In a sense, our new Rome already lies in ruins without even an enemy fit to name to oppose us. And the true face of our home-grown regime in Washington is ever more visible. The visages on display aren't those of an emperor and his administrators, proconsuls and generals, but of so many dismantlers, strip-miners, and plunderers; less Augustus, more Jesse James (the real one, not the movie hero).
They may be building weapons for 2050, but they're plundering in Iraq and at home as if January 1 2004 were the beginning of the end of time. Having ushered into office the Halliburton (vice-)presidency, we now have a fitting "empire" to go with it. While empires must to some extent spread the wealth around, our proto-imperialists turn out to have the greed level and satiation point of so many malign children. Other than "must" and "mine," the words they -- and their corporate companions -- know best, it seems, are "now," "all," and "alone." It's a vocabulary that doesn't contain a future in it, not the sort of vocabulary with which to rule the world.
No matter how many times we insist that all we carry in our baggage train is "freedom" and "democracy" for the oppressed nations of the Earth, those elsewhere can see perfectly well that our saddlebags are full of grappling hooks and meat cleavers. Bad as 2003 was for us, it may not be long before it's looked upon as their global Enron Moment.
2003 was the year our emperor's men decided to use up as much as they could as fast as they could, though, thanks to our underachieving media, this can hardly be grasped here. The sad thing is that they are dismantling us, and what matters most to us in our country including our liberties -- and all under the deceptive name of "national security." They have an unerring eye for the weak and vulnerable and, on spotting them, set upon them like so many highwaymen.
Unfortunately, as representatives of insecurity rather than security, they have let loose forces for which they feel no responsibility. We are a nation of adults, living largely in denial, led by overgrown, malign children excited by the thought of sending other people's actual children, a whole well-led army of them, including the older "weekend warriors" of the reserves and the National Guard, off to do the impossible as well as the unjust. And this is happening in part because -- I believe -- they don't imagine war as carnage, but are energized by an especially shallow idea of war's "glory," just as the President has been thoroughly energized by the ludicrous idea that his is a "war presidency."
The term "chickenhawks," often used by critics, hardly catches this. It's true that Bush's first moments after the September 11th attacks -- now buried by media and memory -- were ones of flight, and so, undoubtedly, of shame and humiliation (which helps account for at least some of the exaggerated macho posturing -- "bring 'em on" -- that followed). Instead of stepping forward to lead a shocked nation in crisis by heading for Washington, he was shunted from a children's classroom in Florida westward to safety.
What "chickenhawks" doesn't catch, however, is both the immature mock solemnity and the fun of war play for them, something they first absorbed in their childhoods on screen and carry with them still. War for them -- as they avoided anything having to do with either the Vietnam War or opposition to it -- remains, I believe, a matter of toy soldiers, cowboys-and-Indians games, and glorious John Wayne-style movies in which the Marines advance, while the ambushing enemy falls before them and the Marine hymn wells up as The End flashes on screen.
In a similar way, the neocon utopians who dreamed up our distinctly unpeaceful Pax Americana in deepest, darkest Washington and out of whole cloth seem to have imagined global military domination as something akin to the board game Risk. They too were, after a fashion, Risk managers, seeing themselves rolling the dice for little weapons icons (most of which they controlled), oil-well icons (which they wanted) and strategic-country icons (which they needed). They were consummate game players. It just so happens our planet isn't a two-dimensional gameboard, but a confusing, bloody, resistant, complex place that exists in at least three dimensions, all unexpected.
I mean if you think I'm kidding -- about children playing games -- just remember that we have a President who, according to the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, keeps a "scorecard" in his desk drawer with the names/faces and personality sketches of al Qaeda adversaries (and assumedly Saddam) and then X's them out as they're brought in "dead or alive." Think tic-tac-toe here.
The president and his men, in short, have been living in a fantasy world that makes The Lord of the Rings look like an exercise in reality. Even before the Iraq war, this was worrisome to the adults who had to deal with them. This is why there was so much opposition within the top ranks of the military before the war; this was why there was no Pentagon planning whatsoever for the post-war moment (hey, you've just won the Iraq card in your game, now you fortify and move on); this was why, for instance, General Anthony Zinni, Vietnam veteran and former CentCom commander, who endorsed young George in the 2000 race, went into opposition to the administration; this is why a seething "intelligence community" has been in near revolt after watching our fantasists rejigger "intelligence" to make their "turn" come out right; this is why our great "adventure" in the Middle East pitched over into the nearest ditch.
2004 should be a fierce holding action for them. The question is -- as with Richard Nixon in 1972 -- can they make it through to November before the seams start to tear. They might be able to. But here's the thing: Sooner or later, the children will leave the stage and some set of adults will have to start picking up the pieces. If the 2004 election is theirs, however… well, sometimes there are just things, our planet included, too broken to fix.
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