Iraq'd
As Glenn Greenwald and others have noticed, all the people the US kills now in Iraq are 'AlQaida'. It's no coincidence that this new nomenclature follows on the heels of the 'surge' and the appointments of Generals Petraeus and Odierno to run the excellent adventure.
From the fantasies of Rumsfeld to the present day, our military has always taken the position that reality is what they choose to show you, or more often, tell you. The explanation of the current action is a direct reflection of this belief. In trying to get a glimpse of reality, we need to keep that in account, and look for other explanations; the ones we are given must be false.
Strategically, without a dramatic escalation of the scorched earth policy, the war is lost. There aren't another 50,000, 100,000 or 200,000 troops available to stabilize the situation, as the WaPo sagely advises today. The only question now is how long the current position can be maintained. The surge is sacrificing the future capabilities of the military for a holding action, to prevent a looming disaster.
Petraeus was brought in to run the holding action, and to convince the public that it is an offensive strategy. Despite the extra troops, Baghdad remain mainly out of control, the Green Zone is being targeted regularly by mortars in what has been described a 'range finding' activity, and now the US is forced to attack the outlying cities to try to stem the encirclement and subsequent cut off of the capital.
Anbar has gone mostly quiet, but at the price of further arming the insurgents, and letting them, in the guise of police, control the streets. The US is kidding themselves even more than us if they believe these people won't attack when the time comes.
Air strikes are up, but air strikes don't work unless you are trying to target military infrastructure, which hardly exists, or terrorize the population, which seems redundant at this point.
But the press and Congress continue to believe, our Democratic candidates, those with a chance of being nominated at least, swill the kool-aid and smack their lips as if it was the finest wine. They talk about leaving 50,000 non-combat troops in Iraq for the next decades as if on command. The press has forgotten the term 'insurgent', they're all 'AlQaida' now. Congress will continue to write the checks and 'support the troops'.
When reality takes hold which it must, at least on the ground in Iraq, there are only two choices that I can see, deal with the insurgents for a orderly withdrawal, or carpet bomb the country into rubble, I hope for the former, but expect the latter.
From the fantasies of Rumsfeld to the present day, our military has always taken the position that reality is what they choose to show you, or more often, tell you. The explanation of the current action is a direct reflection of this belief. In trying to get a glimpse of reality, we need to keep that in account, and look for other explanations; the ones we are given must be false.
Strategically, without a dramatic escalation of the scorched earth policy, the war is lost. There aren't another 50,000, 100,000 or 200,000 troops available to stabilize the situation, as the WaPo sagely advises today. The only question now is how long the current position can be maintained. The surge is sacrificing the future capabilities of the military for a holding action, to prevent a looming disaster.
Petraeus was brought in to run the holding action, and to convince the public that it is an offensive strategy. Despite the extra troops, Baghdad remain mainly out of control, the Green Zone is being targeted regularly by mortars in what has been described a 'range finding' activity, and now the US is forced to attack the outlying cities to try to stem the encirclement and subsequent cut off of the capital.
Anbar has gone mostly quiet, but at the price of further arming the insurgents, and letting them, in the guise of police, control the streets. The US is kidding themselves even more than us if they believe these people won't attack when the time comes.
Air strikes are up, but air strikes don't work unless you are trying to target military infrastructure, which hardly exists, or terrorize the population, which seems redundant at this point.
But the press and Congress continue to believe, our Democratic candidates, those with a chance of being nominated at least, swill the kool-aid and smack their lips as if it was the finest wine. They talk about leaving 50,000 non-combat troops in Iraq for the next decades as if on command. The press has forgotten the term 'insurgent', they're all 'AlQaida' now. Congress will continue to write the checks and 'support the troops'.
When reality takes hold which it must, at least on the ground in Iraq, there are only two choices that I can see, deal with the insurgents for a orderly withdrawal, or carpet bomb the country into rubble, I hope for the former, but expect the latter.
posted by Dick Durata at 12:00 PM
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