Author: Zandar1

Many of the questions I asked in my earlier post about Blackwater being kicked out of Iraq have been answered in large part by a TIME Magazine article, but the article raises even more questions.

Here’s what we know so far:
Details of the firefight are emerging.  Blackwater’s account and the Iraqi Interior Minitry’s account are very, very different.

According to the incident report, the skirmish occurred at 12:08 p.m. on Sunday when, “the motorcade was engaged with small arms fire from several locations” as it moved through a neighborhood of west Baghdad. “The team returned fire to several identified targets” before leaving the area. One vehicle engine was hit and disabled by bullets and had to be towed away. A separate convoy arriving to help was “blocked/surrounded by several Iraqi police and Iraqi national guard vehicles and armed personnel,” the report says. Then an American helicopter hovered over the traffic circle, as the U.S. convoy departed without casualties. Some reports have said the helicopter also opened fire on Iraqis, but a Blackwater official told TIME that no shots were fired from the air.

Some eyewitnesses said the fighting began after an explosion detonated near the U.S. convoy, but the incident report does not reflect that. The Blackwater official declared that, contrary to some reports from Iraq, “the convoy was violently attacked by armed insurgents, not civilians, and our people did their job, they fired back to defend human life.” The official said that “Blackwater is contracted to work in a war zone, its personnel are under frequent fire, and all the rules of engagement permit them to defend themselves.”

Blackwater basically says “It’s war, we did our jobs.”  But somebody forgot to tell the Iraqis that, because they clearly don’t believe Blackwater gets the same immunities as the US Military when they kill somebody, self-defense or not.  

Note also that Blackwater says they were attacked by “insurgents” and not “civilians”, yet the Iraqi Interior Ministry says the dead were clearly civilians.  Now, the first rule of counter-insurgency is “It’s damn hard to tell friend from foe” but somebody’s not telling the truth here.  Rules of engagement or not, the Iraqis are mad as hell.

However, the Blackwater Booting isn’t a done deal yet.  Figures that there would be some semblance of diplomacy under all this hardball.  

A spokesman for Iraq’s Interior Ministry has told reporters it has cancelled Blackwater’s license and will launch an investigation into whether excessive force was used in the incident. But, in spite of that declaration, which was carried on wire reports, a senior Iraqi official contacted by TIME said that prime minister Maliki is expected to discuss the episode at a cabinet session scheduled for Tuesday and that, as far as the license being permanently revoked, “it’s not a done deal yet.”

So now the Interior Ministry and the Maliki government may not be on the same page on this, or maybe Maliki really is finally learning how to be a politico.

All this diplomatic wrangling has attracted the attention of Condi Rice.  It turns out that the VIPs I figured Blackwater was guarding?  The US State Department.

Several Iraqi government officials have indicated their opposition to Blackwater’s continued presence in their country. If the suspension is made permanent, it could significantly impair security for key U.S. personnel in the country, a U.S. official in Baghdad told TIME. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, whose State Department depends on Blackwater to protect its Iraq-based staffers, called Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki to say that the U.S. has launched its own investigation into the matter.

So now Condi’s in the thick of this mess, and the Iraqis have a major axe to grind.

However, the Iraqi official also said he had spoken with at least two cabinet members about yesterday’s shooting and that some in the government have “been upset about Blackwater for a while now. They want them to get out,” said the advisor. The State Department said Secretary Rice called prime minister Maliki on Monday is expected to occur later on Monday. She expressed her regret for the loss of life in the incident, assuring him that the U.S. will conduct its own investigation and inform the Iraqi government of its progress.

This of course is all leading up to one of my favorite four-word sentences to type as of late: Henry Waxman wants hearings.

House Oversight Committee Chairman Henry Waxman announced Monday he will launch an investigation into the incident as well, calling it “an unfortunate demonstration of the perils of excessive reliance on private security contractors.”

Again, that could have been the Iraqis’ play all along.  It’s surely possible that they did this to breing the attention of the fact the US has as many PMC mercs in Iraq as they do soldiers to the attention of the American people, to a Democratic Congress, and to the press.  Like I said, maybe the Iraqis really are learning how to play politics.

In fact, we’re already seeing the right-wing response to the Blackwater incident.  Seems Blackwater recently was part of a billion dollar contract for the State Department’s protection service, the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.  In fact, that contract is the main reason why some believe Blackwater doesn’t need a license in Iraq at all.

Questions are being raised about the efficacy of Iraq’s attempt to close down Blackwater’s operations in the country after civilian deaths.

Iraqi Interior Ministry officials told reporters in Baghdad Monday they would revoke the company’s license and initiate criminal proceedings after Blackwater contractors providing security for U.S. diplomats allegedly opened fire from aircraft into a Baghdad street — killing 11 people, according to some reports.

The problem is, Blackwater does not have or need a license, and its employees are not subject to Iraqi criminal jurisdiction.

Former senior State Department official Larry Johnson wrote in his Web long No Quarter Monday, “Blackwater does not have a license to operate in Iraq and does not need one. They have a U.S. State Department contract through (the Bureau of) Diplomatic Security.”

U.S. State Department security staff, whose duties Blackwater contractors perform in Iraq, typically enjoy the same immunities accorded to all foreign diplomats.

Doug Brooks, president of The International Peace Operations Association, representing private companies involved in peace-keeping and low-intensity conflict operations around the world, said that U.S. law gave jurisdiction to federal law enforcement.

“Under the Military Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction Act,” he said, those accused of a crime “would be brought back to the U.S. and tried in federal court.”

He said that investigations could be undertaken by Dept of Justice prosecutors or FBI personnel in Iraq, working with the coalition military, but that the initial decision to refer a case for investigation would be taken by U.S. military lawyers known as JAGs.

And this is the heart of the battle.  When one country’s private army of paid mercenaries kills citizens of another country while IN another country, who has jurisdiction?  The argument here is that since Blackwater works for the State Department as diplomatic bodyguards, they have diplomatic immunity.  But that surely doesn’t begin to apply to the rest of the tens of thousands of other PMC mercs in Iraq.  They don’t ALL work for the State Department.

The thing is the deeper you dive in Blackwater’s very black waters, the darker the waters get…

At the start of the occupation, there were an estimated 10,000 private soldiers in Iraq, already far more than during the first Gulf war. Three years later, a report by the US Government Accountability Office found that there were 48,000 private soldiers, from around the world, deployed in Iraq. Mercenaries represented the largest contingent of soldiers after the US military – more than all the other members of the “Coalition of the Willing” combined. The “Baghdad boom”, as it was called in the financial press, took what was a frowned-upon, shadowy sector and fully incorporated it into the US and British war-fighting machines. Blackwater hired aggressive Washington lobbyists to erase the word “mercenary” from the public vocabulary and turn its company into an all-American brand. According to its CEO, Erik Prince, “This goes back to our corporate mantra: We’re trying to do for the national security apparatus what FedEx did for the postal service.”

When you absolutely, positively, have to kill somebody overseas by 10:30 AM, huh?  And it gets worse:  While the number of US troops has remained around 130,000 to 160,000, the mercs have literally exploded.

The numbers tell the dramatic story of corporate mission creep. During the first Gulf war in 1991, there was one contractor for every 100 soldiers. At the start of the 2003 Iraq invasion, the ratio had jumped to one contractor for every 10 soldiers. Three years into the US occupation, the ratio had reached 1:3. Less than a year later, with the occupation approaching its fourth year, there was one contractor for every 1.4 US soldiers. But that figure includes only contractors working directly for the US government, not for other coalition partners or the Iraqi government, and it does not account for the contractors based in Kuwait and Jordan who had farmed out their jobs to subcontractors.

British soldiers in Iraq are already far outnumbered by their countrymen working for private security firms at a ratio of 3:1.

So when people say, “There’s no way we’d attack Iran, that would provoke the Iranian Army, and our troops would get cut off,” I have to reply “That’s still possible, but you’re forgetting about the 150,000 or so mercs in-country.”

Certainly Bush and Cheney haven’t, and so far the world and the American people have largely ignored the PMC merc problem.  It may just be that what Bush and Cheney have been waiting on in order to attack Iran is the arrival of a hundred thousand or so mercs, with more pouring in monthly.  What does it matter that Bush is bringin home 5,700 troops for Christmas for when they’ll be replaced by paid thugs?

