Category Archives: Pseudo-history

Ask #Bush Why The #IraqiMilitary Won’t Fight

Federalism, Foreign Policy, Iran, Iraq, Nationhood, Neoconservatism, Pseudo-history

“Ask Bush Why The Iraqi Military Won’t Fight” is the current column, now on Praag.org. An excerpt:

… The ineptness of the reconstituted Iraqi Army is nothing new. In 2006, then-Sen. Hillary Clinton demanded to know when the “Iraqi government and the Iraqi Army would step up to the task.” “I have heard over and over again, that the government must do this, the Iraqi Army must do that,” griped Clinton to Gen. John P. Abizaid, then top American military commander in the Middle East. “Can you offer us more than the hope that the Iraqi government and the Iraqi Army will step up to the task?”

Indeed, the War Party is in the habit of thrashing about in an ahistorical void—or creating its own reality, as warbot Karl Rove, George Bush’s muse, is notorious for saying. The neoconservative creed as disgorged by Rove deserves repeating:

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

The lowly “you” Rove reserved for “the reality-based community” (guilty).

Curiously, a military that has done nothing but flee before the opposition ever since the Americans commandeered Iraq, had fought and won a protracted war against Iran, under Saddam Hussein. The thing we currently call the Iraqi military has been unable and unwilling to fight the wars America commands it to fight.

Why?

For one, Bush’s envoy to Iraq, Paul Bremer, made the decision to dissolve the Iraqi Army and civil service, early in 2003, with the blessing of Bush at whose pleasure Bremer served. Bush’s minions viewed the dissolution of the Iraqi Army as part of the “De-Ba’thification” process. …

… Another dynamic is at play in the region besides the Sunni-Shia divide. It is that between the forces of centralization and the forces of decentralization. …

Read the rest. “Ask Bush Why The Iraqi Military Won’t Fight” is now on Praag.org

Defense Secretary #AshtonCarter’s #Iraq No-Brainer

Iran, Iraq, John McCain, Military, Nationhood, Pseudo-history, Republicans

John McCain will be rising on his hind legs when he hears what US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter has just said. The rest of the War Party will be irate too–even more so than the Iraqi prime minister was (who is he these days? Ah: Haider al-AbadiIt)

What Defense Secretary Carter said is a no-brainer, really; such observations were routine when Bush 43 began swinging the wrecking ball in Iraq. But the War Party is ahistoric—the War party-line is to continue duping ditto-heads into believing that the sorry state of Iraq is Obama’s doing. Not on my watch (having been in the position to witness and document the last 13 years, summed up last week in “Iraq Liars & Deniers: we knew then what we know now”).

So what did Carter say this Memorial Day weekend (a timing armchair warrior Mark Levin is sure to mention)?

Carter said “the rout of Iraqi forces at the city of Ramadi showed they lacked the will to fight against Islamic State. Mr Carter told CNN’s State of the Union the Iraqis ‘vastly outnumbered’ the IS forces but chose to withdraw.” Via BBC News

“What apparently happened is the Iraqi forces just showed no will to fight. They were not outnumbered. In fact, they vastly outnumbered the opposing force.”
Describing the situation as “very concerning”, he added: “We can give them training, we can give them equipment – we obviously can’t give them the will to fight.”

In 2006 , the Hildebeest demanded to know when the “Iraqi government and the Iraqi Army would step up to the task?” “I have heard over and over again, ‘the government must do this, the Iraqi Army must do that’,” warbot Clinton complained (and I documented) to Gen. John P. Abizaid, then top American military commander in the Middle East. “Can you offer us more than the hope that the Iraqi government and the Iraqi Army will step up to the task?”

Watch Mrs. Clinton feign amnesia about that TODAY.

Since the 2003 invasion, the Iraqi military has fled before the opposition, whoever that was. The thing we call the Iraqi military has been unable and/or unwilling to fight the wars America wishes it to fight. It did, however, fight and win a war against Iran under Saddam.

