As I observed in an earlier post about the Iraq surge escalation, Carl von Clausewitz would be tearing his hair out in exasperation over the Iraq War. It’s unclear how the escalation strategy of surge will measure its results, and what political endpoint is desirable. It’s now becoming clear that - bizarrely - more US troops are being held out as both carrot and stick to Al-Malaki’s government. Bush apparently will phase the troop deployments and make them conditional on the Iraqi regime’s good behaviour. But all that regime is asking for is Iraqification - the capacity to command the ten divisions of the Iraqi Army. The regime shows no signs of interest in empowering Sunnis, allocating funds to economic development in Sunni provinces, de-de-Baathification, and every sign of playing a waiting game - giving rhetorical lip service to the US strategy while continuing to “govern” Iraq as if it were the private fiefdom of Shi’a clerics and warlords. In reality the Iraq regime is waiting for the US to leave so that it can get on with prosecuting the sectarian civil war in earnest.
There’s always been a huge disconnect between reality and strategy in Iraq. The interesting thing is that it’s only now that almost everyone in the US (bar Bush himself and a few remaining neo-cons who’ve kept faith with its ostensible aims) can see that, that analyses of what’s actually going on can be articulated clearly - since the defenders of “stay the course” and “surge” are able to offer almost nothing convincing in support of their policy. And in the case of the Australian government, nothing much at all bar platitudes about military operational matters which stand in great contrast to Downer’s baroque rhetoric of years gone past and also beg the question of what the political objectives are.
The next few weeks will see both Democratic and Republican Senators grill administration and military officials about the reality of Iraq and the case for escalation. As Tim Dunlop observes at Blogocracy, yet another “justification” for our continued involvement in Iraq and our support of Bush’s strategy has bitten the dust. Howard and Downer need to be held accountable, and need to explain exactly why it is Australian troops are still there, and what national interest is being served. And they need to explain, just as Bush will have to, what exactly would constitute “victory” in Iraq.
Update: The shape of the surge is becoming clearer. According to the operational commander in Iraq, General Odierno, “progress” in the war might take two or three years and the difference this time will be that US troops will be “holding” the districts in Baghdad they’ve “cleared” rather than leaving that to the Iraqis. Sounds like a recipe for higher US casualties. The reality is that the US doesn’t have “years” but at most six months given the rapidly changing political dynamic and collapse in support for the war among Republican legislators and elites.
Again, it’s hard to see Al-Malaki’s government regarding all this as a “carrot” given that the US will apparently attempt now to “clear and hold” Shi’ite strongholds, because the reality is that the Sadrists are an integral part of his regime.
Elsewhere, at Slate, a look at whether McCain’s presidential hopes will be damaged by his long term surge advocacy. Democrats are already branding the escalation as “McCain-Bush” and if the reports of his strategy are accurate, it hardly seems like the “courage” he’s renowned for but rather an attempt to have it both ways and be ready to disclaim responsibility.
Further update: More from Tim Dunlop on Dolly Downer’s “wise judgement”.
Mark
As I argued on that other thread any “surge” strategy will be designed to strengthen Iran’s presence in the region. I would not be surprised if post Iraq-dismemberment, the old Ottoman vilayet of Basra is incorporated into a Greater Iran.
The surge will accompany greater confusion and conflict within the Sunni insurgents, and indeed broader Sunni Arab world. The fight will then be on to see how Bagdad and south west Iraq is treated.
1. The base of a new Sunni Iraq with parts of Saudi Arabia thrown in for good measure (and to compensate for the loss of oil revenues from Basra).
2. Incorporated into some Greater Syria.
3. Part of the mix of a much broader redrawing of Jordan, S.Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Israel, and Lebanon.
We ain’t seen nothing yet. To those thinking of drycleaning their suits to attend the neocon’s wake, I would advise you to save yourself $20!
This New Alternate Universe in which we now find ourselves just gets better and better doesn’t it?
Downer parrots the Decider-in-Chief’s line that troop requirements are best left to commanders on the ground. But when the commanders tell you that the ’surge’ will be a complete waste of time what’s the best course of action? Why, sack ‘em of course.
Yep.
At any rate, you can see why Howard and Downer refused to allow Australian troops to be “embedded” with American troops in Baghdad during an election year. Such is their confidence in the brilliant new “take on everyone at once and stay around to get killed” plan.
