From the NYT. How ironic, given how much Bushian talk of foreign fighters in Iraq...
November 22, 2007
Foreign Fighters in Iraq Are Tied to Allies of U.S.
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
BAGHDAD — Saudi Arabia and Libya, both considered allies by the United States in its fight against terrorism, were the source of about 60 percent of the foreign fighters who came to Iraq in the past year to serve as suicide bombers or to facilitate other attacks, according to senior American military officials.
The data come largely from a trove of documents and computers discovered in September, when American forces raided a tent camp in the desert near Sinjar, close to the Syrian border. The raid’s target was an insurgent cell believed to be responsible for smuggling the vast majority of foreign fighters into Iraq.
The most significant discovery was a collection of biographical sketches that listed hometowns and other details for more than 700 fighters brought into Iraq since August 2006.
The records also underscore how the insurgency in Iraq remains both overwhelmingly Iraqi and Sunni. American officials now estimate that the flow of foreign fighters was 80 to 110 per month during the first half of this year and about 60 per month during the summer. The numbers fell sharply in October to no more than 40, partly as a result of the Sinjar raid, the American officials say.
Saudis accounted for the largest number of fighters listed on the records by far — 305, or 41 percent — American intelligence officers found as they combed through documents and computers in the weeks after the raid. The data show that despite increased efforts by Saudi Arabia to clamp down on would-be terrorists since Sept. 11, 2001, when 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi, some Saudi fighters are still getting through.
Libyans accounted for 137 foreign fighters, or 18 percent of the total, the senior American military officials said. They discussed the raid with the stipulation that they not be named because of the delicate nature of the issue.
United States officials have previously offered only rough estimates of the breakdown of foreign fighters inside Iraq. But the trove found in Sinjar is so vast and detailed that American officials believe that the patterns and percentages revealed by it offer for the first time a far more precise account of the personal circumstances of foreign fighters throughout the country.
In contrast to the comparatively small number of foreigners, more than 25,000 inmates are in American detention centers in Iraq. Of those, only about 290, or some 1.2 percent, are foreigners, military officials say.
They contend that all of the detainees either are suspected of insurgent activity or are an “imperative threat” to security. Some American officials also believe that Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a homegrown insurgent group that claims a loose allegiance to Osama bin Laden, may by itself have as many as 10,000 members in Iraq.
About four out of every five detainees in American detention centers are Sunni Arab, even though Sunni Arabs make up just one-fifth of Iraq’s population. All of the foreign fighters listed on the materials found near Sinjar, excluding two from France, also came from countries that are predominantly Sunni.
Over the years, the Syrian border has been the principal entry point into Iraq for foreign insurgents, officials say. Many had come through Anbar Province, in west-central Iraq. But with the Sunni tribal revolt against extremist militants that began last year in Anbar, Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and other jihadists concentrated their smuggling efforts on the area north of the Euphrates River along the Syrian border, the officials said.
The officials added that, based on the captured documents and other intelligence, they believe that the Sinjar cell that was raided in September was responsible for the smuggling of foreign fighters along a stretch of the border from Qaim, in Anbar, almost to the border with Turkey, a length of nearly 200 miles. They said that was why they were confident that the cell was responsible for such a large portion of the incoming foreign fighters.
American military and diplomatic officials who discussed the flow of fighters from Saudi Arabia were careful to draw a distinction between the Saudi government and the charities and individuals who they said encouraged young Saudi men to fight in Iraq. After United States officials put pressure on Saudi leaders in the summer, the Saudi government took some steps that have begun to curb the flow of fighters, the officials said.
Yet the senior American military officials said they also believed that Saudi citizens provided the majority of financing for Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. “They don’t want to see the Shias come to dominate in Iraq,” one American official said.
The Sinjar materials showed that 291 fighters, or about 39 percent, came from North African nations during the period beginning in August 2006. That is far higher than previous military estimates of 10 to 13 percent from North Africa. The largest foreign fighter hometown was Darnah, Libya, which supplied 50 fighters.
