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TechnoratiUS Military Defiant on Key Terms of Iraqi Pact
The scheme to engage in chicanery in labeling U.S. troops represents both open defiance of an agreement which the U.S. military has never accepted and a way of blocking President-elect Barack Obama's proposed plan for withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months of his taking office.
![[A man holds his child as US soldiers walk past, during a routine patrol in the predominantly Sunni neighborhood of Fadhil, in Baghdad, Iraq, Thursday, Dec. 18, 2008.
(AP Photo/Karim Kadim)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/troopsiniraq-1219.jpg "troopsiniraq-1219.jpg")
By redesignating tens of thousands of combat troops as support troops, those officials apparently hope to make it difficult, if not impossible, for Obama to insist on getting all combat troops of the country by mid-2010.
Gen. David Petraeus, now commander of CENTCOM, and Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, who opposed Obama's 16-month withdrawal plan during the election campaign, have drawn up their own alternative withdrawal plan rejecting that timeline, as the New York Times reported Thursday. That plan was communicated to Obama in general terms by Secretary of Defense Robert M.Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen when he met with his national security team in Chicago on Dec. 15, according to the Times.
The determination of the military leadership to ignore the U.S.-Iraq agreement and to pressure Obama on his withdrawal policy was clear from remarks made by Mullen in a news conference on Nov. 17 -- after U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker had signed the agreement in Baghdad.
Mullen declared that he considered it "important" that withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq "be conditions-based". That position directly contradicted the terms of the agreement, and Mullen was asked whether the agreement required all U.S. troops to leave Iraq by the end of 2011, regardless of the security conditions. He answered "Yes," but then added, "Three years is a long time. Conditions could change in that period of time..."
Mullen said U.S. officials would "continue to have discussions with them over time, as conditions continue to evolve", and said that reversing the outcome of the negotiations was "theoretically possible".
Obama's decision to keep Gates, who was known to be opposed to Obama's withdrawal timetable, as defense secretary confirmed the belief of the Pentagon leadership that Obama would not resist the military effort to push back against his Iraq withdrawal plan. A source close to the Obama transition team has told IPS that Obama had made the decision for a frankly political reason. Obama and his advisers believed the administration would be politically vulnerable on national security and viewed the Gates nomination as a way of blunting political criticism of its policies.
The Gates decision was followed immediately by the leak of a major element in the military plan to push back against a 16-month withdrawal plan -- a scheme to keep U.S. combat troops in Iraqi cities after mid-2009, in defiance of the terms of the withdrawal agreement.
The New York Times first revealed that "Pentagon planners" were proposing the "relabeling" of U.S. combat units as "training and support" units in a Dec. 4 story. The Times story also revealed that Pentagon planners were projecting that as many as 70,000 U.S. troops would be maintained in Iraq "for a substantial time even beyond 2011", despite the agreement's explicit requirement that all U.S. troops would have to be withdrawn by then.
Odierno provided a further hint Dec. 13 that the U.S. military intends to ignore the provision of the agreement requiring withdrawal of all U.S. combat troops from cities and towns by the end of May 2009. Odierno told reporters flatly that U.S. troops would not move from numerous security posts in cities beyond next summer's deadline for their removal, saying "We believe that's part of our transition teams."
His spokesman, Lt. Col. James Hutton, explained that these "transition teams" would consist of "enablers" rather than "combat forces", and that this would be consistent with the withdrawal agreement.
But both Odierno's and Hutton's remarks were clearly based on the Pentagon plan for the "relabeling" of U.S. combat forces as support forces in order to evade a key constraint in the pact that the Times had reported earlier. In an article in The New Republic dated Dec. 24, Eli Lake writes that three military sources told him that the U.S. "Military Transition Teams", which who have been fighting alongside Iraqi units, as well as force-protection units and "quick-reaction forces", are all being redesignated as "support units", despite their obvious combat functions, "in order to skirt the language of the SOFA [status of forces agreement]".
U.S. commanders have not bothered to claim that this is anything but a semantic trick, since the redesignated units would continue to participate in combat patrols, as confirmed by New York Times reporters Elisabeth Bumiller and Thom Shanker Thursday.
The question of whether Iraqis would permit such "relabeled" combat forces to remain after next June was discussed with Obama on Monday, according to the Times report. One participant reportedly said Gates and Mullen "did not rule out the idea that Iraqis might permit such troops..."
Despite Odierno's assertion of the U.S. military's prerogative to unilaterally determine what U.S. troops may remain Iraqi cities, the Iraqi government has already made it clear that the U.S. military has no such right. Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mohammed al Askari, responded to Odierno's and Hutton's statements by saying that U.S. commanders would have to get permission from the Iraqi government to station any non-combat troops in cities beyond the deadline.
The signals from Odierno of U.S. military defiance of the withdrawal agreement suggest that the Pentagon and military leadership still do not take seriously the views of the Iraqi public as having any role in determining the matter of foreign troops in their country. Nevertheless, the withdrawal agreement is still subject to a popular referendum next July, and Iraqi politicians have already warned that evidence of U.S. refusal to abide by its terms will affect the outcome of that vote.
Washington Post reporters quoted Sunni legislator Shata al-Obusi as saying that Iraqis "will see this procrastination and they will vote no against the agreement, and after that the government should cancel it according to its provision".
Beyond the aim of getting Obama to abandon his 16-month plan, the military and Pentagon group still hopes to pressure Obama to agree to a long-term U.S. military presence in Iraq.
Further evidence emerged last week that Gates is a central figure in that effort. In a Washington Post column Dec. 11, George Will quoted Gates as saying that there is bipartisan congressional support for "a long-term residual presence" of as many as 40,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, and such a presence for "decades" has been the standard practice following "major U.S. military operations" since the beginning of the Cold War.
Those statements evidently represent part of the case Gates, Mullen and the military commanders are already making behind the scenes to get Obama to acquiesce in the subversion of the intent of the U.S.-Iraq agreement.
Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist specializing in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.
113 Comments so far
Show AllDraw-down in Iraq
Shore-up in Afghanistan, as a buffer for Asian policy, & anti-Russian crap
...
Then begins the cheerleading for bringing peace and stability to African nations, led by Hopey McUnicorn--we'll stop genocide, cure AIDS, save Zimbabwe, stop Cholera...and bring irrigation and the Internet because the piracy must be stopped!!!
But the question is, can they do it with our country being bankrupt and all?
In the meantime the military will be busily re-tooling itself to obviate the need to place hardware and boots on the ground, instead to threaten war by means of electronic infrastructure, worst case scenario: we'll attack you with the drones we operate out of the security of our home bases. In order to make this globally viable, we have to bring into the 21st century those populations which cannot be affected by such tactics, or obliterate and re-build in our image those "regimes" capable of building an independent resistance.
It will soon be impossible for the world public to resist...its own way of life...as has already happened in America.
Tra-la-la.
The first thing we must remember is that our govt. lies, lies and lies some more. In fact, they lie so much they believe their lies. The thing I don't understand is why we put up with it. I've been saying for 25 years, we need to assemble a rally at every capital in the country and scream we are maddd as hell and not going to take any more. Better yet, we take a week off from work, every one!
Upon my renewed reading of Articles 24 and 2 of SOFA (translation by El Jazeera) I conclude that this document should never have been approved because of the glaring contradiction between the two articles. Article 24 speaks about “combat forces” first but later refers to “US forces mentioned in item 2” which clearly states “all the personnel of the American Armed Forces, the civilian personnel connected to them and all their possessions, installations and equipment present on Iraqi territory”. Obviously the people of Iraq have been fooled/betrayed by someone.
Article 24
Withdrawal of American Forces from Iraq
Admitting to the performance of Iraqi forces, their increased capabilities and assuming full responsibility for security and based upon the strong relationship between the two parties the two parties agreed to the following:
All U.S. forces are to withdraw from all Iraqi territory, water and airspace no later than the 31st of December of 2011.
All U.S. combat forces are to withdraw from Iraqi cities, villages, and towns not later than the date that Iraqi forces assume complete responsibility of security in any Iraqi province. The withdrawal of U.S. forces from the above-mentioned places is on a date no later than the 30 June 2009. The withdrawing U.S. forces mentioned in item (2) above are to gather in the installations and areas agreed upon that are located outside of cities, villages and towns that will be determined by the Joint Military Operation Coordinating Committee (JMOCC) before the date determined in item (2) above.
