The Watan united can never be defeated!

For one brief shining moment there, right after poor M. al-Málikí suddenly unleashed his inner Hannibal, the gentry at Mu’ámara Junction were almost tolerable. Naturally that state of affairs was too good to last, and one finds Ms. Lynx and Mister Badger and Doctor Iconoclastes reopened for ideobusiness after a brief discombobulation by the Sadrist strike:

... whether you think it was Washington that pulled the trigger on this, or whether you think it was Tehran, from both points of view a key irritant was the fact that Sadr was forming agreements with Sunni entities. Washington has always favored the crypto-separatist [0] Kurdish parties in the north, and the "federalist" Dawa-SupremeCouncil pair in the south, and the clear implication has always been is that Washington doesn't like the Iraqi-nationalist leanings of Sadr and those he has been dealing with on the Sunni side (including or course the demand for American withdrawal). What this Kuwaiti writer says is that those cross-sect moves by Sadr were a major irritant to Tehran too. This doesn't really help us figure out which side pulled the trigger, or whether it was a jointly-agreed thing to do, but it does help underline the importance of the cross-sect nationalist character of Sadrist thinking, as something displeasing to both Tehran and to Washington--which is the most important depending on where you sit.

For a little comic relief before proceeding ever upwards along the Sunninterní Path, here’s one customer of the mu’ámariyya who understands these things a little differently, a little even-more-so than the factionalists of MJ:

Kevin said... Now you are getting on the right track. This is an Iranian operation, probably Quds Force operatives are embedded into Iraqi Army units. It surprised me how blind Americans were to Iraq. I read over and over on the left leaning sites who Cheney and Bush are all-powerful and ordered this attack against Sadr. The sad truth is that the US lost Iraq long ago to Iran and now it's the Persians calling the shots. Remember the President of Iran just made a visit there a few weeks ago. He would have approved the attack on that occasion.

(( Could Master Kevin be some sort of Sinn Fein artist, a left-over Fenian or Provo? Or is it/he only a false name to throw everybody else off that "right track," so as to have it all for oneself? Ah, well, that " doesn't really help us figure out," does it, Mr. Bones? And now, enough of ‘Kevin’! ))


Characteristically mu’ámarí is the total neglect or oblivion of the possibility that either poor M. al-Málikí, or the Rev. Señorito as-Sadr, or devilish "rogue elements" affiliated to the one or the other, might have pulled the trigger. Those are silly ideas unacceptable in gentry circles, where if it wasnt't the Bushies, it was the Qommies, and if it wasn't the Qommies, it must have been the Bushies. Though they might (a-HA!) have been workin’ together, the Bushies and the Qommies, that is.

But keep your eye on the ball, Mr. Bones, or rather on The Key: "Sadr was forming agreements with Sunni entities ... the Iraqi-nationalist leanings of Sadr and those he has been dealing with on the Sunni side (including or course the demand for American withdrawal)." "Entities" is a bit vague and misty, but one sees why the ideologue lapses into that rather than frankly admit how many pieces her Humpty-Dumpty has gone smash into. "This Kuwaiti writer" attaches great importance to cloakroom wheeling and dealing at the Council of Deputies:

Sadr became stronger and stronger, and formed individual agreements with "enemy" blocs including the Iraqi Accord Front (Sunni) and the Dialogue Front led by Saleh al-Mutlak. And most seriously of all, the discussions that joined the Sadrists with their old enemy Iyad Allawi.

With entities like that, who needs friends or enemies?

"Paper will stand anything," and video monitors are not bad either. M. Sarmad at-Tá’í [2] of Kuwait City considers that the Renegade Firebrand Cleric™ has been moving from strength to strength of late. An odd judgment, but of course he’s entitled to his opinion -- it’s still a free country, innit? M. at-Tá’í has even odder notions about the Trigger Question, although I can't quite make out whether Dr. al-‘Alláwí pulled the trigger or simply was the trigger with which the Firebrand Renegade Cleric™ shot himself, accidentally or suicidally.

The MJ ideogentry distance themselves a little from M. at-Tá’í: he "raised the whole attack-on-Sadr question in a somewhat different light from what we're used to reading (including here)." On the other hand, the following is summatorialized from the Free Kuwait journalist as if the customer is expected to accept it:

After the Feb 2006 bombing of the golden dome temple in Samarra, in the dark and ugly period of organized sectarian killings, the other Shiite factions encouraged Sadr to take the lead, providing him with "political cover" and with practical items like police cars for travelling around Baghdad during the curfews, and so on. Sadr emerged stronger organizationally, and expected that his organization would be given greater importance politically too. This led to the series of political moves, eventually pulling his organization out of the so-called United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), which was supposed to represent the united Shiite front. And in this they were followed by the Fadhila party.

Both police cars and parties of Islamic virtue are undeniably to be classified as entities, Mr. Bones. You certainly can’t deny that! (It looks like the former Iraq is overrun with the goddamn entity things.)

M. at-Tá’í's, or Ms. Lynx's, "political cover" I am not so sure about, in that a thing must exist in order to be a proper "entity." (Isn't that right?) What was it that the Clerical Firebrand Renegade™ needed to conceal and that the schizomaniac fiends of the Supreme Council and Da‘wa were, for a season, willing to help him cover up? Only that Master Muqtadae is soft on Sunnis? Possibly M. at-Tá’í is not as foolish as association with the vicarious chauvinism of Mu’ámara Junction makes one suspect. He may even understand that the heretics can not count for sixty percent of the population of ex-Iraq in any political sense unless they hang together. However the only "political cover" in sight in that direction would be the Gogolian overcoat of ‘Alí Cardinal as-Sístání (bhsp).

Still, M. at-Tá’í cannot be really good at political analysis if he supposes the Renegade Clerical Firebrand™ to have grown in strength by withdrawing from the Twelver Caucus in order to join that mere nonentity of a Patriot Opposition that overthrew poor M. al-Málikí, and forced the extremist Republican Party to withdraw all its troops, and saved the beloved watan from a partition worse than death, and all the rest of those splendid things that somehow never actually happened. (Thanks to the Konstitution of N. Feldman and Z. Khalílzád, the former Iraq is overrun by Bagehot-worthy nonentities of the "dignified" sort as well as by police cruisers and Virtutite political hacks.) [3]

_____
Some of the internal contradictions [4] of the chauvinist MJ gentry are revealed by the basic facts of the moment, quite apart from elaborate conspiratorialist elucidations of them. In particular, the TwentyPercenters and the Sunní International (plus our Ms. Lynx, and Mr. Badger, and Dr. Iconoclastes) are not going to lift a finger to assist the Sadr Tendency in any useful way. Perhaps they will shed a crocodile tear or two when it's all over and Godzilla wins, but that is about it. However they will presumably never admit that they could not have lifted a finger even if they had wanted to, nor will they frankly acknowledge that the former Iraq has been what Max Weber called "routinized," reduced to the same sort of normalcy as obtains in Gen. Mubárak's Egypt and the rest of the Greater Levant, Lebanon and the Islamic Republic to some extent excepted. "The Watan united can never be defeated!" will continue to resound from their covens and conventicles as if nothing much had happened, and in a sense, nothing much will have happened.

If there ever was a window of opportunity opened by the Big Management Party aggression of March 2003, it will now be slammed shut and firmly locked, and all the furniture in the parlour looks not much the worse for a brief exposure to wind and weather from outdoors. [5]

But God knows best. Happy days.

_____
[0] Crypto-?


[1] If anybody has a used Reichstag fire for sale, she might want to get in touch with the firm of Lynx, Badger, Iconoclastes S.A.


[2] What kind of Christian name is SRMD, for Pete's sake? And how does he vocalize it? Not a hard question!


[3] Poor M. al-Málikí's inner Hannibal has escaped from its cage, no doubt about it, but naturally few, if any, of its doings are at all likely to be Khalílzád-konstitutional. Fortunately nobody worth mentioning in Peaceful Freedumbia, native or invasive, gives a hoot about Rulalaw.


[4] Or mere "difficulties" if Marxish gives offense.


[5] The Invasion-of-the-Month Club will not have triumphed altogether. The evil Qommies and the God Party of Lebanon and the Zeal Party of Gaza will remain. Even the Fatáh of East Palestine might be added to the list of usual suspects, perhaps.

The true correlation of forces is impossible to assess when one's mind is full of bias and cant, whether it be the "Freedom means peace!" cant or "The Watan united can never be defeated!" cant.

"Let's you and him surge"

The latest [1] round of fighting prompted a call from one of America's most respected retired officers, General Jack Keane, for British forces to reconsider their withdrawal from the city. The general, architect of America's "surge" policy in Iraq, has said Britain must do more to fight Iranian-backed gangs in Basra. "The security situation is worsening," he told the BBC's Today programme. "It is a myth to say that this is just a political problem. We must maintain security and stability in Basra and the surrounding provinces, which we do not have today."

"It is a myth to say that this is just a political problem" -- and there's a BINGO! for you, Mr. Bones. [2]

Now if Gen. Jack and fat Freddy K. had planned, or maybe even if Gen. Jack and the braniac Doctor General from West Point and Princeton had executed, the original aggression, the Grand Coalition of AEI and GOP and DOD might have fared far better. You might have thought, sir, that no crew of Hannibal wannabes, no matter how amateurish, could fail to notice that securing the Tigris from Babylon City down to the Gulf of Bitumen is sine quâ non. Even the brainless Brits of 1914-1918 figured that out eventually.

Militant Republican Party extremism managed not to think of the militarily obvious, however, and so we had all those years of Big Party semiconquest and stumblebummin’ in which the armed forces of AEI/GOP/DOD were garrisoned in the parts of the occupied provinces least worth them controllin’. The bozos of Rove may not be back to reality-basin’ even yet, because their Gen. Jack does not command anythin’ more at the moment than some brief attention from Daily Torygraphers.

It is only the Luminiferous Málikí [3] who has demonstrably grasped that he needs Basra the same way St. Abe needed Kentucky in 1861.

Though the neocomrade general's proposed use of brainless Brits as Hessians and Gurkhas charms Paddy and me, the national identity of the Grand Coalition's IED-fodder is not critical for violence-professional purposes. The least repugnant of unforgivable aggression fans, Rear-Colonel Fred Kaplan, discussed the central question Wednesday morning, 25 March 2008:

... look at what is happening. First, the surge is ending this July, not because it has been successful (as Bush has sometimes claimed) but because of simple math. The five extra combat brigades, which were deployed to Iraq with the surge, each have 15-month tours of duty; the 15 months will be up in July; the final brigade will go home; and the U.S. Army and Marines have NO combat brigades ready to replace them. To the extent that the surge has improved life in Baghdad, the end of the surge (the timing of which is inexorable) may make life worse.

