Worldwide Java Jag: 2008-04-13

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

RANSOM OF THE JOINT CHIEFS

Last week’s report by the Iraq Study Group, coupled with the senate testimony of General Petraeus provided no new or clearer details regarding the course of the war in Iraq. Both the ISG and the medal clad general condemned America to open ended expenditure of blood and treasure. In the thoughtful tone of policy writing, the ISG concluded, “There is no visible end to the U.S. commitment required to prevent Iraq from spinning out of control and threatening a widening war in the region.”

The General, cautious in his approach and somber in his tone, nevertheless clearly stated that progress was being made and any troop level reduction now…or in the near future would be a mistake. Ambassador Croker reiterated the Iraq war party line, this administration’s version of a Stalin five-year plan report … self-serving lies and selective reality.

So there you have it, a recommendation to stay the course, corner turned, visions of lighted tunnels nearby and every other self-deception left over from Vietnam. If only CNN used the split screen video techniques of the NFL we could simultaneously see General Westmoreland giving the same measured nonsense, the same false assessments that he gave in his 1967 senate testimony. At the time Westmoreland somehow failed to foresee the upcoming ARVN defeat and the 1975 Saigon U.S. embassy helicopter airlift, which ended a decade of delusion in a tropical afternoon. No doubt Petraeus and Croker share the same lack of clairvoyance.

Actually, the General and ambassador reminded me of Bill Driscoll and Sam Howard, the hapless losers who in O’Henry’s 1910 short story “The Ransom of Red Chief” kidnap the son of a wealthy man only to realize he is more trouble than they bargained on, and so end up giving him back, but not before trying to lower the ransom price several times.

The dream of the kidnappers was to raise funds for a land fraud scheme. The dream of Bush and Cheney was to destroy weapons of mass destruction, or so we were told. Once the act of destroying Sadam and Iraq was accomplished, much like O’Henry’s kidnapping, the real trouble started.

The massive looting, the disbanding of the Iraqi army, the sectarian warfare, the rise of murderous criminal gangs, the collapse of the infrastructure, the refugee crisis…we could go on, but why bother. The process of denial and rationalization that O’Henry’s kidnappers go through trying to reconcile the reality of their kidnapped kid to their original plans is exactly what we as a country are going through regarding Iraq. We can’t believe we got in this mess and have no way out.

It is doubtful that with the General’s and the Ambassador’s thinking, we will ever have an exit strategy for our troops. Spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year, dollars that we are just printing or borrowing, doesn’t bother them a bit.

Since neither they nor the ISG have a clue how this will end, perhaps they should re-read O’Henry and realize they will probably just bundle-up Iraq and leave it on the doorstep of the 22 member Arab League... the sooner the better.