Michael Kinsley spits out a mouthful of SURGE!

Michael Kinsley, Slate.com's founding editor, wrote a tolerably good article in Slate on the "Surge Strategy" in Iraq, arguing that while it has reduced casualties and violence, laudable goals indeed, it hasn't achieved its own aim: to produce stability such that more troops can withdraw than were added. That is, the point of the surge wasn't to provide stability enough for 130,000 US soldiers to continue staying there indefinitely, but rather stability enough that we could start drawing down soldiers. Going back to a (safer) status quo, but not so safe or stable that we can start leaving in even token amounts, is emphatically not a success:

In fact, President Bush laid down the standard of success when he announced the surge more than a year ago: "If we increase our support at this crucial moment, and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home." At the time, there were about 130,000 American soldiers in Iraq. Bush proposed to add up to 20,000 more troops... the surge was generally described as lasting six to eight months.

By last summer, the surge had actually added closer to 30,000 troops, making the total American troop count about 160,000. Today, there are still more than 150,000 American troops in Iraq. The official plan has been to get that number back down to 130,000 by July and then to keep going so that there would be about 100,000 American troops in Iraq by the time Bush leaves office. Lately, though, Gen. Petraeus has come up with another zenlike idea: He calls it a "pause." And the administration has signed on, meaning that the total number of American troops in Iraq will remain at 130,000 for an undetermined period.

So, the best that we can hope for, in terms of American troops risking their lives in Iraq, is that there will be just as many next July—and probably next January, when time runs out—as there were a year ago. The surge will have surged in and surged out, leaving us back where we started. Maybe the situation in Baghdad, or the whole country, will have improved. But apparently it won't have improved enough to risk an actual reduction in the American troop commitment.

Kinsley is making a basic point that (a weirdo-world morally consistent) President Bush would be on board with: we can't judge U.S. military "progress" in Iraq using the soft bigotry of low expectations.

Old Orwellian News

"Stay the course" means "dynamically change in response to new situations". Of course, as John Dickerson of Slate points out in the linked piece, the problem is that we HAVE changed dynamically, and cracking down, semi-flattening Fallujah, "standing down as they stand up," reducing our footprint, curfews, and "stand, hold, build," none of these have worked.

In other news, up is down, right is wrong, truth is a lie, lies are truth, and we are now and always have been at war with Eurasia.

Headline, January 21, 2009

I've just received this from Future J (a conceit I'm stealing from Marc Maron of the late, justly lamented Air America's "Morning Sedition").

Headline, Washington Post, Rush Edition, January 21, 2009

MARRIED, GAY IMMIGRANT TERRORISTS NUKE NEW YORK WITH BOMBS MADE OF HIDDEN STORES OF RADIOACTIVE IRAQI CIVILIANS

Ex-President Bush: "I told the American People that if they voted for Democrats, the terrorists would win."

In a stunning refutation of the yet-to-be-enunciated Democratic Agenda of the incoming Jack Johnson Administration, the warnings of his most recent predecessor have all come true in one fateful day.

The day after the inauguration of President Johnson, New York City was annhilated in a "nucular" holocaust, killing millions. The all-male crew of terrorists, who had strapped a nuclear bomb to a tanker headed into New York Harbor, were reportedly seen holding hands and kissing each other on the lips as they praised God and delivered their lethal package. Their nuclear weapon is thought to have been procured from Iran, and fashioned from radioactive Iraqi citizens.

These kissing brown men had taken the jobs, formerly held by good, hard-working white Americans, as crew on the hardy oil tanker, the SS Not Named After Condi Rice. It is rumored that matching gold bands were seen on each of the several terrorists' left fingers before it hit -- authorities think these may have been matching wedding bands. This apparently polygamous all-male married crew bears out the predictions of another recently defeated Republican: Rick Santorum, former Senator from Pennsylvania. He memorably compared gay marriage to beastiality, sodomy, incest, and polygamy, insisting one would lead to the next.

Then-Senator Santorum was quickly and thoroughly ridiculed by press outlets on the Left, including Jon Stewart's parody news show, "The Daily Show." The Daily Show sketch included signage with symbols indicating two married men, an equal sign, and a mockup of a stick-figure man copulating with a turtle to indicate "man-on-turtle action." It's not yet known if any of the gay, male, brown, Allah-worshipping terrorists had actually married or had carnal knowledge of any poikilotherms.

President Johnson insisted that the incinerated former residents of New York City would still have supported his campaign bid had they known the costs. "Freedom is messy," he said, channeling former Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld. "And I had promised them more tax cuts."

