Letter to the Editor of the New York Times

December 4, 2006

 

RE: Frank Rich, Has He Started Talking to the Walls?

Rich comes closer to reality than the President, but Bush’s reality has power and recognizes its own interests, and Rich’s analysis does not.

Bush now desperately seeks to mask a retreat to the massive U.S. bases in Iraq, to the sole defense of the illegally seized oil fields and pipelines, as that is all there is left in Iraq for the U.S.

Imperial rivals already learned that the U.S. invasion of Iraq failed completely. The executive branch failed in strategy and tactics, congress failed in its role as a loyal balance, the judiciary failed to staunch the emergence of fascism, the press served as a cheerleader, and the military failed to face down an enemy that has no sane leadership, no regular supply lines, no definable connections to other nations, no rational means to motivate troops—and hence Rich’s claim to Vietnam corollaries are groundless.

This is not Vietnam. It is worse. The combined failures of every section of government, indiscernible from an executive committee of the rich today, summed up to become the most colossal imperial failure in a millennium, and hastened World War Three.

Since there is no hope whatsoever in governmental reform, given the bi-partisan determination to maintain the empire through force, one can only hope that the troops will choose to stop fighting the enemies of their enemies and bring themselves home—as their officers cannot see through the fog of obedience and do their duty to disobey.

Dr Richard Gibson