Collateral Damage

“I must say, I’m a little envious. If I were slightly younger and not employed here, I think it would be a fantastic experience to be on the front lines of helping this young democracy succeed… It must be exciting for you … in some ways romantic, in some ways, you know, confronting danger.” — The Clueless One during a video conference with civilian & military personnel who are facing real danger in Afghanistan. At no time did he say, “Dang, I knew I should have gone to Vietnam.”

clipped from www.boston.com “We are doing everything we can without jeopardizing the quality of the training to make it more efficient and compress it,” Colonel Joe Gallagher, chief of plans for the US Army Training and Doctrine Command, said in an interview earlier this month. “The whole intent is to get the soldier into the unit where he can be used faster. Time will tell if something is missing.”

This is spin talk for we are so short of warm bodies that we will do anything. Unfortunately the proof of whether something is missing is … horrible. This is far too reminiscent of what the military did in the late 60s/early 70s. And look how well that turned out.I take this a bit personally as these are the people who are going to be next to Staff Sgt. Big Brother Collateral Damage should he ever have to play another round in the George Bush Desert Classic.

Any senior officer who signed off on this should resign or face a court-martial.

And, by the way, congrats to Jenna Bush on her engagement. Since she’s not in the service. I assume her fiance is.

Remember: Army Strong is Army Dumb

Oklahoma, the state that was the site of the worst case of domestic terrorism in US history, has a new license plate commemorating the current offensive against a concept. I’m looking forward to the follow up: Tags that show support for the Global War On Extremism, Gen. Petraeus’s current cause celebre. How about one that says “My country invaded Iraq and all I got was this lousy recession”? There’s definitely a market for it. Recent polls show 2/3rds of the people in the US now expect a recession.

In an interview on NPR Gen. David Petraeus showed that logic is not a required course at the Army War college:

Q: A simple question that many in America are now wrestling with: Who is the enemy and what is the U.S. fighting for?

A: The enemy is extremism, we think, and it is extremism that comes in various forms.

I forget, is it the infantry or the artillery who are trained in extreme combat?

Isn’t moderation the best weapon against extremism? But if you do it too well you run the risk of being extremely moderate.

If the enemy is extremism does this mean we’re about to attack the X Games?

Maybe we could attack marketers who use the word extreme when ever they want to appear “hip” and “down” with the kids these days?

I look forward to the Armed Forces blowing up statues of Sen. Barry Goldwater who famously said that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice.

Isn’t going to war a very extreme act?

One definition of extremism is “any political theory favoring immoderate uncompromising policies.” Invade the vice president’s office immediately.

This reminds me of something George Bush the elder said during the first Iraq contretemps: “We are fighting to prove that might does not make right.”

The war on extremism makes the war on terror look good.

There is a new hazard at the George Bush Desert Classic

BASRA, Iraq (AFP) - The Iraqi port city of Basra, already prey to a nasty turf war between rival militia factions, has now been gripped by a new fear — a giant badger stalking the streets by night. Local farmers have caught and killed several of the beasts, but this has done nothing to dispel rumours of a bear-like monster that eats humans and was allegedly released into the area by British forces to spread panic.

Great now we face an additional threat from RUS.

Buttercup: What about RUS-es?
Wesley: Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don’t believe they exist.

Doesn’t Wesley already sound like he works for the administration? (Earlier in the movie he proves he isn’t aware that one of the classic blunders is getting involved in a land war in Asia.)

Remember: If we don’t fight the giant badgers in Basra, soon we will be fighting them here. This syllogism so favored by the Administration was also used during Vietnam. In Dispatches, Michael Herr has the perfect response: Well maybe we could beat them here.

BTW, if the headline doesn’t make sense CLICK HERE and prepare to laugh. A lot.

Habamus War Czar! Gen. Douglas Lute has been named caddy for the George Bush Desert Classic. Going out on a limb here but I don’t think Lute’s name will wind up in the history books next to George C. Marshall or Henry “Old Brains” Halleck — the best that he can hope for is that it doesn’t end up next to Custer’s. Why not take the job? There’s no real downside. The blame has already been laid. They must be rejoicing in Baghdad tonight.

Whether you think the “surge” is a good idea or not, we can all agree that this is bad headline writing. Pretty sure we passed the brink of war stage a while ago.

I love the way the “surge” meme has started to mean pretty much anything people want it to. First it meant increasing the number of troops for a fixed amount of time to try to accomplish … something. Now it just means increasing the number of troops and anyone who thinks this is temporary is in danger of being disenfranchised by that re-write of the New Jersey state constitution. (Latest surge sighting: South Korea wants baby surge. Pretty sure that’s going to a long-time deployment, too.)