For years American officials included Libya on the list of state sponsors of terrorism. But last year the United States removed it from that list and re-established full diplomatic relations, citing what Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described as Libya’s “continued commitment to its renunciation of terrorism and the excellent cooperation” it has provided in the antiterrorism fight.
Also striking among the Sinjar materials were the smaller numbers from other countries that had been thought to be major suppliers of foreign fighters. As recently as the summer, American officials estimated that 20 percent came from Syria and Lebanon. But there were no Lebanese listed among the Sinjar trove, and only 56 Syrians, or 8 percent of the total.
American officials have accused Iran, the largest Shiite nation in the Middle East, of sending powerful bombs to Iraq and of supporting and financing Shiite militias that attack American troops. They also contend that top Iranian leaders support efforts to arm Shiite fighters.
But whatever aid Iran provides to militias inside Iraq does not seem to extend to supplying actual combatants: Only 11 Iranians are in American detention, United States officials say.
After the raid on the Sinjar cell, the number of suicide bombings in Iraq fell to 16 in October — half the number seen during the summer months and down sharply from a peak of 59 in March. American military officials believe that perhaps 90 percent of such bombings are carried out by foreign fighters. They also believe that about half of the foreign fighters who come to Iraq become suicide bombers.
“We cut the head off, but the tail is still left,” warned one of the senior American military officials, discussing the aftermath of the Sinjar raid. “Regeneration is completely within the realm of possibility.”
The documents indicate that each foreigner brought about $1,000 with him, used mostly to finance operations of the smuggling cell. Saudis brought more money per person than fighters from other nations, the American officials said.
Among the Saudi fighters described in the materials, 45 had come from Riyadh, 38 from Mecca, 20 from Buraidah and the surrounding area, 15 from Jawf and Sakakah, 13 from Jidda, and 12 from Medina.
American officials publicly expressed anger over the summer at Saudi policies that were destabilizing Iraq. Sunni tribal sheiks in Iraq who risked their lives to fight extremist militants also faulted Saudi clerics.
“The bad imams tell the young people to go to Iraq and fight the American Army, because if you kill them or they kill you, you will go to paradise,” Sheik Adnan Khames Jamiel, a leader of the Albu Alwan tribe in Ramadi, said in an interview.
One senior American diplomat said the Saudi government had “taken important steps to interdict individuals, particularly military-aged males with one-way tickets.” He said those efforts had helped cause an “appreciable decrease in the flow of foreign terrorists and suicide bombers.” But he added that still more work remained “to cut off malign financing from private sources within the kingdom.”
American officials cite a government program on Saudi television in which a would-be suicide bomber who survived his attack urges others not to travel to Iraq. The officials were also encouraged in October when the grand mufti of Saudi Arabia, Sheik Abdulaziz al-Asheik, condemned “mischievous parties” who send young Saudis abroad to carry out “heinous acts which have no association with Islam whatsoever.”
Armed with information from the raid, American officials say they have used military, law enforcement and diplomatic channels to put pressure on the countries named as homes to large numbers of fighters. They have also shared information with these countries on 300 more men who the records showed were being recruited to fight in Iraq.
Surrounded by desolate prairie and desert, Sinjar has long been a way station for foreign fighters. The insurgent cell raided by American troops was believed to have been smuggling up to 90 percent of all foreign fighters into Iraq, military officials say.
The raid happened in the predawn hours of Sept. 11, when American forces acting on a tip surrounded some tents six miles from the Syrian border. A fierce firefight killed six men outside, and two more were killed when one of them detonated a suicide vest inside a tent, military officials said. All were leaders of the insurgent smuggling cell, including one prominent Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia commander known as Muthanna, they said.
In addition to $18,000 in cash and assorted weapons, troops found five terabytes of data that included detailed questionnaires filled out by incoming fighters. Background information on more than 900 fighters was found, or about 750 after eliminating duplicates and questionnaires that were mostly incomplete.
According to the rosters found in the raid, the third-largest source of foreign fighters was Yemen, with 68. There were 64 from Algeria, 50 from Morocco, 38 from Tunisia, 14 from Jordan, 6 from Turkey and 2 from Egypt.