The part that’s really got to be causing Dick Cheney into fits right now has got to be that the invisible PMC problem just became front page news across the globe today.

Hell, even stateside, Blackwater  has problems.

CHICAGO – The University of Illinois has canceled a partnership between its police-training institute and a military contractor best known for providing security forces in Iraq and Afghanistan because of a potential conflict of interest.

The company, however, says it hasn’t received the letter.

The university, which inked the five-year deal in May, scrapped the partnership with Blackwater USA because the institute’s director, Tom Dempsey, hadn’t informed the school he was negotiating personal contracting work with Blackwater while helping coordinate the partnership.

And deeper we dive into that black, black water.  At the bottom of it all is a lot of red blood…and even more green money.

If I were Maliki, and I knew the US was thinking about getting rid of me because I was getting to close to Shi’ite Iran in an attempt to stabilize the central government, how would YOU go about A) yanking Bush’s chain, B) lowering the odds Iran would be attacked, and C) informing the rest of the world that there’s a second US Army that has occupied your country and D) establishing your credibility as a leader of a sovereign country?

Try to throw out the most visibly awful of the PMCs, of course.  And people said the Iraqi government wasn’t capable of getting anything done.

Looks like Blackwater Security is getting kicked out of Iraq.

raq’s Interior Ministry has revoked the license of Blackwater USA, an American security firm whose contractors are blamed for a Sunday gunbattle in Baghdad that left eight civilians dead.

 Sunday’s firefight took place near Nusoor Square, an area that straddles the predominantly Sunni Arab neighborhoods of Mansour and Yarmouk.

In addition to the fatalities, 14 people were wounded, most of them civilians, the official said.

The ministry said the incident began around midday, when a convoy of sport utility vehicles came under fire from unidentified gunmen in the square.

The men in the SUVs, described by witnesses as Westerners, returned fire, and the witnesses said the vehicles are the kind used by Western security firms.

George isn’t gonna be real happy with the Iraqi government trying to, you know, make sovereign decisions and all.

An official with the U.S. Embassy told The Associated Press that a State Department motorcade came under small-arms fire near Nusoor Square, and one of the vehicles was disabled.

The official said no State Department officials were injured but provided no information on Iraqi casualties, the AP reported.

“We have revoked Blackwater’s license to operate in Iraq. As of now they are not allowed to operate anywhere in the Republic of Iraq,” Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf said Monday. “The investigation is ongoing, and all those responsible for Sunday’s killing will be referred to Iraqi justice.”

Needless to say, not a whole lot of folks are going to be really pleased in the Bush Administration to see Blackwater lose its license.  That’s going to draw a lot of condemnation and whispers from the “serious pundits”, who are probably going to say that while it’s fine for Iraqis to lay down the law, that they shouldn’t lay it down on the “people trying to provide security” for the region.

Which brings up the real bad blood on the PSC (private security contractor) issue:  These guys aren’t exactly held to the Uniform Code of Military Justice.  They’re floating around in this nebulous umbra between soldier and civvie, and it’s because of that they usually end up doing some very dirty work.  Dirty work that includes firefights with the locals, and this kind of thing has been going on for years now.  It’s nothing new.  But the Iraqi government action against Blackwater is new.

There’s thousands of mercs in Iraq. If the Iraqis are willing to pull the plug on Blackwater until further notice, that’s going to draw a lot of heat from the US.  After all, these PSC contracts are sweetheart deals for Bush buddies.  There’s billions involved in this private army that nobody talks about… and the Bushies like it that way.

Now we’ve got what amounts to a front page story about Blackwater mercs gunning down Iraqi civilians.  I’m betting this isn’t the first time that this has happened.  It is however the first time I can recall the Iraqi government (sic) standing up to a US PMC and saying that not only is Blackwater’s license to kill is revoked, but that the mercs involved will be facing Iraqi justice and not US justice.

And that’s probably got a lot of people in Washington pretty scared and pissed off.  Not to gloss over the eight dead and 14 wounded, it’s tragic every time something like that happens, and in Iraq that happens on a daily basis.  That’s how far into Hell we’ve tossed the Iraqis without a lifeline.

But the PMCs were the elephant in the room.  There’s literally tens of thousands of them in Iraq, and not a whole lot of press about them.  For the Iraqi government to suddenly take notice and ban the largest PMC in Blackwater, that means something’s up.

Iraqi authorities have issued previous complaints about shootings by private military contractors, but Iraqi courts do not have the authority to bring contractors to trial, according to a July report from the Congressional Research Service.

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee estimated in February that nearly $4 billion had been spent on security contracts amid the insurgency that followed the U.S. invasion in 2003 — costs that have forced the delay, cancellation or scaling back of some reconstruction projects.

The US says the Iraqis don’t have authority over PMCs.  The Iraqis have just said otherwise.

Who’s going to win that particular battle, I wonder.  Furthermore, why are the Iraqis choosing to make an issue of it now?  Are they finally sick and tired of PMCs killing civilians?  Are they making a statement against Bush, or against the notion that that Malaki should be replaced as PM?  Was this just the last straw?

Or is there something else at work, like say, the Iraqis putting Bush on notice that the US is officially no longer welcome in Iraq?

Update [2007-9-17 14:5:24 by Zandar1]: More from the NY Times:

Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a spokesman for Iraq’s Ministry of Interior, said the authorities had canceled the company’s license and barred its activity across Iraq. He said the government would prosecute the deaths, though according to the rules that govern private contractors, it was not clear whether the Iraqis had the legal authority to do so.

“This is a big crime that we can’t stay silent before,” said Jawad al-Bolani, Iraq’s interior minister, speaking on satellite television. “Anyone who wants to have good relations with Iraq has to respect Iraqis.”

While the President may want the status quo in Iraq, it seems the Iraqis are challenging it.

It’s not Sunday…but boy, is this Wankery.  I’ve read some pretty insane columns on the Petraeus testimony and the Preznit’s Big Speech (Status Quo Eternal) this week, but this one (Weekly Standard, natch) was so bad it ripped a hole in spacetime and pushed the Sunday Wankery watch to Saturday.

Strap in kids, the Neocons have apparently achieved temporal distortion technology through the sheer power of lying and denial.

I give you…the power of the Gelerntertron!

Defeat at Any Price
Why Petraeus’s testimony was a nightmare for the Democrats.
by David Gelernter
09/24/2007, Volume 013, Issue 02

Gelernter, as in ge-learn-ter fear EVERYTHING WE TELL YOU TO FEAR.

To prepare for General David Petraeus’s long-awaited testimony on Iraq to Congress last week, the liberal pressure group MoveOn.org wrote itself into the history books with an anti-Petraeus ad so repulsive it ranked with Lyndon Johnson’s infamous 1964 TV spot in the campaign against Barry Goldwater: A little girl picking flowers dissolved into a mushroom cloud, and then the screen went black. (Evidently by voting for Goldwater, you expressed your support for nuclear holocaust.)

Didn’t Goldwater…lose?  Wasn’t it a Johnson landslide?

But gleeful Republicans who are certain that MoveOn has finally tipped its hand and shown America what the left is all about should remember that Johnson won that election, in a landslide. Because MoveOn headlined its ugly ad with an ugly rhyme (“General Betray Us”), it will stick in the public mind. But it is just possible that the public will invite MoveOn to take their ad and ShoveIt.

What the hell is it with neocons trying to score touchdowns by starting from the negative fifteen yard line in a stadium in another time zone?  Now you have to spend the whole damn article trying to dig yourself out of a hole…but is Gelernter up to the task?

Democrats at the hearings themselves found it impossible to look this capable, thoughtful, distinguished man in the face and endorse the MoveOn ad. But don’t get them wrong: Leading Dems had dumped on Petraeus often in the past, and were dumping furiously in preparation for the hearings. Petraeus is guilty of “carefully manipulating the statistics,” Senator Dick Durbin announced; in fact the general has “made a number of statements over the years that have not proven to be factual” (in strict contradistinction to Majority Leader Harry Reid), said Majority Leader Harry Reid. Barbara Boxer and Joe Biden plunged their knives in also.