Article Two
Definition of Terms
"U.S. Forces" refers to the entity that includes all the personnel of the American Armed Forces, the civilian personnel connected to them and all their possessions, installations and equipment present on Iraqi territory.
"Member of the U.S. Forces" refers to any person that belongs to the army of the United States, its navy, air force, marine force or coast guard.
Shame on you Mr. President elect if you use this confusion to leave "non-combatant soldiers" in the cities of Iraq to bash in more home doors to frighten their occupants.
My prediction: President Obama will do just that because he has often announced his intent to leave "residual forces" behind.
People always get the lying government they deserve.
Treating members of "our" military with the disgust that they deserve helps them and others to see past the veil of lies woven for them by the MSM and into the reality of their existence. Whatever role they play in the military, they are an important part of a juggernaut that grinds up the innocent in the service of the guilty.
As the Phil Ochs song from the 60s said "He's the unversal soldier, and he really is to blame...
"But without him how would Hitler have
condemned him at Dachau
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body
as a weapon to a war
and without him all this killing can't go on" (Buffy Sainte Marie .... Universal Soldier)
"I wrote "Universal Soldier" in the basement of The Purple Onion coffee house in Toronto in the early sixties. It's about individual responsibility for war and how the old feudal thinking kills us all. Donovan had a hit with it in 1965." (Buffy Sainte-Marie)
Harvey, Thank You for reminding me of Buffy's great song.
I'd forgotten the power of this song. I printed a dozen copies to distribute at random high traffic locations. Would anyone like to help put together a pool of funds to have this put up on a billboard?
-- EKATON --
I will post the whole song for our younger commentors. This song was written in the 1960's. It speaks for itself.
Universal Soldier (Buffy Sainte-Marie)
He's five feet two and he's six feet four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He's all of 31 and he's only 17
He's been a soldier for a thousand years
He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain,
a Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
and he knows he shouldn't kill
and he knows he always will
kill you for me my friend and me for you
And he's fighting for Canada,
he's fighting for France,
he's fighting for the USA,
and he's fighting for the Russians
and he's fighting for Japan,
and he thinks we'll put an end to war this way
And he's fighting for Democracy
and fighting for the Reds
He says it's for the peace of all
He's the one who must decide
who's to live and who's to die
and he never sees the writing on the walls
But without him how would Hitler have
condemned him at Dachau
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body
as a weapon to a war
and without him all this killing can't go on
He's the universal soldier and he
really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from him, and you, and me
and brothers can't you see
this is not the way we put an end to war.
So Betrayus Petraus plans to be insubordinate to his Commander-in-Chief after January. Let's just go with historical precedence on this one. Truman gave MacArthur a direct order. MacArthur disobeyed the order. Truman fired MacArthur for insubordination. Certainly since the coronation of King George II the US President has gotten no less powerful.
Well, Obama, champion of change: Fiah the sukah.
I just saw Dennis Blair's name show up on Obama's list of appointees. Many of you have watched "Zeitgeist -Part 3" and listened to President Kennedy's speech warning us about "Secret Societies" infiltrating U.S. Government"....
How many of you have heard of "Trilateral Commission" and "Bilderberg Club"?
Names just pop out of the list of members, attendees, or invitees....from: Blair,Summers, Hagel, Daschle,Tarullo, Brzezinski,Richardson, Dodd, Deutch,Bernanke, Paulson et al.(Google the full name and type "Bilderberg Club" or "Tri-lateral Commission" beside the name, surprises you will find.)
The Military did not have to be infiltrated........Why do you suppose a U.S Air Force flying Command Center was flying over the U.S. Capitol Building as 9/11 attacks were in progress? Why do you suppose a B52 loaded with nuclear loaded missles was shipped from Minot AFB, North Dakota,to Barksdale AFB, Louisiana? (It is illegal to transport nuclear weapons by air over the continental U.S. and the U.S. Air Force investigated itself.)
Most Americans are now living with a "Hope for Change".....They still have not heard Brzezinski's "Geopolitical Rationale" for maintaining a presence in Iraq and expanding the effort in Afghanistan. 750 U.S. military bases need "OIL"!!!
Brzezinski's "World Hegemony" is not possible without the control of "OIL"!!!
We have Saudi Arabia's "OIL" (Secret Agreement to Protect the Saudi Royal Family as read in Perkin's, "True Confessions of an Economic Hit Man".) We need Iraq's.
We will have the Caspian Sea OIL with the completion and protection of the OIL PIPELINE through Afghanistan.
It is simple to understand.....The Bilderberg Club's discussion of the problems with sub-prime loans occurred in their 2006 meeting.....They gave themselves two years to scam the rest of the non-members and us.
The U.S. Military is powerful enough to control the "New World Order" They do not care whether it is Bush, Obama, or Kennedy.
I think there is much truth in what you say...What about the CFR? You think the implementation of NAFTA and GATT could have had any impact on our economy? It brought us to our knees economically and I think it was all part of their plan. We (America) are all that stands in their way. The absolute destruction of our industrial base, eliminating mostly all middle class jobs. Destroy the middle class and you destroy America. What do you know about the "Security and Prosperity Partnership Agreement"? Check out SPP.GOV If the dollar becomes worthless we become worthless and that will open the door for the "Amero"? Have they already started to print them?
I saw a photo of an Amero. It sure looked real, but the source was VERY unreliable.
Thanks for expanding Chersonsky's list. Meanwhile, people stay wrapped up in the left/right, good cop/bad cop spider web. The CFR was originally created by David Rockefeller and Co. to establish control of the media and information. They are an entrenched part of the MIC. I believe it was Reagan's CIA head, William Casey, who declared that the CIA controlled the media. Then there was a member of the Navy brass (can't recall the name) who declared that the U.S. military "worked for the BANKS. Bildeberg members have shrugged off the notion that they exercise any control over global politics by giving the benign impression that it is just a group of world elites who just get together once a year to "talk about things". Whether it's the Bilderbergers, the Trilateral Commission, the CFR, or the SPP, their members always try to deny the nature of the organization. Barack and Michelle Obama both have strong ties to the Council on Foreign Relations, as does Joe Biden. All these organizations contain the infrastructure for the New World Order, which was previously pooh-poohed, but is now being openly called for by heads of state and various politicians, especially from the West. Instead of wondering whether Obama might put his foot down on U.S. military adventurism, etc., time might be better spent researching these globalist institutions and the real sources of power. Thank you kennybro and Chersonsky for the very pertinent reminder. I haven't had the opportunity to read this yet, but there is what I think a very definitive book out by Danien Estulin titled "The True Story of the Bildebergers".
The photograph that accompanies this article is interesting. Did you notice the two armed thug...er, soldiers in sunglasses?
They are part of a group of extremely well-trained killers who are supposed to protect America from direct invasion or attack.
What are they doing on foreign soil you may ask? Protecting America of course. That man with his baby is obviously a real threat. Look at his face. There is evil there, menace. He's probably Muslim, you know.
And the baby is probably wearing a suicide belt! War is hell.
www.dangerouscreation.com
.This sort of diatribe against our National Guard kids, who signed up for meetings and two weeks in the summer and found themselves trapped in an endless cycle of war, is way harsh.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
"...WAY HARSH"!!! Are you kidding?!?!
.Not at all, are you? Did you read what I wrote? Do you disagree with that assessment? Can you say anything less cryptic? Do you really think someone who signed up for the National Guard fits the sophomoric description of the poster to whom I responded?
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
I read what you said, and NO I'M NOT KIDDING, either. How utterly BAD and INSENSITIVE of David G. to make such a sweeping statement and forget to honor the weekend warriors who signed up out of innocent naivete, a false sense of patriotism, economic hardship, etc. to become unwitting cannon fodder, trained to kill and be killed. I agree with most of your posts. I just thought you were having a Thomas More "Support the Troops" moment. Just as DavidG. did not pay homage to the National Guard, I thought you went a bit overboard in your reaction. It's a nasty game in our militarized society, and playing into it, especially at this stage, whether National Guard or otherwise, requires a certain level of soul-searching, even if one believes he has no other choice. It's true that the role of the National Guard has been usurped, and too many have found themselves in places they don't want to be. I think there are those from the National Guard who fit David G.'s description and probably the vast majority who don't. And I don't think David G. was casting any malevolence on those who don't. Innocence, naivete, ignorance, being a victim of a dumbed-down society--whatever--does not qualify as an excuse when signing on to the Empire's Killing Machine. And it's our responsibility to communicate the need for a sharpened sense of conscience to as many candidates for potential cannon fodder as possible, whether signed up already or even thinking about it. Whether regular army or National Guard, the most psychopathic members are being culled to secure the streets of the Homeland. For the rest, their duty resides in resistence and fighting the monster.
