Securing the security of others

The alliterative Peter Pace says that he won’t predict the future in Iraq because things could magically improve, you just never know: “Look at al Anbar province. All it took was about 27 sheikhs to decide they had had enough of al Qaeda, and very quickly things changed.”

This morning, Bush met with Lech Kaczynski, the tiny adorable (but evil) twin president of Poland. He thanked him for “working on behalf of securing the security of others.”


Said Bush, “there’s no better symbol of our desire to work for peace and security than working on a missile defense system -- a missile defense system that would provide security for Europe from single or dual-launched regimes that may emanate from parts of the world where leaders don’t particularly care for our way of life, and/or in the process of trying to develop serious weapons of mass destruction.” As opposed to the frivolous weapons of mass destruction. And no, I have no idea what dual-launched regimes means, but I’m sure it’s very very important to keep them from emanating from parts of the world etcetera.

In a little speech about the Middle East today, Bush said, “This is a moment of clarity for all Palestinians.” Bushies (especially Condi, who probably wrote that line) like to talk about moments of clarity, by which they mean events which should prove even to the complete morons who somehow didn’t already agree with them that they were right all along. The phrase “moment of clarity” betokens an unwillingness to accept the legitimacy of other interpretations of reality than their own. Or even to recognize the difference between interpretation and reality. In his Friday meeting with conservative journalists (which I discussed 2 posts ago), Bush said he will “remind my fellow citizens of what the consequences of failure [in Iraq] will be.” “Remind” is a word Bush frequently misuses in this way, to blur fact and opinion. You can remind people of something factual, such as that Bismarck is the capital of North Dakota, but not of a speculation about the future.

The moment of clarity for the Palestinians is that they must now understand that Hamas are evil, evil I tell you. And they can either follow Hamas, which would “guarantee chaos, and suffering, and the endless perpetuation of grievance... surrender their future to Hamas’s foreign sponsors in Syria and Iran, [and] crush the possibility of any -- of a Palestinian state” or they can follow Abbas’s “vision of a peaceful state called Palestine”. So “the Palestinian people must decide that they want a future of decency and hope -- not a future of terror and death.” Also, paper or plastic.

For no particular reason, here is Condi Rice during the Bush/Kaczynski meeting,


and during Bush’s speech on Palestine.



So lonely, so lonely.