William Rivers Pitt posted a piece on Truthout.Org that is, in my humble opinion, essential reading for this community. It is titled
"Incompetent Design." I have seen not a diary on it, so I decided to provide one.
Pitt's thesis is quite simple: The Bush administration has been quite successful, really. They have done pretty much what they set out to do, in Iraq and in America.
Money quotes below...
... and the emphasis is mine:
Here's the deal, in case anyone is wondering: none of this, not one bit of it, can be or should be chalked up to "incompetence" on the part of Bush or anyone else within his administration. This was not a mishandled situation. Bush and the boys have gotten exactly, precisely what they wanted out of Iraq, and are now looking forward to fobbing it off on the next poor dupe who staggers into the Oval Office. They got what they came for, and have quit.
Consider the facts. For two elections in a row, 2002 and 2004, the GOP was able to successfully demagogue the rafters off the roof about supporting the troops and being patriotic, placing anyone who questioned the merits of the invasion squarely into the category of "traitor." Meanwhile, military contractors with umbilical ties to the administration have cashed in to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.
Well, there's been all sorts of speculation as to why we really went into Iraq. Oil seems to top the list. My personal feeling is that oil is definitely on the list, but not at the top. I find it entirely plausible, and have said so numerous times on these boards, that we started a war in order to make Democrats look bad. If only the GOP had realized the Democrats didn't need that much help looking bad, we could have saved countless lives.
But don't fret -- Mr. Pitt attends to oil as well:
The same goes for the petroleum industries; did you know there are gas lines today in oil-rich Iraq? It's true. The oil infrastructure is fine; indeed, it is the most well-guarded point of pressure in Iraq. There are gas lines because companies like Halliburton are not pumping the oil. They are sitting on it, keeping it as a nice little nest egg.
One would think this administration would be worried about the violence and chaos in Iraq. They aren't, because the violence has become the justification for "staying the course." Bush will mouth platitudes about bringing democracy to the region, but that is merely the billboard. What he and his friends from the Project for the New American Century wanted in the first place, and what they have now, is a permanent military presence over there. There was never any consideration of a timetable for withdrawal, because there was never any intention to withdraw. The violence today is a self-perpetuating justification, a perfect circle lubricated by blood, oil and currency.
But here's the part where my jaw dropped, not because it was a revelation, but because it is what I have been snarkily suggesting on this site:
Keeping our attention on Iraq has allowed this administration to do what it came to do under cover of darkness. They have managed to eviscerate dozens of federal regulations designed to make sure our children aren't born with gills or seventeen eyes thanks to the pollution in the air, water and food. The Clean Air Act is pretty much gone now, as are requirements for food safety labeling. GOP "pension reform" means growing old in America amounts to growing poor, just like in the good old days of the Depression. Millions of elderly people have been fed to the wolves by way of the new Medicare Plan D calamity. There are now tens of millions more poor people in America, the middle class is evaporating, but top incomes are up 497% according to the Federal Reserve.
The administration has also used Iraq to accomplish a goal the GOP has been pining for since 1934. Since the advent of FDR and the creation of federally-funded safety nets for the neediest Americans, the Goldwater wing of the Republican party has been lusting after an opportunity to savage the government's ability to serve its citizens in this fashion. Their argument has been that it cost too much to do this, required too much taxation, and was harmful to business interests.
It is certainly no secret that the GOP considers that Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad New Deal to be just short of a pact with Satan himself. Apparently the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent civilians, not to mention the deliberate risk to life and limb of thousands or our own men and women who were shortsighted enough to want to serve their country, is nowhere near as immoral in their eyes as looking out for the well-being of the elderly, children, the poor, the infirm, and any other of the most vulnerable of our fellow citizens.
In short, the GOP has destroyed this country and at least one other because the idea of helping people was so profoundly offensive to them.
This is not, or should not be, a secret. It has been more or less out in the open since the early 80s that the real target was the social safety net. David Stockman, Reagan's first budget director, pretty much said outright that the reason for running up the deficit was to use it as justification to reduce or eliminate social programs that were popular with the electorate. I've occasionally wondered if the level of vitriol the Right directed at Bill Clinton had less to do with culture wars than with the simple fact that in reducing the deficit he undid all their careful planning of the previous twelve years. Pitt suggests much the same thing:
This fight raged until the very end of the 20th century. When Bill Clinton stood up during his 1998 State of the Union speech and said "Save Social Security first!" he was actually firing a directed salvo at this wing of the GOP. Look, Clinton was saying, we have trillions of dollars in the bank and the economy is going great guns. We can provide for the neediest among us without bankrupting the government or killing business. In short, he was rendering fiscal conservatives obsolete. He won the argument. Remember this, by the way, the next time someone asks you why he was attacked so viciously.
It is definitely worth your time to read the whole piece. For myself, it was gratifying to see all the strands of what I sometimes fear is paranoia pulled together so neatly in one place, by someone who does this sort of thing for a living. It's a sort of Unified Theory of Everything for the last 50 years or so of nominally conservative politics.
So, to recap, the "incompetence" thing is nonsense. The Bush boys got paid, got an issue to run on in two elections, put themselves completely and totally above the law on picayune issues like torture and the unauthorized surveillance of American citizens, obliterated the central function of the federal government, and ripped up any and all regulations that would keep their corporate friends from dumping mercury into the river so as to save a few precious pennies on the dollar.
Can anyone still think this was all by accident?