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On a Mission From God: Bush's Messianic Militarism and a Call for New Elections

By Paul Street at Dec 05, 2005

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I'm currently in the middle of writing a long article on how the Iraq War is not a repetition of the Vietnam War. I'll be arguing (not all that originally) that Iraq is a much bigger fiasco than Vietnam for United States imperialism.....stay tuned....ctd Now, I'm not much on the role of even the most structurally empowered individuals in the making of history. I tend to focus more on social, institutional, and ideological forces than on "great men" and all that when it comes to sorting out historical causation and meaning. Still, as I go down to the bottom of my list of what makes Iraq (2003-0?) different from Vietnam (1968), it's hard not to include the messianic madness of boy-king George. God knows that LBJ and especially Nixon lived in their own creepy and delusional worlds while conducting what Noam Chomky memorably termed “the crucifixion of Southeast Asia.” But Bush's unreality is in a league of its own, thanks largely to the terrible link in his narrow little mind between authoritarian militarism and Christian fundamentalis. Bush's “messianic militarism” (Ralph Nader's excellent description in 2004) has been known to careful observers ever since 9/11 gave “New Pearl Harbor” life to the explicit neo-imperialism advocated by Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, Lewis Libby, and other not-so-“conservative” characters associated with the uber-nationalist Project for a New American Century (PNAC). Bush has regularly appealed to “the Lord” in trying to justify his implementation of the lunatic PNAC agenda. We got one of many tastes of Bush's belief in that agenda's divine inspiration in Bob Woodward's sycophantic book "Plan of Attack." Asked by Woodward if he had discussed Iraq with Bush pere, “born-again” Junior responded in pompous and pious terms. “You know,” he said, his Dad “is the wrong father to appeal to in terms of strength. There is a higher father I appeal to.” That “higher father” denotes “God,” who Bush II has been beseeching to “continue to bless the United States of America” throughout his monumentally illegal occupation of Iraq. We get a deeper sense of Bush's messianic imperialism by moving from Woodward to a more substantive and hard-hitting journalist – Seymour Hersh. Hersh's latest article in The New Yorker (December 5, 2005) quotes a number of current and former military, intelligence, and administration officials to reveal an increasingly “detached” president who is "impervious to political pressure even from fellow Republicans." According to insiders, Bush believes that "God put me here" to occupy Iraq. A "Pentagon adviser" told Hersh that Bush is "not going to back off" the occupation because the president sees his illegal and immoral Iraq policy as "bigger than domestic politics." By Hersh's informants' account, "bigger" means "divinely inspired" in Dubya's mind. Looking also at the latest of Bush's many speeches to military (interesting) audiences, it's becoming clearer than ever that Bush completes the circle of his disdain for democracy by claiming a different but related direct and and higher relationship that goes beyond the heads of the mere citizenry. This other special relationship links the divinely inspired president as Commander-In-Chief to the supposedly loyal soldiers of his supposedly Christian "war on terror." Most U.S. citizens want a quick exit from Mesopotamia. A rising number of the nation's Congresspersons are calling for a timetable for the pullout of troops. And, for what it's worth to U.S. policymakers, more than 70 percent of the Iraq's lawmakers and more than 80 percent of that nation's populace want U.S. and British forces out. So what?, says Bush, going beyond the wishes of the mere citizenry (the supposed masters of policy in a democratic society) to the noble and virtuous mercenaries and gendarmes of U.S. empire. "To all who wear the uniform," Bush told the Naval Academy's junior cadets Wednesday, "I make you this pledge: America will not run in the face of car bombers and assassins as long as I am your commander in chief." Is "Bring'Em On" Bush still trying to make up for his flight from "service" in an earlier imperial and racist war (the War on Vietnam) that he supported? Whatever, the president appears to think that his most solemn pledge of allegiance is to his mercenary ("volunteer" and therefore non-citizen) military, not the populace. "We the People" may have decided that it's time for U.S. policymakers to show the courage to reverse the criminal "mistake" that is the occupation of Iraq. But Bush has "bigger" duties to fulfill than honoring public opinion. His obligation to God and "all who wear the uniform" trumps his secondary responsibility to the citizenry. America, you have a problem. The man sitting on the buttons and "leading" the nation into a terrible and immoral war that most of his citizenry now opposes thinks that he's like Jake (John Belushi) and Ellwood (Dan Akroyd) Blues in “The Blues Brothers.” Like Jake and Ellwood, Dubya (who apparently anticipated Belushi's "Animal House" character at Yale), boy George is “On a Mission from God.” “God” (or whatever) help us all. Every last one of us. Perhaps we should think about developing a more "intelligent design" for constitutionally de-coronating a moronically militaristic boy-King with three more years left to try to inflict his dangerously anti-democratic views on the world from his curious position in the planet's most powerful office. Can't we just pass a vote of no-confidence and call elections for a new government? How's next week looking for that?

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Person

Re: On a Mission From God: Bush's Messianic Militarism and a Call for New Elections

By Otto, Steve at Dec 19, 2005 07:28 AM
I'll be home for Christmas, even if in a box.

