There's a wrinkle in the fabric of space-time that somehow leads to a wart on the backside of The Narrative to the effect that now that "we" are so heavily "invested" or "involved" or "present" in Ikantgetoutistan that "we" have to keep throwing good after bad and making a bad situation worse. Well, ex-cuuuuuse me for asking, exactly Why?
I guess some of us would argue, from our deep readings in the bibliographies of political wonkery, that having done the geopolitical Tarbaby thing and stuck the nation's fists to a place like Vietnam or Iraq or Afghainistan or the airspace over northwest Pakistan, "we" should kick it with both feet and head-butt it too for good measure, and then hope that eventually the tar will melt in the hot sun, let us pull free with the loss of a lot of hair and skin, and "we" can slink away to find some kerosene or gasoline and a rag to get the tar off.
Since when did "we" suddenly take on a national obligation on the part of 300 million people to spend going on $3 trillion in money we haven't even earned yet, that is mostly wasted, largely simply stolen, from present and future wealth to "do SOMEthing, ANYthing" to "care for" the people and property and politics and sects of that area?
What set me off today was the claim by a Kos poster that the GIs whose signal efforts preceded GWBush's descent onto that "Mission Accomplished" carrier deck, so reminiscent of every fraud before him going way back before McClellan's management of the Army of the Potomac, were just "brilliant."
As to those "brilliant" first guys in during OIF, Rummie and his cadre said it best: they went to war with the army they had, topheavy with crippled weapons, and so fucking small and stupid (at the command level) that friendly fire killed a ton of our own troops, who did not have body armor, or properly armored vehicles even, because it was more important to "deploy" the V-22 "Chickenhawk" and keep billions flowing into that Jobs Program and to the F-22 and F-35 and more of this'n'that. And too stupid to pick up or destroy the millions of pounds of munitions that "we" gave to Saddam (remember him?) back when he was our friend, so "we" left them lying around for the "insurgents" to pick up and put away for a rainy day on our parades. So that all those IEDs and EFPs that we try so hard to find evidence or at least put out the idea that they were provided by "Iran" were largely made, very simply, out of 105 and 155 artillery shells and various dumb bombs and mines, and some cute readily available detonator gadgets. And now "we" have a whole new huge bureaucracy within the Pentacle, making serious sounds and spending serious money to try to get ahead of the Wizards of Asymmetry who plant those IEDs and "roadside bombs." And of course there's Great Fable of Jessica Lynch, War Hero, convoyed by stupidity into capture by Insurgents, and the other one about Pat Tillman, Football and War Hero, killed by his own troops in a spasm of Battlespace Fear, a Fable created knowingly and in large part by the man who sees so clearly into the future and the light at the end of the current tunnel, Gen. Stanley McChrystal. (The clairvoyant in my war was Wm. Westmoreland.)
Some GIs show valor and intelligence that is wasted by the fucking idiots who send them on fool's errands, some of which you can read about in books like "Where Men Win Glory," by Jon Krakauer, which covers the Lynch and Tillman stories in gory futile detail. So that people can sit in conference rooms in the "A" Ring and the Situation Room and play at nation-building (whatever that means -- this is not some kind of Every Kid's Political Building Block Set) by enlisting GIs to try to force-fit Jeffersonian Lego blocks into a Chinese-Checkers game board. Many of the GIs try hard to work around their reflexes and adapt to this week's "mission" and "doctrine," but it's an uphill march into heavy fire since, as so many of the GIs have said, what they are TRAINED to do, reflexively, is to find, fix and kill "the enemy," not worry about abusing and shaming village elders in a place where affronts of much more trivial nature are multi-generational blood-feud matters. Not to mention the GIs who steal, rape, murder, beat and otherwise condescend to and hate and abuse "the Hajji camel jockey towelheads." (In my war, it was "gook, slope, slant, dink...")
