[NYTr] Translating Bush: The Meaning of "Return to Success"

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Counterpunch - Oct 8, 2007
http://www.counterpunch.org/brauchli1082007.html

Translating Bush:

The Meaning of "Return to Success"

By CHRISTOPHER BRAUCHLI

Mr. Bush never ceases to amaze with his clever way of using words to
divest himself of thoughts. His most recent foray into the thicket of
thought (where as usual he appeared to be slightly lost) came on the
occasion of his September 19, 2007 speech about Iraq.

Ignoring the maxim that actions speak louder than words, Mr. Bush chose
not to focus on the endless suicide bombings that kill and maim our
fellow citizens who have been led by Mr. Bush, from the safety of the
White House, to that hapless country to do battle with the enemy he
created. He chose to ignore the fact that those doing the killing and
maiming were reportedly locals who want Mr. Bush to go away and leave
them alone. He chose not to mention the dozens of thousands of Iraqis
who have been killed in the ongoing conflict and the millions more who
have been made homeless and have fled their neighborhoods and their
country in search of safe haven. Instead, Mr. Bush came up with a
description of what he thinks the United States is doing in Iraq that
must cause every dead conqueror whose historical reputation has been
that of "ruthless" to envy him his speechwriters.

Describing the blind president's vision for Iraq, Mr. Bush's
speechwriters coined the clever phrase "return on success." "Return on
success" does not, of course, come cheap. As of this writing it has
already cost approximately $600 billion and another $200 billion is in
the pipeline. In order to achieve the 2007 success Mr. Bush has spent
approximately $12 billion per month. Here are some of the human
statistics to which "return on success" refers.

As of this writing almost 4000 United States troops have been killed
and almost 28,000 wounded, not including those whose injuries are
psychological rather than physical. No indicator of success would be
complete without considering the Iraqis who are the chief beneficiaries
of Mr. Bush's success. According to the Brookings Institution's "Iraq
Index" as of May 1, 2007, 2,135,000 Iraqis have been displaced inside
Iraq and between 1.3 million and 1.75 million have fled to Syria and
Jordan. (There are only a few thousand who have fled to the United
States but that is because Mr. Bush prefers for them to settle in
countries other than the United States since there is always a chance
that a refugee who has been rendered homeless and lost members of his
or her family to the war may demonstrate gratitude to Mr. Bush by
becoming a terrorist rather than a refugee.)

According to the Iraq Index, during the first four months of 2007,
90,000 persons per month were being displaced internally and abroad.

According to a report from CNN, on July 30, 2007, 28% of the children
in Iraq suffer from chronic malnutrition, 40% of the professionals
living in Iraq before Mr. Bush's success have left the country, and of
the 34,000 of that group who lived there before the war, 14,000 have
either fled or been killed. The good news in August, released after Mr.
Bush's speech, was that Mr. Bush's misadventure resulted in the deaths
of only 922 Iraqis in August, 922 Iraqis who would be alive today were
it not for George Bush.

Having duly considered the foregoing, George "Panglos" Bush who lives
in the best of all possible worlds (as, he would have us believe, do
the Iraqis) said that ordinary life in that country was returning and
pulling out now would cause a humanitarian nightmare, leaving it to the
listener to come up with words to describe what has been going on since
he invaded.

Ignoring the effects of his deceptively begun war he said it was up to
us to help Iraq "defeat those who threaten its future," ignoring the
fact that he is the man who set in motion the events that threaten its
future.

To cap it all off, Mr. Bush placed a Panglossian gloss on the entire
tragedy by taking off in a flight of rhetorical fancy saying that Iraqi
leaders had "asked for an enduring relationship with America" as though
he were speaking of an infatuated couple after a one night stand. And
to add insult to injury he let it be known that he had accepted the
proposal as might many a selfish lover looking for sex rather than love
and concerned only with self-gratification saying: "And we are ready to
begin building that relationship in a way that protects our interests
in the region and requires many fewer American forces." It never
occurred to him that the Iraqis might have an interest in how that
"enduring relationship" was to mature. Someone should explain that to
Mr. Bush and someone else should hire him a new speechwriter.

[Christopher Brauchli is a laywer in Boulder, Colorado. He can be
reached at: Brauchli.56 at post.harvard.edu ]