Thursday, November 02, 2006

An Issue to Help Conservatives Decide to Do The Right Thing

Folks, you can expect these missives to come almost daily, till the election. It is, after all, the little that I can do... in the fight for our civilization’s life.

The worst sin of the Democrats - failing to protect the US Officer Corps:

You’ve heard it from me before. But this is the Best ammo to use in confronting those sincere, Goldwater Republicans, who know that something horrible has happened to their movement, but who need an excuse to change their lifelong habits on election day. It hits home even more strongly than hammering on, say, today’s GOP spendthrift budget-busting or string of outrageous scandals.

Moreover, alas, it is a crime that the Democrats have been too wussy to raise as a foremost issue. So you must do it yourself.

I often bemoan (in sinful pride) that I was among the very first to publicly decry this administration’s relentless and viciously oppressive war against the United States Officer Corps. Against the brilliant and dedicated men and women who - following the tradition of George Marshall - have honed skill and discipline while forsaking immature ambition, abandoning the age-old warrior testosterone and bluster in favor of professionalism, becoming the third best-educated clade in our entire civilization.

Under-appreciated and ignored by the left, while they are being harried and bullied by the right, they are the very people who stand between us and a very, very cold wind.

But there are exceptions, of course. You can guess that the promotion rosters have been filled, lately, with the kind of men who will turn away from Marshallian maturity and instead help usher in the era of Nehemiah Scudder. If they possibly can. For example, recently: the top US general defended the leadership of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, saying it is inspired by God.

"He leads in a way that the good Lord tells him is best for our country," said Marine General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”

Exceptions like these will grow ever more common and terrifying, if we citizens do not stand up and take notice. (And then, when that happens, will liberals suddenly turn around and embrace the Second Amendment? Hm?)

Again, this is about protecting a treasure that millions of Americans do not even know they have. These men and women have focused on accountability and mature professionalism to a degree that most civilians cannot begin to grasp. Their depth and caliber of intelligence, perception and dedication. It will take a lot of hard work for the neo-feudalists to cull the Officer Corps down -- pushing down past Marshall and all the way past the Cincinnatus example of Washington -- before finally returning the military to its ancient and traditional role in most other civilizations. That of lickspittle attack dogs.

A long, hard task. But, clearly, if history is any guide, it is possible. Especially if you bear in mind the other end of this program: an ongoing campaign by more than a hundred fanatical members of Congress to stock our military academies with cadets who are religious zealots, more loyal to a fanatical agenda (looking eagerly toward an imminent and much-desired end-of-the-world) than they are faithful to either progress or the U.S. Constitution.

Yes, it is possible...

... or is it?

See: Revolt of the Generals by Richard J. Whalen [from the October 16, 2006 issue of The Nation]

“A revolt is brewing among our retired Army and Marine generals. This rebellion -- quiet and nonconfrontational, but remarkable nonetheless -- comes not because their beloved forces are bearing the brunt of ground combat in Iraq but because the retirees see the US adventure in Mesopotamia as another Vietnam-like, strategically failed war, and they blame the errant, arrogant civilian leadership at the Pentagon. The dissenters include two generals who led combat troops in Iraq: Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack Jr., who commanded the 82nd Airborne Division, and Maj. Gen. John Batiste, who led the First Infantry Division (the "Big Red One"). These men recently sacrificed their careers by retiring and joining the public protest.

“In late September Batiste, along with two other retired senior officers, spoke out about these failures at a Washington Democratic policy hearing, with Batiste saying Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was "not a competent wartime leader" who made "dismal strategic decisions" that "resulted in the unnecessary deaths of American servicemen and women, our allies and the good people of Iraq." Rumsfeld, he said, "dismissed honest dissent" and "did not tell the American people the truth for fear of losing support for the war."

“This kind of protest among senior military retirees during wartime is unprecedented in American history--and it is also deeply worrisome. The retired officers opposing the war and demanding Rumsfeld's ouster represent a new political force, and therefore a potentially powerful factor in the future of our democracy. The former generals' growing lobby could acquire a unique veto power in the future by publicly opposing reckless civilian warmaking in advance.
...

