A couple of days ago, I mentioned that Baghdad was code named "Phase-1 Houston." Well, additional sources in the government and military have told me that all targets in Baghdad have code names based on places in ... Texas.
I'll let that sink in for a moment.
Still with me? if it doesn't worry you, if it doesn't call into question the seriousness of the war planners, it should.
Obviously, there's nothing wrong with code names for targets. It's SOP for the military and Omaha Beach at Normandy is probably the most famous, I'd guess. But you really have to wonder at either the immaturity or the profound political tone deafness of war planners who code name targets in Baghdad after places in the commander-in-chief's home state. President Bush already suffers around the world, and especially in the Arab world, from the perception that he's finishing his father's business, that this is a personal vendetta against the man who tried to kill his dad.
Vendettas are fine, I suppose, if you live in 17th century France where personal slights were settled by duels, but they aren't kosher when you're the president of the United States commanding a terrible arsenal.
OK. Let's assume this isn't some kind of Hatfields and McCoys with mustaches (well, one mustache, anyway.) Let's assume this really is about the security of the United States. If you're at all concerned about world opinion, especially in the region you're about to bomb the hell out of and kill thousands of innocent people, shouldn't you be a little more, I don't know, concerned about how this all looks?
I know, I know. Military target codes aren't for public consumption and political considerations don't really enter into it. OK, then. Obviously, naming the Ba'athist Party HQ after Austin or Saddam's palace after Nacogdoches is a little nod to your commander-in-chief. It's a little, "Hey! We're thinking of ya!" from the planners. In short, it's an inside joke.
War is no joke. People will die, probably in the thousands, and the places where they will soon be incinerated are a bit of a bon mot to the CinC.
At the peace protests over the weekend, I saw signs that read, "Bomb Texas -- It Has Oil Too." I found it clever; now I just feel sick.
this is bizarre…
Hey, I was thinking of giving you some money for your Iraq trip but when checking your resume I’ve not seen any mention of your arabic skills. Now, I’m not sure I should give you money. I’m not a journalist but I’ve lived in several non-English speaking countries and I’m not sure if you would be able to do good journalism if you don’t speak the language of the natives. Can you, Chris, comment on this?
There’s also that whole oil connection between the two places…
Hi, A—
When I was there before I had translators that I hired, and that’s what part of the money goes for. But I had no problems before. Most western journalists don’t have arabic skills. (Or Kurdish, for that matter.)
But also remember, Iraq is/was a very educated society and while English wasn’t everywhere, it was not uncommon for people to speak it.
I hope that helps.
Hi, Cul— I’m sure emergency room humor is shocking to hear, but that’s dealing with horror in the heat and passion of the moment. People are reacting emotionally to horrible sights.
Our war planners are not supposed to reacting emotionally. A quip in the SitRoom is not the same at all as committing a target place and date into a, presumably, peer-reviewed war plan that goes before the CinC.
And if they are reacting in a gut fashion, dealing with the horrors of war by giving targets cute names, then are they really qualified for their jobs?
What do you want to bet that this is because Gen. Tommy Franks is a Texan, as am I!
Remember the Alamo!
Geeze, I should really be awake in the morning before attempting sarcasm :) The fact is, I couldn’t agree with you more, Christopher.
Personally, I consider the entire BushCo adminstrative team (outside of maybe Powell) less than qualified for their jobs. As professional managers, they are pathetic. I believe there is an incredible degree of fakery, bluster and incompetence running all through the government and the military.
As Camus (more or less) once said, “People do not revolt against the opressive tyranny of a government but rather against the weakness of a government which allows itself to be perceived as tyrannical.”
Stalin may have been a pathological monster, but he was a pro at it. I don’t admire that, its just a fact.
What’s really scary to me about the BushCo Boys is their blatantly desultory shifting from one foot to the other as they pursue policy they can never quite indurate. Its almost as though they some sort of collective attention deficit disorder. I can’t shake the impression that we are being led down a path toward a major precipice by a bunch of
“last hurrah” goofs.
