(Alternate?) Bush Reality
I'm not usually one for conspiracy theories, but I've been watching this one brew for almost a year and a half, and it's time to put pen to paper and get it down so that when it comes to pass (as keeps continuing to do) I can say "see, I'm not crazy" and have proof.
Well, maybe not proof, but at least other people will have shared my crazy notions with me.
What follows is, as far as I know, an entirely fictional work based upon current events and the possible actions which led up to them. Let's hope I'm wrong and it stays that way.
July 25, 2003XXXXXXXXXX Golf Course, XXXXXXX, FL
"So, you're telling me..." The President begins, as he lines up his shot. He's deep in the rough of the 3rd hole. "What you're saying to me is that..." SssshWHACK! The President hacks down a chunk of grass and sends his ball popping back up onto the fairway. "Is that there's absolutely no way out." The President hands his club to his man, taking a towel. He looks towards the high sun, and wipes his sweat covered brow. "I tell ya, I don't know how Jeb does it. Too damn humid for me... 4 Iron" He says, taking the club as it is offered by his assistant and walking towards his ball, away from a very severe looking Donald Rumsfeld.
"What I'm saying, Mr. President, is that we have a problem"
"Well no shit we have a problem - that's what this whole mess is about." The President says, stopping his game for a moment and leaning his weight on the top of his 4 iron. He looks Rumsfeld straight in the eye. "Let's go through this again, piece by piece. We've got to be missing something."
Rumsfeld cringes, squinting in the sun. It's clear that he doesn't feel that he's missing anything, and the heat is beginning to make him sweat in his wool jacket.
"Listen, Don, I don't have to remind you that I stood on a goddamn aircraft carrier over 3 months ago with a sock down my pants and a gigantic 'mission complete' banner behind me. In three months, it's going to be an election year - I want this Iraqi 'problem'" He pauses as he rips through a stroke with is 4 iron. The ball slices and carries on the wind past the green and into one of the many sand traps. The president mutters something under his breath, and turns back to Rumsfeld. "I want this problem fixed."
"It's not that easy, Mr. President"
"Okay - let's do the list."
"I assure you, Mr. President, the traditional options have"
"I don't care if the traditional options have been talked to death by your think-tanks and war squads." The President says, cutting him off. "For my edufication, we're going to go through them, one by one, right now. Starting with, how about just getting the fuck out of there?" The President says, traipsing off towards the trap behind the green, leaving his man and Rumsfeld to follow with clubs in tow. Rumsfeld follows right with him, a step behind. He's sweating openly now, but remains reserved.
"We're tactically and diplomatically committed, and there's National Security Implications"
"Talk to me in English, Donald, you're pushing my buttons today"
The Defense Secretary breaths out, closes his eyes and sets his jaw. "OK. First, pulling out now is going to piss entire continents off. Second, if we pull out now, we're going to have to take every last man with us, because whoever gets left behind is as good as dead once the riots start. Finally, pulling out now would just create another Hussein, but this time one with a clean history, and oil empire for the taking, and a lot of very angry Iraqis behind him."
"That's better. Okay, so pulling out is out. Option two. I swallow my pride, and we send more troops and finish the job right"
"We don't have any more troops to send, unless you want to initiate a dra"
"Finish that word and I'll have them cut your tongue out" The President says, his eyes suddenly cold as ice. "I don't care if we're talking on a triple encrypted private line, you do not, under any circumstance, say that word in conjunction with this war. This is an official order. You do not say the D word until November 3th, 2004, got it? Add incentives for re-upping, extend terms, whatever. Just don't get civilians panties in a bunch yet, or I'll lose his election, and we'll lose this war."
Rumsfeld nods, continuing. "There's another problem with sending more troops. We don't know who we're fighting"
"They're disguised as civilians?"
"No sir. They are civilians."
The President freezes in his tracks, two feet from the sand trap. "Say that last part again" He says slowly, turning to Rumsfeld
"We're calling them insurgents sir. Angry civilians with guns."
The depth of the situation sinking in, The President is suddenly somber and very quiet. He looks to the horizon, and after a while, his eyes close. He looks as if he's in some sort of prayer. After almost two minutes, he speaks.
"Okay. Donald, I've got a job for you... By this time next year, I want our forces replaced with UN troops."
Rumsfeld smiles. Clearly, The President is joking. Rumsfeld began to chuckle quietly a bit. The rumors were true, GW did actually have a pretty sharp sense of humor.
"No joke, Don. You're going to do it." Bush says, deadly serious, taking the proffered sand wedge from his man and climbing down into the sand trap.
"You realize you're asking the impossible" a quickly sobered Rumsfeld calls to the president, standing now in the middle of the sand trap.
"Pifff...." A great geyser of sand shoots up from within the trap between the two men. "Dammit"
"I realize that I'm asking something you haven't thought about yet. Mull it over. What could possibly make the UN take over our job"
"Thats just it" Rumsfeld says, slightly aghast at The Presidents candor. "This is our job. We had virtually zero UN support going into this war. Nine-eleven sympathy was gone, everyone knew we were over-emphasizing the WMD claims, and we've got way too much wrapped up in this. The French are calling this the "Oil War," and that's probably the most flattering name for our endeavor in the world community. No one is going to step up to the plate here."
"pifffwak!" Sand, and a perfectly wedged golf ball, are tossed up onto the green. The ball rolls dangerously close to the hole, but does not fall in.
"Nice shot sir" The President's man says, taking the wedge, and handing him his putter. The President is clearly happy with himself.
"So make them want to." The President says, glancing at Rumsfeld while he taps his shot in.
Rumsfeld is thinking madly now, racking his brain for a way to stir the UN to action, to get them to step in to the conflict.
