1 Boring Old Man

Extreme Makeover, Iraq Occupation Edition

Are you ready for another “We’ve always been at war with Eastasia” moment from the Orwell Bush administration? Ready or not, here we go, says the Washington Post today: "Senior military commanders here now portray the intransigence of Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government as the key threat facing the U.S. effort in Iraq, rather than al-Qaeda terrorists, Sunni insurgents or Iranian-backed militias. In more than a dozen interviews, U.S. military officials expressed growing concern over the Iraqi government’s failure to capitalize on sharp declines in attacks against U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians."

Why, yes, now that you ask — that is the same government is one whose election the Bushites praised to the skies TV airwaves and was describing as its stalwart ally earlier this year. In a way, I’m glad they’re finally acknowledging a reality that I’ve been writing about for four years on my blog — contrary to depictions of Iraq’s government as a willing friend or mere puppet, the fractious Shiite alliance in charge of it has very different goals than Dubya and has been engaged in an unbelievably prolonged wrestling match to pursue those goals while ignoring ours (and getting us to fight their enemies without coming to blows with the American military themselves).

The larger point now, though, is that those guys were elected in voting that the Bushites failed to steal wholeheartedly endorsed.  And yet, if GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham is to be believed (umm… don’t answer that), our government is now starting to “look for other horses to support.” Apparently democracy in countries like Iraq (or, for that matter, Pakistan, where Dubya & Co. are now casting envious glances in the direction of a military coup) is only worthwhile if the people who are elected do what the U.S. government wants. I guess that purple ink wasn’t so indelible after all.

In his 1900 book, The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud described the logic of dreams as the logic of infantile life, the logic of wishes rather than reality. Dreams are how we want things to be. Even in nightmares, the dreamer is in the right – just oppressed by evil outside forces. It seems that this Primary Process thinking of dream life is the preferred logic of the Bush Administration. We all remember the Iraqi vote. They selected a government – not the puppet government Bush sent their way. It’s a predominantly Shiite government [probably because most Iraqis are Shiites]. They are not doing what the Bush Administration wants, so they are now our "key threat." To what, you ask? It’s not altogether clear. Seems like with the insurgency declining, we’d be happy and headed home to leave post-Hussein democratic Iraq to plot its course among the nations of the world. I guess what’s wrong is that they don’t like us very much. The last Iraq government didn’t like us very much either, so we snuffed it out. What’s Bush got in mind? Another invasion. Seems like he’d be saying, "See the Surge worked and Johnny comes marching home again, hurrah, hurrah." It appears that in the dream logic of the Bush Administration, he’s still waiting for the Iraqis to greet him with open arms as a glorious liberator [and pay him back in oil rights]…