One of the best reasons to read the better blogs is that often people much smarter and more knowdgeable than I are reading them too, and commenting.
Like "Michael Murry" over at Talking Points Memo today.
It's long, but it's worth it.
Reed Hundt has his Vietnam anologies ( reference to Tet Offensive) seriously confused. Essentially, the current Maliki bad-puppet-dependency in Iraq has launched a type of "Operation Lam Son 719" (which occurred between 8 February and 25 March, 1971). Wikipedia has all the details. A more astute commentor (Gregg Gordon) on Juan Cole's "Informed Comment writes:
"Well, so much for Vietnamization. This is starting to look like the biggest military debacle since Thieu invaded Laos. The only question seems to be whether the [Iraqi]government can hold on to even half its troops, or whether the majority will end up going over to the Sadrists."
As a victim/veteran of the Nixon-Kissinger Fig Leaf Contingent (Vietnam 1970-1972), I can well remember the farcical operation in question, with banner headlines and photos back in the U.S. showing terrified, fleeing South Vietnamese (i.e., Maliki-equivalent-Nguyen-Van-Thieu) conscripts hanging desperately to American helicopter skids as they hauled ass from the severe thumping the NVA gave them (supported by us) in Laos.
Not to worry, though. As with the aftermath of Tet 1968, the aftermath of Lam Son (almost 4 years later) showed that the American press will swallow any propaganda bullshit handed out at our military's fabled "Five O'Clock Follies." A week after the current humiliation in Iraq ends, John McBomb and You-Know-Her will be kissing General Petraeus's ass-kissing ass and claiming that the tipping point will soon turn the corner and begin connecting the dots on the inkstained flypaper dominoes in the tunnel at the end of the light. (Have I missed any of the standard quagmire cliches here?)
As George Orwell said long ago: "Political and military commentators can survive any disaster, because their more devoted followers do not look to them for an appraisal of the facts, but for the stimulation of their nationalistic loyalties." Look for the same old nationalistic-loyalty-stimulating to completely smother any real reporting on Iraq -- if not America as well -- real soon now. Because, as the really with-it press insiders love to assure us untutored peasants: the "maverick" John McBomb and the "experienced" You-Know-Her really have this "foreign policy" shit down to a "science."
As we said back in the day while Vietnamizing the Vietnamese (i.e., Yellowing the Corpses): "We are the unwilling led by the unqualified to do the unnecessary for the ungrateful," because "we're here because we're here because we're here because we're here" to "kill a Commie for Christ" and "a Gook for God" because if we counter-insurgency types "grab them by the balls, then their hearts and minds will follow." Et cetera, et cetera.
Vietnam had one-and-only-one simple lesson to teach America: "Don't do it again." Naturally, our ticket-punching career military lifers wanted no part of learning any such lesson. They couldn't wait to do it again. So they've done it again: screwing pooches and fucking up soup sandwiches like crazy. Too bad for all the dead enlisted men and junior officers. (And something about those "Iraqis" comes to mind, but I can't quite figure out what ...)
Gereral Petraeus ought to have his ass-kissing little ass fired. But he'll probably get another Peter-Principle promotion. Hell, he's gotten THREE of them out of Iraq already -- and he's never once ever FINISHED anything.
John McBomb and You-Know-Her hope they'll get a Peter-Principle "percussive sublimation (i.e., a "kicking upstairs"), too. "Fuck up and move up" has certainly returned with a vengeance, taking us from the Best and the Brightest to the Worst and the Dullest in a single generation. See what plane-crashers marrying young heiresses along with grade-inflation and white-debutante-affirmative-action in expensive private finishing schools can offer formerly first-world countries in the way of "alternatives"?
I don't blame Reed Hundt, though, for not understanding America's War on Southeast Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos). Every single damn Vietnam Veteran in Congress also forgot the greatest national trauma of our generation. Most Americans don't even know about America's failed experience intervening in China after WWII: the "bad proxy-puppet syndrome" that set the pattern America still hasn't broken out of sixty years later.
Oh, well, back to our regularly scheduled nationalistic loyalty stimulation.... I understand that General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker have another royal crock of shit to sell us in only about a week or two. Remember: You heard it here first, fellow Crimestoppers. Decreasing violence means we have to stay in Iraq. Increasing violence means we have to stay in Iraq. Budget surplusses require tax cuts for the wealtiest Americans. Budget deficits require tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. John McBomb and You-Know-Her really have this "foreign" and "fiscal/monetary" policy shit figured out better than anyone else who doesn't really "love" America. Honest injun. As Jack Paar used to say on the original Tonight show: "I kid you not."
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