KISSINGER: SALT PEANUTS

Bob Woodward has stirred up D.C. again-- Administration flacks hacks and heavies have phalanxed forward with an onslaught of what else....Denial!!....to combat Woodward's portrait of a White House in disarray infightingly disunited and desperate to conceal from the American people the incendiarily negative news(from a Pentagon Report) insurging into the carefully manicured official version of events from the troubling debacle in Iraq-- Woodward avers that Rumsfeld and Cheney have been repeatedly briefed by any number of advisors and intelligence officials refusing to pull any punches concerning the dangerously high caliber severity of the current situation on the ground in Iraq and the 2007 high probability of that situation worsening-- There is no light at the end of the tunnel so faced with an acute pressure of potential losses in the upcoming midterm elections an imperiled leadership has questionably sought the advice of one Henry Kissinger-- Did Kissinger offer his own services or has the administration dead ended itself on the idea front and succumbed to a temptation hallucinating'victory' through some kind of heavily accented intercession by the overrated Doctor and his ghost of Vietnam?-- Woodward's exposition of a White House in constant denial stonewalling criticism no matter how constructive at every turn shows a dysfunctional leadership cocooned in self-deception-- Our ship of state is gullivered to the ground in Iraq and our ability to deal realistically with the situation is practically defunct--

It also illustrates the inability of Kissinger and many others to come to grips with and accept closure on the defeat North Vietnam inflicted on the U.S.-- The tired toilworn excuses multiply and the list of the blameworthy increasingly fans outward in every direction save the mirror the maudlin doctor K. refuses to acknowledge-- Victory denied/lost or The One that Got Away has kept the Nobel Prize festooned Doctor on a thirty year jag of haunting torment-- For all the prewar denial that Iraq would or could be like another Vietnam it is surprising that so many in the Foreign Policy Establishment sought solution to the insurgent uprising in Iraq (after months of stonewall denial that an insurgency even existed) by implementing a rather dusty but similar variation of tactics and strategy that imperiled engulfed and then finally expelled our presence from Vietnam--The Iraqi-ization of Iraq ring any bells??--

That Kissinger is subconsciously at best attempting to redeem his legacy of acute historical failure by counseling Bush to fight Iraq through the ghosts of Vietnam is an egregious prescription for impending doom politically and militarily-- When no possible insurgency even faintly radar-ed the imaginations of the illustrious neocon Architects(liberators yet awaiting welcome) the genius of Rumsy and Wolfy failed to weigh the potential benefits of a 'hearts and minds' strategy should necessity predicate its application-- Though some thoroughly competent commandeers and boots-on-the-ground officers, combatantly visionary if you will, immediately perceived the rising insurgency and their potential efficacy and that if the denial of their existence continued to flourish in the minds of the Cabal embedded in D.C. the potential for seriously negative repercussions would expand and escalate into dimensions we would not be capable, under the current manpower restraints, of mitigating-- These officers knew our only chance for victory required a massive amount of help from Iraqi people and any tctics which might alienate large sectors of the Iraqi public would be counterproductive in the extreme--Their intel met with berated dismissal, caustic ignorance and a potentially fatal lack of respect--

The administration basking in the delerious hubris of mission accomplished erred in not trusting their officers intel calling for 'hearts and minds' or assymetrical tactics until the insurgency's spawn infected the entire country and denial became in military parlance politically non-operational--Magnitudiously too late in the day for effective action to be implemented by our undermanned underequipped forces over such wide swaths of territory now openly controlled by various tribal and sectarian factions and their militias, the timidly slow reaction of the Deciders in D.C. wasted globs of vitally precious time chasing these unredeemed Vietnam tactics up and down the corridors of petulant hierarchical infighting and bureacratic blindness engendered from the careering paradigms of the mahogany foxholed-- The Fog of War clarified means considerably different things to those embunkered at the White House the State Dept. and DoD and those caught in the friendly crossfire that ceased Pat Tillman's soldiery on the desert canyon/ridgetop night in Afghanistan--

When the Vietnamese general admitted to initially feeling the effects of the Phoenix Program of targeted assassination Special Force tacticians loathe to admit that more might be counterproductive expanded the program alienating more and more potential allies amongst the hearts and minds we were attempting to win-- Whether out of fear terror hatred respect or ideological kinship the general population aided and abetted the North Vietnamese Army and The Vietcong to such a degree their intel capability allowed our enemy majority control of the time and terrain upon which they chose to engage in battle-- Control we failed to acknowledge in the upper heights of Command in D.C. but control we also failed to wrest from them on the jungle floor and which they never relinquished-- Bitter facts for the families of The Fifty Five Thousand and all those touched by the insane fire of Vietnam--

We can blame each other back and forth up and down in and out over and under every which way imaginable ad infinitum from the generals blaming the politicians blaming the hippies blaming the soldiers blaming the lifers blaming the draftees blaming the generals blaming the liberals blaming the conservatives blaming the protesters blaming the silent majority blaming the college professors blaming the intelligence blaming the chickenhawks blaming the president blaming the congress blaming the religous blaming the apathetic blaming the pows blaming the 4-f's blaming the c.o.'s blaming the ROTC blaming the draft dodgers in canada blaming the blamemakers-- My apology to those not mentioned, omission does not absolve your inclusion into this roiling choir--

The point being the Vietnam debacle belonged then and now still to all of us--Many people who actually perpetrated our collective failure in Vietnam never accepted responsibility and were never held accountable for their part in this national nightmare-- Finger pointing backbiting backstabbing excuse making etc. has festered for thirty years behind the curtains of our ship of state-- Denial wrought by this cowardly refusal to face up to our bitter feast of political and moral consequences insures that when we do the affair will be poisonous if not outrightly fatal and from this perspective seems to lead directly to this ignominious effort to pull victory in Vietnam from the jaws of imminent defeat in Iraq--

Kissinger for his part has blamed on too many occasions the American people for their 'loss of will' oblivious to the exhaustion a people might accrue to itself after having listened to the perpetual bold faced lies ('Peace is at hand.-- Light at the end of the tunnel-- The war will be over in 6 weeks--) emanating from self serving players on the political stage of yore now merging with those fashioned around our current imbroglio (We will impose our will on Iraq-- We can pay for the war with Iraqi oil profits-- When the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down-- ad nauseum) -- The noble sacrifice the political elite extols was on the ground in Vietnam by those noble grunts monikered 'getting wasted'-- Mr. Kisinger, the American people have a right and a duty whether from exhaustion or anger or sorrow or enlightenment to oppose the continued sacrifice of their sons and daughters by politicians fighting battles of which the potential political/economic benefits that supposedly adhere to such warfare have long since ceased such possibility-- The also have the right and duty to call you on the carpet for crimes you may a committed in the prosecution of such warfare and the 'waste' of their noble sacrifice-- Wake up!!!!!!

On the day after journeyman Buster Douglas unceremoniously and shockingly knocked out one of the most fearsome intimidating men in heavyweight boxing history, Mike Tyson shorn of his gold jewelry and expensive suits and sycophantic entourage trudged alone up the lonely city street to meet with the media salivating in vulturelike wait for the deranged ex-champ to explode into self-destructive immolation-- No excuses and no one else blamed and for at least this moment in his life his manhood singularly redeemed, facing rough music like a man 'What can I say?. I got my butt kicked!!'-- On this day no whining--

Denial of our defeat only perpetuates it-- Lost time is not found again--Take Henry Kissinger's prescriptions with a grain of salt-- Rough music is coming our way-- Bring us men man enough to face it--