Everybody knows, at least in the ranks of our betters, that it is Mizz Democracy who has brought them so low. "Life is unfair," sir! and especially so when properly credentialled Area Students and neo-Orientalizers don't get about one hundred thousand votes apiece so that there is at least a slight chance that Uncle Sam might do something right east of Suez for a change.
I set forth our own position briefly for the record, Mr. Bones, because it does not appear in the record much. The CFR/ISG gentry being as I have described them, and Uncle Sam being ex hypothesi always up to something dumb and regrettable in the Middle East, the former almost automatically become a highly specialised opposition to whatever pack of elephants and donkeys has been making the most recent mistakes. At the moment, that puts the gentry at odds with the Lone Ranger and Tonto, i.e., with the GOP geniuses and their Party base and vile. Now Yankee yokels cannot, most of us, keep three juggled balls in sight at once, which means that many will mistakenly suppose that the CFR/ISG gentry are beginning to see the charms of la Démocratie en Amérique at last. That is a complete mirage, unfortunately, but over on the wrong side of the aisle, many militant elephants think they see the flip side of the same illusion, that the Hamilton-Baker humbugs and all the pointy-headed wimps who seem always to like negotiations better than explosions are in league with us avowed ochlocrats. It is, indeed, an anti-gentry tirade from one of the weaker sistern of the Boy-'n'-Party crew that occasions this morning's remarks.
We'll get to that later to some extent; the e-gutter scribble is not particularly interesting in its own right, but it serves to make clear that there are three different balls in play here: the cowpoker vigilantes proper, America's party, and the CFR/ISG gentry, who are "nonpartisan" or "bipartisan" at least to the extent that they have historically been spotted on both sides of the traditional trenches and almost certainly will be spotted on both sides hereafter. As I said, it looks as if the gentry are about to "change sides" as regards occupation policy in neo-Iraq. The quotation marks are mandatory, because what we have here is a Copernican illusion. The polished tertium quids will remain standing pretty much where they always have been, but it will appear to the average Yank and to the conventional wisdom of her journalists that they have deserted the donkeys and gone over to the elephants. (Our scribbler, a certain Neocomrade A. W. Dowd, would be makin' a strategic mistake to go after tomorrow's allies of Boy and Party hammer and tongs as he does, were he of enough consequence for his tirades to matter. This guy is goin' to be as surprised as anybody when the Hambaker sun decides to rise in the west for a "change".)
Since the unpartisan foreign-policy establishment is not in motion, what is? The answer looks plain enough: both the situation on the ground out in Peaceful Freedumbia and the poll results about that situation here im Heimatlande Gottes have been shifting. A clever apologist for the gentry might with some plausibility maintain that they do move a little bit, as much as is needed to nod assent to the weaker party in their inferiors' party combats, and that this scheme constitutes a modern domestic equivalent of the Old Euro Balance of Power. As long as there was no serious chance of the invasionite extremists being chased out of the former "Iraq," it was safe enough to devote most genteel effort to pointing out what incompetent colonialists and imperialists the Big Management Party have been. It is one such pointing-out that has vexed Neocomrade Dowd so badly. Now that substantive withdrawal begins to look like a real and present danger, however, a slightly different emphasis is called for.
Notice that you would get the same result if you assume that the gentry's principle is always to recede as far as possible from whatever the mob happens to want. That aspect seems secondary and accidental to me, though. Our appointed bipartisan betters really are interested in foreign policy, we must grant them that, Mr. Bones, even if they do say so themselves! They deplore other folks' democracy whenever it gets in the way of their own expertise, and they always have so deplored, but that does not mean that antidemocracy as such is their guiding star. I daresay the Hambakerite gentry would agree in the abstract that if they knew nothing about some Policy X proposed for their Uncle Sam except that two-thirds of the pollsters' patients are for it, they would think it a reasonably safe bet that X must be gravely defective one way or another. That, however, is a completely imaginary case. In the real world, the Hambakerites never start from behind such a Rawlsian veil of ignorance. Far from it, for all their own claims are based on knowing much more about foreigners than the mobile vulgus know or ever can know.
