These are ugly times, the kind I hoped that, as an American, I would not experience.

Never before have we had a president who was so obviously owned by corporate interests. Don’t believe the hick act, if you still do. George Bush is a slick, manipulative liar whose primary objective in attacking Iraq is establishing a military base there to protect Big Oil’s interests in the Persian Gulf. This became important to Bush and his owners when the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks revealed that Saudi Arabia is not the ally it was considered to be, but rather a country capable of switching its allegiance to Islamic extremists should it decide it no longer wants America’s oil dollars.

In their rotten, dark-scoundrel hearts, members of the Bush administration quietly thank Osama bin Laden for opening the doors at home to a decade of foul legislation they’d unsuccessfully sought to pass restricting the rights of American citizens. Many sections of the Homeland Security Act are deliberately structured to begin dismantling free speech and other civil liberties, and to establish a Kremlin-like federal culture in which anyone can be spied upon at whim and thrown into prison under the pretext of suspicion. If you think this administration has the best interests of Americans, or humanity-in-general, in mind, check its record on environmental issues such as global warming or oil farming in the Alaskan wilderness, or its stance on national health-care initiatives or education.

I’d go so far as to call this part of a long-term conspiracy by the corporate oligarchy for which the Republican Party has become the primary mouthpiece. The Reagan administration began deliberately dismantling nationwide education initiatives and devaluing intellectualism as part of a plan to dumb down a new generation of citizens who have now come into adulthood. How else to explain recent survey results indicating that younger citizens support Bush’s intentions to wage war on Iraq, while middle-aged voters view the president’s efforts with skepticism? Or the conviction of marketing experts that the generation coming into adulthood over the next decade will be the most susceptible ever to advertising? A generation of consumer cattle, bred by the fed. I hope these stupid little fuckers will prove this aging bastard wrong. But it’s obvious that even older citizens have caved under the weight of two decades of propaganda. How else to explain the election of an unqualified corporate raider like Mitt Romney as our governor? Government is supposed to be a benevolent institution that takes care of us, not an industry led by cost initiatives. How the hell did we ever let things go so wrong?

Now, I hate Osama bin Laden and believe that he should already have been brought to justice (although it’s great for a smoke-and-mirrors operation like Bush’s to have a live scapegoat). I also believe that Saddam Hussein is a murderous scumbag. But war is vile. And we’ve already seen in Afghanistan that this war is going to be altogether different from the first, high-tech Gulf War. It will be up-close and messy, opened by bombs and long-distance-weapon fire, but brought to its ultimate result — if it can be — by close-quarters fighting akin to the battles our troops fought with Al Qaeda members in that desert prison, in hospitals, and within the walls of homes in small villages. It will be personal and terrifying, and it has the potential to cause the kinds of death and injury to US troops and civilians that we have not seen since Vietnam. It will do nothing to prevent terrorism in the US or to make anybody’s life better. The opposite is likely. Blood for oil and corporate wealth. Is that a trade a responsible president would ask us to make?

Back to the Thoughts on going to war index.