Mister Chips
You are a complete ass.
.Negativity towards our brothers and sisters in service plays directly into the hands of those who denigrate the left for "not supporting our troops".
Both of your assessments of our men and women in uniform are models of hyperbole and really does the cause of peace and justice no good at all. To call even a few "psychopaths" simply alienates far too many potential allies. Returning veterans prove , time and again, to be our staunchest allies in the fight to restore our nations path.
DavidG, in his criticism of two guys shown in a picture, was childishly out of line and his assumption was mot at all productive.
These are my opinions. You are entitled to your own.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Resist--don't enlist!!
I infiltrated the National Guard in the 70s--and I refused to lead my platoon into the field. I wrote a CO statement--and I suspect the Guard decided to let me out because I was a journalist. After offering to "promote" me from sergeant to major!
Not only that, I had an honorable discharge that hung over my toilet for years.
You don't HAVE to do what they tell you.
.An obvious fiction
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Truth in labeling U.S. troops requires them to be called unlawful combatants.
It is odd how quickly people forget that this blustering and threatening are coming from two generals who can be relieved of their commands for insubordination as soon as Obama takes office. These are the scare tactic rantings of Bush flunkies who are all that is left of commanders who either resigned rather than serve an unjust military leader or who committed suicide rather than serve that leader. So what if Gates is still at Defense, he serves at the pleasure of the President and as Obama has pointed out, if they do not support his vision, they are gone. Obama has been consistent and clear - this war was wrong and we will be out in 16 months, 2011 at the latest under the current terms. He understands what will happen better than most if we are not, and I can assure you that he does not want a 9/11 on his watch because we failed to honor our promise and his pledge to leave Iraq. So give it a rest, and let the man get sworn in first before everyone assumes that he will fail. He has not failed yet, and he will be tested, but so will we if we fail to support his efforts to create cooperation and change among all the parties at the table, not just the left-wing liberals who claim to be progressives (which quite frankly in sociology terms they are not). If his orders for withdrawal are not followed to the letter by his subordinates, then they will be recalled and forced to resign. There is historical precedent for such actions, and he will certainly have the will of the people behind him for such an action, unlike Truman. So do not let the media stampede you to judgment because they need a newsbite.
Obama does not represent an alternative or parallel system to the Republicans. He represents the exact same system of global criminals who have built the U.S. up and are now bringing it down. 1930's and 40's Germany is just one example of the pattern which repeats itself over and over again. Obama was annointed to rally the "hopes" of the disaffected as the last crumbs are snatched from cold, paralyzed fingertips. There is only one party at the table to which you refer. And just who's "sociological terms" are you calling out to describe "left-wing liberals who claim to be progressive". I voted for Ron Paul in the primaries and Cynthia McKinney in the general "election". Anyone exhibiting a shred of honesty, whether conservative or progressive, has been shut out from the get-go. No, I don't see anyone who is not useful to the globalist corporate fascists getting a seat at your wonderful table or even being allowed to stand behind the chairs of the fascist tools. I hope that enough people will be awakened in time to smash that table of iniquity into 8 trillion little splinters.
Holy crap! When are you going to figure out that you've been punked by Obama? Just look at the reactionaries he has appointed to his cabinet. He sold out the progressives to Goldman Sachs and the rest of the rapacious bastards who have run our nation into bankruptcy.
This is a brilliant move by the Generals to put Obama in his place. The American people do not want to fail in Iraq.
.I am puzzled. Do you posit that this strategy by the generals is a response to the wishes of the American people? Very doubtful on several fronts. Firstly, many polls have proven that the public overwhelmingly favors withdrawal from Iraq. Secondly ,when has the Pentagon ever concerned itself with the wishes of the general public?
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
they ALREADY have failed.
Harvey,
Of course the US will always be led by Israel's example in Palestine and America's favorite Jewish Senator -- Joseph Lieberman.
Talk peace and "withdrawal" but get the "facts on the ground" promote conflict so that the actual exit will be in a 100 years or more !!!!!! maybe !!!!!!
One subject pops up more often than any other.
'Exceptionalism'.
A many times it is presumed or assessed that American
Exceptionalism is over.
Nothing is further from the truth.
America is still exceptional in many ways.
Exceptionally rogue,
exceptionally greedy,
exceptionally corrupt,
exceptionally naive (to be polite),
exceptionally intolerant,
exceptionally religiously fanatic,
exceptionally dramatic,
exceptionally ludicrous,
exceptionally brutal,
exceptionally homophobic,
exceptionally obese,
exceptionally militaristic,
exceptionally destructive,
exceptionally deceiving,
exceptionally hypocritic,
exceptionally broke,
exceptionally hopeless,
exceptionally pathetic,
exceptionally indifferent,
exceptionally arrogant,
exceptionally blasphemous,
exceptionally ridiculous,
exceptionally wasteful,
exceptionally ignorant,
exceptionally genocidal,
exceptionally cruel,
exceptionally bigot,
exceptionally sexist,
exceptionally discriminative,
exceptionally blatant,
exceptionally nepotistic and
exceptionally clueless when it comes to understand that Planet
Earth won't give US another chance.
Look at the military if You like to know why we will all go extinct soon,
no matter how much the talking heads try to convince You otherwise.
Game Over.
Thanks to the people in uniforms. Except(!) Firefighters, Nurses and First
Responders.
(And of course, there are less exceptional brothers in arms all over the
world.)
May all Beings be blessed. Specifically the weak and ill minded.
this seems to be the case;
the irony is that america often blathers on - in public discussions, punditry, flagwaving, in public events, from politicians, industry leaders, thinkers, writers, opinion makers, government officials, world representatives, ambassadors, local officials, community organizations, schools, books, films, marketing, advertisement, LAWS, rules, regulations...etc.etc.etc.
about any of thethings above -- and altogether as somehow being a MODEL to be placed above all other nations.
upon looking closely, -- in practical terms....there is nothing america has any primacy about in those things.
it is NOT the most judicious nation...nor the most "accountable", nor "truthful", nor freest of corruption (in fact it is bigger than many nations combined in THAT) , nor the most moral, nor the most righteous and upstanding, nor the most trustworthy, nor PEACELOVING (it should be considered an OXYMORON in application to the USA) , nor even the most civilized.........
but it is NUMBER ONE in what Dr.Martin Luther King , Jr said:
"I MUST SAY WITH SADNESS AND SHAME THAT THE GREATEST PURVEYOR OF VIOLENCE IN THE WORLD TODAY IS MY OWN GOVERNMENT".
IT THE number one debtor nation that has no intention of paying its debts by using Dollar Hegemony to keep making other nations PAY for AMERICA's DEBTs TO them (always has done that since world war 2)
it is the number one nation in Garrisoning the planet
number ONE in making and selling planet destroying WEAPONS of KILLING
number one in UNTRUSTWORTHY , rigged treaties
number one in promoting and selling FRAUDULENT economic packages
number one in the practice of USURY in its banking system (compound interest legalization practices for example)
number one in BOASTFULNESS about its exceptionality.
NUMBER ONE in polluting the planet and then points fingers at others racing after it in ITS "competition" game it has imposed...
number one in CAUSING the deaths and suffering of people across the planet with its imperial policies
number one in producing LIES in order to invade other nations
number one in BLAMING others for ITS own hubris and idiotic, short-sightedness
i mean -- we could go on and on and on and on and on\
and then leaders and some americans COMPLAIN about how the world "hates us?"
look in the mirror.
Hey Teddy, yours is a great comment! If only 299,999,999 other Americans were as smart and perceptive as you are!
If you were the President Elect instead of Obomber, America really would have some hope.
Well done!
www.dangerouscreation.com
thanks david. i already put your link in my favorites, hehe!! i think we each KNOW what has been happening. things are SO obvious, even a child, if that child was given facts in a straightforward manner , without coercion about "how to interpret" -- that child will IMMEDIATELY know what is WRONG and CRUEL...and that is what the USA's accumulated history has NOW become!
a TYRANNOUS "dictatress of the world" as an early american president warned against.
and it all comes hand in hand with those things listed about its notions of "exceptionalism".
if people read HOW the USA justified AND schemed to TAKE texas -- TEXAS -- and New Mexico and California FROM the mexicans? they will be amazed at the RUTHLESSNESS - which is demonstrated right now in iraq.
