Destroy The Village In Order To Save It: Part Deux

by digby

“Our mission and our goal is to have a lasting peace — not a temporary peace, but something that lasts,” said Bush. “We want a sustainable ceasefire. We don’t want something that’s, you know, short term in duration.”

This is the middle east he’s talking about. Apparently somebody has told him that getting a lasting peace there is just a matter of resolve. If only people hadn’t accepted all these temporary ceasefires in the past, everything would have been straightened out by now. (He’s not saying they wouldn’t have gotten their hair mussed…)

I know he’s just an idiot who doesn’t even have the barest grasp of simple logic. But when children are being killed and maimed, you’d think they could at least have the foresight to come up with a talking point that doesn’t make “collateral damage” sound like a moral concept by comparison. This idea that in order to achieve longterm peace you can’t have a temporary ceasefire is gibberish, yes, — but it is immoral too. Apparently, he really doesn’t grasp the fact that during a “short-term” ceasefire actual human beings are not being killed — real people with jobs and homes and lives and everything.

I think that one of the sad consequences of Democrats being so hapless these last few years is that these silly Republicans have gotten it into their heads that the whole world works like the American political system. If you humiliate your enemy enough, they will become like “neutered barnyard animals” who will happily go along with their second class status. But that only works when the other side is comfortable and fat and enjoying the perks of the status quo as much as the victors. In the real world this is a very provocative and dangerous way to try to manage human events. It tends to create hatreds that can’t be mitigated by a nice slice of political pork down the road.

I’ve always been quite fond of this statement by Bush back in 2001, which I think perfectly reflects his temperament:

The American people must understand when I said that we need to be patient, that I meant it. And we’re going to be there for a while. I don’t know the exact moment when we leave, David, but it’s not until the mission is complete. The world must know that this administration will not blink in the face of danger and will not tire when it comes to completing the missions that we said we would do. The world will learn that when the United States is harmed, we will follow through. The world will see that when we put a coalition together that says “Join us,” I mean it. And when I ask others to participate, I mean it.

That’s been working out really well for us, don’t you think?

That was at the zenith of Bush’s post bullhorn power and I don’t think he’s progressed one moment past that point. When you combine it with the neocon obsession with war as the answer for every problem, you get an administration that sees sustained violence as the only way to achieve lasting peace and that the problem in the middle east is that there just hasn’t been enough of it over the years.

It’s as if “1984” were true, except that Big Brother is a hulking, braindead thug.

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