After noticing that Bribe-a-Tribe™ is also happenin’, and allegedly runnin’ into difficulties, Kaplan reaches his ‘thirdly’:

Finally, the Shiite militias have resumed attacks in southern Iraq, a sign either that Sadr is losing control over his men or that he himself is backing away from the moratorium. In either case, it's unlikely that many Sunni militias—especially given the training and reinforcements they've received from U.S. armed forces—will stand by as the Shiite militias start fighting again. By the administration's own measures, then, victory in Iraq is not in sight, nor is there much evidence that the road we are treading will lead us toward that destiny.

The last sentence quoted indicates that Colonel Kaplan’s own analysis was conducted from the point of view of the pols rather than that of the violence pros, and more of holy Homeland politics than anything to do with Peaceful Freedumbia. Whether or not victory (or Victory, or ‘victory’) be in sight for Boy and Dynasty and Party and Ideology, Kaplan’s assertions about the available numbers of warm bodies of armed GOP operatives and about inter-Twelver troubles are factual enough. Neocomrade General Keane and poor M. al-Málikí appear to have put the two points together, as Col. Kaplan does not, and drawn the primâ facie obvious conclusion that if Basra is ever to be reconquered for Western Sieve and the Grand Coalition, [3] that had better happen muy pronto, because there will be fewer AEI/GOP/DOD mercs tomorrow than today, and fewer still the day after that.

Though both may be counted amongst the Friends of Freddy Kagan, M. al-Málikí and Citizen Jack do not see altogether eye-to-eye. The latter seems to have leapt to the conclusion that the current level of warm bodies is already inadequate, and therefore he must go try to scrape up some Gurkhas and Hessians on Airstrip One.

The Leader of All Progressive Mesopotamia , unsurprisingly, takes a more cheerful view. It is clear that he hopes to be able to grab control of Basra without requesting any ground troops from his big buddies at Rancho Crawford. It is not at all clear that his hopes are well founded, although of course if that sort of thing were clear in advance, warfare might go out of fashion altogether. The LAPM needs the troops of AEI and GOP and DOD as a safety net, just in case Marvin the ARVN still can’t hack it. It is only common sense to take the shrinkage of one’s safety nets into account and perform the high-wire act while they are larger rather than smaller. [5]

As to the neocomrade general's specific proposal, it seems unlikely that Her Britannic Majesty could loan AEI and GOP and DOD any additional IED fodder even if She wanted to -- which I expect She does not. If the Party perps are ever to conquer the world to the satisfaction of Kristol Minor and Podhóretz Minor, they will certainly have to come up with a cheap and reliable source of (other-ranks) violence pros, but Gen. Jack is lookin’ for that supply in a most unsuitable place. As it seems to me.

____
[1] "Last Updated: 2:53am GMT 27/03/2008"


[2] The neocomrade general has to euphemize a little to make himself understood to the Party of Grant and the Ideology of Sumner. That should not diminish his BINGO! moment.

"Security and stability" will obtain when the paleface invasionites -- whether through indig proxies, or actin’ directly for themselves -- obtain a local monopoly on the effective use of physical force. You and I, Mr. Bones, are free to say "When they finally convert semiconquest to conquest proper." Executive slaves of AEI/GOP/DOD sincerely do not conceive of themselves as bein’ in the conquistador line of work. The hired help, includin’ their respected Gen. Jack, are more prepared to call things by their true names, but naturally there are limits beyond which honesty gets one unhired, or, if unhired already, disrespected and disregarded.


[3] The -ferous part is not present in the original. Indeed, Núrí may go to the same tune as Husní etymologically.

Politically and militarily, the emulation of Pres. Gen. Al Mubárak by the current Leader of All Progressive Mesopotamia promises to be an interesting show. Dr. ‘Alláwí did not pull the strongman trick off back when he was LAPM, but "past performance is no indication of future returns."


[4] In Party Chinese, "If security and stability in Basra and the surrounding provinces are to be maintained, ...."



[5] I wonder what the Proconsular Palace of the Party makes of poor M. al-Málikí's sudden fit of hannibalizing. Neocomrade R. Crocker will doubtless be pleased if the IZ neorégime pulls this caper off, but was he consulted about it in advance? Did he or his betters down at the ranch actually suggest it to the LAPM?

What’s that, Mr. Bones? . . . Well, yes, I do have certain doubts about Rear-Colonel Kaplan's guesses about the Basra caper's background. He cannot be absolutely sure about recent events himself, since he offers alternatives: "the Shiite militias have resumed attacks in southern Iraq, a sign EITHER that Sadr is losing control over his men OR that he himself is backing away from the moratorium." The second guess is close to being a truth universally acknowledged, but one can improve it, I think, by adding that the Rev. Señorito has been backing away from the IZ neorégime much as one backs away from a dog that seems likely to leap at one’s throat any moment: "Nice doggie, good doggie, how about a slice of civil disobedience, Fido?" And then suddenly . . . .

. . . No, sir, even the good colonel’s "have resumed attacks" is not altogether bilge and Party cries. Perhaps he should have said "have resumed counterattacks," but what’s a mere couple of syllables between friends? As I indicated above, Mr. Kaplan of Slate does not object to the March 2003 aggression in principle. As becomes a military correspondant, he manages not to view everything through a trashy Boy-Dynasty-Party-Ideology prism, but he’s got a Pentagon brand prism of his own. Squinted at through that medium, Master Muqtadae is essentially "anti-American," frozen forever in the 2004 act of shooting at armed operatives of AEI and GOP and DOD, give or take a few Marvins from the then Leader of All Progressive Mesopotamia.

Rear-Col. Kaplan wants that particular coonskin nailed to the wall, I am afraid, wants the particular item of unfinished business finished before the extremist Republican Party abandons its Peaceful Freedumbia to the natives thereof. (FK does actually want to get out of the bushogenic quagmire, you see, Mr. Bones, unlike some folks.) Though neither a GOP genius nor a card-carryin’ member of the Big Management Party’s base and vile, Col. Kaplan agrees with neocomrade Gen. Keane that there will be no proper "security and stability in Basra and the surrounding provinces" -- in the former Iraq as a whole -- so long as Muqtadae as-Sadr is walking the streets a free man.

This is all very regrettable, but it calls for a political sort of regret, whereas Citizen Fred’s scribbles are captioned "War stories: Military analysis" by his editors. About the Sadr Tendency as a player in the indig politics of the IZ neorégime, he cares little and knows not much more.

But God knows best.

The Apotheosis of PubDip

Not to keep you in suspense, Mr. Bones, the apotheosis of PubDip turns out to be DigProm. (And why should only former East Germans be permitted to indulge in Parteichinesisch?)

How about this here for same old same-old, sir? First the Imperium Obamense will eschew sloganeering, but, not wishing to be hasty or untraditional, it will then relitter the whole conceptual world with its own cheap phrases:

Obama's foreign-policy ... advisers ... envision a doctrine that first (1) ends the politics of fear and then (2) moves beyond a hollow, sloganeering "democracy promotion" agenda in favor of "dignity promotion," to fix the conditions of misery that breed anti-Americanism and prevent liberty, justice, and prosperity from taking root. An inextricable part of that doctrine is a relentless and thorough destruction of al-Qaeda. Is this hawkish? Is this dovish? It's both and neither -- an overhaul not just of our foreign policy but of how we think about foreign policy. And it might just be the future of American global leadership.

An amateur of new mindsets called Spencer Ackerman vouches for that plot. (Would I make such stuff up, Mr. Bones?) Mr. Ackerman had boomed "IT'S IMPORTANT TO ASK: what, exactly, is the mind-set that led to the war? What will it mean to end it? And what will take its place? To answer these questions, I spoke at length with Obama's foreign-policy brain trust" -- whereupon the next-best and near-brightest answered, saying ....

Actually, one cannot know what the nexts and nearers said before it got filtered through the Sieve of Ackermanides, a process that may not be taint-free. The paraphrase makes it sound as if DemProm had been the faulty mindset regnant at Rancho Crawford in the winter of 2002-03. Cook County is still a long way from salt water, so I suppose it is not impossible that BHO surrounds himself with all thirteen persons in the holy Homeland who actually believe that Boy and Party and Ideology invasionized the former Iraq in order to "promote democracy."

After the Barák-basers grab control, there will definitely be no more of that sentimental nonsense, whether or not there was any beforehand. The LBW of the world, the lesser breeds without, don’t want democracy, and it is therefore the mindset of BHO not to inflict it upon them. Just to be safe, the brave new mindset of BHO will take pains not to appear even to be pretending to impose democracy upon the LBW. [1] Ackermanides does not make clear where his other anaemic and ennervated, but not actually quotation-marked, cliché about "the politics of fear" fits into the audacious and unheard-of mindset of BHO brain-trusties, and I suspect he did not mean us to understand that the LBW now live perpetually looking backwards over their shoulders in dread that Uncle Sam may be pursuing them with a posse of white-coated assistants wielding nets and tridents, determined to drag them back to the Free World Democrat Asylum willy-nilly.

No, by "politics of fear," the TAP clichémonger (or the BHO brain-trusties, or both) more likely referred to the Kiddie Krusade and the Long War against Global Tourism, considered as domestic politics of the holy Homeland -- if the extremist Busheviki can’t lock up whoever they please any time they like, probably Kansas City and Shaker Heights will be nuked by al-Qá‘ida before the end of next month. What the LBW make of that partisan piffle is rather an alarming topic, or could be written up as such, but I am quite sure Ackermanides’ "politics of fear" does not mean that he worries about foreigners worrying that Uncle Sam has become a witless poltroon since about 11 September 2001. Fear of the holy Homeland's GOP-fostered fear of foreigners is not widespread amongst the LBW. Not as widespread as it ought to be, I’d say, but naturally it up to indig pols to fear for themselves.

Fear of getting democracy promoted down their throats is not that big a deal even at places like Cairo and Tel Aviv and al-Riyád and Tehran and Belgrade where it is at least a deal visible on everybody's politoscope. If the brain-trusties of BHO keep their word, and if their senatorito actually makes it to the White House by January 2009, I daresay Gen. Mubárak and M. Ehúd Olmért and the Baní Sa‘úd and the rest of the pack will heave at least a small sigh of relief to be delivered from the Spectre of Democracy. 98% safe from mob rule breaking out is better than 96% safe, no doubt about it. But 96% safe ain’t bad.

I see that I am knocking instead of boosting again, Mr. Bones. Tusk, tusk! Naturally the real significance of the Brave New Mindset of B. Husayn Obáma lies in the anaemic and enervated clichés that it will introduce rather than the ones that it moves on away from. So then, how about De Promotione Dignitatis, "the advancement of worthiness"?

