.. lies and evasions are weapons that only work on the home front — and these days maybe not even there. They clearly don’t impress the insurgents/terrorists, who know weakness when they hear it.
Back to Main
June 28, 2005
WB: Forewarned
Comments
12 Years of the Neo Pentacost
Walking to work today, which I’ve been doing, either riding a bike, walking or taking the bus, for some years now, before gas spiked double, I passed a rolled up newspaper in some neighbor’s driveway, and there was the headline, “12 More Years Seen in Iraq.”
And it simply floored me!
It’d be as if the nightly new anchor opened with, “And in today’s local news, a giant asteroid is approaching earth at near-light speed, and is expected to blot out all sentient life in your neighborhood.”
Which, of course, the war in Iraq will.
One of my commute-mates and I both work as budget analysts and IT executives, and both of us have just finished our next budget projections. Mine are based on our sales projections, his are based on legislative-set capital funds, combined with sales tax projections.
I’ve got a shortfall of $5,000,000, or fifty full-time-employees (FTE’s) to reduce-in-force (RIF). He has a budget less than half the last biennium’s, and is looking to RIF around one hundred and fifty staff, out of a total of two hundred and fifty currently.
We will have to accomplish the same goals, do the same work, pull the same duty cycles, keep the same network traffic running, with half the number of employees, or less.
These are grotesque numbers, as any sapient can clearly see. One half to two thirds of all local and State government employees simply cannot be absorbed into the Neo’s Homeland Defense, the Department of Defense and Department of Domestic Intelligence.
Bush claimed that he’d *CUT* Federal spending!
Yet at the Federal level, and the defense labs, at the civilian defense contractors, and IT and Co-Intel spy-ops networks, it’s business as usual. Things couldn’t be better! Lots of jobs, new offices, a charter as yet ungelled, with cake and ice cream every day in the new coffee room.
All across America, this local and State meltdown is going to be played out. The auto dealers are shutting down, the local retailers are going broke, the restaurants, hell, how’d you like to be a tourist café owner, with oil shooting past $60 a barrel?
All because some albondigas in Washington think their fascist dreams of a colonial powergrab will play out if we just “stay the course”, “hunker down” and “tighten our belts”, “grow a victory garden” and “wear it out, reuse it, make it do”.
“WW III” as brought to you by AOL Time Warner. Directed by Neo Bush Crusade, and produced by Carlyle Group, Bush family, former Republican guard, and Saudi royal investors.
Is this some kind of collective BSE wet dream?
So what are we to make of these Twelve Years of Pentacost, this New Catholic, this Dark Papacy of War and Deception? Will, at its bitter end, a crude crucified Saint George, dripping black oil from his black heart, be held aloft for all to worship? Will Neo Cardinals, Pontiffs, Bishops and Popes lead US? Will we lift a wreathed and flowered platform on which a gilded Mother Barbara beams beatifically at US, rich and poor alike, while we parade twelve times around the village square in piety? Or is their Twelve Years a more subtle reference to the Twelve Disciples?
Then who is their Dark Lord, the One-Eyed Golum who breaks our bodies and souls carnate? Where do we enlist for the role of Judas? I’ll take those twelve shekels!
The good news, at the end, is this. As Shimon Perez so eloquently put it, “This is a temporary phase of existence, and NeoCons have no future here.” So a little schnapps, und a little cake, und zing-along to pass the time. Ready?
On the first year of Christcrus, my Neo Lord gave to me, Infidels bombed New York City.
On the second year of Christcrus, my Neo Lord gave to me, Two fallen towers, and Infidels bombed New York City.
On the third year of Christcrus, my Neo Lord gave to me, Three WMD’s, two fallen towers, and Infidels bombed New York City.
On the fourth year of Christcrus, my Neo Lord gave to me, Four Abu gulags, three WMD’s, two fallen towers, and Infidels bombed New York City.
On the fifth year of Christcrus, my Neo Lord gave to me, You’re all responsible for my defeats! Give me more gold!! I am your Emperor!! What the @#&^!! Get your hands off me!! Where are you taking me!!! Let … me … go!!! MOMMY!!!!!! %)
Posted by: tante aime | Jun 28 2005 6:24 utc | 1
“the number of Iraqi military and police being killed every month has risen from 160 at the handover to 219 today.”
I found this figure quite startling – of course we hear about police stations getting blown to bits everyday but this puts the casualty figures in a bright light.