Now now Christine. They ‘retired’.
I’d disagree with that. Once the Dems take on board some emotional ownership of Iraq via a few Congressional decisions, they’ll get used to and then feel wedded to the situation. They’ll eventually manage the occupation just as well and as willingly as the Republicans.
Therefore US troops have plenty of time (years) to surge back and forth as they see fit.
Doubt it, wbb. They know why the Republicans lost the election.
John, I don’t discount the possibility that the eventual result will be some weird new carve-up of borders affecting not just Iraq. The thing is that the US will have little influence over it, though they precipitated it.
i.e., after the termination of the Bush presidency.
Short Decider-speak: What happens after 2008 isn’t my “legacy”, right?
On the reasons for Australia’s continued presence in Iraq, it is much more than pure coincidence that the Iraqi parliament is, as we speak, passing legislation opening up the entire country’s oil reserves to foreign oil companies a mere two months after Iraq’s Oil Minister toured Australia trying to attract Australian capital (oh yes, he also came to pick up an honorary doctorate in Engineering from monash (I think).
The Russians, French, Chinese, and Germans will be livid, as they had most of these contracts sewn up with Saddam, and were just waiting for the inevitable lifting of sanctions. The Price Sharing Arrangements are stupendously advantageous towards the final oil companies (about 2/3 of the profits can be kept by them with only 1/3 going to the Iraqi government.) And you can bet your bottom-dollar the oil will not be traded in the euros. This will FURTHER screw the Arab oil-producers who are still locked into the socialist model.
Australian troops are therefore there to soothe the way for when they will be providing security for Australian oil capital when it swoops into the desert and start raking in the cash.
Who was it who said “Iraqi oil is the greatest single prize in history?”
Now that there are whispers of an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear sites, we may need to factor in the use of proxies in the new Iraqi carve up. The Saudis and perhaps the Jordanians can get a big slice of Sunni-land for staying numb on the issue…provided they take responsibility for pacifying their new territories. The Shiite militias can then be drafted into a diminished Iraq under Shiite control and the coalition is just left with a stillborn Kurdistan. It will upset the Turks, but what the heck they haven’t got any oil. The Iranians won’t be happy but they don’t have a lot of friends who will help
pablo
No chance in paradise of the Saudis keeping out. The whole Sunni-world has been shitting bricks for ages about the imperial designs of the “Persian Shia.” The Saudis have already have already told the Americans that if they withdraw from Iraq, the Saudis will flood the Sunnis with money and arms.
Remember one of the main games in the neocon designs was to weaken the Saudis considerably. Quite right too. Undeserving gangsters and pimps that they are.
pablo
“There’s a whisper about rightwing fascist colonialist apartheid Jews trying to control the media/banks/nuke everybody………” Quelle surprise.
Mark, do you really believe that the US will leave Iraq?
If so, what will have changed between March 2003 and say March 208 that would make them reassess their position in the Middle East?
I think they’re going to be left with little choice, wbb.
What has changed is the complete failure of their stated objective of establishing a democratic and non-sectarian state, the inability to sustain casualties and deaths, the inability to project force anywhere else, the political dynamic which has led to not just the voters but also foreign policy and military elites rejecting continued engagement, etc.
The momentum is behind - “leave, say it’s all the Iraqis’ fault”.
And it’s a very powerful momentum.
Worth observing as well that Bush’s domestic agenda was totally crippled by Iraq. Which leads to the perverse result that he has to double up his bets on Iraq (lame duck Presidents usually try to distract attention from domestic paralysis with foreign policy).
LBJ found out that you can’t have guns and butter simultaneously.
Whether or not there are moves to reject increases in funding, the fact that Bush’s “supplemental” requests for war funding (the next is likely to be 150-200 billion) now face scrutiny and debate rather than rubber stamping is going to dramatise the enormous fiscal cost as well as its human cost.
There’s no way the Democrats are going to adopt the war. Even a cursory examination of reports of US politics shows that Republicans facing re-election and/or contemplating Presidential runs are running a mile away from the war and the surge (with the exception of McCain, and as I noted, he’s preparing his escape route).
