Their success in this long-term endeavor can hardly be denied.  Dictators, plutocrats, and authoritarian politicians took to Vereide’s “vision” like ducks to water, not unexpectedly, and the relentless transfer of power and wealth upward that has resulted in the years since can only be considered a triumph of the powerful, and the Family, over the people.  Every regressive tax, coup de etat, and repressive law thus redounds to the greater glory of Jesus plus Nothing, which seems plausible to a bunch of egotistical dimwits who get George Orwell and Orson Welles, neither of whom would have approved of their rank hypocrisy, mixed up.  Listening to Family members embarrassingly asinine attempts to quote history, the Bible, and the Founders, I found it difficult to believe they were smart enough to wipe their own asses, yet politicians from Sam Brownback to Hillary Clinton kneel before their altar at the Family’s “National Prayer Breakfasts,” where fascism is served up with a side of Freedom Toast.

Sharlet gained access to the Family’s inner circle surprisingly easily, for a Brooklyn Jew reporting for Harper’s, which is not that surprising when you  consider that the only requirements for Family membership are a hunger for power and a gullibility that would make Elmer Fudd blush; they welcome Sharlet to their Virginia estate (tax free, of course, like their infamous C Street house) with open arms, and more unfortunately, open mouths.  The narcissistic poppycock they spew becomes even more infuriating when you realize why they can afford to be so frank; their battle has largely been won, and not just at home, but in Uganda, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere.

Like Family member Ted Haggard, who when he wasn’t chomping on hooker wienie and snorting meth, had achieved all the wealth and power that Jesus plus Nothing has to offer, and hypocrisy and stupidity have turned from bug into feature for the intellectual midgets of this alarmingly large brood.  They don’t fear exposure anymore, and why would they?  Brother Bart Stupak was able to insert anti-abortion language into the health care reform bill, John Ensign still serves proudly in the US Senate, and the Family’s tax exempt status stands as holy writ from sea to shining sea.

What makes The Family so unsatisfying, though, is that even after witnessing the malevolence, vacuity, and dangerous proximity to power this ragtag band of bloodthirsty nincompoops enjoy, nay, revel in, Sharlet maintains his almost Village-like inability to pass judgement on people who deserve nothing but condemnation.  In the end, The Family feels like another mindless repetition of, “We Report, You Decide,” utterly devoid of the sort of horrified condemnation the subject matter would necessarily elicit from any reporter with an ounce of humanity.  From Uganda to Detroit to Iraq, the shattered lives and mutilated bodies left behind (pun intended) by a deadly cabal of amoral charlatans cynically wrapped in the thorny crown of Jesus fail to arouse Sharlet to forthrightly denounce these despicable creatures, even as their power grows, mutates, and looks for fresh victims.

Sharlet does an excellent job of exposing the intrinsic ties between despotism, hate movements, the systematic crushing of the weak by the powerful, and the bland and corporate calculations that make these atrocities pencil out in the eyes of their proponents as, well, Jesus plus Nothing, and lets it go at that.  Thus, in The Family, journalism at its finest becomes Journalism plus Nothing.

Maybe Sharlet will write a sequel.

American Arrogance not only leads us into unnecessary wars and other international disasters it also means our execution of these failed-from-the-start missions is woefully inadequate. That’s because Americans continue to insist that they are superior to everyone else in the world. When you are superior that means you know better than those inferiors you are trying to help. That means you don’t have to bother with understanding their culture and current situation. Just convert them to your culture and they will be forever grateful. See what I mean about arrogance and our addiction?

Even with the most recent horrendous failure examples of Iraq and Afghanistan only minute cracks are developing in the denial wall of those suffering from AA. One NYT article published yesterday shows the consequence of misguided development projects due to AA and another in WaPo hints that there is a slim chance AA can be brought under control. I will leave the question of whether a cure will ever be found for readers to ponder. It will probably come down to living one day at a time.

The Times article says the U.S. fears Iraq development projects to the tune of $53 billion may go to waste. It says that, “there are growing concerns among American officials that Iraq will not be able to adequately maintain the facilities once the Americans have left, potentially wasting hundreds of millions of dollars and jeopardizing Iraq’s ability to provide basic services to its people.” (Not sure how $53 billion may go to waste tracks with wasting hundreds of millions, but that’s the quality of “journalism” we get from our M$M today.)

