Bush's October Surprise

http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=7797

October 27, 2005
Bush's October Surprise
by Tom Engelhardt
Tom Dispatch

Those in the anti-fascist struggle of the 1930s who went off to fight in the Spanish Civil War were later termed "premature antifascists." Perhaps, in the same spirit, I might be considered a premature Bush-administration implodist.

On Feb. 1, 2004, reviewing the week just passed, I imagined us trapped in "some new reality show in which we were all to be locked in with an odd group of jokesters," and then wrote:

"When we finally emerge will there be a prize for the survivors? Will we discover, for instance, that our president and his administration have headed down a path of slow-motion implosion…?"

On Feb. 18, 2004, my optimism briefly surging, I imagined the future as a movie trailer (inviting readers back for the main attraction that spring or summer) and offered this synopsis of the future film – the wild fowl references being to Dick Cheney's hunting habits, then in the news – with:........

Our Imploding Future

To me anyway, this looks like a potential critical-mass moment. Of course, there are a few missing elements of no small import. The most obvious is an opposition party. The Democrats are essentially nowhere to be seen. In fact, whether or not they even remain a party is, at this point, open to serious question. Their leading candidate for president, Hillary Clinton, still wants to send more (nonexistent) American troops into Iraq and, like most other Democrats in Congress, has remained painfully mum – this passes for a strategy, however craven – on almost everything that matters at the moment. Even on the issue of torture, it's a Republican senator, John McCain, who is spearheading resistance to the administration.

The other group distinctly missing in action, as they have been for years now, is the military. Many top military men were clearly against the Iraq War and, aghast at the way the administration has conducted it, have been leaking like mad ever since. But other than General Eric Shinseki, who spoke up in the pre-invasion period, suggesting the kind of troop strength that might actually be needed for an occupation (rather than a liberation) of Iraq and was essentially laughed out of Washington, and various retired generals like former Centcom Commander Anthony Zinni and former director of the National Security Agency retired Lieutenant General William Odom, not a single high-ranking military officer has spoken out – or, more reasonably, resigned and then done so. This, it seems to me, remains a glaring case of dereliction of duty, given what has been going on.

As for the implosion of this administration, we have no idea what implosion would actually mean under the present circumstances. Even with a Republican Congress partially staffed with the American version of the Taliban, will whatever unravels over many months or even years, post-Fitzgerald indictments, lead to hearings and someday the launching of impeachment proceedings? Or is that beyond the bounds of possibility? Who knows. Will this administration dissolve in some fashion as yet undetermined? Will they go down shooting (as, points out Robert Dreyfuss in a striking if unnerving piece at TomPaine.com, they already are threatening to do in Syria)? Will Daddy's men be hauled out of the pages of the New Yorker magazine and off the front lines of moneymaking and called in to save the day? Again, who knows. (Where is Bush family consigliere James Baker, anyway?)

As you consider this, remember one small thing: So far, Hurricane Katrina aside, this administration has largely felt tremors coursing through the elite in Washington. The real 7.9 seismic shocks have yet to happen. Yes, in Iraq, the 2,000 mark in American dead has just been breached, but the Iraqi equivalent of the 1983 Lebanon barracks suicide bombing, in which 241 American servicemen died, hasn't happened yet. Yes, gas hovers near $3.00 a gallon at the pumps, but the winter natural-gas and heating-oil shock hasn't even begun to hit; nor has next summer's oil shock (after the Bush administration bombs Iran); nor has the housing bubble burst; nor have foreign countries begun to cash in their T-bills in staggering quantities; nor has oil sabotage truly spread in the Middle East; or unemployment soared at home; or the initial wave of a recession hit; nor have we discovered that next year's hurricane season is worse than this terrible one; nor… but I'm not really being predictive here. I'm simply saying that, once upon a time not so very long ago, this administration had a fair amount of room for error. Now, it's no longer in control of its own script and has next to no space for anything to go wrong in a world where "going wrong" is likely to be the operative phrase for quite a while. The Fitzgerald indictments, in other words, are probably just the end of the beginning. Whether they are also the beginning of the end is another question entirely.

he is tired of bailing out Jr?

The country sent Bush after bin Laden and he comes back with Saddam Hussain. The neocon response is, 'well, it's better than nothing' !