UPDATED: D’Souza’s Epic ‘America’ Error (Readers Can’t Reason)

America, Government, History, Neoconservatism, Pseudo-history, Pseudo-intellectualism, Reason, Uncategorized

“D’Souza’s Epic ‘America’ Error” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

There are certainly good things about Dinesh D’Souza’s film “America: Imagine a World Without Her,” as sharp-eyed critics like Jack Kerwick have observed. But those don’t matter much for this reason: The central question asked and answered by the film maker is premised on an epic error of logic. …

… D’Souza’s theories about “America,” good or bad, can be dismissed out of hand because of rotten reasoning. The reader will recognize the central error of logic in the following excerpts from interviews conducted by D’Souza’s biggest booster, Fox News host Megyn Kelly.

In “Bill Ayers, Dinesh D’Souza debate [on]American values,” both Kelly and D’Souza “challenge” the “Weather Underground” terrorist-cum-educator Ayers for his part in the “blame America first” crowd; for holding that “American history is a series of crimes visited upon different [peoples],” for his contention that, in their words, “America is bad,” “America is a force for evil.”

Noodles neoconservative D’Souza: “America is benign in the way it exercises its power.” “America has made mistakes. But there is a difference between making a mistake and doing something inherently wicked.”

Is the reader getting the gist of the D’Souza doozie?

The duo’s almost-identical exchange with Ward Churchill, former chairman of the ethnic studies program at the University of Colorado, should instantiate D’Souza’s cock-up, amplified by megaphone Megyn Kelly:

“Is there anything good about America?” the anchor asks the author of the screed “Some People Push Back.” Kelly continues to conflate the “we” pronoun with the U.S.: “The United States of America; have we done any good?” D’Souza, for his part, doubles down with the example of immigrants to the U.S.: “They’re coming here, voting with their feet, leaving everything that matters behind. Are they coming to an evil empire?”

My reply to Dinesh should give the game away …

… Read the complete column. “D’Souza’s Epic ‘America’ Error” is now on WND.

UPDATE: No wonder people quit writing for the public. What’s the point? One is writing for individuals who are incapable of comprehending anything beyond an eighth-grade tract. The article is at pains to explain the D’Souza error of 1) equating “America” with the government. 2) Referring to those who oppose government actions as anti-American. For if America does not equal the government, then to be anti-government is not necessarily to be anti-American.

What is it about this simple logic that these people fail to grasp?

When D’Souza says “America,” he means the government. Don’t these simpletons understand that the government is not the same as the people? Apparently not. So you get called a leftist for liking logic. You get bombarded with letters from people who clearly have very basic comprehension levels. To wit:

—–Original Message—–
From: rcarrows15@yahoo.com [mailto:rcarrows15@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2014 8:21 PM
To: imercer@wnd.com
Cc: rcarrows4@mi.rr.com
Subject: America

I disagree with your article.

The US saved the world not once, but twice. On balance, America is a good nation. Read history. Do you really believe America is or was (under a few leaders) as bad as tyrant nations?

By the way, when people come to the US, they accept government handouts and kick the citizens in the teeth. Most have no respect for our flag, language, culture, etc.

Liberals will always blame America. But, without America, the world would have been purged of all races, save one, in the 1940’s.

I think you owe the readers an apology. Also, more than 75% of present Americans trace their lineage to other nations and were not even here during the time of which you speak.

RCA

From: Terry Flick [mailto:leenterry@sbcglobal.net]
Sent: Thursday, September 18, 2014 7:04 PM
To: imercer@wnd.com
Subject: Who were the true Americans

Probably the people that were here when the oriental tribes now known as the american indian came across the land bridge to America. Those oriental tribes/american indians did away with the then natives to take control of this land. Estimates that before the europeans ever came to America so we will say 1500 there were somewhere in the vicinity of 750,000 oriental/american indians alive in north america. One ethnic group invading and taking over the land from another group has been going on throughout recorded history. It’s time the american indian quit their wining or at least those liberals that love to continue that mantra.

