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June 7, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
A Crisis of Confidence
in US Leadership
June 6, 2002
Michael Colby
White House
vs. EPA:
Political Hot Air and
Global Warming
Ron Jacobs
The Indo-Pakistan Conflict:
It's Just a Shot Away
Francis Boyle
Take Sharon
to The Hague:
Prosecute Israeli War Crimes
at Jenin
CounterPunch Bulletin
60 Minutes and President Chavez's
Censored F-Word
Mark Weisbrot
Spying
and Lying:
The FBI's Shameful Past
June 5, 2002
Robert Fisk
Berlusconi the Censor
Danielle Brian
Nuclear
Plants and Terrorism
Ardeshir Cowasjee
For What Do We Fight?
George Monbiot
Kashmir
on the Brink
Michael Neumann
What is Antisemitism?
June 4, 2002
Dave Marsh
Bono the Useful Idiot
William Evan / Francis
Boyle
Kashmir:
Invoking Intl. Law to Avoid Nuclear War
Cockburn / St. Clair
The Future Wellstone Deserves
June 3, 2002
Ramdas / Makhijani
India,
Pakistan and Nukes:
A Road Map to Peace
Fran Shor
Meanwhile, Back in Afghanistan
Neve Gordon
The Caterpillar
Effect
June 2, 2002
Fidel Castro
From FDR to Mister "W.":
Cuba, the US and Democracy
Arundhati Roy
Under the
Nuclear Shadow
Bernard Weiner
Bush 9/11 Scandal for Dummies
June 1, 2002
Norman Madarasz
The
Strange Math of Roberto Carlos: Brazil v. Turkey
Gavin Keeney
Bush and Mies van der Rohe:
Architecture and Ideology
Jeff Halper
Sharon's
Post-Incursion Plan:
Incarceration or Transfer?
Walt Brasch
Crumpling the Constitution
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June 7, 2002
"Send in
The Weekly Standard"
The Screaming Pundits Assault
Corps
by George Sunderland*
The attentive consumer of news has undoubtedly
noticed over the past decade how incompetent our well-paid military
leadership is. Beginning with their incomprehensible failure
to launch a ground assault on Baghdad during Desert Storm, the
military has been the author of or contributor to one screw-up
after another. The non-use of ground troops in Kosovo, the puzzling
unwillingness to attack the Chinese for their holding a U.S.
reconnaissance plane, the embarrassing caution about unleashing
Desert Storm II: this is only a partial list.
And how does the lay person, with no
military background, know the U.S. military is timorous, hidebound,
incapable of fulfilling America's manifest destiny of benevolent
global hegemony? He can hardly avoid that conclusion, bombarded
as he is by the wise strategic insight by thinkers on the exalted
level of Bill Kristol, Robert Kagan, Frank Gaffney, and William
Safire, to name only a few. The American public is fortunate
to have these heirs of Clausewitz and Moltke the Elder to correct
the strategic military blunders of our elected leaders and the
overly cautious professional military class. These sages never
shrink from sounding the call for bold military action from their
lap-tops, microphones, and lecterns.
But unsolicited advice in the op-ed pages
of The New York Times or The New Republic can hardly be expected
to reverse the despicable torpor into which our military policy
has fallen. As every good drill sergeant or Catholic priest knows,
the best leadership is leadership by example! Herewith a modest
proposal to better utilize the collective talent of our best
strategic thinkers.
On the model of the intellectuals who
created the international brigades to fight in the Spanish Civil
War, our 200 most illustrious war pundits should be formed into
a special assault company to take on the tasks the U.S. military
is too chicken to perform. Is there a Navy P-3 sitting shanghaied
on Hainan Island? The 1st Pundit Assault Company (Special Operations
Capable) should be parachuted into the island to blow it up and
raise general mayhem among the perfidious Red hordes. Has the
CIA overcome its incompetence and located Saddam Hussein in one
of his numerous palaces? Send in the 1st Pundit Assault Company
to storm the palace, overcome the Republican Guard, and slay
the beast in his lair. Since Saddam is the leitmotiv and obsession
of the pundits' writings, since he no doubt appears wraith-like
in their troubled dreams, we can be sure the pundits would jump
at the chance to kill him, even if the cost were their own certain
death! Are the Serbs recalcitrant about turning over Radovan
Karadzic, the Slavic Caligula? If the pundits are as forthcoming
with deeds as they are with words, Karadzic or some other hapless
Bohunk will be cowering in the dock in no time!
