Start The Pools ... How Soon McChrystal Becomes A Faux News Analyst?

Take a few days off, and, oh boy, all kinds of things hitting the fan ...

Reading Michael Hastings' 'The Runaway General', it hard to tell if it is a good piece of journalism, or fiction, perhaps a character synopsis for some new HBO mini-series in the offing, about a cock-waving, muscle-headed military commander..

I mean, if General Stanley A. McChrystal were cast in 'Apocalypse Now', while Robert Duvall's Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore was blabbering about "I love the smell of napalm in the morning .... The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like ...victory ...", the camera would have to pan, to McChrystal, sitting on the beach, eating napalm out his helmet, and muttering what a candy-ass Kilgore was.



Go read 'The Runaway General', for, as you do, throughout, despite all the confidence, bravado and over-the-top machoism of McChrystal, it says over, and over, of how fucked we are in Afghanistan

It is said that he will be going to his meeting with Obama today, resignation letter in-hand, and Obama is going to have to accept it (if it hasn't already been demanded), as part of the show of not being a pansy, and letting a tin-horn commander, and the Pentagon, walk all over him.



No rearview mirrors in the room today.

So, boys and girls, should McChrystal walk out of the Oval Office today, a retired muscle-headed, cock-waving, former military commander, how soon before he beelines it to Faux News, to add fresh meat to their propaganda machine?

Start cutting up the office pool squares ....


Bonus Links

Alex Pareene: Why did Gen. McChrystal talk to Rolling Stone?

C.J. Chivers: General Faces Unease Among His Own Troops, Too

Spencer Ackerman: Biden Probably Wants to Renew His Rolling Stone Subscription

Doris Kearns Goodwin: What Would Lincoln Do?

Yves Smith: Afghanistan: Pentagon Payments to Warlords Undermine Central Government

Retro Garlic: Life Imitating The Garlic - U.S. Military Will Offer Path to Citizenship

Oh boy, do we love when this happens.

Numerous times, life and The Garlic have merged (you can look HERE and HERE).

Today, we have another Retro Garlic.

Actually, it should be a Retro-Retro Garlic, as we have riffed on this very topic previously.

Last night, we espied this headline;

U.S. Military Will Offer Path to Citizenship

Stretched thin in Afghanistan and Iraq, the American military will begin recruiting skilled immigrants who are living in this country with temporary visas, offering them the chance to become United States citizens in as little as six months.

We weren't sure if that strange sound we heard, simultaneously, was that of Lou Dobb's head exploding, or the Right Wing Freak Show running for their torches and pitchforks, which will surely be likely to occur.

I mean, what are they going to do with all that pent-up xenophobia and jingoism?

First they take our jobs, our seats in schools and clog up our hospitals, now they want to take over the military?

What will become of the Arizona Minutemen?... The thousands-of-miles wall?



Who wants the American dream, sprinkled with a little picante?

2012 and the Rule of Sarah can't come fast enough, heh?

More from the NYT article;

“The Army will gain in its strength in human capital,” General Freakley said, “and the immigrants will gain their citizenship and get on a ramp to the American dream.”

[Snip]

Pentagon officials expect that the lure of accelerated citizenship will be powerful. Under a statute invoked in 2002 by the Bush administration, immigrants who serve in the military can apply to become citizens on the first day of active service, and they can take the oath in as little as six months.

For foreigners who come to work or study in the United States on temporary visas, the path to citizenship is uncertain and at best agonizingly long, often lasting more than a decade. The military also waives naturalization fees, which are at least $675.

To enlist, temporary immigrants will have to prove that they have lived in the United States for two years and have not been out of the country for longer than 90 days during that time. They will have to pass an English test.

The Retro Part, from April 2006 ...

“They’re coming here for the American experience” ... Rumsfeld Weighs In On Immigration Battle; Won’t Tie It To War With Iran ... Suggests Army Recruiting Woes Could Be Solved With Mandatory Service By Illegal Aliens

In a freewheeling exchange with reporters this afternoon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld suggested that “a stint in the Army” would solve the immigration problem facing the country.

[Snip]

Asked a follow-up question, Rumsfeld said flatly, “Conscripts,”

“We simply make it a policy, if you want to enter this country, or, if we find out you’ve entered illegally, you serve a stretch in the Army, or go back to whatever village or bungalow you came from.”

[Snip]

“They’re coming here for the American experience”

‘That’s absurd,” Rumsfeld squinted. ““They’ll get three-squares-a-day and it pays a helluva lot better then picking lettuce, or grapes, or whatever it is they do ...”

