ThruthLeft

Getting Right with the World: Advice for Karen Hughes

Perhaps during his recent European tour President Bush caught wind of the fact -- despite all the barriers preventing the truth from reaching him -- that he and his government are thoroughly reviled in Europe and throughout the world. Nine out of ten Frenchmen and Germans disapprove of Bush's handling of foreign policy and half those surveyed expect U.S./European relations to get still worse. So Bush has called spinmistress Karen Hughes out of retirement and given her the task of turning it all around. If she can convince the American people that Bush is qualified to be president maybe she can convince the world that the U.S. is not a greater threat to stability and world peace than a loose band of cave-dwelling crazies.

Her best shot, public relations professional would tell you, is to come clean and admit the truth of the worst of the criticisms of American foreign policy so we can all start fresh. As a public service, here are some of the damaging and uncomfortable truths the rest of the world knows that Hughes can help us get on the right side of.

1. Yes, we overthrow democracies: In the past 50 years we've overthrown democratically elected governments in Iran, Guatemala, Greneda, Panama, Congo and Chile and in fact not one U.S. military action has led to the establishment of a democratic government. We're sorry. We're going to do a lot better in the future picking countries to invade and picking the words we use to justify our actions.

2. No, we won't support your demand for popular sovereignty: We oppose popular democratic movements wherever they arise because if they came to power they might seize power from the wealthy local elites, renounce the heavy debts we force them to take on, demand fair trading terms and embark on the development path that made the developing countries wealthy -- limiting foreign access to their markets. We apologize for this and the next time a democratic movement arises in a nation whose economy we've ruined with foreign "aid," such as Equador or Peru we won't send in the Marines, we promise.

3. Yes, we finance facism: We paid for and directed right wing terrorist death squads in Indonesia in the 1960s, helping to kill 800,000 people and effectively wiping out the nation's political opposition so a brutal dictator could retain power. We secretly supplied the racist Aparteid regime in South Africa right up until its collapse, and we provided arms and intelligence to the death squads in El Salvador. We're really sorry and it won't happen again, trust us.

4. No, we are not honest about our true foreign policy goals: Our invasion of Iraq had nothing to do with popular sovereignty, the mistreatment of dissidents, the rule of law, or the treatment of women. If they were vital U.S. interests we could achieve them by simply stopping the massive outpouring of expenditures to prop up the governments of Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, all dictatorships with deplorable records on human rights. We regret that we'd temporarily run out of justifications for the seizure of Iraq's oil fields, but this is fixed now and we promise to come up with a better cover story for the invasion and occupation of Iran.

5. Yes, we are at war with Islam: We don't really care about what happens in North Korea. We put them on the "axis of evil" list to make it appear that we are not in fact at war only with nations with Islamic majorities. And we have nothing against Islam, it is just that there are a bunch of Muslim countries with oil and not very many countries left to Christianize. Sorry.

6. No, we are not going to withdraw our troops from Iraq: We may someday leave Iraq like we may some day shut down our bases in Korea, Japan, Germany and elsewhere but don't count on that happening anytime soon. We are building permanent bases to occupy Central Asia because we're addicted to oil and cannot allow these resources to be diverted to Europe, Russia or Asia. But once we get Iraqi oil production up to its pre-war levels and have invaded and occupied Iran we'll stop with the invasions for a while. Scout's honor.

7. No, we didn't tell the truth about Iraq before the war: OK, we admit it now, Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were entirely eradicated long before the war began and Iraq had nothing to do with the attack on the U.S. We just saw a chance to seize control of a country with substantial oil reserves so we took it. Sorry.

8. No, we cannot see or hear the pain of people who live in developing countries: We don't doubt the figures that show from 10 to 20 times as many people die from starvation and related diseases every day as died in the attacks on the U.S. of 9/11/01. But those are foreigners who die from systematic injustice and indifference rather than Americans who are killed in firey explosions, so it may well be tragic but we just don't care.

9. Yes, we rig elections: The exit polls in Florida in 2000, in Georgia in 2002 and in Ohio in 2004 were accurate, of course. We removed the names of American citizens from the voter rolls, destroyed the registries people use to sign in to vote, manipulated the number and the distribution of voting machines, spread disinformation about the time and place voting was to take place, used the state police to intimidate and threaten voters, modified the recorded results and used deception to make it appear that the recounts were legitimate. Sorry, but the American people were about to make a terrible mistake and we had to help.

10. Yes, God really is on our side: We know this bothers many people, but God favors our worldwide crusade to secure undefended markets for our products and the natural resources we need to manufacture them. We didn't ask to be chosen, but God is a wise, Christian white man who chose us to subjugate the world. We can't change God's will, but we promise not to brag about it so often, which we know is unseemly.

If Hughes will take these steps toward truth and reconciliation, there is every reason to believe the world will forgive the belligerence, disrespect and hypocrisy we're shown them. Good luck Karen!

-- David Lytel, Washington, DC March 14, 2005

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