CAMBODIAN HEAT, TROTSKY, AND THE 'GREATNESS' OF BUSH

Someone pointed out to me the other day that it hadn't rained in awhile.

I hadn't noticed it.

That's the thing about Cambodia. After awhile, you just stop paying attention to the weather. You wake up in the morning, roll out of bed, and guess what?

It's gonna be hot.

Really hot.

That's all you need to know.

Even when it rains, it's still hot. And it had been raining a lot, because it's rainy season, which is one of the two seasons in Cambodia, the other being, um, dry season, and when it rains in rainy season it freakin' rains, bro, full on, usually for an hour in the late afternoon. I think each season is supposed to last about six months, and maybe rainy season is drawing its last breaths, because raindrops do not keep fallin' on my head anymore.

(The only exception about the weather here is when it's realllllly hot, because then you do notice it. One of my all time favorite quotes is from a book about Russia called Lenin's Tomb, by David Reminck. He quotes somebody telling a story about a fellow in Moscow who had the reputation of being " 'a real drunk'. I cannot tell you how difficult it is to be labelled 'a drunk' in Russia." Meaning, when everybody drinks like a fish, who's a drunk and who isn't? Same in Cambodia -- when it's always hot, how do you know when it's, like, reallly hot?

My only answer is: Trust me. You know...)

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Speaking of Russia, I'm reading this book right now about the October Revolution of 1915?16 when the masses of Russia protested and led to the dismantling of the Tzar. Written by Trotsky, this book was, who was there. What a card, that Trotsky.

And I was reading this part today about how it was basically the people, the underclass, who convinced the soldiers to turn on their own government. The soldiers had more loyalty to the downtrodden then they did the elite Tzar who ruled on high, all knowing, omnipotent -- or so he thought.


I'm trying to mesh this with the 'great man' theory of history, which basically means (I think) that historical forces are shaped by a few key leaders, individuals, rather than shapeless, ambig-
uous tides of time and events that have no beginning and no end. (Certainly Lenin and Stalin would qualify as 'great mean', 'great' meaning significant.) But what about that mob of people back in 1915? Didn't they help bring down the Tzar and give rise to the Bolshevik revolution? They were just a motley collection of ordinary folks who had had enough.


And where does Bush fit in with all of this?

I recently read Bob Woodward's book on the build-up to Bush's war, Plan of Attack. (Yes, I like alliteration.) I say 'Bush's war' because it's clear from the book that this was Bush's baby from the get-go.

My theory (not original, but here it goes) is this:

Bush, born-again Christian that he is, believes that America has been blessed by God with the means and the will to liberate those around the world who are in suffering. The people in Iraq are better off without Saddam Hussein, and I think Bush sees the new democracy that may or may not arise in Iraq as being the first step in his plan to eventually bring democracy to all of the Middle East, however long that might take. I think he would have done this whether September 11th had happened or not. I think he wants to use his presidency to implement, as much as possible, freedom around the globe.

Which is not a bad thing, necessarily. God knows, if somebody had come in and got rid of Pol Pot at the beginning of his reign of terror, Cambodia would have been saved generations of grief, despair, underdevelopment and sheer chaos. Invading another nation is not always taboo, I think, not when millions of lives can be saved, but it better be justified, and it better be planned.

The question is, as Kerry says: What was the post-plan of attack, and that's where I think Bush messed up, big time. Meaning, the preparation was too fast and too flimsy. I don't think Bush and his cronies have any true understanding of the Middle East, its history or its culture, and if you're going to go in there and rearrange the very nature of the whole geo-political sit -
uation, you better have done your homework. And I don't think Bush did. And thousands are dying because of it. And the blood is on his hands, and his alone.

So I think, in fact, that Bush will be seen as a 'great man' of history -- great meaning signifi-cant, great meaning historically crucial -- not, you know, great, as in tubular, dude or gnarly. The former owner of the Texas Rangers baseball team has changed the course of the middle east and the world in ways that Al Gore, for example, most certainly would not have done, and he's done this for motives, well, that have yet to be fully comprehended. (I don't know, deep down in his conservative Christian heart, if he really knows, for sure, what those motives are, either.) There was no mass of people demanding that Hussein be toppled. There was no political pressure to do so. This was -- with the prodding of a handful of eager neo-con colleagues -- one man's choice. And I think history will acknowledge that.

Bush has shaken the dice and let them roll, and we won't know for another thirty, forty years if he lands on lucky seven or bottoms out.

Although, if I were a betting man, I wouldn't count on that seven turning up...