“The dissenting retired generals are bent on making Iraq this nation's last strategically failed war--that is, one doggedly waged by civilian officials largely to avoid personal accountability for their bad decisions. A failed war causes mounting human and other costs, damaging or entirely destroying the national interest it was supposed to serve.”
Dissent“Retired Lieut. Gen. William Odom calls the Iraq War "the worst strategic mistake in the history of the United States" and draws a grim parallel with the Vietnam War. He says that US strategy in Iraq, as in Vietnam, has served almost exclusively the interests of our enemies.”

...”The military's senior active-duty leadership will not openly revolt. "We're not the French generals in Algeria," says Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, now retired. "But we damned well know that the Iraq War we've won militarily is being lost politically." The well-read retired Marine Lieut. Gen. Gregory Newbold wrote in a Time magazine essay: "I retired from the military four months before the March 2003 invasion, in part because of my opposition to those who had used 9/11's tragedy to hijack our security policy." Newbold calls the Iraq War "unnecessary" and says the civilians who launched the war acted with "a casualness and swagger" that are "the special province" of those who have never smelled death on a battlefield.”

... “Says retired two-star General Eaton: "The repeated rotations of Army Reservists and National Guardsmen are hollowing out the US ground forces. This whole thing in Iraq is going to fall off a cliff.... Yet we have a moral obligation to see this thing [the Iraqi occupation] through. If we fail, it will cause America grave problems for several decades to come."

... “We have "paid" for the invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan by borrowing heavily from foreign dollar-holders, such as China, that are awash in trade surpluses, and have left debt service to future US generations.


A key argument in the ex-generals' indictment is this undeniable fact: Our armed forces are too small to police and reorder the world and intervene almost blindly, as we have in Iraq. That invasion acted out the world-changing daydreams of pro-Israel neoconservative policy intellectuals like Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and others who gained warmaking power and influence atop the Pentagon but who evidently never asked themselves, Suppose we're wrong?

What happens then? Sober, realistic Israelis privately fear the neocons' "friendship," and where it has led America, more than any Arab enemies. In the inevitable post-Iraq War tsunami of US political recrimination, such Israelis foresee Christian Zionist evangelicals, whose lobbying muscle in Congress was decisive in the run-up to the Iraq War, attempting to scapegoat the high-profile neocons and endangering Israel's all-important security ties to the United States.”


                                                            ===    ===    ===

Strong stuff. Nor do I agree with absolutely everything.

Many of you know that I firmly separate the Afghanistan intervention -- which was planned in detail by Clinton-Clark, not by Rumsfeld -- from Rummy’s own loony imbroglio in Iraq. Afghanistan (at least in its first year) seems to have been much more like our Balkans Campaign -- efficient, effective, professional and very easy on costs (lives, dollars and prestige with allies.) Still, that only makes Whalen’s point stronger.

An added thought. Whalen's article points out that Israel was never a "winner" out of the neocons' mad adventurism. Now it is clear to anyone with three neurons to rub together (and who doesn’t live in the Carolinas) that the real winners in the last six years have been Iran and the Saudi Royal House...

...whose proteges fill this administration so perfectly that it is the statistical scandal awaiting some reporter's careful analysis. (Find one top administration security appointee who has not taken copious amounts of petro$ in consultancies etc. I defy you to find more than one or two. Colin Powell is the only exception I know of, after two years asking this question.)

Unfortunately, it will take a reporter. Because America’s counter-intelligence agents are probably cowed, keeping their heads down, dominated by bosses who were virtually appointed by a hostile foreign power, unable to lift their eyes enough to track blatant patterns that would have set off a million alarms, if a similar fraction of our highest security officials had been appointed (or at least approved) by the Soviet KGB.

25 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sounds good, but Afghanistan is a bigger fiasco than Iraq...

