http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060515_molly_ivins_lunacy/
Politics, or Insanity?
By Molly Ivins
May 15, 2006, Trughdig
Plan to militarize Mexican border is sheer madness or blatant pandering.
Austin, Texas – I hate to raise such an ugly possibility, but have you
considered lunacy as an explanation? Craziness would make a certain amount
of sense. I mean, you announce you are going to militarize the Mexican
border, but you assure the president of Mexico you are not militarizing
the border. You announce you are sending the National Guard, but then you
assure everyone it’s not very many soldiers and just for a little while.
Militarizing the border is a totally terrible idea. Do we have a State
Department? Are they sentient? How much do you want to infuriate Mexico
when it’s sitting on quite a bit of oil? Bush knows what the most likely
outcome of this move will be. He was governor during the political
firestorm that ensued when a Marine taking part in anti-drug patrols on
the border shot and killed Esequiel Hernandez, an innocent goat-herder
from Redford, Texas. That’s the definition of crazy – repeatedly doing the
same thing and expecting a different result.
I suppose politics could explain it, too. It’s quite possible that
lunacy and politics are closely related. It’s still damned hard cheese for
the Guard, though. The Guard is heavily deployed in Iraq, currently 20
percent of those serving, down from 40 percent last year. Some soldiers
are sent back for multiple tours. Lt. Gen. James Helmly, head of the Army
Reserve, said the Reserve is rapidly degenerating into “a broken force”
and is “in grave danger of being unable to meet other operational
requirements.” Happy hurricane season to you, too. The Guard is also short
on equipment and falling short on recruiting goals.
But right-wingers are very unhappy with Bush right now, and this is a
strong, red-meat gesture that will make them happy, even if it does
nothing to shut down the border. You want to shut down illegal
immigration? You want to use the military as police? Make it illegal hire
undocumented workers and put the National Guard into enforcing that. Then
rewrite NAFTA and invest in Mexico.
Meanwhile, further proof that the entire party is cuckoo comes to us
with the passage of another $70 billion tax cut for the rich. The Center
on Budget and Policy Priorities says the average middle-income household
will get a $20 tax cut, while those making more than $1 million a year
will get nearly $42,000.
The Washington Post editorialized, “Budgetary dishonesty,
distributional
unfairness, fiscal irresponsibility – by now the words are so familiar, it
can be hard to appreciate how damaging this fiscal course will be.”
Both President Bush and Veep Cheney are still going around claiming if
you cut taxes, your tax revenues increase. No, they don’t. Now we’re just
in whackoville. It’s not true. Their own economists tell them it’s not
true, but they go about claiming it is with the same desperate tenacity
they clung to false tales of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. How
pathetic.
Speaking of lunacy, the saddest report from Iraq is that American
soldiers showing signs of psychological distress and depression are being
kept on active duty, increasing the risk of suicide. The Hartford Courant
reports that even soldiers who have already been diagnosed with
post-traumatic stress syndrome are kept on duty. This has led to an
increase in the suicide rate – 22 soldiers in 2005. And as I have reported
before, the military is unprepared to deal with the flood of head cases
coming back from Iraq. How many ways can we mistreat our own soldiers,
while the right makes this elaborate show of devotion to “the troops”?
The consistent pattern that runs through all these problems is the
failure to distinguish fantasy from reality. Mexican immigrants keep
crossing the border because they can get jobs here – and most of those
jobs are provided by companies whose CEOs support George W. Bush. That’s
where he can have an impact on the problem, should he choose to do so.
The $70 billion tax cut is part of a continuing right-wing fantasy
going
back to the Laffer Curve. Of course, clinging to demonstrably false
economic precepts is understandable when you benefit from them, but at
some point reality does intervene.
As for the Iraq fantasy and those who pushed it on a reluctant country
through lies, disinformation and bending intelligence – isn’t there a law
against that?
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“A war of aggression is the supreme international crime.” — Robert Jackson,
former U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice and Nuremberg prosecutor
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