Sunday, November 27, 2011

George Armstrong Custer Bush

(First written on 7/2/2005 after reading that America's criminal invasion of Iraq had acquired a "new, improved" -- meaning, recycled from Vietnam -- military metaphor to explain it all: namely, "fly paper." See: the flypaper American GIs offer themselves to the "enemy" flies who then stick to the flypaper GIs until the whole sticky mess -- used up flypaper and dead flies -- gets thrown into the trashcan of history. See? No? OK, then, consider what still looks for all the world like the grim story of George Armstrong Custer revisited.)

Shades of Dien Bien Phu and the Little Big Horn!

Now I think I get it! President George "Deputy Dubya" Bush really did have a strategy when he invaded Iraq over two years ago. Yes, and you unbelievers thought he just blundered into a bloody quagmire with his empty head stuffed solidly up his butt. No way. The man had a plan!

Just like the French at Dien Bien Phu or George Armstrong Custer at the Little Big Horn, or Ronald Reagan's Marines at the Beirut Airport, Deputy Dubya decided to send his troops down into an indefensible hole in the ground and "bait" the enemy into coming after them. Then, when the American forces found themselves surrounded, they would just wipe out the enemy all around them. What a genius plan!

In a repetitive and totally inane speech the other day, Deputy Dubya reminded us of why foreigners consider Americans among the dumbest people ever to walk the earth. Even aside from trying to pull that discredited "9/11 = Saddam Hussein" canard for the umpteenth time, the really stupid bit came when Dubya the Dullard let us in on his clever scheme to invade a country that didn't have terrorists just so he could create a country that did. Now that the "terrorists" who didn't exist in Iraq under Saddam Hussein now do exist in that country (with Saddam Hussein in jail for the past year), the killing of Americans and Iraqis can just go on and on and on because .... well ... because ... well ... BECAUSE IT HAS ALREADY STARTED! You see, in American logic, starting something justifies doing what you've started doing once you've started doing it. See? Hmmmmmmm? How can anyone expect Americans to stop doing anything stupidly suicidal once they begin doing it? Hmmm? Doesn't that make perfect American sense? Hmmmm?

Canon-fodder British soldiers in World War I and American GIs in Vietnam had a slogan for this kind of self-referential, tautological strategic tail-chasing: "We're here because we're here because we're here because we're here."

See: as "big-thinking" American domino theorists like Henry Kissinger keep telling us decade after decade, our friends won't respect us and our enemies won't fear us if we stop acting stupidly! Don't you see the logic of it? See: "big thinking" American domino theorists simply assume that our friends respect stupidity and our enemies fear it. Why do you find this so hard to understand? And stop laughing!

Early in the Vietnam War, genius American generals used to laugh at the French generals for putting their troops into that hopeless trap at Dien Bien Phu where the Vietnamese wiped them with artillery firing down from the surrounding hillsides. Then the genius American General William Westmoreland put his troops into a trap at Khe Sanh where a whole bunch of his troops got royally hammered by the surrounding North Vietnamese -- while other Vietnamese guerrillas simply walked around the pinned-down Americans and blew up most of the major cities to the South. Actually, this "use ourselves as bait" strategy has an even earlier history among genius American generals: like when General George Armstrong Custer cleverly "baited" thousands of Sioux Indians to come wipe him out at the Little Big Horn River. What, one must ask, induces genius Generals to do such monumentally stupid things? Does it come with the rank?

George W. Bush cleverly avoided service in the Vietnam War where he might have learned from all the stupid things our former Presidents and generals did there. But noooooooooooooo. He had to hide out (at least part of the time) in a champagne National Guard unit that never engaged a single enemy airplane in mortal combat anywhere in the skies over Texas. Now, when he finally gets to live out his wildest fantasies as Commander-In-Briefs, he figures he'll just send the American military into Iraq where they can create "terrorists" and then "bait" them into killing Americans day after day after day. He calls this "strategy" the "war on terror." See: first you create terrorists and then you dare them to kill you. See? Republicans understand this "reasoning" intuitively, even if they wouldn't think of risking their own children's lives putting it into practice.

Anyway, you unbelievers out there had better learn a whole new level of respect for George Armstrong Custer Bush. You may think he lacks intelligence and experience, but that only goes to show how little you understand the power of Republican faith in fantasy! Just keep dreaming along with Deputy Dubya Bush and a miracle will happen any day now. If it doesn't, who cares? Dead flypaper GIs tell no tales.

Michael Murry, "The Misfortune Teller," Copyright 2005-2011

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