by Glenn R. Jackson
A definition of insanity put forward by Albert Einstein was “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” By this definition the United States government has a big, big problem. It is not just the speeches, those repetitive, strangely surreal offerings that are made before the cheering chosen. Nor is it the very familiar recitation of danger posed by some faraway nation state, or the ever-growing list of evils provided against some foreign power. It is the absolute willingness of the top people in our nation’s government to follow lockstep down a path that has increasingly gone awry…over and over again.
The United States executive branch has gone as mad as a hatter.
If this were only about incompetence, maybe we could get by. Lord knows we have had a few doozies in our national history. Granted there have been very few (if any) with this level of incompetence, what with Katrina and the re-emerging images of a government asleep at the wheel on September 11th. Incompetence may be too easy a label for the Bush administration, negligent may more accurately tell the tale, but for that we can wait for the uncompassionate judgment of history to have the final say.
What we cannot wait for is the next shoe to drop for the future course of this great nation.
We are in danger of losing a great army. For no matter how you view it 130,000 men and women of the United States armed services are smack in the middle of enemy territory. Would you want to be the commander that has to order a fighting withdrawal? The only safe ways out of Indian Territory would be to withdraw north to the Kurds, or south to Basra through the Shiite region. Neither is a good choice at all given the reliance on the Turks to help us get our troops out of the Kurdish regions (that’s right the Turks do NOT like the Kurds), nor is Basra a good bet given the existence of two strong Shiite militias.
Faced with losing an army, what would the top Pentagon Brass do? Can you say tactical nuke…sure you can. Friends we do not want to be the nation that pops a nuke on foreign soil…again. And there would be no choice if our army were at stake.
Of course that would be the case if we had not already gone nuclear to take out the “Iranian threat.” The madness of this administration is nowhere more evident then in the casual way in which the threat of war is allowed to find official voice. And yet topping that is the lunacy of talking about the use of “small” bunker buster nukes to take out the Iranian sites.
In an “explosive” sense a nuclear bomb is not “small,” as in I would not want to be within a hundred miles of even the smallest nuclear blast. However in a psychological sense, i.e. the impact on the psyche, both American and foreign, that the use of a nuclear weapon would have, that impact would be astronomical. Talk about the genie being let out of the bottle, this would be the clear chance of a conflict going in unforeseen directions with surely none of them being good.
OK, so nothing has happened and so far all we have is talk. And of course we all know talk is cheap…so let them talk, what is the harm.
Stop and think…”feel” the sense of the nation…Do things “feel” right to you? New Orleans and the Gulf coast are still an absolute mess. Five hundred thousand illegal aliens demonstrate in Los Angeles, with many more thousands demonstrating in other states and cities (and the President is cavorting in Cancun). As simple as it sounds, the price of gasoline is approaching the $3 a gallon mark. Ford, General Motors, and most of the nation’s airlines are dying. On the other hand Osama bin Laden lives on and on, making tape after taunting tape. The American middle class is squeezed and yet more jobs go "offshore."
And the President and Vice-President of the United States plot how to re-invigorate support for a failed and unnecessary war.
The “feel’ of the nation is one of neglect, no one is in charge and events are allowed to dictate the course of all future events. The grown-ups have left the building and the children are playing with fire, and only when someone gets hurt does anyone “pay attention” and make efforts to take care of business. But then, inevitably, attentions wander and things get out of hand again.
However, children playing war games with real guns and NUKES (!) is not the time for a loss of focus. The Republican Party MUST step up to the plate now and stop the madness…before history assigns the blame.
Glenn Jackson is Chairman of the American Reformation Project and Board Member of Hire American Citizens. Glenn was an organizer of American Jobs Coalition (organizations fighting against the American Worker Replacement Program). Glenn is also a former State Chairman for Buchanan 2000 Presidential campaign, and former state Chairman of the Georgia Freedom Party. Glenn holds an MA in Philosophy from Georgia State University in Atlanta.
© Glenn R. Jackson