The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Afghanistan: We're All Georgia O'Keefe Now

    By Desider on Fri, 06/24/2011 - 10:30am |

    Pouting Baby reminds us of the essential: when Obama came in, we had 32,000 troops in Afghanistan. Then he surprisingly surged once upon entering, and a 2nd time in Dec 2009. We now have 99,000 troops in Afghanistan. As usual, there's something for everyone - peacenicks can applaud 10,000 troops leaving this year, while warmongers can celebrate 70,000 troops remaining until 2014. And as usual, a "surge" means an escalation, double what we had before under "Bad Leader", when all's done and forgotten. Dare I surmise what John McCain would have done?

    What's worse, the self-absorbed Petraeus is now out parading against the draw-down, but "not enough to hang up my uniform" (as if the whiny asswipe would do that since he's about to become head of the CIA, but never cast aspersions on his name as a "Betray-us" or Congress will get vewwy vewwy angwy).

    Why have we given so much public political power to military leaders who never meet their optimistic projections anyway?

    The pretension of the surge in the first place was that we'd be training Afghan troops to take over security. That hasn't happened. We caught bin Laden - far from Afghanistan near Islamabad - so that bit of justification is gone. But doesn't matter, 70,000 troops plus perhaps 150,000 support contractors will remain in Afghanistan to guard us against... stuff. Or as Quinn would say.... poo.

    And after 2014? Well, if we can make it below 50,000 troops we can call the war officially over. In Iraq we have 47,000 (plus contractors) who don't seem to be going anywhere. And everyone agrees, there's no war there. Just as we have no war in Yemen or Libya because it's only bombs, and bombs can't break your heart.

    Patti Smith once worte a poem:

    georgia o’keefe

    great lady painter
    what she do now
    she goes out with a stick
    and kills snakes

    georgia o’keefe
    all life still
    cow skull
    bull skull
    no bull shit
    pyrite pyrite
    shes no fool
    started out pretty
    pretty pretty girl

    georgia o’keefe
    until she had her fill
    painted desert
    flower cactus
    hawk and head mule
    choral water color
    red coral reef
    been around forever
    georgia o’keefe

    great lady painter
    what she do now
    go and beat the desert
    stir dust bowl
    go and beat the desert
    snake skin skull
    go and beat the desert
    all life still

    We're all Georgia O'Keefe now.

    Comments

    Go and beat the desert. 

    The NY Times spun this as an "accelerated" and "aggressive" troop withdrawal, even though, as you say, we're not even going to be back to where we were under Bush. And the pols make it sound all... wise, and noble, Nobel, and the Generals put forward the latest fairytale, and we all agree that these aren't wars anymore and the troops have all come home, and the realists in the media nod, and we all know that reality is what we say it is, but still, for some reason, the polls say people are vaguely irritated or have stopped believing or just don't care anymore, and say we should bring the troops home, to which the papers and the pols and the generals say...

    Go and beat the desert.

    I donno if there's even anything more to be said.

    Still, I'm happy because I've got my Bristol Stool Chart, and they can't take that away from me. And said chart makes clear that the recent spin job on Afghanistan is a clear Bristol Type 6 - "Fluffy pieces with ragged edges, a mushy stool."

    Which is progress, right? Soon, the election campaign will be in full swing, and we'll be ready for Bristol Type 7. 


    by quinn esq on Fri, 06/24/2011 - 12:18pm

    Great, the powers that be will probably gonna pull my Muddy Missy Sippy & Shirley Manon pictures, but they'll leave your stool samples intact. All over my blog.

    If you were only a Type 5, I could pass you easily. Instead you're like Vietnam, a Type 6 Quagmire, all mushy. Iraq is a Type 3 - calm but with cracks on its surface. Afghanistan is separate hard lumps. Libya? Entirely Liquid.


    by Desider on Fri, 06/24/2011 - 12:32pm

    From future Pentagon War Training Seminar:

    "And the Libyan hostilities, were, as we all know, a Bristol Type 7 conflict."


    by quinn esq on Fri, 06/24/2011 - 12:44pm

    And remember. "If you don't want the log, don't do the blog."


    by quinn esq on Fri, 06/24/2011 - 12:44pm

    Run along, you squirt.


    by Desider on Fri, 06/24/2011 - 1:44pm

    I have a question, and it's possibly based on misunderstanding on the players involved in Afghanistan.

    If 'we' are supporting the Northern Alliance and Karzai, and there are some 17 million Pashtuns bothered by that, why isn't the US looking to solve some problems about that?  Why is the US not looking to broker some deals between India and Pakistan? 

