> Just watched O'Reilly Factor while doing stuff (it's entertaining,
> it's so
> openly fascistic, no attempt to hide behind a liberal veneer), he
> interviewed a top Kerry foreign policy strategist, Chris Lapetina, an
> ex-Marine, he said what's needed is to flood Iraq with US troops and
> put
> down this rebellion. O'Reilly kidded him with "Ted Kennedy will have a
> fit",
> Lapetina responded "Ted Kennedy isn't the party's nominee".
It's clear from Kerry's public statements, as well as statements like this from his camp, that he, like most of the establishment, has been caught completely flat-footed by the blow-up in Iraq. Just about everyone who supported the war is scrambling to come up with some sort of response, and (especially if you are trying to run for President) the first inclination you will have is to say (1) we can't cut and run, we have to put more troops in and "pacify" the place (the basic response you need to make if you want to appear "patriotic") and (2) we need to turn the whole bag of crap over to the UN, NATO, whoever the hell is "willing" (as if any other country wants to get involved in this thing). It will be very interesting to see how Kerry's position on Iraq develops in the coming weeks. If support for Bush and his Iraq policy keeps falling in the polls, I would expect him to move cautiously to the left, but very cautiously, to the extent that he feels it is safe.
I am fascinated to see how the whole process of the Vietnam period, from about 1968 on, is being repeated almost step for step, except much faster. What took years in those days is taking months or weeks now. There was a gradual shift from nearly everyone except the peaceniks and the far Left being rah-rah to nearly everyone except the extreme war-lovers wanting to get out of Vietnam. The difference is that, in the end, Vietnam was recognized by the establishment as not being of crucial strategic importance to the U.S. imperium, whereas the Middle East is far more important. Thus, this collapse of the imperium's position there, together with the hopeless impasse in the Isreal-Palestine region, which seems to be getting even more deadly as Sharon's position deteriorates, is a crisis for the Washington elite that they are only beginning to realize. In fact, it is a nightmare that they wake up to every morning.
Tom Friedman's column today is, as usual, a pathetic reflection of the hand-wringing that is probably going on all over Washington these days. Not only does he repeat the idiotic notion that only ex-Baathists and "foreign and local Islamists who are trying to undermine any prospect of modernism, pluralism and secularism in Iraq" are fighting the occupation, but he laments the fact that there is no effective "Iraqi army" (analogous to the South Vietnamese army, which was of course a big help to the U.S. :-) ) to do the job for the occupation forces.
He says "we" cannot fight the urban war that is needed; only Iraqis can. "If we try to fight this war ourselves, we will kill too many innocent iraqis, blow up too many mosques and eventually turn the whole population against us -- even if they know in their hearts that what we're trying to build is better than what the insurgents want." Then he ends up: "Without more allies, without more global legitimacy -- and without an Iraqi center ready to stand up against their Khmer Rouge now posing as their Viet Cong -- we cannot win in Iraq. We will be building a house with bricks and no cement. In that case, we will have to move to Plan B. Too bad we never really had Plan A." Note that he doesn't say what Plan B is. That's because they don't have a Plan B, either.
Jon Johanning // jjohanning at igc.org __________________________________ A sympathetic Scot summed it all up very neatly in the remark, 'You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing.' -- Sir Arnold Bax