Okay, you made me President and now you expect me to do something about the Middle East and get our troops home. But you don’t expect me to do miracles. You know I have to operate within the laws of physics, as well as within the parameters of what is politically possible. You also expect me to adhere to common standards of decency and international law. I can’t just drop a couple nuclear bombs and see if it creates an attitude adjustment.
Well…my options are limited. I can’t increase our troop levels. That just isn’t poltically possible. I can’t side with the Sunni because that would be feeding an insurgency against the democratic government we helped set up. I can’t throw all our weight behind the Shi’a because all our allies in the region are Sunni, and they won’t accept a policy that results in the extermination of their religious brethren. If I pull out all our troops, that extermination will go forth with terrific fury. What the hell am I supposed to do?
I’m sad to say that there is not much I can do. Here are some ideas.
1) If I can’t increase or maintain our troop levels, I can’t protect the Sunni in Iraq using our military. I am going to have to use the State Department, the United Nations, NGO’s, and other governmental organizations. I will allocate a few billion dollars to create a resettlement fund for Iraqi citizens. I will ask Prime Minister Maliki to set up a government agency that will give fair assessments for Iraqis property and offer to buy up the non-mobile assets of Iraqis that feel the need to resettle. I will work with Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and (possibly) Syria to help fund temporary housing and other assistance for Iraqis that are re-locating. I’ll also create a domestic program for Iraqis that require amnesty. I will also set aside a fund for possible repatriotian of Iraqis if conditions ever warrant it.
2) I will attempt to bring together all the regional players in a peace conference, where the focus will be on ending the civil war within Iraq.
3) I will be prepared to make concessions to Iran and Syria and to insist on concessions from Israel as part of an effort to stabilize Iraq and jump start the Middle East peace process.
4) I will enlist Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton to spearhead an effort to revive the Middle East peace process.
That’s the starting point. I will also approach China, Russia, and France to see whether they can be enticed, possibly through oil contracts, into giving us support in an effort to stabilize the region.
The prospects are not very good. But those are the cards I was dealt.
What are your ideas?
to bring the troops home…and replace them with the peacemakers.
Bring home the National Guard to protect us here at home, and send in Doctors Without Borders to heal the wounds (physical and emotional) that our invasion has inflicted.
Bring home the reserves, and send in Habitat for Humanity to rebuild the homes destroyed by our bombs and the bombs of the insurgents we spawned.
Bring home the regular troops, and send in the Peace Corps to rebuild the schools, the sewage facilities, and all the other infrastructure that have been destroyed through our neglect.
And let’s give some support to the Red Crescent (the Muslim version of the Red Cross), that they can determine where the need is greatest and we can apply our resources properly.
And how do we pay for all this? We take back the money that Halliburton and their associates have stolen from the federal government in no-bid contracts.
That’s just one woman’s opinion, though…YMMV…
First, I’d fire Haliburton, and all of the other war profiteers and eject all “private security” personel.
Then, I’d reassign all infastructure contracts to middle eastern firms, and make sure the work was getting done properly by well-paid and well-treated local labor. That would go a long way towards taking many young men off the streets where they will only fall in with sectarian groups.
I’d propose a law making war profiteering illegal. I’d propose a tax hike to pay for our costs in Iraq.
I’d get down on my knees and beg forgiveness for the blood bath that will take place when we leave.
As the new decider, you name Iraq the 51st state. In doing so, it becomes FEMA’s problem. You go initially and do a flyover visual survey of the area and make a great speech. It is then swept under the rug until just before the next presidential election. At that point you’ve decided to not run again and it becomes the problem of your successor.
So you want to be president for a few hours. Are you ready to decide or dither?
The options “are now limited” because as president, you’ve been ‘Out of Touch’ for the last 5 years. You lifted the Saddam lid off the Iraq volcano so this chaos will play itself out between the neighbors. Iraq was never a natural state. Only the neighbors can solve this civil war.