“I mean,” added the Secretary, “they’re coming here for the American experience ... the American Dream ... What could possibly embody that more than by serving in your country’s armed forces?”

Asked if he, or the Pentagon, would make special accommodations for such illegal immigrants to enter the military, such as bi-lingual instructions, or the need for interpreters, Rumsfeld glared at the reporter.

“Now think about that for a second,” Rumsfeld shot back, dripping with disdain. “In the heat of battle, you, or some other bleeding-heart liberal, is going to expect the U.S. Army to issue dictionaries, with bullets flying overhead, and bombs bursting in front of you, so the commander of the unit can issue orders in two languages? What planet are you from?”

Rumsfeld said he would expect any such conscript to learn English, before they get to boot camp.

“I suspect a great many of them already speak English. The busboy at the restaurant I like to go to knows all the television shows ... the sports scores. Sure, he has an accent, but he speaks English fine.”

We can't say "we wished we made this stuff up."

We did.

Bonus Immigration Riffs

Bush Immigration Plan Gets "Some Influence" ... White House May Employ Lincoln Group In Border, Immigration Clash ...Unlike Iraqi Program, PR Firm Will Plant Anti-American Stories in Mexican Media

Top Ten Cloves: Problems The Illegal Immigrant Boycott Caused The White House Yesterday

Breaking News - Congress Said Will “Clean President’s Clock” On Immigration ... Bush Adds Color-Coded Border Alert Chart To Immigration Plan ...Neocons Upset With Shift In White House Strategy: Speech Offered No “Ties To Sadam ... Imminent Mushroom Clouds”

Ahmadinejad “Sort Of An Islamic Lyndon LaRouche”; Said To Have Made Offer To Mexico ...Ahmadinejad Claims Letter A Hoax, Cites Propaganda, Prelude To U.S. Invasion ...Other World Leaders Received Similar Tomes; Mexico Offered Iran National Guard Deployed on Their Side of Border

Top Ten Cloves: Reasons U.S. Military Used Koran For Target Practice

News Item: U.S. soldier in Iraq used Koran for target practice

10. Thought they would score some points with John McCain's endorser, Rev. John Hagee

9. Didn't realize it was a Koran; Got disoriented and sick after drinking some KBR water

8. "You shoot at the Koran you have—not the Koran you might want or wish to have at a later time ..."

7. With bullet holes, easier to hang on a nail in the cells of captured terrorists

6. Just trying to work out all sides of the theory behind Woody Allen's "Bullet In My Breast Pocket"

5. Planned on giving it to Jenna Bush, as a wedding present

4. Flushing it down the toliet was screwing up the plumbing

3. Was told it was the Koran that Barack Obama took his Senate oath on

2. Getting in last target practice; Following President's lead, will give up shooting Korans as long as there is war going on

1. They had already shot up their supply of Bibles

Bonus Links

"What If Spartacus Had To Account For 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols ..."

Top Ten Cloves: Reasons How Air Force Mistakenly Flew 5 Nuclear Warheads Across Country

Top Ten Cloves: Ways Military Recruiters Didn't Realize They Were Recruiting Gays

"They will have flies walking across their eyeballs"

Hey, You Iowans, Read This Before Pulling The Levers!

Since we brought up "bipartisanship" yesterday, here's a post we were remiss including in it.

Glenn Greenwald, in Salon yesterday, has a sobering and staggering post, that, as he argues, should be discussed and debated, but surely, as the sun rises over a corrupt and morally bankrupt White House every day, it won't be.

Here's some caveats to cringe over;

"Our military spending exceeds the rest of the world's spending combined, and we spend almost 10 times what the second-place country, China, spends."

"The US military budget was almost 29 times as large as the combined spending of the six "rogue" states (Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria) who spent $14.65 billion."

"In indisputable sum, we are the world's empire, in a state of permanent war readiness. In American politics and policy, there is no distinction between "peacetime" and "war." We're the most militarized country in the world by far, on permanent war footing, far beyond what anyone could ever remotely argue is necessary for "defense" or a "strong defense," no matter how broad a definition one wants to adopt for those terms."

"Nonetheless, it's still worth noting (as Matt Stoller recently documented) that despite all the incessant chatter about "change" and the intensity of election conflicts, our most significant, dubious policies -- the ones that actually shape what kind of country we are and how we are perceived around the world -- don't really get debated at all. Those who try to are quickly and widely dismissed as fringe, insane, angry, deranged "crazies.""

There's links, charts, graphs and pie charts to go with it.

Read The bipartisan consensus on U.S. military spending

It's likely to define the country you live in for the rest of your life.