The Grumpy Forester

WINNING HEARTS AND MINDS

...the truth is, as far as Iraq is concerned, we are not engaged in anything that can meaningfully be attributed to the "War on Terra". We are engaged solely in the occupation of a foreign country beset by an insurgency that opposes our presence and occupation. Nothing that we do in Iraq on a daily basis makes a single little whit of difference to our internal safety as Americans. Perversely, however, virtually every American action makes a statement about our global standing in the eyes of the Muslim world that has become our enemy (at least in the eyes of the bull-fruit loonies that are in charge of things around here) and contributes to our overall safety both domestically and internationally because of our treatment of people who belong to one of the three dominant religions on the planet. So while we haven't always gotten to the point of creating excuses out of whole cloth in the fashion of the Israeli Defense Force when we kill innocents, our profound official sorrow at the dropping of a 500 lbs. bomb on the wrong house and the resultant dispute over just exactly how many innocent civilians we snuffed out doesn't really get the job done...

...this is a textbook example of how you "win the war" and "lose the peace". All the talk in the world of "the fog of war" will not make things better for the extended family and friends and neighbors of the innocent dead, but at the same time becomes a rallying cry for the very people that are challenging our presence or object to our presence, given the total and abject failure to have properly planned for the post-war period and getting on with the program on reconstruction efforts. This isn't how you win the hearts and minds of an occupied people who have begun to grow tired of your inept handling of your own efforts at regime change in their country. This is exactly, one small brick at a time, how you build a wall between your efforts and the those hearts and minds you are trying to reach, especially when, in this incredibly interconnected world in which we live, they already know how so much of Gee Dub's base in the fundamentalist "Christian" community feels about them as people (is it possible that there's anyone who doesn't believe they have heard all the crazy talk about internment for American Muslims?)...

...the focal length of the view matters tremendously. One hundred fifty thousand dead on the fringes of the Indian Ocean are looked at through a long lens to try to gain understanding, but a handful of deaths at the hands of a stupid military mistake can have a far greater and more powerful effect as far as America's place in the world and our ability to positively influence events is concerned. We are dangerously close to having completely failed to meet any of the stated or implied objectives that buttressed our invasion of Iraq. Dropping a bomb on the wrong house in Mosul is just another misguided step down the path to that wasted, useless outcome....

SAME FECAL MATTER, NEW DAY

...we already knew how the current oligarchy wannabe's of the Bush administration felt about the integrity of the broadcast airwaves. The batch of commercials that they produced last year trying to sell their shilling of their stop-gap Medicare drug plan as some sort of faux "news report" infomercial buried within legitimate news broadcasts pretty much said all that ever needs to be said about their respect for honest discourse in the public arena. As a result, it isn't terribly surprising that they paid cash money to a noted black conservative talking head to try to sell "No Child Left Behind" to the black community by trying to make it appear that he had independently arrived at the conclusion that it was a wonderful thing (even though it is, to put it simply, solely an effort to damage public schools to the degree sufficient to make it ok to provide federal funding to private schools)...

...this represents another ugly little example of a powerful tool that the Bush-Monkeys have decided to employ in their effort to promote their initiatives. It has never dawned on anyone in a previous administration to use info-mercials trying to pass themselves off as honest journalism as a means of 'selling their product'. It speaks poorly to the sense of ethics of what passes for journalism today that the well-established track record of this gang of crooks and fixers hasn't turned the relationship between the Press and the White House into a boiling cauldron of animosity. These sorts of episodes speak volumes to the sad relationship that the so-called independent press now attempts to nurture with this White House. They appear to be willing to absorb any insult in an effort to maintain their precious standing with this Administration, and that says all that needs to be said about how well we are being served, how well serious issues will be examined, and how likely it is that we will anytime soon see any meaningful reportage about the raw feral lying that this Administration engages in every day, moment after moment, just because it's a cheap and easy thing to do given the loss of any sense of independence that encumbers today's media...

...the news is that there doesn't seem to be any overwhelming sense of outrage over Armstrong Williams' behavior. A dog's life ago, he would have been faced with the spectacular violent implosion of his carefully crafted little media empire, faced with the prospect being consigned to a future featuring "Trivial Pursuit" question lines or some possible Swagart-like tearful episode of self-recrimination that may allow him back into the fold. That's not happening, however; all we're seeing is his personal observation that, given the same circumstances, he probably wouldn't do the same thing again. That's it. No particular strength of remorse, just an observation. Media moguls will still allow him to be one of the cool kids. You just can't find a better example of what we are up against than this....

