I have always enjoyed my Sundays with the New York Times. A big thick tome that could take all weekend to read, thrown on my drive before dawn, and picked up with great effort. But, because of my restrictions on my news source (if you haven’t read my little experiment before, I have limited myself to getting my news only from the New York Times for the past month) reading the Times on Sunday has become something akin to eating a steak after a month on the Atkins diet. I just plow through it. I don’t enjoy anything news related anymore.
There are lots of interesting insights about the War in Iraq today in the Times. More than I want to write about, but some of the shit is just so fucking funny and compelling, I am afraid I might have to go on a little longer than usual.
First, the War made the front page. Read all about it. Fantastic. I have to modify my rule of ten theory (i.e., ten U.S. soldiers must die in a day to earn front page space) to include a new caveat. It could be worthy of front page war coverage if more than ten U.S. soldiers are placed in jeopardy by government contracting incompetence. Today’s Times war news above the fold: U.S. Struggling to Get Soldiers Updated Armor. Bravo to the Times for expanding its front page coverage. You’d think it was a fucking war or something, the way I complain about not getting a lot of front page news about Iraq.
The rest of the war coverage slipped to page six. U.S. Builds Pressure for Iraq Constitution as Deadline Nears. I only skimmed it, because I have a pretty good fucking clue. Ah, Washington wants the fuck out. So form a fucking government already, so we can land on an aircraft carrier again, proclaim victory again, and let this fucking country turn into a civil war where Iraqis slaughter other Iraqis, and a Terrorist Enterprise Zone can be established. Way to go Bushies. Fucking neo-con morons. Oh yeah, so I skimmed the story after having gotten my initial impression from the headline — and, basically, the actual article says the American ambassador is pressuring the factions to give up their differences and sign a fucking constitution by the due date on Monday. Gee, I wonder if they will sign a constitution by Monday? Gee, I wonder if the puppet is really talking? Also, three or four paragraphs are splashed in near the end, but not at the end, describing the daily mayhem. One U.S. soldier dead, some Iraqi security dead, a Humvee destroyed but U.S. doesn’t report a death, an Iraqi governmental official dead, advanced bombing attacks by the “insurgents” (indigenous people fighting like dogs for their freedom from an invading army, as translated into the neo-con lexicon), and the indiscriminate firing of a really pissed off U.S. unit reacting to one of these advanced attacks, said indiscriminate firing killing 17 civilians, apparently, and said indiscriminate firing adamantly denied by U.S. official. I think the war is going swimmingly, don’t you Chas. Pass the Brie. I’ll get the croquet mallet, and check the Halliburton stock. Fuck.
But, not to be out done, there is another charming article from Iraq on page six. It is actually the lead story of the page – a page entitled “The Struggle For Iraq” at the top. My what a quaint euphemism for a fucking War. Way to go Times. Whoop-whoop-whoop. But, back to the story of the day: “The Taking, and Keeping, of Purple Heart Boulevard: Now an Iraqi Military Mission.” This has to be classified as the “feel-good” story of the day. Or, perhaps as the “last throes” story of the day. It is too fucking funny. I hope someone with more time than me had a chance to do a line-by-line analysis. Oh wait. I fucking forgot. There is no one in the world with more time than me, because I am not reading the fucking news twenty-four hours a fucking day.
So here is my analysis. This article was priceless. There’s a really awful place in Baghdad called “The Street of Death” among other cheery names. (I take it this is not a real popular place to be assigned if you are a twenty-year old G.I. who signed up for the college fund right before 9/11 and has now been extended for a little tour of duty in Iraq, whether or not classes are starting in the fall.) It is officially named Haifa Street, and is a “shooting gallery” for “insurgents,” boasting over 400 attacks on Americans and Iraqi security forces. Nice set up. This place sounds tough.
Last year a joint U.S.-Iraqi military operation rooted out all the “insurgents.” There is no breakdown of the relative load carried by the respective militaries in this respectful alliance for justice and oil everywhere, but I think I know that number right off the top of my head. The U.S. portion of the fight was 120%, and the Iraqi military portion of the fight was (-20%). Just a fucking hunch.
Well, here comes the good news. After American troops cleaned the place up (smoke ’em out Little Joe), and the pro-Iraqi puppet forces probably mostly got in the way, we handed the street and a portion of Baghdad over to be defended by an all-Iraqi Brigade. These guys are the fucking minute men of this fledgling fucking democracy. They are the first and only Iraqi unit to control their own playing field. Yee-hah. A whole Brigade of them sons of a gun, something like 4,000 troops. Man, we are coming home soon boys. We’ll be home by Christmas. I can smell the fucking pine needles. Oh, shit. Wait. These 4000 thousand troops control one fucking three mile long street and a “cut” of Baghdad, where “cut” is not defined, but I think is military speak for a fucking neighborhood watch beat.