First we destroy Iraq on lies and a desire to steal their oil, then in our attempts to help Iraqis reconstruct their country our officials who are investigating the failures say American authorities have, “repeatedly failed to ask Iraqis what sort of projects they needed and have not followed up with adequate training.” See why we need immediate treatment for AA?

It’s not as if the addicted weren’t warned as the idiocy progressed. Stuart W. Bowen Jr., inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, said his watchdog agency had “regularly raised concerns about the potential waste of U.S. taxpayer money resulting from reconstruction projects that were poorly planned, badly transferred, or insufficiently sustained by the Iraqi government.”

I know its painful, but I have to continue to build my case for a serious intervention. The Times article reported:

In hundreds of cases during the past two years, the Iraqi government has refused or delayed the transfer of American-built projects because it cannot staff or maintain them, Iraqi and American government officials say. Other facilities, including hospitals, schools and prisons built with American funds, have remained empty long after they were completed because there were not enough Iraqis trained to operate them.

“As large-scale construction projects — power plants, water-treatment systems and oil facilities — have been completed, there has been concern regarding the ability of Iraqis to maintain and fund their operations once they are handed over to the Iraqi authorities,” said a recent analysis prepared for Congress by the Congressional Research Service. The Government Accountability Office and the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction have also issued reports in the past several months about the potential failure of American-financed projects once they are transferred to Iraq.

We haven’t done any better in Afghanistan and the waste would be just as bad as Iraq, but Iraq kept only a trickle of money flowing to Afghanistan where civilian economic projects could have been far more successful than enlarged military operations that have mostly made things worse.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton from the moment she started her job has been saying the right things about changing the priorities. Those in the Obama administration who have been fighting a military surge, have been emphasizing projects that will help the Afghanistan government and its people to take charge of their own destiny. Both military and non-military assistance are very long-term projects. If Obama can’t see which of the two would get much longer support from the American voter and cost far less than one million per troop per year during our severe economic crisis then he is not as smart as people, including me, believe he is.

While the 2010 Defense budget for the first time calls for higher expenditures for Afghanistan over Iraq, the State Department has a paltry six billion to spend combined for 2009 and 2010. Ambassador Eikenberry has asked for at least 300 more civilians over the next three years to oversea the execution of non-military projects. The WaPo article I mentioned that hints at doing something about these repeated AA failures involves training of those civilians in Indiana. Training them in how to understand and work with different cultures. How novel.

As proof of how valid this training may be, the article said, “The State Department hopes that this kind of role-playing will prepare hundreds of new “civilian surge” recruits to deal with two foreign cultures — the U.S. military and Afghanistan.” The Post reported:

When President Obama announced what the White House called a “comprehensive new strategy” for the Afghanistan war last March, he called for a “dramatic increase in our civilian effort” that included additional diplomats and experts in agriculture, education, health and rule of law sent to Kabul and to provincial reconstruction teams across the country. Despite early difficulties finding and clearing sufficient numbers of volunteers, Deputy Secretary Jacob L. Lew said during a visit to Indiana on Thursday that the State Department was “on track” to triple the number of civilians, to 974, by early next year.

My hope is that when Obama announces his military decisions on the mission and exit strategy, he will also ask for a realistic amount of civilian resources and personnel to allow our military to exit ASAP. Even though this makes simple common sense, to wonder if it will happen shows the degree of AA addiction America must overcome.

]]> http://www.cocktailhag.com/blog/uncategorized/america-needs-immediate-treatment-for-its-aa-addiction-to-itself/feed/ 19 http://www.cocktailhag.com/blog/wtf/whod-a-thunk/ http://www.cocktailhag.com/blog/wtf/whod-a-thunk/#comments Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:58:37 +0000 cocktailhag http://www.cocktailhag.com/blog/?p=1034 CHNN NEWS FLASH!

Karl Rove said something truthful…  I hope you’re sitting down.  He called Maureen Dowd, among other true things, “bitter, deranged, snarky, nasty,” and such.  All true, but Karl being Karl, then he lied, when he said her nastiness was aimed only at conservatives, something that would surely make the Clintons gawk in amazement.

He had me going there for a second.