[I guess for Democrats the line "Give me your tired, your poor" now refers not to people so much as to ideas. Weary impoverished thinking is all the Dems welcome these days. In any event, the neocon POV is well en route to history's ash heap:]
Noam Chomsky: Why it's over for America
Published: 30 May 2006
An inability to protect its citizens. The belief that it is above the law. A lack of democracy. Three defining characteristics of the 'failed state'. And that, says Noam Chomsky, is exactly what the US is becoming. In an exclusive extract from his devastating new book, America's leading thinker explains how his country lost its way ...
<http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article621899.ece>
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I must admit that although I have immeasurable respect for Chomsky for several years I haven't followed his writings.
It seemed I'd read it all before and didn't need a refresher course.
But this excerpt from his upcoming book, "Failed States" is truly hard hitting and places my previously free floating thoughts about American de-hegemony into a solidly built frame.
...
I think the world has learned one new lesson and re-learned an old one from the U.S.'s dramatic failures in Iraq and Afghanistan:
1.) American military hardware is devastating but no match for fluid battlefield tactics.
This was previously demonstrated in Vietnam but the Iraqis have added a new chapter to the 'How to Flight Americans' playbook.
After an initial display of lethal air power (the "shock and awe" formula of cruise missiles, cluster and thermobaric bombs, B-52 and B2 bombing sorties and so on) American forces have been fought to a stand-still in patiently sustained fourth generation combat.
In both theaters of operation we've witnessed a progression from apparent and swift victory to endless conflict.
US forces enjoy, as Pentagon types say, "total air superiority"; they also possess the world's most powerful and sophisticated ground-based weapon systems.
None of this has provided the Americans with a decisive edge because occupation is a close quarter affair; forces must be dispersed to make their mark and establish their presence. But the distribution of forces makes them vulnerable to hit-and-run guerilla attack and partially neutralizes the effectiveness of large-scale deployments of air power. Equipment (tanks, high performance helicopters, etc) in near constant use begins to wear out, troops who're compelled to maintain a relentless state of readiness and, because of staffing shortages, cannot be rotated out of theater, become tired and sloppy.
2.) Americans are unwilling or unable to make good on their promises of developing conquered territories in the style of the celebrated post WW2 "Marshall Plan".
Billions of dollars have gone missing. Power plants operate far below capacity or not at all. Sewage runs in the streets. Trash goes uncollected. Hospitals lack standard equipment. Gun battles rage.
And yet, the Americans and their camp followers talk about "progress". The (no doubt neo-liberal inspired) looting operation thinly masked as re-development - perhaps first uncovered in detail by Naomi Klein in her Harper published essay, "Baghdad, Year Zero" -
<http://www.harpers.org/BaghdadYearZero.html>
-
has increased Iraqi's misery and kept Afghanistan frozen in a moonscape of shattered buildings and stunted lives.
Or, as Univ. of New Hampshire Prof. Marc W. Herold describes it, an "empty space":
Four years after the U.S.-led attack on Afghanistan, the true meaning of the U.S occupation is revealing itself. Afghanistan represents merely a space that is to be kept empty. Western powers have no interest in either buying from or selling to the blighted nation. The impoverished Afghan civilian population is as irrelevant as is the nation's economic development. But the space represented by Afghanistan in a volatile region of geo-political import, is to be kept vacant from all hostile forces. The country is situated at the center of a resurgent Islamic world, close to a rising China (and India) and the restive ex-Soviet Asian republics, and adjacent to oil-rich states.
[...]
more at Cursor.org -
<http://www.cursor.org/stories/emptyspace.html>
This spectacle has unfolded before an audience of billions the most alert of whom have taken note of a curious new fact: the words 'American' and 'incompetence' seem to be an almost perfect fit.
It really doesn't matter if incompetence is the true cause - after all, there are perfectly capable technocrats and technicians in the U.S who could have helped if they'd been working within a reconstruction-focused occupation structure. The *appearance* of incompetence is a rather serious blow to the world's opinion of American capabilities.
