Bush Demonstrates His Contempt For Diplomacy

I am surprised he waited. Mere hours after declaring war on Iran, US soldiers raided an Iranian consulate in Iraq. Now we have six Iranians personnel held hostage and the circle is complete. The helpful White House PowerPoint presentation lists attacking Iran right up front, as a Key Tactical Shift: "Increase operations against Iranian actors"

Under International law and practice, embassy grounds may not be entered by the host country without permission. That after all is the whole point of refugee asylum in embassies. Even the North Koreans respect this, that is why North Korean nationals in China flee to third-party embassies.

Lawlessness in Iraq now being spread by the United States. What other country would President Bush dare to attack an embassy? Can even Prime Minister Blair tolerate standing with the President on this one? The governments of the world will condemn us.

The President's action demonstrates the contempt with which he holds diplomacy. Unless the military quickly exposes the facility as a bomb producing plant, we have some explaining to do.

Division Of Iraq

History, that wicked wretch, sneaks up, extend it’s palm and begs for alms. History meets us at the airport chanting “Hare Krishna.” History arrives in the post, “You may already have won!” Try as we might, never will history shake itself loose.

In his editorial Making the Surge Work, which started appearing on the 7th, David Brooks advocates using President Bush’s miliary escalation in Iraq to divide the country in ethnic parts.

"Perhaps, in other words, it’s time to merge the military Plan B — the surge — with a political Plan B — flexible decentralization. That would mean using adequate force levels (finally!) to help those who are returning to sectarian homelands. It would mean erecting buffers between populations where possible and establishing order in areas that remain mixed. It would mean finding decentralized governing structures that reflect the social and psychological facts on the ground.

"The record shows that in sufficient numbers and with sufficient staying power, U.S. troops can suppress violence. Perhaps more U.S. troops can create a climate in which decentralized arrangements can evolve.

"We can’t turn back time. But if the disintegration of Iraqi society would be a political and humanitarian disaster, perhaps we should finally commit military resources, and create a political strategy, commensurate with the task of salvaging something. "

Brooks should take a look at India's experience in Partition. The Viceroy Lord Mountbatten viewed the ethnic strife between Hindu, Muslim, and Sikh populations which exploded after the plan to keep India unified but ruled by ethnic provinces. He persuaded the British Parliament to abandon this plan after the rioting became full-blown civil war. The India Independence Act caused the migration of over 15 million Indians as the new countries exchanged populations. Millions died during riots, civil war, and migration.

After division, the region saw continued wars, in 1965, the Indio-Pakistan War, in 1971 again Indio-Pakistan but also the division and birth of Bangladesh. The 1971 war includes the genocide of Bengalis, by 1972 Newsweek reported over 10 million Bengal refugees. The Kargali War of 1992 witnessed conflict between nuclear armed neighbors. Tensions between the new countries continue today, with a nuclear armed Indian and Pakistan still fighting over Kashmir. India continues to be tormented by Kashmiri separatist terrorists, including attack on the India Parliament building by separatist gunmen.

The division of India should inform military planners in Iraq. The massive population displacement, the millions dead from secular fighting, and the continued regional tensions do not bode well for similar response in Iraq.

Millions dead, many more millions displaced, and generations of violent tension. Is that what America hopes to duplicate in the Middle East? While division does seem to be where the inertia at work in Iraq seems headed, the British might be of even more help in planning than they have proved so far. After all, they have India, Afghanistan, and Israel experience before us. They tried and filed and now we have tried and failed. The lessons of Colonialism seem to be revisited on the world wherever our "national interests" demand.

Rosecoveredglasses Comments on Daisy Post

There are good points in your article. I would like to supplement them with some information:

I am a 2 tour Vietnam Veteran who recently retired after 36 years of working in the Defense Industrial Complex on many of the weapons systems being used by our forces as we speak.

If you are interested in a view of the inside of the Pentagon procurement process from Vietnam to Iraq please check the posting at my blog entitled, “Odyssey of Armaments”

http://rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com/2006/11/odyssey-of-armaments.html

The Pentagon is a giant, incredibly complex establishment, budgeted in excess of $500B per year. The Rumsfelds, the Administrations and the Congressmen come and go but the real machinery of policy and procurement keeps grinding away, presenting the politicos who arrive with detail and alternatives slanted to perpetuate itself.

How can any newcomer, be he a President, a Congressman or even the new Sec. Def.Mr. Gates, understand such complexity, particularly if heretofore he has not had the clearance to get the full details?

