Gunga Putsch

George fails to note difference between admiring looks and amused glances

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson
3/5/06
http://www.mytown.ca/zepp

“I explained [to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf] that Pakistan and India were two different countries, with different needs and different histories, so we will address the issue differently.”

Thanks, George, for making that clear. I’m betting that Musharraf needed a reminder that Pakistan and India were two different countries. I’m sure it just slipped his mind. Incidently, Iceland and Tahiti are two different countries, as well. You might want to jot that factoid down, in the event that you are addressing some staunch party loyalists and want to dazzle them with your brilliance. Trust me, it’ll work.

He also declared India and Pakistan to be “strategic partners.” Much the way the US and the USSR were strategic partners during the cold war, one supposes. This is a new, Putschean definition of strategic partnership, in which each side occasionally threatens the other with nuclear weapons, and in which the two sides have fought three significant wars in the past 60 years and have an on-going border dispute that has become the world’s longest slow-motion battle.

The real idiocy in George’s trip to the subcontinent was that he gave nuclear technology to India and unilaterally exempted the country from international inspections. The idea behind this is that America is hoping that India will abuse the technology and become a significant deterrent to China, but in doing this, Putsch betrayed one of the few allies he has left, Pakistan. Granted, Pakistan, home to Osama bin Laden and much of the al Qaida leadership, isn’t much of an ally, but when you are reduced to just them and a god-struck cringing Tony Blair, it might be a good idea to throw them a bone.

Granted, Putsch, as befits the president of the United States, had to sneak into and out of Pakistan and India at night, with the cabin lights in Air Force One blacked out, and most commercial air traffic in the two countries afflicted by the presidential visit grounded. Only a small minority of people in either country would much mind if Air Force One got shot down, but the paperwork would be incredible. Not to mention the prospect of duck hunting with President Cheney.

The Indians were ecstatic. Hitler, hearing about the Munich conference, could hardly have been more pleased, and for pretty much the same reason: the major power brokering country had just inexplicably sold out a bitter rival and unaccountably given them more than they dared hope for. "I think we have managed to get a rather good deal," said one Indian official who was probably wondering if he should ask George for Czechoslovakia while he was at it.

The notion of an unbalanced nuclear race on the subcontinent is a disturbing one. China has little or no interest in attacking India – the place is huge and has an immense and highly varied population that would be considerably harder to control than, say, Iraq or Afghanistan. China might have an interest in economic domination, but military conflict beyond border disputes is unlikely.

So all Putsch did was annoy the Chinese to no benefit, while antagonizing the Pakistanis. And gave away far too much to India, which is not exactly in the American sphere of influence. Among others who enjoy favored-nation status with the Indians are three of Putsch’s favorite rogue states – Myanmar, Cuba and Syria. (Granted, Pakistan is cozy with North Korea and Libya, which goes to show that Putsch’s buddies all have America’s best interests at heart).

Despite the efforts of America’s whore media to present the negotiations as a diplomatic triumph, Putsch will catch a lot of flak at home, since India has become sort of the poster child for all that is wrong with globalization. It’s pretty unlikely that Congress or the American public will be happy with his efforts.

So why did Putsch’s handlers do this? (Putsch had nothing to do with it – he was there to make happy babble about the United States enjoying a mango).

Well, they figure to contain China, which this arrangement will not do. They figure to make kissy face with India, which will get the US a few happy looks from the Indians who will continue to follow their own interests. (India was notoriously non-aligned during the cold war, and isn’t likely to take sides with distant, alien America as America tries to staunch the flow of economic and strategic power to Asia that globalization has brought about.

If you are wondering why the administration would do something that was so obviously futile and destructive to America’s own interests, remember that this is the same administration that managed to fail to stop a small band of terrorists from killing 3,000 Americans and doing half a trillion dollars in damage, failed to help a US city that got destroyed, got the US into a hopeless quagmire in Iraq, and managed to destroy health care for seniors while exploding the national debt.

And the motivation is the same that has led to all those other catastrophes: they put politics ahead of policy.

The White House clearly needed something positive to offset the unending series of calamities at home. And so it was reasoned that doing something dramatic for globalist interests would please the globalists, who own much of America’s once-proud media.

The only trouble is that Republicans always bow and scrape too much; at best, they give the intended beneficiaries so much that it works against them; other times they are simply so anxious to please their masters that they fail to think through the possible ramifications.

So the globalists looked at this sudden destabilization of what had been a fairly level balance of power between two nations that utterly hate one another, and the alienation of the one country that could perhaps prevent the entire middle east and sub continent from turning into a giant Iraq, and they are giving Putsch a lukewarm response. They didn’t even bother to cover up his verbal gaffes and statements of sheer idiocy like they normally do.

So not only did Putsch hurt American interests on this trip, but he hurt corporate interests as well. And he’ll pay for that.

The media won’t proclaim him a hero on the level of Churchill or Lao-Tse the way they normally do whenever he visits a foreign country and fails to get assassinated.

And the administration will have found that the real purpose of the trip has failed. Pundits, bloggers and the nightly news will still be talking about the Dubai port deal, Iraq, Medicare, and the general decline of America.

And as a result, terrorists will suddenly find it much easier to cross the borders out of Pakistan and into Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, where they can bedevil the poor bastards Putsch has planted there to look tough on terror.