... [T]here was news lurking in an answer Col. Bannister gave to a question from AP reporter Pauline Jelinek (about arming volunteer local citizens to patrol their neighborhoods), even if it passed unnoticed. The colonel made a remarkable reference to an unexplained "five-year plan" that, he indicated, was guiding his actions. Here was his answer in full:
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It is pleasant to observe that practitioners of Soc. Sci. can still deign to take an interest in the minor articles of the former humanism on occasion, even merely morphological ones. Perhaps PowerPoint has not yet rotted their brains after all, then, or rotted only Mr. Anthony Cordesman's? Nevertheless, when children play with new or unfamiliar toys, mistakes happen, and Schwartz of Stony Brook seems to be the locus of such a misfortune. He even manages to fall off both sides of the anti-aggression horse simultaneously: (1) If he actually required this degree of HaroldBloomoid strongreading to work out that the militant extremist GOP have no intention whatever of relinquishin’ their grip on the former Iraq, our scientizer is perfectly capable of overlooking his own spectacles perched atop his nose.
But then (2), once supplied with that all-but-invisible scintilla of evidence from the lips of Big Party neocomrade J. Bannister, Dr. Schwartz erects vast and foundationless castles of swamp gas. All he knows for sure is that the neocomrade colonel had in mind somebody's Five Year Plan that he refers to in mumbles that also contain the words "we" and "our." Who the Godzilla is "we" in the mouth of a mouthpiece like J. Bannister? WHOSE plan is it? Rancho Crawford's plan? The official GOP's plan? DOD's plan ? Is it a plan of the Ever-Victorious Neorégime of poor M. al-Málikí?
The list of candidates could be extended considerably if one assumes that when Neocomrade Jeff stuck in that "you know" he was merely mumblin’, not actually alludin’ to specific Party or Pentagon secrets already familiar to his select audience. The rest of the transcript makes this hypothesis seem probable to me, and after examination of it, my estimate of Stony Brook Schwartz is not enhanced by finding that he did not "quote in full." So allow me:
| COL. KECK: Pauline? Q Pauline Jelinek of the Associated Press. Sir, can you tell us about use of concerned local citizens in your area, what numbers you have them in, how formal your agreements are or arrangements are with them, what they do for you? COL. BANNISTER: Sure. That's a good question now. And I'll have to frame it for you. It's a little different on east Baghdad than it is in west Baghdad. And the reason it's different is because west Baghdad has al Qaeda. East Baghdad we have, you know, more of a militia threat, and the al Qaeda comes into east Baghdad in the form of a VBIED [PowerPointesque for "car bomb"] and -- because that's what they go after, the VBIEDs, is the population centers where the Shi'a are located. So you got to consider -- (audio break) -- no al Qaeda. So do we have a requirement that -- to where we need concerned local citizens as much as the west side, because you also have to remember they have a police gap on the west side, where they don't have as many Iraqi local police. So we're building capacity here in MND-B [Party Chinese for "Crawford-controlled troops at New Baghdád"], 12,000, you know, police, and the preponderance of them are going to go on the west side. In my area, I've -- I have 1,300 that I have hired, and we're going to fill a class in March with concerned local citizens that we have hired to become IPs. ["Iraqi policemen"(?)] And what we've done is, we've broken them down. I have six coalition force battalions equally partnered with Iraqi battalions, and each one of them have a piece of these IPs to get them ready for this March class. And we've applied them in areas where we think that there's a -- you know, a security -- where we could use an increase in security. But they come from the local area, and they work in the local area. And they're partnered up with the coalition and the Iraqi security forces in those areas. So it's just not as large on the east side as it is the west. Now what we're hoping is -- and they're working on this with the Iraqis right now -- is, we can grow it to where we put them to working the essential services jobs, and so they don't have to carry a weapon and be an IP at the end of this; they can become, you know, part of the aminat or the beladiyas and work for the government of Iraq in another capacity. So that's being discussed as well. And I think that program will be huge on the east side, kind of like the IP -- you know, more of the concerned local citizens and Iraqi security volunteers that they have on the west side. So