In the past few hours, staff of ex-President Bush have publicly posed the question, "Is it truly a coincidence that these horrible men, these, these, married and GAY haters of America... [were] immigrants fluent in French and Mexican, two languages that [President Johnson] also speaks?"

President Johnson has said he has "No comment," on this question.

..................

Preliminary evidence implies that the attackers entered the country illegally through Canada's Quebec province, posing as Mexican laborers and taking advantage not only of the "Immigration Reform" passed by the Democratic Congress, but also of education improvements in charter schools ushered in by "No Child Left Behind," a program with an until-now successful legacy under Mr. Bush. Although millions of children were left with no education as failing public schools closed and programs steeply slahsed at those remaining, thousands of rich children were "carried ahead" by the "Left Behind" program in what some have called a "qualified success." Several of the terrorists apparently attended an exclusive private Baptist school, one of many that sprang up with government funding during Mr. Bush's 2nd "lame-duck" term. These exclusive schools have consistently turned out excellent students, providing what many say is "complete vindication of the [NCLB Act]." But perhaps in this case, the question we must ask is rather, "Is our terrorists learning?"

President Johnson has also said this morning that he was calling for the summary and indefinite detention of all Mexicans, Arabs, and "funny looking peoples, you know with those hats, or wraps, or really dark skin". He has already signed a bill passed by Congress five minutes after the attack, allowing anything up to measures as seen in the movie "Saw III" to be used on potential terrorists for interrogation purposes. "That movie was sick," he said, "And so are the terrorists. The terrorists -- and the writers of Saw III -- will never stop trying to think of new ways to sicken, repulse, and terroriize the people of the United States. And neither will we."

President Johnson added, "We do not and will not torture. We will only 'Saw III'-ize illegal enemy combatants, which clearly falls within the Geneva Conventions as I interpret them, or at least the Cliffs Notes version I've read." Democrats on Capitol Hill widely applauded the move, admitting they had neither read the bill nor seen the movie, but pointed out that there is no specific prohibition in the Geneva Conventions about "Saw III-izing" illegal enemy combatants on Tuesdays and Thursdays of every month after 5 pm in technically sovereign countries whose land we rent for $1 a year under duress.

Meanwhile, the question of how the terrorists got hold of fissile material appears to have an unexpected answer: Iraqi nuclear stocks. Though it has become accepted conventional wisdom that the previous administration erred in its insistence that the Iraqis had a nuclear program, it appears that here again they have been vindicated. Apparently, Saddam Hussein had been collecting citizens and casualties from previous American assaults on Iraq. Many of these victims of "collateral damage" had apparently picked up enough radiation from exposure to American depleted uranium munitions to be useful as nuclear "starter kits". Reportedly, thousands of Iraqi civilians had to be processed to gather enough material for the bombs -- nonetheless putting lie to the idea that Iraq did not have nuclear capabilities.

Processing of Iraq's nuclear citiznes was carried out under the aegis of Brown & Root, through a contract Iraq had signed with Halliburton prior to the 1991 invasion, and sub-contracted to the Iranian government via the shell company "ChummyRummy and ZanyCheney's Happy People Processing Labs Initiative." President Johnson's staff has indicated that he may endorse another nuclear attack on Iran, "Just to be sure the rubble and bystanders left over from President Bush's War on Iran will never pose a threat to us. If we don't nuke them there, then we will have to nuke them over here."

***

"Every single thing my administration said, we meant," commented the former President Bush the Second. "Even the contradictory parts. But I can only hope that, maybe now, and I think they will, the Democrats will realize that the only way to win this fight is through resolve, relentless and indiscriminate killing of people in other countries, unlimited executive power, lying, lower taxes, lying, and not having to see gay men touching each other, or even think about it gay men touching each other."

"Only then," he said, "Will we truly be free."

A Farcical Take on the UN

A reposting from my Slate Fray alter ego, HopefulCynic. In response to an article by the usually good John Dickerson, Good Shit: Why Bush Should Swear More. Elaboration (and fixed links) to come. For now:

Mr. Dickerson should certainly already know that the UN is most often hampered by the large amount of influence the US exerts, hampering many good perogatives even as it pushes others. Bush saying "I should tell Kofi..." is a telling phrase. Kofi Annan was made to eat his hat in the matter of Haiti (the US, from a fair few reports, was not a purely helpful partner [iamj.blogspot.com] there, for penance in his opposition to the US' position on Iraq. (And indeed, the more cautious approach advocated by many in the UN (see, i.e., France [www.carnegieendowment.org]) seems to have been warranted given the aftermath, the foreseeable [www.house.gov] lack [www.carnegieendowment.org] of threat [www.carnegieendowment.org] and "WMDs" [en.wikipedia.org].)