And since you’re no longer seen as an honest broker, no good to place the troops in the middle of a domestic fight. Yea, you couldn’t wait SO
You now have 2 options:
1. You can Surge all the way to defeat. Everyone knows, the troops you ain’t got and this is a cocamanie idea that will further bankrupt the treasury by trillions
or
2. You can re-affirm half a mission accomplished. No need to play dress up as you declare you’ve achieved half your goal – regime change – (some regime change). Beat a hasty retreat and make good on one campaign promise that you’d never nation build – there’s that word, never. You’re no good with a hammer, Cheney’s shot gun or for that matter, anything else.
Tell the Saudis, other Princes and Kings throughout the region to take up the fight since they’re insisting our troops stay to protect their golden asses. We’re too stretched and Americans won’t stand any more for propping up their palaces.
Yea, it’ll be emotional for a while but we got over Vietnam. We’ll get over this ‘calamity’ too.
1-Out now.
2-Emergency belt-tightening measures throughout the country. Gas rationing if necessary.
3-An all-out industrial/corporate/scientific/media propaganda/whatever it takes push to develop alternate fuels and SERIOUS conservation measures.
4-A “Gilroy Policy”.
We are out of the economic imperialism business.
Yo Yo.
Y’on y’own.
Wanna do straight up business with us…? Fine.
Don’t? Fine too.
We can live on cranberries for a while if we must.
Bet on it.
BUT…fuck with us in any serious way and we will nuke you.
Bet on that too.
5-SERIOUSLY cut the military budget and/or redistribute/redirect a great deal of the responsibilities shared by the military and its industrial-complex owners to rebuilding the domestic infrastructure.
Ground up.
Keep only enough standing military to protect our own land and retaliate in massive fashion against any attack.
6-Blanket amnesty and citizenship to all who are here now, and a rational immigration policy favoring the families of those who are ALREADY here.
7-End the so-called war on drugs. START a war on drug importers. A real one. Like…jail and death and stuff.
8-Start investigating and prosecuting those who are still alive who were complicit in the theft of this government, starting with the JFK assassination.
Kissinger would be a good beginning.
Poppy Bush, too.
9-Start investigating and prosecuting those who have made our financial system a kleptocracy.
Can Poppy Bush stand trial twice? Simultaneously, maybe?
No matter, if not.
There’s enough guilt to go around.
Oysters Rockefeller, anyone?
10-Totally reform the tax structure so that the rich pay exactly the percentage of their incomes as do the poor and middle class.
And last but not least:
11- SERIOUSLY beef up the Secret Service.
BECAUSE MY ASS IS GRASS IF THESE MOTHERFUCKERS CAN GET TO ME FIRST.
Thank you, my fellow Americans.
Da Pres
P.S. 12-Paint the White House black, brown and beige.
For real.
Maybe the flag, too.
As a musician, where do you put the Rolling Stones’ Moonlight Mile? I just can’t praise it enough.
Compared to what?
Really.
As a “musician”?
Compared to who?
Ravel?
John Mellencamp?
Britney Spears?
Howlin’ Wolf?
Gil Evans and Miles Davis?
Frank Sinatra in his prime?
Ella Fitzgerald?
Better than Britney Spears. I’ll give ’em that.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of production money, guaranteed. I’ll bet they spent a week ekeing that thing out of the band. Hell, it probably took a week to sober Keith up enough to be able to play. If that’s even him. (“OK. Get that guitar tumer in here while Keith is getting high in the back. Tune that thing up and QUICK before he gets back and sees you doing it!!!”) Another week trying to sweeten it. (The various sounds OTHER than the Fab 3 1/2.) THREE weeks trying to mix the thing into some Frankensteinian semblance of an acoutstically performed piece.
Clump clump clomp clomp clump goes the rhythm.
“Uhhh…Mick…couldya try that high note again?”
376 takes later.
“That’s got it!!! Thanks EVER so much!!!”
Fromp fromp frump frump go the chords.
(“No. Keith, that’s a C MINOR chord there. Yup. the one where your finger goes HERE!!! THAT’S a good fella.”)