I herald DigProm in an extinct language not only to insinuate its general anaemia and enervation, but because the VC gentry have already passed that way. Those new-mindsetted brain trustees in Chicagoland may congratulate themselves on noticing the potential usefulness of the dignitas humana ploy in a strictly political context and swiping it accordingly, but of course they would be flat out lying if they were to claim to have invented the product in question. [2]

Part of the usefulness of DigProm is that dignitas humana is a cliché that does not reliably mean anything in particular in any known natural language, apart from referring, needless to say, to some sort of Very Good Thing. The Papist ploy has been largely verbal, simply substitute "modern liberalism" as condemned in the Syllabus of 1864 and you will understand what has been inculcated since 1965 well enough. The new-mindset folks of 2008 Chicagoland are not in an exactly parallel fix. It is true that they, too, would like to verbally disassociate themselves from ‘liberalism’ and all its former works and pomps, to prescind from it in word alone and not in deed at all. Yet one can scarcely fail to notice that we donkeys used to be liberals and democrats ourselves, a charge scarcely to be brought against Pio Nono and Pio Duodecimo.

Mr. Ackerman might be pleased to hear that I consider BHO’s brain-trusties to involve a more substantial or material sort of DigProm than that of the VC gentry in the 1960's. He described the matter and substance of it himself, actually: "to fix the conditions of misery that breed anti-Americanism and prevent liberty, justice, and prosperity from taking root." Anybody who remembers what ‘dignity’ used to mean in English before ideological twistifiers took it over can still find that particular brand of factious bilge puzzling when encountered out of the blue. There is a great deal to be said against being poor and sick and enslaved and oppressed rather than rich and healthy and free and oppressive, but no more urgent reason to drag in the word ‘dignity’ to talk about those distinctions of condition than to drag in the word ‘zucchini’. Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus differed as regards all those categories, but nevertheless they conspired together to perpetuate a system of philosophy that centralized dignitas humana in the old-fangle, pre-1965 sense.

"That was then, this is now." Recent models that come equipped with the Brave New Mindset® of BHO want the word ‘dignity’ to mean nonmisery and and liberty and justice and prosperity. Well, OK, sure, who cares, as long as one can make out the underlying meaning? It might be even better if the clichémongers and brain trustees would come out frankly for HapProm, ad promotionem felicitatis beatitudinisque, although conceivably they fear to infringe on Mr. Thomas Jefferson’s patents in that area of rhetorical endeavor. There is also the problem that militant GOP extremism would inevitably disapprove of happiness-buildin’ even more ferociously than it disapproves of nation-buildin’. However a great deal of discourse by people like Ackermanides and the brainiacs of Senator Obáma -- perhaps especially about foreign and aggression policy and in sectarian forums like the American Prospect -- is conducted in an artificial polemical vacuum where the Republicans have been annihilated by magic, so the discouragin’ words that they might say are simply not relevant, leaving most of the day unclouded. [3]

Now Ackermanides and the braniacs may well be on to something here from the PubDip point of view. DigProm (decoded as just explained) clearly beats DemProm, in the sense that the Lesser Breeds Without, who may resent having democracy promoted down their throats, are unlikely to complain if they are stuffed with felicity and beatitude instead. It has to be what they account felicity and beatitude, to be sure, and not some exotic Chicagoland idea of "nonmisery and and liberty and justice and prosperity." But presumably the new mindset crew so understand their dignitas Obamensis. Anyway, we have already noted that there is not much market demand for being sick and poor and enslaved and oppressed. No scheme of imposition can hope to please one hundred percent of its patients, but this one comes as close as human imperfection admits, does it not? [4]

I hope it does not count as knocking rather than boosting, Mr. Bones, to point out that B. Husayn Obáma cannot reasonably expect to impose felicity and beatitude on the LBW perfectly. Not even with the assistance of the American Prospect and "advisers who will craft and implement a new global strategy if he wins the nomination and the general election" can that outcome be guaranteed. A completely flawless dignitas Obamensis will be found only in textbooks and graduate-school seminar rooms.

That’s a very old song [5] indeed, but the beauty of DigProm as PubDip is that Ackermanides and the Braniacs have more or less taken the gloomy old song into account while belting out their own new pop hit. That is to say, they might as well have, they act as if they had consciously plotted what may be in fact an accident. "Thoughts beyond their thoughts to these High Spinsters are given!"

Imperfections must come, but when they do, the LBW will have to acknowledge that BHO & Co. were after all trying to impose the dignitas Obamensis, that is, trying to make sure that the lesser breeds are happy, and happy after their own fashion. Compared to what the Busheviki have imposed, compared even to what the Busheviki have pretended to desire to impose, -- well, there's just no comparison, really, Mr. Bones. [6] Furthermore comparison is gratuitous, for the dignitas Obamensis is obviously a Very Good Thing-in-Itself, quite without reference to any context.

But God knows best. Happy days.


____
[1] No, Mr. Bones, that is not any sort of general promise not to engage in aggressions and invasions and semiconquests and occupations. (Take a look at the details proposed by Ackermanides and the Braniacs.) And as long as DemProm is firmly excluded, what is wrong with these things, sir? Anyway, like Global Tourism, of which they are perhaps only a specialized subdivision, these things are only means, not ends.


[2] Could the next-best and near-brightest be so ignorant as to suppose in sincerity that they are being original when in fact they are egregiously swiping from the Una Sancta Catholica et Apostolica?

Perhaps it would be better not to ask a question that might be answered too discouragingly. The efficacy of the BHO snake oil does not depend on how recently the formula for it was developed.



[3] None of this scribble will matter much after Commanderissimo McCain is inaugurated, but of course one believes in Liberal Scribbling with the Rev. Newman, in "scribbling its own end." So there!



[4] A little tweaking and fine tuning by Mr. Jeremy Bentham might not come amiss, however. If done properly, that work could produce what is demonstrably the best of all possible impositions. Demonstrably to card-carrying Utilitarians, anyway.



[5] Peccatum Originale, they used to title it, although I daresay the new mindset set has thought of some punchier label by now.



[6] They do have to actually try, of course, and not just talk about it. But again, isn’t that exactly what they intend themselves?

Well, perhaps not exactly. Since it was for a Brave New Mindset that Mr. Ackerman invited us to cheer, I have passed over the BHO brain-trusties’ concrete proposals in silence. Some of the details seem to me still better suited to the Chicagoland market than for export. Once such discrepancies are pointed out to the dignitarians, however, no doubt they will be repented of and amended.

No doubt.

Racism and the Señorito Question

Kristol Minor bein’ not only señorito but ¡señoritissimo!, here, with not a single syllable of unnecessar

The only part of the speech that made me shudder was this sentence: “But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now.” As soon as I heard that, I knew what we’d have to endure. I knew that there would be a stampede of editorial boards, columnists and academics rushing not to ignore race. A national conversation about race! At long last!

(( Mr. Bones complains privately that Big Party neocomrade K-2 talkin’ ’bout not wantin’ to talk ’bout black and white is not such a surprise that one needs to drop everything instantly lest Princess Posterity fail ever to be informed of it. Let Bones make no mistake: the Gadarene swine and I reserve our right to rush whithersoever we please, even to commonplace destinations should some holy ghost so inspire us! However we can reassure him that this little ideoladdie does not automatically get our attention first thing every Monday morning. [1]

Should any student this side of Her Highness To Come really require more background, let him know (1) that K-2 despises BHO for asking "the convenient questions, not the difficult ones," and (2) that K-2 despises BHO for deploying "ridiculous and unfair comparisons to make a point," and (3) that K-2 despises BHO for doing "a disservice to the best in their own communities" out of naked ambition. Bein’ as it is a deep student of War and Peace as well as of Aggression and Occupation, K-2 avails itself of exactly three (03.00) post-Tolstoyan preludings before it gets down to what it really does not wanna talka ’bout and why it duzna wanna.

I read as I scribble, so we’ll learn together how the neobrat manages to indicate which questions about [exp. del.] are difficult rather than convenient and which comparisons involving [exp. del.] are à propos, without any discussion of [exp. del.] procedin’ from itself. Fortunately it can sermonize about its own ‘thirdly’ -- offering highest-quality service to the community -- without needin’ to say a single word about [exp. del.], unless it takes the line that the Rev. Jeremiah’s ethnocommunity and theocommunity have special peculiarities that must be addressed. ))

So then, onward!

Of course, memories are short. In 1997 President Bill Clinton announced, with great fanfare, that he intended “to lead the American people in a great and unprecedented [if he did say so himself] conversation about race.” That conversation quickly went nowhere. And just as well. The last thing we need now is a heated national conversation about race. What we need instead are sober, results-oriented debates about economics, social mobility, education, family policy and the like — focused especially on how to help those who are struggling. Such policy debates can lead to real change — even “change we can believe in.” “National conversations” tend to be pointless and result-less.

I account it characteristically neobratty of K-2 to make that particular appeal when it as an individual practitioner takes money from Neocomrade R. Murdoch to preside over a fishwrap of opinion at Wingnut City that distinctly features "heated conversation" over "sober, results-oriented debate." Princess Posterity may not instantly notice that the señorito implicitly muddles up its own and Massa Rupert's Weekly Standard with The Public Interest, "a quarterly conservative politics and culture journal founded by Irving Kristol in 1965" . The amount of "real change" generated by little Billy's big Daddy's mag is open to question, and has often been exaggerrated, but there can be no question that the sobriety of TPI was oriented towards change, let alone any doubt about the general unintoxicatedness of it all. [2]

It is not specifically señoritoly for rightists and neorightists of the more upmarket type to deplore democracy considered as ‘heated national conversation’ and wish for a Greenspan Commission or the like to settle all outstanding issues on the late Colonel Hamilton’s lines inside closed gates, say at Burning Tree or Bohemian Grove. K-2 and its ideobuddies cannot consider all national elections "pointless and result-less" -- if nothing else, there was 1932! -- although they wouldn't mind a bit if most of the unwashed ninety-nine percent thought something of that sort. The New York Times Company's banner organ notoriously does not deal in rabble-rousing, so little Billy may be confident that it is not gointa accidentally set off a conflagration of heated conversation no matter what it decides not to talk about. Why, even [exp. del.] itself may be mentioned freely in the august columns of Aunt Nitsy!

