The State of The Nations

The United States Government currently claims that our economy is strong and that employment is hovering a little over 4% -- that's good, right? If we could believe the numbers, it would be. It would be fantastic. But we can't. Ever since taking office, the Bush Administration has been employing Enron-class accounting standards and steadfastly manipulating information; many folks suspect that the economy isn't as robust as the numbers tell, yet until actual data can be accessed we cannot truly assess the extent of the trouble we're in. That's by design. GOP design, neoconservative to be precise. If the true state of the nation was revealed -- like so much else that this Administration has hidden -- the nation as a whole would unite against the continuing agenda.

Iraq is much, much worse.

The US engaged in an illegal invasion on false pretense, and is now stuck attempting to quell an "insurgency" that was predicted by many experienced advisors. The Bush Administration and their many neoconservative pundits didn't care to follow that advice, and still refuse to be swayed from their course of action. The US military is rapidly deteriorating, yet contracts given through Administration favorites work steadily on airfields, mega-military bases and a new US Embassy that defies description. For all the talk of how the US is not intent to serve as foreign occupiers, we're making a very significant effort to establish a permanent presence.

In the meantime, the general national infrastructure of Iraq is still in shambles. The lack of consistent, reliable electricity and clean water resembles a third-world nation or worse. The civil war that our ill-advised empire building adventure generated has prevented anyone from safely using the spiffy "new schools" that have been built, and billions of dollars sent for the reconstruction efforts have simply gone missing with nary a peep of concern from the Bush Administration.

The destruction of a major US ammo dump by an insurgent mortar round recently served to remind us just how bad things are.

A recent report from the Iraq Study Group, which many believed was intended as a much-needed intervention to correct the disastrous course of George W. Bush agenda, has been rejected as a guideline toward a solution. Amid a background of messages that we're thinking of putting on a "show of force" in the Gulf to intimidate Iran, the Bush Administration is now pushing for a "temporary surge" of troops to Iraq for the purpose of securing Baghdad.

It's a mess.

We need a way out. It has to address ongoing problems, provide a solution to rebuild the infrastructure, help quiet the civil war, result in a major reduction of US presence and undo the diplomatic damage that this idiocy has spawned. Ideally, it will also short-circuit the potential for continuing the neoconservative plans for the Middle East, and leave them with little choice but to start addressing major issues like alternative energy and global warming.

The solution I propose addresses all of the points above. It starts with an admission that the US is currently unable to continue the folly set by the Bush Administration, and immediately sacrifices some major pieces on the chessboard: the 14 bases and the brand spankin'-new embassy.

With malice aforethought...

In the world of legal jargon, "malice aforethought" pertains to issues generally involving slander. In the realm of murder or acts of aggression, "intent" and "motive" are the operative terms. The Bush Administration is guilty in all aspects of this: they lied and cherry-picked intelligence in order to engage in a war that they had intended to embroil our nation in since before they even took office. IMO, this is "malice aforethought" speaking to how they sold the war and their purposeful manipulation of evidence in order to justify their intent.

As illustrated by occams hatchet in diaries here and here, the Bush Administration initiated an "Energy Task Force" almost immediately after the inauguration; while Dick Cheney's office has been refusing to provide details pertaining to the task force under the claim of "Executive Privilege," it is well known that the Iraq oil fields were discussed and allocated among various vying companies. This occurred starting at the end of January 2001 -- a full eight months before the attacks of September 11.

Is it only a coincidence that these attacks provided the "new Pearl Harbor" that the PNAC -- a group which Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and several other members of the early GW Bush Administration started -- spoke of in 1998? Considering that the Bush Administration went out of its way to obfuscate and deny information to the 9/11 Commission in order to avoid appearing incompetent, and stark information that points to the absolute likelihood that they were at the very least derelict in their duties to protect the nation but -- within hours of the attacks -- both Bush and Rumsfeld were pushing to tie the attacks to Saddam Hussein in order to atack, the least conclusion I can comfortably draw is that the intent to strike Saddam and invade Iraq was a focus to the exclusion of all else.

The initial attempts to link 9/11 to Saddam were too weak to fully substantiate a strike, yet funding was redirected from the Afghanistan efforts without the approval or oversight of Congress and applied toward planning the invasion of Iraq long before Bush claimed to have made up his mind to "take Saddam out." The best potential threat, two or three excuses later, was that Saddam had reconstituted his WMD program. This, too, eventually changed into "Operation Iraqi Liberation" -- the bringing of freedom and democracy to Iraq. Regime change. But the acronym was flawed, suggesting what many believed to be the true purpose behind the invasion: "O.I.L." It was quickly changed to "Operation Iraqi Freedom."

Regime change in Iraq was the first phase of the PNAC-derived plan to remake the Middle East and secure American control over critical oil supplies. Even as Bush and company cast about looking for a solution to the current quagmire, construction of 14 mega-bases and one super-mega embassy is under way. In spite of claims at the outset that the whole Iraq invasion would only last six weeks at the most, the Administration shifted gears and began to talk in earnest about "the Long War" and how we'll likely be in Iraq for many years to come.

This change, too, plays along the nearly ten year old PNAC agenda. Construction for the bases began a couple years ago; the start of the embassy coincides with that. Both speak to a permanence that predates the change in rhetoric. Neither the bases nor the embassy are based on slapdash plans -- it had to take time to develop them, approve them, fund them. As the timeline extrapolates backward, it becomes less likely that these plans spontaneously and miraculously appeared in a vaccum. The thinking to support them, to justify placement, and to approve both funding and contractors had to have happened. And it is unlikely that they all just "came together" in a weekend sometime in the last year over a couple of beers.

