Kleptocracy, Cronyism and War Profiteers – Part Three

Part One

Part Two

It’s been awhile, but I remember when then Governor Bush was running for president. He talked a good game about restoring civility and dignity to the Oval Office. He made you feel as if there might actually be a snowball’s chance in hell he wasn’t corrupted by the fat cat lobbyists . Liar, liar, pants on fire. President Bush was awash in cash like no other has been before, and all from big corporate donors greasing both sides of the fence strategy akin to “In Case of Emergency, Break Glass” with soft money contributions. Campaign reform, my foot! It seems the laws that come out of Washington always make the situation markedly worse than what they set out to “correct”.

There’s an old saying that to the victor goes the spoils; cronyism is nothing new, however, it is more expensive and expansive than it used to be. Every government system experiences some level of inherent corruption, but the Bush Administration seems to be taking cronyism to creative new highs – and pathetic lows.

Like grape clusters on a productive vine, it’s hard to decide which ripe corruption bunch to start harvesting – there are so many debacles to choose from!

• Hurricane Katrina
• Military contracts
• The Medicare drug vote buying scandal
• Cronyism being mistaken for competency
• September 11, 2001 attacks
• The “War on Terror” (question of torture and illegal military tribunals)
• Reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq
• Poor choices for critical U.S. Supreme Court appointments
• Inability to control spending and an astronomical national debt
• Cronies hiring other cronies
• Mass exodus of seasoned professionals from various governmental organizations due to politically appointed senior hacks making their lives a living hell. Most notable fields of critical “brain drain”: CIA and the FBI.
• The Lynyrd Skynyrd policy of “don’t ask me no questions, and I won’t tell you no lies”, which was formally adopted by the White House under the auspices of Karl Rove. Damn those special prosecutors!

If we start working backwards to the most recent cluster fudge, it’s without a doubt the political bombshell the White House was having a religious experience over: praying the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) would never see the light of day (especially pre-November elections). A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks. Well, doesn’t this just bite the big twinkie! It’s a hole in the condom of containment, and now the world knows the rabbit died. Can you say, “shotgun wedding”?

In the face of sixteen intelligence agencies’ collective opinions, President Bush continues to enjoy the scenic ride down the river in Egypt – denial.

“ To suggest that, if we weren’t in Iraq, we would see a rosier scenario with fewer extremists joining the radical movement requires us to ignore 20 years of experience. ”

There is a filament of logic in his statement, however, it quickly snaps when one looks into the policies we’ve been pushing in the Middle East for the past thirty- five years. The downside to having a single four-year term leader is often reflected in our inability to “stay the course” in foreign policy matters.

For instance, if we look to the time when Israel surrendered the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt on the promise the USA would come and defend their borders if attacked, when Israel was finally attacked and called us on the promise, the State Department said they couldn’t find the agreement. This isn’t the first time a government or a group of countries promised to protect a border and then left the invaded country holding the bag – Czechoslovakia learned this game the hard way in World War II.

“President Benes said the Czechs could mobilize 17 active and 17 reserve divisions, with enough supplies to enable them to resist for five months. Furthermore, the French general staff had assured him that France would invade Germany if the latter attacked the Czechs .”

We have to stop making long term promises we have no intention of keeping. It’s not ethical behavior for a first world super power. In simplistic terms, our foreign policy has all the appearances of being written up by a bunch of revolving psychotics, and we question why do things “happen” to us? It’s embarrassing to realize the whole world knows we’re arrogant and ugly, and we see our actions as “civilized”.

It is completely and utterly astounding the White House and intelligence agencies are getting around to graciously informing the American public and the residents of the world what we already knew: OUR aggression spawned a wave of retaliatory dissident groups to combat OUR global neo-conservative expansionist philosophies. How many millions of dollars was spent on the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate? Tell us something we don’t know!

Hurricane Katrina and Michael Brown will always be viewed as the nation’s worst natural disaster and the worst political disaster exasperated by sheer cronyism. If it weren’t for his connection to the outgoing FEMA hack Joe M. Allbaugh ,
”Brownie” would’ve never been kicked upstairs to create a grand scale catastrophe, resulting in many deaths. The only reason “Brownie” got the tap was because Allbaugh left for greener pork barrel pastures. The Slate.com site refers to Allbaugh as a “disaster pimp” for the private sector , which isn’t very flattering and sounds a whole lot like he was up to his eyeballs with Jack Abramoff.

Allbaugh is the man to see if you want a contract in Iraq , or a piece of the action on homeland security , or, apparently, a shot at rebuilding New Orleans.

As time always does, it brought to the surface the man’s incompetence and his padded resume’ (which mysteriously changed twenty-four hours later ) after the fact revealed a trend: this wasn’t his first screw up. Brown had been previously employed by the International Arabian Horses Association, and was fired under a cloud of financial mismanagement. This man could not manage animals without a hint of scandal, and President Bush puts him in charge of FEMA?

There are those who have come to his aid and claimed he was sacrificial lamb in the administration because his hands were tied. That may be partly true, however, the fact still remains the Bush Administration is wholly responsible for the incredible level of inaction in regards to a national disaster. As I began writing, I found myself repeating a partial truth: “we’ve never experienced anything on this level before”, but Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MI) finished the thought: with simple clarity:

“And I don’t accept this notion that Katrina was like nothing we’ve ever had before. What does that mean? Does that mean we can be unprepared, and that’s an excuse for what happened? If we can respond to the tsunami [recently in Asia], surely we could have responded better to the victims of Katrina.”

It’s moments like this I am angry with myself for having turned on the television or listened to the radio to find out what was going on. I forget the government has approximately three thousand paid public relations firms at their disposal and spent $1.6 billion on “spin” . I’m angry because I realize I thought exactly what they hoped for: by playing up a national disaster, it puts the brunt of the blame on God and His actions, while absolving the Bush White House for being unprepared four years after September 11, 2001. The party who is supposed to be strong on defense is as guilty as Israel was for leaving the home unprotected .