Of the United States that is.

I spent the last week in San Francisco and also a night down in Monterey. After just over a month back in the smothering existence that is life in Shopping Mall-it was great to be back where there was lots to do and exciting things to see.  California may have a lot of problems right now-but it also has a lot of things going for it that other states can never hope to match.

Especially a backwards thinking chunk of farmland and fat people called Alabama.

There are only four large cities in the United States that I dream about living in from time to time. San Francisco is one of the them. (The other three are Reno, Pittsburgh and Boston). Contrast that with the 10 or so I would move to tomorrow in Asia and / or Europe. (See the bottom of the post for the list).

I know, I know, by saying I like San Francisco I might as well be like Miles: “Yeah, right. Yup, I’m a homo. Yeah. Yeah. Just make up whatever you want and that’s what happened. Okay? Write out my gay confession and I’ll sign it. Okay? ”

Nonetheless-San Francisco is the only large city in California I like. Los Angeles? Forget it. San Diego? Shopping Mall amplified 100 times. Sacramento? Aside from its proximity to Tahoe-nothing to recommend it.  There are lots of smaller towns in California   I like though-but mostly just to visit.

No,  San Francisco is the place in California I would not mind living. The problem is, the only way I want to live there is to actually live within the city, NOT out in its suburbs. And that takes money-lots of money to live the lifestyle I would like to live.  I am not blind-California is a state where you pay and pay and pay for the privilege of living there.

But San Francisco seems to me to have a distinct character-its neighborhoods are different and the  feel of the city is unique. Since I lived in Nevada for three plus years, I am very familiar with San Francisco. However when I was there in the 90′s, the city seemed run down, a wasted shade of it’s former greatness.

Today-the city seemed to be much cleaner. Even Market Street seemed clean. And while they still need to break out the billy clubs and have a brutal crackdown on the homeless people there, it did seem as if the numbers of those poor unfortunate souls was reduced. And we covered a lot of neighborhoods while there.

We utilized the public transportation and our trusty steed from Hertz:

Interestingly enough-this Altima was a hybrid. And I was very pleasantly surprised with it. It took some getting used to how quiet it was in city traffic-but it performed better than I expected it to racing down the PCH to Monterey.

The NLCS championship series was going on this week-and the town was out in full force to support the Giants. Since I had personal business to attend to on Wednesday, I was able to dispatch the S.O. long enough to be able to sidle up to the bar in one of the cities unique watering holes and watch the game.

Of course the S.O. dragged me down to Union Square-there the home of Tiffany and Bulgari ( Seems her birthday is coming up-as if I would be allowed to forget that!).

Fortunately, I was able to escape relatively unscathed, wallet-wise, and we meandered by trolley over to the Ferry Terminal for lunch. That place has become much more gentrified than I recall it being. It did have a great Vietnamese place for lunch though-which we took advantage of:

Great Pho Ga soup here!

It was evidently also the beginning of Fleet Week-but I did not see any Navy ships down by the bay.

But the weather was great while we were in San Fran-not so great down in Monterey. A clear blue sky greeted us early in the week:

You can see the rest of our San Francisco pictures here.

Oh yes, I promised the list of cities:

Asia:

Singapore
Hong Kong
Tokyo
Osaka
Taipei
Bangkok
Seoul
Kuala Lumpur
Shanghai

Europe:

Munich
London
Dublin
Brussels
Vienna
Frankfurt
Marseilles
Berlin
Koln
Maastricht
Prague

A box of chocolates-or a case of scotch. You never know how weird it will get.

After seeing rather quickly the burg of San Francisco, the S.O. and I drove down to Monterey. (This being after our abortive excursion to Union Square for the second time. No-I am not buying you Tiffany jewelry, just because you say you want it. Not without massive doses of softening up sex first!).

While cruising around Monterey- I had to go see the 17 mile drive. If for no other reason than to see a golf course I will never have the money or the skills to play:

And houses I cannot ever, ever, ever afford to live in:

All yours for one low price!

In the course of driving around the 17 mile drive though, we stumbled upon this interesting bit of photography:

Firebird + model = Who knows? But there was a whole host of support folks to make sure this model got her shots out:

A bizarre look if you ask me-but the car was nice!

The next day we were off to Point Lobos:

As you can tell the weather was getting bad-but it was still a great view and a neat place to go.

See the rest of the pix here.

Recently, I have seen several stories on TV about how “whore” is the new “ N”-word for women. Now a long time ago I pointed out that there was only one really bad word when it comes to women.

So whenever I hear someone talk about the “w” word being the equivalent of the “N” word-all I can think about it this:

I’m taking it back.

Today is the anniversary of three different battles. The nostalgics and historically myopic among the blogosphere will focus on St. Crispin’s day. The more nautically minded will focus on the fact that it is anniversary of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, an American naval victory-but as Herman Wouk pointed out, nonetheless a monument to the subhuman stupidity of warfare-”a giant blind man’s bluff played out with men’s lives and a nation’s resources“.

