"...it's not the training to be mean but the training to be kind that is used to keep us leashed best." ~ Black Dog Red

"In case you haven't recognized the trend: it proceeds action, dissent, speech." ~ davidly, on how wars get done

"...What sort of meager, unerotic existence must a man live to find himself moved to such ecstatic heights by the mundane sniping of a congressional budget fight. The fate of human existence does not hang in the balance. The gods are not arrayed on either side. Poseiden, earth-shaker, has regrettably set his sights on the poor fishermen of northern Japan and not on Washington, D.C. where his ire might do some good--I can think of no better spot for a little wetland reclamation project, if you know what I mean. The fight is neither revolution nor apocalypse; it is hardly even a fight. A lot of apparatchiks are moving a lot of phony numbers with more zeros than a century of soccer scores around, weaving a brittle chrysalis around a gross worm that, some time hence, will emerge, untransformed, still a worm." ~ IOZ

Mar 22, 2011

Prelude to Dawn

In replies to the post below this one, I linked to a John Cole - yes, surprisingly, that John Cole - entry wherein he presented a far more defensible position than any number of other alleged liberals, leftists, anarchists, libertarians and civil libertarians.

I wanted to highlight it, here, as a preface to something he writes further down in his own comments thread - a  subject about which I was myself speculating, but for which I could (for obvious reasons) find no evidence.

From his original post:

"I’ve learned something very interesting the past few days, which is that after mindlessly warmongering and supporting a debacle in Iraq and intractable mess in Afghanistan, it is somehow a personal failure on my part that I need to be persuaded to engage in another military adventure. You would think that setting your default position for supporting military action to “Show me why we should do it and until then no” would be what we might bluntly call LEARNING FROM YOUR PAST FUCKING MISTAKES, but apparently that is just not the case. Turns out that is, according to many of you, just being block-headed in a different way. Interesting, that.

What makes it even funnier is that I don’t really have a say in things- nor do any of you. Not sure if you are paying attention, but they went ahead and got involved in Libya regardless what any of us thought, for or against, and right now we’re just holding post hoc pissing matches. Nothing we say or do is going to get us out of Libya a day before the powers that be decide it is time to go. See also, Afghanistan and Iraq, where no one in positions of power gives two hoots in hell what the public thinks."

And in reply, in his comments section:

"Worst case, boots on the ground (although even that is a relative term, because if we are using cruise missiles and the like, we probably already have Special Forces all over the place anyway, and did so before the official UN action) for a long time."

(emphasis mine)

And that's the thing, isn't it?

If the US Navy and Air Force are launching Tomahawks and other cruise missiles at targets in Libya, as well as hitting them with Missouri based stealth bombers, it is already very likely that wetworkers are in country and in place, illuminating targets and doing recon. And I'm being generous, as to their workload.

I find it entirely plausible that "boots are on the ground" in Libya, right now. And have been for days, if not weeks.

Which puts Barry Pendragon's recent statement in a cold light:

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi may try to wait out a no-fly zone and military assault that has damaged his armed forces, President Barack Obama said Tuesday in an interview with CNN.

'Gaddafi may try to hunker down and wait it out even in the face of the no-fly zone, even though his forces have been degraded,' Obama said."

Seems like he's doing advance propaganda wetwork, in a manner reminiscent of that which is done by special forces operators before and during bombing campaigns. Establishing his arguments and justifications in preparation for an assault on the American public and media environment, like black ops mechanics establish the targets and strike zones for aerial bombardment, in preparation for the advent of death from the sky.

To what, I wonder, is this a prelude?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

We've had people playing around there (Libya) forever. From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli....

Nothing happening now is a surprise. Whatever Qaddafi did to his own people we knew he would, or likely would, be doing that. It's not quite a puppet/puppeteer situation, but it's closer to that, than to "gosh, we're shocked he's doing this!"

In some posts around the Toobz I've seen ideas by people who think our domestic budgetary shortfall will put militarism in N Africa/ME on a very short leash... "won't last long" etc.

Why would they think that? We're in a fully artificially backed economy right now... ramping up the lie, the lack of grounding, won't matter. Not to those calling the shots, it won't. They'll just print more. Bubble bubble bubble.

Jack Crow said...

Yep, Charles.

And while there are plenty of reasons to doubt the war-got-us-out-of-the-depression narrative, conditions then do not remotely resemble conditions, now.

Without justifying the disciplined labor force, Jim Crow and uber-nationalism of the period, the economy was far from its transition point to predatory and toxic financialism and permanent war footing.

Ours is a permanent war economy. Shit, the acronymic shorthand ought to be in general use. It's a PWE, out there.

And that shit sure means that military adventures which don't engender domestic instability can and will be used to buttress the national security state and its parasites/clients. It's a great way to rob the Commons and silence criticism, too.

Plus, as long as there's a war on - and preferably a hot or semi-hot one - the death state can whip up some further encroachment upon already laughable civil liberties and dissent.

Happy Jack said...

I find it entirely plausible that "boots are on the ground" in Libya, right now. And have been for days, if not weeks.

Two and a half weeks ago a "small team of diplomats" consisting of SAS troops was captured in Libya. The British papers are reporting that an attack was called off because of human shields. They were noticed by an SAS spotter.

The US military has rarely depended upon the kindness of strangers for intel for their attacks. I'd bet good money your assumptions are correct.

davidly said...

I admire your staying power, Jack. I find it hard not to just look the other way these days. To take a breath, as it were.

Boots were definitely on the ground when the stories about the coming "Arabic Uprising" were making the rounds back when Tunisia was but a German vacation spot.

And they think Bo Rama invented Chess.

Randal Graves said...

Cole? As long as you realize that in the next post he's going to demand everyone vote dum 'cause gooper is extra worse. Heh.

I need to get in on this war economy scratch. Book-throwing trebuchets are the wave of the future! I saw you looking at me funny, adjacent suburb.

Jack Crow said...

Randal,

No doubt. That's why I characterized it as "surprising."

davidly,

Better, brighter, less profane eyes stay on the prize. I'm just a guy with enough money for a cheap computer and an internet connection. But, thank you.

Happy Jack,

Those diplomats were like "support staff" at embassies, I gather?

Happy Jack said...

I've read that the "support staff" in Pakistan were removed to secure the release of Davis. I gather that they weren't as critical as drones.