Illustration from: The Fata Morgana files, pt. 17
“I believe if we had, and would, keep our dirty, bloody, dollar-crooked fingers out of the business of these nations so full of depressed, exploited people, they will arrive at a solution of their own. That they design and want. That they fight and work for…and not the American style, which they don’t want. Not one crammed down their throats by the Americans.” David M Shoup, Commandant of the Marine Corps 1958-1963
A war in Afghanistan that is now losing ground held only tenuously and shedding blood at the highest level since it began seven long years ago.
The stalled fiasco in Iraq, a war that has nearly ruined our armed forces by stretching them, year after year, on the rack of a bloody and unending futility.
A foreign policy of swagger and boast, diplomacy and firm negotiation recklessly discarded and replaced with bluster, threats and sanctions that harm only the innocent and fuel the fires of radical hatred resulting in the creation of more enemies.
In Iran, Georgia and Russia in Europe and Asia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Honduras in the Americas, sabers are rattled, coups are plotted, gauntlets are thrown and the seeds are sown for another generation of war, of poverty, of instability and chaos and profits for those control the game.
This is the Bush Foreign Policy, this is the Republican Foreign Policy, this is the McCain Foreign Policy, and this is the Neo Conservative Foreign Policy. This is the “Project for a New American Century,” whose motto seems to be “Peace never, peace nowhere.”
The quotation at the top of this page is from my commanding officer, distantly that is. I was a young Pfc. when he commanded the Marines. We never actually met but I learned to respect him as a man who had known and understood war and all its horrors and who had the courage to speak against it.
During the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 many of the “experts” in Kennedy’s military “court” were hell bent on a shootout over the placement of Russian ICBMs on the island. Air Force General Curtis LeMay was among the most vocal in urging a Strategic Air Command strike, including nuclear weapons, against the island, followed by a Marine amphibious invasion.
John Kennedy hadn’t trusted LeMay and many of the Pentagon and intelligence “experts” since the “Bay of Pigs” debacle. He once told White House staffers “I don’t want that man near me again,” and often left meetings when LeMay was doing the briefing.
Kennedy had more faith in the counsel of his brother, his friends and longtime political advisors and David Shoup. General Shoup was then the Marine Commandant and a hero of the Tarawa invasion in the Pacific in the Second World War.
When talk about invading Cuba was becoming fashionable, General Shoup did a remarkable display with maps. First he took an overlay of Cuba and placed it over a map of the United States. To everybody’s surprise, Cuba was not a small island along the lines of, say, Long Island at best. It was 800 miles long and seemed to stretch from New York to Chicago.
Then he took another overlay, with a red dot, and placed it over the map of Cuba. “What’s that?” someone asked him. “That, gentlemen, represents the size of the island of Tarawa,” said Shoup, who had won a Medal of Honor there, “and it took us three days and eighteen thousand Marines to take.” He eventually became Kennedy’s favorite general. From “Douglas MacArthur, Warrior as Wordsmith” by Bernard K Duffy and Ronald H Carpenter
Tarawa had taken 76 hours and cost the lives of 1027 Americans killed and 2292 wounded as well as 4500 Japanese who fought almost to the last man. The “experts,” who predicted a much less costly campaign, were wrong again.
I tell that story to preface this: all Kings, Presidents, CEOs. Dictators, Popes whether despots or saints are surrounded by “experts, “by “advisers,” by “acolytes,” and “wonks,” they are awash in them.”Experts and wonks and advisers, oh my!” They crowd the cubicles, hallways, the streets, the bars and the brothels of Washington, outnumbered it seems, only by the lobbyists and they can be bought for a couple million dollars a dozen.
A large measure of the talent necessary to the saint or despot, to the great leader, whether president or pope, dictator or monarch is having the wisdom, let’s call it “insight” or “native intelligence” or “street smarts,” to recognize the difference between chicken shit and chicken salad.
Some have it, some don’t. More ominously, some don’t care.
I submit that in October of 1962, Jack Kennedy knew that simple difference and acted accordingly, on his gut instinct and the instincts of his trusted personal “court” and because of his, and their, ability to recognize intelligence from chatter, to glean diplomatic realities from bluster and bull, tens of millions were spared.
I wonder, hmmmm, how might George Bush have reacted at that time, in that situation, or John McCain, or Sister Sarah? Hmmmm, again.
The quote that I used to title this little tale was uttered last week by Soviet Premier Vladimir Putin, “It’s the Court that Makes the King.”
When people clamor for term limits, I tremble with fear. Would we exile the kings and cede power to their “courts?” I’m less afraid of the most corrupt king than I am of the gaggle of grasping fools, jesters, charlatans and opportunists which surround him. Putin was right in that sense, the king is a creature of their making.
You might go fishing with His Majesty, look deeply into his royal eyes, commune with his Rovian soul, and enjoy the outing, as Putin did, but a morning on the water with His Majesty’s Counselors could result in an extended swim with the fishes. Putin said as much.
The King may be dead but the court lives on.
While George Bush prepares to end his shameful and disastrous presidency, hopefully to slink off to Crawford and get lost in the brush pile of history, Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and the same Neo Conservative court who chose young George have chosen the running mate for the most recent incarnation of John Sidney McCain. More frightening, there is a high degree of probability that she will ascend the throne before the end of a McCain first term.
In an Op-Ed in last weekend’s New York Times, Frank Rich wrote this:
No longer able to remember his principles any better than he can distinguish between Sunnis and Shia, McCain stands revealed as a guy who can be easily rolled by anyone who sells him a plan for “victory,” whether in Iraq or in Michigan. A McCain victory on Election Day will usher in a Palin presidency, with McCain serving as a transitional front man, an even weaker Bush to her Cheney.
The ambitious Palin and the ruthless forces she represents know it, too. You can almost see them smacking their lips in anticipation, whether they’re wearing lipstick or not. The Palin-Whatshisname Ticket NYT 8/13/08
In describing what he calls the most chilling passage of Palin’s acceptance speech. Rich offers this baneful item:
There were several creepy subtexts at work here. The first was the choice of Truman. Most 20th-century vice presidents and presidents in both parties hailed from small towns, but she just happened to alight on a Democrat who ascended to the presidency when an ailing president died in office. The Palin-Whatshisname Ticket NYT 8/13/08
When I vote for someone I try to know who has his or her ear and why. Who influences him and why? Who does he owe, how much and why? If he counts among his trusted influences, experts advisors or posse, Roves, Cheney’s, Dobsons, Hagee’s or other people that I regard as extremely dangerous to my country, I vote against him or her or them.
Karl Rove, far from taking it on the lam or hiding in the shadows in fear of “congressional subpoenas” was front and center at the RNC, and all over the media ever since, extolling the executive experience, command abilities and all around virtue of Sarah Palin.
Sister Sarah is the Neo-Con’s choice as the next figurehead, the next bumbling, ineffectual sock puppet , for the next madcap edition of their “New American Century.”
The King may be in the brush pile but the “Court” lives on.
Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust
