Briefs

The Mattis departure
While some are wondering whether the multi-talented Mick Mulvaney will be adding Defense to his expanding portfolio of responsibilities, there are potential candidates who could be a good deal worse.  The Air Force Academy at Colorado Springs is replete with Evangelical Christians in the mold of Franklin Graham, who will happily implement Our President's plans to purge the military of transgender troops, make life extremely difficult for out gays and lesbians, and do everything in his power to hasten the Apocalypse.

Syria
Tr*mp's decision to withdraw US troops from Syria, pretty clearly, was a gift to Recip Tayyip Erdogan.  Abandoned by the United States, the Syrian Kurds will need somebody to protect them from an impending Turkish onslaught — and the only game left in town will be Bashir al-Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies.  It's not hard to imagine a deal being made that will offer the Kurds some degree of autonomy; and it's no harder to imagine the effect that can have on the Kurds in Iraq.

Afghanistan
It's certainly true that US troops have been fighting in Afghanistan for far too long, but the decision to sharply reduce US forces at least should have been discussed with the NATO allies whose forces are serving there before the announcement was made.  It's been clear for a long time that the only resolution of the long war involves power sharing with the Taliban, but the upcoming withdrawal eliminates any motivation the mullahs may have had to negotiate.  Has anybody mentioned to Tr*mp that he's about to become the loser of America's longest war?

Helpless, helpless

The United States has, by far, the largest military establishment in the world.  Our expenditures are roughly equal to the next fourteen world powers combined.  China and Russia, together, spend only 30% of what we spend.

That level of expenditure might be justified if our military actually accomplished anything, but it really hasn't been good for much lately.  Some may argue that "lately" goes back half a century or so, but let's start by looking a lot more "lately" than that.

Not even factoring in all the lost lives, and the contributions they might have made to our society, Iraq and Afghanistan are likely to add up to $4 trillion — when you add in the costs of caring for the injured and disabled, and the interest on the debt we accrued to fight in those countries.  Hell, we're still paying the social and psychological costs of Vietnam — and we lost that one too.

Yes, that's what I said.  We lost.

Iraq's Shi'a government — thoroughly corrupt, aggressively purging Sunnis, hostile towards the Kurds, and not even remotely recognizable as democratic — looks like a good bet to become Iran's closest ally.  Afghanistan, as any student of history might have predicted, will return to it's natural condition of tribal-warlord-dominated-failed-state-locked-in-perpetual-civil-war.  Nobody even can guess what will transpire in Pakistan, but it doesn't look too hopeful for the USofA.  Great job, America!

Then there's Syria — not to mention Libya, Egypt, Mali, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, and an host of other severely challenged not-quite-states — places where even the most ambitious American generals fear to tread.  And, no, we can't get away with invading Venezuela or Bolivia or Peru, and our military is useless against provocations by Russia or China (despite our commitments to Japan, Georgia, and the Philippines.)  What good is a huge, bloated military if you can't even use it?

(Okay, Clinton managed to get the Balkans back to where they were, more or less, before World War I — but, as you may recall, that "balkanized" region was where World War I started.  All Obama does is launch drone attacks, which is kind of like using laser beams against the flies buzzing around those starving babies' eyes.)

Does global capitalism need a powerful army to protect its interests around the world?  It seems to think it does — but why in hell should you and I pay for it?  Let global capitalism hire Eric Prince and whatever he's calling Blackwater these days — and pay for the protection, extortion, and intimidation without putting it's grasping tentacles in our pockets.


Oh — and, yeah...  Happy New Year.

The Plan for Afghanistan

Well, I suppose it's nice that there's some kind of plan for the continuing US involvement in Afghanistan, even though I'm afraid it was shaped at least as much by domestic politics as by any sort of strategic considerations or overriding international objectives. As usual, the President weaseled down the middle: he offered up three-quarters of the troops the military (and the Republicans) wanted, plus a probably futile attempt to get the other 10 thousand from NATO; a promise to start drawing down troops in 18 months; and an unenforceable threat against Hamid Karzai that is very unlikely to persuade someone quite so corrupt to crack down on corruption.

