HotK - Ch. 58: Unsaid

Whoops, got behind on my announcements there.

For the fanfiction readers, on March 3rd I posted a chapter for Hands of the King, Ch. 58 - Unsaid. Click on the story title to go to the overview, click on the chapter name to go to the chapter.

1 of 2 Denethor POV chapters. No warnings.

A single day of Denethor's life. What is the price for keeping your silence? What are the uses of words unspoken? How do fear and hope conspire to make us keep thoughts to ourselves?

Significant scenes with Finduilas, Imrahil, Ecthelion and Thorongil.

Anglachel

Big Brother BS

Some Mac user with more time than brains hacked up the Apple "1984" ad and substituted Hillary Clinton's face for the Big Brother face in the ad. I'm honestly surprised it wasn't done before.

Where it gets interesting are the non-denial denials from the Obama campaign about it, including a totally lame excuse from the senator himself about his campaign not being able to afford to create something with production values that high. Oh, puh-leeeze. It's a farking YouTube mashup. There are no production values.

I for one firmly believe the Obama campaing did not create the video, if only because they know better than to dirty their hands directly. It was done by an Obama supporter/Hillary hater. What they have done is cynically ride the viral marketing wave produced by the video.

Sorry, Sen. Obama, if you want to run on the platform of being more squeaky-clean-than-thou, you needed to have loudly and aggressively condemned the ad from Day 1, not half-heartedly try to distance yourself from it days after it has been circulating. You must be and not just seem.

Hillary, on the other hand, has made a joke out of it, as well she should. It appeals only to those who already don't like her, and raises sympathy among those who dislike smear politics, not to mention pisses off people sick and tired of Mac peddling itself as the computer of the masses when it is the most elitist product line in the computing industry.

Ponder that for a minute.

Anglachel

Some Family History

I've been overwhelmed with a big (but fascinating and rewarding) project at work, plus I'm spending most of my free time trying to wrap up Hands of the King, so I haven't had spare brain cells for blogging. I still don't. Instead, I offer up part of a letter from my dad about his dad, who was a surgeon in the Navy from just before WWII into the 50s:

Reminded was I of you and of your grandfather, by the display of the effects of inadequate funding, planning and preparation on service and facilities for the severely injured soldiers and their families uncovered by the Washington Post in the administration's back yard.

Way back in 2003, a Marine general accused the administration of trying to fight a war on the cheap, which always costs more in suffering and money in the long run. About then, Salon was reporting that other hospitals in other parts of the country were failing to provide the care and accommodations for them, but it took a big newspaper to publicize the lack.

Your grandfather was given the assignment to provide shelter, beds, care, medicines, and the concomitant support in preparation for the wounded Marines and Navy people in the assault on the major islands of the Marianas Islands -- Guam, Saipan, and Tinian. He was to do this on Kwajalein Atoll, which the Marines took by assault about a year before. After designing the hospital, and coordinating with the construction battalion which would build it, he found that, next, he needed to have the people killed in taking the island exhumed and reburied where they would not be under the construction. If I remember correctly, he organized the task well enough that it was completed in one day. He needed to anticipate that the men doing the work would become too sick to work at it all day in the tropical sun. He divided the force into two groups, the first to work through the morning, then be rewarded by being relieved from the work. The second group than took over, did their work, which they finished by evening.

Then he supervised the construction of the evacuation hospital, in time for the first casualties who arrived by air, then followed up by operating it throughout the Marianas campaign, and then, I believe, the Iwo Jima campaign. He was not constrained by an administration that believed in doing everything for the service men, and the few women, on the cheap.

During the war, he had demonstrated that he, his sense of what was necessary, and his work ethic were valuable enough that he was allowed to do what he believed he should do. This was training doctors, particularly surgeons, so he requested, and received, training that would qualify him for membership in the American College of Surgeons. Thereafter, he could request chief of surgery posts at whatever naval hospital to which he was assigned. The benefit for the Navy was that each hospital to which he was assigned immediately became a teaching hospital, and lost that certification when he was reassigned, if no similarly qualified surgeon were available to replace him. He served two tours of duty as commander of the hospital on the USS Haven, whose primary concern was care of wounded Marines, with a few Naval or other service personnel, work that mostly involved surgery.