OBAMA is "sighting" an escalation in Afghanistan, whispered by his generals and pentagon and corporations? he is dreaming if he things that Russia and Iran are going to sit back. because these countries have closer ties WITH afghanistan as well as problems with it numerous times before and in aggregate have a FAR GREATER experience in that region that americans can't even come close to understanding those intricacies just because the USA can boast of its DEBT BASED military !
what is the TRUE purpose of the planned escalation in afghanistan?
it is ANOTHER in the string of attempts to "encircle russia" - from the south . and "separate" it from Iran - those countries SAW RIGHT THROUGH IT - and are now in the process of putting ASIDE their long differences . is the USA going to CHALLENGE THEM BOTH RIGHT THERE? because it would be EASIER for THEM to CONNIVE with ANY and ALL the tribes of their FORMER problem , afghanistan itself , than for the USA to EVER "change the minds of the taliban" and THAT"s just talking about ONE tribe that the iranians and russians know MORE about !
don't make me laugh!
yes - perhaps obama SHOULD go in there in afghanistan , and odierno and company can see their grand ARMY OF THE US EMPIRE swallowed up in its final throes when they are finished!
maybe that is what is needed - at tragic cost to the afghans -- and any american that tries to meddle there behind a facade of "fighting terror"...(this is so laughable if it wasn't so terrifying in its consequences and fakery towards imperial hegemony) .
the USA still wants GLOBAL HEGEMONY? it's OVER over over!
teh world ISN"T letting it! this isn't world war 2 where the USA was the nation that LEAST was internally affected , and in fact, became PROSPEROUS as a result of a war economy , while other countries where the REAL theatre of war was waged were devastated.
but this is 2008 /09...where it is the USA that is BLEEDING ITSELF to death with its untenable Imperial Ambitions.
and THAT is even only possible BECAUSE the dollar hegemony is still quite in effect-- that allows the USA to GET AWAY with borrowing money and MAKING other countries whose currencies were forced to be tied to US DOLLAR in transactions to PAY for the US INDEBTEDNESS TO THEM to maintain its empire.
the day will come when EVEN THAT will be rid of by other countries . the moves are already happening, stumblingly so, in large part because of the USA's OWN meddlings and threats and problems and the MESS it creates.
but , if one were to take the optimistic view in which countries WILL find their own national interest ways - regardless of what the USA DEMANDS , by finding new forms and models of transactions among themselves -- the USA will COLLAPSE. just watch. and it will be forced to "enjoy" the kind of prosperity and - hopefully peace with it- that is COMMENSURATE with its population. a mere 300 million.
RATHER than a population and its corporations ruling it - "gathering as much of the world's resources unto ourselves at the expense of other nations" -- General Smedley Butler.
and THAT - which OUGHT to be the natural order of global society - will be something americans for at least a generation will have to LEARN how to live with - including their generals and pundits and "teachers" of american "exceptionalism".
Exceptionally conservative would suffice.
the moves by america right now, like that of conservatives, is like the wild flinging and throwing of a bully that is sensing TIME IS UP -- you are no longer as IMPORTANT nor as INVINCIBLE as you STILL think. it's like a desperate attempt (harmfully and destructively so) - to CLING to its primacy even if it CAN'T stop it from ending.
in due time -- it will be left behind.
by the time its own leaders wake up -- the world has decided to ACT on the knowledge and reality that the USA is NOT AT ALL THAT EXCEPTIONAL -- not even close. and can WAIT its turn to have an AUDIENCE with others that are TOO BUSY with MORE IMPORTANT things than trembling at the threats and bluster from a PERMANENTLY declined "has been" empire.
in fact -- the only reason that hasn't happened YET - is because regions, with their own problems and complexities are ONLY BEGINNING to manage affairs to DEAL with the complications CAUSED by the MEDDLING of america.
if the planet survives this phase -- those countries will one day survive that too and a new order -- one with the USA OUTSIDE of MANY CIRCLES of power will rue the day it tried to "conquer the world".
and be left exactly like the highschool bully --- derided, avoided, UNincluded and ostracised and POWERLESS to do anything about it.
Rent the old film "Seven Days in May" (Burt Lancaster/Fredrick March) about a military coup in the USA. It's easy to conceive and not so difficult to carry out. The camps are in place for the dissenters.
that is why NORAD is already stationing at high alert at least 20,000 US SOLDIERS in the mainland USA. for "domestic crises" -- with a wide definition.
"FOREIGN WARS ARE REALLY WARS AGAINST THE DOMESTIC POPULATION" -- SAID some famous man -- maybe , ludwig von mises, or the war theorist, claus von clausewitz..
most americans, steeped in their own dogmatic beliefs in "the american way" just don't realize or act on it yet - until it's too late and they wake up in a FULLBLOWN fascist state. but it is already in place.
the US CORPORATOCRATIC system has ENSURED that. all you have to do is KNOW that when you go in a workplace -- your democracy goes OUT the window and pays homage to "supervisors" and "boss" and chiefs who - are the SAME ONES that plan their clever plans to bring the MESS that the ordinary person has to WORK HARD in order to FIX and make up FOR the BUILT IN INEFFICIENCY and WASTEFULNESS and CRUELTY of the corporate culture in order to SUCK UP profits.
and in order to ENSURE that this is UNquestioned -- institutions are designed and built and maintained to KEEP people dependent on THAT corporatism. and ITS "defender and enabler" are the "law and order" forces, as well as the "courts" ...whose real interest is to maintain the hierarchy of power .
when it is put in PRACTICE NATIONWIDE -- to deal with 'crises' -- that is when FASCISM will appear in its fullblown UGLINESS.
you don't have at least 20,000 soldiers on high alert. along with PRIVATIZED mercenary "crowd control" groups like BlackWater developed because it's about "natural disasters" or "terrorist threats and attacks".
no -- those are just EXCUSES to impose a FASCIST state.
"In a Washington Post column Dec. 11, George Will quoted Gates as saying that there is bipartisan congressional support for "a long-term residual presence" of as many as 40,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, and such a presence for "decades" has been the standard practice following "major U.S. military operations" since the beginning of the Cold War."
Interesting. How many troops did we leave in Vietnam? How many are still there? Obama better fire any of these generals who "push back" or he will totally lose control of the military. The nerve of these bastards. Who the hell do they think they are?
This quite nicely illustrates the danger of keeping an all-volunteer standing army. Sooner or later there is going to be a military coup. If Obama stands up to these cretins he is quite likely to face assassination attempts, but he has no choice but to stand up to them. If he has the guts it will take.
-- EKATON --
"Interesting. How many troops did we leave in Vietnam? How many are still there"
To damn many.
"The signals from Odierno of U.S. military defiance of the withdrawal agreement suggest that the Pentagon and military leadership still do not take seriously the views of the Iraqi public as having any role in determining the matter of foreign troops in their country."
Apparently the military leadership of this country do not take seriously the views of the American people having any role in determining the matter of our troops being used in occupying and policing other country's.
Lets review the chain of command. The military leadership reports to the commander in chief.
The commander in chief needs congressional approval for war decisions.
All of them work for us " We The People" , the Constitution of the USA written by our Great founding Fathers made this very clear.And for good reason.
The balance of power must be restored to the three branches of government.And Americans Respect for those three branches will be restored.
"Its the Patriot Acts stupid" Need I say anything more?
By the way, can the US military role out troops in major American city's in times of civil disobedience, if so can they stay as occupiers of the city if they are called support troops?
BornFreeMen
Save the Constitution.
This sounds like a re run of the General Douglas MacArthur/Harry Truman battle during the Korean War. I guess it's the US military who wants to give Obama his first test under fire. Judging from his appointments (not one good one) and his openly embracing homophobic bigotry as his first official act as President (Warren), he'll fail this test. After all, part of our diversity is the strong opinions of military officers who choose which commander-in-chief they want to obey. So they'll follow his orders if his orders are the same ones Bush would have given. And they'll even act like they're responding to Barack by redesignating combat troops, as if there really is such a thing as a "non-combat" troop outside of medics.