The etymology of "mob" may even be slightly pertinent. It is not a good thing, from the genteel establishment perspective, to be mobilis, a common wandering planet rather than an exalted and fixed luminary. To some extent even a theoretical donkey can sympathize with that attitude, if the motion of the fickle be sufficiently extreme and immoderate. Our own commitments to Mizz Democracy entail that even voters who were passionately in favor of Preëmptive Retaliation and the Kiddie Krusade a few years back, but have now become totally disgusted with the militant GOP's neo-Iraqi fiasco, should continue to be allowed to vote. No doubt gland-basin' will always be with us, as will the traditional moralism that insists gland-basin' ain't enough. There is no new issue for democracy fans here. Adult and instructed donkeys lack any good excuse for not being aware that THEY can fool quite a lot of us quite a lot of the time, and furthermore that when we succumb to the foolery the problem is primarily with ourselves, not with THEM. This sinister THEY, however, may include expertise-basers as well as gland-basers. "Here we have no Abiding City . . . ."
I seem to be doing my sermon backwards, Mr. Bones, to begin with the moral application like that. Anyhow, here's the prooftext, and after that we may discuss Neocomrade A. W. Dowd's grievances against the Hambakerites a little:
| The Establishment's Winners and Losers / By Alan W. Dowd The March/April issue of Foreign Policy magazine asks, “Who Won in Iraq?” A listless, torn Iraqi flag serves as the backdrop for the cover—and an indication of the grim and gloomy analysis that awaits the reader inside. For the record, Foreign Policy’s winners are: 10. Israel, which effectively lost two enemies after the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime—Iraq and Libya. “Saddam was one of only two Arab leaders who called for the elimination of the state of Israel, the other one being Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya. Luckily for Israel, the Iraq war has proven to have taught Colonel Qaddafi a lesson through intimidation.” 9. Old Europe, which “argued for restraint and warned of the dangers that would follow from a rush to war.” 8. The UN, which benefits from the death of “delusions of an invincible superpower.” 7. The Price of Oil, which has more than doubled since the spring of 2003. “Go to Dubai, Qatar, or any of the city-states of the Gulf and the thing that most catches the eye is the amount of construction going on: gleaming skyscrapers, holiday resorts, opulent apartment buildings, desalination plants, and more. The reason for that massive buildup is that the Gulf states are enjoying an economic boom. Why? Because George W. Bush invaded Iraq.” 6. Arab Dictators, who “rest easy” because “the failure of U.S. policy in Iraq has provided autocratic regimes in the Middle East a reprieve from the pressure to democratize.” 5. The People’s Republic of China, which is using Washington’s preoccupation with Iraq and foundering global standing “to build up a positive image in Asia and beyond…The Bush administration’s mismanagement of the occupation turned out to be a godsend for China.” 4. Samuel Huntington, “the man who envisioned a clash of civilizations…Thanks to the bloody clashes that have exploded in Iraq, more Americans today view Islam as a violent faith than immediately after terrorists killed 3,000 Americans in Islam’s name.” 3. Al-Qaeda, which “was on life support after September 11—until a new front opened in Baghdad and revived its mission.” 2. Moqtada al-Sadr, who “can now plausibly claim to be the most powerful man in the country.” 1. Iran, which “has emerged as the biggest winner of the United States’ war. There is little stability or democracy in Iraq to impress Iranians. Conjuring more fear than hope, the war did nothing to loosen the grip of clerical rule over the country... Iraq has strengthened Iran and weakened the United States.” The Iraqi people didn’t make FP’s Top Ten. They should have. Despite the horrors of Iraq’s postwar war, they are free—and they say they prefer freedom over Saddam’s tyranny. They have defied mass-murder and mayhem, terror and torture, to vote. In 2005 alone, they held three nationwide elections, including elections for the interim government, a referendum on the constitution and elections for the constitutional government. And they earned back their sovereignty far sooner than postwar Japan or Germany. Nor, according to FP, has the U.S. military won in Iraq. But it pays to recall that U.S. forces took down Saddam’s beastly regime in 21 days and replaced it with a pro-Western, popularly-supported government. That government, quite unlike virtually all of its neighbors, operates under the rule of law, as prescribed by the most progressive constitution in the Muslim or Arab world. As Iraqi President Jalal Talabani has observed, U.S. troops are preventing “a renewed civil war—renewed because there has already been a civil war in Iraq. For 35 years, Saddam and his Baath Party made war on the Iraqi people. The liberation of Iraq ended that civil war.” Nor, according to FP, did the American people win in Iraq, though the vignette on Israel concedes there are some side-benefits to ousting Saddam’s thugocracy. “There’s no telling how far Qaddafi would have taken the [WMD] program, or whether he would