Well, perhaps I have energy for a few rants. Having worked at a military hospital (though in a non-medical position) I know that the difference between having something that runs "ship-shape" and something that does not is leadership. Trite, perhaps, but true. And the key to leadership is giving a shit about the people who serve you. How can you lead if you don't care for the people following?

This is perhaps the core of the Cheney administration - treating everyone around them as expendable tools. The Army as paper plates; use 'em and throw 'em away. Props for photo ops. send them home and them treat them as undeserving and parasites when they need care for the injuries suffered in a bogus war.

The buck for the debacle at Walter Reed stops on the desk of the commanding officers who DAMN WELL KNEW the conditions in which the soldiers were living (and dying). I know how things like that get reported. The military runs on gossip. You bet that word of the mess was percolating up - and getting shoved right back down. Every officer in the chain of command from the CO of Walter Reed right up to the top needs to be demoted and fired for dereliction of duty.

And then the entire administration needs to be impeached.

Anglachel

Netroots Blowback

As I predicted a year ago, a wounded but victorious Joe Lieberman would be one nasty son of a bitch to deal with in the Senate.

This is what "Nedrenaline" got us. This is what the criminal waste of money, time and energy won for the Democrats. This is what a few self-aggrandizing blogwhores did to an election year when we needed Democratic unity, not scorched-earth purge-the-party tactics.

Joe Lieberman is a shit-head. Period. He is also a senior senator in a safe seat enjoying majority support in his state. Unless there was a candidate to blow this backstabbing fucker out of the water, it was not a race to enter.

We could really use Harold Ford in the Senate right now, a solid party-line voter who would neutralize Lieberman. Come to think about it, we could have used more Democrats in both houses, and not watched a few people lose by razor thin margins, people often bashed savagely by the netroots left for not sucking up sufficiently to the most vicious, bullying, arbitrary and hate-spewing elements on the left.

But, no, the illiberal left had to go beat up a Southern black man as a tool of the vast underground DLC conspiracy and go promote some white-as-Wonderbread suburban guy with nothing but a fat wallet to recommend him as a viable competitor to Liberman. Like the right-wing Xtians you claim to revile, you would prefer to watch the hope perish than have to interact with people whose views are not quite to your taste.

And now you have Holy Joe bearing down on all your precious anti-war dreams with all guns blazing. Nice going, guys.

Anglachel

What Wes Clark Can Do

One of the reasons that Wes Clark is an appealing candidate to me is because of his unique position as a top military man who is unafraid to call the Republicans on their anti-military actions.

Everyone and the kitchen sink knows that the Republicans are already trying to blame the Democrats for "losing" Bush's Iraq War. They are going to do their damnedest to portray a necessary and thankless job - getting our troops out of Cheney's quagmire with the least amount of death and distruction - into some kind of cowardly retreat or betrayal of the "sacrifices" the military has made.

Wes Clark has consistently opposed the operation since before it was launched as harmful in and of itself to the nation, to military readiness, and to the individual men and women who serve. He can speak authoritatively on the fact that the "loss" was inherent in the operation itself. Unlike Colin Powell, he wasn't afraid to stand up and say so from the very start. Also, unlike people like Edwards, he based his opposition on clear principles and demonstrable facts, and cannot be accused of taking a purely political or expedient stance. Would that more politicians had listened to him at the time.

On the clean-up side of the operation, it is clear that he has both the security of the nation and the long-term viability of the military as primary objectives. He speaks of concrete conditions that must be met in order to withdraw. He is deeply concerned with preserving American power and authority, and that means moral and diplomatic capabilities. A sudden abandonment, while emotionally appealing, is an almost certain way to hamstring US ability to act in the region. I'm not an isolationist or someone who thinks that my nation is inherently corrupt (please, the human stink is the same everywhere) , and I support leaders who think and act for the strategic advantage of the nation.

The Democrats are going to have to act aggressively to change the terms of the debate. The various exposes of the criminal neglect of the military is one of the ways we can use to demonstrate the lie of Republican dedication to security and military strength, but it is going to take people who can speak with authority on this matter. Wes Clark is one of the best positioned Democrats to do so. He knows what he is talking about and his service cannot be impugned. (Though we know the Swiftboaters will try)

He is already out in front on the saber rattling over Iran, and for the same reasons as his oppostion to Bush's Iraq debacle - it is bad for long-term US security, it is destructive of stabilizing initiatives in the region, and it is an inappropriate use of military power when diplomacy and sanctions have not even been tried.

