8 Responses to “The Grand Unified Theory of Bushism”

1. #1 |  Willy |  June 2nd, 2004 at 9:44 pm

   At least he did a good job of pointing out that the US now controls the countries on Irans border. Their next.

2. #2 |  Rocketman |  June 3rd, 2004 at 1:31 am

   So cute. So clever. So what?

3. #3 |  Chris Farley |  June 3rd, 2004 at 7:27 am

   This has just become the number one conspiracy theory. Some nut job will take this idea and run with it. We’ll be hearing about it for years. Mark my words, somewhere, sometime in the near future, we will hear this story repeated as fact.

4. #4 |  Evan Williams |  June 3rd, 2004 at 9:45 am

   What is so hard to understand about Bush’s motives, that we feel the need to formulate these conspiracy theories?

   1) Bush’s right-hand men are largely neoconservative warhawks who have been petitioning the White House to wage war on Iraq for many years

   2) The first part of this “Perfect Imperialism Storm” that fell into place was Bush getting elected, and subsequently choosing this band of neocon brothers to run his show

   3) The second part of it was 9/11

   4) The third part was the bumbling CIA, and Feith’s shadow intel agency, the OSP

   5) The fourth part of it was Chalabi, who had his own reasons to want to get rid of Hussein

   What this provided everyone involved was, as I noted, the Perfect Storm. The Neocons, they got their wars. Chalabi, he got rid of Hussein. Bush, he got broad support, dispite widespread dereliction of duty. The CIA got to sit on its hands and let the OSP formulate false/exaggerated evidence, then take the “fall” afterwards, which didn’t result in a single firing.

   Now that the entire rationale for war has been proven false, it turns into a big roundtable of blame. Sure, blame Chalabi, but nothing will come of it. Blame the neocons, and Bush comes out sparkly-clean. Now, all he has to do is spout empty propeganda about liberation and democracy, and nobody questions him on it. Nobody questions the WMD angle, and even if they did, he could blame the CIA and Chalabi.

   It was a brilliant scam, all around. The only losers here are the American people, and perhaps the Iraqi people.

   Now, please, why must we waste time crafting conspiracy theories, when the facts are right here in front of us? It has been shown that the Office of Special Plans was providing the white house with the “intelligence”. Chalabi has admitted that he was just bullshitting us. The neocons are now getting blasted by the Administration and its supporters. And not one person has been fired. What else do you need?

   Amy said, does it really matter how loyal our leader is if one of the most dangerous despotic states in the world finds an opportunity to seize more power?

   Amy, were you referring the the United States Government, the only government to ever drop a nuclear device on a civilian population? The government which the majority of the world, including the Pope, believes to be the greatest threat to peace? The government who can wage a preemptive war based on utter horseshit, then change its story afterwards, and everyone just shrugs?

5. #5 |  Ben |  June 3rd, 2004 at 10:37 am

   Everyone is taking this article way too seriously. I’m pretty sure it was written as a joke.

6. #6 |  Peter |  June 3rd, 2004 at 1:36 pm

   Man these left wingers grasp at straws.

   “Domestic policy is the land of Karl Rove — ruthless, cynical, malign yet cunning. As Paul O’Neill has told us, politics trumps principle at every turn”

   So once again, following normal Democratic personal attacks, Rove is ruthless, cunning…..evil. And all of a sudden whatever O’Neill says has to be the word of God. How come liberals are so happy to take O’Neill’s word but Paula Jones was lying.

   The left wing basis so many of their attacks on the most inane information and logic.

7. #7 |  mosesmalone |  June 3rd, 2004 at 2:01 pm

   Evan…nicely put. I wouldn’t be too hysterical about the “everyone just shrugs” complaint. As a reserve military officer I can tell you that, as much of a bastion of conservative politics as the military may be, the wheels of the cart have come off of this one. When the vast majority of the officer wardroom start shaking their heads and asking “What the….?” you know that there are policy problems. We all are taught as a part of leadership training what is variously known as the “Reagan Doctrine”:

   Get in; Get the job done; Get out-fast.

   One thing that I would add is that something that hasn’t gotten much play in the press is retention in the military. Right at the moment we are all hunkering down for a loss of personnel the likes of which we have never seen. The simple fact of the matter is that in this present climate, we will not be able to sell to young troops the positive aspects of joining or staying in the reserve/guard/military. The way that it is generally understood is that those members who have five or fewer years remaining until reaching 20 years will have to stay in order to reach retirement. Those members, however, with more than this amount of time will overwhelmingly choose not to “re-up”. Since these year groups are the working muscle groups of the military (i.e. not paper pushers) this will put an extraordinary strain on the command structure. These personnel are the most highly trained, most effective and productive members of the entire military. They train the new guys and aspire to leadership at a higher level. “Stop loss” programs(in effect now) are temporary measures. But the paradox of stop loss programs are that they underestimate the long term effects of word of mouth. Disgruntled troops have younger brothers and sisters. These brothers and sisters have friends who have brothers and sisters. If a member begins to feel that the decision they made to join the reserve/guard/military was an epic mistake, you can bet that word will and does spread…..fast.
   Don’t underestimate the power an all volunteer force has to “vote with it’s feet”. You can wave the flag all you want, but when a guy has been repeatedly extended to the point where his wife writes him a letter saying “I’ve had it…this is no marriage. Pick me or the army/navy/airforce” he will not be an effective member of the force structure.
   People out there who have never done it may question just how difficult it is to be away from your family for such long periods of time and i can tell you, it is devastating. In one unit I was in there was a 47% divorce rate after a single SIX month deployment. I am just making a point that there is something large looming out there that any number of people may be unaware of…and it is more than a shoulder shrug.

8. #8 |  Faisal Hoque |  July 7th, 2004 at 10:09 pm

   The theory is most likely wrong, but clearly Bush is either not in control or has motives very different than he speaks apart from bushisms.

   But I generally agree with earlier comment, Bush is surrounding by super-rich, imperialists and military-industrial “warhawks.”

   I think he and much of of Washington is controlled by forces beyond the white house and the reach of elections, though.

   Faisal Hoque

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