Safety & Security
Safety
Let me get this straight: the "surge" in Iraq is the best strategy to secure, at least, Baghdad. And maybe Anabar province. The surge was supposed to go from around February to around May, but is now indefitite - at least until 2008. But we expect "results" to be seen by May, or June, or July, or - let's just say - September.
According to the government of the US - which is suppose to know about this stuff and, you know, tell the truth to people who are sacrificing their children to it - things have been steadily improving since 2003. And if mistakes have been made along the way, they have surely been the sole responsibility if the Iraqis.
So here's today's question: why the hell can't they stop the daily attacks on the Green Zone?
Mortar shells. Rockets. People are being killed.
Almost everyday this week, mortars and rockets have slammed into this 3.5 square-mile fortress in central Baghdad, home to Iraqi government offices and the U.S. and British embassies. About 1,000 U.S. State Department staffers work and live in the Green Zone.
A shell hit the parking lot where Prime Minister Alma Leeky parks. Now, I'm no military genius like George W. Bush, and I don't have a PhD in International Studies like Condo Rice, but it seems to me that if you can't keep mortar rounds from hitting the PM's parking lot, you're not really in control of anything.
How do you spin that one? Are they going to re-group the parking lots? Are they going to just build a dome over the thing?
And what are your chances to pacify and secure a nation when you can't stop bad guys from shelling the one postage-stamp sized patch of tarmac in the whole country that matters to you?
Security
I've been worrying more and more about security lately - and I'll tell you why. I believe America is in great danger for the next couple of year - greater than ever before in the entire GWOT (that's the Global War on Terror for you Chardonnay-sippers).
In 2001, the bad guys hit us - hard. You may recall the incident. At that time, they supposed (one must suppose) that the American president and his administration were at least average in their capability to defend the nation. So they expected the average American response - which is pretty damn ferocious compared to other sorts of average responses, like your average French response (sacre blu!).
But that's not what they got.
What they got was their holy-warrior's crazy extreme fantasy of their wildest dream of a response. America reacted like their ornery drunk over-fed double-digit-IQ stereotype. America acted rashly and stupidly and kept on behaving irrationally and violently for years and years.
Virtually without prompting, America sacrificed their standing in the world, their own sacred constitution and the rule of law they'd championed for centuries, and any hard-fought gains for rationality and civilization they'd ever achieved. Gone.
But here's the thing: you can't count of America choosing another slop-browed neolithic knuckle-dragger to their leadership. One must assume (if not hope) that the next American president will believe in thing that have generally been assumed to be American ideals: the rule of law, an international system of alliances, support for human rights, real freedoms and true democracy. All the stuff that's been missing.
So, for leading jihadists and their fellow travellers, the window is closing.
When Bush and his Junta go, so goes Osama bin Laden's hope of convincing the Arab world that he's right. The next American president - probably - won't be drunk on power and oblivious to the rights of every other living being on the planet.
So now's the time.
Media reports clearly show that the Chickenhawks in the Veep office are cracking for a go at Iran. Wouldn't that be the cherry on top for international qanti-Americanism? A war with Iran might even lead to a coup in Washington - Georgie as Preznut for Life! America reduced to the state of Apartheid-era South Africa - with only a few extremist dictatorships willing to do business with them.
Why, the "axis of evil" itself might stand on it's head; North Korea might end being our only friend. Maybe those 35,000 troops that Rummy left in South Korea will assume positions on the other side of the border. Who knows? The rogue America that the Neocons have struggled to create might end up in a state of war with everybody.
But that might not be possible with an American in the White House - so now's the time. Plus, a strike now might allow Bloody Rudy to abandon the rubber chicken circuit forever.
Act now, terrorists! Your friend George is running on fumes!
Let me get this straight: the "surge" in Iraq is the best strategy to secure, at least, Baghdad. And maybe Anabar province. The surge was supposed to go from around February to around May, but is now indefitite - at least until 2008. But we expect "results" to be seen by May, or June, or July, or - let's just say - September.
According to the government of the US - which is suppose to know about this stuff and, you know, tell the truth to people who are sacrificing their children to it - things have been steadily improving since 2003. And if mistakes have been made along the way, they have surely been the sole responsibility if the Iraqis.
So here's today's question: why the hell can't they stop the daily attacks on the Green Zone?
Mortar shells. Rockets. People are being killed.
Almost everyday this week, mortars and rockets have slammed into this 3.5 square-mile fortress in central Baghdad, home to Iraqi government offices and the U.S. and British embassies. About 1,000 U.S. State Department staffers work and live in the Green Zone.
A shell hit the parking lot where Prime Minister Alma Leeky parks. Now, I'm no military genius like George W. Bush, and I don't have a PhD in International Studies like Condo Rice, but it seems to me that if you can't keep mortar rounds from hitting the PM's parking lot, you're not really in control of anything.
How do you spin that one? Are they going to re-group the parking lots? Are they going to just build a dome over the thing?
And what are your chances to pacify and secure a nation when you can't stop bad guys from shelling the one postage-stamp sized patch of tarmac in the whole country that matters to you?
Security
I've been worrying more and more about security lately - and I'll tell you why. I believe America is in great danger for the next couple of year - greater than ever before in the entire GWOT (that's the Global War on Terror for you Chardonnay-sippers).
In 2001, the bad guys hit us - hard. You may recall the incident. At that time, they supposed (one must suppose) that the American president and his administration were at least average in their capability to defend the nation. So they expected the average American response - which is pretty damn ferocious compared to other sorts of average responses, like your average French response (sacre blu!).
But that's not what they got.
What they got was their holy-warrior's crazy extreme fantasy of their wildest dream of a response. America reacted like their ornery drunk over-fed double-digit-IQ stereotype. America acted rashly and stupidly and kept on behaving irrationally and violently for years and years.
Virtually without prompting, America sacrificed their standing in the world, their own sacred constitution and the rule of law they'd championed for centuries, and any hard-fought gains for rationality and civilization they'd ever achieved. Gone.
But here's the thing: you can't count of America choosing another slop-browed neolithic knuckle-dragger to their leadership. One must assume (if not hope) that the next American president will believe in thing that have generally been assumed to be American ideals: the rule of law, an international system of alliances, support for human rights, real freedoms and true democracy. All the stuff that's been missing.
So, for leading jihadists and their fellow travellers, the window is closing.
When Bush and his Junta go, so goes Osama bin Laden's hope of convincing the Arab world that he's right. The next American president - probably - won't be drunk on power and oblivious to the rights of every other living being on the planet.
So now's the time.
Media reports clearly show that the Chickenhawks in the Veep office are cracking for a go at Iran. Wouldn't that be the cherry on top for international qanti-Americanism? A war with Iran might even lead to a coup in Washington - Georgie as Preznut for Life! America reduced to the state of Apartheid-era South Africa - with only a few extremist dictatorships willing to do business with them.
Why, the "axis of evil" itself might stand on it's head; North Korea might end being our only friend. Maybe those 35,000 troops that Rummy left in South Korea will assume positions on the other side of the border. Who knows? The rogue America that the Neocons have struggled to create might end up in a state of war with everybody.
But that might not be possible with an American in the White House - so now's the time. Plus, a strike now might allow Bloody Rudy to abandon the rubber chicken circuit forever.
Act now, terrorists! Your friend George is running on fumes!
posted by fiduciary at 2:42 PM
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