Friday, September 14, 2007

SURGIN' GENERAL

by the Sandwichman

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the main purpose of the Iraq "surge" was clearly to place extra U.S. troops in Iraq so when some of those extras were eventually withdrawn it could be hailed as a "troop reduction". This is like a merchant raising the price on an item and then putting it "on sale" for the regular price. Does Bush and his apparatus think the American people are that stupid? Are the American people that stupid?

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes.

spencer said...

eubulides beat me to the punch.

Anonymous said...

without regard to your major premise the answer to your two questions is yes, and yes.

Sandwichman said...

Then there is Democratic Party "opposition" to the Iraq War fraud, which consists of... FUNDING IT.

Brian Dunbar said...

No.

That is if you want the simple answer, yes.

The somewhat more complicated answer is that war fighting is not anything like pricing commodities at Wal-Mart.

Casting the question in economic cant is going to get you the wrong answer. It's good for a sound bite but not much else.

rosserjb@jmu.edu said...

Well, personally I think it is more like taking someone and banging their head against the wall, and then asking them after you stop doing it, "there, don't you feel better now?"

rosserjb@jmu.edu said...

S-man,

BTW, congrats on the almost max-like wit of your heading. That might actually move us from 96th to 92nd on Aaron Schiff's rankings of economics blogs, :-).

Barkley

Martin Langeland said...

Isn't the germane question: Is Congress that stupid? or is that too obvious?
--ml

Sandwichman said...

Barkley,

I think of Max's wit as almost Sandwichman-like.

Sandwichman said...

martin,

The fact that the Democratic congress ultimately rolls over for the swindle suggests to the Sandwichman a dialectic that runs deeper than oil, Israel or war profiteering. The war in Iraq -- or something like it -- functions as both a diversion from a generalized social-political expropriation and as a pretext for repressive measure against any possible opposition to that expropriation. It's a game of three-card monte in which the Dems play the Soap Gang to Bush's 'Soapy' Smith. Forget Harry Reid, where the Hell is Frank Reid when we need him?

Anonymous said...

or put in language i can understand, the friends of bush are raping the country while everyone is looking at iraq.

this is true, but can it be the whole story?

what is of interest about the congressional opposition is, aside from the funding, they don't seem to offer an alternative that is an alternative.

my guess is that they understand the needs of "empire" without quite getting that we are no longer in a position where kicking down doors works for us.

Anonymous said...

Yes.

Homines id quod credunt volunt (Men believe what they want), Julius Caesar, The Commentaries).

Or women. That sales trick gets my wife every time not because she's dumb but because she wants to believe it.

Anonymous said...

It may not be stupidity. It may simply be a condition that might be labeled emotional inertia. What's going on will go on; there's no good reason to stop it. There are lots of good reasons not to conduct warfare. There are as many good reasons not to abuse and exploit your fellow man/woman. It's done. It's always been done. It barely registers in the average individual's thought process unless immediately impinging upon his or her life. But emotional inertia is a pervasive characteristic of human behavior. If it ain't immediate, it ain't important enough to interfere with my day to day. Remember the Phil Ochs song, Outside of A Small Circle of Friends? "But monopoly is so much fun I'd hate to spoil the game." There are so many cliches concerning just this issue, emotional inertia, that it seems common place, and so we do nothing. Certainly it's stupid for responsible people to behave in that manner; but who's talking about responsible people? If enough people were responsible enough to care enough about the quality of life in general we wouldn't have the Iraq mess to begin with. We all know good wards to say, but we're all a little too busy and a lot too fearful or hateful, or both, to make intelligent political choices. That's what makes democracy just a little unsatisfactory as a political system. It's dependent upon the will of the people to act in the group's best interest.

Anonymous said...

Ok, such tough questions Sandwichman, and jimminney if everyone else didn't already have the answer...is there a warm-up question so we (the American People) can practice and look respectable?
I see Thoma at economisty has a bite showing the financial community has also voted on this Surge.
They aren't stupid, but the press/media is not terribly interested in publicizing that view and perhaps facing charges (publicized by whom?) of not supporting the War President.

Anonymous said...

i may just be too stupid to know what to do.

on the other hand, i know a lot of other people who i am glad don't know what to do.

Anonymous said...

Call me stupid, but I figured that with such a lame plan from lame-duck, low popularity president the Dems would have a better plan. In fact, in the Dem response to Bush's speech, they say they have a plan to end the war in Iraq.

"We have put forth a plan to responsibly and rapidly begin a reduction of our troops. Our proposal cannot erase the mistakes of the last four and a half years, but we can chart a better way forward."

Now, being unfamiliar with this Dem plan, I went searching. I went to the Democratic Party site:
http://www.democrats.org/

Nothing there. No plan. While I saw a lot of negative stuff about the Repubs and Petraeus, and a lot of other fluff, I never found a plan. Has anyone found the Dem plan for ending the war in Iraq? It must be around here somewhere.

Anonymous said...

don,

If you had gone to the DLC site and looked into the 'Ideas Primary'...well, not exactly a withdrawal plan but:

Phase-down of U.S. troops...New diplomatic surge enlist[ing] the international community, as well as Iraq’s neighbors, in a vigorous effort to cajole and even force the warring parties toward agreement.

'Other' hand, if MSM continues its servile ways, we will be seeing variations of 'Bush troop reduction' pop up with frequency.

'Neither' party cares to take responsibility for what could be labeled 'losing Iraq'......

Anonymous said...

John,

Isn't that "id quod volunt credunt?"

Reminds me of something one of my old expatriate Classics teachers, Toni Raubitschek, told me during the VietNam unpleasantness. "The students think Congress is evil. They'd get further if they realized that the reality is that Congress is stupid." Except I'm sure his version was more pithy.

Anonymous said...

anon,
I would suggest that vapid is more to the point when describing members of the Congress. Remember that they are generally lower level functionaries in the local political parties that control who it is that we get to choose in congressional elections. They do as they are told. If they stay on long enough by having some how endeared themselves to the local electorate they move up the chain in their local party apparatus. They may, therefore, then be referred to as apparatchiks for their loyal support of all things good for their party. It's like the obverse of communism. Instead of the state owning the means of production and its assets, the owners of the assets own the state. The point is that they are not so much stupid as they are functionaries who serve a purpose that is often contrary to the common good, but beneficial to their beneficiaries.

Never lose sight of the fact that war is about assets. We are not so much wasting money in Iraq as we are spending it in a manner that benefits a select group. It's asset reallocation. One man's deficit is another man's income. Are the primaries at Halliburton, Blackwater, or any of the other "contractors" in a deficit position? I think not.

Anonymous said...

Precisely. The purpose of the "surge" is to give the Republicans some political cover. It has nothing to do with improving things in Iraq.