Most of the fighters smuggled by the cell were believed to have flown into Damascus Airport, and the rest came into Syria overland through Jordan, the officials said.
In some cases, one senior American military official said, Syrian authorities captured fighters and released them after determining they were not a threat to the Syrian government. Syria has made some recent efforts to turn back or detain suspected foreign fighters bound for Iraq, he said, adding, “The key word is ‘some.’”
Showing posts with label War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label War. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
Don't Spit On Me
SLATE keeps writing about the apocryphal accounts of returning Vietnam War soldiers getting spat on, trying to get to the bottom of it, like whether it actually happened or not. Turns out, despite it being "common knowledge," it's a harder story to unravel than it would appear to be, given how widespread awareness of it is.
That's what makes it suspect to me. There are a couple of ways to go with it, and SLATE is going at it in one direction, trying to determine if it's an urban legend or if it actually happened. But what I think is more interesting is this: assuming it actually happened, who did it, and why?
The assumption, of course, is that it's those nasty left-wingers who did it, like hateful, uhhh, hippies -- little Mansonian wannabes spitting on the babykilling troops the Right faithfully supported in the Vietnam War. That itself is an urban legend, this faithful support of the Right, where the troops are concerned. It seems that the Right loves war, and is less fond of soldiers. At least that's how they conduct themselves in practice.
And what makes me think this is the conduct of the Right with regard to the current War in Iraq.
For all of their cries to "Support the Troops" it's abundantly clear that the Republican leadership tried to wage this war on the cheap, and despite all of the money they've greenlit for the Pentagon, it appears that a lot of it is ending up in contractors' pockets (sometimes literally!) instead of going to support the troops in the field. The Walter Reed scandal that's brewing reveals that the GOP leadership (and keep in mind that these wrongs were known well before the 2006 elections) has been screwing over the troops who've returned, offering them substandard care when it's offered at all.
What's more, their vicious, partisan attacks on John Kerry, Max Cleland, Al Gore, and other Democratic veterans' records -- really, any Democrat veteran of prominence has had their courage and experience challenged, with cruelty and brutality. Never mind that the current GOP leadership is packed with chickenhawks -- men with deferments piled up like their rivals' Purple Hearts, men who evaded service in the Vietnam War. They are as shameless as they are ruthless in their attacks on the patriotism and valor of Democrats who actually served in the Vietnam War.
And those attacks aren't even confined to Democratic veterans -- think of how viciously the GOP went after John McCain, who was a POW, for God's sake, and who clearly suffered during his time in captivity. The Bush League went after McCain ruthlessly, and McCain himself is not popular with the GOP rank-and-file. Passing odd for people who supposedly "support the troops."
Now, the GOP has been haunted by the so-called Vietnam Syndrome, the reluctance of the US to engage in foreign wars, because of the resultant social unrest caused by them. To the Right, Vietnam "spoiled" American war-making, perhaps irrevocably. Given that their foreign and domestic policy has increasingly been focused around enemy imagery (Communists, Liberals/Progressives, Unionists, Secularists, Terrorists, in rough chronology since the early 50s), war-making is absolutely central to their conception of politics. That's how they end up "strong on defense" and are habitual funders of Big Military, at least on the contractor level. Maybe it's the dominance of Leo Strauss's approach to ideology in their elite ranks.
Given the Rightist Cold War rhetoric about "losing" countries to Communism (as if they were theirs to lose), I can't help but think that the Right had to have been unfuriated by the failure of the US to win the Vietnam War, which would've flown into the face of every doctrine of American exceptionalism that the Right holds dear -- in fact, in some circles, it still pisses them off, gets them saying that the war wasn't lost, that the US actually won, or that the Left sabotaged support for the war, leading to the failure of the objectives. Vietnam is still very much with us, even as we slog on in Iraq. George Bush I was convinced he'd licked the Vietnam Syndrome in Gulf War I, and George II was apparently motivated to finish the job in Gulf War II.
