Today is the day we hear from Saint Petraeus. He will go in front of congress and many teevee cameras and tell us that the awesomeness of The Surge is working, that there is Great Progress in Iraq, but also that much work remains to be done, and therefore if we are patient, and continue funneling money and soldiers in his direction, then in just a few mere Friedman Units, we will achieve Glorious Victory, there, in Iraq.
How do we define progress? What constitutes victory? What goals do we hope to achieve in Iraq? Obviously these are rhetorical questions. The answers depend on what suits the WH public relations team on any given day.
Or, if you are a Democrat in congress, the answers depend on how frightened and pathetically impotent you feel at any given moment.
As has been predicted here and elsewhere, the WH has no intention of changing its course in Iraq. The congress has no intention of trying to stop them. None of the likely presidential contenders have stated unequivocally that they intend to change course to any significant degree. Therefore, certainly in January 2009, and probably far beyond that date, the clusterfuck in Iraq will still be ongoing, with hardly any change at all.
Public opinion, elections, and the like do not seem to have any effect whatsoever -- a circumstance I find bewildering. With opinion clearly, strongly against continued substantial commitment of money and soldiers and political capital and other resources in Iraq, and with a fairly recent election which strongly showed the electorate's will against this commitment, the status quo continues unchecked. We now have 20% more troops in Iraq than before the election.
What does the public, the electorate, the sovereign body politic, get in return for its clear statement that it wants to end the country's openended commitment to an endless war in Iraq? Saint Petraeus tosses a few crumbs:
Army Gen. David Petraeus has indicated a willingness to consider a drawdown of one brigade of between 3,500 and 4,500 U.S. troops from Iraq early next year... The pullouts would be contingent on the ability of U.S. and Iraqi forces to sustain what the administration heralds as recent gains in security and to make further gains in stabilizing Iraq.I hesitate to offer further comment, as it really seems superfluous in the face of such obvious, spectacular bullshit, but in order to add just one tiny speck to the historical record:
1. Notice the contingency, which basically means: maybe, if we want to, but, um, actually, don't fucking count on it.
2. And so even if this actually came to pass (did I mention: don't motherfucking count on it?), that would mean that 15-18 months after this country, a godamn democracy, held an election in which voters loudly and unequivocally stated they wanted this country to get the hell out of Iraq, we will still have 25,000 MORE troops there than before the election.
3. And then so this General expresses his "willingness" to fucking consider possibly sending home a small portion of some of the additional troops that were sent to Iraq after the aforementioned election where the voters loudly and unequivocally stated they wanted us to get the fuck out of Iraq?
I believe this is known as hubris. Though there are many other names I could put to it.
1 comment:
Thank you sir! May I have another!
"when in the course of human events t becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. ...
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