First, the Centurions need more denari and probably a slave army or two might help.
Rarely has the imperial hubris that lies at the basis of U.S. foreign policy – the unspoken, unquestioned assumption of America's right to global domination by force – been so nakedly revealed than in the recent Washington Post story decrying the degraded state of the Pentagon's military preparedness. ("Military is Ill-Prepared for Other Conflicts.") What makes the story so remarkable, and so valuable as a diagnostic tool for the health of the Republic (which could perhaps be most accurately described as "the sickness unto death") is that none of the generals or politicians quoted in the story – nor the writer herself – betray the slightest awareness of the moral obscenity upon which all their earnest concerns and diligent fact-finding are based.
On its surface, at the level of meaning it intends to convey to readers, the story is disturbing enough. The upshot is that Bush's reckless and stupid war of aggression in Iraq has plunged American military stocks and manpower reserves into a "death spiral" of depletion that will take years – and untold billions of dollars – to replenish. This in turn has put the United States in a horribly exposed strategic position, with the Pentagon incapable of responding "quickly and decisively to potential foreign crises," as the Post puts it. For example, the Army no longer has even a single brigade "ready to deploy within hours to an overseas hot spot," we're told. The highest brass – Joint Chief Chairman Gen. Peter Pace, Army chief of staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker, and his vice chief, Gen. Richard Cody – attest, under oath, to the woeful state of unreadiness. Anonymous "senior officers" interviewed by the reporter then make clear the implications of their bosses' plaintive but coded warnings: the Iraq War is bleeding us dry.
On the second level of meaning – which the reporter may or may not have consciously intended to put across – we find something equally disturbing. Note well what the nation's top military officer, General Pace, has to say about this state of unreadiness:
In earlier House testimony, Pace said the military, using the Navy, Air Force and reserves, could handle one of three major contingencies, involving North Korea or -- although he did not name them -- Iran or China. But, he said, "It will not be as precise as we would like, nor will it be on the timelines that we would prefer, because we would then, while engaged in one fight, have to reallocate resources and remobilize the Guard and reserves."
The true import here is not so much the casualness with which these Beltway players – the generals, the legislators and the reporters – regard the prospect of war with North Korea, Iran and China as an unavoidable natural fact, something that is bound to happen sooner or later, and for which we must be massively steeled. This attitude is troubling, of course, but it's hardly news. No, what gives cause for the greatest immediate concern in Pace's remarks is his observation that in a coming "major contingency" – such as the all-but-inevitable attack on Iran – the Pentagon's campaign "will not be as precise as we would like." What is this but a tacit admission that when push comes to shove with Tehran, the United States will have to go in with a sledgehammer, lashing out left and right – no "surgical strike" against alleged nuclear facilities, but a blunderbuss assault, with the attendant "collateral damage" and destruction of civilian infrastructure that we have seen in Iraq (twice), Kosovo, Panama, Vietnam and other "contingencies."
Again, all of this is bad enough in itself. But it is the third level of meaning – never expressed either directly or indirectly but embodied by the story as a whole -- that is the most profoundly disturbing. The present state of affairs leaves the nation at grave risk, we are told. Why? Because it leaves the United States somewhat hobbled in its ability to impose its will military on any nation or region it so chooses. Again, attend to General Pace as he tells Congress that he is "not comfortable" with the Army's readiness:
"You take a lap around the globe -- you could start any place: Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, Venezuela, Colombia, Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, North Korea, back around to Pakistan, and I probably missed a few. There's no dearth of challenges out there for our armed forces," Pace warned in his testimony.
This is not the statement of a military officer serving in the armed forces of a democratic republic devoted to the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness of its citizens. This is the action list of a Roman general seeking more funds so that he might fulfill Caesar's commands for further conquests and punitive raids beyond the frontiers of the Empire...
But why go abroad when you can serve your Caesar at home? There seem to be lots of wanna-bee Centurions- brave as long as they're backed by someone else's real muscle.
This weekend someone tried to create a situation that could precipitate an invocation of martial law:
Winter Patriot has an important post up at his place, with eyewitness accounts of the treatment doled out to anti-war protestors in Washington on Saturday by bellicose"counter-protestors," who were sometimes backed by the authorities on the scene in their attacks and attempts to block legitimate, patriotic dissent.
Of course, it's not surprising that a group of pro-war marchers came out in opposition to the anti-war rally. That's a good thing; it represents freedom of speech, politics in action, etc. What is disturbing, however, is that many of counter-demonstrators were spurred to action -- and anger -- by patently false reports disseminated by the right-wing propaganda network: ludicrous charges that the anti-war protestors planned to deface the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. As one of WP's correspondents put it:
Somehow they felt a bunch of peace activists were going to damage the national monument which bears the names of over 55,000 dead soldiers who gave their lives in the illegal, immoral war for profit of 40 years ago...To me, it was nothing less than astonishing to see that a number of people have been so brainwashed to believe that we are anti-troop, don’t know the value of freedom and are “anti-democracy”. What was more astonishing were those that were completely ignorant of the Bill of Rights, that they challenged and acted physically aggressive to the peace activists, minding their own business, trying to get to the march.
The baseless call to "defend" the Memorial was almost certainly a deliberate "psy-ops" action designed to foment rage and disrupt the protest. No doubt its designers hoped that the anti-war protestors would react with violence to the often extreme provocations they faced from the stirred-up pro-war packs. They failed in this aim, but the response they drew from the false and virulent propaganda could well serve as a template for further, larger actions along the same lines.
Whether this plan emerged directly from the clotted bowels of the Bush Administration itself or sprang from one of the many private right-wing hate factories makes little difference; the official and non-official wings of the extremist Right have long since merged...
Sadly, No gives us "The Anatomy of a Con Job," detailing just how the Malkinite toadies hyped the imaginary "threat" to the Memorial -- and how they are now busily constructing an alternate reality trumpeting the success of their "Eagles" in preventing an imaginary threat by showing up in imaginary numbers. (The wingnut wire universally claims that 30,000 pro-war whoopers came out on the march, offering non-existent estimates by government agencies as "proof" of their fantasizing...)
A psychological operation apparently designed by non-professionals and implemented upon the ignorant.
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