been in politics knows that there are people in the White House secretly hoping for another 9/11 type of attack on the "Homeland." Remember, the goal of the Bush Administration is to hold onto Executive Branch power for the Republicans indefinitely. Sometimes, such Neo-Con fanatics believe that Americans have to die for the larger good of ensuring that the steering wheel of government isn’t handed over to the Democrats.
Potential risks of this action: It could be a large-scale attack so devastating that it could create a political upheaval in the United States. If the attackers are again primarily Saudi members of Al-Qaeda, the calls for clamping down hard on Saudi Arabia may rise to a frenzy. The U.S. military, already stretched to the breaking point, might not have the ability to retaliate successfully. There is the slight chance that rationality might emerge from the ashes and that Bush would be blamed for getting sidetracked in Iraq, but that is not how the media and demagoguery work. In all likelihood, this would be the most desirable option for the White House, because it would result in renewed calls for "getting even with someone," which helps Bush and Cheney string out the endless war.
In short, while we concentrate on ending the Iraq War, the White House is kicking the ball down the field trying to figure out which of the above three scenarios (and others) might be the best diversion from the Baghdad conflict, while boosting Bush’s ratings in one fell swoop – and recharging the hopes of a Republican candidate for president.
The bottom line is that the White House has its eyes on continuing the march toward consolidating Executive Branch and Federal Court Republican control over any efforts by Congress to assert their Constitutional powers.
Manipulating world events and renewing fear with a new "terrorist event" or "terrorist prevention attack" are what’s on the table right now.
They are just stalling for time to make a decision on the least risky alternative.
It is the White House that continues to be a dangerous threat to the national security of Americans, because their interest is the accumulation of power, not our well-being as a nation.
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