Obviously, the Rovians would like to focus the debate on "liberal" attempts to expose or question the administration’s policies — such as the use of "practices tantamount to torture" — rather than on the abject failure of those policies.
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June 25, 2005
WB: Exit Strategy
Comments
John at America’s Blog makes a pretty good case that Rove’s comments were part of a well coordinated white house media blitz. Can’t say I disagree… scary stuff.
Posted by: JDMcKay | Jun 25 2005 5:41 utc | 1
@Billmon: I think you’re missing an angle.
There’s really two Iraq Wars. The one for public consumption (the “ra-ra” war) — the one you’re discussing — and the “secret war” — ie: the 14 or so permanent bases.
For the secret war, it’s not winning or losing, it’s staying. From that standpoint, they’ve now gotten what they sought. Mission accomplished.
They can now wrap up the “public” war, blame its failure on the Jews, use that political captal to fire up their base, cling power and move on.
When you start thuinking like them, it is really IS very clear.
And terifying, because I think they’re basically correct in their plans.
It’ll take a collapse of craptacular proportions to stop them. The Dems are just wankers in the wind.
Posted by: Lupin | Jun 25 2005 6:35 utc | 2
I’m not sure what to think of Rove’s ‘comments’ beyond the sheer childishness of it all. The only appropriate response to Rove is just as simpleminded: ‘prove it, big mouth.’
Whenever these things happen, I’m curious to find the real reason: what do the masterminds in the White House want the media to ignore in favor of the latest verbal bombshell?
This week, Rove may have wanted to direct our attention away from a report given to Congress by the Inspector General of the Marine Corps. This report was covered by the Boston Globe on June 22 (Wednesday) and emphasized that 30,000 US Marines in Iraq need more armored vehicles, more communications equipment, and twice as many heavy machine guns. The word that caught my eye was “unprepared”, as in ‘unprepared to fight’.
When Karl Rove said that conservatives ‘prepared for war’ after 9/11, I guess he didn’t include the Marines. Or will Bush just blame Clinton again, as he and Cheney did in 2000?
Posted by: Jon Koppenhoefer | Jun 25 2005 7:25 utc | 4
Lupin, So chilling that it does ring with that Cheney/Rove doublethink. All gaming and power behind a din of values trash talk.
Is 14 bases what it takes to secure our rivers of oil? Does anyone know what portion of the $millions flushed into the WOT have actually been funnelled into base and embassy building?
Visions of those walled castles that medieval crusaders raised across the conquered ‘Holy Land” to secure their Christian realm.
Posted by: small coke | Jun 25 2005 9:14 utc | 5
For two years now, I’ve seen folks (mostly on Kos) crowing in anticipation of or predicting the impending defeat of the evil ones.
Rove must have orgasms when he reads our blogs. Truly.
The fact of the matter is, they won and they’re still winning, except we don’t see it because we don’t look at their scoreboard and we don’t think like them.
Yes, someday they will lose because ultimately things will fall apart, as they did in Rumania, Germany, the old USSR, etc. But it won’t be the Dems or the liberals that will defeat them, tho we might make good martyrs. It will be reality, and even in our age of history-on-crack, that still takes time.
I’m sure that all things being equal, they would have preferred to win the “public war” in Iraq, but folks like Gillard doesn’t get it, they already won the “secret war” – they’ve got what they wanted, basically the bases. They’ll settle for that; that was the real goal all along.
Meanwhile, the failure of the “public war” can be turned into an asset to destroy their domestic opposition.
The Iraq War failure can become Rove’s biggest asset going into 2006 and 2008. “W was too soft, hey, let’s get Jeb. He’ll kick even more ass!”
You catch my drift.
Sun-Tzu-like, Rove gambles that the more we oppose the “public war”, the more we will create support (or enough support to steal another election) to enable them to cling to power.
Posted by: Lupin | Jun 25 2005 9:56 utc | 6
Lupin,
I don’t know whether I agree completely with what you say, but I think you’ve basically got it right: They pretty much win, no matter what. The worse it gets, the more reactionary and dangerous they become, the bigger their lies get, the more the lapdog media kowtows, the more vituperative their attacks on liberals and traitors becomes, the more the public is snowed. One way or the other, they tend to get what they want.
And this will continue so long as we have a weak opposition party, a stupid and gullible electorate, and a press that acts as if it’s a ward of the state. And I know we’re not supposed to use the “f” word, but just look at fascist experiences in Europe and South America.
