Sunday, January 22, 2006

If the Devil Did Not Exist . . .

It's been said that if the Devil did not exist, God would have had to invent him. So, too if Osama Bin Laden did not exist, President Bush would have had to invent him to maintain his stranglehold on power, the imposition of his own moral absolutes upon the heterogeneous society in the United States and the elimination personal rights and freedoms in that cause.

Fortunately for the President, Bin Laden does exist. After 9/11, we "declared war" against terrorism. If there were an "Al Quidastan" against which we could have launched an attack, the "war" would have been over in a few weeks. Then, we would be able (or forced) to get back to trying to solve our most pressing problems including poverty, healthcare, education, energy, etc. There is no "Al Quidastan" and therefore no winnable war on terror since there are no conceivable conditions under which we can ever declare victory. On the other hand, when we invaded Afghanistan and eliminated the Taliban leadership, we possessed the ability to surround the area where Bin Laden was known to be, on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border and eliminate him. Instead, we held our ground and built our forces to invade Iraq which, however totalitarian, was no threat to us.

The reason for this is evident from the actions themselves. President Bush or, perhaps more specifically Karl Rove (the "American Rasputin") needed him just as God needed the Devil. Where would the administration be if there were no tapes from Bin Laden continuing to threaten us? How would they justify the elimination of so many individual freedoms in the name of protection without their own personal Devil to point at and make people fear?

Many have called the Bush Administration inept and incompetent in its handling of the battle against Bin Laden and Terrorism. Many have pointed to their failures in dealing with the energy crisis, Hurricane Katrina, the economy and healthcare to show that they lack the competence to govern at all. I sincerely wish these actions (or lack thereof) were merely incompetence since that is easily remedied. Instead, I believe them to be a remarkably brilliant program to delude and misinform the American people into surrendering freedoms that we have spent centuries and hundreds of thousands of lives winning and defending.

In all fear and humility, my figurative hat is off to Mr. Rove and President Bush in their brilliant campaign to consolidate power in the White House and their party. When questioned, they attack. When their authority is challenged, they decry the challenger's lack of patriotism. A president, who himself was AWOL from the National Guard during Viet Nam has successfully managed to make others, whose heroism loaded their collective chests with medals, seem weak on defense because they insisted on thinking out their actions rather than blundering ahead with everything presented as black and white.

I would not doubt that there may soon be a fire, or its equivalent on Capital Hill. If (or when) it occurs, it will be used as an excuse to seize the remaining power the administration does not yet possess, and circumvent the remaining constitutional guarantees in the name of "security." We've seen this before from another "leader," but in that case "Congress" was the "Reichtag," and the word for leader was "Führer."