"Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualities."
Pat Robertson -- who is a supporter of "Dubya" -- said that, when he cautioned Bush that there would be American casualties as a consequence of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Bush replied, "Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."
Let that sink in: Bush didn't say that he thought that it would be a cake-walk, or that U.S. casualties would be minimal; he said that there would be no casualties.
Even though Robertson said that this left him gobsmacked, he still supports Bush.
This story was repeated by Ron Suskind on the first hour of the news-talk show On Point, originated out of WBUR-FM in Boston (an NPR station), on Tuesday, 26 October; if you listen to the archived story, it starts around 24:58 into the programme, and finishes around 26:15 or so. Suskind was flogging his latest book, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush and the Education of Paul O'Neill.
One might well wonder how Bush's faith that U.S. troops would suffer no casualties once he sent them to war differs from the faith of Johnny and Luther Htoo, the twin Karen tribesmen who led the God's Army guerilla group which operated on the border of Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand and believed that their faith made them bulletproof. One might also see similarities between Bush's faith and that of Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army that operates out of bases in southern Sudan and has been attempting to overthrow the Ugandan government for the past eighteen years; Kony believes that God wants him to establish a Ugandan government based on the Ten Commandments, and that any of his "troops" -- ususally kidnapped children who are forced to kill their parents, and often sent into "battle" without any weapons -- who die are in fact culled because their faith wasn't as strong as his.
Does Bush harbor similar beliefs about the U.S. troops who have been maimed or killed in Iraq? Or is there something else at work?
Luke Mitchell, a senior editor of Harper's Magazine, has a very interesting, three-page article in the November 2004 issue (Vol. 309, No. 1854), under the header "Letter From the 2004 RNC [Republican National Convention]" ("Grand Old Inquisitor: The Republican Party's Gift of Innocence;" pps. 67-9), in which he ponders the willful, utter lack of meaning of the Republican convention in New York City and connects that with Laura Bush's "favorite passage in all of literature...'The Grand Inquisitor' from The Brothers Karamazov." Just before he wraps up his piece, however, Mitchell writes:
"If the polls the following week were to be believed, the nothingness generated from within [Madison Square] Garden, or perhaps the innocence it inspired, was enough to turn the vote of hundreds of thousands of Americans. Bush had spoken to them on some level I'd failed to comprehend.
"It wasn't until a few weeks later, when I read by chance a comment Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff, had made on the third day of the convention, that I began to understand what happened. 'It struck me as I was speaking to people in Bangor, Maine,' Card had said, 'that this President sees America as we think about a 10-year-old child. I know as a parent I would sacrifice all for my children.' I had seen the convention as a 'fuck you' to meaning itself, I had felt it that way. But the lack of meaning I had witnessed was not intended as an act of terror. It was an act of hope -- perhaps even of misguided love."
--p. 69
Mitchell then trots out Dostoyevsky to expound on the kind of "love" that he guesses that Bush feels for America, and concludes with a chilling speculation:
"George [W.] Bush calls himself a Christian, but I think he lacks the tragic sensibility required to worship a man who would allow himself to be crucified. Bush is a doer. He wants to solve problems, and he seems to believe that at some point all of the problems can be solved, even the problem of sin. Rather than find redemption in the blood of Christ, he seems to be groping toward some way of redeeming the sin of knowledge, his own and the world's, all by himself. He sees that you are naked and ashamed, but rather than clothe you he has found the way at last -- compassionately, his heart full of love -- to pluck out your eye."
--ibid
"Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."
"...this President sees America as we think about a 10-year-old child."
Sinclair Lewis was a little off; it's not happening here in quite the way he'd foreseen, the way he'd feared. But if you fuse Babbit with Elmer Gantry and It Can't Happen Here, and allow for events subsequent to 1937, you'll come up with a reasonably accurate picture of the America that Bush et al would like to see.
If it's true that the people get the government they deserve, all I have to say is: "I'm sorry." And: "Forgive me?"
Let that sink in: Bush didn't say that he thought that it would be a cake-walk, or that U.S. casualties would be minimal; he said that there would be no casualties.
Even though Robertson said that this left him gobsmacked, he still supports Bush.
This story was repeated by Ron Suskind on the first hour of the news-talk show On Point, originated out of WBUR-FM in Boston (an NPR station), on Tuesday, 26 October; if you listen to the archived story, it starts around 24:58 into the programme, and finishes around 26:15 or so. Suskind was flogging his latest book, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush and the Education of Paul O'Neill.
One might well wonder how Bush's faith that U.S. troops would suffer no casualties once he sent them to war differs from the faith of Johnny and Luther Htoo, the twin Karen tribesmen who led the God's Army guerilla group which operated on the border of Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand and believed that their faith made them bulletproof. One might also see similarities between Bush's faith and that of Joseph Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army that operates out of bases in southern Sudan and has been attempting to overthrow the Ugandan government for the past eighteen years; Kony believes that God wants him to establish a Ugandan government based on the Ten Commandments, and that any of his "troops" -- ususally kidnapped children who are forced to kill their parents, and often sent into "battle" without any weapons -- who die are in fact culled because their faith wasn't as strong as his.
Does Bush harbor similar beliefs about the U.S. troops who have been maimed or killed in Iraq? Or is there something else at work?
Luke Mitchell, a senior editor of Harper's Magazine, has a very interesting, three-page article in the November 2004 issue (Vol. 309, No. 1854), under the header "Letter From the 2004 RNC [Republican National Convention]" ("Grand Old Inquisitor: The Republican Party's Gift of Innocence;" pps. 67-9), in which he ponders the willful, utter lack of meaning of the Republican convention in New York City and connects that with Laura Bush's "favorite passage in all of literature...'The Grand Inquisitor' from The Brothers Karamazov." Just before he wraps up his piece, however, Mitchell writes:
"If the polls the following week were to be believed, the nothingness generated from within [Madison Square] Garden, or perhaps the innocence it inspired, was enough to turn the vote of hundreds of thousands of Americans. Bush had spoken to them on some level I'd failed to comprehend.
"It wasn't until a few weeks later, when I read by chance a comment Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff, had made on the third day of the convention, that I began to understand what happened. 'It struck me as I was speaking to people in Bangor, Maine,' Card had said, 'that this President sees America as we think about a 10-year-old child. I know as a parent I would sacrifice all for my children.' I had seen the convention as a 'fuck you' to meaning itself, I had felt it that way. But the lack of meaning I had witnessed was not intended as an act of terror. It was an act of hope -- perhaps even of misguided love."
--p. 69
Mitchell then trots out Dostoyevsky to expound on the kind of "love" that he guesses that Bush feels for America, and concludes with a chilling speculation:
"George [W.] Bush calls himself a Christian, but I think he lacks the tragic sensibility required to worship a man who would allow himself to be crucified. Bush is a doer. He wants to solve problems, and he seems to believe that at some point all of the problems can be solved, even the problem of sin. Rather than find redemption in the blood of Christ, he seems to be groping toward some way of redeeming the sin of knowledge, his own and the world's, all by himself. He sees that you are naked and ashamed, but rather than clothe you he has found the way at last -- compassionately, his heart full of love -- to pluck out your eye."
--ibid
"Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties."
"...this President sees America as we think about a 10-year-old child."
Sinclair Lewis was a little off; it's not happening here in quite the way he'd foreseen, the way he'd feared. But if you fuse Babbit with Elmer Gantry and It Can't Happen Here, and allow for events subsequent to 1937, you'll come up with a reasonably accurate picture of the America that Bush et al would like to see.
If it's true that the people get the government they deserve, all I have to say is: "I'm sorry." And: "Forgive me?"