Or look no further than George Orwell. It’s pretty frightening.
Posted by: Phil from New York | Jun 25 2005 16:59 utc | 7
I’m sure that all things being equal, they would have preferred to win the “public war” in Iraq, but folks like Gillard doesn’t get it, they already won the “secret war” – they’ve got what they wanted, basically the bases. They’ll settle for that; that was the real goal all along.
Lupin, I broadly agree with your analysis, but I’m not sure they safely got those 14 bases.
One thing about the public war is that you don’t know much about the realities of the secret war – and from a few glimpses, it goes much worse for the US than you’d think. 14 bases can’t exist like other planets – they need transports in and out, and to withstand all kinds of attacks, they need to control the area around as a further line of defense, blast walls aren’t enough.
A point I saw Gilliard trying to communicate to you is that the latter isn’t there. An item he called my attention to with one of his blog posts was an attack on helicopters just outside a US base, and the base commander revealing that he doesn’t have the GIs to send on patrols.
You should also read the recent detailed account of the coordinated attack on Abu Ghraib, which was much more complex than originally portrayed, and just shy of success (it wasn’t the Americans who prevented it, but the early explosion of the crucial car bomb). If the resistance can organise that, it can also organise the overrun of a US base.
To emphasize where I agree: yes, there two wars, maybe even four: the public war on the war on Iraq, the Iraq war on the ground, the war for regional dominance, and the war for domination in the USA. And even if the first two are lost (and the 14 bases have to be deserted), if they get an Iraq divided by anarchy, the third is won, and the fourth could possibly be won even if all of the first three are lost.
Yes, I think the majority of the left blogosphere deceives itself if it believes Rove’s utterings are the sign of the neocons’ fall. (And not because I believe Rove is a genius who can’t fail – I don’t believe in the Great Men theory of propaganda either.) And until elected Democrats are as timid as they are, yes, I believe only the coming economic collapse of the US or an earlier slap in the face by reality will stop them. And, actually, it could get worse if the timid Democrats manage to defeat these guys: for, they would be neither capable of sorting out the mess Dubya leaves behind, nor the fight back against the Repubs blaming their own errors on the Dems, and Jeb Bush would be swept to power next time with a real landslide mandate.
& american bases will be overrun – it is simply a question of time
as for the leadership – it is nothing if not gilbert & sullivan or something even worse – some cruel kind of pantomime as if invented by dante & goethe in their most demential moments
agree with lupin – that it would be idealist to think that it is not going to get a great deal worse before it can get ‘better’ – if that is at all possible
the roves of this world are not giants – it is we who have gotten smaller curled up as we are in the horror of what is actually happening
each day brings something else that was unimagianble the day before & now that the us has seduced the iranians into accepting a mirror of american theocracy. & there can be no doubt now – there is nothing for the iranians to lose in a generalised war – if they are really men of the cloth as they clami to be – they will welcome the coming conflagration with the great satan
& what has happened in iran has been welcomed in indonesia, egypt & pakistan – for they know which way the wind will blow
welcome, as alice sd – to the nightmare
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 25 2005 22:29 utc | 10
Lupin,
Interesting thought. But what is the point of securing isolated footholds? I’m not sure how much these bases will be worth as leisure real estate …
Posted by: Jassalasca Jape | Jun 25 2005 22:52 utc | 11
finally, the great american tragedy will be that there is no exit. not anymore. it seems they have really crossed a threshold from where ‘politicas as usual’ cannot be restored
& perhaps there has never been an exit from the spanish american war to today – ill conceived operations, or ventures where profit was made from either the weakness or the vanity of their opponents
the mythology that the united states came to the europeans aid is exactly that – a myth – evn tho it involved the deaths of their sons & that the lend-lease or the marshall plan was a form of charity – has always shown that this imperial power always wanted to take advantage but at a cheapskate’s risk
& the ‘military aventures’ that we have lived thru from our births can all be seen as so ill conceived – even in the shot term & absolutely lunatic in the long run
& in iraq & the coming conflagration it has reached its zenith – tho i am scared of saying that knowing tommorrow they will conceive of something worse than i have imagined on these sleepless summer nights but it is with difficulty to imagine how it could get much worse – knowing that whole swathes of iraq have been tenderised by bombardment & murder
& i sometimes don’t know if the word tragedy is appropriate because it is not somone or something falling from a lofty height but closer to a rattlesnakes rattle & slow movement thru the sands
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 25 2005 23:09 utc | 12
dodo
Yes, I think the majority of the left blogosphere deceives itself if it believes Rove’s utterings are the sign of the neocons’ fall.
