The last Time...

...I read about a straw man this big, it was a review of the awesome Dark Night of the Scarecrow. Everyone should do as my parents did and show it to their kids in the middle of the afternoon at a time of year when it cannot even remotely be played off as Halloween preparation.

But I digress. I read Andrew Sullivan's blog on The Atlantic online (though if one has 2 other people contributing to a blog that's hosted by a magazine, does one still get paid to be a writer for the website? Isn't that a bit like farming out a dissertation to a bunch of research assistants?), and while he is sometimes a queen for drama (not like John Aravosis, that irritating fucktard), he's a solid reasoner. Sometime, though, he and his RAs will forget to comment much on what they are posting, thus making the "blog" a lot more like a news and opinion aggregator than a commentary site. We're all guilty of that, but about none of the other blogs on the internet have the traffic of Sullivan, so we can hold him and his research assistants to a higher standard.

So what is this? "I share Andrew's fears"?

Here's the cited quote, by Michael J. Totten:

"The United States has basically won the war in Iraq. No insurgent or terrorist group can declare victory or claim Americans are evacuating Iraq's cities because they were beaten. America's most modest foreign policy objectives there have been largely secured. Saddam Hussein's toxic regime has been replaced with a more or less consensual government. I doubt very much that Iraq will seriously threaten the United States or its neighbors any time soon. It isn't likely to be ruled by terrorists as it probably would have been if the United States left between 2004 and 2007. It's a relief. A few years ago, I was all but certain the U.S. would withdraw under fire and leave Iraq in the hands of militias. Even so, many have a hard time feeling optimistic about the future. Iraq remains, in some ways, a threat to itself."

There is a question I want to ask that isn't fair, doesn't engage with the reporting from the original article, and is based on a view that discounts all that has happened in Iraq since 2003. This denial of time and circumstances is decidedly problematic and rooted in a need to reiterate a stark, moral point. For, whatever the case at this moment, why even contemplate that the thing to take away from Iraq is that "we won," when doing so would be to forget the first and most searingly important fact of our presence there: it was brought about by obvious and treacherous lies? Lies that still have power, obviously, as Totten obliquely bases his favorable view of the occupation upon them.

"America's most modest foreign policy objectives (in Iraq) have been largely secured."

America never had any "modest" foreign policy goals in Iraq. If Totten could name one, that would be extraordinary, since none exists. Military occupation is not "modest;" the overthrow of political states is not "modest;" strong-arming other nations into supporting unilateral actions is not "modest;" enacting a neoconservative wet-dream is the opposite of "modest." What was the "modest" goal?

"Saddam Hussein's toxic regime has been replaced with a more or less consensual government."

That's some modesty right there, folks! We overthrew a dictator and then stood by while he was murdered in brutal fashion, while the country went straight to clan-warfare-hell, and then imposed a foreign political system that has resulted in another would-be dictator, Maliki, seizing power while, outside the few major cities, God only knows who is in charge. Why, it's floor-length skirts and high collars-level modesty! It's like a political burqa, it's so modest!

"I doubt very much that Iraq will seriously threaten the United States or its neighbors any time soon."

Here is that part about believing the lies. When did Iraq threaten the United States? I am unaware of even a single factual threat. Can someone help me out here? And in terms of threatening its neighbors, what? Iran: not threatened. Kuwait: there was that one time, but that lasted all of a week or so. Israel: has a nuclear weapon. Threatened? More like a threat -- not just to Iraq, either.

"It isn't likely to be ruled by terrorists as it probably would have been if the United States left between 2004 and 2007."

Where to begin. It also isn't likely to be ruled by outlaw bikers or carnival folk. Or, to put this ridiculous counter-factual speculation another way, it is still possible that Iraq will be taken over by time-traveling Ottoman Turks, because you cannot prove otherwise. All hail Osman!

"A few years ago, I was all but certain the U.S. would withdraw under fire and leave Iraq in the hands of militias."

Right, now we'll withdraw by agreement with the "government," under only sporadic fire and in-between IED detonations, and leave Iraq in the hands of the militias. Much better.

"No insurgent or terrorist group can declare victory or claim Americans are evacuating Iraq's cities because they were beaten."

Because, never forget, all wars in which the United States is engaged can only be judged in terms of what the United States thinks of as "victory" and what the United States has decided its enemies want. In this case, "terrorist group(s)" clearly wanted a pitched battle and final victory, and because they didn't get either one, and we left with some shred of our reputation intact (though no one, not even Michael Totten, surely, would argue that the US is even remotely as respected as it was prior to 2003), we won. We won the "war" that only we were fighting, and the made-up goals we ascribed to our opponents have not been achieved, and so totalvictoryinyourfacemotherfuckers! Yeah!! You know who you are! I hope!

Nothing like taking an impotent, secular, easily controlled, easily thwarted regime and replacing it with a patchwork of ethnic clan-states in perpetual conflict with one another who all now have a bone to pick with Americans while handing over political recognition (even if somewhat illusory) to a new dictatorial regime. It's so much easier to come to favorable conclusions when you write off everything that happened prior to the sea-change, which is why when we look at Iraq, we should ignore everything except what's happening right now. I think I've heard that somewhere before, perhaps coming from the mouths of Republicans.

Delightful

The most wonderful of today's ironic surprises is that you can read the most inane, drivelous (I hope that's a word) tripe in something called "American Thinker."