It is time to stop treating the people of the middle east as pawns in our sick national kabuki dance between the fascistic right and the anti-liberal left, neither of whom appear to accept that we must remain engaged and responsible actors on the world stage. Wes Clark is a candidate uniquely positioned to address exactly this issue with consistency and common sense.

Anglachel

HotK - Ch. 57: Confessions

Happy Valentines Day!

For the fanfiction readers, I have just posted a new chapter for Hands of the King, Ch. 57 - Confessions Click on the story title to go to the overview, click on the chapter name to go to the chapter.

Single Finduilas POV chapter. Mild warnings for sadness and minor conflict. A few erotic scenes (what else did you expect for V Day?), so may not be totally work safe.

Finduilas continues to struggle with motherhood. Love is on everyone's mind, though few are content. She listens to the private thoughts of others and reveals her own - not always to good effect. In the end, her patience pays off, though not in ways she really likes. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

Significant scenes with Ecthelion, Denethor, Aiavale, Beregar and Thorongil.

Please be sure to read the Author Note published as the last chapter of the story.

Anglachel

Strategy vs. Pandering

So Edwards hires Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan, the right wing kicks into smear mode, and now there's a dither as to whether these two will be fired or kept on and the netroots has its collective panties in a bunch huffily denouncing Edwards for not standing up to the right. They caterwaul over the double standard of the rightwing adoring its psychopaths while the left is ashamed of its own, and how they will support Edwards if he keeps the bloggers and will hate him forever and vote against him if he does not.

Like, duh, what did anyone with two brain cells to rub together think was going to happen?

The point here is that you hire for strategic reasons. Neither of these women had anything of substance to offer a presidential campaign. Sorry, they just don't. Fun to read for a well turned snark, but neither is a terrribly original or compelling thinker, neither has worked enough in the web industry to have picked up technical or marketing strategy chops, and both of them come with the usual exploitable baggage that anyone with a Blogger account and a smart mouth can claim. Their standing in the blogosphere garners Edwards little extra support, drives away people who think, and makes him a hostage to the most irrational, petulant and vindictive part of the netroots.

This is superficial pandering based on a myopic view of the netroots. I wonder if Edwards understands that large numbers of political junkies like me think people like Marcotte are dumb shits, endlessly recycling their stale opinions to the Greek chorus in their comments section? McEwan has absolutely zero presence in my blog awareness. I've read the blog, but couldn't tell you a single post of hers that stood out. Hiring two dull and tedious bloggers says to me you don't respect your readers and are just trying to toss a bone to the worst elements of the netroots left.

Compare this fiasco to Sen. Clinton's hire of Peter Daou. The only news was all the flak Daou took for signing on with someone so (irrationally) hated by the netroots. Of course he was brought on for his connections to the blogosphere, but I dare say this is someone who can advise and not just advertise. I'd be curious to know if he played a part in her decision to announce her candidacy via her website.

What Edwards did with his choice of these two was cement my opinion that he is not a candidate to be taken seriously. It doesn't matter to me what choice Edwards makes. His first mistake was in hiring either of these second tier scolds in the first place.

Anglachel

Happy and Relieved

Just noting that a dear, dear friend got very good news, and I am doing a dance of joy.

Anglachel

The Illiberal Core of the Clean Hands Left

I have been thinking a great deal recently about the part of the American political left that advocates abandoning the South. The basic argument goes - the South is a hopeless morass of retrograde customs, laws, religion and attitudes, forever cemented to the legacy of racism and slavery. We can't change it and only hurt ourselves trying to win over those states because it makes us compromise on our fundamental liberal values. The Democratic party specifically and the progressive left generally needs to "write-off" the South and let it belong to the bigots and the religious fundamentalists. The recent mid-term electoral successes should prove that we can control the nation without having to deal with the South.

I wrote a post not long after the mid-terms, End of the Party of Lincoln, where I tried to distinguish between the South as a geographical location and the Southern Stain, which is a mind-set of a large minority of Americans, rooted in the legacy of slavery and race thinking from the original slave-holding states. What the left fights - what it always fights - is the anti-democratic impulse that can be found in any society, the dedication to tribalism and fundamentalism in preference to modernity. This may have a geographical stronghold in the US, but it is not a geographical problem. The senate race in Virginia, with a California boy ("Macaca" Allen) proudly defending the forces of anti-modernism, should put a firm and final end to that line of thought.

