New American regime not all it's cracked up to be

By Robert Delaware

Welcome to the new American century. This week—in the spooky year of our lord, 2003—California is on fire, Rush Limbaugh is in rehab, and the white man’s burden has been bloodied by bombs and the 24-hour news networks.

In the past few days we have faced rocket attacks on the Baghdad club med, suicide bomb attacks on the Red Cross and the sight of suburban San Diego alight with glow of arson fires. The hangover of the new century continues.

It could be worse. We could have lost Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, an important V.I.P. staying at the Al-Rashid hotel when it was attacked by French-made short range missiles. Wolfowitz was on a glorified press junket celebrating the return of normalcy to Baghdad when his hotel was nearly turned to ash. Just hours after he declared that sort of terrorism would not succeed in deterring our mission, the Iraqi capital was rocked by four blasts aimed at destabilizing the American-lead reconstruction.

It was not supposed to go like this. The Iraqi people, freed from the tyranny of decades of Saddam’s rule, were going to shower advancing coalition troops with flowers and candy. Instead they acted like bored Americans, sleepily watching the most sophisticated military force in world history rolling over a hapless enemy.

In a perfect world, American corporations like Bechtel and Halliburton were to take over reconstruction and oil production to help the Iraqis pay for their own “improvement.”

Our ideal example of free elections and global cooperation was to be a shining beacon. The clear and obvious choice of democracy was to spread through the corrupt Middle East like SARS on a crowded 747.

Instead, Osama, Al-Jazeera, and Oriental mysticism have clouded murky waters. Deranged killers and televised brutality have turned a cake walk into a marathon. Osama bin Laden—or whoever is making audiotapes in his name—has returned to the airwaves to make threats like a B-movie villain. Even worse, the Bush Administration, always on task, has to deal with people who do not know how to break bad news on Friday afternoons. Rocket attacks, blood, gore and death do not go well on local newscasts, sandwiched between Kobe and Laci Peterson updates.

The attack on the hotel happened just as the architect of the invasion was in the town on a victory lap. Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld’s number two, helped lay the intellectual groundwork for the invasion of Iraq. He and others in this administration argued years before Sept. 11 that an invasion and occupation of Iraq was the answer to every mystery beguiling the U.S.—from the Israeli/Palestinian conflict to Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance.

These folks were determined long before Sept. 11 to bring democracy, free trade and Mickey Mouse to the land of the crescent sun. Instead the majority of Iraqis have hunkered down like Branch Davidians with AK-47s. The promise and hope of American ingenuity has run into a brick wall called ancient tradition.

That is a bad sign my friends. There is some hope on the hazy horizon, however. At least the Iraqi desert is more barren than ours. No huge wildfires to fight.

— This columnist can be reached at collegian@csufresno.edu