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WB: Rummy Punch
Billmon:
The chances that Dick Cheney will fire his old boss and ideological comrade in crime are only slightly higher than the chances that Rumsfeld’s removal would lead to even a minor improvement in the situation in Iraq. It’s almost like asking Cheney to fire himself.
To be honest, I think the pair of them would get rid of Junior before they would ever consider stepping down. This absolute determination to hold on to office at all costs may seem bizarre, considering how old and sick these guys are — and how much shit is coming down on their heads every day — but it’s just the way these things work.
Rummy Punch
There is strong opinion that Rumsfeld will NEVER be fired. Billmon and Sy Hersh have gone public with this stance, and there are others.
In favor of of this opinion is the intense Bubble Factor — that these neocons live in self reinforcing realms of Yes Men and carefully filtered factoids and findings, which makes it effortless for them to simply sail straight ahead, what with their being absolutely right about everything they do. Everyone they know always says so.
Billmon and Hersh are right to say that this Revolt of the Retired Generals won’t cut it — that Rumsfeld can canoe these rapids, despite the big brass very publicly pissing on his head.
But that is not what is happening. It’s a power play.
It’s not simply about the Generals, you see. It’s about power. It always is with these neocons.
Our grand experiment in self government is at the breaking point in a crucial Constitutional crisis. In the coming weeks, Bush will either move our military into Iran, on his sole personal authority, or he will be stopped, hindered, put off, delayed, prevented. Somehow.
What will prevent Bush from opening Pandora’s Box in the Middle East, by widening his two lost wars into a truly regional war? It will be the very real threat of losing power.
No, it won’t be we, the people. Feh! Any size or sort of public outcry means nothing to these students of Strauss. Nor do valedictorians or votes in Congress, for these neocons have moved beyond the law, beyond the rules.
They operate only by the law of power. And that is how they will be restrained. It is the only way they will be restrained now.
Above all else, the legs the neocons stand upon, to tower over us all, are a compliant Pentagon, and an industrial complex well fed at the public trough. Ah, yes. The guys Eisenhower warned us about.
The neocons are rapidly losing the backing of the military and of Big Business over this Iran thing. That means a loss of power. It means they won’t be able to swing the big baseball bats they had just a few months ago.
The military knows damn well that if they move as ordered on Iran, they will get run out of the Middle East, or be forced to immediately nuke millions of people to save our permanent bases and the troops on them.
Big Business knows damn well that attacking Iran will bring a truly regional war over there, quickly involving Israel, and that oil will jump to triple digits per barrel, and global business will suffer complete collapse. That’s not a win-win scenario. It’s quite the opposite.
Big Business likes wars that are manageable, that eat up materiel at a profitable pace, resource wars that regurgitate profits for reasonable risks of capital and corpses. But this Iran thing will clearly blow sky high and go nuclear — and how will their CPA’s and fund managers know what is best for the bottom line in that scenario?
Will there be a bottom line anymore? Will there be an Army to sell things to?
So, it isn’t just that Rumsfeld will go, it’s that the whole neocon crew will go, as soon as their power base deserts them. They will become as Ozymandis overnight, if they push this Iran thing much further.
Oh, sabre rattling is all well and good. But as Bush appears to be serious about Iran, his prime backers are abandoning him. It is happening before our eyes. There are a great many defections in the Military and Business cadres.
It doesn’t matter what Congress or the public thinks or says or does about Iran. They cannot affect the power equation now. They’ve been marginalized.
But the Generals, retired and yet to retire, and Big Business, fat n’ happy and yet fearful of the future, are withdrawing their support of the neocons. They are reclaiming the power loaned to these people. They are taking their baseball bats back.
Without these big bats, without the backing of the military and business brigades, these neocon bullies will back down.
Because they will cling to power before even their own dreams of glory and conquest, knowing always that power comes before all else. Power is everything.
To hold on to power, they’ll put Persia on ice.
Posted by: Antifa | Apr 14 2006 10:48 utc | 9
The idea that the American public can stop this Iran invasion is at variance with experience and reality. It’s like saying a herd of cattle can move the fences.
They can, of course, if they stampede. But contented cows don’t stampede — they eat grass and give milk. And the American public is content. Latest polls show 48% feel that hitting Iran is good TV.
The national government rests upon three legs — Congress, Big Business, and the Military.
This roundelay is a closed system, and it works on scads of money, as follows:
Business gives money to Congresscritters so they can run big media campaigns to get more votes than another critter just like themselves. Who wins is beside the point — the point is you can’t win unless you got many millions of private, donated dollars to pay for your campaign. Those dollars came with private deals.
Those private deals are for the Congresscritter to pitch in and keep government monies flowing to Business in the form of Pentagon contracts, and tax breaks, looser regulations on everything they do, less or no supervision, lower taxes, offshoring, outsourcing, legalized union busting, wide open immigration to keep wages low — and so on.
With 51% of discretionary government spending going out through the Pentagon, there is an Amazon River of taxpayer money coming out of the national government, all approved by Business-financed Congresscritters and all run through the Pentagon.
Short version — a million dollars in political contributions will reliably get you fifty million in government contracts.
Nowhere in this process is the public consulted, nor is there any place where their wishes are noted. They are only allowed to vote on critters so alike as to be clones, put up there by Business contributors, and the few big corporate media giants tell the public what to think. About everything.
And the public eats grass and gives milk.
American government is of the corporation, by the corporation, and for the corporation. People are to be handled, not counted. Herded, not courted. Corporations have them by their testicles, if it came to it, and they will fall in line when told to do so.
The antidote to this closed system is a wide open, free press, beholden to no investor but its own employees. Such non-profit press trusts, owned by the many instead of the few, are our way out of this closed system. They are the voice of the people, yes, but more important they publish facts and truth. Not Business and Pentagonese, not truthiness.
The people could always stampede. Like that works. The biggest protests in history, worldwide, were before the Iraq war, and they were ignored by this closed system, and ridiculed by the press.
Short of burning down the White House, and leveling the Pentagon so that no stone rests upon another stone, the public will be handled and herded no matter what amount of marching they do.
Let’s b real. The public is disconnected from this process. They are not players, they are cattle.
If this invasion of Iran is stopped, it will be by Big Business and the Military, the only players in this game. The Government won’t fold; the other players have to quit the table.
And they will do it for their own self preservation. Not for the people.
Posted by: Antifa | Apr 14 2006 20:21 utc | 28
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