Health Ministry Attacked
Khamenei Calls for US Withdrawal
Iraq's Shiite-run Health Ministry was attacked again Weds. morning, presumably by Sunni Arab guerrillas.
Thomas Ricks and Robin Wright at WaPo examine the increasing tendency of the American political class to blame the Iraqis for the political turmoil there.
I see. The US invaded their country, abolished their army, gutted their civil service, occupied their cities, and now it is the Iraqis' fault.
Iran's Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei said in talks with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani that the US must withdraw from Iraq for there to be peace.
posted by Juan Cole @ 11/29/2006 12:20:00 AM
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7 Comments:
Blaming Iraqis:
There is a certain cabal of commentator in the views media that simply can not bring itself to examine the U.S. actions and affix responsibility on American leaders, especially El Presidente Arbusto, for any foreign policy disaster.
Recently, with Augusto Pinochet back in the news for taking "political responsibility" for his military junta's actions, these same commentators again see no connection between Pinochet's regime and the deliberate U.S. foreign policy that installed him in power and kept him there.
With Iraq, as we have seen, it is always someone else's fault, whether it is the Iranians, the Syrians, or now the Iraqis themselves.
This is akin to blaming the floor for breaking the crockery, after Shrub drops the tray.
Basically they're trying to set the table to blame this on the incompetent Iraqis. Interestingly enough some conservatives tried the same argument about Vietnam starting in the 80's. "we would have won except for those incompetent SOB's". My personal favorite variation on the argument is that "we did win and pulled out. They lost in the third Vietnamese war.
Well, all we did was blow up the dam. If the Iraqis can't handle the flood that's their problem.
Seems a bit ironic to push Maliki to do more to quell the violence while we control the Iraqi army, and have the only military force there with tanks, planes, helicopters, infinite logistics, state-of-the-art communications, and what must be an enormous intelligence infrastructure. (Eight billion a month has to get you something.)
After selling the Afghanistan icebox to the NATO eskimos Bush must feel he's on a role. Once the "blame the Iraqis" mantra takes hold with the public at large, Bush will have so much cut and run support that he will be a hero for doing just that. Then we can all sit back and blame NATO for whatever happens in Afghanistan, and the Iraqis (plus Syria and Iran) for whatever happens in Iraq. Mission accomplished.
Baker is smart enough to know a Humpty Dumpty when he sees one. I would guess that his group will publish a vague, but lengthy, mishmash of conventional wisdom and disband as quickly as possible.
Probably a lot of Americans still blame a woman for being raped.
Truth is, Americans are uanble to admit their own failings. Everything must be someone else's fault.
My Memo to America's Memo-Leaking Foreign Policy "elites."
Again: You continue to unconsciously project America's domesitc politicla dilemma (what H. L. Menken called "the strife of the parties at Washington") onto foreign disptutions having their own particular (and opague to Americans) dynamics. In so doing, you overlook the central, gargantuan similarities between "The Best and the Brightest" (who brought America self-defeating quagmire in Southeast Asia) and "The Worst and the Dullest" who have brought America even worse at greater fiscal cost in even less time in Iraq and Afghanistan. The American military-industrial bureaucracy could intervene in the internal affairs of Martians and it would make the same soup sandwich, i.e., FUBAR and SNAFU, out of whatever it touches. Naturally, self-interested defenders of this fuck-up-and-move-up rampant military careerism and domestic political fascism protest the comparison, noting correctly that Martians breathe Carbon Dioxide while the earthly Chinese, Vietnamese, and Iraqis breathe oxygen. Or, as my fellow Vietnam Veteran Daniel Ellsberg says about those distinctions without a difference between Vietnam and Iraq: "Yeah. Like in Iraq its a dry heat, and the language our diplomatic and military personnel don't speak is Arabic instead of Vietnamese." See all those "differences"? See? See?
Anyway, one of the biggest and most driving of all similarities among the various discredited American post-colonial misadventures has to do with the way American political-military bureaucrats substitute Orwellian mixed metaphors and flawed figures of speech for the rational thinking and clear, expository writing that would lead intelligent people not to ever do in the first place what they so manifestly cannot do -- and never have done -- successfully. Yet still we hear of the Pentagram planning to offer Americans yet another Hobson's "choice" of dead horses to beat in Iraq, just as long as we "choose" the only unmoving horse lying dead just inside the stable doorway. So look for Deputy Dubya Bush to "go big" and/or "go long" staying the curse for the next six critical months with the tipping point turning the corner connecting dots with the ink stains on the flypaper dominoes in the tunnel at the end of the light. In Vietnam, we used to call this Pentagram briefing: The Five O'Clock Follies. See all the differences between then and now? See? See?
Hmmm...Chuck O'Connell predicted that Iraqis would eventually be blamed:
Link
9,000 Un-Drafted Saudi Princes Talk Tough!
I understand that the Saudi Royal Family (all 9,000 of the pampered princelings) just summoned Sheriff Dick Cheney to heel. Apparently they informed him in pure Bre'r Rabbit Chutzpah that if his five-deferment self, his AWOL Deputy Dubya, his shot-down-and-jailed Mad Dog McCain, and his Step-and-Fetchit Charles Rangel didn't draft more young Americans to fight and die for the un-drafted Saudi Royal family, well, then those 9,000 Saudi Princes would just get off their cushy couches, stop importing Vietnamese and Bangladeshies to do all their dirty work, and go right after those Shiite "terrorists" in next-door Iraq. Really!
Yes, Sir. Those never-yet-spotted-on-any-battlefield "royal" knife-fighters really will jump into that terrible briar patch in Iraq unless Sheriff Dick and his very own empty-suit propaganda catapulter save them from their mad, impetuous selves and embrace the Tar Baby even more tightly in their stead.
Too bad for young Americans with better things to do with their lives that this sort of emotional blackmail shit ALWAYS works with easily buffaloed American princelings who only lust after the trappings of royalty but can never somehow shake off their basically subservient serfdom.
Personally, I think I've about come to the conclusion that I favor the Shiites in Saudi Arabia. Perhaps instead of helping the corrupt Saudi Royal Family oppress them, we Americans could just assist the Shiites (after all, we do love religious fundamentalism in America) in bringing a little of that "democracy" crap of ours to Saudi Arabia. Yeah. Let's try setting some Saudi "royal" minds on fire! As Judy Tenuda would say: "It could happen!"
I just want Mad Dog McCain and that motherless cretin Charles Rangel to just leave my free, young and hopeful fellow Americans out of it. This used-and-abused Vietnam Veteran says that Charles Rangel can just go fuck himself, and the military-industrial porkbarrel pig he rode in on. As just another brick in the wall, his like have already had enough from old geezers like me. Now they can just leave those kids alone!
Finally, with all due apologies to Country Joe and the Fish, we could use a little update to that old song. Perhaps we could call it "The Feel Like I'm Fixin' to Strangle Rangel Rag." It's rude refrain:
Well, it's one, two, three, what are we fightin' for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn
Next stop is Iraq-Nam.
Well, it's five, six, seven, open up old Allah's gates
Ain't no time to wonder why
Whoopeeee! We're all gonna die!"
(for Saudi Princes)
Whoopee! We're all gonna die!"
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