Brilliant? Go read "Where Men Win Glory," and get a taste in THIS battlespace of how the "military intelligence" actually works. Even Rummy condescended to note that "we" way overpuffed the "force structure" and "military capabilities" of the Iraqi military. Like George Foreman beating up on Tiny Tim. But are "we" able to even comprehend, let alone "prevail, win, achieve victory, succeed" in what we smear over as "asymmetric warfare?" Nah, get more colonels, procurement-career-involved in a huge "program," come up with a catchy acronym like JIEDDO (so you can think of yourselves as the "JIEDDO Knights" to study how to "defeat" IEDs, and dump billions into meetings and drafting specs and studies and technology that will be asymmetricized out of the field before it's been on the ground even a week. When do "we" get it clear that people everywhere are at least as smart as we are? and very good (as we would be if the Commies ever invaded St. Louis) at defending their home turf.
Actually, not all that many folks these days have been involved in a wartime army as a participant. If more of us had the opportunity, we would see the million Milo Minderbinders out there, willing to bomb their own troops for "cost, plus ten percent," and the War Lovers who are there for other reasons. Maybe if "we" paid attention, "we
might ask why are "we" paying Insurgents to guard our convoys, and paying other Insurgents not to attack those convoys? And trying to buy a warlord's "loyalty" (in a place where every day is a new self-dealing opportunity for that warlord to trade his "loyalty" for some other goodie) by providing him with Viagra?
Hey, what happened to the argument of all those great armchair patriots who said "we" have to Stay The Course on account of "the women"? And now "the children"? Who are in greater danger of being stuffed back into chattel status and the 13th century now that "we" are providing the incentives to link up the dissociated tribes and families and warlord and mullah cadres under "Taliban" rule?
I have to wonder if some of the policy wonks who whip out Narrative justifications for Bidness As Usual at the drop of a 'return' key really believe the stuff they write here. Maybe it's just some Fifth Column playtime to keep the squishy Liberals off their footing, worrying about "the poor people of Lakanookistan, while footlocker-sized shrink-wrapped blocks of non-sequential used $100 bills are flown in-country on very expensive US transports and "disappeared into the fog of war," and video gamers in Nevada or wherever play World of War with overgrown model airplanes with real Hellfires and lots of enemy-generating "collateral damage?" And where "we" are paying "contractors" $400 a gallon to deliver all the gas and diesel and jet fuel to the Mighty Networked Battle Space that exists largely because of something called "oil" in the first place? "Oil," that goes for less than a hundred bucks a barrel? And while here in OUR very own "democracy," this site, dailyKos, exists because there is no "rule of the people" here. Where the future, believe it or not, is threatened by the taxpayer-funded private armies like Blackwater or Xe or whatever it's called this week, and there are more mercenaries in the field than citizen-soldiers?
'Bout the only reason I can see to keep the thing going is one that nobody states: "War is a racket," and in the fog of "patriotism" and squishy sentiment and pretenses to "responsible behavior" and plain old dirty-magazine-under-the-mattress SHAME, "we" are too fucking stupid to see that as much as in those "foreign dictatorships," if in a more genteel way, some few of us are busily "oppressing" the rest of us here at home every day, or are ourselves making too much money, to say, out of the mouths of demos and from the power of cratos, "No Fucking More." Oh, and maybe the fear of what happens when all those guys and gals who have learned how much darn excitement and adrenaline you can get out of "being shot at without effect" and shooting the head off of or the guts out of The Enemy, come home to "Thank you for your service. Thank you for your service.Thankyouforyourservice."
But not to worry, those of you who live for the "prosecution of the War" as a mater of Faith'cuz you know that "we" are stupidly going to persist in World of War because that's the best that humans can do. Right now, today, many US businesses are busily vying for Pentagon procurements for the weapons systems that will become something that looks a lot like that once and future land from which the Terminator, a truly autonomous battle robot, was sent back in time to kill the mother of the Savior. (Cool thing about "our" ABR technology is that when first fielded, the weapon system displayed a "disturbing" inability to distinguish 'friendly human' from 'enemy human," and shot up our own troops. Oops... back to the code, gotta find that glitch...)
And of course President Obama will not do anything for "transparency in government" by opening a Reality Door and giving the War Department back its proper name. "Yeah, let's call it the 'DEFENSE Department' -- NObody will be 'against DEFENSE,' whatever kind of theft and fraud and self-promoting bullshit we push into that category. If anyone squawks, just call 'em a Commie Pinko Liberal Appeaser!"
Happy Death Wish, America! How's that Alabaster Cities thing workin' for ya, hey? God mend thine every flaw, okey? Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy liberty in law? Oh, shucks, I feel the need to shoot a moose...