So then, will the neobrat actually mention the dread topic or will it confine itself to praise of sobriety and shrinkin’ away from democratic hot-talk and/or hot-talk democracy? Let’s see, skipping over Paddy Moynihan and and Benign Neglect®, an obvious predecessor of Kristolminorism, we arrive at

Racial progress has in fact continued in America. A new national conversation about race isn’t necessary to end what Obama calls the “racial stalemate we’ve been stuck in for years” — because we’re not stuck in such a stalemate. In fact, as Obama himself suggests in the same speech, younger Americans aren’t stalemated. They come far closer than their grandparents and parents to routinely obeying Martin Luther King’s injunction to judge one another by the content of our character, not the color of our skin. Over the last several decades, we’ve done pretty well in overcoming racial barriers and prejudice.

’Twas a pretty stroke, though scarcely an innovative one, for the señorito to point out that youth must inherit the world at last, but apart from that, there is nothin’ señoritoly about that passage at all. Every Elephant Person without significant exception agrees that there exists no racial stalemate. Few loyal Elephant Persons are worried that in terms of the official positions of the Party of Grant since the year of disgrace 1876, there has never been any racial stalemate worth mentionin’. Regardless of objective conditions, that is what they think now, and what they have always thought back to a remote period when slavery and Free Soil™ and abolition remained live political questions. Amendment XIII (18 December 1865) resolved America's racial stalemate forever. One hundred and forty-odd years have now passed without any sign of a racial stalemate in the United States. (Golly, just think of it!) [3]

The neobrat comes close to wallowin’ in the gutter with the Big Management Party's base and vile at this point, however. There is nothin’ that Narcissus Dexter loves better in all the world than to be solemnly assured for the 145,609th time in his short and wombschooled life that Wunnerful US really are real wunnerful. [4] The "Over the last several decades, we’ve done pretty well in overcoming racial barriers and prejudice" tripe and baloney is like so much catnip for the denizens of Rio Limbaugh. Customers of the New York Times Company are less addicted to having their flattery laid on with a dumptruck, so perhaps Señorito Kristol can find a viable niche market chez Nitsy. Time will tell.

Finally, here's the neobrat's peroration, plus a slight overhang:

Over the last several decades, we’ve done pretty well in overcoming racial barriers and prejudice. Problems remain. But we won’t make progress if we now have to endure a din of race talk that will do more to divide us than to unite us, and more to confuse than to clarify. Luckily, Obama isn’t really interested in getting enmeshed in a national conversation on race. He had avoided race talk before the Reverend Wright controversy erupted. And despite the speech’s catnip of a promised conversation on race tossed to eager commentators, it’s clear he’s more than willing to avoid it from now on. This is all for the best. With respect to having a national conversation on race, my recommendation is: let’s not, and say we did.

Master Billy pretends to be a disciple of M. Pascal, what ‘we’ want is to clarify our thinkin’ -- Travaillons donc à bien penser : voilà le principe de la morale! And what could be more clarifictory than just not thinkin’ about [exp. del.] at all?

Still, we are not all Pascalians, not yet, and a critic from amongst the others might criticize that it was not made clear to her exactly how "a din of race talk" prevents the headache, not brain tumor, of [exp. del.] from healing. Does the learned Doctor of Undemocracy mean that even the headache is a purely psychogenic symptom? Perhaps not, since it allows that problems remain. On the other, hypochondria is the name of a problem too, is it not? The señorito might have added a sentence to its diagnosis to make perfectly plain that there exist other problems over and above the din. (He might even have offerred to explain what the non-din problems consist of, in his next 750 words if not right here. But let’s not be greedy.)

The bottom line is not altogether satisfactory rhetorically: after hollerin’ ‘Wolf!’ like that itself, the neobrat admits that there isn't actually any wolf in sight at the moment and that B. Hussein Obama, for his part, is not going to start hollering either. At this point Master Kristol dabbles daringly in predictions about the future, and its credentials for doin’ so are not, in my judgment, the best available. We can count on there being no ‘debate’ or ‘conversation’ about [exp. del.] in America, that much is safe. The Party of Grant will make quite sure that nothin’ of that sort is permitted to happen with their participation. After all, it's only a headache, not a brain tumor, and it will go away shortly if we just ignore it.

So no debate or conversation, but how about a ‘din’ instead? K-2 and its playmates do not worry themselves about their parents' generation's problems, as for example how to pay for and how to muster public enthusiasm for the various aggressions and occupations that take the fancy of Kiddie Krusaders. A ‘conservatism’ that doesn't have any economics or any interest in how to get political results is a curious hothouse flower, but fortunately for Wingnut City and Rio Limbaugh and Daddy Warbucks and a number of other grown-up factions and fractions, the GOP is not just Grant's Old Party, it is also the neo-Party of the late Lee Atwater. Master Atwater made a fine din about Willie Horton, and it is at least possible that his restless ghost will inspire some Young Republicans for Fascism, or anyay, some 2008 militant Republican Party extremists, to go and do likewise with the Rev. Mr. Jeremiah Wright. Most likely it genuinely never occurred to Kristol Minor that there could be a din about [exp. del.] generated by its own Big Party crew, yet of course the thing is possible and not even unlikely. Indeed, to judge from WRKO AM 680 Boston, the thing is already happenin’. [5]



____
[1] Like Big Party neocomrade D. Brooks, W. K-2 shows signs of deterioration as he tries to scribble for the Worst Newspaper in the Known World .


[2] The señorito faction is not to be trusted an inch about ‘debate’, however, and least of all when Presslord Murdoch is anywhere within a thousand kilometres literal or figurative. The op-ed pages of the Wall Street Jingo are rather more sober than those of the Weekly Standard, but in neither case does the range of ‘debate’ venture beyond Dr. Pott's animadversions on Prof. Kettle. Tweedledumb and Tweedledee get the whole shebang to themselves in both these Wingnut City forums: the Monstrous Crow pretty well never manages to get a word in edgewise.

Notice that K-2 thinks Jim Crow must be somehow related to Monstrous Crow -- persons to shut up about oneself and to gag if one can.


[3] "Mr. Roebuck says to the Sheffield cutlers:-- ‘I look around me and ask what is the state of England? Is not property safe? Is not every man able to say what he likes? Can you not walk from one end of England to the other in perfect security? I ask you whether, the world over or in past history, there is anything like it? Nothing. I pray that our unrivalled happiness may last."


[4] Accordingly, what Narky Dexter and Mr. Roebuck will make of the world to come is a stiff challenge to the imagination. In the Republic of Heaven™ it will (I presume) be considered rather bad taste to go on and on about Yankee Exceptionalism, and everybody will be able to walk from one end to the other without stumbling over a racial stalemate.

With K-2 itself, the question does not arise. ‘Neoconservatives’ in the strict Kristolcentric sense think of religionism as a tonic that is good for the servants but not usually required by Herrenvolk.


[5] Like ‘racism’ or race relations, talk radio is a subject that the Doctor of Undemocracy would prefer not to waste any diagnosis or therapy on. He can’t be unaware that it exists and that its existence benefits the Party of Wisdom and Virtue and Col. Hamilton, yet Rio Limbaugh exists at a level remote from the level of señoritos and, indeed, of the New York Times Company.

In effect, though maybe not consciously, little Billy K-2 leaves all that not-so-nice business for Uncle Rupert to handle in conjunction with Cousin Lee. Billy itself concentrates on the libido dominandi and Griff nach der Weltmacht side of neoconnery, which side is more than sufficient to keep it in scribble fodder.

Unfortunately it obviously takes the same view as its neocomrade D. Brooks does: a columnist for the New York Times has to be an all-’round kinda guy. Nobody should be surprised that these specimens perform less impressively than usual when they get out of the shallow end of the tank. For that matter, Prof. Krugman is in much the same case, great on economics, but only a child when he reflects more broadly.

"to keep the race focused on issues"

Well, and who would be against that plan, Mr. Bones [1] -- "Issues First, everything else an also-ran!" That’s even better and more Yank-völkisch than sliced bread and night baseball, innit?

Clearly every race ought to be focused on Sacred Issues, let there be no doubt about it: the Apoplectic Paleface Race, the swarthy AfroAm Race, the shrill Race of Viragos, the inscrutable Fu Manchu Folk, the Tribe of Aboriginal Casino Managers (&c. &c.) -- let them all unite to celebrate the Primacy of the Issue! Even the Jihád Careerism Race can join in also, maybe, assuming Bob Cardinal Spencer and St. Hugh the Less give their consent.[2]

But I beg your pardon, sir, I should explain the alternative so that you see why there is no respectable alternative. She who does not care to racially focus on a Sacred Issue, on what does she propose to focus her race? It goes like this:

In a posting on Hillary Rodham Clinton's Web site Friday, the campaign said the former president [viz. St. Bill] was simply talking about the need to keep the race focused on issues, "rather than falsely questioning any candidate's patriotism."

I suppose you will need a little more of the background to make head or tail of that oracle, though, plus it might help if I sew [labels] on some of the players’ figurative jerseys:

[C] "I think it would be a great thing if we had an election year where you had two people who loved this country and were devoted to the interest of this country," said [WJB] Clinton, who was speaking to a group of veterans Friday in Charlotte, N.C. "And people could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues, instead of all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics." [D] McPeak, a former chief of staff of the Air Force and currently a co-chair of Obama's presidential campaign, said that sounded like McCarthy. "I grew up, I was going to college when Joe McCarthy was accusing good Americans of being traitors, so I've had enough of it," McPeak said. [E] Clinton campaign spokesman Phil Singer rejected the comparison. "To liken these comments to McCarthyism is absurd," Singer said. He said McPeak was "clearly misinterpreting" the remarks and suggested that might be an intentional effort to divert attention from a recent controversy involving controversial statements by Obama's former pastor. In a posting on Hillary Rodham Clinton's Web site ... [and so on] ....

I left out [A] and [B] on purpose, Mr. Bones, because, as we learn from Mr. Singer [E], when St. Bill [C] arrived at the scene of the crime, [A] must have already questioned [B]'s patriotism, that being the sort of mischief that idle racial minds lapse into when they are not properly focused on a Sacred Issue. Very correctly, Mr. Clinton did not indicate who [A] and [B] are, for he wished to discuss FQP, the false questioning of patriotism, as itself a Sacred Issue. Exploitation of FQP as an opportunity for gossip or backbiting cannot have crossed the distinguished statesperson’s lofty mind, obviously. You will further notice, Mr. Bones, that FQP was only one example of "all this other stuff that always seems to intrude itself on our politics." [3] St. Bill was talking about principles, not about personalities.