Yea Jennie, they don’t quite compare with Cohen, Albright et al. These guys actually have a fucking clue about how to deal with the situation, while your guys spent eight years hiding from the issue. The Clinton cabal IS your highwater mark of administrative competence isn’t it? Can you remember that Clinton couldn’t find a competent SecDef in his own party, or were you still in gradeschool then?
Casca,
What are you saying…that Saddam and Iraq is THE issue confronting the US and the world? You think it makes sense to attack a country that had zero to do with 9/11 (which afterall is the impetus of this momentum of fear and hysteria) rather than focusing on the actual issues and the specific group of people that brought the attack about in the first place?
Ok, Rambo.
Well, yes, but in a larger sense look at it more as the clash of civilizations. I know this will be hard for you since the NEA hasn’t taught Western Civilization in the US in forty years, and you haven’t a clue as to what Christendom is. Iraq is just one part of the greater panoply, but it is at this point in time, “unfinished business”. We were unprepared for the rapidity of the fighting in 1991, and were unprepared to make peace, and thus did it badly. Now, after eight years of tribute paid to every despot in the world, we’re prepared to deal with this fellow Saddam.
As for no link to 911, it’s all tied together; Mohammadanism, oil, Jews, Palestineans, North Koreans, Osama, Saudi’s, Persians, Iraqis, et al, nukes…. It’s a mosaic, and must be dealt with as such. It doesn’t matter that Saddam didn’t hatch the plot for 911. He’s part of the collective threat. He has had the chance to get back in his box for the past twelve years, and he hasn’t done it.
I’m really sick of nutless wonders. Your collective pussification is part ignorance, and part feminization. Didn’t you ever watch “Unforgiven”? Remember that scene where the kid is sucking on the bottle and shaking after killing their target, and he says, “I guess he had it coming”. Clint Eastwood answers him, “Kid, we all got it coming”.
Manhood is about looking at the reality of a situation, and doing what needs to be done. Saddam needs to have his head stuck on a pole in the middle of that square in Baghdad. It’s OK, we’ll leave you pussys out of it.
So, Casca, when are you shipping out?
1) I’m not in the US and 2) comparative world religion and cosmologies has been one of my main studies for about 35 years now, so I can assure that I am quite aware of the nature of Christendom and the so-called clash of civilizations of which you speak.
However, this ill-conceived planned pre-emptive sortie into Iraq has nothing to do with a clash of civilizations; it is more a provincial clash of political views within the US body politic and military about the future nature of US foreign policy strategy.
At root it is simply a practical test case for the right wing hawks like Paul Wolfowitz who drafted the idea of pre-emption as a legitmate foreign policy tool back in 1991. It is simply a re-vamped and logical extension of the old “Manifest Destiny” precepts of the 19th century; which in themselves are an extension of “dominion and colonialism” harking all the way back to Pax Romana. Its central rationalization, though rarely overtly stated, is premised on the apriori of “divine right”. In that, the argument is really a religious one; does the US have the divine right to dictate to the rest of the world how things are going to be? That is the focus of the “clash” of civilizations you alluded to in your post. And don’t forget that the “mosaic” of responsible agents for the 9/11 events includes the US.
Frontline aired an excellent investigative piece on PBS last night called “The War Behind Closed Doors” which delineated the intent and evolution of what is now being concreted and called the “Bush Doctrine”. The program also does a good job of identifying the players who have been instrumental in fostering these “muscular” views.
I think it would be to your advantage to peruse the online site and supplemental information provided by Frontline regarding this program at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/iraq/
especially considering how hubris filled and confused you seem to be about what constitutes manhood.
I wonder if Clint Eastwood’s character would consider Ghandi a pussy?
You’re good at mixing apples and oranges, perhaps that’s the source of your confusion. We’re not pre-empting, we’re finishing. Had there been no moslim assault on the US, we may have never made it back to Iraq. But there was, and collectively the American people understand the need to deal with Saddam in an effective way, not by drive-by shooting.
