1.31.2007
Iraq Is Screwed
Meet The Press. A talking heads program where politicians and other so-called experts bloviate about the leading issues of the day.
I usually don’t watch such TeeVee sideshows because the guests put so much spin on their comments that I get vertigo. Or they just evade giving a straight answer, talking in circles until I get vertigo anyway.
But I did watch a few minutes the other day because the host, Tim Russert, had four guests sitting around the square table with him to discuss the Iraq War.
What I found interesting is that all the guests, whether pro- or anti- troop surge, didn’t come out and state the obvious. Senator Chuck Schumer discussed a new approach in Iraq, redeploying the troops. Well, Chuck, you can talk about moving around the troops all you want. The fact is that nothing can change the situation over there. Iraq is destabilized. Iraq is royally fucked. Not only do you have to deal with the factions fighting among themselves, there are neighboring countries supporting the internecine violence for their respective ends.
The genie of chaos is out of the bottle. It’s time to face up to the truth. “Surging” – a blatant euphemism for escalation – will at best delay the inevitable. Pour in 21,000 or 210,000 more troops, it doesn’t matter. The Iraqis will keep fighting among themselves. After a period of death and destruction, they might somehow form some sort of new order or find their country divided up by their neighbors. But it won’t be any democracy or anything akin to a structure of influence and control the American Empire sought when it invaded.
One guest on Meet The Press, Michael Gerson, a former speechwriter for “our” president, said that “the standards of victory probably are a little lower right now.” (Link) I just love that double speak. Victory means you win. How can you take winning and equate it “lower standards?” Does “victory” mean we manage to reduce the number of American soldiers being killed each week while chaos rages on? Does “victory” mean that the US has succeeded if it’s not driven out of Iran, that the American presence can at least hide in the Green Zone while the rest of Iraq falls apart?
This clown Gerson probably wrote another memorable line I cherish. Dubya stated last month that he was "disappointed by the pace of success" in Iraq. (Link)
But leave it to a conservative Republican to redefine a word, to apply a phase that really doesn’t fit. I love it when rightwing talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh vilify someone like me, saying that I want defeat. I don’t want defeat. It would be great if peace came to Iraq and the people ended up with a better government than the tyranny they had with Saddam Hussein.
But what I want and what I see is going to happen are two different things.
Don’t worry about Rush Limbaugh and all the other dogmatic neo-cons. When the US finally fails in Iraq, he and his ilk will blame it on the “liberals,” claiming that they gave strength to the enemy by questioning the mistakes committed by the president. Victory could have been ours, Rush will say, if those damn “liberals” didn’t undermine the heroic efforts of George W. Bush.
In a word: bullshit.
But that’s how conservative pundits and politicians play the game, demonizing any who disagrees. Demonization is key when trying to inflame hearts and minds into war. Remember how the France spoke out against the invasion of Iraq? At the congressional cafeteria French fries were called “victory” fries.
But this is nothing new. Before World War I, the Germans had to be demonized by American politicians and newspaper publishers during the ramp up to battle. All sorts of nasty things were said about the “evil Huns.” And during that time Sauerkraut was called “victory” cabbage.
Those who don’t learn from history…
So let the neo-cons rant on all they want about “victory” in Iraq. It ain’t gonna happen. At best, continued US occupation is only slowing the inevitable.
Neo-cons call people in favor of troop withdrawal “cut and run defeatists.” Once again trying to make an inappropriate phrase stick.
But it’s not about “cutting and running.” It’s really about cutting our losses.
1.22.2007
A Bit of Smoke But No Fire?
It started with President Richard Nixon and the Watergate Scandal. Some bungling burglars broke into the Democratic campaign headquarters at the Watergate Hotel and they were caught, leading to a series of events that drove “Tricky Dick” from the White House after he won re-election.
The last syllable from Watergate was used as a convenient suffix to describe other political debacles that came down the pike after Nixon’s resignation: Irangate, Koreagate, Billingsgate, and so forth.