have ever attacked the Jewish state with nuclear materials. Thanks to the use of force against Qaddafi’s Iraqi counterpart, Israelis will never have to find out.” Indeed, we should never forget that Libya’s preemptive surrender of its WMD arsenal in late 2003 came after Saddam’s capture. In addition, if we consider what dispassionate men like Charles Duelfer and David Kay have concluded, the American people are indeed safer now that Saddam Hussein is no longer in control of a regime with the proven capacity to build and deploy WMDs—and a clear intention to rebuild and redeploy those weapons as soon as the world lost interest. Nor did FP’s Top Ten offer any asterisks about al Qaeda’s Musab Zarqawi, who once conceded, “Our field of movement is shrinking and the grip around the Mujahidin has begun to tighten…Our enemy is growing stronger by the day…This is suffocation.” If as most war critics constantly say, Iraq is gripped not by foreign jihadists but by sectarian war, then al Qaeda is not the problem in Iraq. (Tell that to Zarqawi’s thousands of victims.) In truth, jihadists of all stripes are being drawn to Iraq like moths to a light. That is not all bad for America. After all, the enemy is neither omnipotent nor omnipresent; he must pick his battles. As historian Paul Johnson has observed, “America obliged the leaders of international terrorism to concentrate all their efforts on preventing democracy from emerging in Iraq.” Fresh from Iraq, Gen. Barry McCaffrey reports that the U.S. has killed 20,000 armed fighters in Iraq and arrested 120,000. In other words, the enemy is fighting and dying over there rather than over here, as the U.S. continues what American troops call their “away game.” Zarqawi was once the most dangerous man in Iraq. He is now dead. As for al-Sadr, the Shiite leader may or may not be the most powerful man in Iraq. After all, he fled to Iran ahead of the U.S.-Iraqi surge. And as of this writing, he still has not shown his face in Iraq. Nor did FP’s list of winners note that Old Europe’s (and the UN’s) way of dealing with what the UN Charter calls “threats to the peace” is failing in Iran—again—just as it failed in Saddam’s Iraq and the Taliban’s Afghanistan, in Srebrenica and Mogadishu, in Rwanda and Darfur. For two years now, the UN and its agencies have been warning Tehran about warnings. It calls to mind the 16 UN resolutions Saddam’s Iraq flouted, punctuated by Resolution 1441, a resolution that took eight weeks to approve and basically demanded that Iraq comply with existing resolutions. Once it passed, half the Security Council refused to enforce it. Winston Churchill, a founding father of the UN, worried about such mischief at the UN. “We must make sure that its work is fruitful,” he warned in 1946, “that it is a reality and not a sham, that it is a force for action and not merely a frothing of words.” More than six decades later, we still haven’t succeeded. Speaking of Iran, it may not be the “winner” in Iraq for long. From their proxy wars in Iraq and lower Lebanon, to their nuclear brinkmanship with the U.S. and EU, to their hostage-taking in Iraqi waters, couldn’t the mullahs that run Iran be overplaying their hand? After all, Iran is surrounded by religious and ethnic and political adversaries. In fact, some critics of Washington’s hard-line policy with Iran point to these very realities to rationalize or justify Tehran’s misconduct. At some point, the U.S. and its allies will leverage these realities—the restive populace and distrustful neighbors, the exposed flanks and front, the numerous entry points for invasion or destabilization, the countless air corridors—to remind Iran who really holds the cards. The mullahs could end up controlling the Sadr City slums and a mayor’s office in Basra—and losing everything inside Iran. Indeed, it pays to recall that less than two years ago, as the Purple Thumb Revolution in Iraq gave way to the Cedar Revolution in nearby Lebanon, many in the foreign-policy establishment were talking about the “autumn of autocrats” and raising their eyebrows (and scratching their heads) over the dramatic changes unleashed by Washington’s post-9/11 words and wars. Two years before that, as the statues came tumbling down in Baghdad, more than a few cynics declared, “We’re all neocons now.” In other words, tomorrow’s geopolitical landscape may not resemble today’s. Things are never quite as good or bad as the first drafters of history claim. The editors of FP should know this. After all, on the very same webpage that FP hails all the “winners” of the Iraq war, we find a smirking critique of predictions that never came to pass—in the 1960s, it was the existential threat of overpopulation; in the 1970s, it was global cooling; in the 1980s, the ascendance of Japan and decline of America. In a few years, perhaps we will add the March/April issue of Foreign Policy to that list. |
From a strict Boy-'n'-Party standpoint, the neocomrade is more than a bit out of step, I fear. He pays almost no attention at all to what the empowered Crawfordites have been up to lately. Why, he mentions the ever-glorious Surge of '07™ itself only in conjunction with the Reverend al-Sadr, and then goes on himself to grant that "renegade firebrand cleric" East Baghdad and Basra! That is not exactly the product the good folks down at the ranch are marketing at the moment.
