The top brass of the military had come out in opposition to escalating in Iraq. Now they have yielded to the desires of the White House and gotten on board with troop increases. This despite having no ideas on what to do with an increased force. So it's headed towards continuing to do the same as what we have been doing, only more so.
Again, the psychopaths' motives are transparent: it's a delaying tactic, to not have to throw in the towel. They will drag things out until the next president takes office. That person will inherit the hugest, deepest mess facing a new POTUS since the Depression. (A bonus aspect of this stalling, from the psychopaths' point of view, is that given the phenomenally bad record of the Repubs the last six years, that lucky person will probably be a Democrat.)
However, what I don't understand is why the military are going along with this. They had good reason to come out against it, and no good reason stated for changing their minds. Just that a new SecDef came in, and met with them, and then they got religion regarding the urge to surge. So the psychopaths tightened some kind of screws on the generals, and got the appearance of credibility their plan needed. If in January, Congress called in the Joint Chiefs to testify, and they said that escalation wouldn't help, it wouldn't happen. Then the psychopaths would be completely isolated and in no position to keep investing the lives of servicemembers and their families in delaying the inevitable.
So, this is cowardly. The core values of the Marines and Navy are Honor, Courage, and Commitment. Likewise, the Army's are Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage; the Air Force's are Integrity, Service and Excellence. Are the top officers in the armed services upholding these values?
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
The Graceful Exit
Harry Reid recently made the huge mistake of endorsing an increase in troop levels in Iraq. He didn't mean it that way, he didn't even say it that way. But this debate over public policy is not rational. This is all won and lost on appearances and spin. Reid's position could be portrayed as being in favor of W's, McCain's, and Lieberman's "plan" to "deal" with their failed war without having to end it and without admitting that it failed.
Now I see that at HuffPo (via), Reid has walked back from that position. An extremely screwed-up thing in our governo-media-sphere is that it is suicidally bad to ever change your mind about something. This owes to the very public nature of a politician's positions and to the fact that, again, this is not a rational debate.
Reid has astutely 1) seen the error of his ways, and 2) found cover for quickly recovering a) without being a flip-flopper and b) with a stark contrast to the president's flip-flop (W was for listening to the experts (supposedly) before he was against it). Reid has pointed to the Pentagon generals' lack of support for a troop increase as justification for withdrawing the position he took that could have been used as cover by the insane people pressing for more death.
The funny thing is the ISG was supposed to provide cover to W for something that everyone could pretend was a graceful exit from Iraq. Instead, it highlights all the more how wrong W is.
Now I see that at HuffPo (via), Reid has walked back from that position. An extremely screwed-up thing in our governo-media-sphere is that it is suicidally bad to ever change your mind about something. This owes to the very public nature of a politician's positions and to the fact that, again, this is not a rational debate.
Reid has astutely 1) seen the error of his ways, and 2) found cover for quickly recovering a) without being a flip-flopper and b) with a stark contrast to the president's flip-flop (W was for listening to the experts (supposedly) before he was against it). Reid has pointed to the Pentagon generals' lack of support for a troop increase as justification for withdrawing the position he took that could have been used as cover by the insane people pressing for more death.
The funny thing is the ISG was supposed to provide cover to W for something that everyone could pretend was a graceful exit from Iraq. Instead, it highlights all the more how wrong W is.
How did we even get here?
Digby reminds us that, as I said below, zillions of people all over the world and in the US could see that an invasion of Iraq would be an act of aggression, and that the decision to do so was being imposed on the world by a small cell of extremists who took over the United States.
We don't need to wonder why they wanted to start this war- they're insane. (Still, the groundwork for many future PhD theses has been laid by the last 10-15 years of American history.) I do have to wonder how so many that should have been in a position to oppose and prevent all this instead played along. Most of the prominent Democrats. The non-insane Republicans. The media.
The people who had the guts to stand up against this were ignored, or portrayed as freaks, or branded as traitors. And even today, those courageous people who have been proven right are not invited to the table. It's clear that something's gotta change, so the few who argue for pushing our hand further into the meat grinder are balanced against those who now regret supporting the war, and believe we need to think about getting out at some point.
It's enough to make you chew glass.
We don't need to wonder why they wanted to start this war- they're insane. (Still, the groundwork for many future PhD theses has been laid by the last 10-15 years of American history.) I do have to wonder how so many that should have been in a position to oppose and prevent all this instead played along. Most of the prominent Democrats. The non-insane Republicans. The media.
The people who had the guts to stand up against this were ignored, or portrayed as freaks, or branded as traitors. And even today, those courageous people who have been proven right are not invited to the table. It's clear that something's gotta change, so the few who argue for pushing our hand further into the meat grinder are balanced against those who now regret supporting the war, and believe we need to think about getting out at some point.
It's enough to make you chew glass.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Get Real!
So now California's Ellen Tauscher is worrying about how her past associations (with such nefarious characters as Joe "Fish Eye" Lieberman, George "Uh... Wha?" Bush, and their ilk) will affect her fortunes in 2008. Good. She stood in one of those phenomenally fake signing ceremonies (this one for the crippling Homeland Security Act) with the most inhuman members of the Republican party and the most unprincipled and incomprehensible members of the Democratic party, and now she is doing her best to keep people from remembering it.
She is an extreme example, but what she's trying to get out from under, here, hangs over a lot of "electable" people in the Democratic Party.
