This is from a fantastic trove of previously sevret Soviet Politburo documents documenting the lead-up to their reluctant invasion of Afghanistan, and the unfolding realisation of their military impotence against a persistent, tribally based resistance.
Despite brutal measures and “staying the course” for 10 years, eventually the Soviets were forced to retreat ignominiously from Afghanistan with no concrete results save that the myth of Soviet superpower invincibility in the Transcaucuses and Eurasia was in tatters. This led in short order to the rebellion and disaffiliation by most of the former eastern Soviet Empire territories, and the ongoing rebellions in the Transcaucuses. And of course, it left much of Afghanistan in the hands of well-funded, US-trained, eager Islamist “freedom fighters” for whom Osama Bin Laden appeared out of the West as a rich uncle bestowing gifts and ideas.
The US retreat from Fallujah, leaving it in the tender hands of its former Saddamist generalissimo Salah Aboud al-Jabbouri (or Jassim Mohammed Saleh, accounts vary), is a demonstration of the limits of “superpower” strength when faced with lethal, modern rebellions armed with incredibly cheap, asynchronous weaponry. Some “pundits” have maintained that the Pentagon held back and could instead have “pulverised” Fallujah. As emotionally and physically impressive as is the onslaught of an air and artillery bombardment, it is rarely as effective as its proponents like to imagine. This was visible as far back as WW2’s Battle of Monte Cassino when, despite overwhelming air superiority and a sustained, terrible bombardment that annihilated most structures, the Allied troops found it incredibly difficult to dislodge the entrenched defenders hiding in the rubble. Only positional warfare, killing a huge quantity of inhabitants and using large numbers of troops and losing a high percentage of them to attrition combat can convincingly seize dense urban or mountain terrain.
It seems that due to the manpower and political constraints of their all-volunteer army, the Pentagon is unable to countenance such tactics which, barring new developments or use of urban incapacitating agents, significantly reduces the ability of the US to project power.
With its impotence in the face of sustained rebellion laid bare, the Pentagon once again faces the prospect of a humiliating reduction in its “footprint” throughout the developing world. Just as the US retreat from Lebanon in the 1980s emboldened Saddam and other Middle Eastern dictators, just as Somalia emboldened anti-US strategists during the 1990s while confusing US geopolitical planning, and just as the Soviet failure in Afghanistan emboldened resistance movements to its domination throughout its Empire, so too would an ignominious US retreat within Iraq into fortified, impotent bases prove fundamentally weakening to US imperial ambitions.
So the final irony may be this: Wolfowitz, Cheney, Perle and the other neocons campaigned throughout the 1990s for a demonstration of US technological and military prowess within the Middle East to act, so they said, as a decisive demonstration of their ability to effect relentless change and a compulsory re-ordering of political structures there for their benefit. But their plan was predicated on the use of a tiny portion of the US military, and the willing acceptance of their neoliberal ideology by the inhabitants. Instead they face growing resistance, an over-stretched US military, and the prospect that the US’s “hyperpower” reputation could be eliminated and replaced by an image of an ineffectual, blundering giant, swatting uselessly at flies. Which is exactly where the Soviets found themselves in 1989, following their retreat from Afghanistan. Within six months most of the Eastern Bloc had rebelled and rejected Soviet Communism, and within a few years that Empire just curled up and died from neglect and shame.
It had to happen. US Senator Rick Santorum, the “third-ranking Senator in the Republican Party” is now the third-ranked hit on Google for Santorum. The first and second hits for Santorum lead, of course to the frothy mix of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex.
Earlier here.
One year on from Apple’s launch of the shiny, misleading iTMS, I see that the number of WMA downloads now exceeds Apple’s FairPlay downloads:
iTMS - 4.9MM (Fairplay)
Walmart - 2.7MM (WMA)
Napster 2.0 - 1.9MM (WMA)
Musicmatch - 1.5MM (WMA)
BuyMusic - 0.5MM (WMA)
These are still tiny numbers compared to the vast avalanche of files going through the p2p networks.
Dave Barry linked his blog to the Korean Arse Shooter. Well done.
Earlier here.