inkbluesky

rustic bridge in winter wallpaper

Somewhere between the time I wanted to be a fireman, an astronaut or a marine biologist I also wanted to be a writer. Of course regular readers will know that I can’t write worth a damn, but I do recognize a good essay when I read one, Autumn and the Plot Against Me 

It’s a lead-pipe cinch, I figure. I’m a good detective. I’ve found opium dens in Vientiane; been granted interviews by cardinals, mafiosi, and sheikhs; discovered the meaning of “half-and-half” in the old song “Drinkin’ Wine, Spo-Dee-O-Dee”; conned the Vatican into bestowing a doctorate on me so that I could gain access to hiddenmost archives; deciphered the cryptic message Ezra Pound scrawled in his own copy of the Cantos while in the bughouse; tracked down and interviewed Phil Spector’s first wife, long presumed dead; charted my way to the sacred stone of the Great Mother, in Cyprus; gotten Charlotte Rampling’s cell-phone number; even come close to understanding the second page of my Con Ed bill. Finding out where a picture was taken—a picture plastered on millions of computer screens—seems a shot away.

OK so some guy wants to know where one of his Vista wallpapers came from, but you start reading it and its like a mystery story where you just have to know how it ends.

Four bewildering remarks from the Bush administration 

1. “If we leave [Iraq] before the mission is complete, if we withdraw, the enemy will follow us home.”

This was from a speech by George W. Bush in Lancaster, Pa., last Aug. 16. That’s not so recent, but the comment was repeated just this month by Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and by Ohio Republican Rep. John Boehner; so someone up high still seems to think it’s true or at least catchy.

In fact, it makes no sense whatever. First, it assumes that “the enemy” in Iraq consists entirely of al-Qaida terrorists, when they comprise only a small segment of the forces attacking U.S. troops. Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias are not likely to “follow us home.”

Second, if terrorists wanted to attack American territory again (and maybe they do), their ability to do so is unaffected by whether we stay in or pull out of Iraq. It’s not as if they’re all holed up in Baghdad and Anbar province, just waiting for the fighting to stop so they can climb out of their foxholes and go blow up New York. If al-Qaida is a global network, its agents can fight in both places.

I hear some version of this all the time - oddly enough from people over the age of five. Iraq is we’re told the front in the war on terror ( though they had nothing to do with 9-11) and as long as we keep them busy they’ll just stay in Iraq. As Fred Kaplan points out only a small fraction of the people doing the shooting in Iraq are al-Queda and as newly elected Senator Jim Webb(D-VA) reminded us, there were no al-Queda in Iraq before Bush invaded. I have zero experience in running a terrorist organization, but I can’t help but think that if al-Queda wanted to they could spare a few dead beats to come over here whether we were in Iraq or not. Should it bother people more that the guy who could launch a nuclear strike isn’t very bright or that he thinks that the entire country is as deem as he is.  -three more of these gems at the link.