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Mr. Bush's War

by P. M. Carpenter

Mr. Carpenter is working on a book about American demagoguery. He is a columnist for HNN.

Last week a New York Times headline read, "Britain Sets Out 6 New Terms for Hussein to Avoid War." It should have read, of course, "Britain Sets Out 6 New Terms for Bush to Avoid War." After all, it is not Iraq's normally reckless kingpin who is prosecuting wholesale carnage in defiance of the United Nations; it is America's reckless kingpin doing that.

Britain's prime and exceedingly miserable minister, Tony Blair, demanded, for one, that Hussein disown his weapons of mass destruction, however limited their geopolitical reach may be. Meanwhile, Mr. Bush is randy to procreate another generation of atomic insanity -- "mini-nukes" -- to bully any sovereign nation we choose (unless it, too, is atomically armed), and is quite willing to destroy historic alliances per Dick Cheney's macho vision, Karl Rove's political instructions, and his own creeping messianic complex.

From time to time Bush has disclosed confessionally that he is but God's instrument on Earth, destined to direct swarms of noble Christian men and women on a victorious Holy Crusade against the heathen Hussein. His eyes are fixated, dilated and glazed. Not a dram of reason can invade his mind; he is utterly tuned out. And it's noticeable, not only to his critics who populate most of the planet, but to his friends as well. As Paul Krugman reported -- not editorialized -- last Friday, "more people than you would think" from Defense, State, and Treasury "don't just question the competence of Mr. Bush and his inner circle; they believe that America's leadership has lost touch with reality."

There is a clinical term for this: psychosis.

So who is the more reckless kingpin? Bush or Hussein? After all that contemporary America has been through, it is a wretched thing that this could even be a valid question. Nevertheless by nearly anyone's standard of objectivity, valid it is.

Say what you will about sadistic Saddam, but this secularist born to dirt-poor farmers has managed to hold together opposing and hostile religious tribes as a nation and successfully thumb his nose at the world's only superpower for 12 years. Virtually everyone rides the hate-Hussein bandwagon with prodigious cause; still, you've got to admit his history demonstrates he has remarkable skill. Fundamentalist Bush, on the other hand, has managed in only 17 months to fracture domestic secular interests and turn the world's majority against us, thereby squandering unprecedented heights of domestic and international good will. That also requires skill, though of a different sort.

Is all this merely the result of dumb luck or bad fortune? Or maybe those Iraqi "liars and propagandists" poisoning the universal mind, as Ari Fleischer prefers to propagandize? Or is it, simply, good and bad judgment that comes into play? As you ponder the twosome's comparative recklessness, keep in mind these are not trick questions. Nor, for sure, are they laughing matters. Both Bush and Hussein scoff at accountability; both detest scrutiny; both demand blind loyalty -- and most horrifying, both have a groove on for brinkmanship and friends of at least one believe their man "has lost touch with reality."

In those extraordinarily rare public moments when Bush is expected to answer a question, he comes across as defensive, cocky and paranoid, all at once. In a commander in chief these qualities are more than just sad -- they're scary. In a commander in chief licensed to more weapons of mass destruction than any competing psychotic dictator could dream of, they are downright terrifying.

Add to this uneasy mixture the thought that throughout his comfortable life Mr. Bush has demonstrated a distinct, almost pathological indifference, if not hostility, to things of the mind. He had available the best educational opportunities to learn and grow, but chose to remain intellectually adolescent. And like many adolescents, with none of the requisite learning he haughtily professes all the answers.

Willfully ignorant, messianic, cocky, reckless, defensive, paranoid, out of touch with reality and in singular command of the world's greatest WMD machine.

Sleep well tonight.

Perhaps you'll dream about the constitution's 25th Amendment, Section 4, kicking in. The downside, though, will be the immediately following nightmare with Dick Cheney announcing the good news.

Mr. Carpenter's column is published weekly by History News Network and buzzflash.com.