The King of Euphemism

To paraphrase the inimitable words of a past president, Ronald Reagan, there they go again...

The king of euphemism who himself admits that he currently occupies the White House (his word not mine) and who, by the way, has yet to master the correct pronunciation of "nuclear," has, once again, found his way to the letter "t" when condemning North Korea's planned exploratory launch of a long range missile.

"It should make people nervous when non-transparent regimes who have announced they have nuclear warheads, fire missiles. This is not the way you conduct business in the world." Mr. Bush said yesterday (AP) And, indeed, the Bush administration, along with the vice president, his UN henchman Commandante Bolton, Donald Rumsfeld, all the heirs to transparency, have succeeded in teaching the whole world a thing or two about how business is conducted as we can readily see by our glowing accomplishments in Iraq, and the rest of the Middle East. Yes, Abu Ghraib, Haditha, Guantanamo, and other yet to be outed debacles, provide abundant proof of how well we show those pesky terrorists a thing or two about torture, as well as win the day both here and abroad. But, one must ask, is transparency a good thing when one's mission is, at best, less than honorable?

Keep in mind that, while we were out on this last great crusade against the infidels who we armed, and trained so well when they were mere pups in Afghanistan, North Korea was busy sharpening its claws. We now find the kings of preemption at a loss for how to play their hand, forced to think long and hard about what to do if, and when, North Korean leader Kim Jong II decides to play the ace he's had up his sleeve for nearly a decade, since the last missile launch over Northern Japan. According to the Associated Press, among the options, on the table, are plans to shoot any upstart missile down while in flight over the Pacific. Alas, this appears to be the only option on the table as Bolton, and his homeboys, have all but ruled out diplomacy. In this era of protracted preemption, diplomacy, don't you know, has no teeth.

Yet, despite North Korea's request, on Wednesday, to take a meeting about whether or not to launch its latest toy, this administration has made it abundantly, and transparently, plain that there is no way any bible thumping, Halliburton-owning American is going to sit down and talk with Kim Jong II, or any of his cronies, because, as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, so eloquently puts it "You don't normally engage in conversations by threatening to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles." (AP) And who, in their right mind, could disagree with the ambassador? But, it must also follow logically that one cannot expect productive discourse, or any discourse, to result from blowing up a country's capitol, and fileting its leadership.

Bottom line: somebody brought us to the brink of the third world war, and it's not Kim Jong. While the guy may look like he sleeps with I-Pods, so far he's produced nothing more than a lot of hot air, a propensity which, by the way, he shares with the president who thinks any suggestion his machinations imperil the earth more than anything Iran, or North Korea, could hope to do, is simply "absurd." What Mr. Bush, and his colleagues, don't seem to consider ludicrous is using the bombing of the World Trade Center as a pretext for ransacking, and bankrupting a formerly autonomous nation when, truth be told, it was all about oil, and reconstruction contracts. There were no mushroom clouds like the ones we saw over Hiroshima, or anything that directly led to the long-range missile we launched, and continue to launch, day in and day out, in Iraq, in the dubious name of a war on terror. Inescapably, simple, and common, (mostly common), greed is what propelled us, and"coalition forces," into this counterfeit battlefield.

I don't know about you, but it makes me nervous as hell when so-called transparent regimes ravage, rape, humiliate, torture, and plunder in the name of democracy, as well as deface one who was crucified by the same brand of barbarians that now run amok, all over the globe, in the name of democracy.