September 30, 2007 by lonbud

Freedom’s On The March?

Once it became clear the Bush administration’s original, loudly trumpeted, and wildly over-hyped rationale for invading Iraq four and a half years ago was a total fabrication, the President himself and every other enabler and apologist for the idea that the United States ought to — indeed, is destined to — exercise hegemony over the entire planet — all — have relied on one, or both, of two arguments to explain the expense of lives and treasure, and excuse the rising instability and danger that have been the consequences of that ill-fated decision:

1.     Saddam Hussein was a ruthless tyrant who oppressed the people of Iraq by fear, torture, and murder; and

2.     Iraqis are a freedom-loving people who needed our help to establish democracy in their much-abused land.

How many times in the past four years have we heard Mr. Bush intone, freedom’s on the march” in response to questions about how things are going in Iraq?

Of course, a couple of weeks ago in Australia he said, “we’re kickin’ ass,” which might have been a reference to our mercenary forces, but we’ll leave that one alone for now.

No, every question regarding our strategy and its efficacy has been stonewalled behind the justification that we must do the hard work of spreading democracy in Iraq so that flowers of freedom may one day bloom throughout a region marred by barbarous oppression and iron-fisted authoritarian rule.

That is, when such inquiries have not been met with indignant accusations of treason, and the persons asking the questions vilified as saboteurs of the brave and blameless fighting men and women of the U.S. military.

But, again, let us consider for a moment the possibility that nearly a quarter million Americans (if one counts all combat troops, their support personnel, private contractors and their mercenary support personnel) are on a crusade to spread freedom and democracy in the Middle East, that a trillion dollars have been spent in the name of repudiating torture and murder and despotism.

What then, are we to make of events taking place now in Burma?

And how are we to reconcile the Bush administration’s stated raison d’etre for being at war in Iraq with its tepid and traditionally diplomatic appeals to the international community in the face of another long-suffering people’s willingness to march and die for freedom?

Burma, also known as Myanmar, is a country of some 47 million people, nearly 90 percent of whom are peace-loving, gentle practitioners of Theravada Buddhism, supporting a population of some half a million monks, whose lives are dedicated to the intention that all living beings be free and happy.

Sounds like the kind of people we might go to war for, right?

Did I mention that Burma does not sit atop an ocean of crude oil?

The mendacity of the Bush administration is so transparent, and the complicity of the United States congress in its crimes is so undeniable that now, We the People risk a historical indictment not unlike that levied upon the German people in the wake of Hitler’s defeat in World War II.

Of course, great pains have always been taken to separate the megalomania and inhumanity of the Nazi movement from the desires and intentions of the German civilian population, but who can deny the collective guilt and self-abasement under which Germany has labored the past half century?

The Germans’ every gain and accomplishment — both economic and social — in the last 60 years has come under the color of suspicion that somewhere in the Teutonic heart beats a belief in Aryan supremacy.

And so it will be with our once-noble belief in purple mountains’ majesty, in the beauty of our spacious skies and amber waves of grain.

For George W. Bush has perverted the notion that God shed his grace on America the Beautiful, in the name of enriching himself and the small number of our population like him.

Whatever claim to the mantle of brotherhood we as a nation may have once been entitled, the Bush administration has forever squandered by claiming to act in defense of “national security” and for the purpose of “spreading democracy,” while actually acting in the interests of hegemony, rapacity, and filthy lucre.

And none will stop him.

Nor apparently will anyone rise to challenge the status quo once Mr. Bush has slithered from the limelight. Certainly not Hillary Clinton, nor any of the madmen running for the Republican nomination.

Barack Obama? John Edwards? While it’s early yet, one can hardly keep faith in the notion that either of those charismatic, populist-sounding gentlemen can get the Democratic nomination absent making a Faustian bargain with the national security edifice and the corporate institutions within which our once-laudable experiment in governance has been finally subsumed.

Freedom’s on the march? If so, it’s on a Trail of Tears.