Perhaps we might shoot the messenger a little, since Mr. Matt Apuzzo of the Associated Press does not exactly bring it all down to the dummies-fodder level. He begins by telling us in so many words that my [B] is none other than B. Husayn Obáma -- no big surprise in that, perhaps -- but he tells us in his own words, not those of my [A]. Mr. Apuzzo does not even indicate that [A] exists, with the result that the unwary customer of his corporation is quite likely to infer that St. Bill Clinton himself was engaged in FQP. (Quelle idée!) Then [D] turns up, the retired violence pro, and drags in the late Senator from Wisconsin and the extremist GOP without indicating exactly how he fits in. According to Gen. McPeak, somebody or another has been giving poor BHO a course of Swiftboat Therapy [4], yet he neither identifies WJBC as the therapist nor suggests any other name -- not in the remarks Mr. Apuzzo passes on to us, that is.

In response to those and perhaps additional remarks, Spinster Singer, wearing jersey [E], says it was ‘absurd’ and ‘clearly misinterpreting’ for General McPeak to drag in Senator McCarthy. If we charitably assume that Mr. Apuzzo is guilty of no more incompetence than suppressing the existence and identity of [A], Mr. Singer has an excellent case. Sen. McCarthy made his own scurillous and phony accusations, after all, he did not jump on the bandwagon of some pre-existing on dit. One need not find him wholly admirable to admit that much in his favor. Furthermore, though Sen. McCarthy's scurrilous phoniness was plainly designed to advance his own career, his victims were never his immediate electoral opponents of either party, let alone competitors inside the Party of Grant and Atwater. The whole "McCarthyite" operation was in effect aimed at America's party as a whole, at every last donkey from President Truman down to the most humble loyalist voter. Those who swiftboated Senator Kerry in the interest of Boy and Dynasty and Party and Ideology much better resemble the unknown person or persons wearing jersey [A] than Joseph McCarthy does.

‘Absurd’ is therefore warrantable. Whether Mr. Singer is also entitled to his ‘clearly misinterpreting’ cannot be ascertained from the available evidence. Mr. Apuzzo leaves the AP customer in the dark about how Mizz Hillary's hired spinster interprets, [5] and almost entirely in the dark even about what facts exist for him to offer a tendentious interpretation of.

____
The facts being insufficient, we may moralize briefly without any, Mr. Bones, and then turn to some other more tractable Sacred Issue.

Any tyro could moralize that Bill Clinton is no Joe McCarthy, and B. Husayn Obáma no Benedict Arnold or James Buchanan. We can soar a little higher than that, I trust. Let’s see . . .

Suppose we wonder out loud whether "Thou shalt not swiftboat" qualifies as a Sacred Issue in its own right. The details of any particular fabrication by the militant GOP are unlikely to attain so august a status, although the agitprop artists can often make headway with "So do you really want to vote for a ratfink who did THAT?" Quidquid recipitur, recipitur ad modum recipientis, Mr. Bones, and I daresay there are dark corners of the holy Homeland where it would be regarded as a plausible grown-up argument to ask "If Elliot Spitzer's wife cannot trust him to be faithful, how can anybody else?" Indeed, Mr. Bones, you must remember that bozo at WRKO who was troubled by how even more bozo his callers-in were on the subject of Gov. Spitzer, parading admirable Sabbath-school pieties even in the middle of a weekday. The Limbaugh wannabe found their "Lust, what's that?" attitudes hard to take with a straight face.

So maybe there is hope for everyone? Well, we need not rush to conclusions either way. The Governor of New York was not a personal acquaintance of the Wombschool Normal alumni, who may be less ludicrous when dealin’ with a reality-based situation and not mere blather from AM 680 Boston. As to not rushin’ the other way, there is the Witch Doctor of Democracy himself, who has very little use for Sabbath School and neoreligionization in general, but manages to manipulate their votaries all the same. Dr. Limbaugh will have wanted Spitzer to die the death of a thousand cuts for grave offenses against Big Management and Absolute Free Trade. I missed the show, but presumably there was far more barkin’ and bellowin’ against elitism and ‘socialism’ and insufferable arrogance than about Commandment VII.

What do they really think at Rio Limbaugh and Wingnut City and Wombschool Normal U. about "So do you really want to vote for a ratfink who did THAT?" An abstract or general discussion might be difficult to find in those benighted districts, and as to practical exempla, one knows without research that a great deal will depend on whose ratfink is involved. It was, after all, a sort of Apotheosis of Bozodom that former Lt. Kerry's military record should have be traduced in the path of former Lt. Bush. Nobody scores any points for imagining how it would have gone had the other guy been the egregious slacker.

"Thou shalt not swiftboat" is not likely to impress Narky Dexter as a Sacred Issue. Some people deserve to be swiftboated, after all, and the reasons why they deserve it need not have any nautical component to them whatsoever. Bozodom has just buried their Buckley Minor, who stated the orthodox WC/RL/WNU dogma not merely impeccably but in a dead language to boot: Quod licet Jovi non licet bovi," that is to say "Me heap big gander, you only silly goose!"

BGKB. Happy days.

_____
[1] Except possibly thee and me and a few selected friends of Eddie Burke.


[2] The Jihád Terror Race, however, had better keep to itself, as also the Tel Aviv Lobby Race. There must be something in the air or water of the Levant that makes the C-mite Races incapable of properly focusing on Sacred Issues.


[3] Let's face it, BHO's campaign constitutes probably 99% of ""all this other stuff" just at the moment. St. Bill can not have contemplated in advance that he would ever be trapped in so disagreeable a moment, halfway through a Hell of primaries with even a nomination victory for She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed not entirely guaranteed.

Which Sacred Issues would WJBC be focusing on when orating before the Veteran Race in North Carolina, had BHO sunk without leaving much trace the way he was supposed to? I cannot even guess. Perhaps he would simply have spoken elsewhere and to others and on different SI's.

"Two people who love this country and are devoted to the interest of this country ... could actually ask themselves who is right on these issues" is not to be pressed very hard, I don't think. That vision of lost bliss is not as well defined as it might be, to begin with. One seems to be invited to fancy the Senator from New York addressing the President-Apparent roughly as follows: "You, Commanderissimo McCain, love this country that I too love. You are devoted to the interests of the very country that I myself happen to be devoted to the interests of. Yet which of us is right to love the holy Homeland and be devoted to Her interests? That is what we must discuss, sir! Americans are waiting to hear our discussion of these vast issues of love and devotion, of Right Love and True Devotion! Why, even the holy Homeland's little foreign friends might be mildly interested. So let's get right to it! I'll let you go first . . . ."

(That improbable show might be kinda fun once, but it would not bear the Douglas-Lincoln sort of repetition well, I don't think. BGKB.)


[4] The Party of Grant and Atwater -- and of Joe McCarthy, as it happens -- have recently made us familiar with the verb "to swiftboat" in approximately the sense "falsely to question the patriotism of."


[5] The spinster’s insinuation of an "intentional effort to divert attention from a recent controversy involving controversial statements by Obama's former pastor" is not what I'd call an interpretation. That it is not becomes perfectly clear when you present the same tripe naked: "Let’s talk about my Sacred Issue, please, rather than any wretched ‘all this other stuff’ that you want us to waste the voters' time on!"

"An Arab Initiative For Iraq," begorrah!

Those sporadic watery noises that you hear over to port, Mr. Bones, must be Dr. Cartoonoclastes splashing about in the bushogenic quagmire in passionate quest of his favourite ignis fatuus:

There was a surprising announcement of a "reconciliation conference" to take place in Baghdad tomorrow (Tuesday March 18), but.... Al-Hayat, in its concluding remarks on this, reviews the fact that there has been a whole series of secret meetings, at the Black Sea in Jordan, two in Beirut, one each in Rome and Morocco, including Baath people and people connected with the armed resistance groups, all of them focused on three issues: (1) expanding the political process; (2) presence of foreign military forces in Iraq; and (3) certain amendments to the constitution. The journalist says these were all thought of as preparatory for an "expanded conference to be held in Baghdad".

It is high time we consider the cartoonoclastic implications of our old friend the Invisible Cat, Mr. Bones! You recall the paradigm, I trust?

(I) If there were an invisible cat sleeping in that chair, the chair would look empty.
(II) But in fact the chair does look empty,
(III) Therefore, et cetera. Q.E.D.

Now with the gentry of the Mu’ámariyya, even an invisible cat's furniture is not easy to catch sight of. The MJ gentry make a big deal of pointing the difficulty out themselves, actually. Cartoonoclastes may blithely, or for convenience and to save time, scribble "the fact that there has been a whole series of secret meetings," but he is quite certain that hardly anybody knows that fact -- apart from his own firm's customers, naturally. [1]

Will Juan the Wicked tell us about "the fact that there has been a whole series of secret meetings"? Will the slaves of the New York Times Company tell us? Don't be silly, Mr. Bones! [2]

Dr. Cartoonoclastes can (could?) not only detect the throne of Felix the Unseen, he can detect it so reliably that he gave it a nickname. "The Cairo Process," he called it. Here, he called it that. And also here.

The Cairo Process™ has been completely eclipsed and overshadowed, obscuritywise, by the Annapolis Process™. (That's a remarkable achievement, considering what a wretched nonentity the Annapolis Process™ was to begin with. But come, let us eschew digressions and excursions to Chesapeake Bay or Gentile Palestine!)

I trust you will be suitably sorry to be informed, Mr. Bones, that tomorrow's invisibility at New Baghdád is not fated to be THE definitive culmination of the Cairo Process™:

... taking various reports together it seems clear this won't break any new ground ...

but cheer up, sir, there's always Jam Tomorrow, at least in principle:

... there will likely be Iraq-political discussions at the Damascus Arab summit [at] the end of this month, maybe even an "Arab initiative for Iraq"!!!

No, sir, I do not think three (3.0) exclamation points excessive when it comes to an AI4I. You are almost certainly correct to suppose that nothing genuine of that sort is about to happen -- when did it ever happen? -- but reflect that I punctuate on the basis of Cartoonoclastes’ factious notions of the real world rather than yours or mine. Like the Anglo-Arabian Press Trust that he lovingly cites, Dr. C. is always willing to fantasize Arab Initiative right around the next bend in Clio's tunnel, and need one actually say that he is all agog for it? [3]

Asleep upon her flickering Cairo Process™ throne lies Felix the Unseen, who is accessible exclusively to the eye of factional faith. The said eye envisions her in three parts, parts which might make better sense if presented in an order different from that of the AAPT: (3) revision of the Khalílzád Konstitution; (1) "expansion of the political process"; (2) withdrawal of all extremist GOP forces from the former Iraq. Certainly the last thing to happen chronologically, if it ever happens at all, will be that the Big Management Party operatives pack up and go away. The other two points are presumably supposed to conduce towards that happy event. It is doubtful if they really would, however, and even if they did, it is not clear which should come first.

