Book Review: America's War for the Middle East

I just finished one of the clearer-eyed histories of what has been going on in the Middle East for the last 30 years.   It puts back together all of the fragmented pieces and inaccurate narratives into a comprehensive and coherent description of the chain of events (and errors) that got the US where it is today in the Middle East.


America's War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History by Andrew J. Bacevich
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

An excellent and well-researched history of the continuous war the US has been waging or preparing to wage in the Middle East since the 1980s.

Due to political expediency or media convenience and abetted by the constant American need to keep regularly declaring victory lest the populace withdraw its support it is common to think (and write) of the ebbs and flows in this conflict as discrete, individual actions or campaigns. In fact, this book lays out the true continuity of this war and how one segment or campaign does little more than lay the groundwork for and sometimes ignite the inevitable next stage.

A very well-written and easy to follow book, and a necessary antidote to the artificial staging that the US government would have the public believe as a series of triumphs. In fact what occurred is a series of failures of diplomacy, strategy, and imagination each with a more ridiculous public "code name" than the past one.

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The Late, Great Democracy of the US

OK,  a bit of hype there but there is a reason I didn't blog during this so-called "campaign" It was starkly apparent to me more than 18 months ago that this was not going to be a campaign with anything intelligent to offer, certainly no room for the "thinkers" of the world, the consumers and analyzers of fact for whom this blog is intended.

Instead there was no discussion of any kind of intelligent nature, just an endless barrage of made-up quotes, phony accusations and hyperbole, invented promises to voters that were illegal or impossible and a ton of sound bytes based on largely fake sources of "information". 

This reminds me of George Washington's Farewell Address (which I have quoted elsewhere).  He said (in part):

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.

...It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

If that is not a perfect description of the 2016 "campaign", then I don't know what is. 

As a result we have an election that had the worst overall voter turnout in decades, and within that bad turnout, what will probably be the fewest total votes cast for the office of President in some time.  Not to mention that the 'loser' of the election has at this writing over 2.6 million more of the people's votes than the "winner".  This is a greater margin than the Gore 'losing win' over George W. Bush in 2000, or the 'winning' campaigns of John Kennedy or Richard Nixon. 

And yet we keep trying to "export democracy" to countries around the world that don't seem to want it...wonder why.    

Good thing the F-35 has a CEO

Chief Evasion Officer that is.   Marillyn Hewson, chairwoman, president and CEO of Lockheed Martin, the particular military-industrial complex company that is making the most off of the F-35 told some carefully crafted, near-whoppers about the F-35's progress.  Guess that's why CEOs make the big bucks - no shame and little integrity.

 

http://www.pogo.org/straus/issues/weapons/2016/why-lockheed-ceos-f-35-remarks-ring-hollow.html 

 

Interesting reading and more good work from the folks at POGO, the Project on Government Oversight.

The Most Useless Thing in the US? Political Parties

Time to update slightly my original post about the evils of political parties.  In the first sixteen+ years of this century they have certainly not become any more useful than when John Adams said:

There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.  (could be a headline anywhere, 2016)

or George Washington said (excerpted version appeared in my earlier post):

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty. 

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight,) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

There is an opinion, that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the Government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of Liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in Governments of a Monarchical cast, Patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in Governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And, there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.

Most of the Founding Fathers, and the first four presidents of the United States all agree - political parties are highly undesirable and will be the downfall of this "great experiment" that is the United States.

In my opinion, there are two things that cause me to disregard a statement completely and out of hand that is made in the public forum: 1) an obvious logical fallacy or grievous error in reasoning (see any news site comments online or any letters-to-the-editor page for a plethora of examples); 2) any statement by a political party member or backer.

Membership or partisanship in any political party of any kind by anyone immediately reduces my respect or estimation of the individual's intellect or usefulness to zero.   Joining a political party means surrendering forever that one thing that makes humans special -- the ability to think, reason, and react to our world and adjust our understanding and expectations to meet a constantly evolving and changing reality.  It is an admission that "I am a non-thinking, barely functional idiot who only responds to money, and I will follow my chosen party's platform no matter how immoral, un-American, against the country's best interests, or un-constitutional it may be". 

Political parties actively discourage any such exercise of intelligence, and thus have driven the US into an impotent, second-world status and toppled it from a position of true leadership and dominance that it enjoyed immediately after World War II.  Whether that status was truly earned through intellect, noble deeds, and desire to see all humankind progress or was just a more genteel version of self-centered econo-terrorism abetted by eco-terrorism is a topic for interesting discussion at another time.

The current high point is that political parties are rapidly losing influence in the US and they don't realize it.  They still have a tight, monopolistic grip on the so-called election process, but in a positive sign the ranks of independents are constantly growing in recent years, making up a greater percentage of the electorate.

The political parties create a two-year charade of choosing the presidential candidates, but in reality they are eliminating the majority of intelligent, thoughtful voters through their limiting participation to the "factions" (see Washington above). Other first world countries easily accommodate elections that change governments in a few months time.  The only purpose for extending our election cycle is to improve the ability of "big money" to flood the airwaves with false advertising.

If you want to (or need to) be coddled by an always-rigid, nothing ever changes cocoon of ignorance - join a religion...they are hurting for members/followers/sycophants/mind slaves too.

If you really want to participate as a human being in the greatest experiment in human governance ever conceived -- then register to vote, and actually vote!  But as a thinking, reasoning Independent - not as a brain-dead sycophant of others!

The Carrier That Almost Sank the Navy

It turns out the F-35 isn't the only ridiculously overpriced and underperforming weapons system the Pentagon has managed to foul up. 

 

There is an even earlier aircraft carrier fiasco on the Navy's side...and apparently the ship was delivered before it was even fully operational (similar to the "can't fly very far and can't shoot" F-35 delivered to the Marines). 

 

I wonder if F-35s will ever land on that thing?  Nah...Navy brass are too smart to let a plane that like that near their expensive new toy.....

F-35 Has Its Makeup On

There are rumors that the F-35 is at last ready to make it's debut in a service role.  For the Marines. You know, the ground-support role?  Except it has no operational cannon (it won't fit in the plane) limited air time, and no bombing capability due to munitions problems and several other issues as pointed out in the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) article here.

We won't even mention the very ineffective nature of the air support from the allies and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East in the new type of warfare that is being fought these days.

This would be funny if it wasn't so expensive, and the military is still trying to order more!  This is obviously a "for show" rollout or perhaps the stage debut for a heavily made-up star that never quite made it.

Pentagon Arrogance (err..I repeat myself)

The Pentagon has a  well-known and documented inability to do anything with tax money other than consume it endlessly then like a spoiled brat say "I'm hungry...more...more".  (See the Pentagon Spending item in the topic cloud bubble on the right).

What really grates though is when they actually say "What?  It can't be our fault...we are the perfect and beloved military". 

Another case has recently come to light about a rather large and extravagant expenditure in Afghanistan that was never used, except as this article wryly notes, "perhaps for target practice by the Taliban".