It is an entire half-page bullshit fest of cheerleading about how great the “transition” is going. But, there is just one treasure after another pointing out the futility of what the fuck we are doing in Iraq. How about this comment in passing. “Though the pacification of the area began last year under American auspices – and it is possible that the insurgents simply moved their operations elsewhere – soldiers and residents contend that the sustained peace is attributable in large part to the community’s acceptance of a homegrown security force[.]” You really think it is fucking possible that the insurgents moved. I mean, the U.S. army is kicking the shit out of a three mile road in a city the size of Baghdad, and the “bad guys” possibly said to themselves, “Fuck, man, let’s shoot people on the next block – what do you say?” American’s pacified a fucking street, and 4000 Iraqis are now guarding said street, and said street seems relatively safe, and this is cause for a half-page fucking celebration. Eighteen fucking hundred, and fucking thirty-five. The last time I checked the fucking tally of American youth dead. About 2000, the number of people killed when the Towers were downed. At least 25,000 fucking civilian Iraqis killed by us. A fucking president who lied, repeatedly, and in fact continues to misrepresent the state of fucking affairs. And, I get this fluffy horseshit blown at me on page six of the New York Fucking Times.
And there is more – you have to hear. An Iraqi shopkeeper on Haifa street is happy for the new and only Iraqi Brigade. He can stock his shelves now. Cool. Sounds like we’re winning. A patriotic Iraqi Brigade leader is proud to be an Iraqi battling for his country’s puppet government. You know, if Charlie fucking Pride could just catch this Brigade commander on a USO tour of our “struggle in Iraq” I know he would have another number one best selling patriotic fucking song. “Proud to be an Iraqi puppet, where at least I know I’m fed.”
But, wait. The article gets better. “The Americans have not yet completely detached themselves from the brigade. An American advisory team on the base helps to bolster training, intelligence-gathering, perimeter security on combat operations and, as needed, air support and heavy armor, both of which the Iraqi unit lacks.” If I understand this sentence correctly, I think “American advisory team” means several fighting units, a well-trained officer corps, and a efficient non-commission cadre of leaders, all helping the sole “all-Iraqi” Brigade defend a three mile fucking street and accompanying neighborhood, where “insurgents” have probably already evacuated said “street and accompanying neighborhood.” This rocks. If I am an American soldier, I am now thinking I might make it home for fucking Thanksgiving dinner. Mom, extra fucking stuffing, please, and hold the hoummus.
There’s more. Is this too fucking much. I mean who the fuck wrote this (Kirk Semple) hysterical shit, and did he have a fucking neo-con “minder” ghost writing with him. (I know somebody out there in blog land must have written about the “minder” that the Bushies sent along to “mind” an 9/11 commission staffer on his research trip to the pentagon. Fucking “minders.” The last time I read about a fucking “minder” was in a story about North Fucking Korea, a country so fucking batshit loopy that they have starved their population to midget status. If someone didn’t write about our government using “minders” then somebody, please, do the research and write an fucking outrageous diary, because that is just an incredibly fucking scary commentary on the state of American democracy). [Breathe here.] The patriotic Iraqi brigade leader gives us this witty line of satire, while being interviewed: ” ‘I’m free to operate anyway I like,’ he asserted at one point, though he also acknowledged that he was not ready to release his advisers. ‘As soon as we are completely ready, the Americans will leave,’ he said. ‘But right now we do need them because we have a fearsome fight with the terrorists.’ ” [Breathe again, here.] The really funny part of the patriotic generals ode to independence – as the Iraqi brigade leader speaks, the arm of a U.S. Lt. Col. is firmly inserted up the Iraqi leader’s ass, er, I mean, to be more accurate, the Lt. Col. is a “minder,” er, I mean, the Lt. Col. is the er, top American advisor, er, I mean the Lt. Col. is running the fucking puppet show. Okay. Are we really going to let the Iraqi leader call in the Air Force or U.S. Armor support. Fuck no. We don’t even let our troops submit to the authority of the World Court. They sure as fuck are not submitting to the orders of a patriotic Iraqi puppet brigade leader. Okay. Wake the fuck up. This is like – complete bullshit. Like yellow cake in Niger bullshit. Stop the fucking bullshit or I am going to start crying crappy little tears. Fuck. There is more, in this article, but I cannot fucking go on. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Suffice it to say, that if I were given the assignment to write this article, and no “minder” was threatening me with physical abuse or death, I think the title would be something like “America is getting it’s ass kicked, but try to fucking ignore it.”