It IS loud, though…
And it is also good rock ‘n roll, for whatever that’s worth.
Denatured blues and country/folk mostly played by wannabes who got too wealthy too early to ever actually learn how to BE.
Wannabes who became buy it-bees.
Good thing I’m Preznit, now.
And Branford Marsalis is my Minister of Culture.
Eh?
You asked…
Da Pres
I’m speaking from WAY inside, here, BooMan. I was a working studio musician for 15 years or more in NYC. Recorded with EVERYBODY. Several of my close colleagues have traveled with the Stones.
Money talks, NOBODY walks.
One of my best and oldest friends is now playing with Bruce Springsteen. (Who, by the way, even if he is not exactly Mozart or James Joyce is SO much higher on the poetic and musical scale than the Stones that thyey are almost not living in the same universe. And HE can barely play compared to a couple of thousand jazz musicians of the past 100 years or so. He’s just smart enough to know it.)
Like I said…you asked.
“As a musician…” you said.
AG
Heh. You are SUCH a snob.
I am NOT a snob, BooMan.
I’m just a good musician.
You asked.
If I wsere a good plumber, you asked me about the plumbing in your house and I answered you frankly with no intent to make a profit…would I be a snob then?
Or just a good, honest plumber telling you the truth about the rotten plumbing that was giving you lead poisoning.
Same same.
As above, so below.
You asked…
I am bound to answer.
Honestly.
So it goes.
AG
I would take your #2 and prioritize it to #1. A regional conference of the 25 or so nations in the Middle East, including India and Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, etc. convened to begin a settling of peak oil, of nuclear proliferation, of containing unrest, and of the motives of fundamentalist zeal in bringing some stability and UNIMPORTANCE to the Middle East.
The carbon burden of the atmosphere and ocean will soon doom life on Earth; oil is not the answer, and the Middle East is not so damn important; what is important is to find energy sources that are not controllable, that are clean, efficient, and available to everyone in every place. It can be done.
The Middle East and oil/gas will rapidly become UNIMPORTANT. Get over it folks, your biodiesel, ethanol, hydrogen and all the rest will be useless unless we want to commit mass suicide and heat the planet up like Venus.
The rest of the world should follow suit with the regional conference, and agree on working together to face the most horrific crisis we’ve ever had to face besides nuclear annilihilation.
Seriously.
OM
If you were president and I didn’t get some kind of cushy patronage job, I’d be really pissed.
Certainly first priority would be to restore cooperative relationships with other nations. But before we do, it would be necessary to restore their belief that we are serious. So before you get elected, get smart people to create a real plan for energy independence (a la Brazil) and on the first day (before the post-inaugural brunch) sign it as an executive order. Once other nations know that we won’t be blackmailable for much longer, the international climate may change.
And before you go to bed that evening (or the next morning, given the number of inaugural balls you’ll have to show up at)pull out a dusty copy of the Constitution. It makes good bedtime reading.
I think I’d start with a speech to the UN saying we blew it by invading Iraq and we ask the world’s forgiveness. Now we’re going to work with anyone who can demonstrate a positive commitment to do the best we can to make things right. Anyone want to join us? We’ll start by forming a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to hold those who got us into this mess responsible to those who were damaged by it. And while we’re doing that, we’ll implment all the other good ideas that have be identified above.
Yup. Nailed it. That’s why there is no way out of Iraq: the US can’t ever do this.
at this time.
This strikes me as a highly technical matter, not any kind of public policy issue that most of any ordinary citizens or even career politicians can possibly be trained to discuss intelligently.
We know that Iraq invasion scenarios have been war-gamed and modelled by number of military, diplomatic and other experts.
What I would do as a campaigner for President would be to point out that all this thoughtful study, by all these dedicated, highly skilled military and other experts, was ignored by the Republicans to bog us down in their catastrophe.
I’d be consulting with whatever experts I could unearth but I would say as a candidate that we need to start with the previous expert planning that has now proven to be the most accurate in predicting the present disasterous conditions.
And take it from there.