Fire!
It was heartening to see that Gerry Ford was against the Iraq war and thought his former lieutenants, Cheney and Rummy, were batshit crazy warmongering motherfuckers. Hey - his words.
And I don't blame him for stipulating that the interview be withheld until he passed. He was 91 years old at the time - who needs to have their old friends attack them in the media and get into a whole thing at 91? Actually, I was shocked at how coherent he was in his comments. And a four-hour interview? Wow. I couldn't sit through a four-hour meeting without a stack of comic books and some crystal meth.
Not to say Gerry didn't have those things at hand, but he's more than twice my age. It must have been good meth.
But Gerry knew what these guys were capable of. He knew that his words would bring a dirty-tricks dungpile on his head. Suddenly, all the CIA ops from his presidency would be magically declassified. Oh - Gerry! Did you really approve short-sheeting the Pope?
But Gerry was right - Iraq was a huge mistake. And I refuse to "if-only" the situation.
See, I really believe that if we had a real coalition of UN countries and 500,000+ troops and had secured the peace from day one, stopped any looting and imposed order, rebuilt the country in a real Marshall-plan kind of way, it would have worked.
But people who lied and conned and manipulated to start the war were not people capable of doing any of those things. If you are howling crazy enough to choose a war against a country that is no threat to you because of a bunch of ideological freaks talking to you in your waking dreams, then by definition you don't have what it takes to pull off a campaign like that.
And now the thing is beyond any means of control. The violence is no longer state violence as represented by an army like Saddam had. The violence has spread to the population. People who, if the had a job and security, would never have picked up a weapon are now combatants - what choice do they have? Who will secure their families if not themselves and their coreligionists?
I'm not saying it's right to be an insurgent in any way, I'm saying that, given the American failures, it's understandable. You don't live in the Wild West town of Tombstone without wearing a pistol.
And now Georgie is talking about a "surge." He's meeting with his top warmongers today to discuss it. Nice that they're talking now.
But - and here's the point of the whole thing - it's way too late for that.
Lets say there's a big apartment building that is set on fire. The fire is small at first and the fire engines show up in time. But the Fire Chief decides to sit. 'There are enough fire extinguishers inside," he says, "the landlord and the super and one or two firemen can put this out with hand-held extinguishers."
But they clearly can't, and the fire gets larger and larger until the whole building is fully engulfed. "I guess we better start using the fire hoses," the Chief reluctantly admits, before joining a few of his close friends in a discussion about what to do about this big, you know, FIRE that's blazing out of control.
The point is - and whether you believe the first part about the fire being manageable or not, the point stands - it's way too late to hose it down. There may or may not have been a time when water could have extinguished it, but that time is long past.
The only thing to do now is try and protect the surrounding buildings and haul away the ashes later.
Only, these guys want to light the other buildings - Iran and Syria - as well.
We need Americans to re-take this government, and do it now.
And I don't blame him for stipulating that the interview be withheld until he passed. He was 91 years old at the time - who needs to have their old friends attack them in the media and get into a whole thing at 91? Actually, I was shocked at how coherent he was in his comments. And a four-hour interview? Wow. I couldn't sit through a four-hour meeting without a stack of comic books and some crystal meth.
Not to say Gerry didn't have those things at hand, but he's more than twice my age. It must have been good meth.
But Gerry knew what these guys were capable of. He knew that his words would bring a dirty-tricks dungpile on his head. Suddenly, all the CIA ops from his presidency would be magically declassified. Oh - Gerry! Did you really approve short-sheeting the Pope?
But Gerry was right - Iraq was a huge mistake. And I refuse to "if-only" the situation.
See, I really believe that if we had a real coalition of UN countries and 500,000+ troops and had secured the peace from day one, stopped any looting and imposed order, rebuilt the country in a real Marshall-plan kind of way, it would have worked.
But people who lied and conned and manipulated to start the war were not people capable of doing any of those things. If you are howling crazy enough to choose a war against a country that is no threat to you because of a bunch of ideological freaks talking to you in your waking dreams, then by definition you don't have what it takes to pull off a campaign like that.
And now the thing is beyond any means of control. The violence is no longer state violence as represented by an army like Saddam had. The violence has spread to the population. People who, if the had a job and security, would never have picked up a weapon are now combatants - what choice do they have? Who will secure their families if not themselves and their coreligionists?
I'm not saying it's right to be an insurgent in any way, I'm saying that, given the American failures, it's understandable. You don't live in the Wild West town of Tombstone without wearing a pistol.
And now Georgie is talking about a "surge." He's meeting with his top warmongers today to discuss it. Nice that they're talking now.
But - and here's the point of the whole thing - it's way too late for that.
Lets say there's a big apartment building that is set on fire. The fire is small at first and the fire engines show up in time. But the Fire Chief decides to sit. 'There are enough fire extinguishers inside," he says, "the landlord and the super and one or two firemen can put this out with hand-held extinguishers."
But they clearly can't, and the fire gets larger and larger until the whole building is fully engulfed. "I guess we better start using the fire hoses," the Chief reluctantly admits, before joining a few of his close friends in a discussion about what to do about this big, you know, FIRE that's blazing out of control.
The point is - and whether you believe the first part about the fire being manageable or not, the point stands - it's way too late to hose it down. There may or may not have been a time when water could have extinguished it, but that time is long past.
The only thing to do now is try and protect the surrounding buildings and haul away the ashes later.
Only, these guys want to light the other buildings - Iran and Syria - as well.
We need Americans to re-take this government, and do it now.
posted by fiduciary at 9:12 AM
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