The Petraeus Cult deserves closer scrutiny.
Rider “A” — Petraeus, Stalls, And All That Free (Updated)
A quick personal note before entering the mists of transcendent vacation.
We visited the limitless horizon of identical strip malls that blight the suburbs of the Imperial City. Our contribution to civilization and a pristine continent. While stalled in a parking lot clogged with single moms jockeying with gigantic SUVs, we noticed a man emerging from a van. He struggled to wrestle his legs out the door, attempting to navigate his dual crutches as well. It was clear his legs were not just wounded but severely and permanently damaged. With him was a boy of 8-10 or so. They both looked from the subcontinent or Middle East.
We hesitated. There is an awkward microsecond for the Stiftung — we want to offer help, but then wonder if offering help might be perceived as intrusive. We plunged ahead. The man, in his late 40s, perhaps, declined, smiled and said all was well.
We wandered into the various front companies that merely market Chinese exports and looked for vacation flotsam and jetsam. 30 minutes or so later we headed back to the car. We saw the same man and young boy 100 yards away hobbling across one of the ugly highways that bisect strip mall Hell. Temperature was circa 95 plus.
He looked at me, looked down, looked at the boy and then me again. Finally, hobbling up to me, he asked me if my offer of help was still valid. Out of breath, he said he left his keys in his van. (If you know Imperial City suburbs, cabs are more rare than Chickenhawks serving in Iraq). The Stiftung paused for a second to see what our “gut” told us. We heard nothing back so we said yes and offered a cell phone. Instead, the man said his apartment was less than a 1/2 mile away. We could see it. Could I drive him there to get the spare key?
As you know Dear Reader, the Stiftung is not completely 100% unfamiliar from “diversions” and the like. We’ve seen Vin Diesel movies. But here, looking at this man and this boy, with a “gut” that said nothing, we made an instant call. No problem. All three of us got into the Stiftungmobile ™ to his apartment down the street.
Here’s the damning part. He introduced himself as “Adbul”. These particular stripmalls are surrounded by gleaming faceless office buildings and guard stations with metal gates, some renovated, some newly built. (Just so you know, deliberately calibrated non-ostentation is the NEW ostentation for XYZ outfits, in our brave new blurred public/private world. It’s all so transitory in the end).Abdul’s English was excellent. Was he a video clerk? We could have cared less. We saw a hot guy with ruined legs and a 9 year old boy and nothing ahead of us but vacation.
Trip to his apartment took about 2 minutes. His wife stood on the foyer curb with the van spare key, carefully clothed and mannered as an Arabic woman in public would be. We got the key and began the return to the strip mall.”Abdul” immediately launched in a deeply embarrassing monologue insisting that he and his nephew were “good people”, that his wife was devout, but that he “Abdul” drank liquor, did not pray, and had no deeply religious views, all while thanking me over again and again.
It was a long, long 2 minutes. The Stitung told him not to worry. Over and over. It continued as he exited the car, which took time with his two full crutches. Somehow we just wanted him to know that everything was “All Good” as the kids say. Still he persisted. He wanted me to know. He was safe.
We try not to foist our personal life on you. For many reasons. One of which is that your personal life is probably far more interesting. And frankly, ours the Bill Gates of old likely would declare scathingly is just “random thinking”.
But here’s a small slice of who is typing at (with?) you. Our spiritual life we will keep private. But we’re technically part of a mainstream faith in general/loose terms. Our belief is that all of us are more than mere chemical chain reactions. And that Spirit (human and otherwise) is separate from the material and came from some source — called Creator, God, Buddha, Allah, etc. We also believe that Creation in the beginning and end is empathy.
We know no other word for it. Nor do we we mean to foreclose analytical, scientific or other approaches. Or mandate emotional, mystical embraces. But our internal compass is that empathy is in the end literally the true Alpha and Omega. All the while wholly seeing what seems to be a pitiless universe, galaxy, planet, Nation, etc. down to strip mall development.
So back to “Abdul”. His fear of mistrust another small victory for the Warlord, Cheney, A.G.A.G, the Neocons and all of them. Yes, the thousands of dead. Yes, the wounded. Yes, the maimed. Yes, the corruption, the lies, the cynicism. But also the deliberate stoking of the basest elements of Human Nature that stab at us every day in a parking lot. With “Abdul” today, another part of that “mini death”.
Should the Stiftung’s sophomoric musings come even within a billion trillion light years of “what’s going down” re The Real Deal, we hope that the Warlord, Cheney — all of them — reap what they have sown somehow should there be something beyond this Veil of Tears. Their legacy for imposing the same literally upon millions if not billions.
Now, truly off to holidays. May yours be filled with light, joy . . . and true empathy.
[UPDATE] We switched to the more commonly used Petraeus above. Some other nits fixed.