To be sure, the particular Hambakerite gentry at Foreign Policy magazine do not seem to have a very adequate grasp of native politics either, not if they seriously account the Qommies and Master Muqtadá the two big winners (to date) from the Kiddie Krusade. Mr. Huntin'ton of Harvard does not belong in such company at all, and must appear only due to some individual's extreme allergy to Yankee Clashism. China is almost equally unexpected, although more the right sort of candidate for mention by ISG and CFR. Perhaps it would be wisest to assume that China does belong on the list, however, and then wonder exactly what it is a list of. The real underlying question is hardly "Who won in Iraq?, but more like "What should the stumblebums have been thinkin' about instead of what they did think about?"
Neocomrade Dowd prefers to make up his own shorter list under the rubric provided, however: (1) "the Iraqi people," (2) the Pentagon people, and (3) the Tel Aviv statelet.
The last item is a sort of pivot, since TA comes in last on the gentry's list also. What Zionists and Hyperzionists themselves make of the bushogenic quagmire is rather a different question, though, and I am not sure that they account themselves any sort of winners at all. To the extent that they do, I presume it will be because they think it helpful to have Uncle Sam bogged down in their immediate vicinity. But that must be a mixed blessing at best, as compared with paleface invasionites being present in "their" region without being bogged down in it as well. A semi-withdrawal of GOP-sponsored forces to Free Kurdistan and Kuwait and aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean and the Gulf of Petroleum would seem more eligible from that specialized point of view. Consider the interactions with the neocomrade's other alleged winners: the bogging down of the Pentagon people over in Peaceful Freedumbia can not be a good thing for the Jewish State, as far as I can make out. Not only are those particular forces useless and unavailable, the credibility of Amazing Force itself is rather brought into question, as if there were not problems enough about it after last summer's tangle with the Lebanese God Party. Jewish statists could draw the comforting conclusion that nowadays the defensive is far, far stronger than the aggressive, a view that seems sound and warrantable to me, but as far as I know, they do not in fact so conclude. On the other hand, perhaps my views about Mil. Sci. are quite wrong and they do well to think otherwise at Tel Aviv. God knows best.
As to creating or not creating the happiness of "the Iraqi people," what is that to Zion? Clearly poor M. al-Málikí's neo-régime is unlikely to attack Israel (or anybody else) in the foreseeable future, which is a plus to the extent that Saddám's régime might have done so. That extent, however, is indistinguishable from zero. Perhaps Tel Aviv really ought to be attached to the neocomrade's "most progressive constitution in the Muslim or Arab world," which certainly guarantees that the Green Zone quasigovernment is going to remain weak and divided and harmless to outsiders for a long time to come. Assuming that the neo-liberated Iraqis abide by what Khalílzád Pasha has imposed upon them, that is, which is to assume quite a lot. Again, the net value looks much like zero to me. What Qadimans and Likudniki logically ought to want is that the former "Iraq" should now be ruled by some facsimile of Gen. Mubárak, a strongman -- strong only at home, of course -- determined not to make trouble for Tel Aviv no matter how much unhappiness that plan may create amongst his own subjects. No such paragon is in sight, however, so probably a disemboggled paleface presence is the best product on offer. Better even than the current status quo, although the latter is not so very dreadful either, as far as dreading neo-Iraq goes.
Iran is another question. Still, what Zionists and Hyperzionists dread about the evil Qommies has very little to do with their influence inside Peaceful Freedumbia. As far as I am aware, nobody has been dotty enough to suggest that Iran's interests in matters nuclear is entirely a consequence of Republican Party adventurism. If the Ba‘thí Beast were still in power, that other affair would probably be in much the same state as it actually is. Perhaps the Beast himself would have been scared of the Safavids acquiring WMD, certainly he would have special reasons of his own to worry about that prospect, having done rather more actual damage to them than Jewish statists ever did. Would he have been sufficiently terrorized to throw himself unconditionally into the welcoming arms of Crawford and Tel Aviv, though? Few Harry Turtledove scenarios seem less likely than that one. For a third time, one adds the numbers up and the total comes out pretty much zero.