Answer- he can’t. Therefore he accepts the alternatives provided by the career establishment that never goes away and he hopes he makes the right choices. Or he is influenced by a lobbyist or two representing companies in his district or special interest groups.

From a practical standpoint, policy and war decisions are made far below the levels of the talking heads who take the heat or the credit for the results.

This situation is unfortunate but it is absolute fact. Take it from one who has been to war and worked in the establishment.

This giant policy making and war machine will eventually come apart and have to be put back together to operate smaller, leaner and on less fuel. But that won’t happen until it hits a brick wall at high speed.

We will then have to run a Volkswagen instead of a Caddy and get along somehow. We better start practicing now and get off our high horse. Our golden aura in the world is beginning to dull from arrogance.

Remember Daisy

Daisy , a 30-second campaign ad featuring a little girl pulling petals from a daisy may well have put Lyndon Johnson in the White House in 1964. Superimposed over her count comes the familiar launch countdown, then a nuclear mushroom cloud. Finally President Johnson states, "These are the stakes! To make a world in which all of God's children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die." Another voice over then says, "Vote for President Johnson on November 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay home."

Anyone over a certain age remembers Daisy.



Among the first pieces of business the Senate Armed Forces Committee must do is crack open Pentagon planning for "tactical" nukes against Iranian nuclear facilities. Sy Hersch at The New Yorker reported in April17, 2006, on Bush plans for Iran. Now Israel has also revealed such planning according to the London Sunday Times .

What a crazy world! and this from the people that brought you the Summer of Love. What happened to these people. We have a president who seems to understand the world in terms of the sound bites devised for him, featuring "Post-911 World" and "The War On Terror" which make his so very dangerous.

As the Iraq War clearly demonstrates, we can not face Islam Radicalism by declaring war on the Middle East. Terrorism remains a strategy for political and social change and not state action. defeating terrorism requires a completely different approach than the nationalism and militarism now prevalent. These are the same "isms" that ushered in the great military conflicts of modern history.

Furthermore, the War on Terror consumes vast resources which should be put to use in funding a new economy. The planet can no longer balance an economy based on burning carbons. We must spend the wealth, both human and capital, on going green. Our future depends upon it.

President Bush would certainly push the Iraq debacle a notch down in "Huge Blunders By President Bush" (an already incredibly long list) by filling the top spot with "Nuking Iran" or even allowing Israel to nuke Iran for us. There is no question in my mind that the Pentagon has been gaming the scenario. Could there really be an outcome that ends positively for the world?

The Right Man At The Wrong Time

The President finally appointed a new commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus. Gen. Petraeus commanded the 101st Airborne during a tour in Iraq in 2003. He managed the most successful integration of the military in Iraq society. Petraeus rejected the prevailing military view that the Iraqis were terrorists who needed to be pacified. Instead he made the focus of his attention living among the Iraqis and struggling to see the world fro their point of view. Petraeus enjoyed startling successes in 2003.

Petraeus reflects a change in two significant ways. The military must view appointment to the Iraq theater as a necessary step in a career path. This ensures that he best and the brightest seek a tour there. Otherwise, the military culture will write off the Iraq war and focus attention elsewhere. Second, the military and the White House needs to stop seeing Iraqis as the enemy.

The problem, of course, remains that the appointment, while amounting to a significant change in military orientation, comes far to late to matter. US Military commitment can no longer make much difference in Iraq. We have proved incapable of separating the parties vying for power, for revenge, for chaos, for world view. We never made any attempt to understand the Middle East before entering Iraq. The President had to have the various religious sects explained to him, well after he ordered bombing to begin.

The Shia/Sunni divide hardly needs US troops for targets. The struggle in the Middle East for dominance started coming apart at the seams (again) soon after the rise to power of a Shiite government in Iran, after the fall of Reza Shah in 1979. The US felt the tremors first in the kidnapping of Americans from the embassy.

Any settlement of violence in Iraq, and the avoiding of spreading further in Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, lays in resolving this timeless rift in Islam. Something America is uniquely unqualified to do. A beginning must be made and that means negotiating with Iran. We may have little to say to one another, but we must begin.

Another positive note may be appointment to the UN of Zalmay Khalilzad.

