Thursday, June 24, 2010

Mistah McChrystal - he dead

By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times

"When it comes to American wars, history has a kinky habit of repeating itself as farce over and over again. So now the Pentagon has been plunged into turmoil.....

Those were the days when the Washington Post used to bring down a president (now the Post, as well as The New York Times, prefer war, on Iraq, on AfPak, on Iran). Gonzo master Hunter S Thompson anyway must be celebrating with heavenly tequila shots in his wild and crazy tomb; Rolling Stone after all managed to bring down a general - to the sound of The End by The Doors. Which brings us to Francis Ford Coppola using The Doors to start Apocalypse Now - or the US winning the Vietnam War (only) on film......

The McChrystal goes rogue/McChrystal gets fired story is yet one more classic Pentagon non-event magnified to dementia. What the general unplugged to Rolling Stone was basically a collection of generic, mild and milder insults to US civilians. The "warrior-intellectual” never gave any sign he was engaging in specific, detailed criticism of the overall military strategy; after all, the Pentagon's "full-spectrum dominance" cannot be really sold for what it is. And even Obama has stated on the record that replacing a general with another general does not mean a change in strategy. Is there a strategy? Yes - infinite war; but the Pentagon won't allow it to be spelled out.

It's been a long time since the immense, absurdly expensive, the-road-goes-on-forever American war obsession bore any relation whatsoever to politics and reality. It pertains to fiction - as the dance of the generals goes on, as Eliot would say, "in this hollow valley". And these fictional steps are dead-certain to punctuate "this broken jaw of our lost kingdoms" for years and years to come."

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