In today’s times- I prefer to take a repeat look at another battle-fought in the middle of a war foolishly embarked upon and then poorly executed. It is the best historical analogy that I can think of for our current predicament in both Iraq and Afghanistan-where now, as then, the pride of a nation’s youth has been ordered to pursue a far off war for purposes that were not in the overall British national interest.

The lessons of all three conflicts remain as Wouk so elegantly stated-”Either war is finished or we are.” It would appear we have yet to learn that critical lesson for humanity.  I keep hoping that next year I won’t have to print this story because there will be no more American troops in either Afghanistan or Iraq. The reality is that we will be involved in this war without end for a long time to come. So perhaps it is good to remember the results of the enterprise.

Background:

Whenever I see someone post one of those stupid “Miss Me Yet” posters with the picture of the stupid man who destroyed the first decade of the 21st century for  America-I can’t help but think they have the picture wrong.

It is the father, not the son who should be on the poster.

Him- I miss. Especially in today’s whacked out Teabagger world.

Cost of self financing your own campaign? 149 Million.

Cost of selling your soul to the Tea Bag nation? Pretty damn high.

Allow your opponent to hijack one of your own ads to make a point? Priceless.

UPDATE: Here is how they do it. And in a note to my commenters-“most election law is state law”.

We’ll skip any discussion of “curb-stomping” and how its all the victim’s fault-so therefore the stomped should be doing the apologizing.

Original Post:

You know, if the teabaggers want to stop being compared to brownshirts, they might want to stop acting like them:

NPR received a bomb threat Monday, five days after its decision to fire news analyst Juan Williams sparked a hugely negative reaction.

Sources at the news organization said the threat was received via U.S. mail and was immediately turned over to local police and the FBI. The organization did not publicly disclose the threat or release details, on the advice of law enforcement officials.

The letter didn’t reference the Williams firing specifically, but people at NPR, who spoke about it on the condition of anonymity, said the timing and tone suggested it was sent after Williams’s widely publicized termination.

Or this:

Tea Party members have started challenging voter registration applications and have announced plans to question individual voters at the polls whom they suspect of being ineligible.

In response, liberal groups and voting rights advocates are sounding an alarm, claiming that such strategies are scare tactics intended to suppress minority and poor voters.

In St. Paul, organizers from the Tea Party and related groups announced this week that they were offering a $500 reward for anyone who turned in someone who was successfully prosecuted for voter fraud.

The group is also organizing volunteer “surveillance squads” to photograph and videotape what it suspects are irregularities, and in some cases to follow buses that take voters to the polls.

In Milwaukee last week, several community groups protested the posting of large billboards throughout the city that show pictures of people behind jail bars under the words “We Voted Illegally.” The protesters said the posters — it was not clear who paid for them — were intended to intimidate people from voting.

In Houston, a Tea Party group called the King Street Patriots recently accused a voter registration group, Houston Votes, of turning in voter registration applications with incorrect information.

By what authority can they do this? And how long till we have to hear the words-Black Panther again?

Sitting here watching the Giants kicking ass and taking names. Barry Bonds or no-I’m just going to have to root for them.

They play real baseball in the National League after all.

Martin Wolf of the Financial Times has a pretty good diagnosis of why the folks have lost track of the context when it comes to the economy. Obama was just too damn cautious when he needed to be bold.

Unfortunately, the Republicans have succeeded in persuading a large enough portion of the American public that if the patient had been left entirely alone, he would be in perfect health today. This is surely a fairy story. But voters naturally pay little attention to calamities averted. They focus only on how far experience falls short of what they desire. Mr Obama gains no credit for the former and much blame for the latter. His aspirational rhetoric no doubt worsened the disappointment.

The president’s willingness to ask for too little was, it turns out, a huge strategic error. It allows his opponents to argue that the Democrats had what they wanted, which then failed. If the president had failed to get what he demanded, he could argue that the outcome was not his fault. With a political stalemate expected, further action will now be blocked. A lost decade seems quite likely. That would be a calamity for the US – and the world.

And in about five days, we are about to be raped by the same folks who put us in this position to begin with. Have some drinks and lie back and try not to think about it……………..

Richard asked me a while back-what the S.O. thought about life in America. I promised a response.

To appreciate the way her little mind thinks-it is important to understand a couple of key background facts. Otherwise the ideas won’t make a lot of sense; or they will seem more hateful than they really are. I’ve been with her long enough, I understand most of it-the rest I just ignore. Its a great arrangement.

Item #1: The S.O.-because she is Japanese is part of a unique group. Key on that word unique and then add the word superior. She believes that the Japanese are the most unique species on the planet. And that their culture is superior to anyone else’s. That sounds racist on the surface-and probably is. But don’t tell her that, she will never believe it. To her its a statement of fact-kind of like saying “ I know the sun will come up tomorrow”. A statement of the laws of the physical universe. So that tends to color her view of anyone who is not Japanese ( including me). To her, it is just the order of the universe. Let me add that she is a kind soul and will do anything for just about anyone-once she overcomes her inherent selfishness.