Perhaps one might be so heretical as to doubt that Konstitutional revision belongs in this select company at all. It would take a major Arab Initiative in its own right to produce a Greater Levantine statelet in which it genuinely matters what the local ‘constitution’ permits or forbids. Gen. Mubárak and the altesses royales du Ryad do not trouble themselves unduly about such fripperies, and neither do any of the other cardboard kings and barracks-based republicans. (Lebanon is exceptional, but also negligible, so let it be neglected!) If the Cairo Process™ is to be held up until constitutions count in the Middle East, nobody now alive need worry about it.

I suppose the Anglo-Arabian Press Trust folks must have in mind to fiddle with Khalílzád Pasha’s gracious bestowal without anybody native actually taking the damn thing seriously. Though it would sound a little unedifying to say that out loud, there would be no great harm done if the unedification were acknowledged and accepted. Taken in isolation from long-term prospects that are short-term delusions, "expansion of the political process" would be far easier to get on with, [4] although whether it would actually lead to getting rid of the Busheviki is another matter.

But what means "expansion of the political process," exactly? One can grant without discussion proper elections in governates and municipalities, but beyond that, what? It is not hard to imagine the TwentyPercenters grabbing twenty percent of such political power as is available to natives in Peaceful Freedumbia, but how do they get to 51% -- and 99% and 1000% -- from there? That, after all, is the real expansion sought.

God knows best how they are going to do it. Whether they are going to do it. (Perhaps "an Arab initiative for Iraq"?)

Happy days.


_____
[1] Within the invasion-language Pale, that is, of course. Folks who can actually think in them cuneiforms ’n’ chicken tracks don't score any points at MJ for knowing about whole series of secret meetings. Every Levantine worth her salt has a head stuffed full of series of secret meetings -- and some of the meetings may even have actually occurred.


[2] Juan the Wicked has his head buried in Pakistan this morning, as it happens, plus of course he must still be getting over that Músae al-Sadr binge at the weekend. Aunt Nitsy, however, has something interesting that we'll get around to after a little more mockery of mental cripples.


[3] Well, maybe 86.5% agog. Like many other ideological or chauvinist twistifiers, Cartoono -- and indeed, the Baní al-Hayát as well -- exhibits a strong tendency to attach sentimental or dramatic or moralistical weight to terms that are of themselves neutral. ‘Initiative’ is one such. That which is fort mauvais simply cannot, at Mu’ámara Junction, be the goal or substance of an ‘initiative.’ When Prof. K. Makiya and Dr. A. Tchélabí solicited the extremist Republicans to invasionize the former Iraq, that was not an ‘initiative’ on their part, it was only ... well, only a mu’ámara, I suppose one is obliged to word it, "only a conspiracy." [sigh]

On a loftier and more spiritual plane, when Herr Prof. Dr. F. ‘Ajamí explains us many otherwise unheard-of explanations about the Arab Mind and the Greater Levant, that is not a star intellectual's variety of ‘initiative’ -- it is, say, "only a disgusting exercise in collective masochism." The key word there, Mr. Bones, is only: GOP neocomrade ‘Ajamí's suck-up self-hatin’ is real enough, and group self-hatred is thoroughly barf-inducing generally, yet Ajamianity could turn out to be an epoch-making Arab initiative all the same. Vidkun Quisling might have been a great Norwegian initiative-monger. It is only a fact of contingency, not a consequence of logic, that he proved to be nothing of the sort.

Dr. Cartoonoclastes I take to suffer from this brain disease in its milder and more respectable form. When lay sheep rather than coffee-house blogghiosos are afflicted, the symptoms may include flat-out horsefeathers about suicide bombers bein’ cowards and the like. That is to say, some faction lays its dirty paws on the catholic human virtue of courage and allows nobody to be brave who is not marchin’ in step with the rest of the Party lemmin’s.


[4] Though brain-diseased, the AAPT and cartoonoclastic position is not altogether brainless. (They just don’t think things through, Mr. Bones, that’s their big problem!) In this instance, the Sunninterni factionalists evidently expect that a reworked Khalílzád Konstitution will secure their position in the former Iraq after the forces of GOP extremism have departed. Parchment is to make up for paratroopers, as it were. In the really existing Greater Levant, few hings could be less plausible than that policy, yet there is no good reason to doubt that many Sunninterni factionalists believe in it sincerely, including everybody at Mu’ámara Junction. The MJ gentry are presumably westoxicated and actually expect a ‘constitution’ to matter.

Indig factionalists certainly ought to know better than that. Perhaps one may guess that they hope that only the Natural Masters of Mesopotamia -- i.e., Sinn Féin, "themselves alone" -- properly understand the correlation of forces in the wake of paleface aggression. The heretics and the hillbillies, neo-Safavids and Free Kurds, may still be at such a low level of political awareness that parchment really will serve instead of paratroopers. At least serve temporarily, long enough to get rid of AEI and GOP and DOD, so as to prevent impertinent interference from the direction of Crawford TX when the time for the show-down finally comes, when Natural Mastery (a.k.a. Sunni Ascendancy) can be securely reaffirmed on its traditional and authentic twin foundations, spiritual superiority and physical force.

This calculation on behalf of the TwentyPercenters is likely to be mistaken, Mr. Bones, being in my opinion mostly only overesteem of self and misunderestimation of others. Yet quidquid recipitur, recipitur ad modum recipientis: in the light of the TwentyPercenters’ own political development and political experience, to make such a calculation as I have outlined cannot fairly be dismissed as ‘brainless’ or the like. The cleverness of political scheming can not be simply equated with the accuracy of the pols’ knowledge of facts. One can scarcely say that a project like that one "deserves to succeed," yet supposing the Sunninterni factionalists actually try it and it fails, some modicum of sympathy with their deceived expectations will not be out of place. One can see why they thought it might work without having agreed with them.

But let us not lean over backwards to be charitable to the wrong parties, Mr. Bones! The intellectual superiority of a Sunni factionalizer in the former Iraq who dispenses with any reliance on constitutions and Konstitutions whatsoever is patent.

To be sure, the intellectual superiority of a TwentyPercenter factionalist who could come up with a sure-fire way to win would be staggering. Certainly thou and I could not teach that crew how to triumph even if we adhered to their cause as rigidly as Mu’ámara Junction does.

"Petraeus has certainly had successes"

The Ides of March at Ann Arbour Centre resembles Groundhog Day in the United States. After twelve months of imperviousness to the Ever-Victorious Surge of ’07™ Struthio Camelus has emerged from its comfy nest, taken the annual look-’round, and blogghiated as noted.[1]

I'd be happy to tell you exactly which Petraeo-Crockerian successes have finally registered, Mr. Bones, but Struthy does not make the task easy. The paragraph I have swiped from already goes like this,

But despite these controversies about the military side, Gen. Petraeus has certainly had successes. And he is clearly frustrated that they have not been taken advantage of by the Iraqi political elite. And my strong suspicion is that the US officers in Iraq are also frustrated with the White House for not pushing the Iraqis harder on a political settlement. It is very hard to see what Bush's political strategy is in Iraq. The "surge" was never meant to be the objective but rather the means.

"Despite these controversies" would be an odd way of itemizing Austerlitz and Jena and Wagram and so on in the case of Struthy's other hero, but in this case, it's all we got. Working backwards almost to the beginning,

The US troop escalation, the strategy of paying Sunni guerrillas to join pro-US Awakening Councils, and the cease-fire with the Mahdi Army have brought down the grisly daily death toll from an average of 65 a day in the apocalypse that followed the February 2006 bombing of the Golden Dome in Samarra to between 20 and 40 a day more recently (it was 20 in January, 26 in February and 39 in the first half of March): [TABLE]. The first half of March has been disappointing with regard to casualties. There have been several big bombings in Baghdad, and over a dozen US troops have been killed in the past week. In fact a few weeks ago the Sunni Arab guerrillas blew up a meeting of the al-Anbar Awakening Council in Baghdad itself right under the nose of the US military. It is possible that the Sunni guerrillas had lain low during January, keeping their powder dry, with the intent of embarrassing Gen. Petraeus in his April congressional testimony. It is also possible that the various techniques the US military has deployed to reduce violence have reached their limit of effectiveness in the face of an ever-adapting enemy. And after all, the Sunni Arabs now have even more to avenge, since quite without meaning to the American surge somehow allowed a massive ethnic cleansing of Sunnis from Baghdad, with about a million of them now penniless and homeless in Damascus.

The ‘controversies’ are easy to spot. Where are the Crockerio-Petrolaean successes, the splendid victories for Boy and Dynasty and Party and Ideology? Are we to count off "The US troop escalation, the strategy of paying Sunni guerrillas to join pro-US Awakening Councils, and the cease-fire with the Mahdi Army" Eins - Zwei -Drei, perhaps? That would be odd, when (1) EVS’07 is only a name for the whole campaign, and (3) the Rev. Señorito al-Sadr did not actually sign any cease-fire with the extremist Republicans, he merely unilaterally and preëmptively declines to clash with them. And even (2) that nifty Bribe-a-Tribe™ scheme has been described by the Dr. Gen. and the Party Proconsul themselves as the Baní Sahwa's own original notion, not one imported from Crawford. I daresay the B.S. (wouldn’t have)/(will not) keep it up unless their pensions are paid, but just comin’ up with some fundin’ is not much of a ‘success' to credit to an Occupyin’ Party run by Harvard Victory School MBA’s. Or to an alumnissimus of either Princeton University or the Mil. Acad., let alone of both.

After that, Struthy works through the columns of the New Baghdád Daily Bodycount, which I suppose is what the Dr. Gen. would mostly point to himself, success-and-victorywise. Struthy is scarcely trying to make his new buddy look good, though, he only pours yet more cold water into the braniac's blood soup the same way as every other day before today. The only faint lead-up to those flabbergasting words in the very next sentence -- "Petraeus has certainly had successes" -- lurks in the formula "the various techniques the US military has deployed to reduce violence have reached their limit of effectiveness," which acknowledges, about as vaguely as is humanly possible, that at some point in the past a certain reduction in violence took place. You wouldn't have heard about it from Struthy at the time, though, Mr. Bones. And speaking of time, sir, "That was then and this is now." (Plus have you noticed the Damascus refugee situation lately?)

