Hot Mess

Now it's up to you,
can we make a secret rendezvous?
Oh, before we do,
you'll have to get away from you know who
--Hot Blooded, Foreigner

[America's soldiers] are being treated
... like toys a rich kid got for Christmas
--Kurt Vonnegut

It's my party, and I'll cry if I want to
Cry if I want to, cry if I want to
You would cry too if it happened to you
--It's My Party, Leslie Gore
___________________

And so it goes, the U.S. leaves Iraq under cover of night, afraid to announce the shindig celebrating our departure for fear the locals insurgents might get whiff and crash the party.

Putting a bit of a damper on festivities was the conspicuous absence of both Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani, their name tags sitting on the empty chairs the Americans were hopeful they would fill; "The only prominent Iraqis to attend were a former defense minister and three generals."

It almost seems a little . . . ungrateful, after all the U.S. has done for them. But it wasn't simply a snub, as Nuri was hatching a plan: Today he ordered the arrest of Tareq al-Hashemi, "his respected Sunni vice president, on terrorism charges" (Iraq in Fresh Turmoil).

Terrorism will be the new omnibus reason for arrest in the dictator's handbook. They may smile like the cat that ate the canary, and all the U.S. may do is grimace, for they have taught the lesson well: Fascists may vogue all the vapid insipidity of a Nancy Reagan with her "Just Say NO!" anti-sex campaign -- but this time, to Terrorists, and a Terrorist is whoever you deem to be one. Should there be a call to transparency, recourse to State Secrets will do nicely for an answer.

Well, at least someone wasn't being a Debbie Downer: "In Falluja . . . several thousand Iraqis celebrated the withdrawal on Wednesday, some burning U.S. flags and waving pictures of dead relatives (Iraq War: U.S. Military Formally Ends War).

But where was George W. Bush? Texans love shindigs. Why was Cheney not present, and what about Mssrs. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz? Wasn't this a confetti-and-champagne moment for that crew? After all, it was they who ushered in this world historical moment of elective generational wars. Andrew Bacevich nailed it:

Central to that legacy has been Washington's decisive and seemingly irrevocable abandonment of any semblance of self-restraint regarding the use of violence as an instrument of statecraft. With all remaining prudential, normative, and constitutional barriers to the use of force having now been set aside, war has become a normal condition, something that the great majority of Americans accept without complaint. War is U.S. (After Iraq, War is U.S.)

Ranger's recent "2 1/2 Wars" recognized "this tremendous continual drain on our resources, [which we] accept as a required national status quo." It's just another day at the office for people whom most never know, and who they feel have chosen that job. However, prior to Mr. Bush's presidency, being in the military did not imply serial deployments to war zones.

But hey, that's one down. If Mr. Bacevich and Ranger are correct, that simply implies a slot has opened op for a new front. Let's hope not, but hope doesn't seem to hold a lot of truck today.

And so it goes.