Item #2: Cleanliness is not just next to Godliness to the S.O.  It IS Godliness. She is obssessed with cleaning. Anthing and everything-and people who don’t set that standard ( as most Americans don’t) are not quite up there in the acceptability rankings. Another reason to marvel that she likes me.  But it goes a long way to explaining a lot about her.

So what does she think about the USA?

Regarding item 2-she thinks our standards for levels of cleanliness in public places are appalling. When she sees litter on the side of the road it disgusts her. She also does not understand why we don’t have brigades of cleaning ladies out at shopping malls.

Like all Japanese, she marvels at the sheer size of the country. When we first got back here-it was always something of a chore to explain to her the realities of the geography here. E.G. a drive from state to state was not a short journey, except in Rhode Island and Deleware.

That said-she does not understand why we don’t have decent trains here. On that we are in total agreement. We miss the train system in Japan.

She thinks Americans are by and large, incredibly fat. And she does not understand in the least why we put up with it. Bear in mind, her definition of fat-includes a lot of people who are only slightly overweight. But when it comes to other women-she allows no grace pounds. No hour glass figure-you are a porkette.  Since I view the world through beer goggles, I am just a bit more forgiving over here. ( Fat women need loving too!).

She thinks American cuisine is “greasy” for the most part-and she truly can’t get why we love fried food so much.  She also can’t understand why our portions are so large or why we eat so much.

She despises the way we tip in this country. She has no qualms about using and abusing the serving class here-and thinks the overall level of service in restaurants, hotels, and on airlines is atrocious. Coming from a country where they don’t tip and waitresses are supposed to be happy and apologetic when they hear the word “Sumimasen”-it is not surprising. But the tipping thing really drives her nuts. Since I am a tip your barmaid well kind of guy, she gets frustrated. I’ve learned to just ignore it. When she actually gets a J-O-B, and starts buying dinners-then she can tip how she wants to. She and I have something in common in that we both can’t stand the way passengers are treated on airlines in this country. She also does not understand why we put up with lines-specifically why they don’t have more people working ( as at TSA lines) to make them shorter.

She believes the fact that America is a car society has made Americans lazy. To that end, I think she has a point. I lost weight when I was in Romania walking about a mile from the subway to work each day.

She loves the fact that American houses normally have yards. ( I hate it-because I hate yardwork). The idea of growing things at your house fascinates her. I think she has planted every available square inch of available space.  Of course she never lived in a house before we got here-so its a novelty to her. I’ve been there done that. If I want to see grass-I can go to a golf course.

Regarding politics-she is amazed that I get so passionate about the subject. To her-based on her Japanese frame of reference- she thinks most Americans are too serious about the subject. Since in Japan, the bureaucracy runs the government regardless of who is in power-it kind of astounds her that we Americans fight about it so much.

She absolutely does not get the Tea Party. ( Another thing we have in common). But its for different reasons. I don’t get them because I know they are wrong. She does not get them because she does not understand why anyone would bother to care. She was surprised when I told her how many people don’t vote here though. Coming from Japan-she thinks of it as a duty, something you have to do regardless of your personal desire.

She loves the fact that we have a throwaway society. That means lots of stuff ends up in second hand stores and garage sales. It bothers her not a whit to buy things at Goodwill and then try to pass it off as brand name if she can.

American sports drive her nuts. She has very little use for American football. ( Too many rules). Yakyu (Baseball) takes too long. She likes to watch tennis and golf though. She will watch a golf tournament on TV where I usually will not.

American reality shows both fascinate and repel her. She has become addicted to “America’s got talent”, Project Runway, Antique Road Show, and Dancing with the Stars. She also loves the travel and gardening shows on public TV. She is, on the whole oblivious to the news. She hates shows with violence. She won’t watch Sci fi or war movies.

She is very deficient in her knowledge of 20th century history. The period of World War II is a blank to her-I’ve had to explain a lot of things that are common knowledge even among the dumbest of Americans. She really does not understand why we  venerate the Civil War. As far as she is concerned we should just forget it ever happened. She HATES visiting Civil War battlefields. (Something I like).

Which also brings up an important point. White people and African Americans are all the same to her. Other Asians? Not so much. To her there is a hierarchy of how she looks down on them. She can’t stand (in order) Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Indians and Filipinos. She hates Mexicans-but only because they do construction and therefore she faults them for the noise they make building houses in the neighborhood. Again-its different than actual overt racism. She will talk to any of them-politely and help anyone. But don’t kid yourself, she knows in her heart who is the “chosen race”.

That is actually a misnomer. As it typed that-I realized that she does not view her own people as the Israelis do.  That they have a special place with the Almighty because of their suffering. That does not capture it. The Japanese don’t have a special advocate because of Kamisama-He just built them to be superior from the start.

