To the vanishing point

In the "war on terror," our signature weapon the laser-guided missle, theirs the suicide bomber. And with every missle launched, new recruits for suicide missions are created. The more missles, the more suicide bombers.

Can we kill all, or enough, of the suicide bombers to claim victory? There were a finite number of kamikaze pilots in WWII. Eventually we could kill them all. But is there a finite number of suicide bombers? Or is there a queue of them stretching out to the vanishing point? An endless succession?

What cold blooded questioning war demands. News this morning of a Iraqi man screaming for help while his wife and two children burned to death in their bombed car. This while the sympathetic gaze of America is focussed on the jilted Jennifer Aniston.

Why the Iraqi army won't stand up

Our current best plan to solve the problem of Iraq? To inject more military trainers into the country to get the Iraqi army ready to stand up and fight. The more quickly the Iraqi army stands up, the more quickly our army can stand down.

This plan on the surface seems logical, yet it is based on a flawed assumption: that the Iraqi army is like our army, or the army of any other established nation state. We expect that the members of the Iraqi army will identify themselves first and foremost as Iraqis and will fight and die for their country, just as soldiers in our military will fight and die for America. But what if they don't and won't?

As a number of analysts have pointed out, there's really no Iraq to Iraq. The country is not so much a nation as it is an idea imposed a century ago by the British on a region divided among very distinct and antagonistic sects and tribes. The Iraqi soldier, in other words, is more likely to identify himself as a Sunni or a Shiite or a Kurd first and as an Iraqi second -- a very distant second. This hardly lends itself to establishing the esprit de corps necessary to accomplish what our government expects the Iraqi army to accomplish.

I suspect that most of the soldiers in the Iraqi army are there not out of patriotism but out of mere necessity. It's a job. They need some means of supporting themselves and their families. So if the head of some sectarian militia offers them a better deal, they are likely to take it. This is why our government is so worried about the Saudis funding the Sunni insurgents, or Iran supporting the Shiite militias.

To sum up, our current best strategy in Iraq is based upon the same thing that so many previous failed strategies were based upon: wishful thinking. So enough already about getting the Iraqi army to stand up. It's time for us to get the hell out of Dodge.

Pinochet and Difficulty

Having made thousands of innocent people disappear in his day, General Augusto Pinochet finally drops down the rabbit hole himself, thus escaping the long arm of justice. And what is the reaction from the White House?

"Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship in Chile represented one of the most difficult periods in that nation's history," said White House spokesman Tony Fratto. "Our thoughts today are with the victims of his reign and their families. We commend the people of Chile for building a society based on freedom, the rule of law and respect for human rights."

Notice the diction here. The dictatorship of Pinochet was not one of the darkest periods in Chile's history, one of the most shameful periods in Chile's history, one of the most abominable periods in Chile's history, etc. No, it was a "difficult" period. Something tells me that "difficulty" is not the word the families of the disappeared would likely choose to describe what they suffered under Pinochet. How about "terrorism"?

It would be difficult indeed to acknowledge our government's complicity in the Pinochet coup and the terror regime that followed. Difficult to explain why Nixon and Kissinger cozied up to the good General while he presided over atrocity after atrocity. Very very difficult.

See article by Amy Goodman at http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1214-33.htm

Johnny Bolton Resigns

From today's Washington Post:

Unable to win Senate confirmation, U.N. Ambassador John Bolton will step down when his temporary appointment expires within weeks, the White House said Monday.

Critics have questioned Bolton's brusque style and whether he could be an effective bureaucrat who could force reform at the U.N. . . . .

The White House resubmitted Bolton's nomination last month. But with Democrats capturing control of the next Congress, his chances of winning confirmation appeared slight. The incoming chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democratic Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, said he saw "no point in considering Mr. Bolton's nomination again."

LET US ALL RISE AND SING

Ye haven't an arm, ye haven't a leg, hurroo, hurroo
Ye haven't an arm, ye haven't a leg, hurroo, hurroo
Ye haven't an arm, ye haven't a leg,
Ye're an armless, boneless, chickenless egg
Ye'll have to put with a bowl out to beg
Oh Johnny I hardly knew ye

With your drums and guns and guns and drums, hurroo,hurroo
With your drums and guns and guns and drums, hurroo,hurroo
With your drums and guns and guns and drums,
The enemy nearly slew ye
Oh my darling dear, Ye look so queer
Johnny I hardly knew ye.