The above is from an excellent Patrick Cockburn piece in the UK Independent on Iraq.
Link
Also from the same article:
“Oil production (barrels a day)
Pre-war March 2003: 2.5m
Handover June 2004: 2.29m
Now: 2.20m
Analysis:
Sustainability of Iraqi oilfields has been jeopardised to boost output. Oil facilities regularly targeted by insurgents.”
Posted by: jg | Jun 28 2005 6:31 utc | 2
The last quote is the key one. Too much military power makes intervention too easy — to begin.
Posted by: sm | Jun 28 2005 6:33 utc | 3
who know weakness when they hear it
We won’t last 12 years in Iraq.
Perhaps it is time to announce the Thousand Year Reich.
Posted by: Gaianne | Jun 28 2005 7:00 utc | 4
I thought I’d move this up here as it may be of interest
Scott Ritter: Unplugged and Uncensored (Audio)
Scott Ritter: US at War with Iran
On June 23, 2005, Scott Ritter spoke to 110 people at a fundraiser for Traprock Peace Center at the Woolman Hill Meeting House. Before the presentation, Ritter met with 30 people over dinner at Woolman Hill. Hear his presentation and the question and answers, complete and unabridged. Sunny Miller moderated the event, introducing Ritter and reading questions from the audience.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Jun 28 2005 7:06 utc | 5
You cannot forewarn people who have already made up their mind about the way things are. They just won’t listen. So Billmon’s argument here misses the point – it was never a problem of not enough forewarnings being around (in an information society, how could it?). The problem was that the inner circles are completely deaf to the world outside their minds.
How is that for a bushco slogan? “We know better, so we won’t listen.”
Posted by: teuton | Jun 28 2005 7:32 utc | 6
“The sense of fear in Baghdad is difficult to convey. Petrol is such a necessity because people need to pick up their children from school because they are terrified of them being kidnapped. Parents mob the doors of schools and swiftly become hysterical if they cannot find their children. Doctors are fleeing the country because so many have been held for ransom, some tortured and killed because their families could not raise the money.
Homes in Baghdad are currently getting between six and eight hours’ electricity a day. Nothing has improved at the power stations since the hand-over of security a year ago. In a city where the temperature yesterday was 40C, people swelter without air conditioning because the omnipresent small generators do not produce enough current to keep them going. In recent weeks there has also been a chronic shortage of water.”
The problem with these whiners is that they refuse to “look at the bright side of life … dado dadodadodado”.
Der Leader’s speech tonight is going to be everything back in focus – HOOAH!
Posted by: jg | Jun 28 2005 7:36 utc | 7
‘Forewarned is forearmed’ is an Intelligence mantra.
Politicians, especially the current cabal, ignore foreknowledge, or for that matter any advise when it does’nt gel with thier doctrine of exceptional empire. Especially when thier perceptions and decisons are driven by ideology and faith rather than logic and objective reasoning.
They knew they had already lost the insurgency in Iraq in May of 2004 and here we are today with them talking of ‘staying the course’ for another 12 years against an escalating and progressively more lethal insurgency with a US Army moving inevitably towards implosion without a massive infusion of recruits, Now. Whilst we log up bills of $125 billion/year …
A situation which is undermining the US position of dominance and more importantly security throughout the world on many levels …
Read this analysis from May 2004 and think of what it means when next you hear “12 more years in Iraq”:
Iraq Net Assessment: Strategic Overview and Recommendations
May 15, 2004
…
Definitive Solutions
1. A fresh start requires fresh thinking. A physician who botches an operation is not the most plausible candidate for repairing the damage. At a minimum, USG must purge from government office those with greatest culpability for misusing their positions on behalf of policies not in the national interest; these persons are commonly referred to as neoconservatives. They include but are not limited to: Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, I. Lewis Libby, David Wurmser, Elliot Abrams, Steven Hadley, John Hannah, and John Bolton. Others who bear responsibility hold higher governmental positions, so it is probable that USG institutional mechanisms would hesitate before acting decisively; however, their judgment has been so consistently lacking with regard to Iraq and GWOT that their removal is essential: Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, and Condoleezza Rice. They have fostered an environment conducive neither to sound judgment nor honesty.
