Security

Rumsfeld on the run

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Things are definitely going south in the Pentagon according to most reports:

In a remarkably frank New York Times column published on March 19, retired army Maj Gen Paul Eaton, who had been in charge of training the Iraqi military during the first year of the occupation, argued that Rumsfeld “has shown himself incompetent strategically, operationally and tactically” and “has put the Pentagon at the mercy of his cold warrior’s view of the world and his unrealistic confidence in technology to replace manpower”.

“In the five years Mr Rumsfeld has presided over the Pentagon,” Eaton wrote, “I have seen a climate of groupthink become dominant and a growing reluctance by experienced military men and civilians to challenge the notions of the senior leadership.”

Bush probably doesn’t know what to do any more because the people who tell him what to think and do are the ones now being identified as less-than-competant (or worse). He could have avoided this hassle by removing Rumsfeld earlier when his lack of talent was made obvious by Powell. But for some reason there is a weird sense of supreme loyalty to those around him even when they are forcing good leaders to “retire early” and are directly causing a loss of American lives (yes, I include citizens serving in Iraq among those killed by terrorists). Incidentally, I don’t understand how the White House can trump up the fact that there have been no attacks on American soil since 9/11. First of all, there’s hardly a need for a complicated attack on American soil when there are so many easy targets in Iraq and Afghanistan. Second of all, domestic security actually has not been all that great either when you consider the devastation caused by Katrina. So the real picture has Americans dying due to unnatural causes both at home and abroad, and yet the White House tries to say that they’re doing a good job at security. Sad.

I don’t think I can put it any better than Paul Sperry who warned us with the following words of wisdom back in 2004:

You can no longer honestly say the war was to protect America. The weapons of mass destruction fraud has been exposed. Even Colin Powell admits peddling lies. And we now know the secret National Intelligence Estimate Bush used to justify invasion concluded that Saddam had no role in al-Qaeda’s operations or its attacks on Americans.

Try as you may, you can no longer argue Saddam is behind the insurgency, given that more than a third of our GIs killed have been killed since his capture.

Nor can you claim to support the war to support the troops when many don’t want to be there, and others are torturing, massacring and looting innocent Iraqi civilians. And you can’t rationalize the prison brutality as a necessary tactic against terrorists when Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba testified he couldn’t find a single terrorist in custody during his prison investigation.

Face it, there’s nothing heroic or worthy left about this war in Iraq. It’s just a pile of lies. Unless you support lies, the only thing you’re supporting by supporting the war now is Bush. That’s obviously good enough for Limbaugh and Hannity, but is it good enough for you?

[…]

Other Republicans on the Hill, most notably Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, are outraged by the ongoing fraud called Operation Iraqi Freedom, and they don’t think the solution is adding more troops. They care more about protecting young lives and the nation’s founding principles than Bush’s political fortunes.

And listen to former Reagan official Paul Craig Roberts, who recently said: “Bush lied us into war and continues to lie to keep us there.”

Not conservative enough for you? Then consider the advice a former foreign policy aide to conservative giant Sen. Jesse Helms gave me last month. “I would believe nothing you are told by anyone in the Bush administration,” he warned. “We are in a world of official lies as a method of government.”

Rumsfeld’s lies are starting to catch up to him and he’s on the defensive, but the real question is will Bush do anything about it or just leave the place a mess for whomever will inherit their combined failures. Some cynics have said that failure was all part of the plan, and that bankrupting the country is the best thing for the neocons who want to get fire-sale pricing and dismantle public policy that interferes with their development plans. But I think that’s giving the neocons way too much credit. It’s more just a case of sheer pride and incompetance by some out-of-date thinkers — like colonials trying to live out their last visions in a wholly non-colonial world. Rumsfeld probably just can’t adjust to reality. In other terms, he’s the boss and everyone who works for him will have to think the way he does, no matter what they see, hear or are capable of doing. Business management 101 tells you that’s a sure-fire recipe for disaster. Such a shame that this neo-conpoop hasn’t already been exposed for the fraud he truly is and summarily forced out of office by the men and women who know how to save lives while achieving victory…but then again, the inaction on Rummie is just another reflection on a horribly misguided Commander in Chief.

Food, History, Security

Neither history nor security

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Once in a while I run into a “study” being done by someone under odd pretense that begs the question “who approved this for funding?” Here is a perfect example:

Simon, who teaches at Philadelphia’s Temple University, thinks that by spending time at Starbucks — observing the teenage couples and solitary laptop-users, the hurried office workers and busy baristas — he can learn what it means to live and consume in the age of globalization.

“What are we drinking, and what does it say about who we are?” Simon asked during a recent research trip to London.

His research has taken him to 300 Starbucks in six countries for a caffeine-fueled opus titled “Consuming Starbucks” that’s due for publication in 2008.

