Sunday, October 28, 2007

A Coup

The Royalists are becoming either more bold, or more reckless. They are exposing more and more of their utter contempt for American values and ideals, and seem to be daring anyone to call them on it. Now, the Boy King and his minions are displaying what I had long considered to be their trump card -- the one they would keep hidden until after the results of the 2008 elections are known. They are using the military to intimidate the opposition. And, of course, it's working.

Just ask MoveOn.org.

The Royalists are also using the military to plant news stories with cozy media outlets, particularly sympathetic bloggers. And they've even gone so far as to sic a top aide to General Petraeus (one Col. Steven Boylan) on a blogger who has challenged their arrogance, Glenn Greenwald. In a particularly vitriolic email, the Petraeus flack accuses Greenwald of bad journalism, bad lawyering and bad faith. Of course, none of those accusations holds up under scrutiny, and Greenwald concludes:

"Everyone can decide for themselves if that sounds more like an apolitical, professional military officer or an overwrought right-wing blogger throwing around all sorts of angry, politically charged invective."

Greenwald further notes that the offending email is part of an increasingly obvious campaign by the military to prop up the Royalist cause and to besmirch any opponent to their Grand Glorious War in Iraq. (He has links in the post.) Then he delivers the coup degrace:

"The linchpin of a republic under civilian rule -- as well as faith in the armed services by a cross-section of Americans -- is an apolitical military. Like all other branches of the government intended to be apolitical, this linchpin is eroding under this administration, and that ought to be of far greater concern to Boylan and Petraeus than hurling petty insults."

What Greenwald doesn't say -- and what perhaps many anti-Royalists are afraid to say -- is this: the United States is no longer "a republic under civilian rule". We have not been a republic since December 12, 2000, and it is becoming increasingly obvious that military power will be employed to keep the current regime in power (with or without a certain cretin named Bush at its head).

It is especially bold for a career militry man to pick a political fight with a blogger. It says, to me at any rate, that the thin veneer of civil government that masked all the previous misdeeds of this government has finally cracked, and we are getting our first look at what lies beneath. And, taken in that context, the recent conduct of the Iraq War may fall into place.

Let's review: when the Clown-in-Chief ordered the invasion of Iraq, there was no thought that Iraqis would be anything but grateful for their "liberation". The almost immediate civilian armed opposition to U.S. occupation was dismissed as the work of "dead-enders" and, even long afterward, was characterized as in its "last throes". Then, suddenly, it's an insurgency, a well-oiled terrorist machine financed abroad (guess where ) that must be crushed with a "surge" of troops. "Counter-insurgency" is the new buzzword, and the new mission (one never envisioned by the Congressional authorization of the Iraq War). What change occured in the fall of 2006 that might spur this sudden interest in fighting insurgents?

The evidence is there for anyone who really wants to see it. The Army isn't fighting the insurgency in Iraq to protect the government there. It's fighting insurgents in Iraq for practice. The Pentagon apparently feels it needs some hardened front line troops who know how to root out and kill anti-government militants, in both urban and rural setttings. The Bushites may not have had a clue about would happen once they unleashed their pet theories on Iraq, but I think they have a pretty good idea what they can expect when they bring those theories back home.

Sometime on or before January 20, 2009, we'll all find out what the "surge" was really about.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home