The Democrats were scared for a reason. They worried that Petraeus would impress the country as dispassionate and serious–which he did. He called Bush’s troop surge no unqualified success, said that much work remains–but that Iraq has turned a corner; has achieved tangible, important results in its fight against terrorism and inter-sect violence since the surge began. It was a Democratic nightmare.

Oh I see, now you’re trying to blow the argument so badly that you actually end up bending spacetime so that you never dug the hole in the first place.  That’s ballsy.

Fueled by the power of pure denial, watch as Gelernter ignores the fact that America didn’t believe Petraeus before his testimony and aren’t buying it after!

The fairest thing you can say about the Petraeus testimony was A) it moved opinion little and B) what little gains it did make got wiped away when Dubya showed up on Thursday night to remind everyone exactly why we’re shooting 3 for 18 in the benchmark department, and that we’ll be in Iraq for years and years to come.

But I digress from the time-altering power of Gelernter.

America’s ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, had the harder job of reporting on political progress. He said, too, that much work remained; Iraq’s political health is bad in some ways, improving in others. But one fact towers above the rest like the ghost of the World Trade Center: If we stay put until the patient is stable, we face a tough job; if we panic and run, we face catastrophe.

Again this message was bad news for leading Democrats. But their reaction was just what it should’ve been, given that President Bush is the enemy–and, like the man said, politics ain’t beanbag. Surely it’s only natural for leading Democrats in Congress and the presidential campaign, and their vicious lap dogs on the web, to hope for the president’s policies to fail.

I am reminded of the opening few moments of just about any episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, where Dr. Weird (with no pants!) invents something completely moronic, and yells BEHOLD!

Yes, behold the Gelerntertron, its powers have turned the worst strategic military blunder of our age into DEMOCRATS WANT AMERICA TO FAIL!

Americans are so accustomed (or inured) to this attitude that they rarely step back and ask, What the hell is going on here?

The issue isn’t tactics–doesn’t concern the draw-down that the administration has forecast and General Petraeus has now discussed, or how this draw-down should work, or how specific such talk ought to be. The issue is deeper. It’s time for Americans to ask some big questions. Do leading Democrats want America to win this war? Have they ever?

Of course not–and not because they are traitors. To leading Democrats such as Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Al Gore and John Edwards, America would be better off if she lost. And this has been true from the start.

Yep.  Not only is he implying the Democrats in Congress are traitors (which isn’t the reason they want America to fail) but that Democrats just want America to get taken down a few pegs.  And the great thing is, the power of the Gelerntertron implies that anyone who supports the theory that the Iraq war is a blunder, you know, say, a majority of America or something silly like that, are in fact traitors too!  But it’s okay, us poor souls really want simple humility in foreign policy.  Really, it’s fine that you beat your wife and have always hated the country you live in, humility is a reasonable foreign policy objective.

Time, she is bendy like wax to Gelerntertron!

To rephrase the question: Why did Harry Reid announce months ago that the war was lost when it wasn’t, and everyone knew it wasn’t? The wish is father to the deed. He was envisioning the world of his dreams.

The Democrats’ embrace of defeat is inspired by no base desire to see Americans killed or American resources wasted. But let’s be honest about it, and invite the Democrats to be honest too.

The Gelerntertron is impervious to your logic.  Even though the GAO, the American people, multiple retired generals, Democrats in Congress and the Iraq Study Group has said that there is no military solution to Iraq, and ergo that our current strategy — a military solution — is incapable of victory, it plugs on.

So yes, let’s be honest.

Appeasement, pacifism, globalism: Those are the Big Three principles of the Democratic left. Each one has been defended by serious people; all are philosophically plausible, or at least arguable. But they are unpopular (especially the first two) with the U.S. public, and so the Democrats rarely make their views plain. We must infer their ideas from their (usually) guarded public statements.

Yes, “honesty” means “I honestly love being a chickenhawk” and “Demotraitors fear the Gelerntertron!”

Globalism and Euro-envy are explicit, sometimes, in Democratic pronouncements–about the sanctity of the United Nations, the importance of global conferences and “multilateralism” (except in cases like North Korea, where the president already is moving multilaterally), the superiority of the Canadian or German health care system, and so forth. The Democrats are not unpatriotic, but their patriotism is directed at a large abstract entity called The International Community or even (aping Bronze Age paganism) the Earth, not at America. Benjamin Disraeli anticipated this worldview long ago when he called Liberals the “Philosophical” and Conservatives the “National” party. Liberals are loyal to philosophical abstractions–and seek harmony with the French and Germans. Conservatives are loyal to their own nation, and seek harmony with its Founders and heroes and guiding principles.

Again, “honesty” means conservatives are patriots, and Democrats just don’t love America.  They aren’t entirely non-traitors, they just don’t explicitly hate everything America stands for while they dance their pagan rituals and sacrifice virgins.  They just don’t honestly admit to the sacrifice and the not-quite-hating of Jesus and apple pie and baseball part.

The Democrats don’t conceal their globalist ideas, but their appeasement and pacifism are positions they can only hint at.

That’s honesty, boy.

The Gelerntertron staggers off into right angles from reality from this point onwards, but here’s the Cliff Notes From The Event Horizon.

“But if we only remember the dead and not the cause for which they died, we dishonor and make nonsense of the noblest of all sacrifices.”

I’m sure the Iraqis we killed and displaced and basically destroyed would agree with you, GT.

“It is incomprehensible that the administration so rarely discusses the moral side of our achievement in Iraq. No doubt it’s still impossible, in today’s world, to launch a major war and depose a government merely for the sake of humanity, merely to rescue a people that is being torn apart and eaten alive by its rulers, merely on principle–although it is fair to wonder, 60-odd years after the Shoah, when it will be possible. But Americanism has long held that when we are forced to fight for our interests, we ought to fight for our principles too.”

See the above.  The fact that we’ve spent 54+ months raping the country for oil, directly and indirectly killing tens of thousands indiscriminately, displacing millions more in a refugee flood and reducing a secular nation into a barely coherent group of ethnically cleansed city-states was all this time a moral act.

We had to destroy Iraq in order to save it.  The Gelerntertron feels no remorse, for that is a feeling reserved for puny Demotraitors.

It’s proving a harder fight than we anticipated. We’ve made serious mistakes along the way. Both statements apply to most American wars. The difference today is that some leading Americans would prefer defeat to victory.

Yep, Iraq is just like every war we ever fought.  Because every time an American GI picked a weapon in our history, it was to go kick the shit out of a country because our President had daddy issues.  Just ask John Adams and John Quincy Adams.  Gelerntertron can ask them with his time-altering powers.

Compare today’s war in Iraq with the American fight to clear the Japanese out of Guadalcanal, from September 1942 through early February ’43. Obviously that was a vastly shorter stretch than our time in Iraq–but losses in the South Pacific were incomparably greater. Imagine Harry Reid’s reaction to news like this: During our first landings, four Allied heavy cruisers (three American) were sunk and a fifth chased away in a battle lasting 32 minutes; nearly 1,300 Americans died. (Multicultural enthusiasts who teach our children that white men are the bane of the earth should explain why Guadalcanal’s native Melanesians “were uniformly hostile to the Japanese,” according to Samuel Eliot Morison, “and friendly to the Allies.”)

And just like Japan in the Pacific Theater, the Iraqis attacked us at Pearl Harbor and allied with the Third Reich.  Gelerntertron remembers that day when Saddam came on the radio to say how he had struck a blow at the heart of America with his warriors of God…

You might argue that World War II has nothing to do with Iraq; after all, the Japanese started the fight by attacking our fleet at Pearl Harbor. But even the Japanese never succeeded in slaughtering civilians on the U.S. mainland. And those who think that our war in Iraq has nothing to do with the 9/11 murderers, or their friends whose ultimate target is America, are living in Fantasyland.

Because Iraq had EVERYTHING to do with 9/11, so much more than say, Saudi Arabia, that we just had to invade the place.  The Gelerntertron has spoken!

If you believe in appeasement, defeat in Iraq would show that we were wrong to stop talking and start fighting. If you believe in pacifism, defeat would demonstrate that war is futile even if your motives are good. If you believe in globalism, defeat would suggest that we should have acted strictly in concert with world opinion. In short, if you do believe in appeasement, pacifism, globalism (and many leading Democrats do), your wish for defeat is no evil or traitorous urge. It is merely logical.