If Obama was sincere in saying he would remove the troops in 16 months, he wouldn't have kept Gen. Gates on as Defense Secretary.
Notice how all the Obama picks are CFR members? Rhodes Scholars? Establishment?
And you really thought you had a choice when you voted.
Of course there's a choice. Why . . . you can choose Coke OR Pepsi!
From Tacitus: "The life and death of Gnaeus Julius Agricola", Governor of Britain: (Lived AD 40 - 93)
Auferre, trucidare, rapere, falsis nominibus imperium; atque, ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Translation: To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace.
Or: Mark where his carnage and his conquests cease!
He makes a solitude, and calls it — peace.
Histories (100-110)
It is the rare fortune of these days that one may think what one likes and say what one thinks.
Book I, 1
Once killing starts, it is difficult to draw the line.
Book I, 39
The desire for glory clings even to the best men longer than any other passion.
Book IV, 6
Nothing new then. But at least the Romans did produce peace in Britain for nearly four hundred years; will our Iraqi legacy be so long...
months ago -- i chatted with a 104 year old italian gentleman. very clear minded and memorywise and with bright eyes that would read so many newspapers from all over the world. he was a nautical engineer in his time and traveled much. he told me, i paraphrase:
"i have seen much -- i saw how world war 1 and world war 2 became . we were young when my brother and i played in the plazas in italy and saw the flags of fascism and we knew WHY they were happening...our civilization in europe and the west has become prosperous because we colonized other distant countries and people with no intention to trade fairly and help them...instead we exploited them and as a result left their lands and people devastated and the people desperate. then we now complain that WE can not support them when they come to our shores...but we should have known that if we took away their dignities they would have to find a way to survive and then come to the nations that became prosperoous at their expense. this is wrong. i am Roman -- and I know history , i love to study cultures and history ...and i know it is often bad leaders , in politics and industry that lead people to do many bad things. I know about imperial rome ....what you are seeing today ...the USA is trying to do what imperial rome did -- but perhaps worse. ".
It's become obvious, Obama is simply to young and inexperienced. His appointment
of Gates is criminal..Gates belongs to "The Carlyle Group", a Bush family corporation that is dealing in arms etc. Obama's dependence of Clinton and Bush
people leaves us in hell. The Blacks who supported him 98% are in for a major
surprise. Nothing will change, were back to the Yalies and the Harvardites.
The People who have been screwing us. One needs to take a good look at the bailout of the Financial sector of the economy. Their plan is to never tell us what they are doing with all those Billions of Dollars, no oversight, no disclosure..
America withdraw and leave all that lovely oil? Are you crazy?
They're still in Germany and Japan as they have been since 1945. Once they get their claws into you, they never let go. It's called IMPERIALISM!
'Ring Around The Rosie.' You think it's a child's nursery rhyme, don't you?
www.dangerouscreation.com
We believed ourselves indestructable... watching only the madmen outside our frontiers, and we remained defenseless against our own madmen.
– Jacobo Timerman
============================
from ANTIWAR.com
a very good article with Colonel Andrew J Bacevich , who served in 1990 irag/kwuait, and whose son died in Iraq under George Bush. he is a historian and lecturer now.
------------------
September 10, 2008
Worshiping the
Indispensable Nation
by Andrew Bacevich and Tom Engelhardt
TomDispatch
Can anyone be surprised that, once again, the attacks of 9/11/01 were reflexively ground zero for embattled Republicans? George W. Bush led the way at the Republican National Convention, saying of John McCain, "We need a president who understands the lessons of Sept. 11, 2001." In his convention keynote address, Rudy Giuliani followed suit, zapping Obama and his supporters this way: "The Democrats rarely mentioned the attacks of Sept. 11. They are in a state of denial about the threat that faces us now and in the future." Post-convention, it's evidently time to assure the nation that Sarah Palin is just the pit bull to handle the next 9/11. Now comes the news that this Thursday, the endless presidential election campaign will finally make it – quite literally – to Ground Zero. Barack Obama and John McCain will "put aside politics" and appear together for the yearly ceremonies. By now, however, it's far too late to "put aside" 9/11, much less remove it from American politics. Our world has been profoundly reshaped, after all, by the decisions Bush and his top officials made in the wake of those attacks.
Still, taking up the president's implied question, what "lessons" exactly should be drawn, seven years later, other than that you stand a reasonable chance of winning elections by invoking 9/11 ad nauseam? As Andrew Bacevich, author of the New York Times best-selling book, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, indicates below, there are indeed lessons to be drawn. They are, in fact, devastating to the Bush administration, and unless they are grasped, further disaster is undoubtedly in the offing. (To watch a video of Bacevich discussing those post-9/11 lessons, click here.) Tom
9/11 Plus Seven
by Andrew J. Bacevich
The events of the past seven years have yielded a definitive judgment on the strategy that the Bush administration conceived in the wake of 9/11 to wage its so-called Global War on Terror. That strategy has failed, massively and irrevocably. To acknowledge that failure is to confront an urgent national priority: to scrap the Bush approach in favor of a new national security strategy that is realistic and sustainable – a task that, alas, neither of the presidential candidates seems able to recognize or willing to take up.
On Sept. 30, 2001, President Bush received from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld a memorandum outlining U.S. objectives in the War on Terror. Drafted by Rumsfeld's chief strategist Douglas Feith, the memo declared expansively: "If the war does not significantly change the world's political map, the U.S. will not achieve its aim." That aim, as Feith explained in a subsequent missive to his boss, was to "transform the Middle East and the broader world of Islam generally."
There was no strategy conceived in the "wake of 911". The conception took place well in advance of 911, 911 being an integral part of that strategy. INSIDE JOB!! War against the Middle East and War against the citizens of the U.S--installment of the Police State so that when the orchestrated destruction of the economy became too great for the deniers to deny, the plunder could continue under Martial Law.
continuing article by bacevich
==============
Rumsfeld and Feith were co-religionists: Along with other senior Bush administration officials, they worshipped in the Church of the Indispensable Nation, a small but intensely devout Washington-based sect formed in the immediate wake of the Cold War. Members of this church shared an exalted appreciation for the efficacy of American power, especially hard power. The strategy of transformation emerged as a direct expression of their faith.
The members of this church were also united by an equally exalted estimation of their own abilities. Lucky the nation to be blessed with such savvy and sophisticated public servants in its hour of need!
The goal of transforming the Islamic world was nothing if not bold. It implied far-reaching political, economic, social, and even cultural adjustments. At a press conference on Sept. 18, 2001, Rumsfeld spoke bluntly of the need to "change the way that they live." Rumsfeld didn't specify who "they" were. He didn't have to. His listeners understood without being told: "They" were Muslims inhabiting a vast arc of territory that stretched from Morocco in the west all the way to the Moro territories of the Southern Philippines in the east.
Yet boldly conceived action, if successfully executed, offered the prospect of solving a host of problems. Once pacified (or "liberated"), the Middle East would cease to breed or harbor anti-American terrorists. Post-9/11 fears about weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of evildoers could abate. Local regimes, notorious for being venal, oppressive, and inept, might finally get serious about cleaning up their acts. Liberal values, including rights for women, would flourish. A part of the world perpetually dogged by violence would enjoy a measure of stability, with stability promising not so incidentally to facilitate exploitation of the region's oil reserves. There was even the possibility of enhancing the security of Israel. Like a powerful antibiotic, the Bush administration's strategy of transformation promised to clean out not simply a single infection but several; or to switch metaphors, a strategy of transformation meant running the table.
When it came to implementation, the imperative of the moment was to think big. Just days after 9/11, Rumsfeld was charging his subordinates to devise a plan of action that had "three, four, five moves behind it." By December 2001, the Pentagon had persuaded itself that the first move – into Afghanistan – had met success. The Bush administration wasted little time in pocketing its ostensible victory. Attention quickly shifted to the second move, seen by insiders as holding the key to ultimate success: Iraq.
Fix Iraq and moves three, four, and five promised to come easily. Writing in the Weekly Standard, William Kristol and Robert Kagan got it exactly right: "The president's vision will, in the coming months, either be launched successfully in Iraq, or it will die in Iraq."