FIXING THE ARMY RESERVE PROBLEM

...it seems like it was just yesterday that I was typing about the concerns of the head of the Army Reserves over the impending implosion of the whole Reserve program as a viable element of the US Army. In fact, it was just yesterday. Well, never let it be said that the "be all that you can be" folks don't have their pulse on the needs of the American civilian soldier. Today we learn that the proposed Pentagon solution for the incredible pressure that has been placed on National Guard and Reserve units is simple; it's so easy that we should all dope-slap ourselves for not having thought of it sooner: simply extend their tours! BRILLIANT!! Instead of locking all those butchers and bakers and candlestick makers and EMT's and firemen and local police (as the Talking Dog points out in comments to the previous post) and just plain Joe's and Jill's who make up a certain part of the threadcount of the fabric of our local communities for a single active duty tour of a couple of years (which is what the current 24-month maximum means), let's just say that they can only serve 24 months without a break but that they can also serve multiple 24-month active duty tours with a break of a few days or weeks or months in between call-ups...

...somehow I have a deep and abiding suspicion that this wasn't what Lt. General James Helmly meant when he said that the Army Reserve program, because of the multiple and lengthy call-ups, had become a trainwreck that was simply looking for a place to come to rest. I am not, however, surprised. Gee Dub and his Bush-Monkeys have no choice but to prevail in Iraq, and - make no mistake - their adventurous little jaunt into Iraq as an experiment in implementing the PNAC vision of bringing the flower of democracy to the Middle East is the entire reason for the pressure being placed on the US military right now. Afghanistan, dangerous though it may be, is a mere sideshow from a staffing standpoint; it does contribute to the drain on forces, but the far greater balance of troops committed to key battlefields in Gee Dub's 'War on Terra' are in Iraq. Iraq is "The Big Shew" (note to younger readers: that's an Ed Sullivan reference. Ed Sullivan used to have a popular show on TV back when I was a kid and there were only three channels on the television and...oh, hell, never mind) and is the driving force behind the long, grinding commitments being carried out by regular forces and a large dollop of "guy down the street" reserve troops...

...cynical curmudgeon that I am, even I am taken somewhat by surprise that this proposal is coming out so close on the heels of the "going to hell in a handbasket" assessment of the Army Reserve situation that General Helmly laid on the Pentagon's 'Welcome' mat like a litter of dead kittens. This "solution" raises questions: is there an outer limit to the number of active duty deployments for Guard and Reserve troops; will this harm recruiting for Guard and Reserve units; will "stop loss" be employed between deployments to hold current Guard/Reserve members as unwilling draftees. This proposal is just crazy stuff, and it reveals at multiple levels the full measure of incompetence with which Donald Rumsfeld has graced the inner rings and the entire mindset of the Pentagon. Yes, all of this is no doubt Bill Clinton's fault; that man, if the Bushies and their media collaborators are to be believed, will be forced to go down in history as one of the two or three most influential Presidents in the country's history, since we're still laying the wood to him for various problems after a full four-year term by some other guy. This proposed fix, however, is simply marvelous. You almost couldn't, with malice aforethought, create a circumstance more guaranteed to debilitate the effectiveness of the part-time reserve force unless you really really tried...

...this is as good an example and you're ever going to see of the total disregard that Gee Dub and his clown pack have for the little people (which is most of us). This is, quite simply put, an outrageous attack on the lives, families, and circumstances of people who, by joining the Guard and Reserve and actually honoring their commitments, have shown far more class and patriotism than Gee Dub and his draft-dodger minions could hope to rise to in a handful of lifetimes. It's going to be a long four years....

STOP ME IF YOU'VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE

....boy, those darned leaked memos. Courtesy of one of those nasty little buggers - and the Baltimore Sun - we discover that the head of the US Army Reserve, Lt. General James Helmly, has informed Army Chief of Staff General Peter Schoomaker that the Army Reserve is virtually a broken force, incapable of fulfilling its current assigned mission while still being able to respond to other potential operational needs. He also noted that military leaders have rebuffed his suggestions concerning how to fix the current situation...

...not to fear, of course; everything's just fine. Just ask Army spokesmen:

A senior Army official said Schoomaker and Army Secretary Francis Harvey were reviewing the memo. “Changes are expected over time, and the Army is already working these issues. The memo just brings it to the forefront,” the official said.

