Cowboy Diplomacy Inflames Others
And Greatly Lowers American Values

By Michael Bradley

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that our currently most famous Texan, our selected Pres. George Bush, wants to employ a pop culture version of the ‘Code of the West’ to national and international politics, but we definitely should be appalled.

At the height of our global power as a nation, our honor, reputation and prestige is being trampled by a president who is clearly unable to differentiate between true American history and the hyper-exaggerated tales of old dime novels or western movies.

Instead of statesmanship, we have a crude cowboy diplomacy, where Mr. Bush says "bring ‘em on" in reference to our enemies, and proudly displays the bodies of Saddam Hussein’s sons, Uday and Qusay.

Ironically, the way the Husseins’ died is similar to the inglorious ways that frontier lawmen ended the careers of many outlaws; that is, by outnumbering, outgunning and surrounding them, and then riddling them without mercy. Often the bodies were then brought back to the nearest town and affixed to boards so they could be leaned against a wall or sidewalk for all to view.

There were few if any fair fights or showdowns in the Old West, and justice was often only a figure of speech.

Isn’t this all too familiar? The half-baked, vengeful and self-righteous ‘law’ of the frontier only existed for a short time, and not surprisingly that period followed the Civil War – roughly from 1865 to the 1890's  – and even then, actual shoot-outs were rare, but they were vastly blown out of proportion by the exaggerated tales written by the so-called dime novelists, who sold their bloviated texts to publishers back East. Those publishers, in turn, cheaply printed the largely fictional stories and sold them for a dime, which, of course, became the name for the genre. Thus were legends made of vicious morons like William Bonney, a.k.a., Billy the Kid. But Bonney’s end was properly ignominious. Sheriff Pat Garrett slipped into a room where the killer was sleeping, and when Bonney got up he shot him. In historical truth, there was no glory in his death or his life.

DOOLIN GANG members Bitter Creek Newcomb (left) and Charlie Pierce were surrounded in a farmhouse near Guthrie, Oklahoma Territory, in 1895, after they got separated from the rest of their gang following a train robbery. Deputy U.S. marshals, alerted by telegraph, surrounded the farm. "In moments, according to the Guthrie Daily Leader, Pierce ‘was transformed into a lead mine,’ with bullets ‘planted in his arms, legs and even the soles of his feet.’ Newcomb was also riddled." After they were killed, the two outlaws were brought to the nearest town and put on display, as shown above. (See Time-Life Books, The Old West Series, this excerpt taken from The Gunfighters).

Yet instead of everyone breathing a sigh of relief that a conscienceless killer was removed from the world, and then forgetting him as an unfortunate footnote to human history and development, he has been immortalized repeatedly by publishers and moviemakers, as have other human monsters of every stripe.

Now we are treated to the ultimate irony. Our selected cowboy president has turned Uday and Qusay Hussein into something they could never have hoped to be in their lifetimes; he has literally strapped them to gurney’s and paraded them before the world in such a crude, frontier fashion that already they are becoming the heroic stuff of legends in the Arab world.

How much better would it have been for U.S. interests if, instead of indulging in crude gloating, Mr. Bush and his administration had acted with the sophistication of the 21^st Century world, instead of living within a tiny and distorted fragment of 19^th Century American history? Imagine the difference.

Instead of doing autopsies and reconstructing the faces of the deceased, the U.S. could have invited and allowed representatives of every Muslim sect or tribe, including moderate clerics, to both view the bodies and prepare them for burial in accordance with Islamic tradition and funeral rites. Photos taken after the gun battle could be combined with photos or videos taken during the washing and preparing of the bodies. Instead of displaying crudely stitched up bodies and waxen faces, this approach would have provided realism that could not in any manner be called Western trickery. No matter what transpired after such invitations, the U.S. would have gained considerable respect, no matter how grudgingly given.

And, while that was taking place, how much better would it have been if the Bush Administration had spoken to the country and the world in muted terms, indicating that while it was necessary to accept the challenge of a fight to the end, America wishes it had turned out differently, with the surrender of the brothers. Further, Pres. Bush could have acknowledged that there is always an element of human tragedy in such events, such as the death of Qusay’s teenage son, Mustafa, and that above all Americans will not glory in the deaths of their enemies, no matter how heinous they were in life.

Imagine the difference such a sophisticated approach would have made in world opinion, to say nothing of the impression that would be made on the Arabs.

Unfortunately, of course, Mr. Bush has shown the world another face of America; that of Sheriff Garrett of dime novel fame.