Hang On To Saddam 2

The New York Times reports today, Friday, January 5, 2007, page A6, that, while the President has not seen it, the video of Saddam's hanging upset lawmakers in Washington. What surprise! The Iraqi government promptly hangs the dictator in an undignified, rushed and violent manner. The question really should not be the hanging but the surprise here. What should we have expected out of Iraq. I wonder what Iraqis think. Their government protested that nothing was amiss; maybe they really think so, after all, Saddam's government apparently acted the very same way.

The hanging should demonstrate to lawmakers that there is no precipice to withdraw from: Iraq fell long ago. The chaos only threatens to worsen and more US military will serve no useful purpose.

Already Washington spins the midterm elections. The message could not be clearer: Withdraw now. Lawmakers from both partys now see ethics, or taxes, or "change" as the message. What more must we do?

End the war now!

Get Lonely by The Mountain Goats

The 2006 release Get Lonely by The Mountain Goats (Released 21 August) shows continuing maturity to John Darnielle’s production values, without conceding any ground in either in his songwriting or production ethic. From the beginning, the Mountain Goats have captured the intensity of Darnielle’s lyrical vision by utilizing very low-tech productions. The music traveled by cassette tape from a cassette recorder Darnielle used at his work as a psychiatric nurse. For percussion he used the background hiss of late-night television. John toured with a bass player, first Rachel Ware and then Peter Hughes, including California and Chicago, where he later moved. He released an EP, Nine Black Poppies, in (emperor jones records, p.o. box 49771, Austin TX 78765).

In The Sunset Tree, the previous release, Darnielle explored his own emotional state, creating songs largely based on his relationship with an abusive and alcoholic step-father. Get lonely while equally and as intensely personal, delves , more deeply into emotional state, hopefully not Darnielle’s own, but based on his experiences as a psychiatric nurse. The opening track gives us the first person account of a schizophrenic, wandering out of his home to start his day:

I leave the house as soon as it gets light outside
like a prisoner breaking out of jail.
and I steal down to business 15-501
like I had a bounty hunter on my tail

…I laugh to myself and look up at the skies
and then I think I hear angels in my ears
like marbles being thrown against a mirror…

The hearing voices operates not as metaphor but as description. The Durham 15-501, currently under construction, marks a “superstreet” in Darnielle’s current home town.

The catchiest tune on the CD might be Woke Up New. I caught my 12-year-old daughter working the song out on the piano, singing the catch

and I sang oh
what do I do?
what do I do?
what do I do?
what do I do without you?

The song, like much of Darnielle’s writing, tells of recent romantic loss. Another break-up song comes in the title track Get Lonely a truly, hauntingly beautiful song, both tune and lyric.

The Mountain Goats opened their recent world tour here in Minneapolis, at the Triple Rock on September 14th. I had an extra ticket to the show. When I got to the Triple Rock, on the campus at the University of Minnesota, the line already stretched down the block. There is no question that I was by far the oldest person there. I would guess the crowd averaged about 22, and every one of them sat on the sidewalk reading a book-if only I had a camera! The reading no doubt demonstrates the literacy of both the band and the fans. Darnielle peppers his songs with classical illusions, and I mean classical in the Roman/Greek sense, not classic rock.

The Mountain Goats’ played Get lonely straight through at the Triple Rock show. (Joanna Newsom tried the same thing with Ys down the street at The 400 on December 8, a tough venue for a harp player.) Darnielle could barely contain his excitement during the show, flailing away at his guitar as he tried to remember the lyrics. The crowd sang along to most of the songs, except for a remarkable take on the outstanding Cobra Tattoo, during which you could hear a pin drop. Darnielle did not disappoint ardent fans. For the mosh pit, they played both Cubs in Five and See America Right

Get Lonely ranks the top of essential listening for the releases for 2006.



September 14 - Minneapolis, MN, Triple Rock Social Club

http://www.mountain-goats.com/ (band website)
http://www.themountaingoats.net/ (fan site with discography, lyrics, and tabs)
http://www.islandgardensong.com/home/mg/live/ (fan site with concert recordings for download)
http://www.alibris.com/wish/list.cfm?action=list&S=R&email=editor%40lastplanetojakarta.com&Go.x=16&Go.y=10 (John’s wish list)
http://www.lastplanetojakarta.com/index.php (John’s web log)
http://3bos.com/ (3 Beads of Sweat, Mountain Goats news, and Cd’s)
http://www.fivetools.com/ (Peter’s erratic web log)
http://www.archive.org/index.php (Internet Archive with fan recordings for download)
http://sixeyes.blogspot.com/2006/09/mountain-goats-john-darnielle.html (A Blogspot interview)