2. Prepare for an early departure. As GEN Odom and others have asserted, for the sake of American security and economic power alike, US. should remove its forces from Iraq as rapidly as possible. “We have failed,” he states. “The issue is how high a price we’re going to pay … Less, by getting out sooner, or more, by getting out later?” While it may be possible, by completely abandoning the Geneva Convention, to grind down the immediate insurgent threat through military means, the collateral damage to civilians would make long-term pacification of Iraq even more untenable. At the same time, such actions could destabilize Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and other Arab-Islamic states. Perceived oppression of Iraq’s 60-percent Shiite majority could lead to massive and sustained Iranian intervention. Given the Coalition’s tenuous supply lines between Kuwait and Baghdad, potential Iranian intervention could be roughly analogous to Chinese intervention in Korea in November 1950 (which resulted in the longest sustained retreat in U.S. military history). Accordingly, the USG should make preparations to withdraw all military forces by 1 October 2004 as it simultaneously implements step 3 (below).
3. Transfer military operations to a coalition of Islamic states friendly to the USG. Under the aegis of a United Nations Security Council resolution the USG should hand off military occupation to a coalition of friendly Islamic states such as Egypt, Jordan, and Indonesia (e). While they may demand a high monetary price to participate, it would in any case be cheaper than funding an ongoing U.S. occupation. At the same time, the CPA would be disestablished and its functions transferred to United Nations agencies. This step would require painful public concessions; it is accordingly unlikely that the authors of current policy would have the character or sensitivity to implement them (refer to step 1 above) Finally, a future U.S. embassy in Baghdad should be much smaller than the one currently planned.
4. Refocus the Global War on Terrorism to its proper objective: al Qaeda. Stabilizing Afghanistan alone (a larger and more populous country than Iraq and possessing the most challenging terrain on earth) is a difficult enough objective without the enormous drain of manpower, intelligence assets, money, and policy focus created by the distraction of Iraq. Afghanistan is in danger of reverting to chaos and warlordism such that al Qaeda can re-establish itself in sanctuaries. Internationally, the USG should de-emphasize use of conventional military forces for GWOT and increase emphasis on cooperative international intelligence efforts, police work, tracking financial flows, and strengthened international coordination to investigate and combat terrorism.
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 28 2005 8:44 utc | 8
Apologies, here’s a working link:
Iraq Net Assessment: Strategic Overview and Recommendations May 15, 2004
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 28 2005 8:48 utc | 9
Just listened to the Scott Ritter talk Uncle $cam pointed to. Let me urge you to take the time to listen to it.
Some issues he touches:
“There is a war going on on Iran.”
“It will take 3 to 4 election cycles to get away from the current U.S. regime”
“It´s not fashism, but an oligopole which is nearer to fashism than to democracy”
“The U.S. has the desease of consumerism”
“Today is the best day Iraq will have for some years, because it will get worse day by day”
“Iraq is rape in progress”
“Veterans are the natural allies of the peace movement”
“We declared a war on terror and those who practice terror,” said Ritter. “Are we going to declare war on ourselves?”
The Democratic Party must become the party of Victory. It must point out that we are losing the war on terror: allowing North Korea to build nuclear weapons, destroying our Army and Marine Corps in Iraq, alienating our allies, and squandering our national treasure (note: Iraq is Greenspan’s war, no easy money, no Iraq). Democrats must propose to WIN the war on terror. Nobody ever got a vote with an exit strategy.
As for Iraq: cut the baby in half. Propose to partition Iraq, and watch our allies come out of the woodwork like swarming insects.
Win. That’s the only word we should hear from the Democratic Party. Win.
Posted by: arbogast | Jun 28 2005 10:22 utc | 11
arbogast: I half agree, but promising to win the unwinnable may set up expectations that will later bite Democrats in the ass. I have an alternative scenario: our exit strategy from Iraq goes through Afghanistan. We emphasize that the Iraq second front has led us into a situation where we are losing not just Iraq but also Afgahanistan and indeed the whole Global War on Terror. Sell cutting and running in Iraq not as cutting and running, but as a necessary strategic reorientation in the GWOT, sending the troops and the money where they are most needed. If we are hawkish enough on the GWOT, we maybe can distract the critics, just as Reagan used Grenada to distract people from his cutting and running in Lebanon. Who remembers Reagan as a coward who fled Lebanon with his tail between his legs, even though that’s what he was?
Posted by: the exile | Jun 28 2005 13:31 utc | 12
What are the Roots of Terrorism and how do you end it ?