And she doesn’t understand me very much-she can’t understand why I like parties and wild times-she thinks I need to mellow out and enjoy domesticity. When I tell her I hate that lifestyle -she just shakes her head.

Its a wonder we get along at all-but we do. Perhaps our mutual selfishness works.

Bottom of the eighth and the Giants are kicking ass again!

The creator of Rocky and Bullwinkle has passed away. Criticize us boomers all you want-but we had some great cartoons.

Also, on a another sad note, James McArthur-he of the phrase “Book ‘em Dano!” passed away today.

Man I feel old.

Is many times, actually correct.

Phib had a post a couple of days ago, taking Newsweek to task for supposedly promoting defeat:

I’m angry. Why angry? Because the media like Newsweek did everything it could to undermine our victory during the most difficult times mid-decade. They took every chance to push the bad – yet are well over a year late with the good. Too angry to blog on a subject? Yes, too angry.

Angry? Yes, because most who paid attention called victory back in NOV …. NOV ’08.

Umm……that’s not exactly correct.  In November of 2008 17 Americans died-that same month over 325 Iraqis were killed. This was in spite of a surge that was supposed to buy time for the Iraqis to come up with a political solution.  And while it was true that casulties were down from the previous year ( In November of 2007 40 Americans lost their lives in Iraq)-the Iraqis were no closer to solving any of their problems.

Now fast forward to 2010-the Iraqis have had an election-and they still can’t tell who is in charge. That’s hardly a big suprise-its par for the course for the Iraqis.

As Foreign Policy magazine pointed out in its lastest edition, the conventional wisdom-and reporting-on Iraq may have been actually correct all along:

While few are shedding tears for Saddam Hussein, there’s not much evidence to suggest that his removal made the world safer — or that ousting him in this manner was worth the exorbitant cost in blood and treasure. The other two charter members of the axis of evil — Iran and North Korea — are still ruled by anti-American autocrats with fast-developing nuclear programs, and Iran, if anything, has been strengthened by the replacement of its archenemy with a reasonably friendly Shiite-dominated government.

The war has not exactly created a tidal wave of democracy either. Democracy has actually declined around over the last three years, according to U.S. NGO Freedom House. Early hopeful developments in the Middle East have not panned out either. Following the much-vaunted Cedar Revolution, Lebanon’s government has returned to its normal state of dysfunction. After some overtures, Libya’s Muammar al-Qaddafi has resumed his provocations. And the bloodshed continues in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

The bottom line is that thousands of American lives and trillions of dollarswere spent to turn one admittedly barbaric dictatorship into a semidemocracy addled by sectarianism and extremist violence. Doesn’t seem worth it.

Herman Wouk once wrote, that victory only has meaning if its effect produces the desired result for the future.  Using a cost vs benefit metric-focusing solely on benefit for the United States-proves that the naysayers actually had a point. Furthermore-when precious American lives were at stake-it can be argued that news media and other outlets had a moral duty to speak out.

The simple truth of the matter was that the war-created its own story. Poorly begun is poorly done and if it were so important to have gone into Iraq, then it was worth doing full bore from the start. E.G. declaring war on the nation of Iraq, using the number of troops called for by the original war plan, and dispensing with the notion that there were good Iraqis and bad Iraqis-all Iraqis were our enemy until such point as they unconditionally surrendered.

The people who wrote about-simply reported the picture as they saw it.

However if you judge it by the standard of -did it do any good for the US? Well, then victory is not a word that comes to mind. As for did it do good for the Iraqis-well the jury is going to be out on that one for a long time to come.  Given the track record of Arabs as a whole-I’m not optimistic.

But the cost-the real cost in lives, money, and national interest squandered-was never, ever, worth it.

And in that regard, the conventional wisdom was right all along. So Phib may be angry Newsweek never put lipstick on the pig until now. I’m angry that so many people let themselves be deluded into lifting a finger to put the pig in the pen in the first place.

My anger makes more sense.

My, my, my-how quickly the worm turns.

For years loads of military bloggers have been fawning over Michael Yon, supposedly the only honest reporter covering the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.  Now it would seem,  he no longer enjoys the adoration of the masses.

I mean after all-God forbid you would call Uncle Dumbo the insensitive writer that he is.

I never had that much fascination with Michael Yon and still don’t. For me he was always a cheerleader for the war in Iraq-when it did not need one. I had an e-mail alteraction with him myself a few years ago when I had the termerity to e-mail him and tell him that he was wrong. He did respond-which is actually nice, but he never could make any sense. Going back tonight and re-reading it, he still doesn’t.

 Now that he has burned his own bridges, he’s not as happy as he once was. A lot of that is his own fault. A lot of it is the thin skin of the milblogsphere which fails to put any value at all on honest discussion and disagreement. Especially if you do not parrot the right wing party line.