For instance, wbb, a majority of the Senators who voted in 2002 to authorise the Iraq War have now retracted their support, or at least indicated that they would have voted differently if they’d had access to unbiased intelligence:
[link]
Mark, I believe that the Democrats will adopt the war once they have taken emotional ownership of it via a few congressional decisions of their own. I can’t see them leaving Iraq to fall apart and be picked apart by its neighbours, or failing that to become a second Iran. They’d only have to invade again. Too much has been invested in Iraq for the US to leave now.
The $200 billion figure you quote when seen in context of a $13 trillion economy is not such a large sum for “national security”. (It equates to 150 days worth of US crude oil consumption.)
McCain is committed to staying the course and he’s the Republican front-runner. The Slate article you provided discusses his tactics to disown the short-term “surge”. Not the whole box and dice.
These are not a real changes. The stated objectives are not important unlike the real objectives. The stated objectives have already and will again be changed to suit the times.
Casualties creep slowly from 1000, to 2,000 to 3,000 etc - but why any of these figures is more unsustainable than another higher figure is completely dependent on media interest. Each military family, typically, can only lose 1 member. The nation as a whole is unaffected.
As for projecting force, being in Iraq gives the US unprecedented force projection in the region. Iran is surrounded and China is frozen out.
Baghdad may look like mayhem at the street-level, but at a regional level Iraq is a neutralised base for the US to get on with its work.
I hope you are right that domestic sentiment will cause a 2nd Vietnam upon the US but I am pessimistic about that. From what my learned betters teach me here, the public had little to do with the pullout from Vietnam apart from providing a colorful back-drop.
Vietnam was merely a domino whereas Iraq is “sitting on an ocean of oil.”
What do you see as the real objective, wbb?
I can’t particularly see how they’ve neutralised Iran given that Iran has gained massive influence in Iraq and has shown no signs of backing down on their nukes programme.
Further update: More from Tim Dunlop on Dolly Downer’s “wise judgement”.
Nancy Pelosi has enunciated Dem policy:
The Dems support the job that the current level of troops in Iraq are doing.
The Dems require convincing that additional troops are needed for Iraq.
Thus current troop levels are adequate to the purpose (whatever that may be.)
If Bush wants more troops he must explain how current troop levels are inadequate to his purpose.
If Bush wants more troops he must explain his purpose.
If Bush is to get funding for those troops from Congress he must show either:
a. how he underestimated the number of troops needed to do the job, whose nature hitherto has been ill-defined.
OR
b. how he has expanded the mission beyond that which he conceived when he set original troop levels.
This is a fine political trap.
If Bush pleads (a), then he admits to four years of denial and incompetence. Congress can then say that he has destroyed his own credibility as a wartime leader. The additional funding request will be refused.
If Bush pleads (b), then he admits that he had a secret agenda, which will be deemed shocking and illegitimate by the Dem majority. The additional funding request will be refused.
However, the Dems will be proud to give the inadequate number of troops already in Iraq all the material help they need to fail to do the job that the President requires of them. It’s still Bush’s war.
“However, the Dems will be proud to give the inadequate number of troops already in Iraq all the material help they need to fail to do the job that the President requires of them”
That’s pretty uncharitable and convoluted Katz. I don’t think that the Democrats are deliberately treasonous.
Depends what you mean by treasonous, PTB.
I’d hazard a guess that you subscribe to a pretty capacious definition of the word.
On the other hand, I’d suggest that opposing a bellicose half-wit is better described as “patriotism”.
The Dems are not treasonous and will continue the occupation of Iraq if they win the Whitehouse. Until the real objective of the US presence in Iraq is recognised by those who claim to oppose the war, the US is free to continue to obfuscate behind a smoke-screen that is the neo-con program of democracy and threat nullification.
Until it’s realised that the neo-con scam was only the cover under which business-as-usual geopolitical dominance is occurring then the occupation will never be succesfully opposed.
WMD didn’t last long as an excuse because hard evidence quickly proved the lie. Bringing Democracy cannot be disproved but a quick glance at history will show that if the US is in Iraq for the benefit of Iraqis, then it’s a truly wondrous first and runs violently counter to the obligations of the US commander-in-chief.
Iran is in the cross-hairs, Mark. Whatever influence they’ve gained in Iraq is reversible, and more importantly they are still pariah, face sanctions, are locked out of the growing Indian hydrocarbons market inter alia, have the world dictating their defense policy, have an Israeli threat on the horizon and enemies on every border. I don’t believe that the US and Israel will allow the Iranians to deploy nuclear weapons.
