Page 2 of
2 DISPATCHES
FROM AMERICA Kill, kill,
kill: Presidential bloodlust By
Tom Engelhardt
already starting to surround
them; neither imagined himself "in the movies".
Last screen appearance? Usually
Ronald Reagan, an actual actor, is seen as the
president who spent his time in office playing the
role of a lifetime, but, as it happens, he had
nothing on George W Bush. From the moment the
attacks of September 11, 2001, gave him his
"calling" as a "wartime" president, he has been
deeply embroiled in acting out his cartoonish
version of the role of the century. In fact, he
has often seemed like little more than an
overgrown boy plunged into
his own war movie and
war-play memories.
Let's remember that,
soon after 9/11, this president launched his
"crusade, this war on terrorism" with an image of
a poster from some generic Western of his
childhood. ("Bush offered some of his most blunt
language to date when he was asked if he wanted
[Osama] bin Laden dead. 'I want justice,' Bush
said. 'And there's an old poster out West ... I
recall, that said, Wanted, Dead or Alive'.") For
years, he visibly glowed when publicly dressing up
in a way that was redolent of the boy version of
war (that is, doll ... or, action figure) play.
While Abraham Lincoln never put on a
uniform and an actual general, Dwight D
Eisenhower, put his in the closet in his years as
president, Bush uniquely and repeatedly appeared
in public togged out in military wear, looking for
all the world like a life-sized version of the
original 12-inch GI Joe action figure - whether
"landing" a jet on the aircraft carrier, the USS
Abraham Lincoln, and stepping out in a nifty
flight suit, or appearing before massed hooah-ing
troops in specially tailored jackets with "George
W Bush, Commander In Chief" carefully stitched
across the breast. (In fact, more than one toy
company did indeed produce GI Joe-style Bush
action figures.)
Evident above all, from
September 14, 2001 - when he climbed that pile of
rubble at "Ground Zero" in New York City and,
bullhorn in hand, to "USA! USA!" cheers, wiped out
the ignominy of his actions on the actual day of
the attacks - was just how much he enjoyed his
role as resolute leader of a wartime America.
While his vice president and top advisors were
grimly, if eagerly, preparing to whack Saddam
Hussein and taking the opportunity to create a
permanent commander-in-chief presidency, the
president was visibly having the time of his life,
perhaps for the first time since he gave up those
"wild parties" of his youth.
A rivulet of
telling details about his behavior has flowed by
us in these years. We know from Bob Woodward of
the Washington Post, for instance, that, after
9/11, Bush kept "his own personal scorecard for
the war" in a desk drawer in the Oval Office -
photos with brief biographies and personality
sketches of leading al-Qaeda figures, whose faces
could be satisfyingly crossed out when killed or
captured. In July 2003, frustrated by signs that
the Sunni insurgency in Iraq wasn't going away, he
impulsively offered this bit of bluster to
reporters (as if he were the one who would take
the brunt of future attacks): "There are some who
feel like the conditions are such that they can
attack us there. My answer is, bring 'em on."
In those moments when he spoke or acted
spontaneously, there are plentiful clues that Bush
took deep pleasure in finding himself in the role
of commander-in-chief, and that he has been
genuinely thrilled to do commander-in-chief-like
things, at least as once pictured in the on-screen
fantasy world of his youth. He was thrilled, for
example, to receive from some of the troops who
captured Saddam the pistol that the dictator had
with him in his "spiderhole".
In 2004,
Time Magazine's Matthew Cooper reported, " 'He
really liked showing it off,' says a recent
visitor to the White House who has seen the gun.
'He was really proud of it.' The pistol's new
place of residence is in the small study next to
the Oval Office where Bush takes select visitors."
Similarly, he returned from one of his brief trips
to Iraq "inspired" by a meeting with the pilot who
shot off the missile that incinerated Bin Laden
wannabe Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
On and off
throughout these years, you could glimpse just
what a cartoon-like white-hat/black-hat persona he
imagined himself to be playing. This was true
whether he was in his blustery tough-guy mode, as
when, in September 2007, he arrived in Australia
publicly proclaiming that the US was "kicking ass"
in Iraq; or when, as commander-in-chief, he
regularly teared up with genuine (movie) emotion
as he handed out medals, some posthumous, for
bravery; or even when he discussed his own wartime
version of "sacrifice" - he claimed to have given
up golf for his war.
As he told Mike Allen
of Politico.com: "I don't want some mom whose son
may have recently died to see the
commander-in-chief playing golf. I feel I owe it
to the families to be as - to be in solidarity as
best as I can with them. And I think playing golf
during a war just sends the wrong signal."
The Washington Post's Dan Froomkin has
pointed out that even Bush's callow sacrifice of
golf wasn't real - he kept on playing - but that
hardly matters. What's crucial is that all this
real life play-acting still moves, even thrills,
him. Recently, for instance, he gave a graduation
speech at the US Air Force Academy, where he once
again compared Iraq to World War II (and so,
implicitly, himself to president Franklin
Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston
Churchill, a bust of whom he has kept in the Oval
Office all these years).
As Associated
Press reporter Ben Feller commented: "Bush noted
it was his last military academy commencement
speech, and he seemed to savor it. He personally
congratulated each cadet as cheers bounded across
the stadium." Note that word "savor", when linked
to the military and his commander-in-chief role.
It's been a quality evident in the president's
ongoing performance these last seven years. The
photos of him goofing around with Air Force
Academy graduates after his speech tell the story
well.
In all this, you can sense a man in
his own bubble world, engrossed in, and satisfied
with, his own performance - both as actor and, as
in childhood, audience. What General Sanchez has
added to this is the picture of a man who, even in
2004, was already dreaming Vietnam disaster ("This
Vietnam stuff ... We can't send that message.");
who, perhaps sensing that his blockbuster was
busting, like Nixon before him, proved willing to
mix the white-hat and black-hat codes of his movie
childhood in remarkable ways. Under the strain of
a failing war, in private and among his top
officials, he didn't hesitate to take on that
"guru" role and rally his closest followers with a
call to kill, kill, kill!
A confused pep
talk indeed. Even if Bush is still exhorting his
top officials not to "blink", Americans should.
After all, there are almost eight months left to
his presidency, and a man who seemingly confuses
fantasy with real life, and is given to outbursts
of challenge, bluster and bloodlust, should be
taken seriously. Nixon's "mad mullah" stayed
private until transcripts of the Watergate tapes
and memoirs started coming out. For us, the
question remains, will this president be able to
take a final turn on-screen before his term ends,
playing the "mad mullah" in relation to Iran?
Tom Engelhardt, who runs the
Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com, is the
co-founder of the American Empire Project. His
book,The End of Victory Culture, has
recently been updated in a newly issued edition.
He edited, and his work appears in, the first best
of Tomdispatch book, The World According to Tomdispatch:
America in the New Age of Empire(Verso),
which is being published this month.
(Note: As far as I know, the key
passage in Sanchez's memoirs quoted in this piece
was first noticed and commented on by that
indefatigable Iraq reporter, Patrick Cockburn.
Unlike the key passages in Scott McClellan's
memoir, this one from Sanchez's book has been
little attended to. However, Dan Froomkin (cited
in this piece), who does the Washington Post's
online column, White House Watch, also noted its
existence. That's not surprising. He seems never
to miss any important development when it comes to
the Bush administration. Finally, if you want to
know more about Mad Mullahs, American war movies,
and a host of other subjects from World War II
through the Iraq War, check out my recently
updated book, The End of Victory Culture.)
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
