Increasingly Irrelevant

So the Bush White House considers Jimmy Carter to be “increasingly irrelevant”, huh? How unsurprising that their response to Carter’s policy criticism would be a personal attack against Carter the man, and not against his words, which are largely unassailable (if you’re not a Kool Aid-drinking idiot, that is).

History is already rendering its verdict, even before the administration has run its course: the only reason Bush isn’t the most irrelevant monkey man to ever wear a suit is that his disastrous policies and actions will have left such a devastating footprint upon the world that the last thing we can consider him is irrelevant. But that, as I hope is clear to everyone, is not a good thing.

Perhaps BushCo should remind themselves of a comment they made before they invaded Iraq, back when the UN refused to give them the cover of international legitimacy: that if the UN doesn’t come on board with their plan, it will have proven its irrelevance. Again, that word, “relevance”; they harp it so frequently that the psychoanalyst in each of us needs to take notice –is it perhaps that it is they who fear their own irrelevance? It would certainly explain an otherwise inexplicable trend of making bold, yet underinformed and ill-advised, global moves which nonetheless command the world’s attention.

And let us not forget that, four years on from that arrogant dismissal of the UN, BushCo is now in desperate need of the UN’s nation building and peace keeping apparati to relieve US efforts in Iraq. Does that sound like irrelevance to anyone?

The world must put up with this monstrous, cerebrally- and morally- challenged Presidency for only another year and a half. For most administrations, this would be a lame duck time, and certainly Bush himself is “increasingly irrelevant” on the domestic front. But he and his ilk are fanatical enough to use whatever power they have left to go out with a big bang…. Iran, anyone?

Now is the time to see if the vaunted US constitution has any teeth, or if Americans truly are a nation of sheep. By all measures, Bush should have been impeached by now, but selfishness and disingenuousness on the part of Republicans, and sheer incompetence and cowardice on the part of Democrats, prevented that proper course.

But if American government, law and citizenry can rally at last, then the institutions responsible for such things can refuse to take part in the final neocon crusade, the upcoming war against Iran. And we are seeing signs of that, with military leaders threatening to quit, and yellow-bellied Democrats finally speaking out (when the opinion polls tell them to).

It’s all not enough. Bush, Cheney, Rove, et al are war criminals: prosectuting an illegal war of aggression whose slim rationale was unfounded; denial of torture, which has since been proven to be systematic; domestic surveillance against citizens; extrajudicial sentencing and execution; a plethora of constitutional rights suspended for citizens and non-citizens alike; and countless violations of the Geneva Conventions. The list goes on, and I haven’t even begun with the unproven allegations, such as election fraud.

I never thought I would in my lifetime see their like occupy the executive chairs of a Western Democratic nation, and yet it came to pass, with very few having the courage to speak out against them.

Jimmy Carter was a mediocre President at best. He got very little done, overreacted to a false energy crisis and didn’t inspire the nation much with his overly high brow, though supremely moral, philosophical commitment to universal human rights. And there’s a strong argument that he should have been a lot tougher on Iran during the hostage crisis, an event warranting decisive military action.

But he has proven his worth since leaving office, dedicating his life and energies to genuinely improving the world. The country from which I am writing this post –Guyana– owes much to Jimmy Carter, whose foundation brought free elections here in the early 1990s, after decades of dictatorial rule. Thousands have homes because of him; and for a brief time, the Middle East enjoyed something resembling peace because of Carter’s efforts at Camp David. He has done more measurable good as an ex-President than many two-term sitting Executives; and the world finally recognized his contributions with a long overdue Nobel Peace Prize.

That an intellectually stunted miscreant and historical disaster like Bush and his monkeys would dare call this giant among men “increasingly irrelevant” is the ultimate in both ironies and verbal obscenities. If administrations were given tombstones upon their terminations, I think those two words might have some ironic shimmer as BushCo’s epitaph.