Someone had to be blamed for the failure to win in Vietnam. The GOP is notorious for its "Blame the Victim" politics -- ideologically, it does this across the board, time and again: the poor are to blame for their poverty, women who're raped had it coming, countries that get ravaged by free market economics are the fault of their stupid populaces, and so on. Defend the ideology, blame the victim; that is their approach. The prison abuse scandals were another example of this, really -- the GOP sought to protect the framers of the prison abuse policy, while punishing the practitioners of it, the ground-level troops who actually did it. Deniability at the top, responsibility at the bottom. That is the GOP way.
So, you have Vietnam veterans returning from a failed war, and you have pissed-off Rightists who're angry at them for blowing the war, you have a movement that is centered on hatred, warmongering, enemy imagery, and blaming the victim -- the returning veterans would have been a target of opportunity for angry reactionaries: "You lost us the war; you let Vietnam go Red! You failed us! You worthless pinkos!" *spitooey*
It's logical to me, it makes sense.
The antiwar movement, also known as the peace movement, was largely sympathetic to the plight of the soldiers, wanted them to be brought home in a war that they thought shouldn't have been fought to begin with. It was the prowar Right who thought the Vietnam War was justified, not the antiwar Left -- so the motive is there for the Right to have taken out its anger on returning veterans, whereas the Left would've seen the veterans as victims of a bad policy. See the difference? If the policy isn't bad, then you have to blame the people who carried it out for screwing up -- that's the Right's view: somebody's to blame, because our motives are unassailable. From the Left's more rational perspective, if the policy was bad to begin with, then blaming the soldiers is useless -- you have to put pressure on the policymakers, where it belongs.
And that's exactly what the Left has been doing in the Iraq War. They've been putting the focus again and again on the leadership of this war, while expressing tireless and vocal support for the troops. People on the Left were hostile to LBJ and Nixon in their conduct of the Vietnam War, while people on the Right were hostile to the peace movement and, I suspect, to the soldiers for "losing Vietnam." The Right has been saying it supports the troops, but its actions have put the lie to that statement, in their understaffed, undersupported, overcontracted war of opportunity in Iraq. And what's more, the Right has defected in its support of the war -- but only because we're not winning it. The (unfortunately largely ineffectual) Left opposed the war from the outset, while the (unfortunately politically dominant at the time) Right only opposed the war in Iraq when it was clear that the war was not being won. Sunshine patriotism reveals itself once again.
The interesting thing to me is that the antiwar movement for Iraq is tiny compared to the prowar movement that currently exists, so the Right won't be able to blame the Left for sabotaging the war effort, because the Press was on board for the war, the Left was nearly nonexistent and marginalized, and the Democrats were mostly meekly on board with Bush's War, at least until 2006. So, who will the Right blame this time around for the failure to win in Iraq? That remains to be seen.
But with regard to Vietnam, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that, if any spitting on veterans was done, it was done by reactionaries who spat, and not liberals, not progressives, not hippies, not peace activists. They did it to communicate their contempt for the troops for losing a front in the War on Communism that was central to their ideology.
And there's one more point that's almost overlooked because of its conspicuous absence: given the shamelessness of the American Right in political warfare, fabricating whatever it can't find, trumpeting what it does find -- the Republican Noise Machine, right? How is it that these apocryphal and seemingly widespread spitting on the troops accounts aren't at all well-documented? If they actually happened, I think the Right would be parading them out endlessly. But instead, the Right isn't doing that.
That is terribly suspect to me, because if it was an actual weapon they could use against the Left, they would use it. That is how they work.
But they don't do it -- rather, it just sort of exists in the pop culture, without support. And so I think, if it happened, then either: 1) if it was perpectuated by the Left, it wasn't widespread, and was blown way out of proportion by the Right wing as a way of attacking the Left's patriotism; or 2) it was perpetrated by the Right wing themselves, and they know this, which is why they haven't run with that football to the endzone.
To my eyes, the Right had the motive to take it out on the returning Vietnam veterans for losing the war in Vietnam.