...given Rumsfeld's and the Pentagon's track record, the most likely immediate change will be to the employment status of General Helmly from "active duty" to "retired". But the dirty little secret is out; it's slipped its chain and is running around the neighborhood where we can all see it and understand. The standard refrain has been to say that Gee Dub's war of choice in Iraq has made us less safe, with the usual meaning being the increased emnity of the Muslim world and the powerful recruitment gift that has been presented to those radical groups who wish to do us or our interests harm. Now, however, we are presented with another method of measure. The loss of the Army Reserve as a viable force in response to national emergency or natural disaster truly puts us at greater risk right here in the good ol' U.S. of A and, just like everything else in this mess, the blame trail leads right straight back to the incompetent leadership of this administration...

...man, oh man, and the next four years hasn't even started yet...

THE BATTLE IS JOINED

...and so now it begins. The first big battle of the second Bush Admininstration is about to be joined in the form of the confirmation hearing of Alberto Gonzales as the new Attorney General of the United States. Gonzales is a man with deep footprints, one who has been on the leading edge of the whole internal administration discussion concerning treatment of opponents captured on the field of battle or otherwise detained in Gee Dub's "War on Terra". Even more than being a potentially defining moment in the on-going quest to figure out how such atrocities as Abu Ghraib came to be painted in American colors, this is a defining moment in the configuration of the role that the Democratic party will have (or may not have, in other terms) in the shaping and execution of US policy both domestically and internationally...

...after years on the inside, the Democratic leadership has been singularly unsuited over the last four years to the role of outsider. Having felt themselves forced to play a go-along game of catch-up in the months leading up to the Iraqi invasion, they were stunned almost to the point of incontinence to see their efforts at bipartisanship turned against them as Republican operatives were turned loose on them in the 2002 mid-terms like a pack of feral dogs with a thin cruel gleam in their cold eyes and a taste for soft fatty Democratic flesh on their tongues. The electoral process in 2004 was no better, with the Democrats offering themselves up as the political version of the Oklahoma Sooners football team, flashy big timers who looked good in the prelim's and around the press table but who fell apart time and again like cheap beach cabanas in a hurricane tidal surge in the face of the real prime-time players with a goal and a gameplan. The message of the last four years, the bottom line, is that there is no such word as "bipartisanship" in the current Republican dictionary...

...this is truly the big game for the Senate Democrats. All the tools are there in the case of the confirmation of Mr. Gonzales. He is easily the most baggage-laden candidate for Attorney General to come down the pike in a lifetime; his cruelly incompetent dispensation of death penalty clemency appeals during Gee Dub's less than star turn as Texas governor would - all by itself - be suitable kindling to ignite the sort of fire that would C-SPAN and cable news coverage for days. This all pales, however, when held up against his authorship, concurrence, or acceptance of legal advice regarding the torture of defenseless imprisoned human beings that has caused most civil and military legal experts to almost snort in derision. Gonzales has demonstrated that he is profoundly outside both legal and Christian concepts of the treatment of the imprisoned, and the ball to bring that realization to the country is now in the court of Senate Democrats. There has been a great deal of play over the last couple of days concerning the "10 Questions" offered up by the Center for American Progress. Those are as good a place to start as any, and many more questions can devolve from those ten offerings. This is the point where the rubber meets the road for the Democratic party, however. The time for bipartisanship and cooperation is long since gone; Gee Dub has signaled with his intention to renominate previously rejected judges that he wants to play rough. It's time for Senate Democrats to cowboy up and get on with this particular rodeo. They will earn nothing from accommodation except the reinforcement of the viewpoint that liberals can be rolled at will. It is time for elected Democrats to either demonstrate that they are willing to openly fight for what they believe in or show once and for all that it will require a generational change to an angrier, more combative and hungry band of Democrats who are willing to take on this sordid Roman legion of right-wing pundits and politicians and redefining in the public mind what being a "liberal" out there in the real world...

...tomorrow heralds either a beginning or an ending. All desperation aside, it will be fascinating to see how this plays out...

FOOLS OR TOOLS?

...George W. Bush is loose on the nation again with another of his handlers' patented low-calorie fact-free campaigns; this time the target is the hoary old conservative bugaboo "tort reform". The various mouthpieces on the right have been repeating that desperate old refrain about how waves of big-dollar lawsuits are driving this country to its knees for so long that it's beginning to become difficult to tell if have finally - through repetition - come to believe it themselves or whether they are just maintaining their status as money-grubbing little shills for their lucrative campaign contributors in the insurance industry...

