Moon of Alabama Brecht quote
December 23, 2005
DeadISH GWOT

(lifted from a comment)

by Debs is dead

It seems to me that this whole war on terror thing is moving into
the endgame. It is OVER. Except of course innocent civilians are still
dying. From the viewpoint of using this meme to control populations it
is history though.

This is supported by the news that the US has been meeting secretly
with what until recently they had been calling "Ba’athist dead enders".

With typical lack of insight into other people, BushCo seems
surprised that this agreement to meet didn’t lead to the much promised
but never witnessed sight of Iraqis throwing flowers at US soldiers or
even a quiet thank-you for releasing 24 senior Ba’athists imprisoned
for nearly three years without an iota of evidence of wong-doing. No
instead the ingrates wanted to complain about former US friends the United Iraqi Alliance, who are also good friends of Iran.

The Sunnis joined in complaint with secular parties, in particular
oldest former US friend, Ayad Allawi, one time Iraqi Prime Minister,
and seemed to expect that just because they allowed the election to be
carried out unimpeded by the resistance, that the election should be
fair and not like this:

"In Baghdad in particular, parties accused the
police of supporting the main Shia list, the United Iraqi Alliance, the
largest component in the present government. When preliminary results
for Baghdad gave the Shia list – a coalition of several religious
parties – 58% of the vote, the opposition claimed this proved their
suspicions were justified. Nationally, the Shia list is likely to
retain most of the 140 seats it has in the current parliament."

"The row is embarrassing US officials. They were clearly
disappointed at Mr Allawi’s poor result. Now the bitterness over fraud
allegations is poisoning the atmosphere for the "broad-based government
of national unity" which Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador, said on
Tuesday he hoped to see. But they do not want an election rerun since
this would ruin the image of a clean new democracy in Iraq they have
been anxious to cultivate."

These simple-minded crims who have taken over US institutions are
way way out of their depth in dealing with civilisations whose history
goes back thousands of years not a mere 230 odd.

It’s getting so complicated to spin alla this stuff that a hard
working defense secretary doesn’t know whether he’s Arthur or Martha,
who is still an enemy and who is a friend or even whose alive and whose dead.  To wit:

"Donald Rumsfeld told journalists en route to
Pakistan that Bin Laden could be hiding somewhere on the
Afghan-Pakistan border."

"I have trouble believing he is able to operate sufficiently
to be in a position of major command over a worldwide al-Qaeda
operation, but I could be wrong"

this little conundrum will continue to be a thorn in Rummy and co’s
side. No one appears prepared to follow the administration lead and
just not talk about Bin Laden.

They want to know if he’s dead which should be a good thing except it makes arguing continuing the GWOT problematic.

Or they want to know why he hasn’t been killed or captured yet which
is a definiate ‘blackeye’ but does permit continued handouts to
Halliburton, Bechtel and all the other mates.

Hence Rummy being forced to have two bob each way the other day.

OBL isn’t dead he’s on vacation but Al Quaeda is dead…ish. DeadISH
that’s the word Rummy has been looking for! We should be able to use it
everywhere. "The Iraqi insurgency is deadish so we have prevailed but
we need to keep spending money. Someone get on the phone to Websters
and make sure that deadish is listed online by C.O.B. What about that
Brit faggot at Lincoln? Christian Bailey? About time he earned some of
the millions we diverted from Fema to him. Tell him I want deadish in
the Oxford Dictionary immediately".

Hmm I wonder if something smelly may in fact be deadish in the water.   

Comments

I once read an interview with Jean Baudrillard where he claimed that he had been disappointed with an American tour, because Americans wanted to discusss Simulation and Simulacra only superficially.
The gap between reality and presentation in the Bush administration and American society has been beaten to death around here. Meanwhile, the American entertainment media does its best to support the illusions. Syriana gained some respect to its treatment of American affairs in the Middle East, yet it never once mentioned Israel, as an example.
This story of negotiations with “Dead-enders” reminds of the rap on “24” when it premiered. The voiceover tersely promised that “we don’t begiate with terrorists” but the story of the first episode involved the Americans succeeding by….negotiating with terrorists. The discrepancy between stated goals and image didn’t stop 24 from becoming a hit. Its image of Americans fighting terrorists seems at odds with its presentation. The Bush Administration, as we well know, are thorough incompetents at “fighting terrorism” but that image won them the election in 2004.
I see why Baudrillard was disappointed with Americans. When we make the simulations so obvious, it’s no wonder we can’t analyze S&S deeper, we never have a need in our society.

Posted by: Rowan | Dec 23 2005 8:39 utc | 1

This report
on Cheney and Khalilzad’s latest masterstrokes would be cause for laughter if it weren’t immersed in tragedy.

