November 17, 2004, Fallujah Again
That pun is overly used by Jim Henley, but I have learned in blogging as everywhere else, when stealing, steal from the best. And just as I have stolen the post title, so the link is... "borrowed", or at least generously provided to us by Bruce "the Veep" Moomaw, who gives us the Grey Lady's account of... just why our marines aren't finding lots and lots of deceased insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq.
Short answer, of course, is that in the weeks and longer of run-up to this, the smarter insurgents (and as many civilians as could) up and left, leaving behind a crack suicide squad to pin down our forces and take as many of us as they could, and by yet more time and cover for their comrades to escape, regroup, and attack us another day. Quite possibly, from an eventually to be abandoned Fallujah!
Fallujah, of course, must be seen for what it was: a domestic political initiative designed before the election (though executed after) to convince an otherwise uninterested or at least forgiving American people that "we are making progress" in whatever it is we are doing in Iraq. What we are doing, of course, is getting our own people killed (1200 now, and counting), our own treasury decimated (hundreds of billions down the toilet), fomenting years, if not decades of resentment and hatred toward us, which will almost certainly result in future terrorist attacks against our interests (if not necessarily carried out in North America).
As an added benefit, our military has been stretched beyond the breaking point, and the usual politically expedient solution for such a situation is a draft; the 79% of 18 to 25 year olds brought this upon themselves, of course, by not going out and voting, perhaps for a candidate who might NOT risk getting them killed in a fool's errand to show his Poppy whose was bigger.
Well, that's where we are. Mired in a war against "insurgents" largely of our own making in a theater we cannot win, largely fought for a strange combination of (1) deliberately destabilizing the region to make sure Iraqi oil does not come on line anytime soon (thereby increasing the price of all to the benefit of the President's Saudi friends... and masters...), (2) keeping an American presence in Iraq, on the doorstep of Saudi, so that our presence in the Kingdom of Petro-Plutocrats can be reduced (for Saudi domestic benefit, (3) propping up the Praetorian state, so that GOP-contributing defense contractors have a nice source of revenue which can be recycled to Republican candidates, and of course, most importantly, (4) keeping the Treasury bereft of spare funds that might go to those awful social programs.
The President has a mandate for all of this. Don't worry about his actual margin of victory: the fact that he wasn't trounced by at least 30 million votes is mandate enough.
Comments
An Iraqi friend (secular, Kurdish, no fan of Saddam's or of Baathists in general) is optimistic about the future of Iraq and I think I finally understand why, while the US occupation force (widely and actively disliked) is bogged down in snipe hunts, their attention is away from everyday Iraqis who have a chance to make things better ...
Posted by Michael Farris at November 18, 2004 4:50 PM
I get it, Farris.
Iraq would be a great place if it wasn't for those meddling Marines. Good one.
And why the hostility toward kim jong-illin. I like the psychotic little guy. You, on the other hand....
Posted by They Call Me Mr. Crabcake at November 18, 2004 7:05 PM
Mr. Crabcake (if I must call you that),
1. Excellent snark, though that's not what I wrote exactly. Since it looks like you don't especially care about what I actually did write, we'll let the matter drop.
2. It appears that Li'l Kim is on the road to non-personhood as his portraits are starting to disappear and flyers appear, accusing him of doing in dad. Plus good!
link: http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041116/ap_on_re_as/north_korea_portraits
And my reasons are ..... my own.
cordially yours,
Michael (I got a hankerin' for some seafood) Farris
Posted by Michael Farris at November 19, 2004 1:13 AM
And the official NKorean news service
http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm
has now replaced all references to "Dear Leader" with the much less dear "Leader", going back even in their archives to 1999. Things aren't looking good for Li'l Kim.
Posted by Michael Farris at November 19, 2004 2:30 AM
Mr. Farris,
Given your hankerin', remind me to never say "Bite me" around you.
Posted by They Call Me Mr. Crabcake at November 19, 2004 12:33 PM