40,000 -> 45,000 -> 60,000 -> 100,000 -> 200,000 -> 500,000 -> 50,000,000.

Generals, professional Patton wannabees, can't cope with the reality-based notion of being "Westmoreland-ized", ie getting their ass kicked. They will sacrifice every US soldier, every breathing Afghan, and every dollar the US treasury can beg, borrow, steal, or print to avoid defeat.

McChrystal is screwed, and Petraus has become invisible because he knows he's peaked, getting as far as he did on the basis of luck, illusion, and brown-nosing the Bush-turd.

How do you spell Vietnam? A-F-G-H-A-N-I-S-T-A-N.

Collapsing economy, crashing dollar, military defeat and humiliation.

The American people reap the whirlwind of their profound stupidity.

Ain't payback grand.

War is a racket. War is for profit. Politicians and defense contractors are the winners. The expendable young men -- naive, patriotic, stupid, or just enthusiastically aggressive -- are simply workers in the fields of death, employed to harvest the profits of the death merchants. The destruction of their lives, their bodies, and their humanity is just a business expense. And the taxpayers, with the taxman's gun at their heads, foot the bill.

Really, it's just that simple.

The moment the pols are forced onto the battle line, and the defense contractors drafted and forced to work for military wages, their businesses nationalized and operated without profit for the duration of the conflict, then you will see an end to war.

You got it right, HP. Let everyone live there who wants to. Live there in a multi-ethnic democracy. Dump the exclusively "Jewish state" idea. It's an antique "tribal" notion from an era where one's own tribe/religion was right and good, and "the other's" tribe/religion wrong and evil.

It's either that or a continuation of the present course: continued violence and escalating anger leading inevitably to industrial-level bloodshed -- at some point nuclear-mediated.

Sadly, for 5000 years the Jews have been trying to commit suicide. Barring some innovation, they're almost certain to repeat, once again, that 5 millennium-long pattern. As a Jew, it pisses me off. What a waste.

Okay, let's get real. Americans choose Iraq as the place to go "tourist"? Not smart. But they choose Iraqi Kurdistan, rather than say Anbar or Mosul. Okay, that's better, but still, ya gotta wonder, "How bright is that, really?"

Then off they go, hiking. Sure, why not? Hiking is fun. Fresh air, good exercise. Kurdistan is a big place. Mountainous, beautiful, gotta be miles and miles of mountain trails, a hikers paradise, without a doubt.

But near the border!!? And not just any border, but the Iranian border? And them being Americans?, with the long time pissy relations between Iran and the US?, and with those pissy relations at their highest level ever?. I mean way over-the-top pissy, as in ongoing US and Israeli cross-border special ops incursions and threats of imminent flippin' war!!?? These are the circumstances under which some American hikers decide to go strollin' in the vicinity of a border the precise location of which they APPARENTLY don't know, and don't seem to care a whole lot about?

I'm sorry. I'm not buying it. It's just way too hard to believe that any one could be that stupid. Which is saying something, since we know just how incredibly stupid humans can be. No. They were CIA hirelings. Nothing else makes any sense.

So they should stay in jail as long as the Iranians see fit. And if by some astonishing chance they were in fact Guinness-Book-of-World-Records stupid, then they sure as hell should do a stretch in the pen for that. Maybe it'll help them get a flippin' clue.

Well, it's looking bad, Justin. Your last column dissed the "truthers". Now, predictably they've come to camp out on your doorstep and endlessly disgorge their delusional blather. And while some are reasonably normal people sucked in by a sort of mass hypnosis, the most pathetic and bothersome are the self-worth-starved true-believers, desperate to find affirmation in the fellowship of the ranting mob. If you don't moderate your column's "Comments" section and cleanse it of the "truther" scourge, they will plague you forever. Good luck.

Yesterday, I chanced to visit Tony Karon's "Rootless Cosmopolitan" blog where I found a truncated version of his September 11th Time Magazine piece "Why Bin Laden Lost".

This seemed to me a bit of September 11th Anniversary delusional suck-up, so I offered a little reality-based pushback. Here it is (polished up a bit):

"Bin Laden Wins! Get over it."

Bleech!!

I suppose Tony’s got to pay his bills, so when Time steps up to provide the paycheck, Tony's gonna do what a man's got to do.

But again, bleech!

Eight years out, Osama is the clear winner, but I'm guessing that Time won’t be paying anyone for that essay.