The Shiites are busy street-fighting with Sunnis in a safely divided Iraq. Moqtada will not save Iran. That will take more than a few Black & Decker drills.
No doubt geopolitical dominance was one factor in the “real reasons” for war. But I differ with you in thinking they’ve achieved it. There’s always a tendency to overestimate the effectiveness and power of the US which is an easy trap to fall into. Those in the foreign policy community in the States (by definition not isolationists) who oppose the current course of war no doubt believe they have cheaper and more effective options to put on the table to ensure continued US power.
And the US is still a democracy.
Given the degree to which Democrats have turned against the war, and the hostility within the electorate as well as the elites to its continuation, it would be an astonishing about face and almost impossible to execute without committing political suicide.
I don’t believe that it’s within the realms of possibility.
I don’t believe that it’s within the realms of possibility.
You are completely correct Mark,however the Democrats have used the war in Iraq for political expediency to regain power.Had the war been a Democratic folly, the Repuglyicans would be the ones screaming their tits off about the futility of it all.Both these party’s are more than capable of spinning bullshit,they are past masters at it.
I hope very much you are right, Mark. I was wildly cheered by the November election for the same sort of reasons. But now I worry that the Dems will find that they do not have a more peaceable option given the present meltdown to further the geo stuff.
The logic of Iraq breaking apart or going “rogue” again but still sitting where it does in the most crucial place on earth, means that all the good intentions in the world will not find a better solution than to stay sitting on the Iraqis and waiting for the struggling corpse to stop kicking.
Under Clinton Iraq was nicely on ice as you have pointed out. But since then Iran has firmed rather than imploded; oil is running scarce; China/India are booming; Israel/Palestine has got nastier; Lebanon has proved dangerous. And now Osama/Bush/Cheney have lit a fire under the entire region.
Don’t get me wrong the US should fuck off out of there. But there are too many reasons why they will find it in their interest to stay put. And not just for a few years either. More like a few decades. In that time hopefully the ultra-violence will tend back to Saddam Hussein levels.
I agree that it is easy to fall into the trap of over-estimating the power of hegemons, but it is similarly easy to be too sanguine about the motives and methods of our hallowed western democracies.
“opposing a bellicose half-wit is better described as “patriotismâ€?.
I think there are a couple of mistakes encapsulated in your statement. Leaving aside the “half-wit” cheap shot, I think that underlying this is the presumption that if the war was started in mistake, then it must be ended ASAP, wheras the only sensible approach is to look at the current situation, and the likely outcomes, and act accordingly. How the war started is, in a sense, irrelevant - blame the faulty French and German intelligence - it doesn’t really matter, or affect the decision at hand. There is no good reason to oppose for the sake of opposing.
What the Americans should do is weigh up the cost of exiting against the cost of staying. I’m not sure what the comparison would yield.
And implying that someone may have committed treason isn’t a “cheap shot”?
PTB, you are overlooking the fact that this struggle over the future of the US in Iraq only seems to be about foreign policy.
At this point in the struggle the debate over Iraq is US domestic politics masquerading as a debate over foreign policy.
The Dems have decided that Bush is fatally weakened. Polosi’s policy, which she would not have annunciated unless she is confident of carrying the overwhelming majority of congressional Dems with her, or unless she is extraordinarily rash, is a test of how far Bush is willing to go out on a limb to avoid conceding defeat over Iraq.
At the same time, the more hard-line Bush appears, the more difficult it will be for Congressional Republicans to support Bush.
The Dems smell weakness and are driving home their advantage.
Some good analysis in Time on the surge, and in particular (hello Dolly!) whether it’s to do with “what the generals want”:
[link]
I’m having difficulty following you Katz.
Must need sleep
I’ve found the quote from Clausewitz I wanted to use in the post:
Your analysis is good Katz, though I think you meant:
Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), who announced on Sunday that he will run for President, does not seem to agree with Katz that opposing President Bush is to the advantage of the Democrats:
[link]
comment with links in mod box
Not singling out David here, but fail to see why people continually comment that their previous comment is in moderation. Is it possible to program the spaminator to bin this futility.
Out now!
On that point, I don’t agree either that Pelosi is speaking for a united Democratic party.
