That’s what we have, isn’t it. Addicts to power who can never get enough. Calling them chicken-hawks hardly seems fair to the birds. Besides, my father-in-law was nick-named “chicken” and it was because he was a feisty little cuss.


Bush and his side-kick Cheney are trying to stick it to Iran, despite the general consensus that Iraq is a total flop. And lots of Democrats are worried sick that Bush Two, who seems to think that diplomacy means making threats and war is launching an attack, is going to do the latter before his term is out. But, of course, as usual, neither Bush Two nor Cheney are going to do anything. At most, they’ll send someone else. Because they’re cowards.

It takes courage not only to sit down face to face with someone who’s decided you’re a shmuck and make an effort to prove that you’re a reasonable person, who understands that compromise isn’t the same as giving up, but to accept that one might have made a mistake.

But, that’s what they’re really afraid of–the mere possibility that they might be wrong. Not that they made a mistake, but that they might.
It’s the fear that they might make a mistake that has them insisting on success in the face of failure and ending up in a state of total denial.

Of course, so far, the failure is not complete. Since the original goal was to establish a substantial military presence on the ground in the Middle East for the U.S. Air Force, espionage facilities and missile defense, and the bases are, in fact, in place and, not yet, under attack from Russia, China or Iran, they could claim success, if the original plan could be admitted. It can’t because to do so would force Russia and China to make it quite clear that these installations won’t be tolerated in Iraq any more than they were in Viet Nam.
(There’s little doubt in my mind that’s the message Russia is sending by putting its bombers back on patrol).

I think it’s really hard for people, who think of failure as an opportunity to learn and develop and get better, to understand the fear of failure or where it even comes from. I suspect that, like other prejudices (opinions formed absent any experience), the fear of failure has to be taught, either by punishing the simplest mistake (a conservative pattern) or by withholding any direction and letting the inevitable mistakes teach the lesson that independent action is dangerous (the liberal track).

Perhaps the fear of failure and an addiction to power are connected. Perhaps the need to exercise control over other people is nothing more than an effort to compensate for a sense of inferiority and incompetence growing out of being deprived of the opportunity to make and learn from one’s mistakes. Because, of course, self-confidence is achieved by facing and over-coming failure, not running away from it.

Which suggests that Bush Two’s obsession with “cut and run” is rather revealing–another example of him ascribing his own attitudes and fears to others. It also explains his fascination with other people’s disasters, in comparison with which he’s a success–his reactions a combination of “there but for the grace of God, go I” and Schadenfreude. The latter, perhaps, accounting for his smirk.

It’s my sense that, even if Bush/Cheney were to order an attack on Iran, the Air Force, which would have to carry it out, would refuse, knowing full well that the 1100 missiles Iran claims to have aren’t targeted at the United States, but at the air bases in Iraq, where our regular forces, even if the missile interceptors and Patriot missiles have been set up, are, to put it simply, so many sitting ducks.