Through the looking glass, or, What is this Iraq of which you speak?

I’m sure everyone has heard by now that combat operations in Iraq have ended, witness the exit of the last Stryker brigade from the country. “Stryker”—what was the compelling reason to go with the “y”?** But I digress, and it’s only the second sentence.

All but a few of the institutional press outlets are going along with the absurd proposition that the withdrawal of a brigade, numbering somewhere between 3000-5000 troops, on a particular day, constitutes the end of combat operations. Yesterday we were engaged in combat operations; today, presto chango! we’re not. Plus, a free decoder ring!

Let us meditate on the fact that the 50,000 mostly combat-veteran troops remaining in the country are the equivalent of a minimum of 10 brigades, and that they still have more firepower than most countries, and that they’re supported by at least two aircraft carriers and their pilot fish, including several missile cruisers, and that their job remains the blowing up of shit whenever appropriate as dictated by the facts on the ground, as opposed to those in the air or upon or under the surface of the seas or outside the closed system of logic inside which blowing up people who assault us after we blew up their country is the hunky-doryest of all things to do.

Combat Troops

Non-combat Troops

Combats! and No Combats! Calendar!

Anyway. I took this to be self-evident, that the government are lying and the following press are either lying in concert or only acting out their customarily complete gullibility. (“Why would they lie to us? We go to the same parties!”) What prompted me to publicly remark on the deal is that my beloved Village Voice just parroted the party line as if it were natural law. The government tell the Washington Post, the Post tell the Voice and the Voice tell us, and they’re all fucking foolish or lying, take your pick, so long as your pick includes two of the latter and one of the former.

UPDATE: The author of the Voice post responded to my comment complaining about her blithe conveyance of the Post’s fantastical story. She says “it’s less a blithe following of party lines as it is a reporting of headlines, as you say, “a morning links thing.” Maybe fodder for a bigger post, maybe not. For now I have cougars to attend to.” Cougars being a reference to the latest sociological research addressing the burning question of whether or not a growing cadre of voraciously predatory medium-aged women are draining the bodily fluids of younger men. Journalism! Alternative Journalism!

**Frederick in comments informs that “Via wikipedia: The vehicle is named for two American servicemen who posthumously received the Medal of Honor: Pfc Stuart S. Stryker, who died in World War II and Spc4 Robert F. Stryker, who died in the Vietnam War.”

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