For a couple of weeks I’ve been trying to understand why "The Surge"? What possible motivation could the Bush administration have behind defying all logic and reason, not to mention all the good advice from his former Secretary of State, many of his generals, over a thousand serving troops, James Baker and Friends, and numerous opinion polls? I now think I have an answer.
However, to understand it, you have to shift your mindset to the dark, cold, twisted and contorted world of the Bushites. Follow me below if you dare...
The first shift you have to make is from an intelligent, progressive Kossack into the Bush mindset. This may be hard for you. Remove any thought of doing the right thing for the country or the troops from your mind, and instead focus on your overriding goals: The creation and preservation of power and wealth for yourself and those that support you unquestioningly. Secondly assume that everything you say and everything that the acolytes around you will repeat endlessly creates it’s own reality. Truth isn’t the point, it’s the impressions which get created that count. Everything you do or say has a political goal − to create and shape the reality of the world that everyone else perceives.
If you’re able to think through this lens, the goal of "The Surge" becomes clear. The Iraq war is of course a way to harness mindless patriotism in support of the country's leaders, and as a reward to your pals in the corporate military industrial complex who fund and sustain your power. Thus, also, "winning" in Iraq is no longer even relevant, except as a rhetorical device for public consumption − that’s the next guy’s problem. No, the goal of "The Surge" is to distract attention from the fact that the US is actually losing the war. Notice that in the last few months the public media discussion has largely turned from subjects like "investigate the lies which led to war" and "get the troops out or Iraq now" to "how many troops do we need to surge with" and "how long do we need for the surge to be successful". The public may be overwhelmingly behind withdrawal from Iraq; Congressional investigation into the war may or may not happen. But these subjects aren’t even being discussed by the media at large, so the American Public has been successfully distracted. Mission Accomplished (for now, at least).
Perhaps the biggest mistake that many people if this country have made over the last few years is to imagine that the President and his advisors are genuinely trying to do the right thing, and that sometimes they just get it wrong. Yes, they know that politicians are apt to lie just to get elected, but there’s a sort of naïve optimism that assumes once they are elected they genuinely try to make things better, and that sometimes they may actually succeed (if only by accident). While I believe that’s true of some leaders (FDR comes to mind), the evidence of the last few years is overwhelming that it’s in no way true of this administration − it’s not that they’re trying to damage the country, it’s that they simply couldn’t care less. It’s just not in their mindset to help anyone but themselves and those like them. Of course, there are some thin intellectual justifications for all this, mostly from the Straussian Neocons such as Perle or Kristol, but in reality it’s just naked greed for power, wealth, and the preservation of their own kind.
Of course, we Kossacks know most of this, but the rest of the country has just started to wake up and make the shift. Help them. Show them. Be nice to them, they’re good people, and just as they could never think this way, it just never occurred to them that their own President could either.
~ Trendar.