And when you don’t value intellectual honesty-this is what you get. On both sides of the argument.

Still its fun to watch.

The last of America’s combat forces are out of Iraq. So there are usual suspects lining up to congratulate the United States on its “victory” in Iraq.

There is only one problem with that line of thinking-the only winners in the Iraq war were China and Iran. China-because it got finance the whole undertaking by loaning money to the US, and by having a free hand to raise its diplomatic and economic profile in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia while it’s biggest competitor was distracted for seven plus years.

Iran because most of its current intransigence on the world stage can be directly traced to unintended consequences of the invasion and occupation-which created most of the pre-conditions for the rise to power of Ahmedwhathisname.

Don’t get me wrong-no one is happier than me to see us finally correcting this seven year old mistake and drawing down to 50,000 troops in that God forsaken country is a good start-but it is only a start. There will not be anything to celebrate for the US until the last America soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine is gone from that place.

Plus until then-its not the end of “combat operations”, the troops left behind still have fighting to do. To say they are not in a combatant role is a huge fiction, just the same as the “Mission Accomplished” fiction of 2003. Does anyone not think that the likelihood of continued combat operations is a reality? When casualties are taken by these “non-combat forces” will those casualties be characterized as “non-combat” as well? Does the public not understand that the secondary mission of our remaining forces is to be prepared to conduct combat operations either to defend themselves or to support Iraqi forces if requested?

We need to be honest with ourselves. The withdrawal is a long overdue development-but it is not the end for the US in Iraq.

Second, we need to be clear that the Iraqis themselves are still pretty screwed up, economically, politically and in about every other way too. Millions are still displaced in other countries or in Iraq. Do they even have a government yet-no. And since the stated purpose of the surge was to buy time for the Iraqis to effect political reconcilation, you can’t even put the “Surge Worked” stamp on the paper, cause it did not accomplish what it was supposed to do.

There is no agreement on how to share oil revenue, no resolution of the basic relationship between the country’s three major groups, and no decision on whether Iraq will have a strong central government or be a loose confederation.

And Iran is still a major thorn in both ours and Iraq’s sides. That hardly constitutes “victory”.

About the day that has taken almost 9 years to achieve-the withdrawal of all troops from Iraq.

Now, for me, this is a welcome development. I’ve been wishing for this day since March of 2003. If you are a long time reader, you know I am know Johnny come lately to being opposed to our little Mesopotamian excursion. I have been opposed to the idea, since I was briefed on the logistics plans for supporting 5 carriers in the Gulf in 2002. ( I along with a lot of others asked the very pertinent question of :”Why? Why does this require 5 carriers-especially against a nation with no more real air threat”.)  Why not have 2 or 3 carriers and put the other aircraft ashore? And why, in particular, do you make a carrier that will already have been on cruise for seven months-extend for another 4, just to get the Super Hornet into the fray. Transpac them from Australia and  send the already tired carrier home.

But common sense approaches were not applied then-and common sense seems not to be prevailing in the opposition today. The popular meme now is that Obama somehow “bungled” the negotiations. And that it now allows Iran to exert undue influence in Iraq. Both are ludicrous propositions. Invading Iraq gave Iran undue influence in the region-our leaving or staying was never going to change that.

And its not a surprise the Iraqis wanted us out of the place-they have been saying it consistently since 2008. That’s why they held their ground on not allowing judicial immunity for American troops. If anyone bungled-it was those neocon advisers who somehow felt we could change their minds and get them to cave on an issue that is a rallying point for a lot of Iraqis.

I voted for Obama because I was opposed to “war without end amen”. And while it took him way too long to get this accomplished-at least it is being accomplished. Its time for the Iraqis to accept the burden of being screwed up on their own and stop looking to us to shield them from their own stupidity. Besides-there are no numbers of Arabs that are worth the life of a single American. I felt that way in 2003, I still feel that way now.

Of course the job really won’t be done, till we drawdown in Kuwait, and reduce numbers at Ft Apache too. (Bahrain). And regardless of political persuasion-a heck of a lot of Americans have not learned that when it comes to the Middle East, less is more.

So I am looking forward to something to celebrate this December-finally getting US troops out of Iraq.

Now if we could just get them out of that other hell-hole in Central Asia…………..

The last forces are leaving Iraq. about 9 years too late-but they are leaving, thanks be to God.

Now if you peruse my archives, you will find that I have not been a fan of the adventure since day 1. And now-I still believe, that for whatever tactical successes we had, the war was a strategic mistake for the United States. Like Britain’s ill advised adventure in Suez in 1956, the corrosive affects of the war on the US military, the US economy, and the psyche of America will continue for at least a generation.

And what do we have to show for it?

Not very much. Sure Saddam is gone, but what have got in its place? A shaky and corrupt Iraqi government, and a resurgent Iran.  A real enemy that we ignored, except when we were borrowing money from him-China-labored under no such burdens and is expanding militarily.