The GOP pursues a very kiss up/kick down kind of policymaking, and I can see their rank-and-file taking it out on returning vets far more than I can see some rabid flower children going after them.
Anyway, that's my thought on that.
That's what makes it suspect to me. There are a couple of ways to go with it, and SLATE is going at it in one direction, trying to determine if it's an urban legend or if it actually happened. But what I think is more interesting is this: assuming it actually happened, who did it, and why?
The assumption, of course, is that it's those nasty left-wingers who did it, like hateful, uhhh, hippies -- little Mansonian wannabes spitting on the babykilling troops the Right faithfully supported in the Vietnam War. That itself is an urban legend, this faithful support of the Right, where the troops are concerned. It seems that the Right loves war, and is less fond of soldiers. At least that's how they conduct themselves in practice.
And what makes me think this is the conduct of the Right with regard to the current War in Iraq.
For all of their cries to "Support the Troops" it's abundantly clear that the Republican leadership tried to wage this war on the cheap, and despite all of the money they've greenlit for the Pentagon, it appears that a lot of it is ending up in contractors' pockets (sometimes literally!) instead of going to support the troops in the field. The Walter Reed scandal that's brewing reveals that the GOP leadership (and keep in mind that these wrongs were known well before the 2006 elections) has been screwing over the troops who've returned, offering them substandard care when it's offered at all.
What's more, their vicious, partisan attacks on John Kerry, Max Cleland, Al Gore, and other Democratic veterans' records -- really, any Democrat veteran of prominence has had their courage and experience challenged, with cruelty and brutality. Never mind that the current GOP leadership is packed with chickenhawks -- men with deferments piled up like their rivals' Purple Hearts, men who evaded service in the Vietnam War. They are as shameless as they are ruthless in their attacks on the patriotism and valor of Democrats who actually served in the Vietnam War.
And those attacks aren't even confined to Democratic veterans -- think of how viciously the GOP went after John McCain, who was a POW, for God's sake, and who clearly suffered during his time in captivity. The Bush League went after McCain ruthlessly, and McCain himself is not popular with the GOP rank-and-file. Passing odd for people who supposedly "support the troops."
Now, the GOP has been haunted by the so-called Vietnam Syndrome, the reluctance of the US to engage in foreign wars, because of the resultant social unrest caused by them. To the Right, Vietnam "spoiled" American war-making, perhaps irrevocably. Given that their foreign and domestic policy has increasingly been focused around enemy imagery (Communists, Liberals/Progressives, Unionists, Secularists, Terrorists, in rough chronology since the early 50s), war-making is absolutely central to their conception of politics. That's how they end up "strong on defense" and are habitual funders of Big Military, at least on the contractor level. Maybe it's the dominance of Leo Strauss's approach to ideology in their elite ranks.
Given the Rightist Cold War rhetoric about "losing" countries to Communism (as if they were theirs to lose), I can't help but think that the Right had to have been unfuriated by the failure of the US to win the Vietnam War, which would've flown into the face of every doctrine of American exceptionalism that the Right holds dear -- in fact, in some circles, it still pisses them off, gets them saying that the war wasn't lost, that the US actually won, or that the Left sabotaged support for the war, leading to the failure of the objectives. Vietnam is still very much with us, even as we slog on in Iraq. George Bush I was convinced he'd licked the Vietnam Syndrome in Gulf War I, and George II was apparently motivated to finish the job in Gulf War II.
Someone had to be blamed for the failure to win in Vietnam. The GOP is notorious for its "Blame the Victim" politics -- ideologically, it does this across the board, time and again: the poor are to blame for their poverty, women who're raped had it coming, countries that get ravaged by free market economics are the fault of their stupid populaces, and so on. Defend the ideology, blame the victim; that is their approach. The prison abuse scandals were another example of this, really -- the GOP sought to protect the framers of the prison abuse policy, while punishing the practitioners of it, the ground-level troops who actually did it. Deniability at the top, responsibility at the bottom. That is the GOP way.