Posted by: Outraged | Jun 28 2005 13:31 utc | 13
So Billmon’s argument here misses the point – it was never a problem of not enough forewarnings being around
I know. But now that the Rovians have cranked up the stabbed-in-the-back propaganda, I think it’s more important than ever to remind people how the neocons got us into this mess.
It must point out that we are losing the war on terror
The problem is that the American people won’t KNOW that we’re losing the war until a dirty bomb — or worse — goes off in a major American city, or a liquified gas tanker explodes in the port of Houston, or anthrax starts showing up not just in one post office but a 100. And by then it will be too late.
Posted by: billmon | Jun 28 2005 13:59 utc | 14
Fabulous writing, sir. ‘Forewarned’ is one of your all-time best.
Posted by: Wolf DeVoon | Jun 28 2005 14:04 utc | 15
Nobody ever got a vote with an exit strategy.
So I guess I hallucinated Richard Nixon and his ‘secret plan to end the war’. And I predict Walter Jones will get more votes in ’06 than he got in ’04 with his call for withdrawal.
There’s no virtue in committing to do the un-doable.
Posted by: Nell | Jun 28 2005 14:54 utc | 16
RedDan at Steve Gilliard’s yesterday posted a link to the flash program Iraq War Fatalities Time and Place. Click on the Red Button. Draw your own conclusions.
My interpretation: The USA has been at war with Iraq since March, 2003. The fighting is alone roads and rivers and in the cities. Bagdad is the epicenter. The fighting has been continuous with bursts of activity.
The Bush Administration are all true believers who could not see or hear any counter indications to their grand adventure of overthrowing Saddam Hussein and gaining a neo-colony to project power through the Middle East plus all that oil. Threatening Mushroom Clouds, Mission Accomplished, Democracy on the March are all lies in service of their fantasies.
Posted by: Jim S | Jun 28 2005 14:56 utc | 17
I can’t listen to audio feeds on this machine. Can anyone who heard the Scott Ritter talk tell me what the evidence is that we’re already at war with Iran? I’m assuming it has to do with air incursions, but I’d like to hear more specifics.
Posted by: Nell | Jun 28 2005 14:57 utc | 18
. . .the world’s most powerful military machine failed to recognize the risk of irregular warfare, and had no contingency plan for fighting it once it began.
The “contingency plan” as I remember it, was Shock and Awe. We would overwhelm the bad guys with our surgically-aimed MOABs and they would yield to our superior might. The rose petals would start falling once the smoke cleared and everyone awoke to the fresh taste of freedom. This, I’m afraid, was the actual going-in plan. This is also the course we are told to stay — wait for the rose petals.
Posted by: davedave | Jun 28 2005 15:26 utc | 19
Nell, you can read Ritter making the same points here. (BTW, be aware that Ritter is still a right-winger. You’ll notice conservative call-words in the article, but don’t let that distract from his main points which stand on their own.)
Billmon: The problem is that the American people won’t KNOW that we’re losing the war until a dirty bomb — or worse — goes off in a major American city, or a liquified gas tanker explodes in the port of Houston, or anthrax starts showing up not just in one post office but a 100. And by then it will be too late.
Again countering the focus on the good numbers only, here are a few Iraq poll numbers to sober us up a little – from the latest ABC News/WaPo poll (June 23-26):
Keep troops in Iraq /Withdraw: 58%-41%; but:
Increase/Decrease/Keep level troop levels: 16%-38%-44% [WaPo claims those who want immediate pullout are just 12.5% out of this 38%];
Iraq contributed to the Middle East’s long-term security/not: 51%-47%;
Iraq contributed to the US’s long-term security/not: 52%-46%;
Optimism/pessimism about development in the next 12 months: 53%-46%;
Are the Iraqis better off/worse now: 69%-24%;
Will Iraqis be better off/worse on the long run: 74%-20%
So even the majority of Democrats deludes themselves enough for the Cheney administration to always find an excuse and new spin to continue.
I suspect this is even more true for the war on terror than the Iraq war. (Just look back at poll numbers on Guantanamo.)
It’s pretty obvious now that the Bilderburg club have given up on Bush and Blair.
I expect Bush to call for a draft (but not using the actual word) today, and then sit back and watch the reaction.
Night of the Long Knives in the DC media plays out until Independence Day, when AQ strike a blow that unites all Americans.
Well…….. that’s the plan anyways……. as for wide awake Mothers in the USA…… well let’s see.