The Democrats are secretly Vulcans!  Watch as the Gelerntertron battles the horrific and America-hating forces of logic with his towering cannons of complete bullshit!

“Pacifist globalism was so popular it lost World War II for the tragically underprepared French and nearly lost it for the British. The British pulled themselves together and made a heroic stand, but the French will never live down (least of all in their own minds) the humiliation of being overrun by German armor in a matter of weeks; of choosing not even to defend their beloved capital city. Poland put up a stiffer fight than France in the Second World War.

America proved immune to pacifist globalism, until Vietnam. The Vietnam war was nothing like World War I, despite the implicit analogies that emerged later. At first it was run badly, but when General Creighton Abrams replaced William Westmoreland as supreme American commander in May 1968, our strategy changed dramatically. With Abrams in charge the war “was being won on the ground,” wrote the historian Lewis Sorley, “even as it was being lost at the peace table and in the U.S. Congress.” Americans continued to support the war effort nearly until the end. The 1972 presidential election was a referendum on Vietnam; “Come home, America!” preached the antiwar Democrat George McGovern–and lost to Richard Nixon in a landslide. Of all U.S. population segments, 18- to 24-year-old men–who were subject to the draft and manned the front lines–were consistently the war’s strongest supporters. “It was not the American people which lost its stomach,” wrote the British historian Paul Johnson, “it was the American leadership.”

Get that?  WW I was nothing like Vietnam, but both are exactly like Iraq.  Because the Vietnamese bombed the Twin Towers, but Gelerntertron is working on going back in time to stop it from ever happening!

Ronald Reagan turned things around. He brought Americanism back; he repeated what John Winthrop had written in 1630 about America, the shining city on a hill. Americanism had weathered its greatest crisis since 1861. Or so it seemed.

But then Reagan was bombed by Charlies in the trees!  Gelerntertron was there and saw it all!  The Demotraitors helped them!

But Iraq has made everything fresh and new for the Democratic leadership. If it can paint Iraq as another Vietnam and relive its great triumphs of the 1970s, the damage done to the American psyche might be permanent. Americans might stop believing in liberty, equality, and democracy for all mankind and retreat to the revised European version: liberty, equality, and democracy (of a sort)–for us. Instead of believing Lincoln’s words–“with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in”–Americans might become self-satisfied and complacent pseudo-Europeans. Hollow men. Without Americanism, America joins the European robot republics that have no spiritual life and don’t even miss it.

Because when Gelerntertron thinks of the political party in this country that represents liberty, equality, and democracy for all mankind*, it’s the Bush-era Republicans!

(*Offer not valid for gays, lesbians, transsexuals, Muslims, Buddhists, Wiccans, Blacks, Mexicans, Free-Thinking Women, the French, anyone who lives in a country we’re currently bombing the shit out of, anyone who lives in a country we don’t like, poor people, people who speak out, uppity minorities of any ethnic background, any combination of the above, anyone whose parents, lover(s), friends, brothers, sisters, or relatives of any type meet any of the above criteria without totally being renounced, disowned, or ignored by said person seeking liberty, equality, and democracy for all mankind, and Hillary Clinton just on the principle that she’s the Whore of Babylon.  Also, Jews are ok as long as they support Israel killing anyone in the above categories.)

But it’s also possible that the Democratic leadership’s wish for American defeat in Iraq will make it clear to this nation (to conservatives and liberals) that today’s Democratic party is no longer a responsible party of government–at least at the national level where America’s security, vision, and honor are at stake.

After all, the Republicans have been doing such a wonderful job with that so far.

Possibly “New Democrats” à la Tony Blair will rally round such lonely voices as Joe Lieberman’s–but remember that New Labour fought its way out of the political womb and all the way to Number 10 only because of the Tories’ ongoing nervous breakdown. More likely, America’s political spectrum a decade or more in the future will be defined by two parties both born of today’s GOP after a natural and painless mitosis.

The Gelerntertron will be assisting this mitosis by ratting out all non-Party members to the coming secret police states.

There’s at least as much distance between a Rudy Giuliani and a Mike Huckabee as there ever was between JFK and Nixon, or even Adlai Stevenson and Dwight Eisenhower. Americans traditionally like their two opposing parties to differ on domestic affairs but agree on basic foreign policy–not because things are nicer that way; rather because foreign-policy arguments are good for our enemies, bad for our friends, and hugely dangerous to ourselves–especially in an age when swarms of maniac, murderous jihadists blacken the Middle East like toxic locusts.

Only the Gelerntertron can save you from THE COMING BETURBANED HORDE(tm).

Listen to what the Democrats are really saying. Consider what they actually want. And pray God they never get it.

Pray we never get out of Iraq, because the Gelerntertron will then be out of a job and forced to work for a living.

Hah.  And you people didn’t believe me when I said spacetime was fucked.  Can you begin to comprehend the ninth dimensional powers of Gelerntertron?

Seriously, can anyone?  I can’t grok this guy at all, he’s just insane.  I hope Big Daddy Bill Kristol gives this guy some more columns, because I want to see if he can write something that contradicts spacetime so completely that he erases himself from the timeline, like Marty McFly almost did.

Clearly, more flux capacitors are needed.

From the incomparable Johnny Buttrocket:

That seems to be the message of this Fox News Poll. By a 50% to 36% margin–a wide gap in today’s polarized climate–respondents say they would rather have Rudy Giuliani at the helm than Hillary Clinton if another terrorist strike were to happen in the U.S. Giuliani also leads his Republican contenders by a wide margin as a “strong leader.”

There is lots more interesting data in the poll, but the bottom line, I think, is that Giuliani’s ace in the hole is also his party’s, and that if Republicans are able to retain the White House in 2008, it will be largely because of the public’s concerns about national security.

There are three lessons here.

One, Fox News polls might be biased.  Just a bit.

Two, somebody needs to tell Johnny that the only way the Republicans will retain the White House is through a combination of mass voter fraud and scaring the shit out of everyone, aided by “news outlets” like Fox screaming TERRA ATTACK TERRA ATTACK THE GREAT BETURBANED HORDE IS COMING FOR YOUR FAMILY ZOMG ELEVEN!1ONE!!

Finally, somebody also needs to tell Johnny there that another attack — the basis of the poll question — would in fact mean that the entire Bush (and therefore GOP) national security apparatus has failed, utterly.  All of it.  All the security procedures and “legislation” and signing statements and trashing of the quaint little Constitution will have resulted in a systemic failure.  So, in case of a demonstrable systemic failure of the national security apparatus put in place by a GOP President, that the GOP Presidential candidate — especially one running primarily on his 9/11 national security credentials — would likely not benefit very much in an election from another attack, as Buttrocket there assumes.

There’s a number four here, and that number four issue is “even implying that you are wishing for another attack just so Hillary loses makes you an asshole.”

As the Surge(tm) in Iraq continues, so does the surge at home.  This week, with the backdrop of 9/11, the hard sell went into overdrive as the Chosen One General Petraeus took the stand.  For six months now, the Democratic efforts to get us out of the quagmire and in fact any debate over Iraq at all were met by the phrase “Wait for the General’s report in September.”

Near mythical status has been given to this report, like Moses bringing the tablets down from the mountain.  Only Nixon could go to China, only Petraeus could come from Iraq.  Any and every logical point of dissent, debate, and concern was blunted, blocked, or broken by the supposition that the only human being on Earth qualified to have an opinion on Iraq is the Mighty General Petraeus.

And finally, the man in charge of Mohammed’s mountain came to Washington.

In a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, senators pressed Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Gen. David Petraeus for a measurable sign of success that would enable a pullout of U.S. troops from Iraq to begin.

Petraeus said he “would be very hard-pressed to recommend” continuing the so-called troop surge beyond March if conditions in Iraq had not changed from what they are now.

But he told lawmakers that Iraqi security forces are improving and are able to “shoulder more of the load, albeit slowly” amid continuing concerns about sectarian elements within their ranks.

“Overall, our tactical commanders see improvement in the security environment,” Petraeus said, repeating assertions about the decline of violence during the surge.

In the surge, President Bush ordered nearly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq in January as part of a campaign to pacify Baghdad and its surrounding provinces.

