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Deep
Throat Returns: |
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Combat
Lobotomies – Who You Gonna Call? Turns out, there are some innocent people locked
up by the bureaucracy
in Oops...former commander. Dunlavey appears to have followed Army Reserve
Brigadier General’s Baccus’ lead (even though they apparently irritated
each other as well as their bosses) in leaving Gitmo in October, after
criticizing USG
and DoD policies and practices. Tom Ricks, Washington Post Pentagon reporter, got an interview with DepSecDef Wolfowitz last week. Ricks described widely held high level perceptions that Wolfowitz believes excess preparations for a tough war are not necessary – he is pushing plans for quick success. Wolfie fired back in the Post opinion pages – no, not his view at all, the reporter got it all wrong, and anyway, he has a picture of the Battle of Antietam on his wall to show everyone that he knows how bloody and dangerous and terrible war is. I doubt Ricks will get another interview up in the E-Ring soon. Newt Gingrich – a Defense Policy Board apparatchik
who probably has his own Civil War art collection – hasn’t yet denied
that he is “confident that Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks … would
not be swayed by suggestions that he include more reinforcements
and plan a more cautious attack.” We wouldn’t want a military commander to be
swayed by suggestions that he actually plan to win a war against a
thug-led little country with no Air Force or Navy while minimizing
U.S. casualties! I mean, how would that look? I’m sure, as long as
Tommy keeps “not being swayed” he’ll keep his job, no matter what
happens next month. Anyway, what’s a few hundred (or thousand?)
American lives when we have the history of the world to write here! Hurry up, get it on! If you, like me, have kids who have watched
the latest Austin Powers’ DVD so many times you have memorized the
entire script – you, like me, know that Wolfie is “toight, like a
toiger!” And yes, the observation is just as inappropriate
for me to make as it is for Goldmember! Meanwhile, Time Magazine’s People of the Year are the “Whistleblowers.” The dirty deeds of Enron, the FBI, and Worldcom all got some healthy exposure in 2002, and we collectively thank those who spoke the truth persistently, against the odds, and at great personal risk. May front cover status protect them from further retaliation by their employers and other interests. But usually, whistleblowers, dissenters, those
who make the inconvenient observation and question the motives or
practices of public servants get what Jack Nicholson got in “One Flew
Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” For those of us not currently living in an asylum,
the operation is not done with a scalpel, and the anesthetic is optional.
But the results are the same.
In Ken Kesey’s novel, McMurphy (Jack Nicholson)
with exuberance and vitality, runs up against
Nurse Ratched, who represents the bureaucratic
and corporate mindset
. Literary analysis of Kesey’s
novel reveals, among other things, significant Christian symbolism.
McMurphy’s character challenges the ruling evildoers and is
destroyed by them, but as a result, his “disciples,” like Chief Broom,
leave the asylum changed and newly alive and bearing witness.
There is a guy in Gitmo known as "half-head Bob
." Before Enduring Freedom
and the “Global War on Terr’sm,” before he was in the wrong place
at the wrong time for a terrorist sweep, old Bob had sustained a massive
head injury. As a result, about
all he can say is his name. They
call it a combat lobotomy. Bob has some brethren inside the Beltway – policy
makers and political leaders who have to look at a picture of war
to understand it, and even then, don’t really get it. Policy makers who have had
their moral, ethical and constitutional lobes excised. A lot more people work for these brethren, and
a lot of them seem to be stuttering Billy Bibbits, too afraid of unspoken
threats or handicapped by other impediments to speak up. Half-head Bob’s not a Christian, but I am very
confident that Jesus loves him. I’m not nearly so sure about some of the policy
and media lobotomies in Washington screeching for war and empire and
U.S. bases ringing the Caucasus and the Red Sea, babbling incoherently
about secrecy and self-righteousness and new world orders.
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