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Barbarians R Us

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I was just leaving for dinner with friends in Seattle when I peeked at the computer and saw that the devil of the new century had evidently been slain; Osama bin Laden, the Road Runner to Bush’s Wile E. Coyote, the Evildoer in Chief, the guy who managed to change America from one thing to quite another in just a few short years.  Buried at sea, perforated with Freedom Bullets courtesy of the Home of the Brave, just like that.  We talked about other things as we walked down California Ave. in West Seattle to our destination, a nearby Indian place with a friendly bar.  The waiter brought us drinks and menus, but then left to join everyone staring at the large TV screens usually showing cricket or soccer, to hear the President speak.

Aside from the bartender and us, the dozen or so others there were either Indian or middle eastern, and I couldn’t help but feel a little embarrassed when Obama stepped into the very imperial-looking East Room and, in a subtle but unmistakeable way, invoked the Bushian spirit of 9/11 vengeance, thus blandly trying to make our new version of Red Queen justice look reasonable and proper, at least for appearance’s sake.  What a difference ten years make.

If someone had told me back then that today I would be watching a Democratic President proudly announcing an international extrajudicial assassination, while we were involved in (so far) three wars and counting, I would have told them they were nuts.  Had they added that there would then be a vigorous debate about how great torture was, since it had already long been settled that wiretapping, eavesdropping, and every other form of government transom-peeping was accepted by all, I would have called them a cab home.  I’m not naive; I know that our post WWII national security/spook establishment has been running around doing all of these things for some time, but the openness, not to mention bipartisanship, about it these days is nothing short of alarming.

Maybe it was the huge screens in the bar, but Obama’s studied sobriety was somewhat belied by the scary intensity in his eyes, something I’d have liked to have seen earlier, when he was defending something, well, defensible.  He wasn’t wearing a silly costume, but it being the anniversary of Mission Accomplished, it was disappointingly evident that “change” was more a matter of style than substance.  Predictably, the large number of younger Americans who don’t remember America before 9/11 changed everything reacted as they were now conditioned to: as elated fans of their winning home team against a hated rival.  Unsurprisingly, but perhaps even more disturbingly, Obama later ratified this bloodlust with a promise to have a little ceremony at Ground Zero, where the head on a pike would be only implied as he looks toward a victorious year for 2012 as a War President.  USA, fuck yeah.  He even invited George W. to attend, but he declined.  Maybe Bill Kristol is free that day.  Or John Yoo.

 

 

 


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