Yup. People underestimate the tenacity of most Americans to defend a way of life–the impossible achievement of happiness via consumption–to assure an impossible life by any means necessary.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 25 2005 23:39 utc | 13
well step right up – step right up
from cnn
“STORRS, Connecticut (AP) — A new program at the University of Connecticut will offer a master’s degree in homeland security.”
no exit
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Jun 25 2005 23:49 utc | 14
Rather, as the acceptance of torture shows, most americans (even though they know bush lied, etc.) are resigned now about the basic immorality of the ways our means justify what most persons believe to be the nobility of Our Way of Life.
If this is the case, there’s no obvious limit to the justification of the means.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 25 2005 23:53 utc | 15
Face it, nobody has any idea of whether a spark will cause massive revulsion against the Bushist regime or an all out scramble to Turner’s diaries or just a continuing slow collapse or anything else. History is a vast complex machine and we push buttons and try reverse engineers it despite not having a clue about basic principles.
Posted by: citizen k | Jun 26 2005 1:09 utc | 16
bound up as it is by the narrow logic of domination (give us your cheap labor and natural resources, or we’ll kill you), the future is now more easy than ever to predict.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 26 2005 1:29 utc | 18
Is cheap labor a natural resource? How about the internet?
Posted by: razor | Jun 26 2005 1:36 utc | 19
yes, labor is a natural resource. but also, labor, reified to increase suplus value of commodities–a value expropriated by capital–is also the alienation of humans from nature.
the internet is a technical mediation of communication.
razor, you’ll want to reduce these concepts in order to demonstrate the ambiguity of “nature” and “labor” in order to refute the realities of alienation. that will be boring to me.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 26 2005 1:44 utc | 20
Known dead ends bore me, and, do more serious damage as well.
But, you do know better, and choose not to adapt in favor of an alien vocabulary, like S Sissyfuss who volunteers for boulder patrol.
One more on the Rove team. Objective allies.
Posted by: razor | Jun 26 2005 1:52 utc | 22
You lost me there. Sorry, my response to you was arrogant.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 26 2005 2:02 utc | 23
Slothrop, that was a mean spirited remark. Watch the karma. Facts are, 100 years of “scientific” history and we have not advanced beyond the stage of post-hoc data fitting.
RGiap: “each day brings something else that was unimaginable the day before”, give me a fucking break. So each day outdoes Comrade Leopold in Congo, the Friend of all Poets Gulag, the crushing of the Taiping rebellion, 200 years of African slavery, the Bengal famines, Auswitzch, Apartheid, the Algerian/French war, the Crusades, the Cossack invasions of Poland in the 1600s, the Rwanda genocide and so on? Nothing short of total anhiliation needs any imagination at all and even that is only a small logical step. Or are you surprised by the continued behavior of the US (read Mark Twain on the US in the Phillipines) or the supine complicity of the Europeans. I’m surprised when someone misses a chance to act despicably.
Posted by: citizen k | Jun 26 2005 2:35 utc | 24
bound up as it is by the narrow logic of domination (give us your cheap labor and natural resources, or we’ll kill you), the future is now more easy than ever to predict.
Jeez, that’s a quantum change in historical operation. I mean, the “narrow logic of domination” never would have occured to the Ch’in Emperor or Ghengis Kahn or Julius Cesar or Ramses II. Those guys were all about “smell the flowers and live for today”, I guess.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jun 26 2005 2:46 utc | 25
What I said to razor was uncool, because I always read his posts w/ interest. But, seriously, read brooks today. History, civilization is too complex for a reason. “the chaos of production” deliberate. I’m such an optimist because I believe, not without justification, we do better to make history by making things less chaotic.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 26 2005 2:47 utc | 26
about 100k years into the homo sapien sapien line, homo sapien sapien Marx created his own proprietary vocabulary to describe the humna experience. It is an alien vocabulary, even to its time and place. Certainly, no non alienated person I have ever known of has used that vocabulary. Slothrop, you know the faults of this alienating vocabulary, yet stick to it. It will lead nowhere. Sisyphus, if I remember some frenchie right, rolled a boulder up a hill to no end rather than give up. Others, from a vast menu, chose futile boulder rolling as what they will do during their homo sapien sapien span. Rove has power to the extent those who should know better play the same old game.