But we have the rise of democracy in the Middle East you say. I’m not so sure-Egypt is having elections and the wrong guys are winning. Iraq is certainly not an ally for us-she can’t be she has too many closer folks who don’t like us to worry about. Syria and Libya? Don’t ask. Do we know how either of those countries will turn out?

In the end, I think history will judge the Bush Administration harshly for both the run-up to the Iraq War and its initial execution. In the wake of the September 11th attacks, which had no connection at all to the regime of Saddam Hussein, they exploited the nation’s fear of terror from the Middle East to ramp up war fever against a nation that we had gone to war against ten years before, and whom we’d been staring at, and striking, across a no-fly zone ever since. Saddam was developing a secret chemical and biological weapons program, we were told, even though the United Nations weapons inspectors never found any evidence of the same. There were whispers about a secret nuclear weapons program, which turned out to be entirely unfounded. Yes, it was true that every major intelligence service in the world believed that Saddam had a WMD program, but what nobody seemed to realize was that the intelligence was based on unreliable witnesses and, apparently, an effort by Saddam himself to make the world think he had them. Because his real enemy was not the US but Iran.

We must remember this misadventure-and above all remember the Soldiers Sailors Airman and Marines who died or were wounded. George W. Bush certainly did them no favors by the reckless rush to war and its aftermath. They must be remembered-for their sacrifices. And we must vow to learn for their hard work and sacrifice and not make such sacrifices again.

““No words, no ceremony can provide full tribute to the sacrifices which have brought this day to pass,” the defense secretary said. “I’m reminded of what President Lincoln said in Gettysburg, about a different war, in a different time. His words echo through the years as we pay tribute to the fallen in this war: ‘The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.’ ”

Thank God its over.

That's the win, loss, tie record of the US in its wars. More if you count the Indian Wars and the other smaller skirmishes over the two centuries of the country's existence.

Stephen Walt has a great article up point out  again-how the US will ultimately end up the loser in Iraq, My only question is when we stop blaming ourselves and put much of the blame on the Iraqis-being Arabs after all and therefore worthless-instead of ourselves. Our problem was that we failed to recognize how worthless they really were.

But some people tried to tell us.

The tragedy of wasted lives and continuing damage to the land of my birth will live on for years to come.

Thanks George and Don-thanks a lot! Losing is still losing.

Ok, I admit it-I snapped. When I followed the Memorandum link to Mr. Jacobson's  blaming of Obama for "losing" the Middle East, I lost my temper. And with good reason too-I expect better logic and a better perspective on the history of the region-and an understanding of the peoples that lie within.

Sadly, Mr Jacobson showed neither. And probably with good reason. His post had nothing to do with the reality on the ground in the Middle East-but everything to do with finding yet something else to blame Obama for.

Should Obama celebrate the raid on Bin Laden a year after the fact? Probably not-but then again its also quite a stretch to say that he is "losing" the Middle East.

The current situation in the region has a lot of fathers-most of them reside in Arab countries, not in the White House. If one follows the entire history-our current lack of influence can be traced all the way back to 1945-or at the least to 1956 when we refused to support the British and the French during the Suez War. The only President who has displayed any common sense about the region is George H.W. Bush-especially when he made the decision to declare victory and go home at the end of Desert Storm.

Certainly, however though-a great deal of the blame for our current position in Afghanistan and Iraq lies at the feet of George W. Bush. His decisions to go to war in Iraq in 2003, and in order to do so sideline Afghanistan and allow our window of opportunity in that country to close.

It is really a loss of one's senses though,  to believe that we could have done anything concrete to stop the path of action in Egypt, Bahrain or any other place that the Arab Spring has touched.  That's quite simply giving us too much credit-and not recognizing that the multi-polar world is rising and US influence is on the wane. You wanted democracy in the region? Well now you have it-and guess what? Arabs can vote stupidly just as their American counterparts can ( and did in 2010).

There are 4 major trouble spots in the Middle East. About Israel I have written a lot-and pointed out well the flaws of the American point of view towards that country.

Iran-which is doing what it perceives to be in its best interest to counter the United States, and btw-thanks to our invasion of Iraq, ended up stronger than it would have been without that event.

Egypt and Syria-about which little can be done, save for feeling sorry for the almost 11,000 Syrians that have died. That said -there is no concrete case to be made for intervention-anymore than there was in Libya. 

And finally the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq-which are going through their own troubles. Iraq is due to our misguided adventure there and their own stupid tribalism, the Arabian Peninsula because of the inability of Saudi Arabia to stop the forces of progress. ( They may be able to slow them down for one more generation-but no longer. When the King dies-it will be interesting to see what happens).

If you want to blame someone for the failure of America's wars-how about blaming the Iraqis and Afghans themselves? They both deserve the lion's share of the blame-for being the screwed up societies they are. Where the US failed-and I believe it was a disaster to go to war in Iraq-was not recognize that up front. Arabs can be counted on to screw up any good deal given them. Its in their DNA. ( Spend a few weeks negotiating with them and you will see what I mean).

