Thursday, December 05, 2013

Oh look at that "new reality" we created

‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors.. and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do’ ” - Unnamed Bush Administration Aide to Ron Suskind 2002.

And in that "Reality" we created in Iraq, a decade plus after "Shock and Awe" and Commander Codpieces being flown to an aircraft carrier to proclaim "Mission Accomplished"...
A spate of execution-style killings in Iraq has rekindled memories of attacks carried out at the height of the country's sectarian bloodshed and raised fears of a widespread return to such violence. In the past week Iraqi police have found the bodies of at least 41 men who were either shot in the head or decapitated in a wave of killings in Baghdad and northern Iraq.
Of course, maybe they were just trying to give Iraq the kind of reality America has all too often?
NBC Chicago pointed out that, as of Sunday, 12 people had been murdered in Chicago this year, which, at a rate of two a day, but the city on a pace for a devastating 730 homicides, higher than any one-year murder total in Chicago since 1997.
[cross-posted at Firedoglake]

6 comments:

StonyPillow said...

They aim to live in the chaos because they cannot survive without it

Kind of sounds like the teabagger strategy. More chaos, more disaster, more “shock therapy”. But by the measure of liberating all that sweet, sweet crude from those damned Iraqis who happen to be living on top of it, the second Gulf War could be called a qualified success.

Oh, and Chiraq, Killinois? Um, really?

Anonymous said...

It is long past the time for Suskind to come out and identify that "Unnamed Bush Administration Aide".

Step up, Ron.

Anonymous said...

My guess is Suskind's source was Rove. Sounds like him, and Rove seems more likely to talk to a journalist than some of the others.

Or maybe Fleischer, since there's an extra helping of mean-spirited arrogance.

gratuitous said...

Oh, are you still studying that old reality? The Masters of the Universe have gone on to create so many newer, greater realities.

Best keep up with history's actors. Because they will act again.

pansypoo said...

chicago is the results of reaganism. on steroids.

Bruce Webb said...

It is a well known fact that Iraqi schools did not have a lick of paint prior to our invasions and that paying Halliburton subsidiaries to provide security and paint and PR to the GI's who actually did much of the painting to explain why Force Protection required killing everyone in cars that approached with 100 yards of a U.S. convoy was totally justified because--- because.

Well some of the details escape me here but I am sure that if you interview former coalition spokesman Dan Senor and various publicity folks at Kellog, Root and Brown and the corporation until recently known as Xe (not to be confused with the humanitarian contractor formerly employed by Eric Prince of Blackwater) then the reasoning that had the U.S. spend a trillion dollars and the low, low price of 3000 plus GIs killed plus some hundreds of thousands of Iraqis is perfectly explicable.

Because Schools. Painted.

(Thank God I was a hopeless alcoholic prior to 2001, because otherwise the Bush-Cheney madness would have driven me to drink)