As for devine right of kings, let me refer you to Tom Lehrer who got it right forty years ago when he wrote, “For might makes right, until they’ve seen the light, they’ve got to be protected, all their rights respected, til someone we like can be elected.” It’s funny because it’s true.
As for the US having fault for 911, I would like to hear your tortured reasoning that gets us there. Perhaps because Clinton didn’t have the stones to whack Bin Laden while he was still a mosquito, or that we spent a decade with the left in power undermining our intelligence and military strength. Yes, those were contributory factors.
As for my willingness to shoulder a pack and rifle, I’m a retired Marine, who did it last time, and am now alas, too long in the tooth.
Hubris filled about manhood? No way. I have a complete understanding, so I know the appropriate time to use force, and this is it.
Ghandi? Ghandi had no guns, and the Brits were at the end of the Raj. It worked for both sides.
Hey Casca—
Where and when were you a marine? Just curious.
1979-2001, everywhere.
Casca writes:"We were unprepared for the rapidity of the fighting in 1991, and were unprepared to make peace, and thus did it badly."
Did we? According to Brent Scowcroft in A World Transformed, the book he co-authored with the former President Bush, the goals of military action in the first were set by October of 1990 and they were primarily to eject Iraq from Kuwait and restore the Kuwaiti government. However, there was a third goal (note that any emphasis is mine):
A World Transformed was published in 1998 and predates the current unheavals over Iraq as well as Scowcroft’s misgivings about them, so I think we can regard his word on our objectives as definitive. If we made peace badly, it’s because the aims of the conflict were equivocal to begin with.
Regime change in Iraq, on the other hand, only became policy under Clinton when he signed the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998. You may say that he did it poorly, or that he should have done it sooner, but those are the facts. The current President Bush is simply continuing and extending this policy.
I enjoy Clint Eastwood’s movies, too. But my favorite line is from Magnum Force: "A man’s got to know his limitations."
Mine too Curt, I use it all the time.
What you’ve provided is true, but… Clearly the Bushies, Scowcroft foremost, thought at the time that they’d continue to fashion policy, and could continue to deal with the situation. Clinton’s election shot that in the ass. What do you expect Scowcroft to say after the fact? “Yea, we fucked up, and left him in power.”? You read the book, where does he talk about the mistakes they made? There are always a ton of them, and they are made by the very best people.
Shwartzkopf is not a deep thinker, and should have not been allowed to negotiate the truce. We were engaged in destabilizing Saddam by encouraging his overthrow after taking back Kuwait. Shwartzkopf screwed this up, and nobody was paying attention, and it became something we had to live with.
The region is now arguably ready for regime change all over the place. So make sure you keep one in the chamber.
hehehehe: “Seeing as this is an enhanced radiation weapon or neutron bomb, which releases only one hundredth the radiation of a comparable fission weapon, and neutrons capable of penetrating relatively well-shielded structures with lethal doses and incapacitating the people inside, you’ve got to ask yourself one question… “.
Casca,
That “moslim assault” remark reveals your uninformed and possibly racist view of the situation.
Really, well do inform me then. I’m sorry but I just don’t buy into the Jewish conspiracy theories. But I do suspect that those camel-fuckers did it. Does that make me a racist? I don’t suspect Jessie Jackson. LMFAO
What would you call those 3000 dead in NYC, our just desserts? I just spent the evening searching the web for info on Chuck Schnorf, a friend from my youth, who was killed in the Beirut barracks bombing. He and Chris Nairn, another compadre, were killed there before their 25th birthdays.
Talk to me baby.
You’d probably have better luck finding people interested in exchanging insults and pretending “camel-fucker” isn’t a racist slur over here.
I’m sorry, Casca, but the actions of others do not let you off the hook for being racist.
I’m still waiting for your refutation of my argument. Calling me a racist doesn’t quite make the grade. Oh, I’m sorry, that IS your argument isn’t it. Let me help you out since you seem to lack the gift of articulation.