But there is something not entirely "clean" about the arguments of the Clean Hands Left. Ed Kilgore of New Donkey has been getting at it in oblique ways with a number of his recent posts (Hard Boys, Ford and the DLC, and The Netroots and Clintonism to name a few) where he points out the myths and blind spots of a certain portion of the progressive left. I was bothered by it again today in a comment thread on Carpetbagger Report where a commenter quite blithely said that the North should have let the South go rather than wage a civil war to keep them in the union, with the implicit argument that "we" would have been better off not having this retrograde bunch of states messing up our more perfect union. This is the ultimate bedrock of the "Abandon the South" argument.

Does that mean that it would have been preferable to leave several million people in chattel slavery rather than enforce the liberal tenant that all humans are equal beings, endowed with the same intrinsic rights? Evidently so. The arguments about how the civil war wasn't really about slavery, but about Northern economic dominance, begs the question of the foundations of the southern economic system, which was premised upon the illiberal assertion that slavery is an acceptable social and political practice, without which you cannot have the economic system. It also ignores the fact that the South was prepared to wage war to preserve the ability to expand a slave-based economy to the rest of the continent, as well as to require the North to treat US citizens by two sets of laws - freedom for northern state denizens, slavery for southern states. The "Abandon the South" argument sidesteps the core question that Lincoln answered decisively "Yes" - shall the rights of liberal society be extended to and enforced for all citizens, regardless of the retrograde interests of local and regional elites?

Abandon the South arguments also sidestep the role of violence and institutionalized bigotry in preventing liberal practices from taking root. Have the advocates of this stance really forgotten the structural mechanisms (KKK terrorism, Jim Crow laws, voter intimidation, deliberate disenfranchisement) used to prevent change from occurring? You would think that no one lives in the Bible Belt except white racist religious fundamentalists from the way they argue. Their implicit argument is that people who aren't like that should either leave the region, or somehow vote out the local power elites. If they don't, they have no one but themselves to blame.

This is profoundly disrespectful to those trying to bring about change in the traditional American stronghold of illiberal society, and it is strangely anti-political, as it presumes that there is no point in compromise, no advantage to long-term strategy, and no difference between Trent Lott and Mary Landrieu - they are both from the South and neither are progressive, so to hell with 'em both. Any Southerner who will not be more Northeast-Liberal-than-thou is simply a stealth Republican and must be "exposed" for the frauds that they are.

The way in which this perspective is far closer to the ideology of George Bush than to my own liberalism is found in its callous instrumentality. It is focused upon the needs and desires of a small, ideologically consistent group of "progressive" pundits, and simply cannot acknowledge that to "Abandon the South" in real, human terms means to abandon large swaths of the southern state populations to the reign of fascists and fundamentalists. We already know what this looks like. It is de facto apartheid, rigged legal systems and domestic terrorism.

It is treating the South as Bush is treating New Orleans - no advantage to me there, time to move on. It makes individuals who lack access to power responsible for removing the local and regional power elites, and says they deserve their miserable lives if they aren't "smart" enough to know to vote Democrat. It is the attitude that if you don't support the ideologically pure left, you are indistinguishable from Strom Thurmond.

This is in and of itself a profound abandonment of liberalism.

Anglachel

Hillary's In

I'm happy.

I want some combination of the following four on the Democratic ticket:

1. Al Gore
2. Wes Clark
3. Hillary Clinton
4. Barack Obama

That's my order of preference, too. I can vote with enthusiasm and a clear conscience for all of these people.

Now, whiners of the Neo-Naderite left, try not to fuck up our candidate's chances again, OK?

Anglachel

HotK - Ch. 56: Patrimony

For the fanfiction readers, I have just posted a new chapter for Hands of the King, Ch. 56 - Patrimony Click on the story title to go to the overview, click on the chapter name to go to the chapter.

Single Denethor POV chapter. Warnings for threats and acts of violence and some "Eeew" factor moments.

Denethor must confront what he did to Finduilas, and it is not pretty. The world is changing around him in ways both marvelous and unsettling, and he becomes acquainted with his son. Umbar looms on the horizon. Denethor and Thorongil's alliance becomes more complex as they confront the rock-meets-hard-place nature of taking battle to the Corsairs. Denethor does something that sets in motion a cycle of revenge he will regret. Or not.