The UN can and should expect more monetary support and more from "Old Europe", but the fact is the US holds the pursestrings, and in many (but not all) cases, it essentially holds the UNs metaphorical balls in its hands. Clearly an intermediary between us and Syria and/or Lebanon would likely be advisable given our current popularity in the Middle East, but there was no implication given that the UN had rebuffed Bush's idea, but rather that he hadn't pushed it yet. And without the power of the US, the UN is a paper tiger (sadly, in that it depends so heavily on one country that isn't overly fond of it), so them telling Syria and Hezbollah to "cut this shit out" clearly won't happen before given the unambiguous imprimatur of the US, and likely some extensive pressure given the UN's (to my mind) more even-handed position towards Israel and its antagonists and attackers. (See my former avatar [www.slate.com] and AM-2's [www.slate.com] take on the UN and US rel'nship more generally.)

And it's disturbing, though utterly surprising, to me that Bush and Dickerson both failed to mention the very valid other side to this: Hezbollah clearly attacked and provoked Israel; Israel clearly has a right to defend itself, but: is any scale of response acceptable? And would it be in any other ally? Clearly, somewhere between "nothing" and "using the nukes it doesn't officially have" is where the most reasonable response for Israel lies. So those (like Bush and most of the media establishment) who brush off Israel's reponsibility for proportionality are essentially saying that anything between a nuke (or several) and nothing is ok. This utterly callous stance is a large reason we're not seen well in the ME, or indeed, in many other parts of the world.

Between our utter lack of concern for civilian lives in the Middle East, or more accurately, our utter lack of effective concern (saying you're trying hard is not the same as addressing failures and flaws in the trying), and the havok WE have created in Iraq, we have sent a clear message to the Arab and Muslim "street" that we don't care about their puny little lives in the scale of larger conflicts supposedly in their name, and that we will invade and occupy their states at will, our broken promises and unfulfilled visions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Palestine, that not only will armed resistance and, frankly, terrorism stymie us, but that it is perhaps the only way to stop us from doing what we will in their sovereign states or neglecting valid calls for help.

Hezbollah is not going to "cut this shit out", nor is the "street" in Lebanon going to stop supporting them, before they see some proof that collaboration with the US in this Bush era will bring some advantage, some hope, some lasting commitment, rather than forgotten promises, [www.tompaine.com] chaos, and death [www.iraqbodycount.net].

Good News! We've got Peace on Earth. Next: Goodwill towards all.

A nice little year-end piece by Timothy Noah of Slate outlines the "Peace Epidemic." (His words, not mine, or at least, his editor's.) Unlike, say, a bird flu epidemic, this is a very pleasant thing. Apparently, violence in the world has gone down! (Linked Refs: Washington Post, Human Security Report 2005.) This, of course, belies the impression we can't help but get from the Bush Administration, that these are uniquely perilous times. Danger is eminent, real, and can only be stopped by sacrificing our civil liberties -- according to our Dear Leader.

As Noah points out: Terrorists, yes, bad, potentially very deadly. BUT: war, genocide, state-sponsored killings: also bad and potentially deadly, and on the decline. In point of fact: these things are MORE deadly, historically, than terrorism. There have been around 3,000 deaths from terrorism since 9/11. These deaths are to be mourned, certainly. But considering the perhaps 100,000 Iraqis killed in our War on Iraq -- Bush himself has admitted as many as 30,000 likely have died -- well. We've likely killed ten times more civilians in our war on terror as was lost in 9/11. Are these lives to be discounted because they are Iraqi? Are they to be discounted because we're pursuing a goal that may save, erm, one tenth the number of lives it's costing? Are they somehow discounted by the thousands dying in Sudan while we pursue our ambiguous goals in Iraq to the exclusion of stopping genocide in Africa?

In other words: EVEN IF WE WERE STOPPING TERRORISM BY FIGHTING IN IRAQ, WE'RE GOING AFTER THE WRONG GOAL. The world is safer, and terrorism, while not to be ignored, is still at its worst a minute part of the preventable deaths going on in the world.

When over a billion people are malnourished in the world, and six million children dying each year from hunger, why in goodness's name is our focus on terrorism? When the equivalent of most of New York City dies each year in terms of children only, should our money go primarily towards averting terrorism (where the most deadly attacks to date have killed thousands, and the most deadly imaginable, nuclear attacks, are not being address at all by our current program/pogrom), or should it go towards feeding children in a world where there's enough food per capita and children are certainly starving in conditions that even the most uncompassionate conservative must admit are not of their own fault or making?

Happy New Year, World. Unless we stop Bush's madness, our increasing Peace On Earth is Dead.

Long Live Peace on Earth.