By which mostly I mean, it was a long week. Nothing personal.
Posted by: razor | Jun 26 2005 2:57 utc | 27
I merely say the consensus justification for domination is no longer guided so much by the mystification of the spirit of a nation, as it was for germans, say, but by the simple justification of murder in the ME for cheap gas, a better ass, and happy children, so long as the pretty middleclass mother is spared the horror of guilt. Basically, the latter assured so long as lower class soldiers do the heavy lifting.
In the middle of reading the suggested stern, paxton, and kershaw books on fascism, the simplicity of the justification for domination is striking, all the more so because anything can be targeted for death if it dares impede what is basically an infinite lebensraum for american consumption.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 26 2005 2:58 utc | 28
The 14 bases remind me of Miyamoto Musashi’s Book of Five Rings… it’s been a long time, but I think there’s something in there about the homeowner in the house, trapped by his fear of the burglar outside: the house becomes a prison rather than a shelter. The burglar has more freedom of movement, more choices, a better view, from the outside of the house/fortress.
so, comrade slothrop, would you venture to agree with me that the model for American complicity is Roman rather than our old friend, “a certain mid C20 totalitarian regime in Central Europe”? that the motivation for the plebes to support the project of Empire is bread and circuses, not hifalutin delusions of national grandeur and mission civilatrice? just floating a trial balloon here.
@razor, most disciplines have a dedicated vocabulary and technical language, from psychology to sheep farming to electron microscopy. I don’t find Marxist jargon any more or less offensive than the colourful mutterings of particle physicists. if you ain’t willing to learn the language you will have a hard time understanding the culture — travelling between disciplines is not unlike travelling between countries.
I fear Lupin is right, but I hope he is wrong.
As for justification for domination – no change here.
———-
Athenians. For ourselves, we shall not trouble you with specious pretences- either of how we have a right to our empire because we overthrew the Mede, or are now attacking you because of wrong that you have done us- and make a long speech which would not be believed; and in return we hope that you, instead of thinking to influence us by saying that you did not join the Lacedaemonians, although their colonists, or that you have done us no wrong, will aim at what is feasible, holding in view the real sentiments of us both; since you know as well as we do that right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they canand the weak suffer what they must.
Melians. As we think, at any rate, it is expedient- we speak as we are obliged, since you enjoin us to let right alone and talk only of interest- that you should not destroy what is our common protection, the privilege of being allowed in danger to invoke what is fair and right, and even to profit by arguments not strictly valid if they can be got to pass current. And you are as much interested in this as any, as your fall would be a signal for the heaviest vengeance and an example for the world to meditate upon.
Athenians. The end of our empire, if end it should, does not frighten us: a rival empire like Lacedaemon, even if Lacedaemon was our real antagonist, is not so terrible to the vanquished as subjects who by themselves attack and overpower their rulers. This, however, is a risk that we are content to take. We will now proceed to show you that we are come here in the interest of our empire, and that we shall say what we are now going to say, for the preservation of your country; as we would fain exercise that empire over you withouttrouble, and see you preserved for the good of us both.
Melians. And how, pray, could it turn out as good for us to serve as for you to rule?
Athenians. Because you would have the advantage of submitting before suffering the worst, and we should gain by not destroying you.
Melians. So that you would not consent to our being neutral, friends instead of enemies, but allies of neither side.
Athenians. No; for your hostility cannot so much hurt us as your friendship will be an argument to our subjects of our weakness, and your enmity of our power.
Melians. Is that your subjects’ idea of equity, to put those who have nothing to do with you in the same category with peoples that are most of them your own colonists, and some conquered rebels?
Athenians. As far as right goes they think one has as much of it as the other, and that if any maintain their independence it is because they are strong, and that if we do not molest them it is because we are afraid; so that besides extending our empire we should gain in security by your subjection; the fact that you are islanders and weaker than others rendering it all the more important that you should not succeed in baffling the masters of the sea.
Melians. But do you consider that there is no security in the policy which we indicate? For here again if you debar us from talking about justice and invite us to obey your interest, we also must explain ours, and try to persuade you, if the two happen to coincide. How can you avoid making enemies of all existing neutrals who shall look at case from it that one day or another you will attack them? And what is this but to make greater the enemies that you have already, and to force others to become so who would otherwise have never thought of it?
