bloods do justice to head crip
Others may
choose differently, but my favorite detail from the hanging of Saddam Hussein would have to be the guards who
chanted Moqtada al-Sadr's name as they prepared to do the deed. Four years in a
nutshell.
UPDATED LATER:
The
video of the execution is well worth watching, however much it smells like a snuff film. Note the setting, the behavior of the crowd. It's like a cockfight in the basement of a tenement house, strictly a Fight Club affair. And, yes, there are in fact repeated shouts of Moqtada al-Sadr's name.
It sure looks to me like the United States military just handed over a former head of state to be snuffed by a street gang. This was not noticably an affair of the Iraqi state, to the extent that such a thing can be said to exist in reality and in isolation from the Shiite militias.
The really interesting question, though, is this: What do you think Jawad Maliki and Jalal Talabani see when they watch this nasty, shabby little event?
happy c.d. alston day
December 29, 2005:Insurgents in Iraq are showing little capacity to keep up numerous and persistent attacks, a senior U.S. general in Baghdad says.
At a briefing December 29, Air Force Brigadier General C.D. Alston said there are three reasons for the diminishing capability of the insurgents to keep up attacks. The ability of insurgents to wage sustained combat is a key indicator closely watched by U.S. military forces to determine the enemy's effectiveness.
May your bullshit stick to you for the remainder of your limited career, Brigadier General C.D. Alston. Me, I plan on celebrating every December 29 for the duration of the war in Iraq as "C.D. Alston Day."
Raise a glass today for simple honesty, and never forget those who decline to offer it when it is most needed.
an accountability moment
A modest proposal for other bloggers, if anyone feels like playing along: On Dec. 29, highlight the one-year anniversary of
this confident pronouncement from a high-ranking U.S. military spokesman in Iraq that (as the government summary I link to characterized his remarks at the time), "Insurgents in Iraq are showing little capacity to keep up numerous and persistent attacks."
Better yet, from the same Dec. 29, 2005 government faux-news story: "Because of this improvement among Iraqi security forces, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said during recent appearances in Iraq that the United States would reduce the number of combat troops there by approximately 7,000 in 2006."
Why remind people what our military leaders were saying a year ago?
Because it appears that, in the coming weeks, we will be watching as the administration and its subordinates in the military make their inherently political argument about the positive effects of a
so-called "surge" of U.S. forces in Iraq. In this spectacularly obtuse Dec. 2005 announcement, we have a simple piece of evidence that clearly shows the emptiness of American political rhetoric about the course of the war. What our leaders say has nothing to do with what happens on the ground in Iraq, and this year's confident pronouncements are likely to be just as correct as last year's. Our leaders are irrecoverably lost, and it doesn't hurt to keep pointing it out.
I'm especially interested in trying to use the social network of this "blogosphere" thing to create some of the acountability that has been so sorely lacking in our disaster in Iraq. Perhaps someone will have readers in the Air Force who can provide information about Brigadier General C.D. Alston's current whereabouts, and let us know how to get in touch with the man. Perhaps too one of the larger blogs can get in touch with the press office at the Pentagon and see if anyone there is willing to comment on their year-old work product.
This comparison might also be a useful one to make. But however you do it, I would love to make Dec. 29 "C.D. Alston Day" on the Internet. This year, and for the duration of the war.
(Cross-posted on Cliopatria)
fraud alert
I have a
new post up at Cliopatria, comparing the drunken rantings of Christopher Hitchens from January and December of this year. Just in case Hitchens actually remembers January, or has a vague recollection of what he believed in back then.
awed silence
Here, in a nutshell, is why I haven't been posting very much lately. Pat Lang posts the
complete PowerPoint presentation given recently by historian and AEI fellow Frederick Kagan on the topic of "choosing victory" in Iraq. Yes, victory is something that you merely "choose." Strategy and execution are minor concerns behind the simple fact of
will: "Success requires effort and will, but we need not choose to lose." It all turns out to be so simple! Why didn't we just fill in the "choose to win" bubble three years ago? Think of all the time we could have saved!
But then you get into the substance of the thing, and you quickly end up kind of...uh...
Look at the slide that appears on page 25, titled "Potential Sequels in 1st QTR '08." I quote: "Option 1: Disarm Shi'a Militias."
Amazing idea -- why hasn't anyone thought of that before? And we could just, you know, knock it out quickly and drive on. It's just a single bullet point, folks. I mean, hello! Disarm the Shi'a militias! Whatever! Will we even need the
whole first quarter of 2008 for this piddling little goal? Success is so easy, once you choose it!
Annnnnd so we move on to page 35, "Reconstruction, Tier 1." How do we settle and stabilize Iraq? "Restore essential services immediately: sewer, water, electricity, and trash removal services." Just, you know, press the "restore electricity" button, and get that magic juice flowing again. Another one of those amazing things that you just can't believe no one has ever thought of, before! Duh, turn the electricity back on!
There are plenty of dumb assumptions and obtuse arguments in here, and
others have
bothered to come closer to sort of analyzing them. But I just don't have the energy. How do you bother to stay in the discussion when the discussion centers on the argument that we should use the first quarter of 2008 to disarm the Shiite militias in Iraq? I've overdosed on the pixie dust, and it just doesn't make me want to dance, anymore.
drunk monkeys and hidden dartboards
The
New York Times has the full text of a
strategy memorandum Donald Rumsfeld sent to the White House two days before he "resigned," cough cough. I'm not going to parse the thing, because no sentient being should need help to spot the massive lunacy in every massively insane word. The random guesswork is richly in evidence, like you're watching a room full of children drawing guesses out of a hat:
Significantly increase U.S. trainers and embeds, and transfer more U.S. equipment to Iraqi Security forces (ISF), to further accelerate their capabilities by refocusing the assignment of some significant portion of the U.S. troops currently in Iraq...
Conduct an accelerated draw-down of U.S. bases. We have already reduced from 110 to 55 bases. Plan to get down to 10 to 15 bases by April 2007, and to 5 bases by July 2007...
Initiate a massive program for unemployed youth. It would have to be run by U.S. forces, since no other organization could do it...
Recast the U.S. military mission and the U.S. goals (how we talk about them) — go minimalist.
Massive programs that go minimalist on a growing shrinking footprint that significantly increase while accelerating their draw-down! Huzzah!
And the astounding paternalism: "Put our reconstruction efforts in those parts of Iraq that are behaving...No more reconstruction assistance in areas where there is violence." Stabilize only the stable parts, in other words, and send the Anbar province to its room without dessert. Problem solved. Behave, or no cookie.
And on and on, but who has the energy anymore? Who knew it was possible for human beings to be this toweringly obtuse?