UPDATE II: Zakaria Second-Hander Speaks On Syria (The Syria & Libya MO)

History, Intellectualism, Media, Middle East, Paleolibertarianism, Pseudo-history, Pseudo-intellectualism

Fareed Zakaria plagiarizer is big in America primarily because of his reliably banal, unoriginal brain. This “gift” is a prerequisite for maintaining the establishment’s status quo. Or, as Jeff Tucker calls it, the “statist quo.”

The equally uncontroversial WaPo—they passed on the Edward-Snowden scoop—has seen fit to feature Zakaria’s hardly scholarly “analysis” of Syria. (Try Efraim Karsh, Professor of Mediterranean Studies at the University of London. The late, anti-imperialist scholar Elie Kedourie was especially interesting.)

It’s hard to know where to begin to dissect Zakaria’s tired stuff. Zakaria Second-Hander reproduces the old colonialism canard, according to which the sorry state of the Middles-East (and Africa) are blamed (by leftists of the liberal and libertarian variety) on borders drawn by colonial forces “along ahistorical lines.”

Wait a sec, didn’t Shaka Zulu consolidate his empire and commit genocide against the region’s tribes before British penetration proper into South Africa?

Zakaria also assumes (like an ass) that dominant minorities have arisen in the Middle-Eat due to … colonialism’s inorganic border-drawing (that’s my descriptive, in case Fareed finds something worth …borrowing, sans citation).

You’d be better advised to read Amy Chua’s remarkable work on market-dominating minorities (or, as she calls them in chinglese “market-dominant minorities”).

Much more than Zakaria’s idiocy, Steve Sailer’s brief observation about the Alawites will tell you something about why they came to dominate (intelligence? Emphasis is mine):

“The Alawites are another complex ethnicity with deep roots. They are despised by the Sunni majority as not being true Muslims. (Alawites are said to celebrate Christmas and Easter.) When the French took control from the Ottomans after WWI, most of the Sunnis shunned joining the colonial security forces. But after centuries of Sunni oppression, the Alawites thought that getting paid by European experts to use guns and push Sunnis around was a great idea.”

And here’s tired Zakaria via the WaPo:

He compares Syria’s war to the 15-year civil war in Lebanon and the war that erupted in Iraq after the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein. In both cases, the wars were as much about vicious competition between sectarian groups as they were about the decisions of military and political leaders. In both cases, power ended up shifting from minority to majority sects. In both cases, civilians were massacred, and minorities suffered terribly. The difference, perhaps, is that the United States took heavy losses in Iraq but stayed out of Lebanon.

His case, then, is that Syria’s war is not something that the United Stated can stop or alter. Zakaria has no illusions about the pain and terror of Lebanon’s civil war but says that the United States was right not to involve itself. (He also points out that Reagan’s decision to bow out in 1984 did not exactly destroy American credibility in the region.) He points to the war in Iraq; even though the United States toppled Iraq’s minority dictator and quickly moved power over to a government that represented the broader population, that did not prevent hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths, the formation of many civilian militias that did terrible things and the infiltration by al-Qaeda and affiliated groups. In this thinking, intervening in Syria will not stop the war’s violence, which is after all more about competing sects than it is about the decisions of one leader. …

Yawn on.

UPDATE I: An interesting take on Syria from Jack Kerwick, except that it is predicated on a notion I have a hard time accepting: Obama is NOT an ass with ears, but is quite smart. Moreover, the country doesn’t care about BHO’s strategy. For the first time in a long time, the people are against war. They don’t care about political posturing. Wow. Just wow. I’m so happy.

UPDATE II (9/7): Personally I think Jack here outthinks BHO. The Libya case, which all new antiwar-warriors are ignoring, is textbook as far as BHO’s Syria MO goes, is it not? In other words, Obama did exactly what he is doing now in the case of Libya, except that there he ignored Congress.