MUSIC NAVbarz 2
THE PETREAUS SHOW:

Deceptive Answers To Deceptive Questions

By Polar Levine, September 16, 2007
I’ve bailed out on pretty much every “reality” show TV has to offer but I opted in on two of them last week -- the MVAs and hours worth of slog through The Petraeus Show on CSPAN.
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The latter was basically CSPAN’s attempt at a celebrity media event. It lacked the budget for sci-fi set design but at least it spared us the commercials. Otherwise it was the same thing -- celebs promoting the interests of higher-ups by delivering predictable material with predictable choreography. Like other reality shows very little resembled a reality zone.
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I want to convey my respect and appreciation to General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker for their service to our country and to salute our brave men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan who are doing an incredible job. I think I speak for all Americans when I say that I salute their bravery and heroism. That said:
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The cavalcade of bullshit that was supposed to address the fate of at least tens of thousands of people was so airless I felt like I was going to pass out. The Lone Ranger and his Tonto stuck to their scripts like hack politicians stapled to boilerplate stump speeches. And the scripts were probably as accurate as a best-possible-scenario dreamscape could be. The bottom line, as Bush later speechified, is: we added 30,000 troops so that eight months later we can announce that in one more year there will be a reduction of 30,000 troops -- which we would have had to do anyway because we’ll be out of meat by then. See -- I listened to the American people and the generals and we’re bringing troops back home. If events permit. P.S.: We’ll be in Iraq long after I slip out the door and, btw -- if you think this is bad, wait till I drop a few on Iran before my exit.
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At both the House and Senate Committee hearings almost all talk -- pro and con -- centered around two issues that have served as the main plot point of the surge drama but, in fact, have no actual relevance: benchmarks and projections for when this will all end. Ironically it was Republican Senator Richard Lugar who blew the veil off the burlesque in his prologue at the Senate hearing. All that followed was of little more consequence than music under the closing credits. Lugar pointed out that the alleged Iraqi central government might some day pass the legislation that’s been established as benchmarks; but until the Iraqi people feel in their bones that they share a nation -- we have no reconciliation and unity to talk about. The benchmark issue is a smokescreen. More to the point, he added, the focus on benchmarks is an indication that, like the lack of contingency planning that helped generate this mess, we’re still focusing only on whatever event comes next instead of planning for numerous contingencies one, five and ten years down the road. Even if Bush were to decide to bring everybody home tomorrow, it still takes up to a year to make it happen. 130,000 people and tons of bulky hardware don’t take off on a couple of planes. As soon as the troops take a step out of the Green Zone to get to the airport there will be a tough war to fight that will require the same breadth of logistics involved in the war they’re already fighting. So my comrades at moveon.org will have to pop a Prozac and get real just like everybody else.
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When Lugar’s minutes in the reality zone were up, hour after hour of gas about benchmarks and timelines followed.
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To be fair there were a few other intelligent organisms who presented tough, and at times unique, arguments -- particularly Rep. Gary Ackerman and Senator Neil Abercrombie. Kudos to Hagel, Feingold, Biden, Boxer, Obama, Clinton and Warner. Petraeus and Crocker responded to all with deft impersonations of a brick and a cinderblock.
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The broader question, also oddly irrelevant, is whether or not Petraeus and Crocker are giving us an accurate account. I’ll go so far as to say that the surge might well have created improvements. But unless we multiply our troop count by three and pour them into every city, town and village, those improvements cannot be more than temporary and anecdotal.
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The most deceptive question is the “when” issue. Predicting the end date of a war is like predicting the future wedding date of your toddler. It’s a pointless enterprise to begin with and the gravity given to the answer generates nothing more than disinformation. You can say, “My two year old will get married on June 14, 2036.” Post it on your blog and buy an ad in the Sunday Times proclaiming it. That won’t make it happen.
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The hallucinatory flavor of the debate over benchmarks and the ultimate goal of a united Iraq is disturbing in that it guarantees the hopelessness of any movement toward a sane strategy. Over and over the same question is looped: whether it will take six months, 18 months or five years to achieve reconciliation. During the 35 year reign of Sadaam plus the four and a half years of the American occupation, Sunnis and Shiites have been gassing each other, blowing each other up, torturing and maiming each other, beheading each other with kitchen knives and drilling holes into each other with power tools. All of this has been perpetrated upon and witnessed by children who are beginning to define their world. How long will the survivors take to forgive and share power when all this butchery is the region-wide consequence of a feud kicked off more than a thousand years ago? The endless loop of murder and revenge perpetuate the heat of the feud’s Big Bang. The real timeline question should ask how many GENERATIONS it will take for reconciliation to evolve.
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Here’s an interesting timeline question: how long will it take for the government of the United States to achieve unity over the direction of this war?
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By Polar Levine for polarity1.com
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