Oh hey look, the really important people are finally figuring out that our gluttony really does endanger our national security. Even the Pentagon–USDOD being the single largest user of oil in the world–is finally getting it. Face it folks, Afghanistan & Iraq are to future oil wars what the Spanish Civil War was to WW II–just a warm up. A sampling of what’s to come:
At first the military’s concern was for its bases. Advice was sought on the effects of tidal surges and rising ocean levels. More recently, the long-range dangers of droughts, food shortages, floods and the perils of mass migrations of hungry peoples 20 to 30 years from now have been studied.
The Pentagon foresees situations resulting in political instability and unrest that might require American military intervention in the worst cases, and big humanitarian rescue efforts at best. “It gets real complicated real quickly,” said the deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy, Amanda Dory, throwing grammar to the wind.
Sounds like self-induced Apocolypse to me. Sayyyyyyyy, speaking of biblical prophesies, since I’ve been all Noah-like in my screaming & yelling on this energy conservation thing since I was, oh, 11 years old–and actually reducing my household’s energy consumption by more than 2/3 compared to the national average– I’m wondering if maybe I’ll get rapted (is that a word?), thus leaving all y’all to deal with the disasters foretold by Pentagon planners!
As General Stanley McChrystal’s 60-day strategic assessment is wrapping up, he [is?] poised to recommend a new approach for Afghanistan, one grounded in counterinsurgency’s strategy of protecting the population.
Who says military intelligence is an oxymoron?!!!! What’s that you say? Why didn’t they figure this out after Viet Nam? Welllllllll, we’ll call that the $64,000,000 toilet seat question that someone from the military can answer for me!
Speaking of really smart people in the military, this is all quite amusing to me (in a dark humor sort of way) because I remember back in my days as a 2nd lieutenant serving under then-Major John Abizaid in the 3/325 (ABN) in Vicenza, Italy, and having that rising star lecture us junior officers on how bad the commanders in Viet Nam were, and how he would have done everything differently than the generals back then. And that basically, he could have won it because he would have been a better commander.
Flash forward 16-18 years and the Major is a General. He commands all operations in the Middle East, including the Iraq War. The smart guy has a chance to prove that he could do better. Does he bring us a just peace? Nope, he brings us more of the mindless, senseless brutality that marked our murderous excursion in Viet Nam. Abu Ghraib. Guantanamo. Bagram Prison. Wanton wrecking of the cultural patrimony of Iraq (more here, here and here). Basically, Abizaid commanded the same brutal tactics that drove the success of the Viet Cong back in the day. He orchestrated so much senseless brutality on the part of the US forces that they actually generated more enemies and more danger than they had before. He practically drove Iraq into a civil war. It was South Viet Nam all over again. They didn’t pull out of the tailspin until Bush canned him.
Yet that Wikipedia article about him is nothing more than despicable sycophancy. It reads like something his publicist put out. But hey, it got him a spot at that rightist think tank at Stanford! Smart guy indeed.