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WB: The Flight Forward, Part 2
Billmon:
[T]here is real risk that key players in the crisis — Iranian as well as American — are fundamentally misreading the situation. They may not understand that their counterparts on the other side are perfectly willing to escalate, because they actually want war, or at least are pulled in that direction by their own political and/or strategic dilemmas.
However, there is an even more terrible risk here, which is that both sides in this crisis may want a war, although for different reasons. And when both parties to a confrontation like this one want a war, they usually get one.
The Flight Forward, Part 2
Last week the Canadian command in Central Asia announced to BBC that their chief goal is the reconstruction of the war-savaged region.
This week the Canadian command announced to BBC that due to continued guerrilla activities, all reconstruction work will be suspended.
Exactly what reconstruction work is that?
Does any half-wit seriously believe the command didn’t know last week, what they were going to announce this week, or that BBC isn’t a tool for reporting same without analysis?
Does any half-wit seriously believe the Afghan Reconstruction Fund for Central Asia, half-gone through 4x-bloated HAL-KBR contracts, and being siphoned off to Iraq and Katrina, will ever be used for reconstruction?
Don’t hold your breath. Sure, they rebuilt the road to Kandahar, and the road to Mozar Sharif. They have to move military equipment on those roads. Sure, the military command would love to rebuild the country and reduce the insurgency.
It’s not up to the military. It’s up to Don Rumsfeld, and his counterpart in Canada, and Cheney’s stock options in HAL-KBR how our tax money pledged to reconstruction will be spent.
It won’t be on reconstruction, it’s for Iran. Just a parked account at World Bank.
It’s a PR charade, and the media sucks it up. $10B of our taxes, lost in a dangling pinata over the HAL-KBR pig-trough.
The Kennedy video archives were on last night, circa 1961. Kennedy was speaking about Viet Nam, how the “new Democratic government of South Viet Nam”, elected with 75% to 80% of the vote, was “being challenged by insurgents, killing militia and police”, 400 I believe he mentioned.
Sound familiar?
This Communist insurgency will be America’s greatest challenge, Kennedy asserted, then followed a decade of war, and our kids dying some 50 a day at its peak. Don Rumsfeld was in on that one too. Last week 47 of our kids died in Iraq, and more if you count how many died over German airspace on their way to hospice.
The media duly reports, occasionally shows a few faces of the deceased, then turns away. Oh G-d, Celebrity Cook Off’s on! It’s American Idol VII! Doesn’t Paula look beautiful? Celebrity Dancing!
For a spoonful of uranium dust, Don Rumsfeld will violate the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty along with our allies and goomba Israel.
A pure re-election play, a Kennedy line in the sand, a Neo drum beat, HAL-KBR smoke signals rising on the hillsides, the Patriots circling their wagons, and the war kicks it up a notch.
Bamm! 2006 Elections!
OK, Cliff, take us out!
Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah-dah-dah-de-de-dah.
Imagine aliens on another planet, watching our video feed. Hey, imagine Jesus, rocketing back to Earth in his flying saucer, pissed as hell.
Posted by: Clarence Michaels | Apr 18 2006 12:35 utc | 11
Iran has the right, within the NPT, to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. And it needs nuclear reactors bad – it eats electricity (as we all do) and burning gas or oil to make it is crazy foolishness. Their hydraulic capacties are very limited, and for all practical purposes exploited already; global warming sees to the rest – less water. Wind farms — well they are giving it a shot.
If they are prevented or hampered in that aim, well the NPT is not worth the paper it is written on, just ignore it. Signing it is already making nice, shows willingness to play by the rules, contrary to Pakistan, India, Israel. If even the rights it confers are selectively attributed, it is obvious that sticking to the letter will only bring trouble (ask Saddam). Referring to it, obeying it, is basically appeasement that leads to weakness and vulnerability to attack.
Second, the NPT lays down one set of rules for some countries – but not for others, either because they disobey with impunity or haven’t signed on (US, India, Israel, etc.) Staying within that scope is easily perceived as a looser’s game. Only those who are willing to trangress attain any power or respect. A new form of deterrence. Violation and menace thus become the only usable wedge, and the more of it the better, exagerating it is positive. If Iran manages to produce a handful of low-grade enriched uranium, it should announce it can make ‘a bomb’ in 16 days (or whatever nonsense), the more extravagant the better, as all scientific common sense has long blown out the window, and what counts is attitude and bluster. Saying that Israel should not exist is also clever.
The Iranians are not helping the US administration out – they are doing the only thing they can. They have been forced into their agressive position by the US and the West. They have also understood that to be perceived as rabid and unpredicable or even incompetent – loose cannons! (like the US) is the only way to go – there are simply no other choices left. In some sense, the escalation may superficially suit the US – they can claim they are facing mad dogs and thus justify attacks. Iran must up the ante – and hope for the best. Or fight. But better to fight sooner rather than later. Better to provoke a low grade attack than face annihilation. Best to quickly have the cards fall as they may.
What exactly is being fought for? Control of oil and supply pipelines. Deals with Russia, China, etc.
A common perception in the West is that Ahmadinejad is loopy and has whipped up Anti-US / Irarel sentiment and has polarised Iranians against everyone, and is fighting for personal supremacy.
That is forgetting, for example, that tens of thousands of scientists have been unemployed for many years, and drawing small support / unemployment pay (or whatever to keep them alive). Now, I suppose, many of them have gotten back to work. The pressure must have been tremendous. Black-outs in Teheran will have sent housewives, teens, working fathers, wild. Everyone will have felt – we are being prevented from doing what everyone else has the right to do – work, use our education, advance, do science, solve problems.
(… readers get the drift..enough for now…)
Posted by: Noisette | Apr 18 2006 21:22 utc | 19
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