So, you have Vietnam veterans returning from a failed war, and you have pissed-off Rightists who're angry at them for blowing the war, you have a movement that is centered on hatred, warmongering, enemy imagery, and blaming the victim -- the returning veterans would have been a target of opportunity for angry reactionaries: "You lost us the war; you let Vietnam go Red! You failed us! You worthless pinkos!" *spitooey*
It's logical to me, it makes sense.
The antiwar movement, also known as the peace movement, was largely sympathetic to the plight of the soldiers, wanted them to be brought home in a war that they thought shouldn't have been fought to begin with. It was the prowar Right who thought the Vietnam War was justified, not the antiwar Left -- so the motive is there for the Right to have taken out its anger on returning veterans, whereas the Left would've seen the veterans as victims of a bad policy. See the difference? If the policy isn't bad, then you have to blame the people who carried it out for screwing up -- that's the Right's view: somebody's to blame, because our motives are unassailable. From the Left's more rational perspective, if the policy was bad to begin with, then blaming the soldiers is useless -- you have to put pressure on the policymakers, where it belongs.
And that's exactly what the Left has been doing in the Iraq War. They've been putting the focus again and again on the leadership of this war, while expressing tireless and vocal support for the troops. People on the Left were hostile to LBJ and Nixon in their conduct of the Vietnam War, while people on the Right were hostile to the peace movement and, I suspect, to the soldiers for "losing Vietnam." The Right has been saying it supports the troops, but its actions have put the lie to that statement, in their understaffed, undersupported, overcontracted war of opportunity in Iraq. And what's more, the Right has defected in its support of the war -- but only because we're not winning it. The (unfortunately largely ineffectual) Left opposed the war from the outset, while the (unfortunately politically dominant at the time) Right only opposed the war in Iraq when it was clear that the war was not being won. Sunshine patriotism reveals itself once again.
The interesting thing to me is that the antiwar movement for Iraq is tiny compared to the prowar movement that currently exists, so the Right won't be able to blame the Left for sabotaging the war effort, because the Press was on board for the war, the Left was nearly nonexistent and marginalized, and the Democrats were mostly meekly on board with Bush's War, at least until 2006. So, who will the Right blame this time around for the failure to win in Iraq? That remains to be seen.
But with regard to Vietnam, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that, if any spitting on veterans was done, it was done by reactionaries who spat, and not liberals, not progressives, not hippies, not peace activists. They did it to communicate their contempt for the troops for losing a front in the War on Communism that was central to their ideology.
And there's one more point that's almost overlooked because of its conspicuous absence: given the shamelessness of the American Right in political warfare, fabricating whatever it can't find, trumpeting what it does find -- the Republican Noise Machine, right? How is it that these apocryphal and seemingly widespread spitting on the troops accounts aren't at all well-documented? If they actually happened, I think the Right would be parading them out endlessly. But instead, the Right isn't doing that.
That is terribly suspect to me, because if it was an actual weapon they could use against the Left, they would use it. That is how they work.
But they don't do it -- rather, it just sort of exists in the pop culture, without support. And so I think, if it happened, then either: 1) if it was perpectuated by the Left, it wasn't widespread, and was blown way out of proportion by the Right wing as a way of attacking the Left's patriotism; or 2) it was perpetrated by the Right wing themselves, and they know this, which is why they haven't run with that football to the endzone.
To my eyes, the Right had the motive to take it out on the returning Vietnam veterans for losing the war in Vietnam.
The GOP pursues a very kiss up/kick down kind of policymaking, and I can see their rank-and-file taking it out on returning vets far more than I can see some rabid flower children going after them.
Anyway, that's my thought on that.
Monday, February 12, 2007
What is Wrong With People?
This is really steaming me, the ongoing beating of the war drums re: Iran. Is the Bush League so desperate to distract the country with yet another war (or another front in the War on Terror) that they're willing to actually go to war with Iran (or launch an air strike on their nuclear facilities and/or have Israel do it)?
C'mon!! It would probably guarantee generations of terrorists, which would play into the neoconservatives' hands, policywise, locking the US into a straitjacketd response in world affairs, and would ensure fat Pentagon budgets as far as the eye could see. Is that their game?
