Stop Me Before I Vote Again

If this requisition grapple is really a covert conspiracy between the leaders of both parties to keep our home town empire's nice little storm troopers in Arab Iraq indefinitely -- then why in hell are the same duops still scrappin' so over it?

My quick answer: both parties want to lay as much of the blame as they can for this debacle on the asshole "other" party. It's good politics: the Repugs need to build a backstab in here some way or other, just as much as the Dems need to tie a bloody ribbon around the old elephant's trunk. And it's also damn fine political theatre too -- a tea-for-two showdown stretched out over the next 12 months, or so I'd reckon, while backstage the bigs from across the top arch of corporate America's establishment try to rescue the empire's chestnuts.

I take it the thinking goes like this: both parties' leading "minds" now accept the shared conclusion that the occ is a five alarm failure beyond any possible redemption. Our ground forces are so flat-out fuckled we couldn't threaten to pull off another topple and occ anywhere east of Bermuda.

But the empire, just like back in 'Nam circa '69, really can't cut and run. So this is now Decent Interval, Part Deux. Let's consider some elementary bipartisan empire-builder facts. Yes, it was pure fool krieging by the White House's wall to wall oil jacks and their sidekick Zionians to go in there in the first place. Hell, the Clinton regime's hard guys had kicked Saddam in the nuts so many times he thought he was Lucille Ball. It was completely unnecessary, and Cheney did it just 'cause he could. And yes, nobody but someone deep in the oil game, or so Zionian their mother has disowned them, would repeat this escapade if the goddess Clio gave Uncle a mulligan.

And yes, our kids are walking about out there catching a serious whatfor from a wolf-pack's worth of theocon zombies and bloody-eyed "native sons"; and yes, the blood and treasure spill is for no intrinsic reason or likely positive prospect -- no recompense, no solace, no soap.

The global empire as a whole took a zinger, and will keep on taking a zinger so long as "we" referee that civil war. But "we" must continue despite all that: because global empires -- at least global empires that want to stay global empires -- don't ever ever cut and run. They can't. Global empires must keep right on grinding, keep right on killing, keep right on looting and savaging, past rational purpose and all the way to full-moon crazy, 'cause global empires gotta "retain authority". Global empires, every time the occasion arises, must make "the other" very very sorry they fought back, even if the bastards had no choice.

Global empires make you sorry you couldn't throw flowers and candy canes, sorry you can't just lie down and give the trans-national corporations anything they fucking want that's yours. Global empires, before they leave make the native cost so high you end up sorry you won -- sorry you didn't surrender.

Oh, you're not sorry to see Uncle's legion of armed condors flocking off to some other elsewhere -- but you're nearly always already willing to invite back in the transnational corporations. That's the point. The American global empire is into that sand trap like a second Macbeth -- no, maybe even further into it than Macbeth got before his doubts and shame -- but for the American empire, like for Macbeth, it's better to press on than to go back; better to keep on killing for its own sake, than to try to remake the Clinton pax that not 9/11, but this Bush blitz through the desert, busted up.

So we will press on ahead -- to where? To what end? To exhaustion -- to a point where the Empire's enemies realize Uncle ain't leaving the area in any way shape form or fashion, no matter what they do. Uncle's gotta prove, in dead bodies on both sides, that he's up to what it takes to maintain a long term presence right there smack-dab in the middle of the Middle East.

Nope, ragheads, we ain't leaving. And this means Iraq is not 'Nam II. It's way worse. We gotta find a way to stay at the table, keep bases in the zone of conflict, keep the Farsi turbans contained, keep Russia and China back on their heels.

Redeploy? Some, but not entirely. The old two-K solution -- redeploy to Kuwait and Kurdistan -- is no longer an option, as my Foggy Bottom source, Mr Y, claims. He says that simple move is not enough -- not with Turkey, Syria, and Iran emboldened like a bunch of Friday night pimps. 'Cause both Uncle and his mini-me, the "realm" of Israel, both shit the bed in full armor. So now the local folks over there figure it's Miller time -- time they pushed for more.

Suffice it to repeat the obvious: the globe's sole empire is scrambling, and its two-headed party animal has to tapdance while a redeal can be forced on the other players -- a redeal where the empire retains maximum possible reach, and the largest pile of chips, and the right to deal off the bottom of the deck.