Letters to the Editor
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You are my talking point
Glenn, I'm absolutely gobsmacked by your latest columns. I don't know what's the blogger equivalent of "Yeah! What HE said." But that's all I can stutter out anymore. Because, even when I can convince myself to crawl out of bed in the morning, I'm no longer capable of putting forth a rational argument against this madness without bursting into hot angry tears, shrieks of frustration and threats of self-immolation if Bush says one. more. damned. word.
So I'll just quote you accurately and send your material to as many people as I can think of. Really excellent work.
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Some new speculation...
This whole discussion about whether Bush would or would not be willing to take advantage of the situation and use the troops as hostages to get what he wants... really gets to me.
I wasn't even in favor of the first Gulf War, or of invading Afghanistan, both of which made me seem pretty unpatriotic, I know. But, having grown up in a military family (lifer-father, enlisted brothers and uncles, and former son-in-law), I still have some sympathy for those like Murtha, who are concerned about the troops' well-being.
I don't know if he or they are as cynical as I am about Bush (I think he'd use them as hostages), but they may know something else that I don't, e.g., something worse than that memo that I had somehow missed... If we must send troops, then it is our obligation to make sure they have what they need, before, during and after. (I subscribe to the Pottery Barn rule, too.)
Reading a comment by retired military patriot on Gary Kamiya's post...
http://letters.salon.com/opinion/kamiya/2007/05/28/memorial_day/permalink/1688d056fa7f75ddafb870f7b511dbe9.html
made me wonder about the possibilities of a "passive coup." What if ALL of the top military leadership decided, not to resign, but to go on some kind of strike, as a protest? Threatening to resign is another one of those tactics that we know actually has some impact on Bush, given the latest stories about the DOJ's multiple scandals. However, it really would cause a crisis if the military all resigned at once. So far, they've been resigning on their own, or have been fired by Bush, one or two at a time. Until the recent story about six Navy commanders all being relieved of duty in six weeks.
Once you've been fired, you have no leverage any more. At this point, they have more "power" than Congress, where the vote count is still not current with public opinion, and won't be until after the next election. Bush could not ignore a massive strike by senior military managment; nor could he replace them all. Unfortunately, the military mindset probably precludes something like that from happening. Too bad... more likely, those who might have been open to such a thing, are already gone.
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Sysprog Parade
Today at the Memorial Day parade on Broad Street
It's cloudy and a little drizzly as I stand with my dog and wait for my daughter to march past me. Two companies of kilted pipers are passing by, each company playing the USMC Hymn but only one of the companies has daggers in their stockings.
Wondering if you've read What I lived For by Joyce Carol Oates. Tremendous novel, as is most always the case from Joyce Carol Oates. The reason I ask, though, is because Oates includes a wonderfully engrossing, detailed description in the voice of the main character about a Memorial Day parade.
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more mindlessness
A friend of mine recently sent me an email a right-wing friend forwarded to her. I have left out all names, obviously:
I continue to be amazed this morning as I watch the news. Do you ?
We need to show more sympathy for these people.
They travel miles in the heat, they risk their lives crossing a border, they don't get paid enough wages, they do jobs that others won't do or are afraid to do, they live in crowded conditions among a people who speak a different language, they rarely see their families, and they face adversity all day every day.
I'm not talking about illegal Mexicans, I'm talking about our troops.
Doesn't it seem strange that the Democrats are willing to lavish all kinds of social benefits on illegals, but don't support our troops and are now threatening to defund them? Please pass this on, this is worth the short time it takes to read it.
This is the level of sophistication and honesty we are dealing with.
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Side effects of attack on Iran
Susan Sunflower:I am incapable of imagining a scenario where, after striking Iran, we would not be universally reviled ...
That may be a feature not a bug. If Chain-eye and Shrub remembered the classics they may think along the lines of ol' Caligula: Oderint dum metuant (May they hate me as long as they fear me).