Our chances of success in Afghanistan are zero due to the plan we followed, and it may end up giving control of the Muslim world's only nuclear armed state to the radical Islamists we're supposed to be fighting.

gmknobl said...

Just out of curiosity, what do you have against N/S Carolina? There are plenty of intelligent, open minded people there too, my mom for one. Yes, I know most apparently vote in lock step with the fascists running things now, but not nearly all.

Afghanistan bigger fiasco than Iraq? Well, now that we've pulled troops out and had our funny, non-logical foreign diplomacy with Pakistan and (you name the stupidity engineered by BushCo), perhaps, but the initial response was correct and proper. I don't see it any other way. Remember, it was this that was twisted by the Bushites into our misadventure in Iraq.

Rob Perkins said...

Just out of curiosity, what do you have against N/S Carolina?

Might have something to do with the fact that Card lives there...

Anonymous said...

matthew,

I wasn't suggesting a(nother) coup in Pakistan.

Pakistan is a democracy and they have an election coming up...

Think of the radical Islamists as Pakistan's Democratic party...

...they have a good shot of beating the military junta that's running the place now because of what we're doing along and across their border.

gm,

What was right with our initial Afghanistan plan?

Instead of directly attacking Osama and his pals, we gently herded them into the safety of Pakistan's mountains.

So we chased away the Taliban for a while. Are the new guys we put in charge any better?

Actually, they are worse, because they will never be strong enough to beat the Taliban without our help...

Bush backed the wrong guys.

Woozle said...

If anyone has any more sources for the Issuepedia article on military readiness, please feel free to add them.

I've also started taking apart OSC's pro-GOP essay, but as with many of his essays, he packs a lot of assumptions and ambiguity into many of his statements, so it's a long job.

And, while we're at it:
- George W.: overview and main index
-- corruption
--- elevation of presidential power
--- lying
--- unapologetic use of torture
-- Bush vs. Clinton
- GWB's administration

-- in Durham, NC, but not offended ^_^

Anonymous said...

This looks like a long term plan, not something expected to have an immediate return.

I mean, if you are going to set up a theocracy, you need to have the military on your side. So installing BACE (Born Again Christian Evangelists) though the officer corps seems like the way to do it.

That way when the God fearin' dictator steps up, the military is with him.

ouch,
Robert.

Rob Perkins said...

OK, I've finished reading Card's take on the War on Terror and the election, in its entirety.

It's a long, long essay.

He swipes at Hannity, again. He explains the behavior of Islamicists, both Sunni and Shi'a, in terms of an ancient internal struggle for dominance, playing out at least since the death of Mohammad.

Having just studied that period of history myself, that explanation resonates with me with an unusual strength. If we see the events in Lebanon, the West Bank, Iran, and other places throughout the Middle East as showy demonstrations of power to Muslims, rather than merely actions against U.S. hegemony or Israel's existence, then there is more *reason* for Islamicist behavior than just wild-eyed hatred.

Now, Card tags what he calls a correct strategy with Bush's name, which is a mistake, in my opinion. I don't believe Bush pays close enough attention to be as smart about matters as Card claims.

But if it is true, as Bush has claimed, that he *listens to commanders on the ground* about matters, and it's also true that, as David claims, the officer corps of the armed forces is still a professional force, then that might be the source of the strategic wisdom for Card's case in favor of current Iraq policy.

In any case, if you can ignore the polarizing name label, and focus on the policy and the reasons for it, does he have a point, at all, I wonder?

David Brin said...

Rob, people can rationalize and weave just-so stories that will talk your arm off and then explain that the twitching limb, right there on the ground, is actually a rose bush.

Yes, I do that too! But every now and then you have to get grounded in unassailable facts.

1) The Balkans Intervention increased our popularity in the Muslim world, empowering Clinton to take some incremental steps in resolving the Israel-Arab conflict. The CORE to resolving everything else in the region. Any other endeavor over there is secondary.

