The Afghan debacle is becoming a case study of how political debate in Versailles drips in a naturally self-organizing way to protect the dysfunctional status quo.
As I indicated yesterday and in September, the fundamental flaw that set the stage for the current policy making fiasco was the unexamined analytical hole in General McChrystal's escalation strategy — namely, its dependence of the rapid expansion of the corrupt and ineffective Afghan national security forces. McChrystal did not analyze this corruption/ineffectiveness issue, but that crucial omission was ignored the hoorah accompanying the immediate leaking of report by his allies buried somewhere in the Versailles apparat.
For over many years now Phi Beta Iota has been emphasizing both the inappropriate secrecy and obscurity contrived for our dead and wounded, and the almost total black-out on both amputees (many of them multiple amputees) and suicides.
We now know that Gulf I brought back over 250,000 disabled veterans, and that the toxic brew of depleted uranium that we brought to the battlefield, combined with the bio-chemical brew already in Iraq (Dick Cheney kept the receipts), and such prosaic incidentals as aspertain turning into formaldahide when soft drinks are stored in desert heat, are all partly to blame. What we did not focus on in Gulf I was the mental anguish, in part because Gulf I was a “good war,” a multinational endeavor blessed by the United Nations, and generally seen as justified by the invasion of Kuwait.
Gulf II is another matter entirely. We now know that CIA called it ocrrectly, based on both the defecting son-in-law of Saddaam Hussein and the 20+ line-crosses that Charlie Allen sent in, and that George Tenet prostituted his office–as Colin Powell prostituted his, both allowing Dick Cheney to get away with over 20 impeachable offenses in relation to foreign policy, and 935 documented lies related to the elective invasion and occupation of Iraq, an invasion made all the worse by the triumverate of Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz (go light), Cheney (fire Garner for wanting to get us out in 90 days) and Bremer (well-intentioned idiocy in disarming the military and police).
In the opening lines of the oldest treatise on the conduct of war, Sun Tzu said that the question of war is vital to the state, and therefore, it is imperative to study it. This timeless advice has been been ignored repeatedly by the United States since the end of WWII. The inevitable result has been an insensible rise of war mongering, fueled by arrogance and ignorance, culminating in the chaotic spectacle now enveloping the Afghan War Question in Washington.
The intellectual content of the debate over whether or how much to escalate our forces in Afghanistan has degenerated into formless ranting by all sides.
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“If gaudy new mansions built in the local ‘narco-tecture’ style are rented for thousands a month by U.S. contractors, UN agencies, foreign embassies and even rule of law projects, what does that say of the Western commitment to accountability?” she wrote. “For it is important to recognize that when Afghans speak of ‘corruption,’ they may mean perfectly legal actions under the direct auspices of foreign donors. When they hear of billions of dollars being spent in Afghanistan via private contractors only to often see much of the money lost in layer after layer of subcontracting and little real effect on the ground, that is labeled corruption whatever signed contracts there may be.”
Though it may seem an unlikely location to happen upon a conference on astrobiology, the Vatican recently held a “study week” of over 30 astronomers, biologists, geologists and religious leaders to discuss the question of the existence of extraterrestrials. This follows the statement made last year by the Pope's chief astronomer, Father Gabriel Funes, that the existence of extraterrestrials does not preclude a belief in God, and that it's a question to be explored by the Catholic Church. The event, put on by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, took place at the Casina Pio IV on the Vatican grounds from November 6-11. . . . . . . .
“Just like there is an abundance of creatures on earth, there could also be other beings, even intelligent ones, that were created by God. That doesn't contradict our faith, because we cannot put boundaries to God's creative freedom. As saint Francis would say, when we consider the earthly creatures to be our “brothers and sisters”, why couldn't we also talk about a “extraterrestrial brother”? He would still be part of creation.”