    Or is 'stability' really the goal at all?  Since Obama is being cheered by liberals for saying 'we' will abandon the east of Afghanistan and just kill putative Bad Guys in Pakistan with drones, are there more to the goals that are unspoken except in the minds of paranoids conspiracy theorists a few than 'eradicating safe havens for al qaeda?

    Destor made the point about China and minerals, and they did the same in Iraq, I think: let us fight and drain our treasury, then went in and got...oil contracts (in the Kurdish north, I think).

     


    by we are stardust on Fri, 06/24/2011 - 12:52pm

    It's a lot of troops, but a pretty anemic war. That's how we do it now. Not like Nam.

    I don't think there have been even 200 US fatalities this year.

    Our longest war in history, and what? 1700 dead?


    by Rootman on Fri, 06/24/2011 - 8:37pm

    Our longest war in history

    And even that is very debatable depending upon how you define us at "war."

    Wikipedia's chart under "United States military casualties of war" gives the dates for the Vietnam war as 1955-1975.

    And in their listing for "Vietnam war" it says U.S. military advisors arrived beginning in 1950. U.S. involvement escalated in the early 1960s, with U.S. troop levels tripling in 1961 and tripling again in 1962.[25] U.S. combat units were deployed beginning in 1965.

    It's interesting how the Korean war often gets ignored (yes I'm talking to you, rah rah Truman revisionists, among others) as to the enornmous body count in a mere 3 years time, 53,686, as compared to Vietnam's 58, 209.


    by lamont (not verified) on Fri, 06/24/2011 - 9:34pm

    If you look at the little toe-hold we held in Korea, it was pretty amazing how we pushed back.

    South Vietnam like Iraq like Afghanistan was propping up a government and trying to continue management of a consistent territory.  (Okay, the first 3 days of Iraq was taking territory, but nothing like the battle of Pusan Perimeter)


    by Desider on Sat, 06/25/2011 - 1:23am

    If you don't count the Afghanis, and all the dispersed...including civilians.  Please remember them; many Pashtuns fled to Pakistan where they are also at risk.


    by we are stardust on Fri, 06/24/2011 - 9:42pm

    That's what I'm saying -- you're missing the point if you focus on the number of troops in the country. That number doesn't really reveal much. It's the intensity of the hostilities that is the key thing. Looks to me like there is more politics than war going on.


    by Rootman on Fri, 06/24/2011 - 10:08pm

    Commonly referred to as "piddlefucking around".


    by Desider on Sat, 06/25/2011 - 1:24am

    One of the reasons to focus on the number of troops and 90,000 contract forces is the financial cost, which per soldier is at least $1.2 million per year; who knows for contract forces?  Some more, some less.  That matters.

    But I was asking questions above about the geopolitical aims.  And found some information that hints at a bit of it, and leaves out other stuff we know.suspect.

    Iran is holding a summit next week to which both Pakistan and Afghanistan is invited (both are attending) in an effort to fill the void now created because both nations are pissed at the US, P. for all the bin Laden shit, not being invited to the US negotiations with the Taliban Karzai leaked about...the ministers slated to attend give some hints at the breadth of attempts to undermine US influence, and rearrange alliances to push back against the US/Israeli/Saudi bloc and Gulf Cooperation countries.  Plenty to read and mull over but this was interesting and new to me about Jundallah, and you have to take Ahmedinejad with a grain of salt, I'd think:

    'Attempts to bypass'
    Tehran is making an all-out attempt to impart a new dynamic to its bilateral ties with Pakistan. Tehran traditionally harbored a sense of frustration over the US-Pakistan alliance. Ahmadinejad said recently that Tehran is in possession of "specific evidence" to the effect that the US is planning to seize Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

    Indeed, Iranian intelligence is very active in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, given the US military presence and US support for the terrorist group Jundallah which foments violence in the Sistan-Balochistan region in eastern Iran bordering Pakistan. Tehran has an intelligence sharing mechanism at the bilateral level with Pakistan and most certainly Malik will be discussing ways and means of strengthening the arrangement. Pakistan can help Iran counter Jundallah while Iran can share intelligence regarding the US' covert activities on Pakistani soil."

    All of it just has my head ringing with the background of Sy Hersh's recent revelations and suff Peep Escobar writes about; lost all my research on it this week; dunno if I can reconstruct it or want to, but some of you could have helped sort it for us.


    by we are stardust on Sat, 06/25/2011 - 9:04am

    Seizure of Pak's nukes would be one explanation for the slow drawdown.


    by Rootman on Sat, 06/25/2011 - 10:10am