Kissinger then and now

How little has changed. Steve Bates' doggerel in 2002:

I Wonder Who's Kissinger Now

You have held many posts in the sweet long ago,
Though today they mean nothing to you,
You have vowed your allegiance to each one in turn,
And have sworn to this newest one, too.

Tho' the Nobel Peace Prize may have dazzled your eyes,
Now they're glazed as you face this new task;
Is it service to country? or Henry? Well, gosh,
I mean, really, old boy, need you ask?

I wonder who's Kissinger now?
His words, can they still rock the Dow?
Wonder what's hidden behind those old eyes;
I surmise... he still lies.

I wonder who's writing his script,
Of what background already it's stripped;
He is calling a halt to the thought it's Dub's fault...
I wonder who's Kissinger now?

If you want to feel outraged, disgusted and pissed,
Just imagine Dub going scot-free;
Culpability? none! Guilt? his doesn't exist;
"Nine-eleven? Oh, no, no, not me!"

But the world moves apace, and the terror's today
Blamed on whomever Henry can smear;
So you never can tell, is it Bush made this hell?
And just who we're invading next year...

I wonder who's Kissinger now,
Wonder whether this gig's his last bow;
Wonder which Clinton appointees he fries;
What schmoe buys, all his lies?

I wonder, at seventy-nine,
Can he stick to the Bush-approved line?
Wonder will he go... too far with that ego?
I wonder who's Kissinger now?

Steve Bates

Do you see Kissingerish fingerprints all over the Big Surge escalation?

Mother Jones:
"There may well be a much more sinister game at play here. That centers around the emergence of Henry Kissinger over the last year as an outside advisor to Bush and other top officials in Washington.

Gareth Porter, the historian who ran the Indochina Resource Center in the early 70s, points out in a January 11 article on Asia Online that "although he knows very little about how to deal with Sunnis and Shi'ites, Kissinger does know how to convey to the public the illusion of victory, even though the US position in the war is actually weak and unstable.""

[snip]

"So, it's quite possible that Bush will plunge into a counterinsurgency operation in Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, and then amidst mass civilian carnage, declare victory and announce negotiations. Sooner or later there will have to be negotiations, and this may be his ploy.

But things aren't going to be so easy for Bush because American troops yesterday in the Haifa Street firefight in Baghdad appear to have fallen into an ongoing ethnic cleansing operation by Shia militia.

GIs call Haifa Street "grenade alley." As Juan Cole points out, Haifa Street has become a fixture of the civil war, twisting and turning in one pacification effort after another. In July 2004 there was Operation Haifa Street involving 3,000 American troops. A police station got blown up in a big bombing there. In March 2005 reports had things calming down a bit. Some said the tide had turned. Today it is once again called a terrorist stronghold and there is a fresh pacification effort. Now things are ever more complicated since at least one report in Arabic claims Shia invaded the area Sunday, killed residents, and threw their bodies into the street. "In this context, some Sunni Arabs see the US as having been duped by the Shiites to join in the ethnic cleansing of the Karkh district," says Cole.

And now there are reports the Shia are worming their way into the Green Zone, a feat long attempted unsuccessfully by the Sunnis."

Yelling, waving your arms won't stop them

blogging furious posts won't make them think, marching in protest makes them laugh.... so if Bryan, Washington Post, others in the blogosphere can see attacking Muqtada al-Sadr is moronic, and bets that Bush and the Pentagon will do it anyway....

is there any way anyone could stop this horrifically stupid action?


I know the answer. I just wanted to ask the question.

Juan Cole:
"So Bush's response to the clear public demand for a change of course and a disengagement? It is to run to Henry Kissinger's apron strings. And what does the Butcher of Chile and Indonesia urge? That Bush should put another 40,000 US troops into Iraq!

The problem is that Iraq is a 500,000 troop problem. Another 40,000 are just going to anger locals. And, apparently, they would be sicced on the Shiite Mahdi Army in hopes of permanently crippling the Sadr Movement headed (in part) by Muqtada al-Sadr. And maybe they'd be used in a new offensive against the Sunni Arab guerrillas.

Let me explain why it won't work. It won't work because Iraqis are now politically and socially mobilized. This means that they have the social preconditions for effective political and paramilitary action (they are largely urban, literate, connected by media, etc.) And they are politically savvy and well-connected. They are well armed, gaining in military experience, and well financed through petroleum and antiquities smuggling and through cash infusions from supporters abroad. The Mahdi Army fighters can be defeated by the US military, as happened twice in 2004. But they cannot be made to disappear, as they were not in 2004. That is because they are an organic movement springing from the Shiite poor, and are the paramilitary arm of a large social movement with a national network and ideology."
[snip]
"The US is not going to commit the half a million troops it would take to have a chance of winning in Iraq. Nor is it going to use genocidal methods to strike absolute terror into the hearts of the Iraqi people.

The Iraq situation has gone beyond the point where 40,000 troops can retrieve it. And that is if we even had 40,000 troops to put into Iraq and keep them there any length of time, which we do not.

In fact, since most of the "coalition of the willing" troops have now left (Italy, Spain, etc.), one of the two US divisions would only be putting the number of Coalition soldiers back up to what it was earlier in the Occupation, when things were also not going well.

The fact is that if provincial elections were held today, the Sadr Movement would sweep to power in all the Shiite provinces (with the possible exception of Najaf itself). It is increasingly the most popular political party among Iraq's Shiite majority. For the US to cut the Sadrists out of power in parliament and then fall on them militarily would just throw Iraq into turmoil. It would increase the popularity of the Sadrists, and ensure that they gain nationalist credentials that will ensconce them for perhaps decades."

We need the Sadrists to help control Iraq. But apparently he's the newest bad guy we can actually attack.....

Even Kissinger jumps ship.

"Military victory is no longer possible in Iraq, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said in a television interview broadcast Sunday."

So now we just need to save Bush's face and change what 'staying the course' means:

""I think we have to redefine the course, but I don't think that the alternative is between military victory, as defined previously, or total withdrawal," he said."

I do think this is worse than quibbling over what the word is means....

Tengrain has the pic.