Suppose we address the question directly, Mr. Bones, regardless of foreign-policy gentry and sub-par neocomrades and Qadimans and Likudniks: do you think it makes much sense to claim that the evil Qommies are big winners from the Kiddie Krusade? I should say it does not. Getting rid of the Sunni Ascendancy in the former "Iraq" is bound to strike them as an excellent idea, but that is a different matter from it constituting a substantive triumph in the Great Game. From a strictly realpolitisch point of view, they were probably better off with Saddám as an enemy rather than with poor M. al-Málikí as a friend and consectarian and potential client. Even if the quasipremier and the U.I.A. caucus could somehow excape being actual clients of the Crawfordite extremists, their geopolitical cash value to Iran would not be great. It is not only Master Muqtadá who stands in the way of the Safavids making neo-Iraq into a protectorate of their own and a signal victory for veláyat-e faqíh, because ‘Alí Cardinal al-Sístání himself is equally opposed to any project of that sort. The present state of Uncle Sam's neo-Iraqi subjects cannot look much better from Tehran than it does from Crawford, it no more implies an ecclesiastical-political success for the former than "freedom means peace" has worked out in practice to the Party advantage of the latter. Both Qommies and neocomrades have some right to feel a certain sentimental or ideological gratification, and that for exactly the same reason, namely that aggression-based "democracy" in neo-Iraq remains, for the moment at least, a majoritarian racket. That mischievement remains precarious, however, and even if it were not, neither cowpoker vigilantes nor mad mullahs can draw too much satisfaction from it, considering all the other pertinent circumstances. If the eventual fate of neo-Iraq were all that Qom or Crawford cared about, the situation would be entirely different. That fate is closer to the top of Iran's agenda than to that of the militant GOP, obviously, but naturally the executors of a Sole Remaining Hyperpower have far more problems to worry about, so here again we may sum up the effective differences and get about zero.
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Neocomrade A. W. Dowd appears to expect that gross escalation will do the trick for good ol' Crawford at the eleventh hour, so he takes his own crew on that account to "really hold the cards." Well, we'll see. The ISG/CFR gentry are not going to come along for a Walkürenritt to Tehran. If that is really where the stumblebums are headed next, they have nothing left to lose by badmouthin' the Hambakers. If they're less unreality-based than that down at the ranch, however, as I'd guess they are, they ought to be seekin' an accommodation with the unpartisan gentry now so as to avoid the rush later. Even with preparations for a (seeming) GOP-CFR alliance made carefully and secretly well in advance of the actual transition point, "responsible" nonwithdrawal is likely to be a tough sell. If worst comes to worst, from the Wingnut City perspective, and we donkeys nominate the next POTUS, the aggression faction will be in deepest doo-doo. Since almost all of the GOP geniuses sincerely believe in their own Kiddie Krusade product, shoddy though others may account it, they would undoubtedly then try to begin from scratch with "President Clinton" or whomever. By that point it may well be five minutes past midnight in any case, but on the off-chance that it isn't, it would be extreme helpful for the disempowered invasionites to have the CFR around both to intervene with an infidel White House and to give it least some semblance of comouflage against the charge that it is treating the voters to a complete U-turn away from the promised direction. For that purpose it would be just as well not to insult them now.
As to what the cowpokers themselves are actually doin', I suppose the best guess would fall somewhere in between and be that they are plannin' neither to aggress against the evil Qommies in one direction nor to make nice with the Hambakerites in the other. Most likely it's the same old Mr. Micawber with them as ever, they will just sit around the bunkhouse and wait for something good to come of the Surge of '07™, with no particular Plan B to rescue responsible nonwithdrawal from Peaceful Freedumbia seriously in mind until it becomes quite clear that that won't happen. The point ought to be clear already, because even if The Surge does everything that the Bani Kagan originally assured them it will, that won't be enough, but these are militant Republican Party gland-basers we speak of, so it would be unreasonable to expect them to suddenly stop bein' flabbergasted and left clueless by whatever comes next, no matter how plain it loomed in advance. Crawfordology is far from an exact science, to be sure, and past performance may not altogether guarantee future results even with this crew. That, nevertheless, is the best way to bet, it seems to me.
