“Mr. President, I, uh, don’t think it’s quite fair to condemn a whole program because of a single slip-up, sir.” These famous words of support were, of course, offered by Gen. Buck Turgidson, played by George C. Scott, in the classic black comedy, Dr. Strangelove, after a rogue U.S. Air Force general subverted America’s “fail-safe” system and sent a wing of nuclear-armed bombers to annihilate the Russians.
This seemed an appropriate intro to General McChrystal’s meeting today with President Obama, where the general’s attempt to explain numerous slip-ups to his Commander-In-Chief predictably resulted in dismissal. Scott’s line is also the lead-in to my reaction to a piece sent to me by Bob Kincaid, host of our favorite nightly progressive radio show on the HORN, describing our pay-offs to Afghan travel agents–otherwise known as insurgents and warlords–to safeguard passage for our military convoys. In a campaign fraught with mistakes and distorted vision, buying into protection rackets which invariably end up funding our enemy seems like another in a series of tragic slip-ups.
See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/21/AR2010062104628.html?hpid=topnews
After you look at the story, try to re-read the opening sentence of paragraph six without making those gurgling noises we’re so fond of here at A Cavalcade of Crazy. No disagreement with that senior official here. After nine years and over 1100 American casualties, I think we need to give it more time. It’s just too early to tell. And all along, I thought U.S. Army trucks still transported the U.S. Army. Where have I been? Actually, I’m having trouble understanding what the program is at all, anymore.
Once again, we are totally out of our element. Here we are, once more, Third World invaders in a classic relationship-based country. News flash: The illegal heroin trade trade originates there. In addition to lacking a legitimate government–rather a huge obstacle to our success–Afghanistan has no, well, rules–no dependable legal structure with the incentives to chase down the bad guys. Were we expecting to go over some contracts with village leaders? These people conduct business on a handshake, plain and simple. Friends and enemies can change every day. This place has ground up everybody in history who’s tried to mess with them. On the surface, maybe greasing palms is a good idea.
Unfortunately, these tactics just sink us deeper into the quagmire. We’re not going to change any hearts and minds, let alone institute our democratic form of government for which they’ve been waiting so breathlessly for centuries, by buying them off. Of course if anyone reading this still believes we do this to spread democracy, we can find you some hogs to wash. Our military has and continues to be for rent at the pleasure of big business, for dirty resources and dirty money. We are up to our necks, past our necks, into where one hoped by now we would have discovered a brain, with the puppet Karzai and this scene of total madness. Do we even need to mention just how critically we must to attend to our own backyard, that it is redundant and ridiculous to even consider foreign entanglements?
The American people know nothing good can come from this. But we’re not in charge anymore, and haven’t been since the Industrial Age aristocrats opened up branch banking in Washington, D.C. This is corporatism at its finest. The fabulous New World Order. What’s Good for GM is Good for America–and the rest of the solar system, no doubt. Admittedly, GM’s stock price is a little low right now for such grandiose claims. Oh well, we all got the point.
Ah, the enduring Gilded Age. There’s so much in it for everyone, isn’t there?
In related news, let’s follow the Senate as they obstruct the latest unemployment extension benefits. Evidently, keeping the jobless remnants of our once-stalwart middle class alive is not on the agenda. It’s so difficult, these days, to get sustained help for life, but there’s always plenty of cash available for death.
We might as well be fighting space aliens on one of the moons of Saturn. Imagine the weekly briefing sometime in 2410: “Well General, how’s the mission on Titan coming along? What’s your assessment after 14 years of bloody warfare?”
“Well, we’re still taking it to them, although it would be easier if there was anything like a legitimate government or legal system up here. But we’re pressing on, and securing as much crazillium-7 as we can.”
“Sir, we understand United Crazillium is poised to make a fortune with the exclusive rights to sell this amusing and revolutionary energy source. Is that still our goal?”
“God willing. Their contractors have been working with us from the outset. Lord knows, they’ve written enough checks to right people.”
Four hundred years from now, those choosing to review the failed campaign on Titan will no doubt reflect on the history we ignored centuries before–and were thus doomed to repeat–of the conflict on a similarly hostile and formidable world known as Afghanistan.
Reverbo Critic-At-Large
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