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Occupy_iowa_city_rally

Re: On a Mission From God: Bush's Messianic Militarism and a Call for New Elections

By Street, Paul at Dec 11, 2005 02:48 AM
MTbrad I remember reading in the NYT during Tianammen Square an account of hundreds of Chinese troops bivouacked in the world's largest (get this) McDonald's, which happened to be found in Beijing. The students they were getting ready to kill (perhaps McDonald's fueled thir actions with some good special sauce burgers) were singing the International. It was all too darkly perfect from a left anarchist perspective. China did perastroika (sp?) w/o glasnost (Gorbachev's mistake was to try to lead with the latter) and why not? Corporation capitalism is at heart every bit as authoritarian and Orwellian as Maoism or Stalinism. Whatever China's capacity for future hegemony or for a central role in articulating/enforcing TNCC hegemony, segments of the American establishment are clearly scared. Last spring I recall Newsweek running a title story under the cover "China's Century." That's pretty dramatic. There was an article in it by good old Fareed Zakaria, full of incredible and foreboding (for US hegemonists) numbers on how much the U.S. (and especially Wal-Mart) imports from China, how big the Chinese army (more than 2 million) and population (more than 1.3 billion) are, education levels (particularly regarding math and science) in China, how heavily China invests in Treasury bonds/the US government deficit, and more. Zakaria or "experts" he quoted raised the possiblity that the 21st century will see the third great "shift in global power" since 1600. First was the rise of Europe in the 16th and 17th century. Second was the rise of the U.S. in the late 19th and 20th. And third maybe....China, was the line. There's a wing of the American foreign policy establishment (probably including Scowcrfot/that is daddy Bush)that thinks that the Cheney-Bush cabal is missing the point with their Iraqi adventure. China is the real long term economic and strategic challenge for the U.S., they think, and the Iraq fiasco (perhaps a desparate and failed oil spigot gambit as in the analysis of David Harvey and I suppose Arrighi)is making it worse.

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Person

Re: On a Mission From God: Bush's Messianic Militarism and a Call for New Elections

By Bauerly, Mtbrad at Dec 09, 2005 06:19 AM
Paul, both of your articles are great. Amin is also one of my favorites, and you are right about Kolko. Do you agree with Arrighi that we are in for a Chinese/asian hegemony? I have my doubts that they can fly without the US military and with the level of chinese investment in US bonds. For these reasons and others I see a Transnational Capitalist class (TNCC) hegemony. This would be facilitated by a shift to chinese political standards (race to the bottom or a falling tide sinks all ships?). We are already on our way with the proto-fascist B-team inplace and corporate media socialization to the will of the state elites. Which will bring about the class conflict Marx envisioned so long ago. Workers of the world united in sheer poverty and politic disempowerment. Of course I am laying out the most pessimistic option, but somebody must and vigilance is definitely in order. The divide between departments is very problimatic in my view and Wallersteins. I sometimes think I would be happier in history.

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Occupy_iowa_city_rally

Re: On a Mission From God: Bush's Messianic Militarism and a Call for New Elections

By Street, Paul at Dec 08, 2005 21:39 PM
MTBrad , I suppose these are the most world-systems-informed pieces I've done: * "Dear Europe: Yes We are Stupid But You Must Deal With Your Own Bourgeiosie," Dissident Voice (Nov. 18/04): www.dissidentvoice.org/Nov2004/Street1118.htm * "Bush, China, Two Deficits, and the Ongoing Decline of U.S. Hegemony," (ZNet Magazine, July 27 2005): http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=13&ItemID=8384 My doctorate (big deal) is from Binghamton U., home of Braudel Center and this was back in the day when the world system theorticians/chroniclers Wallerstein and Arrighi (took a seminar from the latter; I was not an especially memorable student in that particular course) were holding forth there. One thing I recall from the early 80s at Binghatmon was the aformentioned theoriticians confidently predicting the fairly imminent collapse of the Soviet empire; diverse Lenninist Binghamton students from various corners of the world system protested "impossible." I was in history, not sociology, but I probably should have switched. Some of what's going on now does seem hauntingly predictable from a world systems perspective. Another scholar who strikes me as somewhat prophetic in regard to current imperial issues is Gabriel Kolko on the limits of U.S. power including the limits of US policymakers' vision and intelligence. I'm not in a position to judge the W.T. Robinson (whose writings on polyarchy I've found very useful in different venues) thesis at present but do agree that this is a very dangerous moment for reasons related to what you say.

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Person

Re: On a Mission From God: Bush's Messianic Militarism and a Call for New Elections

By Bauerly, Mtbrad at Dec 08, 2005 04:52 AM
Paul, I was not aware of your affinity for world systems theory, my favorite is Arrighi. I am in the midst of a large research project on the declining US hegemony and the next, what I and others perceive as a stateless hegemony made up of a transnational captialist class (see Sklair, Robinson). The current problem arises out of the military dominance of the declining US hegemongy and the danger this causes for the world system as a whole. This is a truly unique historical development. Will the US resort to sheer military barbarism to maintain its lifestyle? Will the world put up with it? Do they have a choice? Will this lead to nuclear distruction? Or just the detaching of US military from the citizens and global totalitarianism of the transnational capitalist class?

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Occupy_iowa_city_rally

By Street, Paul at Dec 07, 2005 20:48 PM
Keir, interesting that you observe from Europe that the Iraqi disaster was "co-cooked up" by U.S. policymakers. How about just plain "cooked up?" One of the differences between Iraq and Vietnam is allied core state percerption that America's Middle East terror issue is an essentially self-created thing and that Uncle Sam is basically using the terror threat it produced to run a big protection racket on the rest of the world. The alleged threat posed to the capitalist state system by supposedly Soviet-based "communism" ---- the Cold War enemy ---- was considerably more credible to subordinate "advanced" (capitalist) states in the world system. Those states policy elites were still willing to see America's self-appointed police role as being in the general interest. The Red Army, after all, was just a couple days away from Western European capitals. Now Uncle Sam's big war just looks to many European rulers like a selfish, zero-sum operation yes "cooked up" pretty much by and for the declining hegemon, which relies like never before on sheer military dominance: force over consent. It's what happens at the end of hegemony.

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