Certainly they've made Americans no safer with their War on Terror.
C'mon!! It would probably guarantee generations of terrorists, which would play into the neoconservatives' hands, policywise, locking the US into a straitjacketd response in world affairs, and would ensure fat Pentagon budgets as far as the eye could see. Is that their game?
Certainly they've made Americans no safer with their War on Terror.
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Pentagoners
Oink! Oink! Oink! The Pentagon wants more and more. And this article doesn't even get at the real number: anywhere from $739 to 745 billion already budgeted to them. We're way, way overspending on our military, and keep in mind: our even-then huge military did nothing to prevent 9/11 from happening.
Tuesday, February 6, 2007
$739 Billion
Fred Kaplan masterfully breaks down War Budget hijinks, courtesy of the Decider...
It's Actually $739 Billion
Scary stuff. I fear the militarization of American society has been going on so long (loosely, I'd drawn a line at 1947, when the Department of War was transformed into the Department of Defense as the time when we began to embark on this particular "slayride").
Monstrously, as the Pentagon Lockbox continues to grow, it's going to consume ever more of the American budget -- it's the secret weapon the GOP and related reactionaries would use to finally smash the so-called Welfare State. Keep enough hot wars going, and it becomes its own justification -- hack social spending to the bone, privatize/kill/maim/destroy Social Security and Medicare, and keep several wars going indefinitely, and you've basically got the GOP's plan for the future. Nobody's yet touched the true third rail of American politics: reinstating the draft.
Yet. But it's coming. This kind of insane, worldwide war-waging has decimated the all-volunteer army (which is now the all-volunteer and partially-privatized army). A draft will eventually come, just to meet manpower needs.
The inertia of it is frightening and devastating -- our country has been on a permanent wartime economy for so long, so much is bound up in the costly, dead end of military keynesianism, it's hard to imagine people stepping back. Especially with the GOP eager to point a finger and squawk about national security if anybody dares try to open the Pentagon Lockbox.
This runaway military spending is killing the future of America-as-we-know it -- the oft-cited "American Way of Life(tm)" that reactionaries claim to care so much about.
It's not making the US safer, and it's making the world a good deal more dangerous. The only beneficiaries of it is the defense industry. But actual debate on it is immediately derailed by "Support the Troops!" and "Support the War on Terror!"
This is the same death spiral empires always take; this is why the Founding Fathers feared standing armies. Empires crumble at home while their armies consume ever more. *sigh*
For all the scoffing of Paul Kennedy's "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" -- like somehow the US was immune to the dynamic that has gutted superpowers before us, we're exactly on the track he laid out.
And I don't know if a new, invigorated Progressive movement (even if one existed) could stop it. The only thing that would likely stop it would be an economic meltdown, or (related, and perhaps worse) a political crisis at home.
Even a sham democracy should be fearful when its strongest national institution is the Army.
It's Actually $739 Billion
Scary stuff. I fear the militarization of American society has been going on so long (loosely, I'd drawn a line at 1947, when the Department of War was transformed into the Department of Defense as the time when we began to embark on this particular "slayride").
Monstrously, as the Pentagon Lockbox continues to grow, it's going to consume ever more of the American budget -- it's the secret weapon the GOP and related reactionaries would use to finally smash the so-called Welfare State. Keep enough hot wars going, and it becomes its own justification -- hack social spending to the bone, privatize/kill/maim/destroy Social Security and Medicare, and keep several wars going indefinitely, and you've basically got the GOP's plan for the future. Nobody's yet touched the true third rail of American politics: reinstating the draft.
Yet. But it's coming. This kind of insane, worldwide war-waging has decimated the all-volunteer army (which is now the all-volunteer and partially-privatized army). A draft will eventually come, just to meet manpower needs.
The inertia of it is frightening and devastating -- our country has been on a permanent wartime economy for so long, so much is bound up in the costly, dead end of military keynesianism, it's hard to imagine people stepping back. Especially with the GOP eager to point a finger and squawk about national security if anybody dares try to open the Pentagon Lockbox.