Privilidged White Males are racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobes and are a natural target for the violence of the world. Isn’t that it in a nutshell? I don’t think it will sell anywhere in States, better take it on the road.
Your “argument” appears to be that either “those camel-fuckers did it” with no reason offered other than that they were Muslim, or that it was one of multiple “Jewish conspiracy theories” that I am not familiar with. I rather doubt I’ll be able to answer your argument within the confines of such a world view.
From the Council on Foreign Relations:
“Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda’s leader, and other Arab militants have given several reasons for declaring a jihad against the United States. High on their list is the belief that the United States has ‘colonized’ the Arab world to protect U.S. access to oil. In particular, bin Laden has expressed outrage at the presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of the Prophet Muhammad. (U.S. forces remained in Saudi Arabia after the 1991 Gulf War to deter Iraq from attacking the oil-rich country.) The extremists also have accused the United States of supporting authoritarian governments in the Middle East while promoting democracy elsewhere, of helping oppress the Palestinians by backing Israel, and of killing what they claim are millions of Iraqis through U.N. economic sanctions against Saddam Hussein.”
Addition reasons are the generous US support for radical extremists, of which Al-Qaeda was one beneficiary, during the Soviet-Afghan war of the 80s; FBI investigations of Al-Qaeda pilots that were blocked for yet unknown reasons; and numerous intelligence failures that haven’t been addressed so much as smoothed over.
It’s hardly a nutless pussification to include such details into one’s “mosaic” of the “collective threat”, and in so far as we’re talking about the specific threat from militant wahhabist terrorism I utterly fail to see how Iraqis and North Koreans fit in, or how any of this implies that 9/11 victims got their “just desserts”.
re code names, are you sure the names weren’t chosen by Democrats? Who would get a bigger kick out of “We have bombed Austin’s communications centers” or “Nacocdoches has fallen! We are encountering no resistance.”
Well Bueeeerman, as a writer you suck, because you lack specificity and coherence. I hesitate to respond because your argument is ALL OVER THE PLACE, but let me give this a try:
Your CFR quote is evidence of my observation that we experienced a moslim attack on 911, is it not? Who cares what Osama thinks, he’s whacked, and will be.
As for the US supporting Al-Queda during the Soviet-Afghan war, that’s just wrong. There was no Al-Queda then. Politics makes strange bedfellows, and we did harry the Soviets by supporting the Mujahadeen, but we didn’t create Al-Queda, nor support them ever.
That Clinton gutted our national security effort, and allowed the islamist whackos to flourish is not in dispute. I didn’t vote for the draft-dodging coward, so those of you who did can claim some credit if you like for not taking Osama into custody when he was offered on a platter to the Clinton administration by the Sudanese, twice.
I understand that you “fail to see”, because you fail to comprehend. Go back and read it again from the beginning, and stop eating paint chips off the floor. The N Koreans are selling missles, precursor chemicals, and perhaps nukes around the world, and Saddam has been a buyer for over twenty years, but not for much longer.
Al-Qaeda directly precipitated out of the Muhajadeen, and of recepients of CIA aid the most anti-American factions got top billing. Osama was one, along with others involved in past attacks (Shieks Omar and Rahman).
As for Clinton, he isn’t alone on any of those counts: Reagan and Bush I encouraged Islamist wackos to flourish: US AID programs sending jihadist textbooks to Afghanistan started in 1984 and didn’t end until 1994; I don’t see how the first WTC bombing can be blamed on Clinton when he had been barely been in office for one month; Bush is a draft dodger and unlike Clinton he wasn’t opposed to the war; and the offer of intelligence from Sudan was sitting on Bush’s table for two years before the attacks, untouched.
What has Bush done about N Korea and Pakistan with respect to proliferation? Nothing. Who was Saddam buying the weapons from? US, France and Germany. What evidence have we got that Saddam bought anything in the past 12 years? None.