Two hypotheses come to mind:
(a) She’s kiteflying to try and see how much support that position can muster among Democrats;
(b) It’s a rhetorical gesture to the gallery to up the pressure on Bush to make his case while convincing the public that the Dems are serious about opposing escalation of the war.
I think they are (the now semi-Dem Lieberman excepted) but they have to achieve two objectives - avoiding wbb’s “taking ownership of the war” thing while still keeping the pressure on Bush not to co-opt them. The reality is that short of cutting off funds (which I don’t think they do - I think it’s bluff) there’s little Congress can do to influence policy, as Biden admits. So I think it’s about political strategy and positioning and as I said on the earlier post, mobilising the power of Congressional hearings as a bully pulpit to firm up public and elite opinion against the surge.
There’s certainly an element of that coming through in Pelosi’s remarks.
wbb, two problems - some people are using words that contain other words that are disallowed - eg “grapes”, and secondly most spam comments contain multiple links. Unfortunately the moderation and spam filters are fairly blunt instruments.
The alternative is a registration process but I think that tends to discourage commenters who aren’t regulars.
Well I’d argue that, the last two years of the Bush imperium aside, the political decision has already effectively been made at a Congressional level to get out. It’s now a question of politics and timing.
Which is still going to leave the US with a massive headache that may take years to rectify. Despite the military defeat it remains a superpower with vital strategic interests in the region, and what the Iraq adventure has done is deliver a massive own goal as far as its power and influence are concerned.
With no central government worth speaking of I doubt that Iraq will last very long as any sort of state, and Iran, Saudi, and Syria are simply standing by to take whatever bits they can.
Iraq has often been compared with Vietnam. I think in these latter stages of the war that’s incorrect. A better analogy would be with Lebanon on crack.
In any case the question now for the US foreign policy establishment is how to put the Humpty Dumpty of its influence in the region together again. It will take decades.
Trouble for the Dems is if they don’t vote the funds, centrists/conservatives like Biden may cross the floor.
But if they do vote for funds, their activist base will get very angry indeed.
For instance, people who would spend their valuable spare time spelling out ‘Impeach’ on a beach in San Francisco are unlikely to say “Oh well, what Senator Biden says is actually quite reasonable”.
Either way there is tension.
Mark, your analysis might be spot on, but the trouble is we are still trapped in the irrelevant debate about The Surge. Which is where They want us to be. We should be talking about the occupation per se. Not the precise number of troops for a fit and proper occupation.
Which is why I doubt the Dems delivering us from this war. Pelosi is playing politics over a single troop movement. Big deal.
Yes, that’s right.
Hence I think what Pelosi is doing - throwing responsibility back on Bush to make the case for the funds.
Then they can say “well, we’ve got to support the troops” or “look it’s his constitutional responsibility”.
Taking up wbb’s point, is a short comment in the thread the best way to notify a held-up comment? I’m just copying others, but if there is a better way.
Possibly a prominent explanation of the spam/mod filters would also ease the paranoia that comes out when people think they are being ‘censored’?
Don’t those beach impeachers know they’d get more publicity for their protest if they were naked?
Surely it can’t be that cold in San Fran in January?
Well, you can email us if you like.
An explanation of the spam/mod filters probably isn’t a bad idea.
But I suspect, wbb, the surge might lead to the end of the occupation. I wouldn’t put a hundred bucks on it at this stage, but it’s definitely there in the field of possibilities.
Particularly, Mark, if one or other of the competing groups in Iraq takes the rather obvious step of dramatically demonstrating the folly of the One Last Push To Secure Baghdad.
i.e Bomb: Green Zone
Which could happen, Christine.
If the Americans go after the Sadrists to demonstrate “evenhandedness” who knows what they’ll do.
So why do you think, Christine, that hasn’t happened yet?
There are no more gloves to taken off in Iraq. It’s bare-fisted now and has been for a long time. But it’s a bunch of factions armed with guns and power-drills doing a lot of harm to each other but barely scratching the duco of the US war machine.
It’s ghastly but in the long-run it’s all just Rumsfeld’s “stuff that happens.”
The US death rate for example is a couple per week, which in Australian population terms is one every couple of weeks. In context of the heavily sold Global War on Terror, it’s not very much.
