Chickenhawks, Report!

21 October 2002

The President kept talking about liberation, so this weekend Saddam released all the prisoners! Can't say the old wily one isn't listening, and stepping to!

I guess Saddam Hussein could teach people in our government a thing or two about listening to their betters!

Secretary of State Powell pointed out this week-maybe for the first time-that regime change is actually a Clinton phrase (Clinton Bad, Bush Good!) and Saddam can stay as long as he does five things, or maybe six. In the verbal gymnastics competition, I'd give it a 10 on "snotty" but only 4 on "imperialistic," definitely improved style and flexibility.

Only one problem. The neo-con agent in the State Department isn't listening as closely as Saddam. John Bolton, with his oxymoronic title of Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, said just last week that Iraq's regime change must occur and be as thorough as de-Nazification in Germany was after World War II.

That would be no vacillation, m-u-s-t b-e r-e-g-i-m-e- c-h-a-n-g-e d-e-n-a-z-i-f-i-c-a-t-i-o-n say-it-with-me John Bolton, senior vice president of the American Enterprise Institute before he got the State job.

John's old Institute publishes lots of stuff written by his friends, including Richard Perle (sidelining as head of Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board but really a great writer on war and strategy). Check out Perle's August 2002 "Why the West Must Strike First against Saddam Hussein." It's not his best work, but friends take care of friends. Actually it's a rewrite of his February 2002 piece "The United States Must Strike at Saddam Hussein."

Meanwhile, at the Pentagon, Rumsfeld has once again become my hero with his excellent preamble on when we will put soldiers in harm's way. Classic Rumsfeld, where have you been, buddy!

The statements by Secretaries of State and Defense for the first time all summer seem for an instant to be in sync, just, and logical. Even constitutional.

The neocons must be squirming. Strategic placement of chickenhawks should have leveraged the full might and political resources of the United States to build greater Zion, resolve the Middle East, and award energy development contracts to all true believers.

My father in law recently sent me a top-ten list of true statements heard at HQ TRADOC. Number one was "a vision without resources is an hallucination."

The neocons are probably hearing something today that may later be confirmed, God willing, to be a giant flushing sound. We hope that sound is not an hallucination.