Posted by: Friendly Fire | Jun 28 2005 16:25 utc | 22
Twelve more years is exactly what the neocons envisioned in their Pax Americana. Develop a military presence in the Middle East, check. If we actually get peace in Iraq the U.N. expects us to leave, that would never work. These bumblers have bumbled, stumbled and fumbled there way into a pretty sweet deal. Step one, long-term military presence in Middle East in place, Haliburton and chronies doing well, oil industry profits up nicely, in their eyes they are the MEN.
Gotta get those poll numbers swinging the other way though, hmm, maybe send the President out to read some uplifting speach. How about Mission Accomplished, better not, how about “Clear Path to Victory in Iraq”.
Posted by: gp | Jun 28 2005 18:26 utc | 23
teuton: You cannot forewarn people who have already made up their mind about the way things are. They just won’t listen. So Billmon’s argument here misses the point – it was never a problem of not enough forewarnings being around (in an information society, how could it?). The problem was that the inner circles are completely deaf to the world outside their minds. (see also outraged)
Good point.
I have always felt divided about the spectacular incompetence displayed by the Americans during the invasion and in the year or so thereafter.
Letting the looting proceed (or even encouraging it according to some reports) seemed like madness, and set the tone: Iraqis as non-people, Baghdad as a no-place, and war as an ongoing process, as opposed to occupation, which halts hostilities, and falls under different rules.
Disbanding the Army and firing police also seemed to signal a lack of control, though there may have been some acceptable arguments for it at the time. (?) Sending these people home without jobs and pay seemed to be the end of it. They would just disapear! Bremer only muttered about avoiding civil war, if I recall correctly. Lunacy.
However, firing teachers and attempting to sell off State enterprises seemed casual cruelty. An attempt to destroy gleefully. As was the total neglect of infrastructure (roads, water, energy needs, schools, etc.)
An open border policy was also a disaster. Closing and/or controlling the borders may have been impossible. However, one can see it was quite deliberate, e.g. import tax on cars was cancelled – a border is not only people moving about, potential ‘terrorists’ but control and regulation of goods, vehicles, arms, medecines, etc. What W developed country could survive by banning all tariffs and ignoring its borders, particulary arms imports? How come Iraq could no longer regulate its trade with neighbors and ended up importing kerosene from Kuwait (or wherever)? Elaborate answers to this last question are available — I am only pointing to problems that affected many people.
I could go on…
While some of these actions may have been simply misguided, poor tactics, stupidity, the Keystone cops on the rampage, due to the blind application of a US model of some kind, rosy heavenly hopes – Tiny Gvmt., free enterprise, farmers should just farm without help (the Army, or Bremer, didn’t know how or to what extent the US farmer is subsidised, and they were under pressure from the Aussies who needed to sell their grain..) others, such as firing teachers or interfering with clinics seem downright deliberately sadistic, a move to promote chaos.
Perhaps they simply did not care, I don’t know.
Perhaps they thought it was all good, I don’t know.
Perhaps they just needed to fight – after all a huge Army can’t just stay about doing nothing, you need to make a show ..
Hobsbawn, in the Guardian, June 25, 2005:
… The second element of continuity is the peculiar house-style of US empire, which has always preferred satellite states or protectorates to formal colonies. The expansionism implicit in the name chosen for the 13 independent colonies on the east coast of the Atlantic (United States of America) was continental, not colonial. The later expansionism of “manifest destiny” was both hemispheric and aimed towards East Asia … etc.
Link
Posted by: Noisette | Jun 28 2005 20:20 utc | 24
Was the Secretary of Defense ever briefed on the War College report? Were any of the members of his neocon inner circle? Were they made aware of the results of Unified Quest 2003? If so, did they take any steps — either before or after the invasion — to prepare for large-scale counterinsurgency or counterterrorism operations in Iraq? If not, why not?
Well, we certainly know that the Bush Administration was aware of Shinseki’s prediction that it would take several hundred thousand troops to secure post-“mission accomplished” Iraq.
My own suspicion is that the Administration was more less in agreement with Shinseki, but that admitting as much publicly would require either an acknowledgement that undertaking the invasion was an act of desperation (necessitated by dwindling oil supplies and concern that OPEC countries might choose to denominate oil in Euros rather that Dollars), or an institution of the draft — neither of which would have made for good PR.
Of course, it also didn’t hurt that many of the functions of the military would be privatised, with Administration cronies (and, in the case of “Uncle Bucky”, outright relations) receiving billions of taxpayer dollars to perform these functions.