If somebody ever did manage to lob a bomb into the Green Zone, Bush’s numbers will spike. Upwards. Once he takes the consequent decisive hard-assed action, of course.
And the Green Zone will still be there minus half of one lousy building.
You need to look at the combination of the number of deaths and the very high rate of disabling injuries (paradoxically high because battlefield medicine has made huge steps since Gulf War I) with the futility, lack of “progress” and the now almost ubiquitous disbelief of the war’s justification, wbb.
And then you’d be a brave man to bet on anything, no matter how disastrous, upping Dubya’s numbers.
There’s also the Hurricane Katrina factor - few have any confidence that any action this administration takes will be even vaguely competent.
And more Americans have died in Afghanistan and Iraq now than died on s11.
The polls also show that the “war on terror” has been comprehensively delinked by the US population from Iraq.
Yes the injury numbers are appalling and mask the true devastation wrought by this conflict, and yet its the 3,000 number that people see on TV that matters politically.
I agree that Bush is a dead duck and beyond rehabilitation. Where I am concerned is that we are getting ahead of ourselves to expect that the Dems will lead a withdrawal from Iraq. I do not see the reasons for this. Iraq is still vital to the US. (on their estimation at least.) They will not cede it to someone else. Whether Saddam II, Iran or Moqtada.
I don’t think it’ll be up to the Dems, wbb. Bush still holds a lot of the cards. But I think things will become impossible during or post surge for even him to “stay the course”.
That’s why I was keen to highlight Wallerstein’s analysis in my previous post.
And I still also think that you’re overestimating whether US power is matched up anymore with the will to exercise it. Bush has thrown a lot of it away.
Here’s the link to Wallerstein to save anyone who’s interested from having to look it up:
[link]
It has. A car-bomb was detonated in the Green Zone on Nov 21 last year. One of Speaker Mahmoud al Mash-hadani’s cars was rigged with three bombs, a small one set to set off two big ones. The small one went off, the others failed to detonate.
Bush administration press secretary Tony Snow is denying that Bush’s “way forward” speech on Iraq is his “last hurrah”.
It may be the first time that the Decider-in-Chief has had to endure Republican Senators lecturing and berating him, though.
DJ,
[snip]
To say of the Congress there is no way to say stop to the “surge” is not the same as saying that opposing the “surge” would be a bad political move.
And as a matter of clarification, I never said that the Dems would vote down the funding for the “surge”.
My central point is that to get the funding Bush will be forced to make some very embarrassing admissions, which I outlined in an earlier post.
This is a game of political brinkmanship which is no more nerve-wracking for congressional Democrats than it is for congressional Republicans.
Voting for it is the same as not opposing it, not matter how many hearings you have, and no matter how much you get to embarrass the President.
Eventually the Dems will have to decide to either vote against the surge and split their Congressional caucus and leave themseleves open to attacks that they have ‘betrayed’ the troops (think the Republicans aren’t busy planning that one already?), or they will vote for it and alienate the anti-war base.
Downer of Baghdad’s recent utterances in America have underlined his claims as a world’s-best-practice, Foreign Ministerial nincompoop. W. gives generals Abizaid and Casey the arse for being undemonstrably Pro-Surge. Then Eddixinder bleats about Bush’s brilliance in being guided by the wisdom of his generals on the ground. Beltway buzzards report that a chorus of spontaneous “baizez-moi”s was noted on the D.C. diplomatic circle, upon Lord Downer’s analysis.
“I mean, it’s just so terribly unfair that people won’t support President Bush’s leadership on this, especially after all we’ve done for the Iraqis.â€?
Bestowing god’s gift of democracy upon Iraq hasn’t been quite the cakewalk it was pitched as, has it? One “unknown unknown” too many, I guess. Coulda happened in any war. It’s not as if this thing was unplanned or anything. Just one last surge and the boys and girls will be home by Christmas. This isn’t Stalingrad for goodness sakes.
Should enough of the D.C.Dems have the bottle, now that they have the numbers, the likelihood of a Constitutional Crisis will increase, as the consequences of raising the stakes on a losing bet in Iraq become apparent. What’s the point of Bush’s bluffing, if his opponents can read him like “three Shakespeares and a Camus”?