This runaway military spending is killing the future of America-as-we-know it -- the oft-cited "American Way of Life(tm)" that reactionaries claim to care so much about.
It's not making the US safer, and it's making the world a good deal more dangerous. The only beneficiaries of it is the defense industry. But actual debate on it is immediately derailed by "Support the Troops!" and "Support the War on Terror!"
This is the same death spiral empires always take; this is why the Founding Fathers feared standing armies. Empires crumble at home while their armies consume ever more. *sigh*
For all the scoffing of Paul Kennedy's "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" -- like somehow the US was immune to the dynamic that has gutted superpowers before us, we're exactly on the track he laid out.
And I don't know if a new, invigorated Progressive movement (even if one existed) could stop it. The only thing that would likely stop it would be an economic meltdown, or (related, and perhaps worse) a political crisis at home.
Even a sham democracy should be fearful when its strongest national institution is the Army.
Monday, February 5, 2007
Afghanistan
The forgotten war's not going much better. I knew we were screwed there the minute we permitted the opium trade to revive (so much for the Drug War, eh? Not that reactionaries have ever been serious about it). If Iraq is the new Vietnam, then I guess Afghanistan'll be the new Cambodia or Laos?
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Irresolute
Looks like those pro-escalation Senators are busy trying to round up votes against the antiwar resolution. Now, I think the resolution is pretty wussy, a purely symbolic vote (versus actually busting Bush's balls over his warmongering), but if even a symbolic vote is too much for some senators, well, I should hope that people follow those votes closely and know how their senator voted, and hold them to that in 2008.
Actively against the nonbinding resolution (and/or actively trying to kill it through other, competing legislation meant to siphon votes away from the resolution):
They're trying to round up 41 other votes to kill it, so keep an eye on it, and on them.
It's ludicrous to think that the "this will embolden our enemies" line would hold any weight -- our enemies are already emboldened. Or hadn't they noticed?
Actively against the nonbinding resolution (and/or actively trying to kill it through other, competing legislation meant to siphon votes away from the resolution):
- John McCain of Arizona (some "maverick")
- Lindsey Graham of South Carolina
- Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut (Traitor Joe strikes again!)
- Mitch McConnell of Kentucky
- John Cornyn of Texas
- David Vitter of Louisiana
- Jim DeMint of South Carolina
They're trying to round up 41 other votes to kill it, so keep an eye on it, and on them.
It's ludicrous to think that the "this will embolden our enemies" line would hold any weight -- our enemies are already emboldened. Or hadn't they noticed?
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Enlist, already
All those GOPeons who are still bullish on the War on Terror and/or the War in Iraq (and Afghanistan) should enlist in the armed forces, already. If they don't, then they clearly don't have the courage of their convictions, and are a bunch of fucking hypocrites. I recommend the Army or the Marines, preferably -- front-line stuff.
But they aren't enlisting in droves, now are they? Given the Pentagon's ongoing enlistment woes, the gung-ho warmongers and their spawn just aren't walking their talk (which isn't surprising, given that the current GOP leadership almost completely avoided service during the Vietnam War).
C'mon, chickenhawks! Enlist, already! Go fight the War on Terror for real, instead of hanging back on the sidelines, playing cheerleader.
If you're a liberal (or even further to the left) and some wingding impugns your patriotism for opposing the war, ask them if they enlisted in the military. When they say that they didn't, tell them to shut the fuck up about patriotism, already.
But they aren't enlisting in droves, now are they? Given the Pentagon's ongoing enlistment woes, the gung-ho warmongers and their spawn just aren't walking their talk (which isn't surprising, given that the current GOP leadership almost completely avoided service during the Vietnam War).
C'mon, chickenhawks! Enlist, already! Go fight the War on Terror for real, instead of hanging back on the sidelines, playing cheerleader.
If you're a liberal (or even further to the left) and some wingding impugns your patriotism for opposing the war, ask them if they enlisted in the military. When they say that they didn't, tell them to shut the fuck up about patriotism, already.
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