it's a little different. I hope that answers your question. Q Yes, except for one thing. They're largely Shi'a? Can you give us a sense of who they are? COL. BANNISTER: Could you say again? I didn't hear you. I'm sorry. Q (Off mike) -- mostly Shi'a? COL. KECK: Say it one more time. COL. BANNISTER: That's a good -- that's good. I can break that out. Right now we have -- you know, as coalition forces, our oversight responsibility on this is to make sure they represent the population of the areas they come from. So we have an area along the sectarian fault line, which is al-Fadel, Abu Seifein (sp) and Qenbar Ali (sp). And it is right on the fault line, and it sits near Adhamiya. So we have Sunni that work in the Sunni mahalas, up in al-Fadel; we have Abu Seifein (sp) that has Shi'a. The preponderance of our other areas, they have representation of the mahalas that they're going to be assisting in. And so there is Sunniat (ph). I will tell you that some are 70-30 Shi'a percentage-wise, but we have some that are 70 -- in one of my areas, Zayuna, it's 70 percent Shi'a, 30 percent -- I mean it's 70 percent Sunni, 30 percent Shi'a. So they represent the area they come from. Q And just an example or two of what they will be doing after the classes? COL. BANNISTER: Oh, yeah. Well, they're already doing it. I mean, they will guard schools, they will guard mosques, they will be on checkpoints in a combined fashion with the security forces. We will not put them on checkpoints by themselves. So they're going to augment existing security. And I'll tell you where we're really going to -- where this is really helping at, especially in al-Fadel, is the intelligence that comes from them, because they're from those mahalas and they are a voice for the people because the people help elect them. So I see this as -- you know, there's all goodness, not only to help with security but really to -- because our Iraqi security forces, they don't come from the mahalas that they're in. I mean, I have a Fallujah-based, a very capable Iraqi army brigade. So, you know, having volunteers from the mahalas working hand in hand with them is all goodness. It really gives them a better read on the people and the threats that are in those mahalas. Q When you said they'd be working in another capacity, I thought you meant something like services or -- they are still doing security? COL. BANNISTER: Yeah. Yeah, that is -- that isn't what (above me ?) is doing right now. They're working hand in hand with the government of Iraq to help build capacity for the aminat and the beladiyas. So an idea that they're working hand-in-hand with them on is how to grow the workers for the aminat, which is municipalities, and the ministry, the beladiyas, where they have more capacity to be able to push out essential services into the mahalas, as well as, you know, it gives them a job. I mean, right now we're focused just on security augmentation and growing them to be Iraqi police because that is where the gap is that we're trying to help fill capacity for in the Iraqi security forces. The army and the national police, I mean, they're fine. The Iraqi police is -- you know, the five-year plan has -- you know, it's doubling in size. (Short audio break) -- 4,000 Iraqi police on our side over the five-year plan. So that's kind of what we're doing. We're helping on security now, growing them into IP. They'll have 650 slots that I fill in March, and over the five-year period we'll grow up to another 2,500 or 3,500. COL. KECK: Andrew? |
Let's start over, Mr. Bones.
That is an interesting specimen of the Invasionite Mind in action, no doubt about it. ’Tis rather a pity that Stony Brook Schwartz failed to be interested by most of it. No doubt he must have wanted to rush off to announce to universal dovedom that the aggressor Busheviki, like the former Bolsheviks, now go in for Five Year Plans. A cheap shot, of course, although fun as far as it goes. Alas, the professor doctor was in too much of a hurry to extract the "all goodness" from his lucky find, as neocomrade Jeff would presumably mutter.[1]
The señorito colonel itself seems to have no very definite plans past "650 slots that I fill in March," -- that being almost certainly March of 2008, four or five months hence. There is no way to tell which month of the Five Year Plan that will be, for we have no more information about when it was adopted than about who adopted it. Well, perhaps we may follow Sidney Smith and be content with taking short views, "not past tea time," for the Harvard Victory School MBA classes have never yet been very reliable in their spread-sheetin’s more than a few months out.[2] The last fifty of Big Party Management's projected sixty months are probably to be classified as science fiction, come what may.