Re-Write Development Hell (Updated)
Sifting through box office wrecks, the hows and the whys, often can be instructive – and fun. And they can tell us much about ourselves and contemporary mores.
It used to be said, ‘read biography’. Today, an aging self-styled campus sage might advise a precocious undergrad to blow off History 301 (a). Kick back in the upper stacks ‘checking out franchise development and cross promotion’. He’d be right, too. Except the sage wouldn’t know the student already likely has started a multimedia company in his dorm room by now.
Oh, there are the obvious ones. We all have our favorite worsts: Waterworld, Ishtar, Heaven’s Gate, etc. Some threatened studios. Superman lately came close, too. Egos, budgets, bad scripts . . . perhaps the exhaustion of the American myth-telling reservoir. And some projects have lasting improbable impact beyond all immediate recognition. Syd Meade and Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, being re-issued yet again, an example.
So all the way around, we’re not talking purely creative judgments. Sturgeon’s Law — 90% of everything is crap and all that. Crap sells. So what if the Warlord’s war plan was and is crap. That, too is besides the point. The irony of “You asked for the best you got the best” is not limited to bad garage bands.
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We thought about this watching the Warlord’s VFW speech. It had a power-Vicodin vibe to it. True, he failed to deliver the knock-out Belushi line — “Did we give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?” But there were a moments when it seemed touch and go.
Think of the VFW gig as a preview of the war’s “Direct To Video Marketing” phase. There are only two rungs lower: Pay-Per-View and the “New, Unrated Cut”. The old high brow marketing cliches are over and done. Mr. Smith Goes To Washington? Out. Green Berets? Fini. A May-December romance? Non. It’s a buddy comedy, it’s a shoot-em up? Terminated. Now, they’re not even trying, just pouring the nihilism syrup straight from the tap.
Wednesday’s pre-emptive ‘Stab-in-the-Back’ meme is politically a marketing winner. The base comes back. All can blame Democrats for everything. Meanwhile, the Neocons still see a chance to burn out American power and lives in pursuit of their agenda for the Realm, and Pat and the others relive the trauma of 74-75.
John Warner’s gentle defection is overplayed — not even within the same solar system as Goldwater’s visit to Nixon. Warner even points to the blame on Maliki. Still, the Warlord’s Script Doctors screwed up — everyone needs to get the new green re-write pages before going live. Pace this morning spoke with the old yellow pages which left room for a smidgeon of his integrity — by the afternoon he too was back on the new green re-write. It doesn’t matter. Everyone knows Pace is correct. This expedition is overextended and exhausted.
Many Hollywood screenwriters use computer screen writing assistants to create templates and formulaic story lines, you know — (a) introduction; (b) rising tension; (c) complication; (d) resolution; (e) epilogue, character arcs, complications, etc. Not a few refuse to accept scripts unless already in these computerized formats. Does a theater goer care? That they’ve seen the same basic movie hundreds of times? Not if all is done well.
Same with wars. There are certain basic templates, rules and realities. Must haves that the public never really thinks about. And when they do, it usually is in a superficial pundit way. What the actual lifecycle costs to acquire, train, maintain, support and deploy, let alone replenish Human Capital in the Force is an gigantic unknown reality.
The realities of flowing these forces in or out of a theater of operation also unknown — which is why Time magazine can print such Pentagon-spun numbers so credulously. And once in theater, the deployment costs and vulnerabilities for POL (petroleum, oil, lubricants) crazed platforms and logistics and so on. “Loggies” are a breed apart and their wizardry close to the cosmic, but woe be to the OSD or NSC pinhead who ignores their professional judgments.
The first noxious phrase pundits tosses around was a year ago — “the army is breaking” etc. They pick these phrases from sneezing and shaking hands in Green Rooms. Next it was “clear and hold”, followed by the “Anbar Bargain”. All empty words to empty heads. The latest empty phrase being batted around? “Only one brigade can come out in a month at best”.
It’s really entertaining. Imagine a Suit showing up from the Studio on a set wracked by labor strife, actors incapacitated by drugs, rival studio crews sabotaging equipment, a spineless director, empty funds and angry town locals threatening a mass riot, all over a flooded sound stage. The Suit struts in, views the situation says “I see signs of progress, but I am not feeling the creativity, people!” and then turning on heel gets back in the Bentley for lunch. Perhaps a call on the car cell phone bitching that the Producer is too weak. Not too far off, eh?
As we’ve written several times, tt will take 8-10 years to reconstitute the Force even if we begin pulling out NOW. This is not to say the choices are only binary complete “withdraw” or “stay in Warlord land”. Withdrawals can be managed to allow political forces in Iraq to seek their own level of balancing violence. Even with some residual strategic core force in place.
The Warlord shot his wad years ago. And we can not maintain the surge. Period. So the only question is on what basis the withdrawal occurs and what future U.S. posture remains in Iraq (and under what misrepresentations). The pay-per-view marketing of this loser and the unrated cut will be Buchanan in his most orgiastic bliss, mark these words. The true horror of what the Warlord has wrought has yet to shoved into America’s celubutante-besotted eyes. But it will be.
