Anatomy of Liberal Outrage

I mean, present company excepted, I basically despise all white male heterosexuals, and so the 50% of the Republican Party that doesn't spend its weekends sucking cock behind a tree in Rock Creek Park or slipping its dick under the stall wall in some Midwestern commuter airport is in general an object of distaste to me, but Jesus Christ, I fucking despise Democrats and soi-disant progressives most of fucking all. I mean, yea, let us cast our minds back to the early aughts, when Digby and the Gang were practically sobbing at the Unfairness every time some Republican derided a liberal's milquetoast plea that we all explore the roots of terrorism. After all, aside from their generally pathetic aspect, the Progs--those few who dared, anyway--were right on this point. It is possible to condemn murderous political violence even while admitting and seeking to identify its origins in legitimate grievance. So like, it sucks that Osama bin Laden blew up America, but at the same time, America should probably stop fucking up so many other countries, especially in the Muslim world.

But now the shoe is on the other foot and the usual suspects are caterwauling that Republicans Support Terror! because a few GOP types were all like, "Well, the dude who flew the plane into the building was nuts and murder is bad, but obviously if our system of government is sending nuts over edge like this, we should, you know, maybe like, do something differently."

Look. I am dismissive of White-Guy Rage. I am sorry that the fags and the blacks and hot, thick, uncut Latinos are taking over your country, guys, really, I am, but what can you do? Demography is destiny. Somehow--and I admit that this is a bit of a paradox--the queers have figured out how to out-reproduce you fellas as surely as the Palestinians have figured out how to out-reproduce the Jews and the banlieux have figured out how to out-reproduce Paris. That having been said, I do not think you can really deny that the IRS and the government as a whole is "an organization entirely devoted to strongarm robbery, top to bottom, soup to nuts, boss to janitor." And whether you, like Good Professor Sartwell, object to the use of your money in funding the world's preeminent wardeath machine or you object to the use of your money to feed imaginary inner city crack faggot Kenyanites, a fundamental truth remains: our government is a huge, implacable, rapacious, imovable death god into whose insatiable maw we are damned to make perpetual sacrifice. It is not unusual that this is going to raise some hackles. And perhaps Digby and the Gang, instead of screaming "Terrorist!" at every whacko with a gun or a pilot's license, might instead seek to understand what it is about America today that would impel a man to murder.

The Original. Not the Compromised Second Draft

You know, I would not mind the New York Times' stable of totally insane op-ed contributors if just one of these pussies had the strength of his own bullshit convictions. Instead, yesterday, Insane War Harpy (read as: "graduate student") Lara M. Dadkhah argued that we need to carpet bomb the fuck out of Afghanistan and fuck the civilians, all the while caveating like my boyfriend Johnny Weir in a sit spin that this is not to say that we should be killing billions of Afghans blah blah blah. And today, David "It Ain't easy Bein' Green" Brooks argues that we should return to his bullshit MGM pastiche of Times Gone By even as he says, "This is not to say that we should return to the days of the WASP ascendancy." Oh, it's not? Well . . . what is it to say? What the fuck are you talking about? Is it just . . . is it just, Well, isn't this interesting? Because in that case: No, no, it isn't really very interesting. It would be interesting if David Brooks said, "Look, meritocracy is a farce and a fraud. We need to reconstitute the pre-Civil Rights Republic. We need to repeal the 17th Amendment." I mean, it would be monstrous, but at least it would be interesting.

Flunkin Social Studies

So I don't know what to say about this, by "defense analyst" (read as: "graduate student") Lara M. Dadkhah for the Times.

So in a modern refashioning of the obvious — that war is harmful to civilian populations — the United States military has begun basing doctrine on the premise that dead civilians are harmful to the conduct of war. The trouble is, no past war has ever supplied compelling proof of that claim.

