posted on Jun, 2 2006 @ 06:50 PM
I like that Bush Doctrine stuff. It's sort of weighty. The type of thing you read about in history books in school. As I recall, Paul Wolfowitz came
up with the idea around the end of the Cold War. Old Paul there put it down on paper and passed it on to Dead-Eye Dick Cheney, who polished it up a
bit in that out-of-the-side-of his-mouth sort of way, and then they both put their best foot forward and presented it to Bush41. Bush41 read it, sort
of peering over the top of his reading glasses at the boys standing at attention in front of him, and probably thought to himself, "These boys are
f___ing nuts," and then politely thanked them and tucked it way in the Not-To-Be-Opened-until-way-after-Christmas file, which is next to the
"Area-54" file, and immediately proceeded to forget all about it.
But Dead-Eye Dick didn't forget about it. Neither did the Wolfman Paul. And after Dead-Eye Dick appointed himself the vice presidential candidate he
dug it out, dusted it off, and showed it to Dubya, who, though he didn't quite get the whole jist of it, thought to himself: "The Bush Doctrine,
it's named after me!" And there you go, the rest, sadly enough, is history.
The Bush doctrine is a kind of "might makes right" approach to international politics. A Catch-22 of our times: "We can do anything to you that you
can't stop us from doing..." That is unless you're armed to teeth and willing to use them arms. Like North Korea, for instance, one third of the
so-called "Axis of Evil." Even Dubya understands in his own downhome, brush clearing way that things could really get out of hand if he pushes North
Korea a little too far. Heck, they could take out Seoul in one afternoon. And that's without their couple of nukes.
Which is what made Iraq a perfect target of opportunity. Saddam had already lost two wars. Iran and the Kuwait/First Gulf War. What could be easier
than beating down the already defeated thug? Kick Saddam's butt again. This time for good. And demonstrate to the world that Bush, and the doctrine
bearing his name, was a force, a righteous force, to be reckoned with.
But, unfortunately, what the Wolfman and Dead-Eye Dick left out of their equation was the vital element described by Clauswitz, in his treatise on the
nature of war, as the "Idiot Factor." In theory, the Idiot Factor falls in-between the chapters on "The Failure to Plan" and "Surprise." Sun Tzu
in The Art of War simply called it: "Screwing the Pooch." It's that part of reality where everything goes wrong according not to natural causes but
through sheer stupidity...