Recently, my neighbour, the Frenchman, mentioned the movie "Seven Days in May". The plot of the thriller dealt with a military coup d'etat in America. And that reminded me of "Dr. Strangelove", a black comedy about sociopaths such as we've come to know in recent years.
Musing on such matters in the warp and weft of current events, I plucked several loose threads:
Colin Powell stating that the military was "about broken"
Recent reports of growing numbers of military who've deserted, over 8,000 by one account
Growing commentary by 'boots on the ground' and their families. Over 3,500 members of military families, on one website and 500 added only this year -- speaking clearly against the war
NYT poll trumps this with, two thirds of military personnel and families think matters in Iraq are going badly
Critical articles by retired generals like Wesley Clark
The majority of We the People, no matter which poll you read
And thinking on Bush's optimism about Iraq: how many times we've turned the corner, every day in every way things are getting better -- only, the past three months of occupation (and "it's not really a civil war") have seen the worst death toll of American military since The Mistake began. And who knows really how many Iraqis?
We weren't doing body counts, that was old school, only now we are maybe kinda, cuz the enemy was disaffected Ba'athists, or disbanded Iraqi military, or umm Shia death squads this week and Sunni insurgents next (or was it the other way around) and oh yeah, now for sure, they're all al-Qaeda we're offing. Except when they're Iranian troublemakers in U.S. type uniforms that we knew about in advance -- though they still managed to kill a few American troops. But hey, they left those sneaky missiles behind for us to find?
Uh huh.
and and and
and spinmeisters like political hermaphrodite Lieberman pounding the attack Iran wardrum. Never mind McBrain's "bomb bomb bomb Iran" song, it never made the Top 40.
Then there's the third carrier group arriving over there. "No, we have no plans for anything, we're just watching." Sure. And didn't a certain admiral say a while back that would not happen on his watch? or maybe I'm remembering an alternate universe. Easy to get or stay confused, the spin I'm in ...
Yes, well, the movie idea of the military overthrowing the government because of a proposed disarmanent treaty suggests extrapolation to a military dictatorship. But, in "Seven Days in May" the nefarious plot was thwarted.
But my quirky mind turned to an alternate scenario. Suppose, now, we assume even the military has had "about enough" and when the order comes to bomb Iran, they just say no ...
Think of it as the ultimate tipping point -- and words would not be enough. Affirmative action would have to follow. I can visualise an armed force taking over the White House and Congress, the establishment of temporary martial law. But even better, a different outcome. Possibly with a stirring speech by the command general: "As Benjamin Franklin once said, 'We've given you a republic, if you can keep it. And now, today, we who were sworn to protect the country and the Constitution, have retaken the country and return it to you. Now it is up to We the People to keep it."
I think any military leader over the past six years would recognise that running the country is a daunting task that they would not really want!
Hey, maybe I could sell the idea to Oliver Stone.
Just sayin' ...