And the alternative hypothesis - that the U.S. is perfectly capable of organizing large scale development but, as Prof. Herold states regarding Afghanistan, simply refuses to do so for strategic reasons - is even worse to consider.
The Iraqis continue to tenaciously wage a vicious campaign against the Americans, those in bed with the Americans and each other. Even the once-upon-a-time much talked about Anbar Province (probably the acceptable American media term for Fallujah, the supposedly pacified city that lies within the province) is no longer the showcase of American success through devastation it seemed to be only the blinking of an eye ago:
U.S. Moves 1,500 Reserve Troops to Iraq
By LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press Writer The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — U.S. military commanders are moving about 1,500 troops from a reserve force in Kuwait into the volatile Anbar province in western Iraq to help local authorities establish order there. "The United States stands ready to help the Iraqi democracy succeed," President Bush said Tuesday.
The troop movement, announced earlier by military commanders, comes as Iraqi officials continue to struggle to set up their government, amid new spikes in violence.
[...]
full -
<http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/world/3914768.html>
The movement of almost a regiment's worth of troops from reserve into an area you've declared pacified is not a good sign.
The Afghanis, weary of occupation and broken promises have, in several regions, opted to allow the Taleban to return to the field. We are beginning to see the use of Iraqi style tactics against the Americans and their NATO servants across Afghanistan and also explosions of anger:
Kabul Erupts in Gunfire By Stewart Nusbaumer
t r u t h o u t | Report
Monday 29 May 2006
Kabul, Afghanistan - Today in Kabul the veneer of national progress was ripped off, leaving several Afghans dead and many more wounded and sending this capital city into a lockdown. Four and a half years after the US-led military offensive successfully overthrew the Taliban government, which was protecting Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda, Kabul has erupted in gunfire, leaving citizens shattered and their confidence in the future shaken.
Sequestered behind the tall walls of the Le Monde Guesthouse in central Kabul, from early morning to middle afternoon - for more than five hours - I have been surrounded by the sound of gunfire, AK-47 rifles and hand guns, automatic weapons, and a few heavy explosions, probably rocket-propelled grenades. And sequestered is where I must remain, since in Kabul today foreigners - especially Americans - are not free to walk the streets.
What sparked the violence that has left 6 dead and more than 60 wounded was a vehicular accident on the outskirts of Kabul. Here are the facts, as I know them at this time: A US military convoy was traveling in the northern part of city, and at approximately 9 a.m. one of its vehicles slammed into a line of cars -some reports say as many as 12 cars - which resulted in an Afghani fatality. A large crowd quickly surrounded the military convoy and began throwing stones at the US soldiers. The troops attempted to flee by driving away, and injured several more Afghans in the process. The police arrived, gunshots were fired, it's unclear by whom, and Afghans lay dead on the road.
Approximately an hour later, the sound of gunfire could be heard in the city center, where I am located. At first there were only a few shots, which I mistook to be the pounding of hammers. But the pattern and the sharpness of the sounds soon alerted me that it was gunfire. Soon it was almost constant.
[...]
full at Truthout
<http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052906Y.shtml>
It's time to face facts; by invading Iraq and Afghanistan, by failing to pacify their opponents militarily or with favors (for ex. a functioning society, even under occupation), by failing at all this and continuing to robotically insist that "progress is being made" and by scheming - despite all the troubles currently vexing American power - to attack Iran and further widen hostilities Washington is showing us that although it has plans it doesn't have a clue.
We are watching the slow turn of the screw, the by degrees death of one system and the birth of another. Not too quickly mind you, the old boy still holds a lot of cards and won't go away without a long struggle.
But change is in the air. To avoid the label of 'naive leftist' we focus on the strengths and ignore the glaring weaknesses. But this is only another kind of naiveté.
.d.
--------- With any luck, Tom Cruise's ride on the crazy train will remove him from our screens in two, three years tops.
SMB