The only very faint indication that Boy and Party may have not have consigned their bacon to Dr. Gen. Petraeus of Princeton lock, stock and barrel was that curious flap about appointment of an Occupation Czar. Obviously that was only yet another stumble in one sense, since they couldn't find anybody who cared to volunteer to be a fifth wheel on the chariot of Juggernaut. Considered from another angle, it might even seem inconsistent with the public campaign against Sen. Reid and Speaker Pelosi for declining to write any blank checks payable to Dr. Gen. P. for the Crawfordites themselves to suggest that their hero and prospective savior might perhaps be insufficiently supervised. They cannot have intended to produce that impression, but it's a puzzle what they were aimin' at. In any case, though, to install an Occupation Czar here and now would have no obvious connection with preparation of Plans B, C, D, .. Z for salvage of the neo-Iraqi occupation itself a bit farther down the road. The most likely explanation is that no one individual invasionite has succeeded to the plenitude of Khalílzád Pasha's powers. I.e., this stumble was probably a mere matter of internal disarray and no distinct change of direction.
Neocomrade D. Petraeus may be a bit miffed that the chickenhawks in charge did not anoint him as Occupation Czar. They could certainly do far worse, and that approach would have been rather less at odds with tradition and the Constitution. To judge from a recent performance on PBS, Dr. Gen. P. understands pretty well that there is a stiff marketing challenge coming up that the invasionites ought to be prepared for. I presume he would recommend trying to sell the responsible nonwithdrawal product to the CFR/ISG gentry as well as to Televisionland and the electorate -- which is not at all to imply that he supposes the Surge of '07™ product is doomed to failure, but only that it will be inadequate even though it "works." However, the alternative theory of Petraeus -- that it would suffice to save the honour of the violence profession for it to emerge from the bushogenic quagmire with a remedy for "insurgency" that is guaranteed to work next time, when it can be applied consistently from the beginning, even though it is already too late to save the patient closest at hand -- is also not without plausibility. Dr. Gen. P. need not really make any choice, in fact: if the new wonder drug works perfectly only next time, that's good, and if it works instantly also, why, that's even better. In any case I should expect him to try to persuade the unpartisan foreign-policy gentry of the merits of his stuff and want nothing to do with Neocomrade A. W. Dowd's more exciting vistas of Shock 'n' Awe. How could anybody with a West Point education slobber over the Safavids' "restive populace and distrustful neighbors, the exposed flanks and front, the numerous entry points for invasion or destabilization, the countless air corridors" before the neo-Iraqi occupation is wound up? Two-hundred-proof chickenhawk civvie moonshine, that would be.
So then, "Freedom Means Nonwithdrawal" would make a suitable bumpersticker for the GOP-CFR collaboration to come, with both parties to the collaboration aware that nonwithdrawal is one thing, and termination of the occupation a different thing. As far as I can see, that approach should do equally well whether Big Management proposes to attack Iran next or do their utmost to avoid it. Freedom to bigmanage being, after all, the only freedom truly worthy of the name, what's to be said against nonwithdrawal combined with nonoccupation, except by a handful of cranks who object on what they are pleased to call "principle" when it comes to marching into other people's countries and doing what needs to be done?
Congress and Televisionland and the electorate may require some serious persuasion to accept nonoccupation-plus-nonwithdrawal as regards neo-Iraq at this late date, but I should not say that they "object" to it, exactly, for that verb implies certain elements of reasoned discourse that do not appear to be present, by and large. Many Americans will not like the idea of their Uncle Sam not ever really getting out of Peaceful Freedumbia at all, but that is mere sentiment, not cogent objection. As we noted at the outset, the mob knows nothing important about how to handle foreigners.
It will help the GOP-CFR collaborators considerably, I believe, if in addition to combining nonoccupation with nonwithdrawal, they try to lower the whole quagmire's public profile as much as possible. If the mob doesn't even notice what is happening, they can't emote against it, let alone object to it. The CFR gentry do not need to be given such advice, they know it well enough already. The Boy-'n'-Party crew, however, have shown a deplorable tendency to announce all of their stumbles in advance with drums and trumpets, and that may prove their undoing yet. They didn't learn this showboat style at the Harvard Victory School whilst acquirin' their MBA's, I trust, for what kind of Big Management is it that calls attention to its own boo-boos, or gives its managees any cause to suspect that managees is precisely what they are? The freedom of the bigmanager -- that alone True Freedom! -- must repose itself upon the ignorance, or at very least upon the indifference, of her bigmanagees. Republican Party extremists understand that basic point well enough in the holy Private Sector, most of the time, but for some reason they often forget about it when they take to politics. Perhaps they feel a need to recoup in glory what they lose in salary and perks and golden handshakes? Whatever the cause, they'd do much better to knock it off immediately.
"Softly, softly, catchee monkey!"
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