The point cannot be emphasized too strongly: Saddam Hussein's (nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction and his (imaginary) ties to al-Qaeda never constituted the real reason for invading Iraq – any more than the imperative of defending Russian "peacekeepers" in South Ossetia explains the Kremlin's decision to invade Georgia.
continuing article by Colonel Andrew Bacevich
================
Iraq merely offered a convenient place from which to launch a much larger and infinitely more ambitious project. "After Hussein is removed," enthused Hudson Institute analyst Max Singer, "there will be an earthquake through the region." Success in Iraq promised to endow the United States with hitherto unprecedented leverage. Once the United States had made an example of Saddam Hussein, as the influential neoconservative Richard Perle put it, dealing with other ne'er-do-wells would become simple: "We could deliver a short message, a two-word message: 'You're next.'" Faced with the prospect of sharing Saddam's fate, Syrians, Iranians, Sudanese, and other recalcitrant regimes would see submission as the wiser course – so Perle and others believed.
Members of the administration tried to imbue this strategic vision with a softer ideological gloss. "For 60 years," Condoleezza Rice explained to a group of students in Cairo, "my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East – and we achieved neither." No more. "Now, we are taking a different course. We are supporting the democratic aspirations of all people." The world's Muslims needed to know that the motives behind the U.S. incursion into Iraq and its actions elsewhere in the region were (or had, at least, suddenly become) entirely benign. Who knows? Rice may even have believed the words she spoke.
In either case – whether the strategy of transformation aimed at dominion or democratization – today, seven years after it was conceived, we can assess exactly what it has produced. The answer is clear: next to nothing, apart from squandering vast resources and exacerbating the slide toward debt and dependency that poses a greater strategic threat to the United States than Osama bin Laden ever did.
In point of fact, hardly had the Pentagon commenced its second move, its invasion of Iraq, when the entire strategy began to unravel. In Iraq, President Bush's vision of regional transformation did die, much as Kagan and Kristol had feared. No amount of CPR credited to the so-called surge will revive it. Even if tomorrow Iraq were to achieve stability and become a responsible member of the international community, no sensible person could suggest that Operation Iraqi Freedom provides a model to apply elsewhere. Sen. John McCain says that he'll keep U.S. combat troops in Iraq for as long as it takes. Yet even he does not propose "solving" any problems posed by Syria or Iran (much less Pakistan) by employing the methods that the Bush administration used to "solve" the problem posed by Iraq. The Bush Doctrine of preventive war may remain nominally on the books. But, as a practical matter, it is defunct.
The United States will not change the world's political map in the ways top administration officials once dreamed of. There will be no earthquake that shakes up the Middle East – unless the growing clout of Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas in recent years qualifies as that earthquake. Given the Pentagon's existing commitments, there will be no threats of "you're next" either – at least none that will worry our adversaries, as the Russians have neatly demonstrated. Nor will there be a wave of democratic reform – even Rice has ceased her prattling on that score. Islam will remain stubbornly resistant to change, except on terms of its own choosing. We will not change the way "they" live.
In a book that he co-authored during the run-up to the invasion, Kristol confidently declared, "The mission begins in Baghdad, but it does not end there." In fact, the Bush administration's strategy of transformation has ended. It has failed miserably. The sooner we face up to that failure, the sooner we can get about repairing the damage.
Andrew J. Bacevich is professor of history and international relations at Boston University. His best-selling new book is The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism. You can read excerpts from it by clicking here, and here, or watch a video of him discussing the lessons of 9/11, seven years later, by clicking here.
Copyright 2008 Andrew J. Bacevich
i guess -- now that practically every "signature" symbol and institution of the capitalist USA is exposed in its utter corruption for all to see, to the world and americans alike -- from the congress, to the pentagon, to torture , to CIA shenanigans, to police brutality, to a police spying state, to collapsing financial regimes, to teh fraudulence of the banking system, to the religious hypocrisy, to big business against labor, to disappearing pensions and retirements, to the housing bubble, to the credit bubble, prisons for profit, polluting and harmful industries, tens of trillions of make believe wealth gone poof, debt to the world galore, missing WMD's, and sundry more and other new "crisis requiring" more police state work, etc.etc.etc.etc.etc., ///////
what ELSE need be said?
it seems the USA has been ONE GIANT PONZI SCHEME.......
and ponzi schemes ALWAYS collapse, it's their nature.
from ANTIWAR.com
December 19, 2008
The Bubble of Empire
It's been popped …
by Justin Raimondo
The idea that the United States is the global hegemon, that we have first dibs on the title of world policemen – indeed, our entire post-WWII foreign policy – is nothing but a delusion. That is one of the chief lessons of the recent economic downturn, one that, unfortunately, the incoming administration has yet to face up to – and the pundits (ensconced as they are in the culture of hubris) have yet to realize.
Delusions die hard. This poor woman – faced with the dire prospect of having to sell the Palm Beach cottage, and, omigod, lay off Yolanda, the thrice weekly cleaning lady – is just beginning to wake up, albeit with great reluctance. Along with these people, she will live in a world of reduced expectations. Our rulers, however, show every sign of inflexibility in the face of the need to change.
For decades, we' e been living inside a bubble, here at the epicenter of the imperial metropolis, protected from the dire fate of the rest of the world's peoples – who live in poverty, tyranny, and worse – by the productive and political capital amassed by our intrepid ancestors, who built the world's most successful (and freest) constitutional republic, and, because of that were able to create an enormous amount of wealth. Both are gone, now, and yet we are still acting as if they're intact, like an amputee who feels pain in an arm that no longer is attached to his shoulder.
For example, the New York Times reports that President-elect Barack Obama is already backpedaling on his pledge to get our troops out of Iraq in sixteen months – yet how does he imagine we'll have the means to keep them there even that long? The Times tells us that "the officials made clear that the withdrawal of all combat forces under the generals' recommendations would not come until some time after May 2010, Mr. Obama's target." But by that time the Chinese will have long since stopped lending us the money to pay for it all.
President Obama is pledged to launch an Afghan "surge" that will dwarf our continuing efforts in Iraq – but how will we pay for it? He and his surrogates pontificate on the need to "reconstruct" Afghanistan, when he'll be hard-pressed to reconstruct the economy in the wake of a devastating deflation.
Our present military budget is more than all the other nations on earth combined, an inconceivable sum that drains the very lifeblood out of our economy. Weapons are not capital assets. The productive energy used to produce them is captured and frozen in time, until the weapon is either used, or junked as outdated: in either case it vanishes. Ever since the end of the second great crusade on behalf of "democracy," and the beginning of the cold war, we've literally been incinerating a good percentage of the national income on the altar of the war god. How long can we keep this up?
America is like a formerly grand billionaire, living on a palatial estate that could be foreclosed any day now, blithely carrying on in the same old extravagant way in order to keep up appearances. Foreclosure day is coming, however, and when our friends and former allies show up on the courthouse steps with their insultingly low bids, you can bet the smell of schadenfreude will be thick in the air.
aricle continued:
===============
Deflation is the great enemy of the moment, and "reflation" is the catchphrase of the day, the magical incantation that will set us on the path to recapturing our former glory. Yet the words themselves contain key clues to unlocking the mystery of our predicament: inflation, after all, projects the image of something stretched almost beyond its natural limits, while deflation implies a return to normalcy.
Normalcy, however, is the last thing our leaders want: a crisis is so much more exciting. As Rahm Emanuel, the new regime's chief enforcer put it: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste."
The bravado of the doomed makes for some good lines, to be sure, a rich source for a compendium of Famous Last Words. The problem for Emanuel, and indeed for the American political class of whichever party, is that the rising economic crisis roiling world markets gives every indication of having the potential to waste them. Blinded by hubris, however, our leaders are sleepwalking over a cliff, and the fall is likely to be long and terrifying.
How long after we hit bottom, in a decade or so, the country will begin to recover is anyone's guess, but I can tell you this: the delusions of this ruling class will endure to the very end. The inhabitants of Washington, D.C., are incapable of realizing that the bubble of Empire has really popped, or can ever pop. They are like drug addicts who have imbibed so much of their poison of choice that their physiology has been permanently altered: they're always and forever high.
For sixty-some years we've been high on the delusion of our God-given omnipotence and inherent goodness, convinced we can and should right every wrong, police every border (but our own), and fulfill our alleged destiny as the Promethean light-bearer of the world. This is mental and moral inflation, which was certainly encouraged by the monetary phenomenon: these absurdly inflated goals were financed by imaginary wealth, a good proportion of which has already disappeared.