Then comes the Great Swerve in the Ann Arbour Centre party line. After the confluence of Swerve and Surge comes this -- what the futz, why not swipe the whole megillah? and pick the nits in notes? --

. . . Gen. Petraeus has certainly had successes. And [sic] he is clearly frustrated that they have not been taken advantage of by the Iraqi political elite.[2] And my strong suspicion is that the US officers in Iraq are also frustrated with the White House for not pushing the Iraqis harder on a political settlement.[3] It is very hard to see what Bush's political strategy is in Iraq. The "surge" was never meant to be the objective but rather the means. Gen. Petraeus isn't specific, but I can give some examples.[4] The Sunni Arab Iraqi Accord Front withdrew from the al-Maliki 'national unity' government last summer. The IAF is a coalition of three parties. Two of them say they are uninterested in coming back into the government. The third, the Iraqi Islamic Party, led by vice president Tariq al-Hashimi, is said to be seriously considering returning. Nothing has happened so far. In other words, it is still the case that al-Maliki's government is less successful at reconciliation with the Sunnis now than it had been last year this time before the surge had made much of an impact.[5] Sunni Arab provinces such as Diyala, Salahuddin and Mosul are still violent, and even al-Anbar, which has settled down, is not paradise. The Awakening Council model does not seem to have been successful outside al-Anbar and some Baghdad neighborhoods, and there is always the danger that the US is creating a powerful Sunni militia that despises Prime Minister al-Maliki as Iran's cat's paw. The Kurdish-Arab struggles in the north, the issue of Kirkuk, the terror activities of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK)-- based in Iraq but hitting NATO Turkish troops in eastern Turkey-- and the Turkish incursions into and bombings of Iraqi Kurdistan, signal that the north is a powder keg. The unresolved issue of oil-rich Kirkuk and whether it will accede to the Kurdistan Regional Government is the other shoe in the Iraq crisis, which has not yet dropped but could at any moment. I have been told that Gen. Petraeus deeply disagreed with Bush's decision to share real time intelligence on the PKK with the Turkish government and to allow a major Turkish incursion into and bombing of northern Iraq.[6] Likewise, the Islamic Virtue Party (Fadhila) withdrew from the al-Maliki government last year. It controls the provincial administration of Basra. Its rival, the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, staged a 5000-strong demonstration against the provincial government last week. Having bad relations between the federal center and the province of Basra is not good for Iraq, because Basra is the country's biggest export route, including for petroleum, which generates 90% of government revenues.[7] So you could understand how Gen. Petraeus, having sacrificed so much to get some sort of social peace in Baghdad that would allow some major steps toward political reconciliation, is frustrated that no such major initiatives have been launched and that Iraqi politics just seems to be stuck. It is worthwhile mentioning that what Gen. Petraeus said about the lack of political progress is the opposite of what John McCain has been saying. I am not saying that the contradiction is intended to be a political statement.[8] But I am saying that Petraeus has just revealed himself again to be a straight shooter of a sort that has been all too rare in the Iraq misadventure.

As observed in the note, "what John McCain has been saying" amounts to a pronoun with no antecedent. But there is plenty of time before Inauguration Day, so probably Struthy will fill in that blank for us eventually.

Happy days.

____
[1] The Músae al-Sadr conference must be a great success, because S.C. has left its website in considerable disarray. The passage wherein the light is finally seen about the Doctor-General was probably posted on 15 March 2008 between 0100 and 0500 EDT.

[2] Struthy wastes not an instant -- you do gotta admit that, Mr. Bones! The scribble would have been more intelligible if he had wasted a few instants on the Dr. Gen.'s merely military accomplishments before hastening on to the political failures of the Imperial and Colonial GOP, but never mind that, when it is so extremely obvious what is going on here at last: Struthy actually thinks he can enlist General Braniac as an anti-Bushevik! (Was ever a hope so forlorn as that one?)

(Pardon my editorial tendencies, sir.) Fortunately for the schemes of Ann Arbour Centre, positive coöperation from the Doctor-General is not required. If it had been, Struthy would have been compelled on Dale Carnegie grounds to divulge some of the Crockerio-Petrolaean successes in detail, which I suspect he would have found it very difficult to do. maybe impossible. But in fact all Struthy needs to appropriate is the man's name and his uniform and, above all, his general reputation as a braniac. One might argue, though I shan't, that George XLIII has never required much more than that from his ole pal David.

Notice that Struthy considers it ‘clear’ that the Dr. Gen. is ‘frustrated’ with Little Brother and the chickenhawk high command.


[3] When it comes to the GZOC, "Green Zone Officers' Club," Struthy only ‘strongly suspects’ that they agree with him and his David. It's just as well that he lowers the hurdle a little, I'd say, because there are a number of signs that the braniac's underlings are not in total accord with his views on occupational therapy for the Big Party's semiconquered provinces.

"Not pushing the Iraqis harder on a political settlement" is perhaps rather your run-of-the-mill GZOC view than the subtle, élitist Petraeo-Crockerian and McNamario-Petraean strategies for prosurgency. Struthy is no military bird, after all, only a chickendove wannabe. The finer points of that particular brand of subtlety and élitism may well elude him, leaving him with your average General Joe's views about how a swift kick in the posterior might work wonders with poor M. al-Málikí. Struthy is at one with Ms. Sapientia Conventionalis in considering that gobs and gobs of Affirmative Action™ for the poor opppressed Arabophone Sunnis will set all things right in Peaceful Freedumbia some decade soon. I'm not absolutely certain that the Dr. Gen. knows better than that, but there are signs that he may. Party Proconsul Crockerius may get this point right by sheer accident, since it is poor M. al-Málikí's neorégime that he is credentialled to. ‘David’ ought in principle to be more independent, although his McNamarianity could produce a similar blinkerin’ effect -- the "host government" can do no wrong, &c. &c.


[4] Examples of what, pray? (Has a sentence dropped out here?)


[5] Struthy ("Juan Cole, considered as ostrich") and Sappy ("conventional wisdom, considered as folly") coincide in error, as it seems to me, here as with their unflagging Sunnocentricity. The phrases "government of national unity" and "national reconciliation" make them feel so swell they become incapable of paying adequate attention to what is really going on. But God knows best.


[6] Whatever ‘David’ may have thought, one can only infer that Struthy disapproves of the vigilante operation. The authentic opinion of the Doctor General would be of mild interest, yet since his sphere of martial law does not extend to Free Kurdistan, let alone to Turkey, there are limits to how much difference it makes.

As a political finagle by Ann Arbour Centre, an attempt at a joint Coleo-Petraean blow against the dimwit Crawfordites, this point is deeply unimpressive. Nobody outside the immediate vicinity cares about the PKK. Doubtless everything could fall apart in the northern provinces of the former Iraq, but until it actually happens, if it ever does, Struthy is just spinning his wheels in a snowbank.


[7] The Doctor General has dropped out of sight altogether at this point. One cannot even make out Struthy's own druthers as between the Virtutites and their Fedguv, only that something fort mauvais might happen in the southern provinces of the former Iraq also. At this point we have returned to normalcy after the Grand Swerve, because that is precisely the sort of "Just you wait!" thing that Struthy has been squawking about regularly ever since EVS'07 commenced. The thing's resemblance to the proverbial efforts of Ms. Chicken Little strikes me as unfortunate. BGKB.


[8] At this point we need the first sentence of Struthy's scribble, the only bit not yet swiped:

General David Petraeus is quoted in WaPo as saying that no one, American or Iraqi , thinks that there has been sufficient political progress in light of the reduction of civilian deaths since last fall.

Perhaps we had better check the elephant's mouth as well:

Iraqi leaders have failed to take advantage of a reduction in violence to make adequate progress toward resolving their political differences, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said Thursday. Petraeus, who is preparing to testify to Congress next month on the Iraq war, said in an interview that "no one" in the U.S. and Iraqi governments "feels that there has been sufficient progress by any means in the area of national reconciliation," or in the provision of basic public services. (...) Petraeus insisted that Iraqi leaders still have an opportunity to act. "We're going to fight like the dickens" to maintain the gains in security and "where we can to try and build on it," he said. (...) "I don't see an enormous uptick projected right now," Petraeus said.... "What you have seen is some sensational attacks, there's no question about that." Petraeus said several factors may account for the recent violence, including increased U.S. and Iraqi operations against insurgents in the northern city of Mosul... and insurgent efforts to reestablish some of their havens in Baghdad. And Petraeus said U.S. commanders could not discount the possibility that insurgents "know the April testimony is coming up." (...) Petraeus said it would increasingly fall to Iraqi security forces and neighborhood patrols funded by the United States to help keep violence down. Petraeus also said the United States would temporarily freeze further reductions in its troop presence to allow for a "period of consolidation and evaluation after reducing our ground combat forces by over a quarter." He said he would discuss the length and timing of what the military terms an "operational pause" during his testimony. Petraeus credited both the mainly Sunni neighborhood patrols known as the Awakening and a cease-fire called by Shiite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr with helping to bring down violence. (...) Petraeus conceded that some elements of both the Awakening movement and the Mahdi Army may be standing down in order to prepare for the day when the U.S. presence is diminished. "Some of them may be keeping their powder dry," Petraeus said of Mahdi Army members. "Obviously you would expect some of that to happen. The issue is, again," he continued, "how to sort of prolong what has been achieved, in just a host of different neighborhoods, villages, towns and cities, so that the Iraqi structures can continue to gather strength." Sunni fighters in the western province of Anbar who have joined the Awakening "are waiting for the next opportunity," not the next war, Petraeus asserted. "What they want to do is get more closely linked with Baghdad so they can continue to benefit from the enormous oil revenue wealth which is pouring into this country." Petraeus said he and U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker had "repeatedly noted that it's crucial that the Iraqis exploit the opportunities that we and our Iraqi counterparts have fought so hard to provide them."

Struthy is "not saying that the contradiction is intended to be a political statement," -- the contradiction between what I just swiped and some uncited and unreferenced statement or statements issued by or on behalf of J. Sidney McCain.

Well, Carl von Clausewitz and thou and I can be a little more EMBOLDENED than that, Mr. Bones! The Dr. Gen.’s interview is ganz und gar politisch durchaus, yet not narrowly political for Boy and Dynasty and Party and Ideology. ‘David’ is here engaged in allgemeine Militärpolitik, so to call it, in a general background attempt to make the political world more secure for Mars and Bellona. There is at least a little something to be said in favour of that project, although Struthy is not likely to mention it.

In any case, the nature of the project is such as firmly to exclude the possibility of any genuine Coleo-Petraean Pact of Steel-Trap Minds. At Ann Arbour Centre the gentry do not want a world made safer for War, although I would not venture to claim that they have examined and approved all the implications of a world made less safe for war either. The whole issue remains virgin turf, as it were, for Struthy and Struthy's gang.

It follows at once that the genuine success of Dr. Gen. Petraeus of Princeton and West Point will not be visible from Ann Arbour Centre. To identify this success is easy enough: thanks to DP, the intational community have been reassured that Force often works, and, more specifically, (1) that the bigger battalions usually win, and (2) that Martial Law remains a perfectly workable notion. Sheer incompetence on the part of the Big Management Party had thrown these elementary and venerable notions into conceptual jeopardy. Now that the Doctor General has successfully rescued them, we ought to be grateful to him pro tanto.