Neocomrade Col. Jeff was nominally answerin’ the Associated Press lady's questions about the past and present, after all. As always in dealings with the Baní Rove, whether pros or amateurs, one would do well to remember exactly what was asked before the Party perps got a chance to wander off in the direction of "And I'll have to frame it for you." So, then:
| Sir, can you tell us [1] about use of concerned local citizens in your area, [2] what numbers you have them in, [3] how formal your agreements are or arrangements are with them, [4] what they do for you? |
Neocomrade K. Rove might account Master Bannister's performance unsatisfactory, quite apart from any supposed scandalous revelation of Five Year Plans. He tells the lady that he has "hired" thirteen hundred MND-B capacity persons, the number as plain as day, although the nature of the things numbered remains well shrouded. A curious class of hired things they appear to be, since we learn elsewhere that "they represent the area they come from" and even -- flabbergastingly -- that "they are a voice for the people because the people help elect them." That is not at all the customary formal arrangement when Daddy Warbucks "hires" an employee for his favorite business corporation. If we assume that the señorito colonel is bein’ strictly truthful, it looks as if his "hires" means little more than that he pays those MND-B capacity persons their wages. It is "the people" -- the militant GOP's subjects in its semiconquered Mesopotamian provinces! -- who conduct the job interviews. Or so we are told.
One can appreciate why Ms. Jelinek was invited to attend this particular séance: having been told that, she does not bat an eye or ask a follow-up question about what "hired" means or anything else about formal agreements, she does not pursue any of her four original questions, she only raises a new and different fifth business, "They're largely Shi'a? Can you give us a sense of who they are?"
That's interesting also, of course. Quidquid recipitur, recipitur ad modum recipientis. It seems that the AP is distinctly interested in Sunnís and Shí‘a, rather more in that than in subtleties about "I hired" and "they represent" and "the people elect." The only story I recall encountering that went into any practical detail about the great Bribe-A-Tribe™ scheme of Dr. Gen. Petrolaeus and Party Proconsul Crockerius actually works appeared in the Wall Street Jingo. Well, naturally the slaves of Murdoch would take an interest in cash flow trajectories. Anybody could predict that.
The most interesting thing that Neocomrade Jeff let slip had nothin’ to do with Five Year Plans for the perpetual occupation of Peaceful Freedumbia, but once again with the implications of "I hired." Ms. Jelinek was not struck by it, and neither was Stony Brook Schwartz, but me, I'm fascinated by "where this is really helping at, especially in al-Fadel, is the intelligence that comes from them." Ordinarly one thinks of policemen as hiring informers. In the bushogenic quagmire things are done differently. According to Big Party neocomrade Col. Jeffrey Bannister, who certainly ought to know, his IPs were hired to be informers -- insofar as that capacity comports with popular election and neighborhood representation, anyway.
Ms. Jelinek and the AP were handed more Crawfordological data than the most optimistic reporter could reasonably expect to extract from what seems to have been a routine Five O'Clock Follies. It seems unlikely that they have passed it on to their customers, although I shall certainly check on that. The Soc. Sci. of Stony Brook did not even notice it. Presumably it would require an exponent of Pol. Sci. to want to look into a situation where a theocommunity under alien occupation does not often drop dimes to the authorities directly, yet where the latter can hire themselves intelligence sources under the rubric of "policemen."
Once you discern that Big Picture through Col. Jeff's mumbles, you'll agree that it makes excellent sense for him to add "We will not put them on checkpoints by themselves. So they're going to augment existing security." Fancy a checkpoint manned by stool pigeons! Not even GOP geniuses are likely to fall into that sand trap.
(But God knows best what they are up to.)
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[1] Which planet of the Wingnut Cluster is it where everybody talks all funniness like Master Jeff does?
[2] I speak of their public-sectorian spreadsheetin’s only, of course, not being privy to any of the HVS future case studies, which must -- hopefully! -- be a little less inaccurate.
Let those who have paid the tuition worry about the quality assurance, however.
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