0557 - TopDown

In Washington, though not in The Valley (the Anguillian capital), it is a time of angry reports. The Senate Intelligence Committee, bless 'em, has come out with its “scathing” and bipartisan report on the U.S. Intelligence about Iraq, and the 9/11 Commission, also bipartisan, is about to emerge this week with another set of nasty comments on Federal bureaucratic mistakes. This is an auspicious time for our current message. To start our topic, we have to give some weighty advice to the young who are set to embark on their careers. Our advice is, get a job in a bureaucracy, large or small, International or National, big or little Government, Corporate or do-good. Any bureaucracy will do, and will give you an opportunity for a lifetime to avoid any accountability for your mistakes. No other jobs are so plated with protection, so safe for the incompetent.

Let us select an example of continuous and disastrous and plainly failed U.S. policy that has been with the U.S. since the late President Kennedy. We speak of the Cuba isolation policy, recently reinforced by the Bush Administration (no stranger, as you know, to incompetence) so as to prevent frequent family visits by expatriated Cubans. This attack on one sort of family values is clearly useless, as all U.S. policy towards Cuba has been since it was pronounced “Cuber”. Fidel Castro is still there, as a whole series of U.S. Presidents are not. The world trades with Cuba, as we do not, and no Cuban farmer's tainted fruit or vegetables reaches our stainless shores. So what? What is the use of this isolation for decades after decades?

Last week, President Bush (the present one) gave a speech in Florida, of all places, accusing Cuba of promoting sex visits. That's an example of the sex fears so popular in GOP doctrine, but it is ridiculous for a speech in Florida, where, we kid you not, there is a certain amount of sexual activity: just look at Florida's TV advertising. Yet, for scores of years, no single bureaucrat in the State Department has ever been dismissed for advocating or operating a completely useless policy.

Our song is not partisan. The FBI, for one, has proved incompetent or wrong in many administrations. When that brave and competent female FBI agent warned of terrorists training to fly but not land planes, and her cries were ignored, what has her reward been? Has she been promoted and sent to headquarters to replace a career bumbler? You know she has not. Do you think that honest and brave General Taguba who investigated the Abu Ghraib prison scandals and publicly contradicted the weasel-y Pentagon high bureaucrat – do you think he has a future in the Army? Think again. The way of the whistleblower is lonely, but the path of the supporter of what has been done and has failed is lined with promotions and a fat pension.

The recent head of the CIA has retired under heavy fire, but his deputy was visible this week chatting with the omnipresent Wolf, saying the totally false Iraq WMD “Intelligence” was not so bad, and after all sometimes we do a good job. It was a pitiful performance. We'll say this for Saddam: he was a terrible fellow, all right, but when somebody screwed up, the culprit was taken out and shot, without interviews on TV. The cruel mess in Abu Ghraib will harm America for generations, but so far we don't see anybody above the grade of Private getting any serious heat. And don't hold your breath waiting for the Pentagon to do anything, either. It don't work that way.

Next time: Repetition [OO #558]

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