Second verse, same as the first.  Everything’s going fine, we’re fine, everything’s fine here, give us a second to lock it down.

But something happened on the way to the Forum.  Petraeus slipped.  Freudian or not, he made the mistake of telling the truth.

t one point Tuesday, Sen. John Warner, R-Virginia — an outspoken critic of the state of affairs in Iraq — asked Petraeus if the strategy he was laying out before Congress was making America safer.

“Sir, I believe that this is indeed the best course of action to achieve our objectives in Iraq,” Petraeus answered.

“Does that make America safer?” Warner repeated.

“Sir, I don’t know, actually. I haven’t sat down and sorted it out in my own mind. What I have focused on and what I’m riveted on is how to accomplish the mission of the Multi-National Force-Iraq,” Petraeus replied.

When your opinion is believed to be infallible, you can’t say “I don’t know.”  When the question is “Is America safer because we’re in Iraq” and the answer is “I don’t know” then you’re not only in trouble with Bush (who has sacked so many Generals who told him the truth) but from the reality-based community, who notices things like “somebody telling the truth” in this administration.

Telling the truth in this administration is not only newsworthy, but blogworthy as well, deeper drilling is needed.  Exploratory efforts must be put forth!

Even more newsworthy (and blogworthy) is the fact the news ITSELF is telling the truth about this administration.  Indeed, that’s worth discussing.

The reductions envisioned by the White House mirror those proposed by Petraeus and would leave approximately 130,000 U.S. troops on the ground by August 2008, roughly the same level that existed before Bush ordered the buildup early this year, the officials said. Now, there are 168,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

What’s this?  This isn’t being passed off as “a major troop reduction” but…the status quo from January 2007?  But the hard sell!  And before the Preznit’s Big Ol’ Speech!

Speaking of that speech, people are noticing that with all the emphasis that the debate couldn’t possibly begin without sufficient Petraeus input, the debate is now over without anyone else’s input.  The Decider has Deciderated the Strategery and the rest of us peons (and Congress) had their chance.  The result:  status quo ante.

That would leave the U.S. with about 130,000-135,000 troops in Iraq, although Petraeus was not precise about whether some of the several thousand support troops sent with extra combat forces would remain after July. A few thousand additional military police, for example, were sent to deal with extra detainees.

At the White House, Bush met Tuesday afternoon with House and Senate lawmakers of both parties, and he publicly pledged to consider their views. “It’s very important before I make up my mind that I consult with leaders of the House and the Senate,” he said.

Odd, because apparently he made up his mind pretty much much immediately after talking to them.  Or even before, as CNN was reporting this as breaking news as the second Petraeus hearing was ending.

The four nanosecond window of debate is now closed.  Thank you America for your input on the war.  We will consider your input carefully, at which point we will totally fucking ignore you.

Please save any comment on America’s continuing war in Iraq until March 2008, at which point we will ignore you again.

The plan is now officially to run out the clock until January 2009.  Petraeus, the media, the pundits, the Congress have all served their purpose:  thwarting the will of the American people on Iraq.

For the Democrats, their reward will be the White House, and a concerted effort to pin the blame for the failed war in Iraq on the Democrats and the American people.  Surely the American people won’t fall for this again, you say.

I say the American people are no longer relevant to the discussion of America.  The pundits and the media and the GOP minority will attack the Democrats at every turn.

But the really horrendous issue is the fact Bush still has the go-for-broke option in Iran.  If anything, the President is now more likely to take this route, as Iraq and Bush’s legacy has turned into a stalemate.

There’s some fleeting hope however:  the military is sick of being used.

But it’s questionable whether even the smoothest-talking salesman could appease public opinion–or Petraeus’s Pentagon detractors–at this point. NEWSWEEK has learned that a separate internal report being prepared by a Pentagon working group will “differ substantially” from Petraeus’s recommendations, according to an official who is privy to the ongoing discussions but would speak about them only on condition of anonymity. An early version of the report, which is currently being drafted and is expected to be completed by the beginning of next year, will “recommend a very rapid reduction in American forces: as much as two-thirds of the existing force very quickly, while keeping the remainder there.” The strategy will involve unwinding the still large U.S. presence in big forward operation bases and putting smaller teams in outposts. “There is interest at senior levels [of the Pentagon] in getting alternative views” to Petraeus, the official said. Among others, Centcom commander Admiral William Fallon is known to want to draw down faster than Petraeus.

Then again, several reports out before the good General’s policy-shaping world-shattering testimony contradicted him as well, and were dismissed out of hand, because Only Petraeus Knows The Truth.

Which of course will be the same accusations leveled at critics in 2008.  Wait another Friedman Unit.  Six more months for the rest of eternity.

We will never leave Iraq.  I’m of the mind that even a Democrat in the White House will do the same spine-folding routine we’ve all come to know and love.  There won’t be 130,000 troops in Iraq by 2010, but there will be, maybe, 60,000 forever.  And again, all bets are off if Bush hits Iran on the way out as his final fuck you to the universe.  

Germany — a pivotal player among three European nations to rein in Iran’s nuclear program over the last two-and-a-half years through a mixture of diplomacy and sanctions supported by the United States — notified its allies last week that the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel refuses to support the imposition of any further sanctions against Iran that could be imposed by the U.N. Security Council.

Consequently, according to a well-placed Bush administration source, “everyone in town” is now participating in a broad discussion about the costs and benefits of military action against Iran, with the likely timeframe for any such course of action being over the next eight to 10 months, after the presidential primaries have probably been decided, but well before the November 2008 elections.

The discussions are now focused on two basic options: less invasive scenarios under which the U.S. might blockade Iranian imports of gasoline or exports of oil, actions generally thought to exact too high a cost on the Iranian people but not enough on the regime in Tehran; and full-scale aerial bombardment.

On the latter course, active consideration is being given as to how long it would take to degrade Iranian air defenses before American air superiority could be established and U.S. fighter jets could then begin a systematic attack on Iran’s known nuclear targets.

Remember, those critical discussions and debate about the pros and cons of bombing Iran will probably prove about as useful as the preceding discussions were about Iraq.

Plan: 1) Bomb Iran as soon as the primaries are decided.

2) Everything’s fucked.

3) Blame the Democrats.

4) Shoot for 2010/2012.

“The Trash Heap has spoken!  Nyaaaaaaaah!”
         — Fraggle Rock

And the Long War rolls on.

…unintentionally.

Today is the publication date of World War IV: The Long Struggle Against Islamofascism by Norman Podhoretz. As he states in his acknowledgements, the book updates, adapts, reworks, and integrates several of his Commentary essays into new material. I am a long-time admirer of his work and accordingly invited him to explain what he is up to in his new book. He kindly responded:

   

There have been dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of books about the many issues aroused by 9/11 and George W. Bush’s response to it. But World War IV differs from them all in two major respects. For one thing, it is — at least so far as I know — the first serious attempt to set 9/11 itself, the campaigns that have followed it in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the war of ideas it has provoked at home, into the context of the role the United States has played in the world since 1941. Seen in this light, the struggle against the forces of Islamofascism into which 9/11 plunged us reveals itself as the direct successor to the wars against the totalitarian challenges to our civilization posed by Nazism in World War II and Communism in World War III (as the cold war becomes in this scheme of things). Secondly, against critics both on the Left and the Right, World War IV offers what is probably the most full-throated statement yet published of the case for the Bush Doctrine, whose effort to make the Middle East safe for America by making it safe for democracy represents the only viable strategy for fighting and winning World War IV.

Emphasis, me.

Response to said emphasized:  “That’s because nobody ‘serious’ ever equated our war of choice in Iraq to America in 1941, you meathead.”

Oh, and why the fuck haven’t we caught Osama yet?

Expanding on BooMan’s take on the bin Laden tape this week, I present this week’s Wankers:  Sean Hannity and former WH Chief of Crap, Andrew Card.

Two YouTube videos feature segments of Fox News’ Hannity and Colmes, featuring a total of four guests appearing to offer comment on the recent video released by what appears to be Osama bin Laden. The guests and co-host Sean Hannity work towards connecting bin Laden’s speech to the current tone among the Democrats.

In the first video, former Bush Chief of Staff Andrew Card finds it “outrageous” that the video has been released to coincide with the anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks of 9/11/2001.

