Bush and Cheney's Grand Plan

I admit it. Before, I was mystified by the blatant irrationality of the Iraq war. I didn't understand how CheneyBush could believe that Congress and the American public would be stupid enough to buy the "Iraq/Saddam supports al-Qaida" big lie, especially in the light of long-known animosity between Saddam and Osama, and late-breaking revelations of misrepresentations about the supposed uranium purchase attempts - all tidily recounted and footnoted in Al Franken's The Truth (with Jokes).

Of course, I also couldn't understand why we called terrorists and dictators by their first names. These aren't guys I want to be on a first-name basis with. I don't call Cheney and Bush by their first names, for damn sure.

Then I didn't understand how Congress and the American public could be that stupid.

Those un-understandings were followed by not understanding how CheneyBush and the professional military leaders implementing their will could fail to foresee the aftermath of the toppling of a ham-fisted dictator (and his statue) in a country of sectarian animosities equaling those of the Balkans. We all had witnessed the carnage as Yugoslavia unraveled. So there followed my failure to understand how the military and diplomatic leadership of the nervous coalition of nations that invaded Iraq could overlook the creation of a plan for rapid rebuilding of physical infrastructures and new building of pragmatic sectarian alliances - and a phased exit plan.

How could they have fumbled it so badly that the war-that-never-should-have-been has dragged on this many years with multiple mid-course corrections that have corrected nothing? I didn't understand. Until today. Today we find out that Cheney has been ignoring an executive order since 2003. MSNBC reports that "Cheney aides have not filed reports on their possession of classified data and at one point blocked an inspection of their office. After the Archives office pressed the matter, the documents say, Cheney's staff this year proposed eliminating it."

Now I understand that there was a plan - it just wasn't any rational or even superficially legal-seeming plan. Today current events have clarified the befuddling past. Although the Justice Department is investigating the matter, but Bush is supporting Cheney's insistence upon secrecy ... in defiance of his own order. Who is working for whom here? Who is whose puppet?

Vice-president Cheney seems to have divorced himself entirely from the Executive branch of government and entered a realm entirely above the law. His office, so he says, is not affected by the order for the Executive offices to give the Information Security Oversight Office at the National Archives data on how much material they classify and declassify. And that sounds precisely like the kind of power possessed by ham-fisted dictators.

There are shades of Orwellian doublespeak, too. MSNBC further reports: "White House deputy press secretary Dana Perino said it's clear that the president's executive order never intended for the vice president's office to be treated as an 'agency.' 'He's not exempt from following the laws of the United States,' Perino said. 'He's exempt just from this reporting requirement in this particular executive order.'" Okey-dokey, then.

I wish I could say I still don't understand. But I do.

The CheneyBush Iraq plan was their post-White House full-employment preparation, and it's working out perfectly, right on schedule. By the time they leave office in Washington, they'll be able to escape the inevitable criminal charges by fleeing to Iraq.

There, they will forcibly wrest control of that oil-rich country, trumping their former ace in the (oil well) hole in Texas, and exercise their true and proven talents - exploitation of an ignorant population through assurance of minimal, but reliable and (relatively) peaceful, subsistence, while enriching themselves and their cronies. (Now, don't get all huffy about my implication that we citizens have been "an ignorant population" satisfied with subsistence while only the very rich become exponentially richer. Have you looked at our economy lately? The finance industries' moguls and their highest-rolling clients are getting richer at about the same rate as corporate CEOs. The rest of us are wondering when our white-collar jobs are going to be outsourced or, if we're lucky enough to keep our jobs, when our next raise will be.)

But back to the salvation of the embattled Iraqi people. Surely Haliburton will play a large, and expensive, role. CheneyBush will be able to fire big, loud guns whenever they want, in public, however drunk (on beer or power) they may be at the time. Cheney's little practice drill with his lawyer pal on that hunting expedition didn't make sense out of context, but now that I understand the plan, well, it fits neatly. Bush's ignoring of (or failure to read at all - we'll never know) the August 6, 2001, Presidential Daily Brief report that warned of an imminent al-Qaida attack weeks before 9/11 demonstrates their shrewd recognition of an opportunity to set up the optimal condition for their Grand Plan.

By 2008, they will have had seven years' practice. They will make it work. After all, it's for their own benefit, not the nation's. They've never failed at achieving that goal. No matter what. Have they? Do you understand?

The only problem is, now that I understand, I need to go take a shower. With very hot water. And a very strong loofah. With the music very loud. So I can't hear myself scream.