Athenians. Why, the fact is that continentals generally give us but little alarm; the liberty which they enjoy will long prevent their taking precautions against us; it is rather islanders like yourselves, outside our empire, and subjects smarting under the yoke, who would be the most likely to take a rash step and lead themselves and us into obvious danger.
Posted by: citizen k | Jun 26 2005 3:11 utc | 31
Deanander
Tiberius with a neutron bomb.
Hmmmm. Depressing now, no wonder you been drinking alone.
I’m gonna drink this scotch and read some more pericles.
Posted by: slothrop | Jun 26 2005 3:24 utc | 32
Apologies to be little more than a cheerleader on this one, but great discussion everybody.
Thanks especially to Lupin and DoDo – thinking differently at the bottom of thread than was at the top.
I see it differently from most, as usual. I think this little empire has all the characteristics of failure. It’s a cheap storybook imitation. It’s as if it is going on in fantasyland while the country is going someplace else. I would think in order to build an empire, a country would need consolidated power. Everything is fragmented. And I think, destined to fall apart.
I doubt if the bases will stand. I doubt if the Green Zone Garden of Paradise will endure long at all. Iraq is a sink hole. Money and everything is disappearing. It’s all going down the vortex.
These people have taken snippets from every dictator before them and cooked up a ridiculous recipe for power that strikes me as cartoonish.
The power of Rove was in his obscurity. I think he just blew his cover. His real life persona just doesn’t cut it. I say down the drain for him too.
Posted by: Teresa | Jun 26 2005 5:05 utc | 34
“The 14 bases remind me of Miyamoto Musashi’s Book of Five Rings… it’s been a long time, but I think there’s something in there about the homeowner in the house, trapped by his fear of the burglar outside: the house becomes a prison rather than a shelter. The burglar has more freedom of movement, more choices, a better view, from the outside of the house/fortress.
Posted by: DeAnander | June 25, 2005 11:05 PM | #”
That’s a good one. But I think they are both prisoners. The homeowner is definitely trapped, but the burglar is trapped by his fear of being caught in his crime. And by his covetous desire. Every criminal, I think, is trapped by paranoia. It seems to build which is why I think sometimes they lead themselves to capture just to end the maddening escalation.
Posted by: Teresa | Jun 26 2005 5:55 utc | 35
Rove and Bush and their gang old old women know it alls, are just a bunch of putzs. Throwing talk of empire around misses that what is called empire is typically a bunch of putzs with more power than any mortal should have. Remember back to 9.9 and 9.11 and 3.11 when there was a real issue than unified in fact a planet? That issue is still there.
Posted by: razor | Jun 26 2005 6:07 utc | 36
I’m back.
RE: the 14 bases. I merely wanted to point out that they THINK they’ve got them.
Whether ot not they’ll be capable of (i) holding on to their little Fort Apaches and (ii) whether these will do any good in the long-terms, is wide open for speculation.
I’m dealing with perceptions here, trying to think like them (painful as it may be) then tell you what I channel.
Me, I still believe in a craptacular collapse ahead.
But in the meantime, their strategy is blitzkrieg, not panic.
(All this started because I thought too many folks on our sides equated Rove’s Protocols of the Elders of the DNC with desperation.)
Posted by: Lupin | Jun 26 2005 6:21 utc | 37
Me again.
Reading Billmon’s latest might explain how they intend to keep their bases.
You see, I told you they’re smart.
Posted by: Lupin | Jun 26 2005 6:38 utc | 38
Smart? My ass is smart. Why would this work any better than anything else they do? I’m tellin’ ya, it has an ‘F’ glaring on it. They’re two bit wanabes. Low level hucksters. They miraculously got in power, but they’re dunces at knowing what to do with it.
Posted by: Teresa | Jun 26 2005 8:04 utc | 39
@Teresa. Like many of us, you keep forgetting that, by the standards they use (not ours) they’ve won every battle so far. They’re in power, they’re richer, more powerful.
Posted by: Lupin | Jun 26 2005 9:04 utc | 40
Lupin, they have lost a lot of them lately…Social Security, Bolton, the library record part of the Patriot Act, public support, etc. There is more to come. I believe there will be surprises, and that Iraq will prove to be more than they can handle.
Posted by: Teresa | Jun 26 2005 9:41 utc | 41