Significant scenes with Finduilas, Beregar, Thorongil, Aiavale, Brandir and others.

Anglachel

Zbigniew Brzezinski - Five Flaws in the President's Plan

His editorial from the Friday Washington Post. There really isn't much else to say:

The president's speech gives rise to five broad observations:

1. It provided a more realistic analysis of the situation in Iraq than any previous presidential statement. It acknowledged failure, though it dodged accountability for that failure by the standard device of assuming personal responsibility. Its language was less Islamophobic than has been customary with President Bush's rhetoric since Sept. 11, though the president still could not resist the temptation to engage in a demagogic oversimplification of the challenge the United States faces in Iraq, calling it a struggle to safeguard "a young democracy" against extremists and an effort to protect American society from terrorists. Both propositions are more than dubious.
2. The commitment of 21,500 more troops is a political gimmick of limited tactical significance and of no strategic benefit. It is insufficient to win the war militarily. It will engage U.S. forces in bloody street fighting that will not resolve with finality the ongoing turmoil and the sectarian and ethnic strife, not to mention the anti-American insurgency.
3. The decision to escalate the level of the U.S. military involvement while imposing "benchmarks" on the "sovereign" Iraqi regime, and to emphasize the external threat posed by Syria and Iran, leaves the administration with two options once it becomes clear -- as it almost certainly will -- that the benchmarks are not being met. One option is to adopt the policy of "blame and run": i.e., to withdraw because the Iraqi government failed to deliver. That would not provide a remedy for the dubious "falling dominoes" scenario, which the president so often has outlined as the inevitable, horrific consequence of U.S. withdrawal. The other alternative, perhaps already lurking in the back of Bush's mind, is to widen the conflict by taking military action against Syria or Iran. It is a safe bet that some of the neocons around the president and outside the White House will be pushing for that. Others, such as Sen. Joseph Lieberman, may also favor it.
4. The speech did not explore even the possibility of developing a framework for an eventual political solution. The search for a political solution would require a serious dialogue about a joint American-Iraqi decision regarding the eventual date of a U.S. withdrawal with all genuine Iraqi political leaders who command respect and wield physical power. The majority of the Iraqi people, opinion polls show, favor such a withdrawal within a relatively short period. A jointly set date would facilitate an effort to engage all of Iraq's neighbors in a serious discussion about regional security and stability. The U.S. refusal to explore the possibility of talks with Iran and Syria is a policy of self-ostracism that fits well into the administration's diplomatic style of relying on sloganeering as a substitute for strategizing.
5. The speech reflects a profound misunderstanding of our era. America is acting like a colonial power in Iraq. But the age of colonialism is over. Waging a colonial war in the post-colonial age is self-defeating. That is the fatal flaw of Bush's policy.

What is wrong with this country?

We're having extremely cold temperatures here in San Diego by local standards. Night time temperatures are below freezing and look to stay that way well into the coming week. I realize to people in North Dakota, this may not sound like any big whoop, but the change in the weather is very disconcerting when you're expecting a balmy Mediterranean climate.

As a result, even though the City Council declared that it would not open any shelters for homeless people, the National Guard is providing shelter. Here's the part that got me from this morning's Union-Tribune:

Although the City Council voted against having a shelter, one opened up anyway Friday night at the National Guard armory at 304 E. Park Ave., after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency.

About 35 people spent Friday night in the 50-bed shelter, and by 7 p.m. yesterday, many of those had returned and some new people had come in, said Mel Takahara of the Salvation Army.

One of those people was a man who had just been discharged from heart surgery and was transported to the shelter by hospital workers.

“They made sure they found a safe place for him,” Takahara said. “It's bitter cold, and it would be life-threatening to a healthy individual, let alone a person in frail health.”

What? Someone just recovered from heart surgery has been taken to a homeless shelter and dumped there? WTF? I've had major chest cavity surgery (a chunk of lung removed) so I know that recovery from that kind of invasive event takes months. If the Gropenator had not declared a state of emergency, would this guy have simply been turned out on the street with his healing chest incision and a bag of meds? And what hospital dumped this guy?

