Ya-ya land

Well...here we are now right in the midst of ya-ya land. You remember the neocons, Perle, Wolfowitz, Cheney, and others came out with a plan for taking over the Middle East (and by implication, at least, the world). This was called something like The Plan for the New American Century (or something like that, I can't remember exactly what in the hell it was called). This was a plan to take over control of the Middle East and all that delicious oil by the use of American military might (as we were the only superpower left). When this plan was presented to Clinton it was dismissed as "crazy" and the authors of it were referred to it as "the crazies." Now you know why. After George W. Bush became president, who wouldn't know the difference between a crazy and a tub of pig pucky, and put the crazies in power, we are right in the middle of it at the moment. Remember, the idea was to take over Iraq, which would welcome us with open arms and flowers, and then move on to Syria and Iran. We would change the Middle East and convert it to a happy group of Democratic nations that would do America's bidding ('cause they would be too frightened of shock and awe to resist). So where are we? Iraq is in the midst of a civil war (I know, I know, they say it might drift into a civil war, but that is just the usual Republican BS). Part of this plan was to insure the safety of Israel, which is our only democratic "ally" in the Middle East. Having thrown our lot in with the Israeli kamikaze attack on Lebanon we have now managed to alienate the rest of the known world, abandoned all pretense of being "an honest broker" for peace, and established ourselves as the most hated nation on earth (next to Israel). Now you know why the plan was regarded as crazy, and the designers of it as the crazies. The idea that the U.S. could command the Middle East through military might was (and is) crazy, as we are now finding out the hard way. But the neocons have not given up. They are still trying to goad Israel into attacking Syria and Iran (I guess they have a death wish, or maybe they realy do believe in the Rapture). Dick the Slimy Cheney is the chief cheerleader for this doomed enterprise. Bush's concern for what is happening at the moment is to leave for another ten day vacation on his pig farm in Crawford. Now in collaboration with our good friends in France (freedom fries have now been converted back to French fries) we are going to offer a solution to the problems of the Middle East. This plan has about as much chance of succeeding as an ant in my wife's kitchen. I haven't actually seen it as yet but you can be sure it will call upon Hezbollah to give up most everything and Israel to give up nothing. And as long as Israel is not called upon to give up much of anything (like their illegally occupied Palestinian and Syrian lands) it will of course go absolutely nowhere (other than perhaps a temporary cease fire, which is desperately needed).

Don't look to our embattled Secretary of Defense for any help. He is so far into ya-ya land as to be unreachable. Consider his explanation of whether our troops are ready or not:

When asked if the Army was declining in readiness, being under-resourced and being run into the ground, Rumsfeld squinted and replied: (Note: I've whittled this down.) "One of the problems we've seen is that in the readiness charts that are used, we see apples and oranges; we see a standard on the left side for some years back, and then a standard that's different on the right side. So if you had a standard of X on the left side, and you then looked at your circumstance today and saw it had deteriorated dramatically, you need to know what the standard is on the right side. And if it's 2X, if you've increased you standard by double and you've only been able to improve circumstance by 50 percent, then you've got a significant degradation. It appears to be a significant degradation when in fact you have a substantial improvement in your capabilities and your equipment."

This is taken from a marvelous article by Ed Naha in the Smirking Chimp. Or consider the following:

When asked if the military was at the ready, Rummy opined: "So the question -- and a third aspect of that that General Pace and I have been probing is you can say, 'Ready for what,' and if they're ready for the task they're doing, that's what you want. Or you could put a standard that says, 'Are they ready for any conceivable task that might be asked,' and if that's the standard, then you get a different set of numbers...

"For example, if you have an artillery unit and you separate it from its artillery, and you then measure it and readiness to do its artillery job, but it's in Iraq doing an entirely different job because you don't need artillery there, you could -- but you're measuring it against its artillery roles, then, obviously, it's not going to be C-1 or C-2."

Naha asks, "Is it any wonder that the troops in the field don't know whether to kick a prisoner's balls or tickle them or just shoot them off?"

But not to worry, we'll be bringing our troops home soon enough, from a disaster that is going to make Vietnam look like a victory.