Your first paragraph, like your thinking is inchoate. I was once a boy scout, and subsequently became a Republican, does that make backers of the BSA contributors to the Republican party?
While Clinton arguably could be excused for the first WTC attack, how can he be excused for the second. It was clearly on his watch that Bin Laden was discovered as a threat, and it was his administration who rebuffed offers by the Sudanese to turn him over to our people. Clinton allowed Al-Queda to grow, and practiced foreign policy by drive-by shooting. He was a liar and a fraud, and now we reap what he sowed.
“Bush is a draft dodger and unlike Clinton he wasn’t opposed to the war”. No, Clinton was a draft dodger, first he avoided callup by joining the ROTC, then safely out of the country and away from his draft board, he repudiated his oath. Bush fell into that netherworld of the smart and wealthy in America who find a way to wear a uniform, and avoid the risk. That was the hallmark of their generation, avoidance. It’s quite different from the draft dodger organizing protest in the streets of London.
“and the offer of intelligence from Sudan was sitting on Bush’s table for two years before the attacks, untouched.” This is simply a lie. Osama didn’t popup on our radar as a threat until 1994. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/
“What has Bush done about N Korea and Pakistan with respect to proliferation?”
Most of what transpires is done sub rosa, thus is unseen. On the surface, we have refused to continue the Clinton policy of subsidizing their weapons program.
“Who was Saddam buying the weapons from? US, France and Germany. What evidence have we got that Saddam bought anything in the past 12 years? None.” LOL, you sir are an idiot. Pray tell, where did he get those Soviet Tanks, aircraft, and missles? And where in the hell did he get those Italian fiberglass mines? How do you think that Saddam get into a debt relationship with Russia, France, and Germany? I can’t wait to read the files we find in Baghdad.
“I was once a boy scout, and subsequently became a Republican.”
A better anology would be leading members of the Boy Scouts splitting from the organization to form the GOP and other conservative activist organizations. The original backers knew well enough what it could lead to.
“It’s quite different from the draft dodger organizing protest in the streets of London.”
Right, Clinton’s draft resistance was principled on something other than saving his own neck while Bush was jotting off AWOL from the national guard.
“This is simply a lie.”
From the Guardian 9/30/2001, “Last year the CIA and FBI, following four years of Sudanese entreaties, sent a joint investigative team to establish whether Sudan was in fact a sponsor of terrorism. Last May, it gave Sudan a clean bill of health. However, even then, it made no effort to examine the voluminous files on bin Laden.”
What do standard armaments from the Soviets have to do with the supposed nukes, ballistic missiles, and chemical and biological weapons that Bush is raising this fuss over?
I suggest you try reading it all over again, verrrrry slooooooowly. Move your lips if you feel the need, but stop twisting things to make your emotions and ideas jibe together. Life is not long enough to police your intellectual transgressions, but leave it at this: If William Jefferson Blythe (Clinton) is your idea of principled anything, then you’ve been cheated out of an education by someone, and should probably seek the services of a good tort lawyer.
Attacking Republican administrations for persuing Clinton policies is your idea of a defense of Clinton?
As for devine right of kings, let me refer you to Tom Lehrer who got it right forty years ago when he wrote, “For might makes right, until they’ve seen the light, they’ve got to be protected, all their rights respected, til someone we like can be elected.” It’s funny because it’s true.
Excuse me. I just wanted to admire this in splendid isolation.
I have seldom seen so… complete a missing of the point of satire. Did you actually think Lehrer was advocating this approach?
I wonder what you made of Who’s Next, then? “We’ll try to stay serene and calm/ When Alabama gets the bomb!”
I don’t lose sleep over Alabama, but Vermont is another story. You see, they’re not on our side.
As for the satire, what’s your point? It’s not funny? It’s doesn’t have a barb of truth to hook the laugh? When the left was not ascendant, it’s how we played the game. It’s the right way. Go watch the Godfather until you understand. Ooops, you’re Canuck, nevermind.