2) This administration has done more to unite Islam - against us - than any other president could even dream of doing. ANyone who waves attention away from this blatant fact, is an enemy of truth.

3) The Shiite Sunni conflict is the latest overblown distraction. While peasants on both sides are slaughtering each other, their elites could not care less. They are talking to each other and saying NOTHING bad about each other. Observers who cannot see how these two facts are perfectly compatible are historically and culturally clueless.

4) Further: the indisputable winners from all Bushco policies have been Iran and SaudiArabia. With the stack of Halliburton-style KleptoThief companies coming in third (having demolished all US government contract-vetting rules).

There is no way that anybody can step back and look at the present situation and deny this. All else is distraction, rationalization and commentary.

5) Elaborating a bit, but staying grounded in basic facts: Hypocrites who decried tiny deviations from contracting rules under Clinton, now wave away "urgent" violations of those rules that have wasted a third of a trillion dollars. Such hypocrites deserve no respect.

In fact, they should be spat upon.

Hypocrites who decried "criminality and immorality" under Clinton - then, despite a billion dollars spent on the pursuit, were unable to prove a SINGLE case against a single Clinton official - now wave away a tsunami of corruption and perversion scandals pouring - like a high school full of popped zits - from a debased and slutty GOP, at a time when THEY control all media and law and investigative branches. (Imagine how this would look if a Ken Starr were at work!)

They deserve only spittle.

Hypocrites who scream about illegal immigration, when Bush opened the doors (after Clinton had partly shut them), are not deserving of expectoration. They are too pathetic and lame. They are morons.

Hypocrites who once sneered at modest international interventions as futile “utopian exercises in the failed and discredited notion of so-called nation building” are now squandering more lives and money and goodwill upon an absurdly incompetent effort than all “nation-building” efforts that preceded, combined. An endeavor that began with impeachable lies and now is based upon the insane notion of STARTING the democratization of the middle east in the very worst and most unlikely place possible.

Led by the very same team who, in 1991, assured us that Saddam was finished and that we would never, ever have to go to Baghdad.

Oh, I could go on. But above all of the unassailable facts, there is the one up top... the criminal, treacherous and treasonous attack upon the noble men and women of the United State Officer Corps. I would say that these monsters deserve much more than to be spat upon, but I want it clear that I advocate nothing illegal. Our civilization will survive them!

But it is going to take one heckuva lot of work.

Rob Perkins said...
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Anonymous said...

I think you're overdoing the hero worship of the officer corp of the U.S. military, Dr. Brin.

A recent poll showed over 90% of them are voting Republican next week...

Rob Perkins said...

I think I agree; that was quite likely the most appalling set of metaphors I've ever seen you use.

Besides which, I read over your response and can't conclude that you've done more than repeat your own pet theories and ridicule Card's, when a supported response would have been preferable; I don't think you've read the thing I've reacted to, either with an objective eye or at all, I can't tell.

Na gut. Your blog. Whatever.

Anonymous said...

Oh my!

"An editorial scheduled to appear on Monday in Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times, calls for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfgate/indexn/detail?blogid=16&entry_id=10582

David Brin said...

Rob, I was channeling an example of the indignant "Harlanesque" ranting I spoke of earlier... to show what I am capable of when slumming in that mode. See? I can do that stuff like the best of em!

(And every... single... word... was... righteous and true.)

And yet, of course, I am behooved to then look in a mirror and "laugh at the fool!" zits? indeed.

BTW... I only ranted my "pet theories" toward the end. The fact-filled first half is fulla indisputable stuff. And I'd sure like to know if any apologists can name any winners from this mess, other than the three groups I mentioned.

David Brin said...

And dang. When the Army Times comes out this way, you know that Brin was right. Right about this, top to bottom. From the start. And the guy you heard it from, first.

Now, if only we the people can solve this problem, before the soldiers decide they have to solve it for us.

Rob Perkins said...

!!

Well, good on them. Rummy should have resigned years ago.

