Bush Ideology

Bush ideology, is Bush's belief in himself; he believes that the Iraq war was his genius, not his disaster, although it "hurts;" it's painful for him to see fellow citizens killed or injured, he claims, a rather incongruous smile pasted on his face as he relates this to the interviewer.

Various psychological analyses of him (made from a distance--he'd never let a shrink near him, I'm sure) point to his relationship to his father as key. However, what they describe is a man subject to a massive inferiority complex vis a vis his father (HW) who was good at everything he did, while W was a screw-up in school, an alcoholic who had to be bailed out of his disastrous business deals, and who had to prove himself better than his father, especially after he was "saved."

Either Bush is a good actor, or he believes in himself; perhaps both; he has had to persuade himself that he, perhaps he alone, is right. According to the Bush ideology, Iraq is the opening salvo of a world-wide conflict between good and evil, or western civilization and "radical Islam." Bush asserts that the US will still be fighting this struggle when "your grandchildren are grown up."

To me, what W exhibits is the Bush ideology untroubled by reality; it is a belief system, but it is also a way of thinking. He does not examine all sides to an issue before deciding; he is "the decider," but he makes up his mind with alarmingly little information, unlike his father; his decisions fit the Bush ideology. Within that set of beliefs, he is also certain that he has the right, as President, to decide for the whole world.

Bush says "we lead," even if the rest of the world doesn't follow. It isn't following, apparently, since only the US still has significant forces in Iraq, and in Afghanistan NATO forces are refusing to add the military support the US says is needed to fight al Qaeda and the Taliban.

The Roman Emperors had something similar to the Bush ideology; they believed in their God-given position, their divine right as "God's Vice-Regent on Earth." After all, they ruled the world, too, or thought they did. Yet, even when the Empire reached its greatest extent, it only controlled the Mediterranean, Balkan and western European regions up to Britain, what Romans called "the known world." Actually they knew more about the rest of the world than they admitted; they knew more about the Persians than they wished; they couldn't conquer them--and they traded further afield--with barbarians to the north and northeast, with India to the east, known since Alexander the Great; they even traded with Africans to the south, but in the Roman world-view none of these counted. Roman Emperors "ruled the world" in their view, just as in the Bush ideology he rules ours.

In fact, in the fourth and fifth centuries, Roman control was progressively lost: over Dacia, other parts of the Balkans, Britain, parts of Gaul, then Spain, then North Africa, and finally even parts of Italy, yet the Emperor still claimed to be God's Vice-Regent on Earth, right until the end.

Ideology can blind people to reality for long periods of time. The Bush ideology leads him to believe in himself despite his disastrous war and its results: even his intelligence services admit there is now greater support for radical Islam all over the Muslim world, and even among immigrants in Europe. But Bush ideology demands that we "fight them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here."

To mention reality for a moment, far from defending us from "the terrorist threat," Bush creates more terrorists every time his "pro-active" defense policy results in the US blowing up another farmhouse with women and children, every time another driver is shot by Americans just for driving through the wrong part of Baghdad at the wrong time, every time American soldiers detain and use what Bush insists is "not torture" on another innocent bystander who couldn't explain why he was where he was, because he couldn’t speak English.

Bush sincerely believes in the Bush ideology, just as the Roman Emperors believed in theirs, that they must lead the world, even if the rest of the world doesn't follow, even if their nation (or empire) is impoverished or bankrupted in the process.

In the late Roman Empire the church became the focus not only of religious belief, but of what both Emperors and people believed was their best defense: their God: it was all-embracing, like the Bush ideology. Martyrs' and saints bones and a pontiff's crook were believed to be the most powerful defense against Attila: hence the story of the Pope turning him away in northern Italy. In fact, Attila turned away from besieging Rome because his armies had invaded before the harvest, when food was scarce; it was during Italy's season of disease; they were routed by famine and plague. Later invaders didn't make that mistake; they did not invade in the summer, before the harvests, when plague was rife, and neither Emperors, nor Popes, nor armies could stop them. The church did convert them, however. But by that time there were no Emperors in the west, only warlords, ruling as kings--by Divine Right, of course.

So, because Bush believes in this "historic struggle" of civilizations, will the rest of the world follow as he pursues "the enemy?"

Perhaps the next President will see reality a bit more clearly, not blinded by the Bush ideology. It's a development devoutly to be wished.