“He’s taunting America again,” says Card, “and he’s calling for us to take action that is obscene, and I can’t believe that there are people in Congress that will actually follow the direction of a sworn enemy of this country rather than take the direction of the person sworn to defend the country, the President of the United States.”

Sometimes, wankery is just wankery on its own merit.  Card flat out accuses those in Congress who want to end the war of treason.  Following the “direction of a sworn enemy of this country” is pretty much the definition of a traitor, yes?

There are so many things wrong with Card’s statement it actually makes my head hurt.  First of all, he restricts the valid positions of the “debate” on Iraq to “You’re with us or against us.”  There’s only Good and Evil, Bush and Osama, Us and Them.  There’s no debate in Card’s world, only Four Legs Good, Two Legs Bad.

Secondly, he’s accusing not just Congress but most of the United States of taking direction from America’s Public Enemy #1.  Regardless of the validity of the OBL tape, Card has no right to attack anyone like this, because there are literally hundreds of millions of Americans with the same position:  Bring the Troops Home (including a pretty high percentage of BMT readers and myself.)  He’s accusing anyone of not following the President of being a traitor to America and he’s doing it on national television.

You don’t get much further down the wanker scale then this jagoff.  Except of course, if you let somebody on your show get away with implying that a hundred million plus Americans are following Osama bin Laden…which is exactly what Sean Hannity does.

And then he adds to it.

“He seems to adopt the exact same language being used by the hard left in this country,” Hannity says, “as he describes what’s going on in Iraq as a civil war. He actually used the term ‘Neocons.’ He talks about global warming. He demonizes capitalisms (sic) and corporations in this whole thing — very, very specific language. It seems to be coming from somebody who is keenly aware of the world situation and the battle and the conflict in America over this war, and even admonishing the Democratic Party for not ending the war.”

The cycle of wankery is complete.  Not only does Hannity not call him out, but he makes it worse.  It’s a disgusting reductio ad absurdum argument that’s designed, specifically, to scare the crap out of Democratic Party staffers and have them go “You know, boss…”

And thus, Magical September becomes truly magical.  All valid opposition to the Petraeus White House Report and therefore the entire absurdity of the Long War becomes invalidated by the idiotic bumper sticker “That’s what Osama wants us to do.”

And what’s worse, I fully expect the Dems to fall for it.  Meanwhile, the GOP 2008 Presidential candidates can happily get away with poo-pooing Osama’s existence.

Fred Thompson’s reaction to today’s Osama bin Laden tape:

    “Bin Laden is more symbolism than anything else,” he said.

Mitt Romney on bin Laden:

    [Romney] said the country would be safer by only “a small percentage” and would see “a very insignificant increase in safety” if al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was caught because another terrorist would rise to power. “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person,” Romney said.

Bush on bin Laden:

    “I truly am not that concerned about him.”

The questions Steve at C&L asks are good ones.

At what point did the GOP decide that bin Laden no longer matters? And how would the right respond if Dems made similar comments?

The answer of course is that Osama is nothing if you’re a Republican.  He’s a small man.  He’s a bit player in the Warren Terrah.  The fact that we haven’t caught the man yet is meaningless but the fact that he’s still out there should scare you into doing Bush’s bidding.  And Bush’s bidding is that the Long War will go on forever.

Hell, didn’t you hear?  Osama magically appeared NOW not because Bush needed a cudgel to crush the growing opposition, but because  we’re winning in Iraq so convincingly that he had to say something in order to stay relevant, the good Cap’n Ed tells us.

His video message was timed to deliver that purpose. His announcement would have immediately preceded the attacks in Germany and Denmark, emphasizing AQ’s ability to strike anywhere in the world. And it probably would have had the effect Osama intended, had it worked; there is little doubt that war critics would have redoubled their effort to discredit the forward strategy and force Bush to pull out of Iraq.

Ask yourselves this: why does Osama want to push us out of the Middle East, especially Iraq and Afghanistan? It’s not because we’re losing in either theater. If we were losing, he’d be happy to beat American military forces for as long as we stuck around. He wants us out because he’s losing — and he tried to hit Germany and Denmark because he can’t beat the American military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Or perhaps people think it’s a coincidence that Osama finally reappeared after the surge pushed AQI all the way to the Syrian border?

(emphasis mine)

Suuure Ed, because we’re really winning in Iraq.  After all the odds of Osama popping up the moment Bush needs him the most and being manufactured by our side as propaganda is less than the odds that all the dead and injured soldiers are really just doctored footage, right?

At some point, this idiotic argument that “Dissent is Treason!” has to be challenged by more than bloggers and guys like me.  It’s got to be done by the Democrats in Congress, by the ones running for President, by the news outlets themselves and by America…all of it.

For fuck’s sakes, this is the same Sunday Wankery column I could have written this time 2 years ago.  It was over the top and out of bounds then.  It probably cost Kerry the election.

If the GOP accuses you of doing something, it’s because they are already doing it.  Never has this been more apparent than this week.

And the Long War rolls on.  This week, the President plays Three-Card Monty with troop numbers, mentioning the possibility of maybe the consideration of troop withdrawal at some point in the future…kind of.  Gen. Petraeus is fighting at home so we can fight more over there and there’s always the case being made that the “serious people” want to want to bomb the crap out of Iran.

Ahh, Magical September.
But it seems the vigilant Keith Olbermann figured out the real plan this week:

And so he is back from his annual surprise gratuitous photo-op in Iraq, and what a sorry spectacle it was.

But it was nothing compared to the spectacle of one unfiltered, unguarded, horrifying quotation in the new biography to which Mr. Bush has consented.

As he deceived the troops at Al-Asad Air Base yesterday with the tantalizing prospect that some of them might not have to risk being killed and might get to go home…

Mr. Bush probably did not know that, with his own words, he had already proved that he had been lying… is lying… will be lying…. about Iraq.

He presumably did not know, that there had already appeared those damning excerpts from Robert Draper’s book “Dead Certain.”

“I’m playing for October-November,” Mr. Bush said to Draper.

That, evidently, is the time during which, he thinks he can sell us the real plan.

Which is, to quote him: “To get us in a position where the presidential candidates, will be comfortable about sustaining a presence.”Comfortable” — that is — with saying about Iraq, again quoting the President, “stay… longer.”

And there it is, Sir.

The Long War rolls on.  While bombing Iran may still be up in the air, the original plan — to make the Long War the next President’s legacy as much as it is Bush’s legacy now — continues.

We’ve caught you.

Your goal is not to bring some troops home — maybe — if we let you have your way now;

Your goal is not to set the stage for eventual withdrawal;

You are, to use your own disrespectful, tone-deaf word, playing at getting the next Republican nominee to agree to jump into this bottomless pit with you, and take us with him, as we stay in Iraq for another year, and another, and another, and anon.

Everything you said about Iraq yesterday, and everything you will say, is a deception, for the purpose of this one cynical, unacceptable, brutal goal — perpetuating this war indefinitely.

War today, war tomorrow, war forever!

A slight, but telling quibble I have with Olbermann here:  he seems to think the President is trying to pass the baton to a Republican nominee in 2008.  He’s really trying to assure the war will be fought by both parties.

Granted, the best way to do that is to hit Iran.  But short of that, running out the clock is a backup plan with seemingly 100% chance of success.  Nobody in our established press is calling out the White House on this kabuki play.  The Long War must be appeased.  It must be fed like the beast it is.  At this point the Democrats, the Republicans, the media, the military, all own the Long War.

Certainly the media now own this war.  They freely attack anyone who’s not on board this hurtling government train.

At first glance–as those who leaked it last week saw–the Government Accountability Office’s report on Iraq, released today, paints a dark view of progress and prospects in Iraq. Its subtitle offers the most attractive thesis to opponents of the current strategy: “Iraqi Government Has Not Met Most Legislative, Security, and Economic Benchmarks.” Its opening paragraph dourly states that “the Iraqi government met 3, partially met 4, and did not meet 11 of its 18 benchmarks.” Surely its release marks a grim moment for the Bush administration’s efforts to sustain their approach in the war. Or perhaps not.