Here's my prediction: eighteen months from now, the usual warlords will continue to be the real rulers of the Afghan countryside, although, if we're lucky, some will be nominally on our side rather than nominally supporting the Taliban. If we're really lucky, the major population centers the administration plan seeks to protect will be a little safer, although protecting a city like Kabul against suicide bombers requires a degree of authoritarian rigor likely to be beyond the powers of Karzai and McChrystal.

The generals, as usual, will be whining for more troops. Generals don't understand "relatively positive outcomes" — they're taught to believe in an obscure 19th century concept called "victory." Of course, even in the 19th century, nobody achieved that in Afghanistan.

Most important, though, the 2010 elections will be over, and the 2012 elections still will be roughly half a year away. There will be time to maneuver around both contests. What else matters? Both parties are committed to enhancing the prospects for their major contributors, so, of course, the rest of us are left eating their shit.

As for how to go about financing the new Afghan "surge," Obama was totally vague. Here's a suggestion: how about a tax surcharge on war profiteers? Some have done extraordinarily well, especially with their connections to both government and military decision makers. To me, it makes sense to spread some of the pain to those who raked in the profits from Bush's wars.

Want to end all the current bullshit? Easy. Bring back the draft.

Obama and the Generals

This morning's New York Times suggests that the Obama administration is ready to send 25,000 to 30,000 new troops to Afghanistan. I rather hope that's a trial balloon, and that the actual number will be less — especially since I took 20,000 in a betting pool.

I figured he'd split the difference between the proposals by McChrystal (40,000) and Biden (0), but who knows? Perhaps the political winds blow more powerfully from the generals than from the Democratic Left — and those assholes who call themselves "moderates" [moderate (n): doesn't know shit from Shinola) have been putting on the pressure to "cooperate" with "the men on the front lines."

For a variety of idiotic reasons, large numbers of Americans think out elected leadership is obliged to do whatever the Generals tell them is "necessary." Obama, who is, as far as I've been able to see so far, a totally political creature, feels he must make due obeisance to that moronic premise.

Maybe I've said this before, but here's what it comes down to: the military can't conceive of any solutions other than military solutions. They're handicapped — the special education boys of the American elite. Lyndon Johnson was afraid to go up against them, and look where that got us. Obama looks like he's about to go down the same road. 20,000 — or 30,000 — won't be enough. Anticipate further escalation in short order.

Needless to say, "national security" will take precedence over any domestic programs that might actually do some good for the American people — not that anything Obama's been doing for the average American has had any impact whatsoever. Wall Street is doing fine, and the companies that were "too big to fail" are even bigger now. As for the rest of America, well...

If Michele Obama were to take on the role of Marie Antoinette, she wouldn't be saying, "Let them eat cake." She'd be saying, "Let them eat shit."

Hypocrite. Coward. President.

If I seem to be writing less frequently lately, it's because my anger and outrage are devolving into the usual depression. I never expected all that much of Obama, but I suppose all that financial industry money spent on his campaign affected even a habitual cynic like me, so I swallowed hard and hoped.

Hope. Bullshit.

Let's forget my usual economic complaints for the moment. This week, I heard promises about greater regulation of derivatives, more anti-trust suits, and action to limit predation by credit card. I'm not listening to promises anymore. I'll wait and see what, if anything, actually happens.

Onward and downward: where the hell is Dwight D. Eisenhower (or some reasonable facsimile) when you need him? It's looking more and more like Obama is being cowed by Pentagon bullies, with participation by CIA, NSA, and probably a dozen other agencies whose goddamned initials are top secret. Why has McChrystal replaced McKiernan? Beats me, unless it's that McCrystal is okay with an invasion of Pakistan from Afghanistan, and McKiernan isn't. And what will that consummate bully, Benjamin Netanyahu, bully our president into doing when they meet this week?

Take some action against the torturers? Um, no, 'fraid not. Come to think of it, we can't even release any more embarassing photos. Abolish the military tribunals? Uh, sorry, but that might force us to release some people whose "confessions" were extracted by the aforementioned torture. "Don't ask, don't tell?" Don't ask.

Last week, Dick Durbin observed that the financial industry, despite its setbacks, still had the strongest lobby in Washington -- but what Eisenhower called the "military-industrial complex still has to be in the running. So, how many of the useless, overpriced "defense" contracts that now appear to be on the chopping block actually will be chopped? If experience is any guide, most of those turkeys will still be alive and well for next Thanksgiving, and for the one after that as well.