The highest risk I see is that an attack on Iran would trigger a coup in Pakistan. Then there'll be not potential nukes in a few years in the hands of possibly not completely rational beings but launch-ready nukes in the hand of Taliban/Bin Laden supporters.
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Bush's Amazing Achievement by Jonathon Freedland
In his article in the NY Review of Books @ http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20251, Jonathon Freedland notes that Bush has united those with worldviews stretching from those of Noam Chomsky to Brent Scowcroft, and as disparate as the three whose recent books are the subject of his piece - Dennis Ross, Middle East envoy for both the first Bush and Clinton; conservative, hawkish Democrat Zbigniew Brzezinski; and Chalmers Johnson, author of a trilogy of books, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, The Sorrows of Empire, and the current Nemisis: The Last Days of the American Republic, examining the changes in America’s strategy, particularly under Bush, and their consequences here and abroad who Freedland notes frequently converges with Chomsky on the same point - that:
… the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a calamity, that the presidency of George W. Bush has reduced America’s standing in the world and made the United States less, not more, secure, leaving its enemies emboldened and its friends alienated.
Johnson’s book draws many parallels between America today and the Roman and British Empires, which Freeland notes are “striking” and gives many examples including relative military strength fostered by technological prowess, rule by proxy whether or not the proxy has been already conquered, establishment of colonies abroad (where Johnson argues that the 750-1,000 permanent U.S. military bases – most of which contain at least the same living amenities as any medium-sized American town - rival any Roman outpost, and furthermore notes that the new 104-acre compound in Baghdad that the administration is calling an embassy is, in actuality, also the newest military base), and eventual financial and moral drain, to include disguising aggression as a mission to benefit the conquered:
All imperial adventures have disguised themselves as civilizing missions; even the Spanish conquistadors of the sixteenth century claimed to be freeing from superstition and backwardness the Aztec, Mayan, and Inca peoples they crushed.
What complicates the picture is the sincerity, naïve as it may be, of so many of these neoconservative dreamers, perhaps extending to the President himself. Clearly they, no less than their British predecessors, believe, or believed, that they are engaged in the work of liberation rather than conquest. Are they themselves deceived by shadowy forces who use the veneer of spreading democracy to conceal a more base purpose? Or is it instead that imperialism, once in motion, exerts a momentum of its own?
I have serious doubts about the degree of naiveté, especially considering the dreamers and drivers of these extremist policies are generally those of social and economic privilege, as Glenn has noted in the past, who have nary a day of public service (much less military service), whose policies tend to leave the dirty work, risks and sacrifices to others, and who (or their social, political and financial allies) tend to gain the most from these policies. I’ll leave the answer to Johnson’s questions to the more historically and politically savvy in here, but let’s let Brzenzinski have his say:
Because of Bush’s self-righteously unilateral conduct of U.S. foreign policy after 9/11, the evocative symbol of America in the eyes of much of the world ceased to be the Statute of Liberty and instead became the Guantanamo prison camp.
Glenn’s fine post is the first I've seen to clearly state how the Iraq discussion should be framed - that the risks (and benefits) of each of the alternatives should be publicly discussed and analyzed with similar vigor - and the right needs to be openly confronted as to whether or not they are sincere in their concerns for the troops and Iraq’s citizens or are just looking for a way to obscure their true goal of dominion over the area or make it more palatable.
If our flaccid MSM is not willing to do so, then the Democrats have to, and soon. Glenn and Freedland's three authors clearly recognize the risks of having an administration that has already damaged the security of our country and the world, by making decisions steeped in an extremist ideology with absolute disregard for domestic or world opinion, to simply continue to be in charge of a force of 150,000 (more than likely double or more than that including “off balance sheet” contractors such as Blackwater and about which they have also been less than frank) in the middle of a hotbed of religious and political tension.
As Freedland put it:
It’s hard to read Ross and Brzezinski without coming to share their nostalgia for the steady, realistic, and grounded statecraft of George H. W. Bush in contrast with the faith-based pursuit of neoconservative fantasy that has passed for international affairs under his son.