The GAO report reflects everything that has been wrong with the discussion about Iraq since the end of 2006. Through no fault of the GAO’s, the organization was sent on a fool’s errand by Congress. Its mandate was not to evaluate progress in Iraq, but to determine whether or not the Iraqi government had met the 18 benchmarks. As a result, as the report repeatedly notes, the GAO was forced to fit an extraordinarily complicated reality into a black-and-white, yes-or-no simplicity. In addition, the GAO’s remit extended only to evaluating progress on the Congressionally-sanctioned 18 benchmarks, 14 of which were established between eight and 11 months ago in a very different context. As a result, the report ignores completely a number of crucial positive developments that were not foreseen when the benchmarks were established and that, in fact, offer the prospect of a way forward that is much more likely to succeed than the year-old, top-down concept the GAO was told to measure. As the situation in Iraq has been changing dynamically over the past eight months, as American strategy and operations, both military and political, have been adjusting on the ground to new realities, the debate in Washington has remained mired in the preconceptions and approaches of 2006. The GAO report epitomizes this fact.

Smoke and mirrors.  “You can’t trust a government report…unless it comes from the government.”

Already, the calls come for another few months to reach that crucial point that will turn Iraq around, just like the last Friedman Unit, and the one before that, and the one before that…

BAGHDAD — The No. 2 U.S. commander in Iraq said Tuesday that the next three to four months will be crucial in determining whether the United States can start to withdraw troops from Iraq without sacrificing security gains since the troop buildup began early this year.

Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno said the number of attacks in August fell to their lowest level in more than a year, although he gave no figures. Odierno insisted that overall violence was declining — a sign that the buildup ordered by President Bush was working.

We will never leave Iraq.  The generals that replace Odierno and Petraeus will say the same thing during the next Administration.  They will be championed by the Fred Kagans and Michael Ledeens in the media.  They will be supported by the Democrats who want to sound tough on Iran and the ones who fail to stop the march to Tehran.  Certainly the GOP candidates are on board to keep us in Iraq forever and point us towards Iran.

Taking his fearmongering to new heights, yesterday on Hannity and Colmes, Thompson claimed that withdrawal from Iraq would lead to “the whole” Middle East going “nuclear”:

    If we leave [Iraq] under bad circumstances, we’re going to have a haven down there for terrorists. The whole area, I’m afraid, will become nuclearized. The Sunni countries are looking at what Iran is doing. And if we can’t help with stability in that part of the world, they’re going to help themselves, and they’re going to go nuclear.

And so the Long War rolls on.

This week’s Sunday Wankery candidate was relatively low-hanging fruit:  the weekly WSJ guest op-ed by Josef Jofee.  Now, you expect anything  out of the Paper of Propaganda to be bad, but this one had me hurling expletives before I got done with my breakfast.  It’s the “We Can’t Possibly Ever Leave Iraq” show again, but taken to it’s illogical endpoint.

In contrast to President Bush’s dark comparison between Iraq and the bloody aftermath of the Vietnam War last month, there is another, comforting version of the Vietnam analogy that’s gained currency among policy makers and pundits. It goes something like this:

After that last helicopter took off from the U.S. embassy in Saigon 32 years ago, the nasty strategic consequences then predicted did not in fact materialize. The “dominoes” did not fall, the Russians and Chinese did not take over, and America remained No. 1 in Southeast Asia and in the world.

What makes Sunday Wankery special?  Starting off with logical arguments is one thing, but actually using facts — not “pulled out of my various orifices” quasi-facts, but accepted truths, only means the perversion of these facts through the Wankification(tm) process (It’s like Martinizing your dry cleaning, except it involves turning your clothes into rabid, genetically mutated abominations) is all the more anger-inducing to those of us in the reality based community.

In other words, there’s the wind-up…and the pitch:

But alas, cut-and-run from Iraq will not have the same serendipitous aftermath, because Iraq is not at all like Vietnam.

Unlike Iraq, Vietnam was a peripheral arena of the Cold War. Strategic resources like oil were not at stake, and neither were bases (OK, Moscow obtained access to Da Nang and Cam Ranh Bay for a while). In the global hierarchy of power, Vietnam was a pawn, not a pillar, and the decisive battle lines at the time were drawn in Europe, not in Southeast Asia.

The Middle East, by contrast, was always the “elephant path of history,” as Israel’s fabled defense minister, Moshe Dayan, put it. Legions of conquerors have marched up and down the Levant, and from Alexander’s Macedonia all the way to India. Other prominent visitors were Julius Caesar, Napoleon and the German Wehrmacht.

Iraq was the Most Important War Ever to all these guys, I’m sure.  Here’s a freebie for Josef here:  when trying to argue that America should stay in Iraq in order to slake imperial bloodlust, it’s bad form to list a number of ultimately failed empires that failed to take and keep Mesopotamia in the name of imperial bloodlust.

That kind of thing turns out to be, you know, a shining historical example that we should leave.

This is not just ancient history. Today, the Greater Middle East is a cauldron even Macbeth’s witches would be terrified to touch. The world’s worst political and religious pathologies combine with oil and gas, terrorism and nuclear ambitions.

In short, unlike yesterday’s Vietnam, the Greater Middle East (including Turkey) is the central strategic arena of the 21st century, as Europe was in the 20th. This is where three continents–Europe, Asia, and Africa–are joined. So let’s take a moment to think about what would happen once that last Blackhawk took off from Baghdad International.

There you go again.  The first time was a freebie.  Now you’re clearly saying “Yeah, this wasn’t such a great idea, was it?”  You get one of those, you already used it up, and now you have to spend the rest of the piece trying to out-argue yourself in your own freaking column.

Wankery at its finest.  But it gets better.

Here is a short list. Iran advances to No. 1, completing its nuclear-arms program undeterred and unhindered. America’s cowed Sunni allies–Saudi-Arabia, Jordan, the oil-rich “Gulfies”–are drawn into the Khomeinist orbit.

Wouldn’t they converge in a mighty anti-Tehran alliance instead?  Iran’s Shi’a, you know.

You might ask: Wouldn’t they converge in a mighty anti-Tehran alliance instead? Think again. The local players have never managed to establish a regional balance of power; it was always outsiders–first Britain, then the U.S.–who chastened the malfeasants and blocked anti-Western intruders like Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.

Translation:  “Even though this region’s people have survived as a civilization for several thousand years, they are incapable of self-governance, the savages that they are.  Throughout history, the Empire Du Jour has grabbed these little bastard sand castles and chucked them against the wall just to make ’em stick.  That’s why this region exists: to have a country to pimpslap.  Get with the program.”

With the U.S. gone from Iraq, emboldened jihadi forces shift to Afghanistan and turn it again into a bastion of Terror International. Syria reclaims Lebanon, which it has always labeled as a part of “Great Syria.” Hezbollah and Hamas, both funded and equipped by Tehran, resume their war against Israel. Russia, extruded from the Middle East by adroit Kissingerian diplomacy in the 1970s, rebuilds its anti-Western alliances. In Iraq, the war escalates, unleashing even more torrents of refugees and provoking outside intervention, if not partition.

Which is an interesting scenario, except for our inability to prevent all of that from happening if we stay in Iraq.  (Short of the Syria reclaiming Lebanon thing, and actually that’s far enough along the proxy war we helped create to be pretty likely too now.)

But we’ve heard this all before.  Recycled stuff from the run up to the 2006 elections doesn’t constitute wankery, just laziness.  Where’s the beef?

Now, let’s look beyond the region. The Europeans will be the first to revise their romantic notions of multipolarity, or world governance by committee. For worse than an overbearing, in-your-face America is a weakened and demoralized one. Shall Vladimir Putin’s Russia acquire a controlling stake? This ruthlessly revisionist power wants revenge for its post-Gorbachev humiliation, not responsibility.

China with its fabulous riches? The Middle Kingdom is still happily counting its currency surpluses as it pretties up its act for the 2008 Olympics, but watch its next play if the U.S. quits the highest stakes game in Iraq. The message from Beijing might well read: “Move over America, the Western Pacific, as you call it, is our lake.”

Europe? It is wealthy, populous and well-ordered. But strategic players those 27 member-states of the E.U. are not. They cannot pacify the Middle East, stop the Iranian bomb or keep Mr. Putin from wielding gas pipelines as tools of “persuasion.” When the Europeans did wade into the fray, as in the Balkan wars of the 1990s, they let the U.S. Air Force go first.