Since, as every patriotic and right-thinking
American knows, life is like a movie, our pundits would have
the unbelievable luck of playing the role of a lifetime: war
hero and leader of men, just like John Wayne in The Sands of
Iwo Jima or Tom Hanks in Saving Private Ryan, only better - for
this time, the bullets and the blood would be real, mere talk
would be translated into action. Our brave pundits could be transfigured
by a meaningful death, rather than expiring on a respirator at
Washington Hospital Center after 10 pointless years of senile
dementia. A glorious death for the sake of benevolent global
hegemony would not be wasted on Richard Pearl or Michael Kelly
as it would be on the callow and non-Ivy League youth who make
up the bulk of today's foot-slogging infantry.
The man best equipped to lead this swaggering
band of heros is Bill Kristol, the hands-down champion of martial
virtue who never eschewed a chance to send U.S. forces into combat,
be it in the sun-drenched wastes of Iraq or the gloomy crags
of the Hindu Kush. With only a modest subsidy from Rupert Murdoch,
he has singlehandedly made The Weekly Standard into the foremost
journal of militarism since the Wehrmacht ceased publishing Signal.
And needless to say, he would lead his company from the front,
even on suicide missions.
As the company's executive officer in
charge of security, the natural choice would be William Safire.
His curriculum vitae fairly brims with excellence: principal
champion of the link between Saddam and the attack on the World
Trade Center, he should be given the opportunity to get in on
the fun when the bullets fly. His career in intelligence is legendary:
tasked by his Mossad handlers to torpedo the career of Admiral
Bobby Inman (another do-nothing professional officer who had
the bad taste to know what happened to the U.S.S. Liberty), Safire
succeeded brilliantly. He was also the man in charge of fingering
Wen Ho Lee as a Chinese spy; was it his fault the FBI was too
incompetent to beat the truth out of an obviously guilty man?
And, of course, as the confidant of Ariel Sharon, Safire has
much of "the Bulldozer's" manly bravado. And so to
the rest of the cast: as platoon leaders, the aforementioned
Gaffney, Kelly, and Perle would be logical choices, but there
is such a wealth of talent that it is difficult to elevate some
above the others. "Kenny" Adelman, who seems to have
spent the last decade in obscurity, has recently come on strong
with his pronouncement that a war against Iraq would be "a
cake walk." What could be better for him than to test his
theory while leading a heavy weapons platoon onto the tarmac
at Baghdad Airport? Then again, why not Andrew Sullivan (for
the purposes of this unit, both citizenship requirements and
the "don't ask, don't tell" policy could be waived)?
Since readers of The Weekly Standard
know that the regular military is meanly underfunded at a mere
$350 billion or so annually, the 1st Pundit Assault Company would
be entirely equipped and supplied from the incomes of its personnel.
This practice would bring back the panache of the old British
officer corps, who purchased their commissions. Likewise, no
basic training at Fort Benning for this elite unit: as its members
make up the greatest concentration of strategic brainpower since
the Oberkommando des Heeres set up shop, they are clearly in
no need of mundane exercises like crawling over obstacle courses
and 20 mile route marches. No, straight to the front for these
eager beavers! And another critical point: isn't air support
for wimps, as well as a burden on the taxpayer? If enemy resistance
is heavy, the 1st Pundit Assault Company can lug a few mortars
with them. After all, can't one American Enterprise Institute
alumnus whip a hundred ragheads?
Despite their virile heroism, the "Screaming
Pundits," like any other group of fighting men, will need
spiritual support. Just as Father Duffy induced the Fighting
69th to seek Divine guidance before bayoneting the Hun, the Pundits
will require encouragement from their own fighting chaplain.
For this office, there could be no candidate more suitable than
Holy Joe Lieberman. As a bonus, his Hassidic leanings would emphasize
the deep spiritual purpose behind the 1st Pundits' continual
deployment to fight Israel's enemies.
Finally, and as distasteful as it is
to relate, we must consider what happens if a "Screaming
Pundit" is captured by the enemy. Every man jack of them
has to realize that as a great nation, America cannot lower its
prestige by bargaining for the return of its fighting men. The
very idea negates the whole concept of National Greatness. Accordingly,
each member of the Pundits will be issued a cyanide pill to obviate
the disgraceful consequences of capture by our evil enemies.
And we may be sure that unlike that cringing poltroon Francis
Gary Powers, every captured pundit will see his duty and bite
down on it!
George Sunderland is the pen name of a Congressional staff member.
His previous article for CounterPunch was How
the Israel Lobby Controls Congress. He can be reached at:
counterpunch@counterpunch.org.
Today's Other Features:
Tom Turnipseed
A Crisis of Confidence
in US Leadership
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