“Mainstream Muslims” — who are they? — were repulsed by the wanton loss of innocent life? Really? No doubt they’ll say that if you point a tape recorder at them, but what do they think privately? Probably something like “The US got what it deserved. Too bad innocent people had to die, but, hey, payback’s a bitch. Now the Americans know how it feels. Pass the hummus, please.” Again, no Time magazine paycheck for that essay.

So trashTony’s little Kool-Aid piece, and check out the skinny:

Osama attacked the US...

Mission Accomplished. Score: Osama 1, US 0.

…in order to provoke the US into invading Afghanistan, where the US could be bled out like the Soviets and British before them.

Mission Accomplished. Score Osama 2, US 0.

Bush declared he would get Osama; Bush failed.

Mission not Accomplished. Score: Osama 3, US 0.

Bush back-burner’s Afghanistan and, on the basis of a neocon-generated a pack of lies, plunges with breath-taking incompetence headlong into his Iraqi cluster-fuck. Osama smiles and praises Allah.

Bush is a moron. Ten Special “Mission-not-Accomplished” bonus points.

Score: Osama 13, US 0.

Bush spends 5 years “doing” Iraq: 5 points for Osama; and 5 years jerking off in Afghanistan: 5 more points for Osama: 5 + 5 = 10 points for Osama

Score: Osama 23, US 0.

In Iraq, under US protection, the Shia come to dominate, and begin a love fest with Shia Iran.

Mission-so-not-Accomplished! Minus five points for Iran-o-phobic US, minus five points for Sunni Iran-o-phobic Osama.

Score: Osama 18, US -5.

Americans start shooting up Pakistani. Pakistanis, at US behest, start shooting each other. Incomprehensible shitstorm intensifies. Twenty-eight million Pakistani Pashtuns join their twelve million Afghan brothers in the “AfPak” war against the Americans.

Osama earns 25 points.

“Mission? What mission?”-so-not-acomplished. Osama smiles, and gives thanks to Allah.

Score:Osama 43, US -5.

US economy implodes. Five bonus points for Osama.

Score: Osama 48, US -5

George Bush leaves White house, Osama loses his single greatest ally: Minus 25 points for Osama. Obama enters White House, continues Bush's “weasel” strategy in Iraq: 10 points for Osama. Finally, with the Bushwar team still in place, Obama commits US to Afghanistan per Osama’s original plan: 50 points for Osama.

Over the cliff and waiting for the end.

Score: Osama 83, US -5.

Going into the forth quarter (or is it the second half?), the US record is one of utter failure on every front: no progress, no plan, no prospects but defeat, humiliation, and penury. It’s not looking good for the Golden City on the Hill.

Consequently, this writer feels confident in “calling” the outcome of the contest.

Osama wins. No paycheck from Time.

You tried Justin, lord knows you tried. But if you open the door even a crack, and suggest that there is more to the 911 business than the official story, you will be trampled by "truthers" streaming in to drown out rational discourse with their whack-job blather.

Of the 7 comments posted above, the first claims the govt is promoting the "truthers", and the last 6 are full on "truthers".

With the "truthers" on the job, the truth has no chance.

That said, let me state my version of your thesis in one sentence:

The Israelis having a clear national security interest in keeping an eye on anti-Israeli militants -- Palestinians, Arabs, and more generally Muslim militants the world over -- dispatched their intelligence agents to the US to watch al Quaeda's operatives, figured out their plan, calculated its success to be in Israel's interest, didn't interfere or give warning, stood by and let it happen.

A bit clunky as sentences go, but there it is.

Don't get me wrong, much about Obama is appealing -- the election of a man of color is a striking affirmation of the American commitment to social progress -- but Obama the man is a double-talking, charismatically-gifted corporate flunky. I suspected as much -- hey, it's the logical default assumption -- from the outset of his campaign, but I was willing to watch his ACTIONS and revise my opinion if it turned out to be wrong. Now, after a few months of his presidency, he has confirmed my worst suspicions. It's business as usual -- servility to the wealthy and war for profit -- with the only real priority Democratic party aggrandizement and Obama's reelection in 2012.

So forgive my cynicism if I think the Carriles business is some sort of political maneuver -- probably an attempt to pacify and re-hoodwink the progressive left, on the verge of revolt after the Af-Pak escalation, healthcare with no public option, and Eric Holder's studied disinterest in investigating and prosecuting the Bush cabal criminals.

