Sunday, October 04, 2009

Surging Inhumanity

Know what I learned from Guy Raz on Saturday? The Surge™ worked! Ignore the role of ethnic cleansing, and forget about there still being 4+ million refugees and internally displaced persons (and no major improvements in sight), a death squad and human rights abusing regime in place - because, according to Guy Raz, "before the surge in Iraq, we kept hearing that there were no good options for Iraq. This is a choice between bad and worse. But the surge seemed to have worked out."

Well, how about that. Everybody thought the outcome could only be bad or worse - but the miraculous Surge™ turned out to be GRRREEEAAAT! It's not really surprising since NPR has been hawking the Surge™ , and Raz was talking to one of NPR's favorite Bushista military men, Jack Keane. Raz does seem to be feeling the love keanely when he not only compliments him on the Surge™ but also on his strategic genius:
"Jack Keane, the counterinsurgency plan you wrote for Iraq worked at the time. You were instrumental in getting David Petraeus installed as the ground commander there. Do you think that kind of plan could work in Afghanistan?" (kiss, kiss)
Hmmm, somebody must be thinking about a 2012 Petraeus-Keane dream team...with you know who for White House Press Secretary...

6 comments:

geoff said...

All these damn dumb thunked-out tanks of wasted effluent: AEI, in Keane's case, but CATO and Brookings, and Heritage all Hoovering up the worst ideas in the world and spewing out the NPR duct. It's like a giant vampire squid with its blood soaked tentacles wrapped around the ass end of US constantly probing for openings through which to inject its vile digestive juices.

geoff said...

Keane sits or has sat on the board of directors of
1. MetLife (where he is Director)
2. General Dynamics
3. AlliedBarton
4. George C. Marshall Foundation
5. Knollwood Foundation
6. Pentagon Memorial Fund
7. URS Corporation

As if that weren't enough, he's

8. Manager of the Defense Policy Board
9. Trustee of the RAND corporation
10. Military Analyst for ABC News
11. President of GSI, LLC
12. Retired General in the US Army
13. Co-authored "Choosing Victory, A Plan for Success in Iraq
14. a major contributor to the Obama Inaugural Fund
15. a manager for Allied Security Holdings, LLC
16. a senior advisor to Kohlberg, Kravits, Roberts and Co.
17. an advisory council member to American Corporate Partners

With all that, it's amazing he can find time to opine on NPR about how important it is to do more bigger war. What a guy.

Anonymous said...

Violence is again surging in Iraq

WarOnWarOff said...

Had jury duty last week and one of my fellow jurors was a cynical, battle hardened young man recently returned from the follies in Iraq and Afghanistan. He hinted at "all the illegal shit" he'd done over there, including "extra-judicial killings." And that it was commonplace.

miranda said...

WarOnWarOff: I haven't forgotten the testimony I heard on Democracy Now's coverage of the Winter Soldier hearings about such killing and abuses, and I suspect I never will.

NPR did a great job covering Winter Soldier as well. Oh, wait.....!

Anonymous said...

There are actually two separate issues here:

1) whether the "surge' in US troops actually was responsible for reducing violence over the long term in Iraq (some woukld disagree that it was: "night light" data from satellites indicates most people had left sunni neighborhoods in baghdad BEFORE the surge -- as a result of Shiite attacks on sunnis and the converse is also true, the US alos handed out billions of dollars in "bribes" and as they say, money talks -- in ways that even bullets can not)

2) whether a comparable increase in troops would reduce violence over the long term in Afghanistan.

while the two may be related, even if the surge" did play a significant role in the reduction of violence in Iraq, that does not necessarily mean that it would have the same effect in Afghanistan.

two completely different cases. Different 'enemies", different political structure (there is NONE in Afghanistan to speak of !), different culture, different history (Afghanistan has a very recent history of foreign occupation -- and success driving foreign occupation out!)