Anonymous said...

MAYDAY! MAYDAY! BUS ON FIRE, WHEELS OFF, PLUNGING INTO ABYSS!

Neo Culpa

"As Iraq slips further into chaos, the war's neoconservative boosters have turned sharply on the Bush administration, charging that their grand designs have been undermined by White House incompetence. In a series of exclusive interviews, Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman, David Frum, and others play the blame game with shocking frankness. Target No. 1: the president himself."

What despicable toads. Calling them rats fleeing a sinking ship is a slur on rats, who are at least warm blooded.

Anonymous said...

And when and if Rummy "resigns," what's the plan then?

It's not like we have a time machine so we can go back and fix things.

Anonymous said...

I have a feeling a lot of the neocons attacking the President now are doing so because he hasn't been zealous enough on their goals. They're trying to rationalize the failures of their ideas as failures of the Bush administration. Which isn't to say the Bush admin isn't staggeringly incompetent, but they're trying to use the incompetence as a cover for the fact that their ideas were stupid and bad to begin with. I don't think any of them have learned anything from this, and within 20 years or so if they get into power again, they'll be pushing for the same things again. Just like with Vietnam, which they didn't learn anything from either.

Which doesn't mean they're not useful and we shouldn't welcome them to the side of sanity temporarily. Just means we shouldn't expect them to stay there.

Rob Perkins said...

Oh, sure, I'll hand it to you now, David. Of course, I wasn't in disagreement on that point, being myself only two or three degrees separated from Rummy I've heard descriptions of him Fox News has never reported.

(And every... single... word... was... righteous and true.)

Bwah! Go stand in front of your mirror! :-)

Anonymous said...

Nate:
Someone needs to reminds the NeoCons that what they are doing is identical to what the American Communists do when talking about Russia: "Russia didn't fail because of Communism, it failed because they didn't do it right!"
(The NeoCons, being former communists, should already know this...)
NeoNazis do the same thing: "Hitler didn't fail, the German people failed!". And Italian Fascists... and a dozen other philosophies and religions who need an excuse why they failed: blame the practitioner, not the practice...

David Brin said...

Rob! Chill. My purpose is not to impress you with calm erudition in EVERY posting... nor even to impress you with the wild VARIABILITY that I am capable of displaying, depending upon whether I am channeling Ben Franklin or Percy Byshe Shelley, on a given day.

No. My present purpose is entirely pragmatic. To provide ammo to guys out there who seriously think that a few choice rhetorical bullets could help them swing some votes!

Hence, I will post calm analyses AND I will offer wild-eyed, metaphor-rich, actinic and incendiary rants! Some people have surely copied my "SPIT ON THEM!" harangue and given it to people they thought might respond well to that kind of passion. Others will cite calmer explications, as they see fit. I am your loader. You guys go fire away.

(And do it today.)

Stefan, thanks for the lead, I saw it in the paper today too. Adelman, Frum, Perle oh my!

For those of you who want perspective on these guys- who and how utterly bonkers they are - see:
http://www.davidbrin.com/neoromantics.html

Perspective break: I have long sought to categorize CONSTITUENCIES of this administration, and to roughly diagnose their level of influence according to what fraction of their desires actually come true. By this standard, let us start from the BOTTOM. All of the following reflexively support the GOP. Let's start with the worst and most obstinate fools.

1- Libertarians who call the GOP "lesser of evils" because they claim to supposedly want “limited government”: Score? Absolute zero. Every single comparison, on any level, favors Bill Clinton. Learn to deal with it.

2- Goldwater conservatives and small businessmen: score? 1%. I imagine they are happy with tort reform legislation, an early Gingrich/Contract promise. Otherwise, they have been eviscerated and betrayed. And yes, that is compared to Clinton. (Likewise, people who want immigration controlled and lawful. But we covered that hypocrisy elsewhere.)