This is such a case of too little too late that it’s terrifying. Before the George Bush Desert Classic began, the Pentagon (minus the secretary of defense) said it would take 250,000 troops to occupy Iraq. That number hasn’t changed. We didn’t have that many troops then and that hasn’t changed either.

The current rhetorical fig leaf of choice is to say that the Iraqi government and/or people need to step up and do more. Next person who says anything like that should be required to go to Iraq for at least six months. The Iraqi government is a fiction, a bluff that has been called. Asking the Iraqi army to step in is absurd. This makes Richard Nixon’s policy of “Vietnamization” — which was the same idea in a different war — look rational. In Vietnam there actually was an army to hand things over to. It was a badly run and corrupt army, but it did in fact exist in large numbers. Which is more than you can say about Iraq.

The president was right when he said the consequences of defeat are too great to pull out U.S. troops. The fact is, though, that the consequences of defeat were too great to start this war in such an ill-planned and haphazard manner. The consequences of defeat were also too great to justify starting such an unneccessary war in the first place. This is why war should always be approached like open-heart surgery: Only do it if there’s no other way to save the patient.

Unfortunately, we face the consequences of defeat whether 20,000 more troops are sent to Iraq or not. We have proven that even with the 100,000+ troops we have in Iraq that we can’t control Baghdad. Considering we need to control the entire nation, it is difficult to see how 20,000 more people will make any difference.

What’s the solution then? I have no idea. We don’t have the means to win and we cannot afford to lose.

This alleged surge is just one more example of how tangential the relationship is between this administration and reality. Just as they later ignored the facts responding to Katrina, they ignored the facts going in to Iraq and have ignored whatever other facts they chose to.

I am hard pressed to choose between “faith-based initiative” and “You’re doing a heckuva job, Brownie” when it comes to this administration’s epitaph. Either one, though, is gentler than the thousands of epitaphs the administration has caused to be carved as a result of its willful ignorance.

As loyal readers and others who suffer from insomnia know, we here at CD HQ have been tracking the George Bush Desert Classic’s lingusitic slide into Civil War for some time.

Quoth me last February:

As usual, the Administration is being aided and abetted in its marketing by many in the media, and I’m not talking Fox TV. Last Sunday, the NYT’s Week In Review section lead with an article entitled “What A Civil War Could Look Like” which actually addressed everything but that. The article categorically refused to define “What a civil war does look like.” Instead it fell back on some of the most hair-splitting linguistic efforts to not call an Antietam an Antietam since Bill Clinton’s famous “is.”

And then in July I polled the press:

• USATODAY: As violence mounts, so does evidence of civil war in Iraq
• The Christian Science Monitor: A widening sectarian rift pushes Iraq to the brink of civil war
• NPR: Abizaid Warns That Iraq Could Face Civil War
• MSNBC: PM: Iraq not facing civil war
• Fox News: We Won! We Won!

So now we have NBC declaring it a civil war which indicates Main Stream Media are coming around to using this as the bumper sticker du jure for whatever the hell it is that’s going on over there. Still don’t know how to tell when a war is civil and/or different from an insurgency or a rebellion.

Anyone?

Bueller?

Technorati Tags: Iraq, Civil, War, George, Bush, Desert, Classic, Bull, Run, Bueller

AP: Bush back on campaign trail for GOP

Technorati Tags: Election, Dems, Democrats, George, Bush, GOP, Republican

GWB channels his inner Smokey Robinson.

Quicker than I could bat an eye
Seems you were telling me goodbye
Just a minute ago your love was here
All of a sudden it seemed to disappear
Sweetness was only heartache’s camouflage
The love I saw in you was just a mirage

Stability? In the 4000 years of recorded human history no region has been subjected to more wars than the middle east.

• “Attorneys for Enron’s deceased former chairman, Kenneth L. Lay, have taken their first step in an effort to wipe out his criminal record, The Houston Chronicle reported Thursday. … Though Mr. Lay was found guilty on May 25 of all 10 charges, he died of heart disease on July 5, months before his October sentencing hearing. Because he had not exhausted his appeals, Mr. Lay’s record is expected to be expunged. Mr. Lay’s $5 million bond — backed by his children’s homes — also would be canceled at that time. With his conviction vacated, the government also will not be able to seize Mr. Lay’s property through the criminal proceedings.”
• “The Bush administration drafted amendments to the War Crimes Act that would retroactively protect policy makers from possible criminal charges for authorizing any humiliating and degrading treatment of detainees, according to lawyers who have seen the proposal.“

So much for personal responsibility.