I strongly believe that most of the United States problems currently can be laid at the feet of two decisions made by George Bush. The invasion of Iraq and the failure to recant the tax cuts to pay for it.

Which brings me back to the group of blogs that Legal Insurrection is a part of. His blog is part of the "group" that one can see any day on Memeorandum: Legal Insurrection, Gateway Pundit, the really abominable John Hinderaker with Power Line, Hot Air, Michelle Malkin, Weasel Zippers……..the list is long and not distinguished. Here at Far East Cynic HQ-we monitor them and mock them as needed. ( As do some much bigger blogs than mine).

On any given day-their theme is always the same. If Obama says the sky is blue-they will say its not. It is a tiresome rant-and as I stated earlier, becomes a dangerous one,  when you consider the size of their readership.  Together,  they continue to pour gas on the blazing fire that is American politics these days-and do their level best to prevent any accommodation and progress towards fixing these problems. Obama is not the best President we have ever had-but he's certainly a heck of lot better than the gray hair-and comments like Obama lost the Middle East do nothing to help the situation. It was wrong then-it is still wrong now.

The United States did not lose the Middle East. The world has changed-and we have yet to recognize that fact.

When it comes to the Middle East, less is definitely more. We need to scale back-turn our attention to our own needs, and watch the drama play out.

Well, things have slowly returned to normal after dispatching our Israeli guests back to the land of milk and honey-in order to allow them to celebrate Pesach. 

You know it as Passover.

And Holy Week.

Nonetheless it was a productive week if at the same time a very frustrating one. Israelis can be very difficult especially when you have to tell them no-several times.

Like spoiled children, however, you still have to love them-even if you don't always like them.

We got a lot done-and now I am in the middle of "meeting cleanup"-producing notes, sending out PPT's and wishing I was on a plane to Israel. ( Or anywhere else for that matter). Damn you sequester!

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While I was out, Britain passed a new press law. This, in reaction to the clear cut crossing of the line that the Rupert Murdoch controlled print media accomplished through the phone hacking scandal. One of the most interesting phenomena was the complete over-reaction to the news by uber conservatives and their designated propaganda outlets.Particularly telling was the depth of the over reaction by those who are the worst offenders when it comes to media responsibility and their supporters in the blogosphere. To say that kind of reaction is overwrought, is slightly something of an understatement..

For starters, there are limits beyond which a responsible media should not go. The principle enforcers of that are supposed to be libel laws that demand irresponsible media players ( such as Murdoch and his clone Fox News) pay a pecuniary price for their irresponsibility. That is what Britain is trying to accomplish- with a media that is far less constrained than American media ( although the Americans are doing their best to be just like their British counterparts). The paranoid amongst us-decided to maintain that it was threat to freedom of the press and freedom of speech. In reality neither was the case -and British media coverage ( which I get through my satellite coverage) was much less hysterical. When it was pointed out that there was a large number of folks in the UK who had decided that enough was enough-and that it was time to put a halt to London's being the libel capitol of the world-the responses in general represented the basic level of American stupidity. The "Oh yea! What about MSNBC?" line of thinking gets really tiresome and old. And validates for me, again, the basic stupidity of a large segment of the US population.

For one thing-it ignores the fundamental illogic of Phibians argument. When someone tries to defend the British government and point out that something, somewhere has to be done about the increasing inability of the news media to police themselves-the contrarian arguments come out. "What about Dan Rather?" " What about Andrea Mitchell?" "MSNBC is liberal"…and so on and so forth. "Its impinging on free speech". They completely miss the point. Which is, that they are in effect arguing in favor of those shameful media practices-for the sole purpose of avoiding detailed scrutiny of equally egregious conduct by their darlings: Fox News and the right wing blogosphere.  That's crazy.

There is no impingement of free speech. There is a recognition however, when you just tell out right lies, or publish recklessly-there is a price to be paid. I have been following most of the British coverage of the debate leading up to this law-and the previous 18 months that led up to it. The simple truth is that the Murdoch organizations crossed a line-going into an area they had no business going into, and ruined a lot of good people in the process. There is a difference between printing a dissenting opinion, and publishing an blatant lie with malice aforethought. All they are trying to do is put teeth into their libel laws-something that used to be present in the United States. If we enforced our libel laws it would put slime like Hinderaker and Malkin out of business. Besides, it may not survive a court challenge in the UK, something that "fair and balanced" news outlets in the US neglected to report.

It is always interesting the things our Galtian overlords get bent out of shape about. They are perfectly OK with strangling rights to live one's life in peace, have access to decent health care, the right to have sex as much as they want-and not be told what to do with their own bodies vis a vis reproduction. But take away the non existent right of the Breitbart children or Michelle Malkin or Hindrocket to lie with impunity? That gets their panties in a bunch.