Observing teenage behavior in public places? This appears to me to have nothing to do with the study of history (more like sociology, psychology, or anthropology, if not culinary arts). He then goes on to postulate about the “comfort” patrons feel when they isolate themselves in familiar and unchallenging surroundings…

Simon believes Starbucks succeeds by “selling comfort” in an anonymous, often dislocating world. He says he has lost track of the number of times people have told him that when they traveled to a strange country, “the first thing I did when I got off the plane was go to Starbucks.”

Brilliant. He’s lost track? This man has discovered that the franchise concept works by selling comfort to people afraid of the unfamiliar and thus unwilling to take any chances. What a breakthrough in history. The only thing more preposterous would be if his book was funded by the company he is studying, since it so eloquently has the same namesake. And 2008? I’ve never heard of a “current event” study taking so long to reach publication. This is why historians should stay out of fashion design too, incidentally. Where’s the blog? By the time he writes this thing his observation of “teenage” behavior is very likely to be irrelevant.

IMHO, here’s a more notable topic worth reviewing, relative to the past versus the explosion of bland coffee-houses in London — it’s called the history and decline of the community and their gathering places (e.g. the local pub) in England. In the early 90s you could not find a decent cup of coffee in downtown London to save your life, but there were a hundred opinions for every ten pints of domestically produced beer usually in some relation to current events. Brand loyalty meant something deep and mysterious, somehow tied together with hundreds of years of publican tradition. Today, you can’t take a step without running into someone sloshing a smelly black imported brew in styrofoam containers as they race along the street, and I somehow doubt that these global-franchise loyalists could give a crap about history or even local issues. Good or bad? Who knows, but I’m certainly not going to ask for money as a historian to sit in Starbucks around the world for two years to “prove” that strangers like comfort.

Poetry, Security

Dubai-us partnerships

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Cheesy title, I know. Perhaps I’ve been watching too much of the Jon Stewart show. This is really a post about a British economist, Emilie Rutledge, who recently wrote that the US Administration has put itself in an awkward position as a self-proclaimed free market advocate that is at the same time highly protective of its trade and investment relations:

Sultan Bin Nasser al-Suwaidi, the UAE’s central bank governor, said that “trade and investment relations with the United States must now be viewed from a new perspective�. Many analysts, including some from the US, have said that the DP World affair may set a damaging precedent and deter investors, particularly from the Middle East, from investing in the US.

[…]

For example, another Dubai government-owned company, Dubai International Capital, is in the process of buying Doncasters, a UK-based aerospace manufacturer, for $1.2bn. The takeover is relevant because Doncasters has various interests in US military weapons programmes, including the Joint Strike Fighter.

Dubai International Capital’s takeover of Doncasters has yet to receive much media attention in America, but if it does and the attention is similar to that DP World received it will further tarnish America’s free-trade reputation and the US will be seen as increasingly hypocritical.

Wow. Dubai will own a company that develops US weapons, including the Joint Strike Fighter? How will the free market advocates handle this?

Living in the US is starting to feel like being a passenger in a taxi that has just been carjacked and is careening wildly out of control at the hands of a less-than-rational or talented but enthusiastic driver who says “trust me, they’ll never catch us”. The meter is ticking, the ride is getting rougher by the minute, and I’m not even sure an actual destination is part of the discussion anymore.

History, Poetry, Security

The Easter Rising and Vernacular Poetry

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I thought it fitting to take a moment this Easter Sunday to remember three noted poets who gave their life in a struggle against British rule. Patrick Pearse (Pádraic Anraí Mac Piarais) — called the “embodiment of the rebellion” and credited with proclaiming a Republic — Joseph Mary Plunkett and Thomas MacDonagh. After the British quickly routed the Irish rebellion in 1916, all three were executed by firing squad.

It is no coincidence that the Irish rising was led by men who practiced poetry, as they surely relied upon it as the most natural way to help persuade the public to resist the authority of the Kingdom and achieve political independence. Poetry in Irish is considered the oldest form of verse in Europe that specifically emphasized accessibility to a “common person”, or in other words poetry not written or spoken in Latin. This earns it the title of “vernacular”.

This heritage to the race of kings
by Joseph Plunkett

This heritage to the race of kings-
Their children and their children’s seed
Have wrought their prophecies in deed
Of terrible and splendid things.

The hands that fought, the hearts that broke
In old immortal tragedies,
Theses have not failed beneath the skies,
Their children’s heads refuse the yoke.

And still their hands shall guard the sod
That holds their father’s funeral urn,
Still shall their hearts volcanic burn
With anger of the sons of God.

No alien sword shall earn as wage
The entail of their blood and tears,
No shameful price for peaceful years
Shall ever part this heritage.