But scandals aren’t limited to the big boys. There might be a ‘gate here in Plattsburgh: Firegate, if you will.
The Press-Republican (news)paper reported that the new burghomaster, Mayor Donald Casper-Zack, is upset that the city fire department has been shredding documents related to its financial activities. (Sunday, Jan. 21, 2007.) The burghomaster also ordered that the computer files of all city departments be copied, noting concerns about the sabotage of data and problems with "secrecy."
The fire chief contends that nothing suspicious is going on; it is only shredding documents as part of its regular schedule to handle accumulating files. And he also stated there was no “sabotage” coming out of his department. [ LINK ]
This follows a PR editorial (December 7, 2006) that stated that during a budget hearing with the fire department, it was revealed that no city department was keeping track of expenditures, especially overtime, during the four months the city had no chief financial officer to oversee spending. (Why this was mentioned in an editorial and not an article is puzzling. After all, some readers skip over editorials and only look at hard news stories.) [ LINK ]
The new burghomaster is concerned about overspending and rising taxes. It has been said that a previous mayor from many years ago, Carlton Renal, gave away too much to the fire department during contract negotiations. When asked about the alleged “giveaway,” Renal stated after he left office that it wasn’t true, the fire department got a fair shake from him. He was quoted in the (news)paper after a reporter contacted him at his retirement home in Florida. (Remember: Plattsburgh is a great place to live.)
So is someone blowing smoke? I’m waiting to see if this turns into a five-alarm story.
In the meantime, if the fire department runs a professional shredding operation, maybe it should raise some cash for the city by providing its services to other organizations such as the National Security Agency.
On second thought, maybe that wouldn't work. After all, the NSA is in the secrecy business. If the fire department learns some neat tricks with data records and shredding, such knowledge might not benefit the taxpayers.
1.15.2007
Tell Me How To Think
“Let me tell you what this means.”
Yes, Sean Hannity. I tune into your radio program so that you can talk to me like an idiot child who doesn’t know how to tie his shoes, who is unaware of what is really happening with the Iraq War.
For those who aren’t familiar with Sean, he’s another conservative political anal-yst in the tradition of Rush Limbaugh – but without Limbaugh’s charm.
This afternoon Sean was trying to explain why we should continue to wage the dead end conflict in Iraq by comparing President George Dubya with Abe Lincoln, showing how Dubya and Abe are cut from the same sacred cloth, claiming there are direct parallels between the Iraq War and the American Civil War.
There has been controversy lately that Dubya pushed aside generals who didn’t agree with his doomed vision, putting yes-men in charge to carry out his insanity. Sean portrayed Dubya as another Lincoln who also had to fire generals until he got the right commander who would win the war. And, don’t forget, Lincoln also increased troop strength to settle the struggle with the South.
This argument reminds me of a discussion I had one time with someone who was upset that I thought the Iraq War was Vietnam II. He said: “There’s no comparison. Two different wars. Vietnam was a jungle; Iraq is a desert.”
Location, location, location. What is a top priority for business is also vital to any war.
But what I find interesting is that Sean and his ilk are so uber-conservative that you could imagine what roles they would be playing if they had lived during the Civil War. Back then they would be pro-slavery, trying to conserve the good life of the South. After all, abolishing slavery would ruin the economy for the southern states. And the Economy is god over all.
So I can see Sean being a public relations flak for the Confederacy. He would be saying stuff like “a good whipping improves the character of a Negro.” And when the tide turned and it was inevitable the South was going to lose, he would still be backing President Jefferson Davis, saying what a great man he was, that if the Confederacy just kept fighting, victory could be snatched from the jaws of defeat.
Is that a reasonable – even fair – comparison, envisioning Sean Handjobity as a Confederate bloviator?
Hey, it’s just as good as what he comes up with during his radio program for conservative non-thinkers.
Stan Spire