I know my face is red, and I am about to blow a gasket, but there is one more article. And I gotta mention it. It ties the whole ball of wax together with yarn. Frank Rich – “Someone Tell the President the War is Over.” It makes me want to consider keeping the Times subscription when my self-imposed blog exile is ended.
I know. Someone must have blogged the crap out of this already. Rich just rips Bush. Approval ratings akin to Johnson at the valley of the Vietnam war. Rethug noise machine starting to cannibalize one another over Iraq. Administration officials trying to re-brand the war, futilely trying to sell a flawed product. The recent rule of ten deaths of the Ohio national guard boys, and how it is cosmically linked with Bush lying in his Cincinnati speech. Pro-war papers telling Bush, to no avail, to visit the Ohio war dead. Bush’s own clueless inability to connect the war of choice in Vietnam with the war of choice in Iraq, in terms of the consequences of going to war for shits and giggles. The recent near miss of the Democratic challenge for a congressional seat in a conservative district, and the foreboding wind that blows on Rethugs. And the ultimate pointlessness of this whole pursuit. We are coming home, Rich says. Troops will be drawn down, regardless of the fucking awful mess we have made. Victory will be declared, and we will have another election. And for God’s fucking sake, will the people of this fucking country wake the fuck up and install a Congress that will put a check on this batshit loopy fucking prez’s dumb ass. A congress that will stuff a whole bag of Rold Gold Pretzel’s down his fucking throat. Please. Somebody restore my belief that we are not the most retarded nation in the history of the world.
Just two more points, and I will rest my gnarled typing digits. A day or two ago, I read about Cindy Sheehan, a mother of a soldier who was killed in our “struggle in Iraq.” I saw her on the Conyers – I fucking forgot what the shadow hearing was, my God I have been dumbed down – you remember the hearing, that Conyers held. The one I read about on these blogs, back when I was informed. I saw her there. She was pretty well spoken. Brave. She’s gone to Crawford, as I am sure you are all aware, to demand to speak to the fucking preznit. Can’t fucking imagine why really, unless she is going to try to choke the shit out of him. But, she’s camped out there, and the Times said she is the perfect media storm. Slow newsdays because of the President’s vacation. Nothing for the press boys and girls to do. And, she is articulate. And, who can’t grieve with her, right. Well, the Times had a blurb. I can’t even remember it. Might have been part of another story. But, there is no story today. Nothing. Except this from Rich’s column, “A Bush loyalist, Senator George Allen of Virginia, instructed the president to meet with Cindy Sheehan, the mother camping out in Crawford, as ‘a matter of courtesy and decency.’ Or, to translate his Washingtonese, as a matter of politics. Only someone as adrift from reality as Mr. Bush would need to be told that a vacationing president can’t win a standoff with a grief-stricken parent commandeering TV cameras and the blogosphere 24/7.” Emphasis mine. Was this a slam by Rich at his own fucking paper, because I didn’t read a single word about her in the entire Sunday edition of the Times. No factual reporter from the Times can give me this. I gotta get it as an opinion from Rich. Well, at least Rich tells me that you guys are on it 24/7. Something I am missing apparently. One of many things, I am sure.
And then there is this last, thing. Very ironic. Rich says, “As if the right-wing pundit crackup isn’t unsettling enough, Mr. Bush’s top war strategists, starting with Mr. Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, have of late tried to rebrand the war in Iraq as what the defense secretary calls ‘a global struggle against violent extremism.’ A struggle is what you have with your landlord. When the war’s uber-managers start using euphemisms for a conflict this lethal, it’s a clear sign that the battle to keep the Iraq war afloat with the American public is lost.” What does that say about the Times, Frank? I can only assume that he reads his own paper, and knows that The Times titled it’s war coverage page, page six today, as the “The Struggle for Iraq.” Is he punching the uber-propagandists who fucking helped sell this war. I hope so. And, I wish he would be more direct. But he has a job to keep. Which probably keeps him from flipping out and writing “fuck” every tenth word. Me, on the other hand, am under-employed, and thus blessed with the ability to write “fuck” when I am outraged, to be sure. And once the word is out of the bag in a rant, it is hard to stop. Sorry.
Why aren’t there people burning recruiting stations? Something. This is just a bullshit war. It is a lie. It is killing our children, and the children of the world. It is making us less safe. End it already. Fucking idiotic country. I swear. I want hands in the air, fucking people who voted for this asshole. I want hands in the air. Who the fuck manufactures Diebold machines. Hands. Five votes on the Supreme Court. Somebody’s gotta be accountable for this incredibly pathetic eight fucking years. Ugh.