Posted by: Anonymous | Dec 23 2005 9:01 utc | 2

That last post was mine: and here’s a bit of rather
more pleasant tidings
: transit fees and most favored nation status are SOOOO much more civil than white phosphorous and torture, and they seem to be “on the table” despite U.S. opposition, at least to the former. (Read down a couple of
headlines.)

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Dec 23 2005 9:46 utc | 3

This much:
These simple-minded crims who have taken over US institutions are way way out of their depth in dealing with civilisations whose history goes back thousands of years not a mere 230 odd.
Could’nt be more true, as the Iraqis at this point(givin their history) have probably developed an innate anti– imperial gene, for gods sake. And is sort of like sending Karen Hughes to the Kalahari to teach Bushmen the secrets of “Bass Masters” sport fishing with sonar devices. Or sending Paul Bremmer to Iraq to set up a free market utopia (in a place where usery is taboo), which I suppose is no real mystery at all considering the manner by which objectives are defined — and like the war on terror — are not really defined at all. They (the central objectives) are instead generalized to the extent that the signifier trumps the signified, a virtual cauldron of evanescent neologisms blowing smoke signals. They never did define terrorism. Or the objectives in Iraq, or what torture is, or anything else for that matter, for to define invites truth and falseity, success and failure, which are antithetical to the believer mantra. Which just so happens to also generate its own fog of war on demand, necessary to obscure and lock in what they ARE definite about — defining by law and rote enforcement, the underlying economic infrastructure necessary to advance the hegemon. All spelled out in exact and unambigious legal–(zlee)ise. But so I digress (& into this harp again), so, when there is a failure, the failure to catch OBL, or a failure to sink their blood sucking fangs permanently into the Middle East that the fog machine must be fired into an overdrive of un–sychopated contradictions that most surely lead to a brokedown engine. Hense, not going into Pakistan, which is defacto harboring terrorists, negotiating with and cutting deals with terrorists in Iraq, neglecting the (WMD) anthrax terrorist (still on the loose) on the domestic front, the massive failure homeland security with Katrina, to name a few, only serve to illustrate the fatal hemorage in credibility famous in american politics. As it is that american politics is predicated on the power of illusion.

Posted by: anna missed | Dec 23 2005 10:22 utc | 4

Rowan,
Did’nt see your post before writing — so are we channeling or something? ha ha.

Posted by: anna missed | Dec 23 2005 10:41 utc | 5

You are all on target; anna missed, you’re getting to that point with your language when I just fall off my stool laughing, and that is indeed a very good thing.
Debs blows me away too, I can tell he wrote that all in one go because of this telling phrase, and I am just quoting it Debs, “wong-doing.”
To me it’s shades of Elmer Fudd which is a fine fine tone.
As to why no one has a clue re: Bin Hidin’, it’s because they tried to “smoke him out” of Tora Bora, which memory serves as his last known location, as reported by our fine newspapers, due to a satellite phone voice recognition thing.
As I remember I assumed that meant that BL and his crew had planted a tape recording and played it over his former sat phone. At this time BL had been chased and reported seen all over Afganistan and the region towards Pakistan.
Then they sent in the Northern Legion, and bombed the living fuck out of the “caves of Tora Bora.”
So who knows? A bit of a problem with bombing something back to the Stone Age, you ‘ll never know who you killed without carbon dating and a dna sample.
I’d love to have this right, but I believe Einstein said a few things, including “I don’t know which weapons they’ll use to fight the next world war, but the one after that will be fought with sticks and stones.” Or words to that effect.
I’ve heard a tape of someone reading from his essays and so on … a progressive humanist, would fit in well here I think.

Posted by: jonku | Dec 23 2005 11:00 utc | 6

Hannah, your first reference to Khalilzad and Cheney’s shenanigans seems to be about the arrest of Iraq’s Minister of the Interior for torture. At least he is accused of the crime of torture. But I thought Chalabi was Interior Minister?
here’s the quote as translated:
“Quds Press reported that the order for the arrest of Sulagh had come from American Vice President Dick Cheney, who paid a surprise visit to Baghdad on Sunday, 18 December.”
Must have really pissed him off. Make an example.
There were also some really funny cartoons on the website you linked there.
Your second post seems to refer to a thawing between India and Pakistan as related in the article, “During the talks, New Delhi offered under the volume-based formula five per cent of the total gas to be imported by India through IPI pipeline to Pakistan as transit fee but Pakistan refused to accept the Indian proposal stress for transit fee in cash.”
Or at least the irony that these state actors are negotiating, in plain sight, their energy transportation needs, as you say, “more civil than white phosphorous and torture.”