It does not meet the PNAC agenda to redeploy forces outside of Iraq and away from the oil fields.  Take a look at this diary by occams hatchet again, which clearly delineates the placement of the new airfields and bases in relation to the oifields, as found at this source. This is not a coincidence. It's their plan.

Image credit: occams hatchet

They are not going to acquiesce to the findings of the ISG -- that would be an admission of flawed execution. They are not going to leave their foothold in the Middle East, because that would compromise all that they'd accomplished to date. They are not going to pursue, fund or investigate alternative fuels -- such a move would undermine the whole justification for their planning. They will never acknowledge global warming -- to do so would call attention to their lack of enthusiasm for alternative energy sources, as well as detract from the "vital importance" they attach to the oil in the Middle East. They are not going to look out for the true needs and toward the future of our nation. That's not in their plan, and it has taken them nearly every resource they have to come this close to actually fully achieving it. They will not change their course.

They won't change, but we can. We can force them to abandon their failed venture before it can come to fruition, and perhaps save a little bit of our nation's soul in the process.

And here is where the call to sacrifice begins.

From sacred cow to fatted calf, faux pas to foie gras

The original acronym for the Iraq invasion was a possible Freudian slip -- an unintentional revelation of a subconscious desire or secret, a "lapsus" of the tongue (lapsus linguae), of the pen (lapsus calami) or the memory (lapsus memoriae). The occurrence of these various lapses of lapsus paint a stark contrast between word and meaning: we are left with the hefty implication that much of what the Bush Administration and their supporters are telling us is composed of lies. When viewed in this way, the "known known" of the Bush Administration's ties to Big Oil and the energy industry is even more strongly identified as their sacred cow. In words that their overzealous fundamental followers might better understand, that's a form of idolatry, closely related to another big no-no, the love of money and power. In a doff of the cap to the American Taliban, I'll continue below with the introduction of another term they should certainly know, if they actually bothered to read those Bibles they so vigorously thump.

For a long time now, I've feared that the facade brokered by the Bush Administration would remain virtually inassailable long enough for them to at least achieve a stable foothold in Iraq. Fortunately for us -- and it's a bittersweet fortune, indeed -- their striking incompetence has brought us to a point where we may be able to intercede effectively before they can kill the fatted calf to celebrate their victory. With the recent loss of Congressional control to the Democrats, Bush's tenure has taken on more of a lame duck status. The Administration has already signaled that it will engage in a a cataclysmic fight to the death to continue their agenda and fight against oversight and investigations. We can gut this lame duck administration's plan and craft some metaphysical foie gras as a start toward paving a true way forward out of the swamp.

Here's how:

1. Turn the four major airports into international hubs.

   The invasion destroyed much of the infrastructure within the cities, and much of the Iraq cultural and historical background. Change the design of these hubs to also include cultural and historical museums and some international bazaars. Iraqi security forces would take responsibility for the outer perimeter and work with smaller international forces to secure entry and exit. Inside, a UN-sponsored security team with smaller incorporated Iraqi militia would provide internal security. The overall authority over the airport -- including whether or not to close it to air travel -- would be the responsibility of the Iraqi government, but the UN forces would be in place to prevent the overrun of the airports by "insurgents," Taliban or any attempt to lock down the airport by a new Hussein-like dictator. The primary management of the bases would be Arab -- perhaps an equivalent of Dubai Ports? -- but there would be an oversight committee comprised of UN membership states to ensure that "nothing nefarious" was done to undermine the semi-autonomy (and to quell outcry a little from an indignant GOP and their American Taliban supporters).



2. Turn the 14 major military bases into international cultural centers of education, health and trade.

   Using the same model of Iraq troops for a backbone of security and UN troops for management and chain-of-command, the bases could be converted to be quality hospitals, schools and multi-cultural recreational areas. Iraq is part of the birthplace of civilization -- let's bring civilization back to Iraq.



3. Turn over the US mega-embassy to Iraq.

   Make it a compound where Middle Eastern diplomatic committees can form and work with UN and international committees in the center of Baghdad. Create a major medical center within it where international experts can share and learn, and doctors from all over Iraq can come for advanced study then take their new knowledge back to apply in their local hospitals and villages.

There is nothing to say that the major monies already in play must remain committed to the follies of the agenda designed by the PNAC, supported by the neoconservatives and implemented by the Bush Administration. Just as "cutting and running" would leave Iraq in chaos, "surging" would only exacerbate the coming conflagrations. But, if the signs of an imperial occupation and puppet government could be redirected to turn this fiasco into a diplomatic coup -- one which sets the stage for opening and improving diplomatic relations between the nations of the Middle East with each other and the world, while helping establish something central to and owned by Iraq that is also somewhat immune to the vaguaries of internal and external tyrannical domination -- then perhaps this whole grand adventure would not be without a silver lining.

Do not take my suggestions as the only options; I'm rushing to get this out to you all for consideration. Take the above as a guideline only, and improve upon it with suggestions in comments below.

Love it or leave it, like it or lump it, I don't care -- but definitely say and do something, below. It's time we generated some "out of the box" ideas that could hurt a little and help a lot, while killing a <s>fatted calf</s> sacred cow and serving up a steaming plate of Administration foie gras.