posted on March 4, 2003 05:53:09 PM new
"Patient has regressed since last visit. Whereas previously he only sought to be sheriff of all of the U.S. and selected countries he called "the axis of evil," his grandiosity now encompasses every nation that has a non-democratic dictatorial leader. Like his psychotic desire for vengeance against Saddam Hussein of Baghdad, Iraq, this is another indication of his intolerance of competition in all its guises.
Among his rationalizations is a list of evil things alleged to have been done by Mr. Hussein. Although this list was supposed to provide support for immediate retribution, there was nothing on it fundamentally altered from the time when his father in the White House. The only thing that has really changed is the patient's mania for doing something violent about it.
Patient also displayed his sadistic impulses by becoming clearly aroused whenever his talk turned to the possible death or punishment of others. This behavior has been noted previously in his public enthusiasm in condemning fellow Texans to death. But it goes back even further that that according to one of his childhood friends, Terry Throckmorton. "We were terrible to animals," Throckmorton recalled of his adventures with the patient, and offered as an example the thousands of frogs who would come out by a small lake after a good rain: "Everybody would get BB guns and shoot them. Or we'd put firecrackers in the frogs and throw them and blow them up."
Patient is still in denial as witnessed by the fact that less than one-tenth of his discourse addressed his major domestic failure: the recession and his inability to deal with it. Other failures were mentioned in one paragraph and then ignored in favor of listing the faults of somebody else. Among these failures were the inability to locate Osama bin Ladin, the total collapse of his early ten year budget predictions, the problems with a dividend tax cut too obvious for even some Republicans to ignore, and the fallout from his disastrous education program. As far as the last is concerned, it would appear that the only child not left behind by the patient's plan so far is the one occupying the White House.
Patient does have a few scattered positive thoughts. For example he mentioned in passing a hydrogen powered car and an AIDS program, although it is not clear who will be producing the former and whether the latter will be used to subsidize Christian missionary work in Africa.
The latter is of some concern given his obsession with what he calls "faith," which - like most virtues - he feels he possesses to a greater degree than most. He proposes subsidizing "faith-based" drug treatment, i.e. using federal funds to convert patients to a form of fanatical Christianity so mind-altering that some medical experts believe it to be merely a form of drug substitution rather than actual treatment. The patient - who himself was treated in this fashion - exhibits some of the characteristics of what, in popular A.A. parlance, is known as a "dry drunk," i.e. one who no longer imbibes but still has many of the undesirable behaviors apparent when he did. For example, he appears merely to have added the subject of Jesus to the others about which he was previously incoherent.
While patient is not yet legally qualified for hospitalization, he is clearly a danger to those around him, even those such as the media that have regularly served as prime enablers of his reckless actions. Will continue to work with him, but confess the patient's constant demands that his doctor cut out the gobblygook and just turn to Jesus is beginning to wear on my nerves."
posted on March 4, 2003 08:35:37 PM new
This piece by Dowd in the Times is wonderful. I think that it's her best and I was sure that many of you would appreciate it.
What Would Genghis Do?
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON — It's easy to picture Rummy in a big metal breastplate, a skirt and lace-up gladiator sandals.
Rummius Maximus Pompeius.
During the innocent summer before 9/11, the defense secretary's office sponsored a study of ancient empires — Macedonia, Rome, the Mongols — to figure out how they maintained dominance.
What tips could Rummy glean from Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Genghis Khan?
Mr. Rumsfeld would be impressed, after all, if he knew that Genghis Khan had invented the first crude MIRV (a missile that spews out multiple warheads to their predetermined targets.) As David Morgan writes in "The Mongols," when the bloodthirsty chieftain began his subjugation of the Chinese empire in 1211, he had to figure out a way to take China's walled cities:
"Genghis Khan offered to raise the siege if he were given 1,000 cats and 10,000 swallows. These were duly handed over. Material was tied to their tails, and this was set on fire. The animals were released and fled home, setting the city ablaze, and in the ensuing confusion the city was stormed."
In her new book "The Mission," about America's growing dependence on the military to manage world affairs, Dana Priest says that the Pentagon commissioned the study at a time when Rummy did not yet have designs on the world.
To the dismay of his four-star generals, the new secretary was talking about pulling American soldiers out of Saudi Arabia, the Sinai Desert, Kosovo and Bosnia. He thought using our military to fight the South American drug trade was "nonsense."
He hated to travel and scorned "international hand-holding," Ms. Priest writes, adding that the defense chief was thinking that "maybe the United States didn't need all these entanglements to remain on top." He canceled multinational exercises, and even banned the word "engagement." His only interest in colonization was in putting weapons in space.
Then 9/11 changed everything. At the Pentagon, Paul Wolfowitz talked about "ending states who sponsor terrorism." He and Richard Perle said our best bet for stomping out Islamic terrorism was to take over Iraq, rewrite those anti-American textbooks and spur a democratic domino effect.
Now, with the rest of the world outraged at the administration's barbed and swaggering style, the Bushies have grown tetchy about the word "empire." They insist they are not interested in hegemony, even as the Pentagon proconsuls prepare to rule in Iraq, the ancient Mesopotamian empire.
Bernard Lewis of Princeton, Newt Gingrich and others worked on the August 2001 report on empires, which noted: "Without strong political and economic institutions, the Mongols and the Macedonians could not maintain extensive empires. What made the Roman Empire great was not just its military power but its 'franchise of empire.' What made the Chinese Empire great was not just its military power but the immense power and might of its culture.
"If we can take any lesson from history it is this: For the United States to sustain predominance it must remain militarily dominant, but it must also maintain its pre-eminence across the other pillars of power."
Some demur. A classical scholar, Bernard Knox, said, "Empires are pretty well dead; their day is gone."
Niall Ferguson, a professor at Oxford and New York University who wrote the coming book "Empire," said that while "it was rather sweet" that the Pentagon was studying ancient empires, he thought the lessons were no longer relevant.
"The technological and economic differences between modernity and premodernity are colossal," he said.
Besides, he says Americans aren't temperamentally suited to empire-building. "The British didn't mind living for years in Iraq or India for 100-plus years," he said. "Americans aren't attracted to the idea of taking up residence in hot, poor places."
He's right. America doesn't like to occupy. We like to buy our territory, like the bargain Louisiana purchase and the overpriced amount we were going to pay Turkey (the old Ottoman Empire) to use its bases, before its Parliament balked. At the outside, we prefer to time-share.
As the brazen Bush imperialists try to install a new democracy in Iraq, they are finding the old democracy of our reluctant allies inconvenient.