The interview makes clear that he would like to go farther and achieve actual Success and Victory in Peaceful Freedumbia. That is another story altogether, and we need not pursue it here.

"Not much has changed since the 1950s"

Gosh, Mr. Bones, what a stable jungle it is out there in Tertiary Education! "Not much has changed since" about the time when Aristotle or Bacon or somebody wrote the Gorgias of Plato. Here's Dr. Kettel reviewing Professor Pott's book Total Cold War: Eisenhower’s Secret Propaganda Battle at Home and Abroad, a bit of e-flotsam that just washed ashore over chez Ardvaark :

Not surprisingly, [Prof. Pott] concludes, 'Virtually every aspect of American life—from political organizations and philosophical ideals, to cultural products and scientific achievements, to economic practices and social relationships—was exposed to scrutiny in this total contest for the hearts and minds of the world’s peoples.' Not much has changed since the 1950s. [Affirms Dr. Kettel.] Like the Cold War, the American war in Iraq must be fought on all fronts if it is to have any chance of success."

I should think Dr. Kettel's modus operandi will be found a bit off-putting by anybody who still likes Ike. The distinguished golf enthusiast of yesteryear almost vanishes into the sandtraps of GOP-assisted Mesopotamia, a striking feature of the modern international landscape, no doubt, yet also one that dates only from the fourth decade after General Eisenhower's funeral. On the other hand, students of hyperpowerful prosurgency must think it odd and probably displeasing to have to listen to so much about the 1950's in order to learn about Dr. Gen. Petraeus and Party Proconsul Crocker.

Kettel is around the bend and out of sight altogether if she[1] thinks that to narrate one of her not-much-changèdnesses is as good as to narrate the other. Never mind that, though; it is dementation enough to be getting on with that anybody thinks the case of Eisenhower v. Stalin et al. strongly comparable to the extremist Republicans’ now War on Global Tourism.

On the other hand, Dr. Kettel scribbles as if she has some definite notion what the phrase "any chance of success" means in conjunction with Peaceful Freedumbia, a mystery that defeats ordinary mortals. What promises does she extend to Boy and Party and Ideology, then, in return for fightin’ on all fronts?

Oddly enough, she doesn't ever exactly say. Oddly enough.

Whether she says anything final even about Ike is hard to tell. What do you think, sir, of the Kettelian peroration?

[Dr. Pott's] is an excellent book. Unlike many histories, it presents tangible lessons for today’s world. In this sense, it offers is a cautionary note for psychological warriors in Iraq. Propaganda and psychological warfare operations are rarely enough. As the Jackson Committee pointed out in 1953, “Mere words [can] only accomplish so much; they need to be harmonized with deeds…. [What the U.S. does] will continue to be vastly more important than what [they] say.” [2] So while Eisenhower Administration successfully executed a coherent propaganda campaign, “where every man became an ambassador”, American deeds did not always live up to the rhetoric. Indeed, I believe that the success of Ike’s psychological campaign probably contributed, in part, to the disillusionment with American foreign policy that occurred in the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate. In the Cold War world, American actions never lived up to the ideals that it advertised. Thus in no small measure the Eisenhower Administration’s propaganda can be understood, in part, as the architect of “America’s” demise.[3] It sold the American people and the international community an image, which included— “protecting the rights of the individual, limiting the power of the state, extending the benefits of capitalist production to all, and advancing the principals of freedom and democracy” — images that were impossible to maintain in the face of perceived strategic interests. Then and now, it is important that the U.S. government not promise more than it can deliver.

Any puzzle fan would be happy to stumble across that passage. Ike "successfully executed a coherent propaganda campaign" but failed to attain some larger, meta-Goebbelsian objective, which remains shrouded in impenetrable mist and darkness -- unless, indeed, the Ultimate Objective amounted to no more than really bein’ as wunnerful as the Ike GOP made Wunnerful US out. The lady believes, or pretends to believe, "that the success of Ike’s psychological campaign probably contributed, in part, to the disillusionment with American foreign policy that occurred in the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate." That looks like more cause-follows-effect anachronism, but since Dr. Kettel did stick in "in part" proviso, one is at liberty to suppose that she considers Vietnam and Watergate to have had something to do with "the disillusionment with American foreign policy that occurred in the aftermath of Vietnam and Watergate." She does not actually affirm that wild and crazy proposition, but her language is patient of being interpreted so.

Meanwhile, over in the bushogenic sandtraps of 1429/2008, where "not much has changed since the 1950s," can it be that all those military and civilian operatives of Republican Party extremism struggle in the path of "protecting the rights of the individual, limiting the power of the state, extending the benefits of capitalist production to all, and advancing the principals [sic] of freedom and democracy"? There is little good to be spoken of the Big Management Party stumblebums, but all the same it is shamelessly unwarrantable defamation to accuse them of such behaviour as that![4]


____
[1] "Review by Sarah-Jane Corke, Dalhousie University" (The lady is attached to a Department of History , although her mindset seems blatantly social-scientistic.)


[2] "United States" still construed as a plural in Century XV/XXI? Wow, talk about "provincial archaism"!


[3] Exaggerated rumours on this score must be current in darkest New Scotland.


[4] That condemnation can be mitigated around the edges a little in two respects. (1) A certain sort of concern for "the rights of the individual" is responsible for that wretched botch of a Khalílzád Konstitution, and (2) the AEIdeological squad certainly wanted to "extend the benefits of capitalist production to all" of the Occupyin’ Party's neo-Iraqi subjects, though they signally to achieve anythin’ much beyond an inundation of cellular telephones.

Both of these faint silver linings to the aggression are to some extend what Prof. Kaufman used to call ‘mischievements’ -- the Konstitution being perhaps the single most serious obstacle to political pacification of the indigs, and the cell phones an obvious boon for developers of IED's.

Alternatively, an Aynrandite or Nozickian doctrinaire might praise the Big Party stumblebums for havin’ done an excellent job of "limiting the power of the state" -- especially thanks to that same amazin’ Konstitution! -- tactfully omitting to mention that they're sorry now they did it.

Oh, cheer up! Mars and Bellona are still on the job, ever kindly looking out for those who look out for themselves. Why, I just read about it in today's Wall Streeet Jingo !

"History has shown time and again that military confrontation does work . [One] could achieve military victory by eliminating or incarcerating [enemy] leadership, not two or three a month (so that they are replaceable) but a few hundred at once. By breaking its command structure and its logistical apparatus, [the enemy] can be rendered inoperative. But for this to happen, [one] must treat the terrorists' mortal challenge as a war for survival, not as a series of skirmishes. And in war, you must fight to win, by all traditional means."

(The original was about one specific case, it doesn't matter which, but the beautiful sentiment generalizes well, does it not? I'm undecided about replacing "terrorists' mortal challenge" with "[mortal challenge from the enemy]" -- you might try it both ways yourself and decide what you think.)

The WSJ clausewitz has answered in advance petty obsolete objections like "[E]arly attack against threats that were latent, before they became imminent[, a] concept developed within one security structure[,] was shoe-horned into another in order to give it a legitimating [p]edigree. Moreover, whereas in its earlier incarnation it was designed to prevent war, in its new [f]ormat it was intended to provoke it." What horsefeathers that is! Is the student expected to be unaware that Dr. Strangelove and Kahn of RAND and Kissinger of Harvard had nukes and nothing but nukes on their mind from 1945 through 1991, whereas up-to-date Mil. Sci. (i.e., that vouchsafed to mankind since 11.IX.2001) specifically excludes them? "By all TRADITIONAL means," insists the Jingo gentleman with crystal clarity. That exclusion means that one does not ‘shoehorn’ minor deviations into some delapidated Cold War paradigm, one simply forgets everything strategic-operational-tactical from before the Big Bang altogether, retaining only the profoundly inspirational thought that WAR CAN STILL WORK! [1]

As I rush off to the Museum of Strategic Studies in search of more picturesque quaintnesses, I wonder whether any of the dryasdusts will have noticed the important rôle played by Dr. General Petraeus of Princeton and the GOP in rehabilitating one's basic confidence in Mars and Bellona. For an extended period, the GWOTniks carried on in their semiconquered provinces of Mesopotamia as if they had deliberately resolved to refute, rather than vindicate, WAR CAN STILL WORK. Sheer incompetence, no doubt, explains their sad record, without any need to assume deliberate paedagogic intent, let alone secret sympathy with Global Tourism, Heaven forbid! The Doctor-General has been ludicrously overpraised by his fans at the Weekly Standard and elsewhere, but it will not do to pretend that Joe Blow could have done as well either. A captious critic might insist, not without a certain show of justice, that D. Petræus has not so much vindicated the workability of War as that of Martial Law, proving by practical demonstration that an able general officer can still accomplish with troops and bombs and bayonets pretty much what the New York Police Department ordinarily accomplishes with other mechanisms.

But even on those terms, there has been a useful contribution here. The world has become a less precarious place now that all doubt is removed that a (hyperpowerful) state with 300,000,000 citizens can seize possession of, and maintain elementary law and order in, (backward) provinces inhabited by perhaps 25,000,000 neosubjects. However antecedently likely that proposition may be in the abstract, yet for a while it hung in the balance, or seemed to hang. The Doctor-General has spared us all the nightmare of a radically unpredictable world in which each encounter between Godzilla and Bambi might go either way. Sanity has reasserted itself, so to speak; the prudent investor has been reassured that indeed she ought to bet her chips on the big battalions the same way as ever. Whatever changes ‘9/11’ may have wrought, that is not among them.

I doubt anybody at the Museum of Strategic Studies takes exactly that view of the Petraean performance, though there is no compelling reason known to me why not.

WAR CAN STILL WORK! Happy days.


_____
[1] Dr. Strachan is so bogged down in the snows of yesteryear, wheels spinning furiously, that he cannot see what is under his nose. No GWOTnik of stature maintains that Blair and Bush commenced hostilities. It is undeniable, surely, that GT struck the first blow, and thus "declared war" insofar as anybody still bothers with such elegant mediaeval formalities?

The word ‘preëmptive’ does admittedly occur in explanations and apologies concerning both the Strangelovean theory of "first strikes" and "counterforce strikes" and in the Crawfordites’ attested practices of aggression and occupation, but the things the word applies to differ wildly. B&B did not, to put it mildly, invasionize Afghanistan and the former Iraq in order to preveserve the Pentagon and the World Trade Centre from impending attack, or to lessen the damage done to those edifices. Yet that would have been the whole point of the exercise, if shoehorns had had anything to do with it. 'Nuff said.