Btw, also bad news for Israel Cheney Will Attack Iran Before 2008 gang we think. Even their Script Doctors ain’t that bad. Strategic withdrawals are among the most difficult achievements. In the best of circumstances. A sufficiently pissed off Iran could make the American withdrawal fall closer to Chosin or worse. Despite Kaplan’s effort to stroke some B2-porn for the Neocons.
The Stiftung’s sense of play at the moment? The Warlord’s gotterdammerung psychic imagery will continue but we’ll see basic withdrawals begin in ’08 simply to preserve the structural viability of the Force. Masking the cognitive dissonance will be a virulent and divisive direct-to-video “enemies” campaign possibly surpassing 2004.
The wild card? How openly and aggressively Iran wants to celebrate its strategic victory. Or push onwards. Absent a true Iranian provocation, we still don’t see the Realm going back into Lebanon before Fall ’08. YMMV.
Hoisting A Draft To The Draft
Much has already been made of Brooks’ encounter with the Warlord last week and resulting column. Perhaps Karl Rove will enter the Oval Office one day and exclaim “Mr. President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has passed away! It is the miracle of the House of Brandenburg!”
On a more serious note, how should the Nation begin to plan to deal with a post-Iraq military returning to CONUS? The withdrawal will come. Whether called that or not; whether wanted or not. Perhaps concealed by a new Linebacker ala 2008 — airpower with inevitable ‘collateral damage’.
The Stiftung argues that our military has failed the Nation as much as the Warlord in many respects. Not just in the ways Bacevich or Lind write about. Whether the military ignores counterinsurgency 101 or 4th Generation warfare is something only 1 in 200 Americans grok. The military failed on two more overarching principles: (a) an overweaning fetishization of the “Commander in Chief” (note none of them took a personal oath); (b) an inexcusable indulgence in gamesmanship and politics among senior leadership — even the non-lackeys besides Meyers and Pace. All of which suggests the contemporary American military is not well structured, trained and incentivized to serve and protect a liberal democratic republic.
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A person the Stiftung would like to talk to about this but hasn’t seen in a long while is Charlie Moskos, the renowned sociologist of the military. Charlie is a foremost authority on military organizations as socialogical organisms. We know that the current military demographically is isolated from ‘mainstream American society’ in many important ways. Only one is the vastly higher ratio of Evangelical, Pentacostal and other non-mainstream religious sects in the officer corps. There are many more. Culturally, and this is where Charlie was THE expert, the military remains separate and apart even from now-current Republican mores.
How will this closed off organization handle and digest defeat? As well as its stunning abuse at the hands of its CinC? (Note that the military and the intelligence communities, two legs of State Power in any basic political science analysis of any governming appartus have been grossly misused, bludgeoned, exhausted and radicalized by the regime. This is, as the Stiftung has long observed, “no accident”).
Charlie Rangle’s call for a draft is a stunt to make the point shared by many. A professional army (augmented by even more corporate mercenary ancillary troops and support infrastructure) is easier to use and abuse. But a draft is also an important tool to leaven the military with the reality of America 2008-onwards. And we are coming to the belief that if the American military is ever to absorb the reality of losing and gaining the best from this calamitous experience, a hermetic, isolated culture is unlikely to allow it.
We know the usual excuses — cost, time needed to train for technical weapons platforms, etc. We are not persuaded on the cost item given Operation Iraqi Excellent Adventure – both in actual outlays and the damage done to the overdeployed human element. Dear Reader, did you know that if troops re-enlist in-theater, it apparently is tax free ? And re-enlistment bonuses can range as high as $50,000. Too bad Webb did not smack Graham across his cherubic visage with that one on Press the Meat. Moreover, as we and others have pointed out, the over-reliance on the ACRONYM laden, technical, precision weapons platforms are precisely what failed both Israel and the U.S. in all three wars (Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan).
Congress has devolved into a parody Duma. The White House its own parody – pick your favorite analogy. A liberal democracy should not be exposed thusly to a tightly organized, culturally aloof-if-not-disdainful, military fresh from defeat and facing budget cuts and perhaps future deployments. Even now, the rarity of service makes it almost mandatory to do obeisance before one who has. Regardless how one feels about the Warlord’s disasterous policies, this is not healthy for a democracy. Whether Dubya general shops, hides behind them or Petreus calls it as he sees it, the totemistic deployment of veterans and the outsourcing of decision-making to the military under these circumstances forecasts more disconcerting events on the horizon.
If Congress, the Judiciary and the Executive had not been so debased by the Warlord and Movement’s radicalism we might feel less concern. So here’s to a draft. Not just to “share the burden”. But also to ensure that our military shares liberal democratic culture and values.