Realpolitik of the surge (as the civil war grows uglier): to secure spigot access and facilitate oil export to the “free market”; to maintain the facade of governance from Baghdad’s Green Zone, by minimising “pink mist” incidents and keeping the MSM message tight as; and lest we forget, to keep MIC stocks zinging.
Perhaps The Surge is but a feint, the harbinger to a sociopath’s tragic last shot at approval: “Can ya see me now,Poppy, can ya see me now?”
Birnham Wood came to Dunsinane, and in the ABC’s telly Macbeth, pigs flew, but could Gulf’s Tonkin and Persia possibly be misconstrued, say, by a Commander-In-Chief whose manglespeak extends to a word like nuclear? Not the roughest,really. Besides, for Iraqis and Iranians, Bard-splatter is so yesterday. The New Season’s I.E.D.s and smart nukes dictate that pink mist and vapeur-de-nuke are simply a must way-to-go in 07.
Yep. (Whatever MIC is?)
The US does not need to have Iraq peaceful the length and breadth. It just needs a little clear working space, defined borders with Iran and other meddlers and then the ungrateful natives can choose to die in each other’s ditches or not. Up to them, as the neo-neocons’d now be saying. The US will try to build out from a secure centre. They’ve got decades.
It’s all very Raj at this point. But no sign yet of Ghandi and Nehru on the horizon.
Meanwhile the world is irrelevantly debating whether Bush’s latest troop movement is too many or not enough. Perfect. Until people admit that the US has already won, it won’t be seen that Bush’s insistence on staying until he wins the “war” is a tar-baby.
wbb,
that’s Military Industrial Complex, please excuse the jargon. There is a wonderful scene towards the end of the film, “Good Night and Good Luck”. The George Clooney character and the CBS(Columbia Broadcasting Systems) boss amble past a walled TV screen outside the trump’s office, literally in a corridor of power, chewing the fat, oblivious to the monitor’s message. Onscreen is “actual footage” of US Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was suggesting, as he stared at the camera on the eve of his term’s end in 1955, that the MIC could be a spot of bother down the track. De rigeur flick for AmPol tragics. David Strathairn’s “chanelling” of Ed Murrow, one of MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann’s major influences, is goosebump territory for folk who remember how good mainstream American journalism could be when it’s unfettered.
In Modern America, generic Commies no longer feel The Crucible’s heat. But, whaddaya know, there’s terrorists everywhere.
Eisenhower made his Military Industrial Complex speech as his valediction in 1961, not 1955.
[link]
Thanks for pointing that out, GregM. I’m glad you checked, and promise to lift my game when free-range raconteuring down the track.
The prescience and power of Ike’s warning about the clear and present danger of the Military Industrial Complex, however, remains undiminished.
Democrats divided:
[link]
World Politics Watch suggests Al-Sistani might oppose the surge:
[link]
I think we need a glossary to Mr Combatant. He speaketh in riddles, which is probably due to a Catholic upbringing, a wife who will not be trifled with, or both.
Eddixinder - Alexander (Downer).
Beltway buzzards - scuttlebut around Washington; this is a very in-sounding phrase that Mr Combatant must have picked up blogging on US sites, it makes him sound in the know.
Home by Christmas - Promises generals make about troops when they first make war. General Haig to British PM Herbert Asquith who then repeats it to the people of Britain in September 1914 during the Battle of the Marne; Adolf Hitler when launching operation Barbarossa in June 1941 (hence Mr Combatant’s reference to Stalingrad is misleading); Field Marshall Montgomery about impending German collapse on the Rhine in September 1944; McArthur tells this to Pres Truman at the start of the Korean War (I am not counting Bing Crosby’s hit song of 1943).
AmPol - American foreign policy. Not to be confused with with Australian Motorists Petrol Company, Ampol (now delisted following acquisition by Pioneer International and merger with Caltex).
Tragics - fans. Did this originate with John Howard and cricket? Didn’t he come up with “barbecue stopper” as well? Just think, that’s what he’ll be remembered for.
Pink mist - snipers’ jargon, refers to what looks like pink mist through binoculars emanating from the top of target’s head when a high-velocity bullet exits the skull dragging cranial fluid in its wake through the exit wound. This is insurgents’ snipers targeting of US Forces. But I think “roadside ied incidents” would have been more pertinent, however “IED” gets a mention later.