"The only way we're going to get them involved is by making them want us out of there more than they don't want to be in it themselves. We're going to have to be the bad guy" Rumsfeld says, looking The President in the eye.
"Do it. I don't want to know what you're doing, just do it."
"During the election year... It's going to be quite a gamble"
"The UN gets to step in and be the good guy, we'll pull out without a fight, and well look humble and chastened."
"There's a lot of details"
The President has resumed his pondering of the horizon, looking out as if reading some messages written across the sky. "Donald. It's in God's hands. I trust god," The President says, walking easily over to the Secretary, "and I trust you. You'll make it work."
April 02, 2004The White House
"Okay - we've got a lot to talk about" Andrew Card stood in at the end of the table as the small group filed in. President Bush was just arriving, being handed a briefing in a red folder and his morning coffee. The agenda's pretty full, but I think it's clear we need to start with Iraq. "Donald, would you mind?"
The Secretary stood, looking considerably older than he did on the Golf Course six months ago. The bags around his eyes were growing, and he took a while to extract himself from the leather chair where he had been waiting for the meeting to start for the better part of an hour while they gathered The President.
"I don't think I need to tell any of you where we stand" He began. His tone was somber, almost desolate. Those assembled, Andrew Card, Collin Powell, The President, Condoleezza rice, and a few Generals he forgot the names of, seemed unfazed by his opening.
"We've found ourselves in the middle of a war we can't win short of nuking the whole country, and we can't lose in the traditional sense. In short, we're stuck. This is a point we've covered ad nauseum with no resolution for nearly 6 months, and with the election looming, we need to choose a course of action, and stick to it. At risk is our very security. If some left-wing cabinet comes in here come December and pulls us straight out of Iraq, it could topple the entire balance of power in the Oil-bearing region causing chaos that makes nine-eleven look pale."
"We need a calm, measured exit strategy that gets us out, yet keeps a police force in place while transitioning to democracy." Rumsfeld continued. "In front of each of you, you will find a red briefing. I also don't need to tell you that what you are about to see and read is of the utmost confidentiality.
Each of the attendees opened their binders, looking through first some pages of text ,and then flipped through some pages of photographs.
Condoleezza Rice closed hers first. "What the hell am I looking at? Am I seeing the same binder as everyone else?"
Card looked up next - "I've got it too. Donald, what the hell have you done"
"All I've done is given us a choice. In those binders lies enough emotional firepower to get the world community to want us out of Iraq. We need them to want it bad enough that they're willing to put some troops on the line for the transition while we back out. In the meantime, we need to scare the Iraqi's, put the fear of god into them. Nothing in these pictures is gruesome. Cruel? Yes, but as far as torture goes, this is very light fare."
"Light fare torture. I'm not liking this yet, Donald" Card said, looking peaked.
"We can go on as we have, killing each other, or we can say "oops, we've made a mistake" and put our tail between our legs, leaving at their request. We're not walking out on them, we're giving in to their demands. It lets the new democracy feel like they've got power."
"It's brilliant" One of the two generals in attendance said. "Ruthless, but brilliant."
"I can't abide by it" The President said.
Rumsfield looked towards him, seemly calm, but given away by the flush coming to his pinched face and the vein at his temple throbbing."What do you mean?"
"It's too much - too dirty" The president continued "Who's this woman?" The President said, gesturing to a picture of a short haired American soldier pointing to a naked Iraqi prisoners privates and giving the thumbs up.
"Shes a climber" the general said, speaking up again. "That's what's brilliant. She's the perfect collateral damage. Everyone in my ranks knows her type - the female Napoleon. I bet you 10 to 1 her troops can't stand her and she's stuck mid-rank because she's a power hoarder. This is a woman that nobody likes."
"Okay - so what you're telling me is that we doctored these pictures?" Rice said, taking her turn to be incredulous.
"Oh no. These are quite real." Rumsfeld continued. "Have you ever heard of the Stanford Prison Experiment?"
"Philip Zimbardo locks 9 kids in cells, makes 9 more guards, and watches what they do. By the end of the sixth night, they had to stop the experiment. Come to think of it, it looked an awful lot like this." Card chimed in, looking back through the photos. "It's part of standard psychology and ethics classes now."
"You put people in power, and then let them do with that what they will, and you'll get what you see in the pictures before you. We didn't doctor, didn't encourage, didn't even suggest anything like what you're seeing. We simply turned a blind eye."
"Who knows about this?" President Bush asked
"A small chain of command leading here. We've had a media cap on these facilities from day one, so there's been no coverage."
"Where did these pictures come from?" Rice asked
"That's the thing. We honestly have no idea" The second general now spoke up.
"Obviously a lot of rules have been broken at these facilities." Rumsfeld said. "Somewhere along the line, someone got a camera in."
"Do we have the negatives?" The President asked "I want this air tight!"
"Mr President. These came to us in an anonymous whistle blower email from a dot-gov domain. They're digital" Card said, flipping through the remainder of the memo.
Silence filled the room for a moment, as 6 sets of anxious eyes waited for a decision from The President. Once again, he closed his eyes, seeming to become tranquil and collected.
"Okay. If the pictures are out, that's Gods will, and we'll move on from here. Don't keep the dog if you can't tame him. How long do we have?"
"12 hours till they hit mass media, and another 3 or 4 until they go to print. Online is another matter." Card said, looking to Rumsfeld.
"They haven't been released at all yet." Rumsfeld said. "We've got a few days. Our informant is working with us, doesn't want to take the whole operation down. He's a good man, really. We've got some time to spin this right, get the blame on the individual officers, highlight on or two 'bad' people. I think the general hit the nail on the head with our female Napoleon. Let's drop her pictures first"
"Do it." The President said. "And if that's all we have to say about that, I consider the issue closed for today. What else is on the plate?"
"We've got new climate data coming in..."