3- Social conservatives and aggressive religious zealots. Score? Maybe 15% After 14 years controlling Congress and six years every single lever or power, they have not seen genuine and effective progress on a single one of their top agenda items. Abortion? Sex ed? Evolution? Huge amounts of bluster and hot air. Some public money channeled to their charities. Plus the hint and promise that a new day will come when they finish stocking both the Supreme Court and the military academies. Only now subtract the staggering immorality of a whore-slut Ghomorah Congressional GOP that makes Tip O'Neil look (by comparison) like a choir boy and Bill Clinton look like a twin of his close friend, Billy Graham.

4- The classic straussian neonservatives. (agan, see:
http://www.davidbrin.com/neoromantics.html)

These fellows, many of them hyper-educated, utopian jews with an idealistic streak that made the cowboys, oilmen and brahmins very uncomfortable (or very amused), nevertheless provided a service for their masters in the beginning... an intellectual gloss that this otherwise illiterate administration badly needed, in order to deal with upper levels of the civil service and diplomatic and officer corps, during the first few years. Until the upper tiers could be stocked with hatchet men and the proper level of fear instilled.

Score for the true neocons? Formerly I’d have ranked their winnings at about 25%, because they got their "crusade" their jihad. Their holy war to spread democracy. (And most of you know that I did not disagree with the overall goal; I think America SHOULD be militant! In fact, their real crime was to so thoroughly DISCREDIT Pax Americana leadership!)

Alas for these stark, jibbering loony idealists, they eventually came to realize that their messianic sense of mission had been used, channeled. Diverted toward justifying a Vietnam-like quagmire that would destroy the very thing they so smugly thought they sought. Idiots. Cretins. As if the jocks and cheerleaders and frat boys who had given them wedgies back in school were NOW gonna let a pack of jewish nerds lead civilization toward a golden age? Ha!

5- Which brings us to the jocks and frat boys and cronies and kleptocratic thieves. The fellows who would give Adam Smith the utter heebie-jeebies if he wandered around today, recognizing their kind in a shot! Making him an instant Democrat. (If the lefties didn’t kick him out because he was the original “liberal”! Poor Adam.)

Score for the aristos? Well, it’s complicated. There are the quasi-honest ones, who sincerely think that golf buddies who serve on boards of directors are better qualified to pull strings and manage the markets than truly open markets would be, to manage themselves. Guys who give in to the completely natural human tendencey to USE power, when yoiu got it, to perform GAR (while mouthing FIBM rationalizations). How do they score?

Oh, maybe 50%. They got their sweetheart taxes and rollover SEC and diverted FBI and all that... and can pretend for a while longer that there's no such thing as climate change. But some (the smartest) are starting to see that a mismanaged society will make their money less valuable. Indeed, it will bring us back to traditional social stratification. Even potential class war vs a resentful and highly educated technocratic class. Hence, the smartest (or their sons and daughters) may be feeling worried a bit, about now.

6- The genuine klepto-thieves? Score? About 75%. No exegesis needed. Halliburton. Fox. Exxon. Gravy times and screw civilization. Screw the planet. And in a few years? When feudalism returns? Screw money.

7- You longtime visitors and participants knew where this list was headed. I have often challenged you all to find any evidence of a single occasion when the interests of a certain “house” were not served. When a score is 100%, a perfect correlation, the burden of proof is upon you, to show that Occam’s Razor does not apply.

Why did I go through all this?

In order (by a round about route) to put the recent “conversion” of Perle and Adelman et al in perspective. Along this chart, they are certainly folks with less to complain about than, say, libertarians or Goldwater Conservatives, or even the religious right! Hence, if they are standing up now and helping to correct their mistake by denouncing the frat monsters, should we spit on them?

Even taking into account the grotesque immaturity of it all: “You didn’t follow the plan! You don’t treat us with respect anymore! You frat-boy meanies!” I think we ought to take the charitable interpretation.

After all, they are here, right now, speaking out when we need them. Along with as much of the Officer Corps as dares to step forward. That’s more than anybody can say about George Will, or William Buckley or Newt Gingrich or Jack Kemp, who still writhe and rationalize and find excuses.