What the hell is wrong with this country that it is OK to toss indigent medical patients onto the street in the middle of inclement weather? Would it be because the guy doesn't have insurance? Has profit margin really overcome the Hippocratic Oath? Oh, duh, of course it has. Never mind.

Anglachel

iAmUnimpressed

I think I am the only person in the universe immune to Apple hype. I see pictures of a huckster selling yet another pointless gadget that does nothing new, but is packaged in a pretty shell.

Apple produces status objects. Were it not for DOS and IBM-clones, there would not be anything like the tech industry, the internet, or the inflated housing market in Califonia. Apple, like George Bush, needs to have an evil boogey monster out there against which to compare itself. Think about it - every Apple ad campaign is, at base, We're not Microsoft. The great irony of the "1984" ad campaign is that Apple is the most rigid, regimented, Big Brotherish of all the major OS producers. Control at all costs. Sell your product by inciting insecurity and status envy in the user. Structure your products to obsolete themselves on a regualr timetable by deliberately preventing backwards compatibility.

iPods are MP3 players with pretty cases. iMacs are underpowered computers with limited and over-priced software. iPhones are just another beeping monster to carry around in your pocket and annoy me with at the movies. If you buy the hype, you demonstrate your frantic desire to appear cool, not that you are cool.

Anglachel

The Forever War

Back in September, I said that the Bush neocon thugocracy operates on the principle of End Times - impose your will and destroy what you can, because the Apocalypse will wipe out everyone anyhow.

You also have the case that these guys simply don't care if there is a future for anyone. "We'll all be dead," is the Chimperor's mantra, said with that smirk of his. These are people whose bad drug trips don't end because they don't need drugs to go on them anymore.

I had said that they had two agendas between now and when it came time to throw their sorry asses out of the White House - destroying Social Security and attacking Iran. The midterm elections have put the kibosh on the domestic agenda item, which has only intensified their lust for the latter objective.

The first round of reactions to the Preznit's sad-sack speech on Wednesday was ho-hum, nothing new. More careful analysis, particularly in light of the raid on the Iranian consulate in northern Iraq, is arriving at the conclusion that the "surge" has little or nothing to do with Iraq, and is the cover for an unauthorized assault on both Iran and Syria.

This is consistent with the neocon philosophy of Forever War, turning the nation into an attack machine that rolls over other nations for no reason save to do so, mobilizing paranoia and machismo among the populace to provide enough support to justify their continual condition of war. In this world view, "terrorism" is a *good* thing, as it keeps people in a heightened state of fear. They have no interest in actually being rid of bin Laden, indeed no interest in actually winning any contest because both of those acts would bring the reason for Forever War to an end.

Flynt Leverett, a former CIA and administration senior official who should know the thought processes of the goons occupying the White House, has this to say on TPM Cafe:

According to the President, the Iranians are providing "material support” to attacks on U.S. forces. That is a casus belli. It fits in with the administration’s escalating campaign -- encompassing rhetoric and detentions of Iranian officials in Iraq -- to blame Iran for a strategically significant part of the ongoing instability and violence in Iraq.

Note from Flynt Leverett

Click the link and read the whole thing. They are looking for a reason to engage Iran in war. In Condi Rice's appearance before Senate Foreign Relations Committee, she dismissed diplomacy as an option with Syria or Iran. This from our nation's top diplomat. The goal is to get into warfare, not prevent it.

They have only two years to make their war in the Middle East irrevocable, and they are determined to do it. The situation is only made worse by the fact that it is being done as much to attack Bush's critics in America as to advance the more general Apocalyptic desires of the neocon crowd. As I said in September:

It also infuriates the Chimp that people are already saying what an utter loser and fuck-up he is, and that he is held in contempt. Worst. President. Ever. He knows, down in that drug-damaged lump of cells that used to be a brain, that people are waiting for the day he is gone so that they can return to normalcy and try to undo the horrific damage he and his enablers have inflicted on the world.

And he's not going to let that happen. He will do everything in his power to commit the nation to an act of such irrevocable barbarity that his successors cannot even begin to restore the republic.

That is why, though the Chimperor is forging ahead with sending more American soldiers into the meat grinder, he is not really looking for a land war with Iran and Syria. Nope. Those soldiers are there to be targets for some kind of atrocity (and that will probably be ginned up, too) which will justify unleashing nuclear missiles on Iran.

Anglachel