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And finally I think its important to recognize the anniversary that occurred this week, the 10 th anniversary of the worst foreign policy decision made by the United States in the last 40 years. No Phib, on this issue you are completely wrong again. You can cling to your flawed beliefs and be a surgeaholic-but the war was not worth it, it created more problems for the United States than it solved and most importantly-needlessly sacrificed thousands of American lives.

Lets turn it over to some more objective observers shall we?

This, obviously, was all a fever dream. There were no biological or nuclear weapons; there may have been a few rusty chemical shells lying around, just as there had been for decades. Iraq was not an important sponsor of Islamicist terrorism. Islamicist terrorism was fueled not by fascist dictatorships such as Iraq, but by non-state actors in failed states such as Afghanistan and Somalia; and our invasion of Iraq promptly turned it into precisely the sort of failed-state sectarian war zone that does fuel terrorism. Thousands of American soldiers died in a war in Iraq that only exacerbated the danger of anti-American terrorism. Thousands of Iraqi soldiers died as well, and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians died in the resulting civil war, most killed by the Iraqi militias who emerged in the power vacuum the US invasion created, but many killed by US armed forces themselves. In the name of pre-empting a non-existent threat, America killed tens of thousands of people and turned Iraq into a breeding ground for terrorism. And we spent a trillion dollars to do it.

How did America's policymaking community ever commit itself to such a catastrophic delusion? I don't truly understand it now, and I didn't understand it then.  ( SS note-emphasis added).  I found the developing consensus for an unprovoked attack on Iraq in late 2002 absurd. But I had an advantage: I wasn't living in America at the time. Viewed from the defamiliarising distance of West Africa, the American polity's effort to talk itself into invading a country that hadn't attacked it was baffling and disturbing. That reaction was widely shared in the country where I was living among locals and expats, Americans included.

My opposition to the war began the day I was shown plans for the deployment of five carriers to the Gulf in 2002. Among many others we asked two specific questions: "Why do we need 5 CV's especially since it will force you to keep 2 of them on cruise for over 9 months?" ( The Lincoln was kept on Cruise for 11 months-all to ensure the F-18 E's and F's she carried did not miss the conflict). That was an irresponsible decision then-and I remain so convinced today. And the second question was, "Why now?" Why not finish one war before starting a second one?" That too,  is still a pertinent question to ask.

Being still in the Navy at the time-I got a first hand view of the cascading effects of that one mistake over and over again. I have written about my disdain for the war, and the American military's pursuit of it a lot since I started this blog in 2005. It was NOT "the right war, fought imperfectly through three of four phases. No one can see alternative presents, but my bet is that both we and Iraq are better because of it. ". No-it was a colossal mistake, a huge waste of time , resources and lives and it was built on a foundation of lies and deception.. To paraphrase Herman Wouk, victory only has meaning in its effects on the politics that occur after the war-and more importantly should be waged with an eye towards what is solely in the national interest. US interests-not those of Arabs living in Iraq.  

There is a new book out, by Toby Dodge called "Iraq: From War to a New Authoritarianism".  

Iraq was Chinatown, an unknowable entity where it was unwise to linger. As a result, contemporary Iraq, a very different creation from what America’s occupation had intended, has been poorly chronicled. The best recent books in English have been military histories, aimed at showing how America’s generals performed. Few have explained what happened to Iraq itself.

Toby Dodge, who teaches at the London School of Economics, does much to fill that gap in his new book, published under the auspices of the nearby International Institute for Strategic Studies. It is a short academic work and makes no effort to present the human side of a generally bleak picture. But Mr Dodge is clear, concise and unsparing about the country’s ongoing agony. For anyone who wants to know how Iraq arrived at its current state, and wonders what might happen next, this is an excellent place to begin.

Mr.  Dodge helps set to rest this myth that neo-conservatives continue to believe that we "won the war"-and all it took was new leadership. The facts simply do not support that assertion-and the surge in both foresight and hindsight was as much of a mistake as starting the war was. By its own benchmarks the surge failed-because whatever time it bought the Iraqis to solve its political differences, the Iraqis simply screwed away.

When people say it was worth it, they have to force themselves to dance around some annoying facts. There will of course, be some inconvenient truths that will need to be danced around:

Annoying fact #1: The Iraqi government is still worthless.

Annoying fact #2: Violence in all of Iraq is not reduced as it is supposed to be. 

What is clear to any objective observer is that the only winners were the Chinese and the Iranians. By any objective standard-from the standpoint of advancing US interests in the world-Iraq was a complete and total failure.

Just about all of the current economic troubles-particularly the size of the deficit can be laid at the feet of the war. The inability of the US to influence events in other lands-e.g., get Europeans to pay more for their own defense-due to the war. The rise of the Chinese in Africa-due to the war. Higher energy prices-due to the war.

It was all a colossal waste.