While the number of American forces in Afghanistan has more than doubled since 2008, to nearly 70,000 today, the critical air support they get has not kept pace. According to my analysis of data compiled by the United States military, close air support sorties, which in Afghanistan are almost always unplanned and in aid of troops on the ground who are under intense fire, increased by just 27 percent during that same period. (While I am employed by a defense consulting company, my research and opinions on air support are my own.)

Some would argue that more combat troops will always mean more combat troop deaths. That holds true, however, only if you believe that our soldiers should fight fair. Logic dictates that no well-ordered army would give up its advantages and expect to win, and the United States military, which does not have the manpower in Afghanistan to fight the insurgents one-on-one, is no exception.

Of course, all this is not to say that the Untied States and NATO should be oblivious to civilian deaths, or wage “total” war in Afghanistan. Clearly, however, the pendulum has swung too far in favor of avoiding the death of innocents at all cost. General McChrystal’s directive was well intentioned, but the lofty ideal at its heart is a lie, and an immoral one at that, because it pretends that war can be fair or humane.

Wars are always ugly, and always monstrous, and best avoided. Once begun, however, the goal of even a “long war” should be victory in as short a time as possible, using every advantage you have.

Alors, I want to actually concede a certain point to Ms. Dadkhah. An overemphasis on sparing civilian lives when combatting an insurgency is foolish both tactically and strategically. Mais, IOZ, pkoi ? Because the insurgency and the civilian population are largely congruent. That is to say, it is hard to tell who is a rebel and who a rebel sympathizer, who a civilian and who a combattant in mere civilian drag. And while we mock, deride, and castigate Idiot America for its incessant destruction of wedding celebrations, the truth is that yes, yes, yes, "insurgents" are almost certainly using these and other fundamentally civilian activities, structures, and communities to hide themselves--not only because they perceive America as less like to strike civilians, but also because even in the event that America does strike civilians, it only serves to further the moral and propagandistic ends of the resistance.

But here is the thing. The reason that the boundary between civilian and insurgent is so goddamn fucking porous is because America is a goddamn fucking foreign fucking invading fucking occupying fucking goddamn power. The problem isn't that we have bad tactics or bad strategy. The problem is that we're the bad guys.

TSAR BOMBA

A brief history of the newqueulerr bomb for Secretary of State Hilarity Clinton:

Nussing, Lebowski, Nussing

Broder wasn’t analyzing Palin’s positions or accusations, or the truth or falsehood of her claims, or even the nature of the emotions that she appeals to. He was reviewing a performance and giving it the thumbs up, using the familiar terminology of political journalism. This has been so characteristic of the coverage of politics for so long that it doesn’t seem in the least bit odd, and it’s hard to imagine doing it any other way.

-George Packer

Fine and well, but I feel obliged to add that Packer's piece lamenting this "characteristic" coverage is itself of a type and genre as currently popular and predictable as a glossy, glossing Op-Ed from Washington's pachycephalosauric Dean. If anything the contentless tactical "analysis" and the responding think piece regretting the absence of substance have become the political equivalent of the call-and-response liturgy, the undramatic dialogue at the center of the discourse of political journalism. In other words, yawn.

In any event, bewailing the failure of a geriatric columnist to delve into the "positions and accusations" of an American politician, least of all Sarah Palin, is engaging in a shell game of one's own. What Packer is bemoaning, when you get right down to it, is the failure of the Washington press corps to be sufficiently complicit in the fraudulent world of policy proposals, which are just as much the product of Public Relations as are the rhetorical tics of populism or the quibbling over who snubbed whom, who's in, who's out, etc. I mean, I defy you to come up with Sarah Palin's core beliefs, her political philosophy. She has none. But likewise Barack Obama. Their differences are stylistic and tactical. Insofar as governing is concerned, the exigencies of empire and entrenched wealth govern government.

I Am Rubber

So Hilarity Clinton called Iran a military dictatorship, and Manouchehr Mottaki, the Iranian foreign minister, offered the classy riposte, "I know you are, but what am I?" Srsly gYz?

Slow posting due to travelling, by the way.