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How many countries is Bush going to collect?

2004.03.01 — Government | George W Bush | War | Satire | by Derek Jensen

George W Bush

President of the United States, Iraq, & Afghanistan... and now Haiti.

The story being peddled today by Representative Charlie Rangel (D-NY) is that Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced out of Haiti by American Marines and the US embassy chief of staff. Colin Powell tried to quickly quash the rumors. But even if it isn't true, it's clear that agents of the US government are going to be making the important decisions in Haiti for a while to come.

So... how many countries is George W Bush going to collect before he's satisfied? It seems clear that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld have an almost insatiable appetite for nation building, despite Bush's campaign claims. So it appears that the only thing that might limit Bush's collecting of nations is the number of competent generals he has to run them.

Bush currently exercises ruling authority over Afghanistan, Iraq, and the United States, so Haiti will make four. The US is wrapped up, of course—Attorney-General John Ashcroft and Tom Ridge are running that show. Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez and L Paul Bremer are the ringmasters in Iraq's ongoing circus. And Lieutenant-General David Barno is helping Afghan "President" Hamid Karzai put the pieces of his country back together. Who will run Haiti and other new acquisitions for Bush?

Nobody would put a Navy or Air Force man in charge of a nation (you need a land lubber for this kind of work)...

The US has a total of 121 lieutentant-generals and their Navy equivalent vice-admirals. Nobody would put a Navy or Air Force man in charge of a nation (you need a land lubber for this kind of work), so that only leaves about 40 Army and Marine L-Gs (AKA three-star generals). There's no telling how many of those people are capable of rebuilding a nation, given that they spend their careers training to destroy them, but it can't more than about 10, two of which are currently occupied with an occupation and one more of which is surely soon to be sent to take charge of Haiti.

Couple the seven remaining 3-star generals with civilian administrators and you have total of eleven possible nation-building teams. Based on Bush's foreign policy, I would think that the final roster will be these (in order of acquisition):

  1. The United States
  2. Afghanistan
  3. Iraq
  4. Haiti
  5. Iran ("axis of evil" member, earthquake sufferer)
  6. North Korea ("axis of evil" member, serious threat to peace)
  7. Cuba (last bastion of cold war enemies)
  8. Libya (general nuisance)
  9. Syria (serious threat to peace)
  10. Lebanon (just because it would be easy)
  11. Pakistan (serious threat to peace)

If those go well enough and Bush still has some troops (he may have to start conscripting, of course, but better men than he have done so), he could push into Central America and put those countries in the hands of less competent commanders (they couldn't do worse than what they have). By then they'll have had some opportunity to go to Sanchez and Barno's lessons-learned seminar on running an occupied nation, so it might work out pretty well.

 

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