As even a casual observer can tell I am not all that impressed by humanity en masse. Singularly, we shows signs of brilliance. Collectively I’m not sure how we ever made out of the swamps, let alone down from the trees. So you can imagine my feelings of dread as I and 13 others chosen pretty much at random from the Boston-area gene pool sat down to come up with a verdict after 10 days of a trial on the scintilating topic of the rights to run a golf course. Simply put, the high-bidder for a contract to run a city course charged favoritism after he didn’t get said contract. The city of course denied this. Although very ably represented the city had the drawback of having to put on the stand several people who are among the veracity challenged, or so I thought. Turns out I wasn’t the only one who thought this and within an hour we had reached a verdict. I was deeply impressed at the insight of my fellow jurors who were about as much of a demographic cross-section as you could want. By the end of the entire process I would have to say it was cynical preconceptions 0, actual experience 1.

Fortunately, before this could sink in and change my outlook of the world I came across the following about the George Bush Desert Classic:

Half of US still believes Iraq had WMD

According to a Harris Poll taken last month, a full 50% of U.S. respondents said they believe Iraq did have the forbidden arms when U.S. troops invaded in March 2003. What makes this even better: That’s up 14% since last year. The interesting question that this raises for me is, oddly enough, not given this level of credibility how is it the nation is not awash in deeds to the Golden Gate Bridge (housing bubble? what housing bubble?). No, what I want to know is how it is that the president’s approval ratings are so low if half of us think that the invasion of Iraq actually made sense? Furthermore, what has happened in the last year to give this idea more — not less — plausibility? Y’know the White House keeps complaining that the press is only reporting the bad news out of Iraq. Well, if this is the result they ought to be cheering each time another bombing is reported.

Or, in the words of one of my beloved Texas aphorisims: “You keep giving them books and giving them books and they keep chewing on the covers.”

While this might lead some to despair, I choose to follow the advice of Mencken: “Life may not be exactly pleasant, but it is at least not dull. Heave yourself into Hell today, and you may miss, tomorrow or next day, another Scopes trial, or another War to End War, or perchance a rich and buxom widow with all her first husband’s clothes. There are always more Hardings hatching. I advocate hanging on as long as possible.”

When last we looked in on the George Bush Desert Classic, its sponsors were spinning the idea that despite what you may have seen, read or ducked out of the way of the Iraqi Civil War was still more of a possibilty than a fact. That was some good spin. It’s nearly six months later and my brethren, sistren and cisterns in the press seem to say that Civil War is about a 3:1 favorite.

• USATODAY: As violence mounts, so does evidence of civil war in Iraq
• The Christian Science Monitor: A widening sectarian rift pushes Iraq to the brink of civil war
• NPR: Abizaid Warns That Iraq Could Face Civil War
• MSNBC: PM: Iraq not facing civil war
• Fox News: We Won! We Won!

Still waiting for someone to tell me how we will know when the war has gone civil.

And here’s a headline from the AP that seems to bring obviousness to a whole new level: Analysis: Political unity missing in Iraq

Did you really need an analyst to tell you that?

"What the president has said all along is that he wants to make sure that people who become American citizens have a command of the English language." – Tony Snow, new White House Press guy on Friday.
"The president has never supported making English the national language." — Attorney General Alberto Gonzales later on Friday.

"The attorney general got caught in a linguistic snare. He took 'national' language to mean what we describe as 'official' language." –White House spokeswoman Dana Perino even later on Friday.

Remember, having a command of English should be a requirement to become a citizen but not to become president or attorney general. Irony hasn't had this much fun since Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Also on Friday, the Senate has voted to make English the nation's "common and unifying language." OK, all in favor of a rule stating that members of the Senate must be able to  write a simple declarative sentence, say AYE. That will work much better than term limits.

"The only man woman, or child who wrote a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical errors is dead." — HL Mencken on the death of Warren Harding.

"They will push cars," said the President, who has decided  the solution to any problem is to throw the Guard at it. Next up: He will deploy the Guard as head of the CIA. Following that the Guard will be deployed to solve the looming Social Security problem and then to deal with global warming.

George clearly believes just because he spent four years in the Guard doing nothing is no reason anyone else should.

Back in the early 1980s, when Gary Hart had a political future, the then-senator from Colorado actually said something memorable. Just after the bombing of the Marine barracks in Lebanon he said, "What is the president going to do for a foriegn policy when he runs out of Marines?" 

(And, really I promise to get around to Hillary's "kid's these days" speech/idiocy, but I am operating in what the Pentagon describes as a "target rich environment" and only have so much time in the day. I will say that I am not surprised by Mrs. C's shameless pandering, but I am very disappointed in McCain doing the same thing.) 

It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man. — Mencken