Posted by: jonku | Dec 23 2005 11:24 utc | 7

Somewhat off topic, but an interesting example of
the most populous democracy
taking action would seem to merit imitation. Fat chance!

Posted by: Hannah K. O’Luthon | Dec 23 2005 13:58 utc | 8

Coward speaks: Power We Didn’t Grant Day late $ short…

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 23 2005 17:08 utc | 10

Bush outlines reasons to spy
His safety. Our privacy.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 23 2005 18:38 utc | 11

@anna missed
Not sure if we’re channeling something or the administration (and American society) is just best read in the concept of image versus reality. The Bushies, to a certain extent, understand the postmodern concepts of media manipulation better than even the wise guys on the lefty blogs. Remember the hullaballoo over the “reality-based community” remark? Half the blogs out there still say “Proud member of the reality-based community.”
The problem, however, is that the Bushies got their media-savviness from copying the totalitarian regimes that the postmodernists analyzed, instead of reading the postmodernists. I’d be willing to bet that G-Dub doesn’t read Foucault at night, but he sure does get it.

Posted by: Rowan | Dec 24 2005 1:33 utc | 12

@uncle$cam
Whatever rationale BushCo choose to justify their incredible expenditure on GWOT really doesn’t matter because the number of US citizens killed or maimed as a result of terrorism each year is much less than each of half a hundred other much more preventable causes of death or injury from tobacco smoking to accidental firearm discharge, through driving intoxicated to dangerously faulty merchandise.
Can you imagine how it would play amongst the publicans if the Federales tapped phones, kidnapped and tortured to prevent tyre manufacturers from putting inferior quality rubber on new vehicles? We wouldn’t be hearing shouts of haebus corpus we’d be hearing cries of caveat emptor!
A fraction of the GWOT resources spent on the top ten causes of preventable death or injury in the US would save thousands of lives.
And the other major flaw in the post 911 GWOT hysteria is the difference in strength of reaction to the deaths of hundreds of poor, and the children of poor along with government workers and their children killed in Oklahoma City.
There was no mass rounding up of militia members. Hell the investigation seemed determined to stop right at those who had their matches to the fuse. With the proper safeguards amerikans probably would have tolerated a weeding out of the radical right to rid the ‘movement’ of dangerous psychopaths. There was never any demand to lock citizens up on the strength of their beliefs rather than the violence of their actions, yet this was the opposite in the post 9/11 ‘raghead round-up’.
I just wish that opponents of US imperialism who believe force is the way to go would wake up to themselves and grasp the simple concept that the elites like it when Joe Lunchboxes stop using up air they haven’t paid for.
A few strategically selected targets that either caused the elites sleepless nights or impeded their ability to rob from their fellow citizens would get these pricks around a table cutting a deal in no time.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Dec 24 2005 4:26 utc | 13

Symore Hersh had reported this and warned against this strategy.
Who tells and will tell the Airforce what to hit? With the Iran supported Shia religious parties having won the election and being the legitimate government is it their call?
Will Ahmedinejad give them a target list?
U.S. Airstrikes Take Toll on Civilians

U.S. Marine airstrikes targeting insurgents sheltering in Iraqi residential neighborhoods are killing civilians as well as guerrillas along the Euphrates River in far western Iraq, according to Iraqi townspeople and officials and the U.S. military.

The number of airstrikes carried out each month by U.S. aircraft rose almost fivefold this year, from roughly 25 in January to 120 in November, according to a tally provided by the military. Accounts by residents, officials and witnesses in Anbar and the Marines themselves make clear that Iraqi civilians are frequently caught in the attacks.

Military Confirms Surge in Airstrikes

U.S. airstrikes in Iraq have surged this fall, jumping to nearly five times the average monthly rate earlier in the year, according to U.S. military figures.
Until the end of August, U.S. warplanes were conducting about 25 strikes a month. The number rose to 62 in September, then to 122 in October and 120 in November.

For most airstrikes in Iraq, U.S. crews have been employing 500-pound, precision-guided bombs rather than the 1,000- or 2,000-pound versions used in past conflicts, Peck said. The smaller bombs are intended to reduce the potential for collateral damage.

With the Pentagon preparing to reduce the level of U.S. ground forces in Iraq next year, some defense experts have speculated that U.S. airpower will be used more intensively to support operations by Iraq’s fledgling security forces and protect U.S. advisers embedded with them. Indeed, American commanders have said that U.S. air forces in the region will not be drawn down as quickly as ground forces.

Posted by: b | Dec 24 2005 8:21 utc | 14