And who thus prove themselves to be far lesser men than the heroes of 1947.

Rob Perkins said...
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Rob Perkins said...
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Rob Perkins said...

Rob! Chill.

Don't forget to look at the emoticons!

Fine. I'll lay off until Wednesday. Have fun!

(Most of my friends share my opinions about matters, and some are even in Ohio.)

SDAI said...

What I find fascinating is the manipulation of the educated classes in America by the Euro-corporate elite. We have all these fairly smart folks pointing the finger at the Bush administration, thoroughly convinced in their intellectual and moral superiority and never once question their own scope. You have the supporters of Bush broken down into subsegments and categorized like they are part of some political dewey decimal system all of them, naturally, inferior to the educated elite of the left whose foreign policy is perpetually stuck somewhere in 1968.

If we look at what's going on in the world we see that since 1990, Europe has shifted away from us. Germany after reunification isn't anything close to the former West Germany and Germany was always the moral center of Europe. So what happens? Germany tilts left and France, Belgium and all the rest help push it over the edge. The US is no longer needed and Europe's corporations stab us in the back with Saddam from 1991-2002. (See Volcker Report for all the juicy details) And now they are doing it in Chad and Iran, while trying desperately to get us out of Iraq. Europe does big business with Russia now and so the old "cold war era" big brother USA is needed no more - in fact, they would rather forget that period of reliance on the USA for protection altogether, thank you very much. Like a teenager who can't stand his parents, Europe can't push the dominating USA out of the way fast enough and return to its 19th century colonialism and global revenue generation, and all the while hypocritically shout "imperialist" at the USA. A shout which is echoed and repeated in our halls of education by folks who should know better - but, sadly, do not.

Now the name of the game is 'bring down the USA', turn nations against the US so they become customers of Europe. They are doing this in Africa, as we speak, and recently had a major victory with the dictator of Chad in ousting US oil interests that were working alongside France's nationalized TotalFinaElf. That stuff doesn't make big news even though it is far more important than the latest roadside explosion in Iraq.

Unfortunately, many Americans are not that informed. Decades of television, video, electronic gaming and politically correct public education have taken their toll and so they have no clue why Europe hates us - it must be because of Bush! The 'educator' class in America hate the right and the corporate sector anyway, and make no effort to teach any of the anti-US global politic shifts the 1990-2006 period, because supporting Europe is what an intellectual aspires to. Being pro-Europe means one is sophisticated, humanitarian and to be light years elevated above the riff-raff of the Bush 'redneck' base.

All politicians are unsympathetic. The folks attracted to public office are self-servers. Period. There are no exceptions. This is true for both parties. So if both are self-serving how does one distinguish between them?

Simple.

One looks at who backs them. The GOP is backed by large US corporations. The Democrats are backed by foreign interests. So if you must pick someone who is going to be selling out for their backers - it should preferably be a politician whose backers still want to see the US prosper.

Those who want to see the US pull out of Iraq are the same ones who want to let TotalFinaElf pump Iraqi oil, and turn Iraq over to Euro corporate interests that promote USA-hate, Jew-hatred all over the Middle East and the 3rd world simply to keep US companies out.

In this sense a politician backed by RJ Reynolds is better than one funded by George Soros. A candidate supporting the US staying in Iraq is better than one who wants to let France and Russia back in.

Yes, while Americans argue how dumb Bush is, how badly he botched things up, they are completely oblivious to the big picture and how Islamic hatred is being fanned and flamed, perverted into useful tool against US corporations and the USA.

If Will and Ariel Durant would have had the chance to write a book about this period, it would be about the decline of America from within after the American century. A decline aided by technology, a lack of foresight, a politicized left slanted educational system and the failure of the world to follow the American example.

Selling out our country to folks who support our 21st century political and corporate opponents is the fitting close to a modern day Greek tragedy.