what a great way to start the day... i open up the la times email headlines only to find that two out of three of the featured op-eds are written by neocons, pleasuring themselves by writing about war... yeah, i know, that's how neocons get themselves off, but, doggone it, they really should be doing it in the privacy of their own bedrooms...
first we have dr. strangelove
Peter Sellers as
Dr. Strangelove
The lessons of Vietnam
Iraq desperately needs a political solution in the short term to make the war more manageable for the next president.
[...]
The Nixon administration was convinced that it had achieved a decent opportunity for the people of South Vietnam to determine their own fate; that the Saigon government would be able to overcome ordinary violations of the agreement with its own forces; that the U.S. would assist against an all-out attack; and that, over time, the South Vietnamese government would be able to build a functioning society.
American disunity was a major element in dashing these hopes. Watergate fatally weakened the Nixon administration through its own mistakes, and the 1974 midterm congressional elections brought to power the most unforgiving of Nixon's opponents, who cut off aid so the agreement couldn't work as planned. The imperatives of domestic debate took precedence over geopolitical necessities.
[...]
A political settlement has to be distilled from the partly conflicting, partly overlapping views of the Iraqi parties, Iraq's neighbors and other affected states, based on a conviction that the caldron of Iraq would otherwise overflow and engulf everybody. The essential prerequisite is staying power in the near term. President Bush owes it to his successor to make as much progress toward this goal as possible; not to hand the problem over but to reduce it to more manageable proportions. What we need most is a rebuilding of bipartisanship in both this presidency and in the next.
oh, ya gotta love henry... he sounds so very, very erudite and professorial as he reminds us of his vast reservoir in the management of u.s. involvement in other countries' civil wars, gained in vietnam, yet ANOTHER war criminal escapade, where we ALSO shouldn't have been in the first goddam place... then he has the unmitigated gall to propose a diplomatic initiative, based on - put your hands over the kids' ears - BIPARTISANSHIP, so the NEXT PRESIDENT will have an easier go... great god almighty in heaven above... henry really needs to wake up and smell the coffee... it makes no difference whatsoever how much bush may posture over "political settlements" and "bipartisanship..." he has proven in countless ways that he is indeed only posturing... we may be talking to iran and he may be looking twice at the iraq study group report, but those are only red-herring tactics, buying time while the u.s. presence in iraq becomes ever more entrenched, which, of course, is precisely the plan... you'll notice that the one thing he DOESN'T discuss is getting the hell out - permanently - preferring instead to leave it to us to decide what he means by the oh-so-academic term "geopolitical necessities..." bite me, henry...
and, as if that wasn't bad enough, then we have max boot as colonel klink, implying that the current horror in iraq would be going ever so much better if we sacked some of those incompetent lieutenant colonels and colonels who "simply aren't effective leaders or who consistently fail to achieve results" and replace them with blood-and-guts, patton-types... i won't even go there... 
Werner Klemperer as
Colonel Klink
Fire the incompetents, find the Pattons
Our armed forces need to do a better job of punishing failure while rewarding those who succeed on the battlefield.
ok, i'm done...Labels: Colonel Klink, Dr. Strangelove, Henry Kissinger, Hogan's Heroes, Iraq, Iraq Study Group, LA Times, Max Boot, neocons, Peter Sellers, Vietnam, Werner Klemperer
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