So, he declares his INTENT to throw Carriles under the bus. But he's such a political coward that he'll cave when the right foams up and "pushes back", enraged at the betrayal of a long-time "anti-communist patriot".

That's my prediction. Now let's see how it plays out.

I was surprised and pleased when Justin quoted Andrew Bacevich's piece in Commonweal. I read the same piece, and when I got to the paragraph quoted by Justin, I threw up my hands in disgust. But when I looked for a "Comments" section to have my say, there was none. SI was surprised and pleased when Justin quoted Andrew Bacevich's piece in Commonweal. I read the same piece, and when I got to the paragraph quoted by Justin, I threw up my hands in disgust. But when I looked for a "Comments" section to have my say, there was none. So I'll have my say here.

Bacevich's piece is pure craven cowardice in the Democratic Party tradition, and above-the-fray decorous nutlessness in the tradition of the intellectual enabling class.

A.B. writes:

“The primary reason why the 9/11 conspiracy succeeded: federal, state, and local agencies responsible for basic security fell down on the job, failing to install even minimally adequate security measures in the nation’s airports. The national-security apparatus wasn’t paying attention—indeed, it ignored or downplayed all sorts of warning signs, not least of all Osama bin Laden’s declaration of war against the United States."

Baloney! Spun by political cowardice (posing as decorous intellectual discourse) into something almost too disgusting to deal with. Get some stones, Andrew. Point the finger. Declare "Ja Accuse!", and name the fucking names, goddammit. The security apparatus, with all its faults was doing just fine. Picked up on an abundance of clues, sent them up the line -- "The system was blinking red." "Osama Bin Laden determined to strike within the United States." -- But Cheney, Bush, et al would have none of it. They willfully turned their backs on their primary responsibility, preferring to treat the presidency as if it were their personal romper room, saying essentially, "Don't bother us with that Clinton era bullshit. It's so yesterday. We're real men and we're planning to conquer Iraq."

But Bacevich in his cowardice refuses to lay the blame where it clearly belongs, preferring to fault nameless bureaucracies. The "national-security apparatus" didn't "ignore or downplay" squat. Cheney, Bush, et al did that. So at the very least A.B. should have written, "The highest level of the national-security apparatus, specifically George Bush and Dick Cheney, ignored or downplayed..."

And though I've made my point, I'm going to make it again. A.B. then continues:
"So we let ourselves get sucker-punched."

No. "We" did not. Don't let the perps disappear into some anonymizing "we", a "we" that then turns we the victims into the responsible parties. No. Cheney, Bush, et al let the nation they were pledged to protect get sucker-punched. And after Osama had his go, C & B spent the next seven years finishing the job.

With friends like Andrew Bacevich,...

Now will someone forward this to A.B., so he can have an opportunity to respond.

"Were we to end our occupation policies, we would go a long way toward eliminating "their" suicide bombers. But when and how will we end our own cult of martyrdom?"

"And the system that spawned these crimes will go on and on, "surging" into new atrocities and unnecessary deaths around the globe -- even while praising itself constantly, obsessively, pathologically, as a "force for peace" in the world."

http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/arti...

When will it end?

It won't go on forever, nothing ever does. The world changes. The world moves on,... until "the system that spawned these crimes" finds itself confronted by/entwined in conditions that finally bring the system either down or to a halt.

So where is the Imperium headed? What will "the end" look like? Not military defeat, the Imperium's clear downward spiral makes that unnecessary -- and who would be insane enough to take on the wounded, armed-to-the-teeth Imperium in its agonal moment? Can we hope that it will it go into that "dark night", bankrupt, with a whimper, delusional to the end?

So the question remains, "When will it end?"

What I find curious is the help the Russians are giving the Americans, especially considering the surround-and-strangle strategy the US is practicing toward Russia. I suspect the Russians are "selling the Americans the rope with which to hang themselves". And if the Americans don't hang themselves as quickly and severely as the Russians hope, the Taliban may just "come across" a few advanced anti-aircraft and anti-armor weapons, or a few technological bits that will make the next-gen IED substantially more effective. "Accidentally" fell off a Russian truck passing close to the Afghan-Tajik border.

As for me, I won't submit to politically correct extortion, I don't support the troops (if they can't support themselves, why should I?), I support the truth.