The task of reflation, which the incoming government has set for itself, involves much more than merely printing lots of paper money, and spending it like crazy: it means maintaining the inflationary mindset, the inflated goals, the inflated rhetoric, and, most of all, the inflated military budget that supposedly ensures our role as the world's last and only superpower. As the Obama crowd searches for ways in which to reflate the economy, the "stimulus" of military spending is bound to play a major role.
For a long time, people have been asking "what does America make anymore?" The old core industries – steel, cars, consumer goods – have long since decayed, and the vaunted "service" sector is undergoing a massive contraction. What's left?
Well, we do make one thing in large quantities, that no other country makes, and that is decisions about the fate of the rest of the world. Due to our military power, our self-appointed role as the world's policeman has carved us out a specialized niche in the international division of labor. The great problem with this evolutionary path is that it can only end in one of two ways: the international extension of the American nation-state until it covers the globe, or extinction. Having preemptively taken up the responsibilities and costs of a world hegemon, yet without the authority to enjoy all the prerogatives of a real World State, including global taxation, this path can only end in bankruptcy.
As indeed it has.
"...Lt. Col. James Hutton, explained that these "transition teams" would consist of "enablers" rather than "combat forces", and that this would be consistent with the withdrawal agreement."
Enablers are unarmed, right?
Surprise, surprise!
And you stand in shock and awe because someone threw his shoes at your Commander in Chief.
The US military will only leave Iraq on the end of an Iraqui boot.
There is no honor among the thieves you elect as president.
Isn't this a rather dangerous turn of events -when the military ignores the directives of the elected government? Isn't this called a military coup?
It would be if they did. And since its never happened in our history, I doubt it will happen now.
Look up "Smedley Butler" for a big surprise.
It will never happen here...It will never happen here...It will never happen here...Northcom...Northcom...Northcom...Northcom...Northcom........
what will happen to the US military and Empire is the same that happened to the British Empire and all western empires that tried to meddle in the East:
the USA and pentagon just think they can get out of the bane of history on all empires, but as Rudyard Kipling - "the Poet of Empire" - the empire that created the artificial borders that is now Iraq that the USA is sinking in and being bled by in its own arrogance - said:
:"HERE LIES A MAN THAT TRIED TO HUSTLE THE EAST".
the same will happen with the pentagon's , MIC's, wonderful , fancy plans of domination....if not yet in WHOLE...they are ALREADY being swallowed up in the sands of mesopotamia...and soon....with obama's war in afghanistan in the mountains and passes of afghanistan.
and THEN americans will see in FULL the FOLLY of an empire gone MAD!
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- P. B. Shelley 1818.
July 25, 2008
Honorable Exit From Empire
by Patrick J. Buchanan
As any military historian will testify, among the most difficult of maneuvers is the strategic retreat. Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, Lee's retreat to Appomattox and MacArthur's retreat from the Yalu come to mind. The British Empire abandoned India in 1947 – and a Muslim-Hindu bloodbath ensued.
France's departure from Indochina was ignominious, and her abandonment of hundreds of thousands of faithful Algerians to the FALN disgraceful. Few Americans can forget the humiliation of Saigon '75, or the boat people, or the Cambodian holocaust.
Strategic retreats that turn into routs are often the result of what Lord Salisbury called "the commonest error in politics ... sticking to the carcass of dead policies."
From 1989 to 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Empire and breakup of the U.S.S.R., America had an opportunity to lay down its global burden and become again what Jeane Kirkpatrick called "a normal country in a normal time."
We let the opportunity pass by, opting instead to use our wealth and power to convert the world to democratic capitalism. And we have reaped the reward of all the other empires that went before: A sinking currency, relative decline, universal enmity, a series of what Rudyard Kipling called "the savage wars of peace."
Yet, opportunity has come anew for America to shed its imperial burden and become again the republic of our fathers.
The chairman of Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang Party has just been hosted for six days by Beijing. Commercial flights have begun between Taipei and the mainland. Is not the time ripe for America to declare our job done, that the relationship between China and Taiwan is no longer a vital interest of the United States?
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government wants a status of forces agreement with a timetable for full withdrawal of U.S. troops. Is it not time to say yes, to declare that full withdrawal is our goal as well, that the United States seeks no permanent bases in Iraq?
On July 4, Reuters, in a story headlined "Poland Rejects U.S. Missile Offer," reported from Warsaw: "Poland spurned as insufficient on Friday a U.S. offer to boost its air defenses in return for basing anti-missile interceptors on its soil. ...
"'We have not reached a satisfactory result on the issue of increasing the level of Polish security,' Prime Minister Donald Tusk told a news conference after studying the latest U.S. proposal."
Tusk is demanding that America "provide billions of dollars worth of U.S. investment to upgrade Polish air defenses in return for hosting 10 two-stage missile interceptors," said Reuters.
Reflect if you will on what is going on here.
By bringing Poland into NATO, we agreed to defend her against the world's largest nation, Russia, with thousands of nuclear weapons. Now the Polish regime is refusing us permission to site 10 anti-missile missiles on Polish soil, unless we pay Poland billions for the privilege.
Has Uncle Sam gone senile?
No. Tusk has Sam figured out. The old boy is so desperate to continue in his Cold War role as the world's Defender of Democracy he will even pay the Europeans – to defend Europe.
Why not tell Tusk that if he wants an air defense system, he can buy it; that we Americans are no longer willing to pay Poland for the privilege of defending Poland; that the anti-missile missile deal is off. And use cancelation of the missile shield to repair relations with a far larger and more important power, Vladimir Putin's Russia.
Consider, too, the opening South Korea is giving us to end our 60-year commitment to defend her against the North. For weeks, Seoul hosted anti-American protests against a trade deal that allows U.S. beef into South Korea. Koreans say they fear mad-cow disease.
Yet, when a new deal was cut to limit imports to U.S. beef from cattle less than 30 months old, that too was rejected by the protesters. Behind the demonstrations lies a sediment of anti-Americanism.
In 2002, a Pew Research Center survey of 42 nations found 44 percent of South Koreans, second highest number of any country, holding an unfavorable view of the United States. A Korean survey put the figure at 53 percent, with 80 percent of youth holding a negative view. By 39 percent to 35 percent, South Koreans saw the United States as a greater threat than North Korea.
Can someone explain why we keep 30,000 troops on the DMZ of a nation whose people do not even like us?
The raison d'etre for NATO was the Red Army on the Elbe. It disappeared two decades ago. The Chinese army left North Korea 50 years ago. Yet NATO endures and the U.S. Army stands on the DMZ. Why?
Because, if all U.S. troops were brought home from Europe and Korea, 10,000 rice bowls would be broken. They are the rice bowls of politicians, diplomats, generals, journalists and think tanks who would all have to find another line of work.
And that is why the Empire will endure until disaster befalls it, as it did all the others.
COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
the pentagon probably thinks that with its Star wars tech - troops decked out in superwarrior uniform and fancy bombs and guns and nifty , clever planning - that the iraqis are GOING TO LET them stay. they think that they can do vietnam one BETTER and STAY and be VICTORIOUS. they are dreaming!
if the US military wants to stay in iraq -- they should go ahead until they are swallowed up in the sands of mesopotamia and WISH they could get out. lol.
as the conservative Patrick Buchanan correctly says:
"we should get out of this business of empire....we should get out of those lands .......BEFORE THEY KICK US OUT".
The MIC is the only sector of the US economy that continues to grow even as it enters further into depression. It grows because of the ongoing failed wars and the new ones to start (Iran, Syria, Pakistan,...?). We can bet that the better part of that $700bn+ bankers bailout has gone rapidly into the MIC; more wars more profits. In the case of Iraq, now that the International Energy Agency has admitted that oil reserves are some 30 o 40% less than previous claimed, the MIC needs Iraqi oil to keep growing. The question is how are they going to pay for all this warfare when any profits gained from it only go into corrupt private pockets?
THANK YOU CommonDreams for bringing this article out. To those who said that I should shut up and trust Gates and Jones to withdraw any of these troops from Iraq, you're WRONG WRONG WRONG ! Oh, and Obama will be just like the "Three Buddy Bears" who preach go-along-get-along !
Lets hope you are wrong instead. I certainly hope so.
I don't think anyone said you should shut up, I hope not!
"Lets hope you are wrong instead. I certainly hope so."
Well, I hope I'm wrong too but I'm not getting a good feeling so far unless I'm too pessimistic or something.
