The Horror

“The horror. The horror.” Those, of course, were the dying words of Col. Walter E. Kurtz (masterfully portrayed by Marlon Brando) at the end of Francis Ford Coppola’s magnum opus Apocalypse Now, a film that graphically portrayed the madness and futility of a war that has gone horribly wrong in a world where it has become increasingly difficult to tell good from evil. How fitting that, as the saying goes, life often imitates art because we have arrived at the fictional Heart of Darkness and it looks pretty surreal from where I stand. Coppola’s film was never meant to be just another war movie. The Vietnam conflict was still painfully fresh in the minds of a nation that was desperately trying to come to grips with itself in the war’s tumultuous aftermath. In 1979, when the movie was released, America didn’t need to be reminded that something had gone horribly wrong in Vietnam and we, as a nation had lost a little bit of ourselves in the rice paddies of Southeast Asia. Coppola, in a frank and shocking cinematic masterstroke, reminded us anyway. Now, all these years later, I can’t help but see a little bit of Col. Kurtz in the men who are trying to win a war based solely on hatred and a devastating disregard for those who have chosen to serve them. As George Bush and his inner circle have become more and more isolated their actions have become disjointed and, increasingly, unreasonable. Like Kurtz and his private army waging their private war Bush has begun to see the world in an strangely hostile and somewhat insane manner. It’s as if he’s seeing something that only he can see and somehow he believes that history will forgive him. His decisions, especially over the last several weeks, make absolutely no sense either politically or strategically. He has become a liability to his own party and his approval ratings have reached all time lows. Still he insists that he has the support of the American people. He insists that he has the support of his generals and he insists that he is above the law. Executive privilege has it’s boundaries. Now, as a contempt of Congress charge hangs over his head for his failure to allow subpoenaed witnesses to appear before congressional hearings, we have to acknowledge that all of his recent decisions and the decisions of his cabinet stem from his failure to see the catastrophic consequences of his war in Iraq. As we approach the four thousandth casualty in this mess Bush, like Kurtz, has become delusional. The goals he set for a September deadline for the Iraqi’s to achieve in order to justify his surge in troop strength are rapidly approaching and the Iraqis have yet to achieve a single one of them. Bush, in typical fashion has decided to simply change the rules and set new goals. As he quivers towards yet another failure even members of his own cabinet seem to be growing strangely quiet. At the beginning of Apocalypse Now we are taken to the end, literally. The song “The End” by The Doors is playing when Martin Sheen wakes up in a Saigon hotel wishing only to be out in the bush on another mission. The same thing happened to us six years ago as we watched those planes slam into and destroy what was left of our innocence. We wanted to taste blood and we got our chance through the actions of a delusional madman. We put our own version of Kurtz in charge of carrying out our mighty, god-given vengeance. We created George W. Bush. We gave him the power to wield the figurative swords we all wanted to carry ourselves. Now we must somehow face the consequences of our creation. The blood we wanted has suddenly become all to real for us to stomach. But, because we gave him the power, Bush/Kurtz will carry on until somebody puts a stop to this horror. The Horror. The End.