Yeah, it was about here that the blue streak was being cursed into existence.  Keep in mind the argument is that Iraq is The Most Important War Ever because of the legions of Raghead Sunzabitches waiting to come cross thousands of miles of ocean to blow up your house specifically.  Also keep in mind that Iraq is nothing like Vietnam because unlike Vietnam, it’s The Most Important War Ever.

So how do we justify staying in Iraq?  Abandon the first argument altogether, and whip out the oldest Vietnam canard in the book: The Domino Theory…which you spent the first part of the article saying it was the oldest Vietnam canard in the book.  It’s not the terrorists, it’s Putin and China, meaning really…this is a proxy fight between us and the great Red Menace.  But Iraq is nothing like Vietnam except for all the ways it’s umm…exactly like Vietnam.

Oh, and there’s oil.

Now to the upside. The U.S. may have spent piles of chips foolishly, but it is still the richest player at the global gaming table. In the Bush years, the U.S. may have squandered tons of political capital, but then the rest of the world is not exactly making up for the shortfall.

Nor has the U.S. become a “dispensable nation.” That is the most remarkable truth in these trying times. Its enemies from al Qaeda to Iran–and its rivals from Russia to China–can disrupt and defy, but they cannot build and lead.

For all the damage to Washington’s reputation, nothing of great import can be achieved without, let alone against, the U.S. Can Moscow and Beijing bring peace to Palestine? Or mend a global financial system battered by the subprime crisis? Where are the central banks of Russia and China?

Yes, so despite the HUGE FREAKING MISTAKE we made going into Iraq, and given your argument that it’s not too late for America to display actual leadership and correct the mistake and that the damage isn’t too extensive or systemic…your advice is to keep doing the same stupid thing we’ve been doing that cost us all that political capital and goodwill in the first goddamn place.  Nice!

The Bush presidency will soon be on the way out, but America is not. This truth has recently begun to sink in among the major Democratic contenders. Listen to Hillary Clinton, who would leave “residual forces” to fight terrorism. Or to Barack Obama, who would stay in Iraq with an as-yet-unspecified force. Even the most leftish of them all, John Edwards, would keep troops around to stop genocide in Iraq or to prevent violence from spilling over into the neighborhood. And no wonder, for it might be one of them who will have to deal with the bitter aftermath if the U.S. slinks out of Iraq.

These realists have it right. Withdrawal cannot serve America’s interests on the day after tomorrow. Friends and foes will ask: If this superpower doesn’t care about the world’s central and most dangerous stage–what will it care about?

America’s allies will look for insurance elsewhere. And the others will muse: If the police won’t stay in this most critical of neighborhoods, why not break a few windows, or just take over? The U.S. as “Gulliver Unbound” may have stumbled during its “unipolar” moment. But as giant with feet of clay, it will do worse: and so will the rest of the world.

It’s called “a phased withdrawal” there Skippy.  Maybe you’ve heard of the plan.  The Democrats have been talking about such a phased withdrawal plan for a couple years now, but people like Joey here seem to think that “phased withdrawal” equals “leaving Iraq literally overnight and letting everyone who worked with America die” and therefore the result is that the argument magically morphs into “there are only two options:  ‘Stay and Fight’ or ‘Cut and Run’.”

Nothing could be further from the truth.  But then again, that’s why this piece is Wankery…it defeats itself with its own staggering illogic.

I’m gonna go clean something.  Sheesh.

The thing about Sen. Larry “Wide Stance” Craig (R-Idaho) that’s been bothering me the most is the way he’s been treated by his own party. Odds are good that he needs to be changing his nickname from “Wide Stance” to “Last Chance”.  His days may be numbered to the point of being hours, certainly this would a prime Friday News Dump with a long weekend coming.

On second thought yeah, I know.  “Sympathy for the Devil” and all.  He’s a hypocritical self-hating Gooper closet case.  Any United States Senator who gives a press conference to announce to the world that he’s not gay…is gay.  You’re not fooling anybody.  But being a closet case isn’t a crime.  Soliciting sex in a public restroom is a crime, but not anywhere close to the scale of, say, the massive public corruption and graft charges facing Sen. Ted “Series of Tubes” Stevens (R-Alaska).
Now, keep in mind the reasons why ol Larry is being shown the door here, according to hisgood buddy Mitt:

“I think at this stage, the right course is for him to make this decision looking at his own conscience, talking to the people of Idaho, talking to his colleagues in the Senate,” Romney told CNN’s John King in South Carolina. “I’m not one of those. I’m going to let him make that decision.”

Sure Mitt, but you want him gone.  You’re not fooling anyone either.

His distinguished colleagues in the Senate are much more direct:

On Wednesday, three Republican lawmakers, including Sen. John McCain, called on Craig to resign.

Their statements came a day after Craig made his first public statement about pleading guilty to a disorderly conduct charge relating to allegations the Idaho Republican solicited sex in a Minneapolis airport bathroom.

“I believe that he pleaded guilty, and he had the opportunity to plead innocent,” said McCain, of Arizona. “So, I think he should resign. My opinion is that when you plead guilty to a crime you shouldn’t serve.”

“Sen. Craig pled guilty to a crime involving conduct unbecoming a senator. He should resign,” said Minnesota Republican Sen. Norm Coleman.

Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan added: “The voters of Idaho elected Sen. Craig to represent their state and will decide his future in 2008 should he fail to resign.

“However, he also represents the Republican party, and I believe he should step down, as his conduct throughout this matter has been inappropriate for a U.S. senator.”

He’s being served up on a platter for his “crimes.”  The reasons given are of course “conduct unbecoming a Senator” and “pleading guilty to a crime” but the real reason he’s being shown the door has been the fact he’s  gay, and the GOP is violently hostile to gays, period.  They are to be used as a cudgel to enforce “morality” at best case and purged from the party at worst, and nobody in the GOP deserves any sympathy for that systemic bigotry and hatred.

And while that’s a huge problem, my real issue is this: Some have even gone so far on the right to accuse Craig of hypocrisy on being a “values” candidate and are trying to shame him out of office.  To these people, allow me to beat you over the head with the actions of one Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska.

Stevens downplayed the current FBI investigation, which included a raid of his home while he was still in Washington. He also added some new, if sketchy, information to the public record.

 maybe you don’t know that, but I have been involved in them, and we weathered the storms,” Stevens said.

Stevens said this time around he doesn’t know if he’s the target of the investigation.  

“I’m not sure I’m a target yet. I’ve not been told I’m a target. But as a practical matter, the situation — I shouldn’t have answered that question either,” Stevens said. “I was not a target of those other investigations, is what I was saying.”    

Whatever the case now, Stevens said he will be the same senator he has been for Alaska.

“I am focused and effective,” Stevens said. “I think it’d be very difficult to detract any senator from doing his job when he’s in Washington.”    

So while Alaskans wonder where the public corruption probe will end, Stevens seems to have said all that he’s going to say about it.

Yeah, let’s look at Ted here.  “I’ve been involved in other investigations in my 39 years,” he says.  Well gee, that makes me like the guy, 40 years in the Senate and he’s facing a major bribery and corruption charge, and there are of course zero calls for him to step down from McCain or Norm Coleman.  

Let’s review the major fucking malfunction of the GOP.

Lewd behavior in an airport bathroom: Grounds for resignation.

Having your home doubled in size by a contractor in an obvious graft scheme:  Perfectly fine.

Touching a cop’s foot in the crapper:  Out the door, you pervert.

Giving aforementioned contractor services company a $170 million dollar no-bid contract in an area they have zero experience in:  A-OK.

Where’s the outrage against Ted Stevens?  What the hell is wrong with a group of people that will force you to lose your job because you touched a cop’s foot in a bathroom, and will let millions in graft and kickbacks walk scot-free?  If you want to know why people thing the GOP is a bunch of repugnant bigoted jagoffs, you have no further to look than the treatment of Larry Craig versus that of Ted Stevens.

We’ve got a party that will give one of their own the heave-ho for bathroom shenanigans, but four decades of pork, graft, corruption, scandal, and payola?  You get to keep your job through 8 presidential administrations.

Jagoffs.  All of them.