"I don't think anyone said you should shut up, I hope not!"
You know, you're right. It just felt like it. Sorry.
Lets hope for the best. You know how the other way works out. And we don't want to go that way again.
Here's hoping!
Don't worry my fellow Americanoes --soon we go broke and no US troops anywhere in the world. No more invasions and torture and we become--post-empire! We become kindly, somewhat socialized like Sweden. And Carolyn Kennedy is the new face of the country-quiet, smart and no sharp elbows.
Dr Wu, the last of the big-time thinkers
Nice image. However, I picture the reaction in the US when we're "broke" to be more akin to the holiday trample at WalMart than quiet and smart and socialized.
mmmmmmmmm, I do love the smell of bloody oil.
I think I'll wait for someone else than the NYT's to bring out more before believing this stuff.
What I read seems stuck together with bubble gum.
Not saying its not possible, I'd just like a source with a bit more veracity.
.While our news media is deteriorating rapidly, especially in the area of investigative journalism, and while they are closing foreign offices rapidly, choosing instead to get their news from the wire services, two things must be stated:
Thing One...The NYTimes is still, far and away the best newspaper in the nation.
Thing Two....This article does not originate with the TImes, simply cites an article it claims comes from the Times as a reference:
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45167
Can you tell me which newspaper you favor? I used to use the Washington Times as a bird cage liner, but I had to stop. The damn bird would only fly using its right wing!
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
ardee
"Thing One...The NYTimes is still, far and away the best newspaper in the nation."
Boy are we in trouble!
"Can you tell me which newspaper you favor?
The Guardian usually. And the Dallas Morning News.
"I used to use the Washington Times as a bird cage liner, but I had to stop. The damn bird would only fly using its right wing!"
I am still laughing. The best so far!! So gopod I'll steal it!
In the absence of strong leadership from atop, militaries tend to run amok (say, has anyone yet accepted responsibility for launching that attack into Syria? do I see a hand raised? no?).
The whole situation is really very simple. The US military is fighting a '(global) war on terror'. The only way to militarily stop terrorists is to control territory. As long as the US stays mired in this insane and unwinnable war to 'prevent future terrorism', the military will work and fight to control all territory where future terrorists can be found (since it is a global war, that means the whole world, including the Homeland itself - which is why there's now an active Army unit within the US of A).
If America was again a nation at peace, then Mr. Change Obama would be talking to the military in time of peace and not during war. It would make all the difference in the world.
We need to bring light on the 'war on terror', the War on Terror, War on Terrorism, and all the other names it goes by. We must dissipate the fog of wars that the Bush gang has confused America with while they looted the bank. It's been seven years and nobody yet has ever stated what victory in a war to 'prevent future terrorism' means. Without victory, the war will go on until we're all in cages and incapable of being future terrorists.
Take America back to peace and it's a whole lot easier getting the military to co-operate, since there is no 'enemy' anymore for them to fight.
The empire strikes back.
And the perfect quote from that movie for this article . . .
Darth Vader: "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further."
hahaha!!! clever !!
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this sounds familiar.....a USA pattern really.
didn't the US government RENEGE on "treaties" pushed to the native indians? how many countries has the US - backed by BIG MUSCLES US military , covert and overt, - renege or twist treaties or have treaties that TWIST things against other countries?
it's amazing that the US MIC NEVER breaks stride in that pattern of UNTRUSTWORTHINESS. that seems to be its number ONE EXPORT and "industry"...untrustworthiness.
Then again. With the steep drop in the price of oil, it may turn out that it's no longer a "worthwile endeavor" for the military industrial corpofascists to insist on keeping the military there. It's "On to the next 'Windmill', Sancho."
Wait a cotton picking second !
After Jan.200, 2009, Obama will be the 'Commander in Chief', and all he has to do is:
Order to the Defense Secretary that all Combat, Support, Administrative, and any other classification of troops be out by whichever date he so chooses. (period)
Anyone failing to follow his command, will be guilty of disobeying a direct order and subject to immediate dismissal from the Armed Forces or cabinet posts.
.One would think, wouldn't one? Perhaps the military became emboldened by the retention of warhawk Gates, perhaps we need more facts?
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Wow, countcoup, below, has the right reference.....Eisenhower warned us of the growrh of the Military Industrial Complex.....Generals,themselves, become "Power Lords". They are untouched by scnadals. They destroy evidence. They develop policies like: collateral damage is the result of war not murder, immunize soldiers from crimes like murder and rape so that you do not have to investigate or punish, dehumanize the enemy and call him insurgent, terrorist, radical, militant not Iraqi Citizen defending his country against an "Invasion Force".
Obama was told that he would have to retain CIA Man Gates as Secretary of Defense. Obama just announced that he would close Guantanamo within two years. Wait a second,many of those men were: kidnapped, secuestered, tortured, brainwashed for over six years without a hearing, trial etc.......Obama is not making decisions he is now being controlled and knows what happens if he does not follow orders.
The War on Terrorism is a "Made up War" for Generals and "The Power Elite".
Once again, the American People have been screwed.
The Military Industrial Complex that "Ike" warned about is and has been a reality since the colonial era in the USA and goes back in recorded History even to the Babylonians. It is and must be part of the "beasts existence". When Napoleon stated that an "Army travels on its stomach" he knew very well of which he spoke. The individual who "invented" the process for "desiccated vegetables" (the name escapes me, it has been many years since this was a study subject for me), made himself and his heirs wealthy by supplying the Napoleonic campaigns, and the same applies now to companies who supply the present U.S. campaigns.
The "MIC" and the Military however have but a few times taken over the government that initiates their existence. In the case with the US Military they are not following any other orders except those given by the Present Commander In Chief, and his administration. They will resist the Iraqi governments dictates; because the Commander in Chief has given them the open door, and even most likely, spoke directly with the high command concerning the matter, but only as long as they (the Military) think that they can escape responsibility. As long as the Bush administration escapes 'responsibility', their "followers" will continue to act in the present manner.
These "International criminals" have been found to have violated the Laws of the US, its Constitution, and International Law and standards. The VP, recently, and very arrogantly admitted, rather foolishly* to having been aware of very serious crimes being committed under his and the Presidents Command, and even admitted to having approved of them.
The only answer would be to follow through with the legal process, charge the Bush administration, using Mr. Cheney's own admissions as evidence for convictions. Then the Military Command will fall into lock step with the "new Commander in Chief", who hopefully is not the criminal that the present one has admitted to being.
The truth is the American people have all of the power they need to assure themselves and the world that these criminals, (the Bush administration) have no more control over the MIC, or the Military. The "people" either can allow these atrocities to continue or they can take control and put the world at large at ease, and show the world at the same time that they are not the slaves but he masters. It is up to them. It is up to the progressive thinkers, the readers of Common Dreams and others, to take the necessary steps. The conservative thinkers are unfortunately in most cases, followers. Their philosophy and mind set would never allow them to even consider taking the control that is needed.
Life being what most people will admit, "a series of challenges" from birth to death. It is the free thinkers and the progressives that rise to the challenges.
The others simply seem to accept the challenges with defeatism and offer little or no solutions.
Confucius is credited with having stated "A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step", it was precisely in situations like this that the wisdom applies.
* The people have all of the evidence they need to achieve the convictions the Criminals deserve, they have convicted themselves already. The only thing awaiting them should be "jail cells", not "retirement".
Which ever foot you choose, "take the first step".
Your silence will be your consent. The silent will share the guilt.
I for one, will not be one of them to share the guilt; will you?
nurembergrevisited@gmail.com
> The Military Industrial Complex that "Ike" warned about is and has been a reality since the colonial era in the USA and goes back in recorded History even to the Babylonians.
The USA had not much of an army at the start of WWII.
Perhaps the military sees the Obama administration as an "interim" U.S. government?
I'm glad that this cabal of warmongers showed their hand so early before Obama takes office. It's now clear that Gen. Petraeus, Gen. Odierno, and Adm. Mullen need to be removed from the equation if we are going to end the occupation within any practical time frame. The whole idea behind a "conditioned" based withdrawal is gold for the MIC because 'conditions' will never be "perfect" enough to leave and these generals know it. Obama's appointment of Gates could also turn out to be a disasterous mistake should things get ugly between the military and the White House.
More of the crumbling of empire. This can't go on indefinitely. Overextending of resources, implosion from within.