...heart-warming, tear-jerking commercials about how shattered lives have been made whole by your insurance agent aside, it is probably fair to say that just about everybody who has ever had any particular dealings with major insurance companies has come to the realization that these companies aren't in the racket for your benefit. A recent twist that has been way too insufficiently reported is their practice of combing through your credit records in order to find some anomoly that will justify raising your premium rates; I fell prey to this scam when my insurance company found a revolving payment that was a couple of days late through a mailing error and didn't involve anything that they insured; based on this one incident in a spotless record stretching back years and years, they declared me a risk and raised my auto insurance by 1/3rd. Happens all the time, to all sorts of people, and the tort reform effort is just a variation on that bitter theme. Insurance company profits routinely border on the obscene while - at the same time - companies insist that doctors' premiums have to be raised because of all those inflated and frivolous malpractice suits, and the saddest part is that they know that we know that it's not true...

(Scot) McClellan on Tuesday brushed aside questions about whether Bush would examine rising malpractice insurance rates. McClellan blamed “unlimited and unpredictable liability awards” for raising the cost of health insurance premiums and making insurance too expensive for some Americans.

...there's no reason for anyone to be shy about this gambit; Gee Dub and his Bush-monkeys are seeking to capture one of the talismen of conservative activism: taking a bite out of trial lawyers while making the world safe for continued outlandish profits by the insurance industry. They will continue to pander their gross distortions and lies to the more...um...impressionable segment of the population that generally doesn't pay a lot of attention to these sorts of issues but that may be able to be swayed into thinking that one or two frequently retold tales represent some sort of norm out there in the real world. This "reform" won't bring a bit of relief to the little people; premiums will not be reduced; the average person will still struggle finding reliable health care; the only money that will be saved will be that left in the insurance companies coffers that they will bury in various investment instruments in order to accrue even more breathtaking profits...

...if malpractice suits are the source of the premium increases, prove it. Open the books and provide complete statistics demonstrating the need for the premium increases. If the issue of reducing health care costs isn't going to be addressed in a serious way from both ends of the process, it is little more than cheap political gameplaying that should be stuffed by whatever parlimentary maneuvers are available...

...hmm..."cheap political gamplaying"...why does that phrase always keep coming to mind every time we start talking about every initiative Gee Dub and his clowns cook up....

STEPPING BACK FROM THE EDGE

...one characteristic I've always attributed to rigid, deep-conviction conservatives is the inability or unwillingness to think very hard about things. It has always been intended as an insult, challenging their inability to see beyond simplistic positions and solutions to society's problems, although it must be noted that this certainly hasn't served as any sort of electoral impediment over the last couple of election cycles (altough the actual reasons for this are legion and the crumpled Democratic wreckage is still be analysed in Blogtopia (y!sctp!) and elsewhere to determine whether structural failure or pilot error caused the crash). One occasional outcome of this gene-deep inability to think hard about things is that occasionally the Republicans come up with some ideas that seem promising candidates as self-inflicted wounds that Democrats can gleefully dig at; forcing Bill Clinton to shut down the federal government in a Christmas-time budget dispute just at the time that his presidency seemed ready to spin out of control was a prime example. The recent insulation of Tom Delay's power-seat in the event of indictment and the proposed change in ethics rules seem to be equally promising petard-hoisting detonation points. Sadly, however, somebody came to his senses...

...it's almost inconceivable that the House Republicans were even able to figure out that maybe, just maybe, making all these moves to loosen up ethical standards amounted to a stupid idea, given that it didn't occur to them to begin with. It requires a degree of isolation from reality bordering on mummification to not arrive at the conclusion almost immediately that loosening up ethics rules to accomodate Tom Delay's eyebrow-raising behaviors probably isn't going to play well with the little people. These clowns didn't, however, and only a last-second dope-slap (probably administered by some technician unafflicted with the tunnel-vision of the true believer) caused them to pull back at the last second and resist delivering one of the nicest Seventh Day of Christmas gifts the Democratic minority could ever hope to receive...

...the white knight folks will hail this pull-back as at least a partial victory in the effort to maintain integrity in the legislative process, but in large measure it's really a darned shame. Instead of allowing us an unobstructed view of them heading off in the direction that their true hearts lead them, the House Republicans have been given the chance to slip into protective coloration and blend in with the ethical world. That's too bad; it would have been a pure pleasure watching my Conservative Christian Congressman explain his rather lax attitude about ethical behavior in the run-up to the 2006 election...