In 2001-2003 the official mindset in politics and the press was that hawkishness was the only legitimate position. In the friggin' "March to War" against Iraq, it was supposedly political suicide to be soft on Saddam. Thus, a lot of people with an eye toward the White House felt obligated to vote for the AUMF against Iraq. This, despite at a minimum, some extremely questionable actions on the part of a White House supposedly trying to justify their case: they seized the Iraq response to the UN, censored thousands of pages, then distributed it as evidence that Iraq(!) was hiding something; they claimed that their evidence against Iraq was so sensitive that it couldn't be shown to even the legislators who needed to decide how to respond to it; they didn't even counter challenges to their arguments, they just threw out different arguments. Finally, after daring the UN to oppose their plans, when it was clear that the UN would indeed oppose their plans, they withdrew their final resolution rather than have unambiguous international disapproval of their actions. In summary, it was clear to pretty much the whole world that an invasion of Iraq was being crammed down everyone's throats. Still, these leaders of the Democratic Party decided it was better to stick with the herd and vote Yes than to risk making a vote against aggression that could be held against them later.
Fat lot of good that did them in 2004. They were still sold as cowards, etc. Now we look ahead to 2008. The chickens are coming home to roost, and a war that was an atrocity from the words "Shock and Awe" on is now an unmitigated disaster as well. A government driven entirely by bluff, bravado, and image is failing in every way possible. Supporting them is an albatross around anyone's neck. In Maryland this last go-around, the GOP governor and senator candidates were being sold as Democrats. Other Republicans just downplayed their party affiliation- even removing any mention of "Republican" from their websites (can't land a link offhand).
The point is, three years ago all the leading lights of the Democratic Party thought their political futures depended on being the proverbial Republican Lites. Better to be almost like the permanent majority and pick up some centrist Repubs and the frustrated Dems, who had no other choice, or something. Now it's ready to bite them in the ass. Hillary voted for Iraq. Kerry, who died in 2004 for putting presidential aspirations and calculations above backbone, seems to wish he could try again.
These are intelligent people, right? Lawyers, whatever, well-educated. Yet they couldn't see that 1) the Iraq war was a crock; 2) wars are not crocks you can casually jump in and out of; and 3) doing something for the sake of being in the cool crowd will never make you cool- it will just make you a transparent cool wanna-be. Hell, I knew that in high school. The people in the cool crowd were repulsive, and the truly cool people did their own thing.
So when did our leaders in Washington so lose the ball? It's no good to do stuff for the sake of being seen doing that stuff. Better to do what you really believe in. At least if it sinks you, you don't have to look at yourself as a double loser; you can take pride.
She is an extreme example, but what she's trying to get out from under, here, hangs over a lot of "electable" people in the Democratic Party.
In 2001-2003 the official mindset in politics and the press was that hawkishness was the only legitimate position. In the friggin' "March to War" against Iraq, it was supposedly political suicide to be soft on Saddam. Thus, a lot of people with an eye toward the White House felt obligated to vote for the AUMF against Iraq. This, despite at a minimum, some extremely questionable actions on the part of a White House supposedly trying to justify their case: they seized the Iraq response to the UN, censored thousands of pages, then distributed it as evidence that Iraq(!) was hiding something; they claimed that their evidence against Iraq was so sensitive that it couldn't be shown to even the legislators who needed to decide how to respond to it; they didn't even counter challenges to their arguments, they just threw out different arguments. Finally, after daring the UN to oppose their plans, when it was clear that the UN would indeed oppose their plans, they withdrew their final resolution rather than have unambiguous international disapproval of their actions. In summary, it was clear to pretty much the whole world that an invasion of Iraq was being crammed down everyone's throats. Still, these leaders of the Democratic Party decided it was better to stick with the herd and vote Yes than to risk making a vote against aggression that could be held against them later.
Fat lot of good that did them in 2004. They were still sold as cowards, etc. Now we look ahead to 2008. The chickens are coming home to roost, and a war that was an atrocity from the words "Shock and Awe" on is now an unmitigated disaster as well. A government driven entirely by bluff, bravado, and image is failing in every way possible. Supporting them is an albatross around anyone's neck. In Maryland this last go-around, the GOP governor and senator candidates were being sold as Democrats. Other Republicans just downplayed their party affiliation- even removing any mention of "Republican" from their websites (can't land a link offhand).
The point is, three years ago all the leading lights of the Democratic Party thought their political futures depended on being the proverbial Republican Lites. Better to be almost like the permanent majority and pick up some centrist Repubs and the frustrated Dems, who had no other choice, or something. Now it's ready to bite them in the ass. Hillary voted for Iraq. Kerry, who died in 2004 for putting presidential aspirations and calculations above backbone, seems to wish he could try again.
These are intelligent people, right? Lawyers, whatever, well-educated. Yet they couldn't see that 1) the Iraq war was a crock; 2) wars are not crocks you can casually jump in and out of; and 3) doing something for the sake of being in the cool crowd will never make you cool- it will just make you a transparent cool wanna-be. Hell, I knew that in high school. The people in the cool crowd were repulsive, and the truly cool people did their own thing.
So when did our leaders in Washington so lose the ball? It's no good to do stuff for the sake of being seen doing that stuff. Better to do what you really believe in. At least if it sinks you, you don't have to look at yourself as a double loser; you can take pride.
Oh, Snap!
I hadn't even got round to doing my first post, and I've already been declared counterproductive.
Swopa's right, of course. I'm not really a hippie, and you'd never mistake me for one. I'm allergic to patchouli, for one thing.
As we do this, let's stop sneering about "St. John" and who's "serious," and referring to ourselves derisively as "dirty fucking hippies." It's fun, but the sarcastic message isn't getting through, and people are dying. Let's just state the facts as they really are, and hammer them home until the powers that be have no choice but to listen.
We're not hippies; we're the center. They need to know that.
Swopa's right, of course. I'm not really a hippie, and you'd never mistake me for one. I'm allergic to patchouli, for one thing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)