One wants only to smile. With every profession of not only idiocy, but misguided and scatterbrained idiocy, one feels reassured that, unlike Sarah Palin and, apparently, God, those with such inscrutable views will not "be back" on top anytime soon.

Bad Press

To paraphrase the New York Times (if its writers were time-warped to the 1940s):

"Where did all of Europe's Jews go? They seem to be missing. Some wonder what happened, and why, and who or what is responsible. But not us! We don't know anything about it. What do you want us to do -- ask? Who cares? It's a goddamn mystery, OK? Time will tell...or not. Whatever. Buy our paper!"

The United States' paper of record wants you to know that, whatever might happen and for whatever reasons, it's none of your fucking business.

Unless It's a Real Thing

People spend time thinking about the economics of giving shit away for free? Whack!

I'll tell you this: if you list any item on Craiglist and ask for $10, you get one set of respondents. If you list the same thing for free, you get the pushiest, most inane, most hateful set of people on earth coming after you and wanting not just the thing itself, but also your couch and your daughter. It's fucking insane. Buy a gun first and then try it.

So, yeah, I guess giving things away is cool...unless it's a real thing, and then Katy bar the door!

Fuckin' Right

Chad LaRose signed.

Fuck Pop Economists

Picture a man standing high above the ground on a tree limb. This man has a saw in one hand and $5 in his pocket, and he's busily cutting away the wood beneath his feet. Someone passing by sees him and yells up, "Hey, what are you doing? Can't you see that you're going to fall?" To which the man replies, "Sure, but I got paid $5 to chop this limb off, and anyway, I'm not convinced that ground down there is as hard as it looks!"

This, it seems to me, is the perfect encapsulation of the economic argument against environmental protection. Any person who would attempt to justify environmental degradation because there is money to be made is not just a fool, but a sociopath.

It's also very likely that, markets and economies being what we might call "man-made," and the natural world being what we might call "not man-made," or "real," that putting economics before environment is exactly backwards; it seems like trying to pay a cyclone to change course, or hoping that, if you get rich enough, you can buy the ocean and fill it in with concrete and that'll fix that problem. Or not.

This guy, in fact, sums it all up nicely.

Bwa-ha-ha? Ha ha? Mwa-ha-ha??

How do you type laughter?

Stupid Sarah Palin

Maybe it's the internet culture of "firsties" or something, but I feel compelled to place my bet on the motive for Palin's abrupt and seemingly idiotic -- even for her -- resignation. In a nutshell: she is currently under investigation, she has already been deemed unethical as a public official, she and her husband are deeply weird and dishonest, and she has an apparently unlimited supply of skeletons and closets and a penchant for combining the two and then displaying them herself for all to see. Right now (that being the key) she is a cancer and, aside from the crazy base of the GOP that will salute in the Third Reich style just about anything that repulses 70% of the rest of the voting public, Sarah Palin could not get elected dog catcher in 2012 on the path she's headed. She tried to stay low, that didn't work. Then she came back, all "remember me? I'm back atcha!" and that flopped, too. Then she basically went nutso on David Letterman and never came to the point -- look, the last few months have been a fun stroll down last year's memory lane, but Palin has just reminded us all why we hated her so much and confirmed that, yes, we still hate her and wish her harm. Immediate and permanent harm.

So, today. Did she sound stupid? Check. Was the whole thing a little more than very crazy? Oh yeah it was. Did she manage that most daring of political-crazy feats, the so-stupid-it-turned-into-positive-exposure stunt? No. No, in fact, most of us are still chuckling at her and tossing out random guesses as to her real motive. So strike three!

But let's say she just disappears from politics for two years, starting now. What would happen in 2012 in the run-up to the campaign? I will go ahead and go all in on "GOP candidate X asks Palin to be an advisor and then, if nominated, makes her his VP choice." The outcry won't be nearly so loud or large then. She'll have already been there once. What's more, for a dumb dickhead like Mitt Romney, say, Palin is hillbilly heroin he can flood the South with and, like McCain but without all the pesky "is he crazy?" stories (because nobody thinks that highly of Romney), get an instant boost with that ol' crazy GOP base (unless it inbreeds itself out of existence by then, but I consider that unlikely). The general idea sounds plausible to me.

Probably sounded plausible to Sarah Palin, too. She doesn't like to work, is what it boils down to. She didn't have to do very much to become governor of Shitsville, USA, AKA Alaska, and then Old Man McCain plucked her out of Dog Patch to be his running mate and she didn't do much work on that, either. And now she'd like to be president or close to it but she hasn't ever actually done anything difficult in her life. So, time to retire! 2012 is still coming. All she has to do is wait. She has the name and, in fact, if you think about it she's basically freezing whatever is left of that name now, before it erodes further under the spotlight of an investigation of a sitting governor. Now she has a year or two to settle everything and then, I think, some Republican clown virtually has got to come begging for her endorsement.

I don't think she or her circle are very intelligent. But I think they understand that she can only go downhill between now and 2012 unless she gets out of office, Now she has. My guess is she gets a reality show or some other harmless, ridiculous gig to pay the bills, does her book tour, and surreptitiously works on growing her legend as a gone-too-soon leader in exile in advance of her return in a few years. The Republicans will be begging her to come back! Oh, and it'll destroy whatever vomitous dregs are left of the GOP, and blah blah blah whatever.