Commander In Chief Is A Bozo Surrounded By Bozos

As we’ve seen in previous articles (1, 2, 3), the once vaunted US military establishment has stumbled again in the face of a determined grassroots military organization, the so-called “insurgents” of Iraq. Through a combination of hubris, piss-poor planning, historical amnesia and dunderheaded politicians without a scrap of humility, we are playing a dangerous game of catch-up in Iraq, and what have we got to show for it? a regime busily scribbling away at a new constitution that will disenfranchise women and install the same-ole same-o religious nuts we despise, aligning the ancient Euphrates empire with that of a Persian Islamic theocratic state. Call it Iran-q.

More than enough blame for everybody here, for while we have destroyed the Iraq army, never a very good one to begin with, we disastrously failed to have a plan in hand to deal with the insurgency that was sure to follow the initial classic military invasion and virtually destroyed our own army in the process. An over-reliance on technology on the part of the US, combined with the complete failure of American political planning for the post-invasion period, has resulted in disorder bordering on chaos. And we can lay the blame squarely at the feet of our Commander In Chief, George W. Bush.

A complete dunderhead himself, Bush bought as whole cloth the fairy tales told him by ill-informed strategic planners such as then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, and the champion of whiz-bang warfare, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. In one sense, it can be admitted that Rumsfeld can be a very persuasive presenter; just recently he sat for an interview with PBS’ Charlie Rose and basically steam-rollered Charlie, ususally a pretty well-prepared interviewer. Donald looks good, he sounds good, and he doesn’t have a clue; he’s a Bozo. And, being a Bozo himself, Bush bought into the bozo plans of his techno-blinded and politically obtuse military Bozos.

Rumsfeld thinks he’s conducting the war from some outer space platform, “over flying combat zones.” His ignorance about insurgencies, guerilla and modern urban combat defies belief. Personally, I was unable to sit through the complete interview; on the one hand I wanted to jump through the TV screen and whack Rumsfeld upside the head with my copy of Insurgency and Counterinsurgency In The 21^st Century (Metz & Millen) or punch Rose out for being such a complete wimp. Arggh.

Personally, I like a good Bozo; it’s cretins like these that give Bozos a bad name. For a really good overview of the present situation, you couldn’t do worse than to subscribe to No Quarter Intelligence Review, run by Larry Johnson, who knows whereof he speaks.

Terrorism is a police matter
While we’re on the subject of plans and planning, and I know this is too late to help, but let me repeat my observation about “homeland security.” Again, terrorism is a police matter. Instead of another humongous aparat ( The Department of Homeland Defense), we should have simply established an interagency working group, co-coordinating information flow and interdepartmental co-operation between the FBI (the agency chartered for domestic terrorism) and the CIA (the agency chartered for foreign intelligence gathering). Presto bingo, free flow of information, a police organization in place devoted to catching bad guys and no issues of violations of civil liberties, as the first outfit is well-versed in the civil and criminal code and the second in foreign diplomacy as well as covert operations and intelligence gathering. Instead of a huge bureaucracy, we reassign existing agents to more closely defined activities, save money, reduce duplication of effort, and maybe get something accomplished besides X-raying little old ladies.

To repeat, Melvin Purvis to the rescue.

Gaseous relief department

I went to fill up this morning and the sign on the gas pump said, "We take Visa, MasterCard and American Express." So I filled up and they took my Visa, my MasterCard and my American Express.