MSM message - mainstream media message, in other words, consistent propaganda from the US administration aimed at the general population; this is supposed to be simple and repetitive because of a supposed short attention span of the average media consumer in the US street.
Chanelling - obtaining guidance from beyond the grave, in this case, actor David Strathairn from the deceased broadcaster Ed Murrow, whom the former is impersonating in the film about McCarthyist witchunts Good Night and Good Luck. Chanelling, I think, originated with people who took too much LSD around the Big Sur in California and imagined they were guiding flying saucers with their brain waves. But I’ll be happy to be corrected on this fascinating concept.
Bottle - Cockney slang for courage, probably from bottle and glass, rhyming slang for arse, hence cool assurance; corollary: lose one’s bottle - be incontinent in face of danger.
Baizez-moi - I think this is a mistranslation of “well, fuck me” as an expression of Mr Downer’s wisdom, but ironically so, among the diplomatic corps in Washington. Anyhow, the conjugation is all wrong from baises. And it probably isn’t idiomatic French.
Poppy - allegedly what the current US president calls his father, HW Bush. My recollection is “Dad”. How did this “Poppy” thing start anyway? I suspect it’s a Beltway myth.
Bardsplatter - that is an interesting neologism. Christopher Marlowe, armed with a .44 magnum finally nails his main competitor? I think this is a re-reference to the earlier “three Shakespeares and a Camus”. I am not able to explain the Shakespeare point in connection with George W. Bush but the Camus is an allusion to a speech Dubya made in Europe to political leaders in 2005 when he tried to correct the impression that he was a cretin. I found this lovely quote he used from L’Etranger: “We know there are many obstacles, and we know the road is long. Albert Camus said that ‘freedom is a long-distance race.’ We’re in that race for the duration.”
This is a bigger project than I anticipated. I think there is a PhD in this and it’s far more interesting than studying the Bible. And I haven’t even scratched the surface.
Ike’s valedictory was a bloody good speech too, not just in terms of its prescient message (which Alfred Bester also wonderfully explored from another angle in “Disappearing Act.”) but also because of how well it was written.
Some backstory here.
Thanks for glossary, Sir Henry. You’re quite right, some of my references are a tad obscure, if not downright Delphic. Sister Rosetta Stone, my first social studies teacher, and your learned self, guv, would have got along famously.
Reckon the first journalist to jump on the “Poppyâ€? thing was Maureen Dowd of the NYT in her book, “Bushworld: Enter At Your Own Risk”. The following exerpts are most enlightening on the Mozartian relationship that W. has with his father, and the scope of President Bush’s literary inquisitiveness. In history’s broad sweep, however,Harvard’s loss of a potential scholar, was to be America’s gain.
“From an exclusive conversation on the one-year anniversary of Katrina landfall
By Brian Williams
Anchor & “Nightly News� managing editor
Updated: 6:38 p.m. PT Aug 29, 2006
WILLIAMS: Mr. President, I know how much you love deep psychological examinations of yourself. While you were at Kennebunkport this last weekend, people talked about your relationship with your dad. People mentioned that former President Clinton has been a guest at Kennebunkport more often in the last few years than you have been. (Bush laughs.) And there was a lot of speculation and your spokesman Tony Snow recently all but said it’s because it was the way your father chose to end the first Gulf War that Bin Laden saw weakness enough to strike the United States. Is there…
BUSH: I am trying to see where you are going with this (laughs).
WILLIAMS: Is there a palpable tension when you get together with the former president, who happens to be your father? A lot of the guys who worked for him are not happy with the direction of things.
BUSH: Oh no. My relationship is adoring son.
(Later in the same interview)
WILLIAMS: We always talk about what you’re reading. As you know, there was a report that you just read the works of a French philosopher. (Bush laughs)
BUSH: The Stranger.
WILLIAMS: Tell us the back story of Camus.
BUSH: The back story of the the book?
WILLIAMS: What led you to…
BUSH: I was in Crawford and I said I was looking for a book to read and Laura said you oughtta try Camus, I also read three Shakespeare’s.
WILLIAMS: This is a change…
BUSH: Well, I’m reading about the battle of New Orleans right now. I’ve got an eclectic(ek-a-lec-tic in W-speak) reading list.
WILLIAMS: And now Camus?
BUSH: Well, that was a couple of books ago. Let me look. The key for me is to keep expectations low.�
Yeah, right.