Feeding Molech: How it was done in ancient Israel (above), and how it is done today (below).

To the surprise of no sentient being, our rulers have been deceiving us regarding their plans for the restive Mesopotamian province of their empire.

General Petraeus, the military messiah du jour, is to offer a critical review of the surge in September, we were told. On second thought that review won’t come until November — no, better make that sometime after the Hominid in the White House and his adult handlers hand off the war to their successors:

“[T]he American [military] command [in Baghdad] has prepared a detailed plan that foresees a significant American role for the next two years. The classified plan, which represents the coordinated strategy of the top American commander and the American ambassador…. The detailed document, known as the Joint Campaign Plan, is an elaboration of the new strategy President Bush signaled in January when he decided to send five additional American combat brigades and other units to Iraq. That signaled a shift from the previous strategy, which emphasized transferring to Iraqis the responsibility for safeguarding their security.”

Such duplicity! Surely the sainted Gen. Petraeus was deceived!

Well, no: Actually, he helped develop the plan. It shouldn’t surprise us that Petreaus has no plan to “stand up” an Iraqi army and security force, since he’s the guy who presided over the failed attempt in 2004 to do precisely that.

Which is to say that the “surge” was a simple escalation, just as the Bush Regime’s most cynical critics have always maintained.

(Here’s a handy axiom: To determine the reality behind any Bush administration policy, always assume that the most cynical critics are exactly right. They could be wrong someday, but they haven’t yet.)

The chief complication here is that the Regime’s timeline is out of joint with the “Broken Army Clock,” which (as Time points out) dictates that “troop levels will begin to wane in March 2008, no matter what Congress decides in September….”

To sustain the surge — even the version that serves as the agreed-upon official lie — the Regime will have to settle on one of three options next year: Calling up more reservists, expanding duty tours from 15 to 18 months, or some form of conscription. I believe we’ll get the first two next year, and the third in 2009. Unless, of course, our rulers do the only moral and sensible thing and withdraws from Iraq right now. And no serious discussion of that option is to be permitted.

Once again, none of this should be considered surprising, particularly since the British are already out of troops.

To paraphrase Machiavelli, if a ruler has gold, he can always purchase iron. However, our rulers have been financing their empire on debt — and the market for our official debt instruments is rapidly contracting. One key contributor to the dollar’s accelerating decline is the collapse of the real estate/mortgage industry, which is why the Bush Regime dispatched its minister of housing to Beijing to beg the Chinese to buy mortgage securities.

But at some point, those who are financing the empire will gag on our worthless dollars. At that point, the prospect the Bu’ushists have used to intimidate war critics into silence — that of leaving our troops stranded in Iraq without money or means to get out — may become a reality.
Unless something else is found to collateralize the loans on which the Empire depends.

Washington and its internal provinces (once known as “free and independent states”) are already pawning infrastructure to foreign creditors. And as noted above, initial steps have already been taken to sell off the housing sector to Beijing. So what’s left?

Once the appliances have been pawned, the car and house has been repossessed, maybe the only thing left to sell would be the blood in the debtor’s veins. I think that’s where we’re headed after the 2009 election — assuming that we have one.

Our rulers expect to use our flesh and blood — our children — as collateral. Conscription and universal national service would be a blood tax imposed on behalf of the foreign creditors funding our empire.

This blood-for-debt swap becomes even likelier when one takes into account the coming collapse of domestic “entitlement” programs, as described by this questioner in last night’s Democratic Presidential “Debate” — predictably enough, none of the Democrat aspirants to the Imperial Purple was willing to address the question:

Here’s how Anne Williamson, one of the most astute analysts of the Power Elite, summarizes the coming Grand Bargain:

“Thanks to the enterprising left, a palatable framework of `universal service’ is evolving, in which all of America’s young people will be registered for national service and, drawing on personal information gleaned from the giant government databases now being built, will be assigned to community service, combat service, or homeland defense. The kicker may be a requirement of completed service before access to higher education and government financing for it will be granted. It is not improbable to see a `deal’ over Social Security reform on the horizon, i.e. in exchange for reduced benefits and an increase in the retirement age Boomer seniors will be guaranteed the services of enscripted `community brigades’ for home care.”

… what it means to you, if you’re of draft age, is slavery.

This bargain, Williamson speculates, would include some form of international tax to fund the increasingly militarized multinational institutions that were so conspicuously scorned by the Bush Regime — except for those situations in which Security Council resolutions can be invoked to justify aggressive war.

No American would relish paying such an international tax, of course, and American parents wouldn’t readily embrace a return to conscription, “but — having chosen security over liberty — they will eventually resign themselves to their children’s `universal service.’… And once the intentionally confused and clueless American electorate sees that much of the costs of the War on Terror are being fobbed off on other people through an international tax, that the need for domestic cannon fodder is reduced, and that in their dotage they will have the personal services of young people (to whom they are not related and therefore otherwise not obliged) enforced by the US military [via the Selective Service System], it’s quite likely they will largely cheer on the new arrangements.”

The Bu’ushists are not going to permit a withdrawal from Iraq; in fact, were a recall to begin right now, an orderly withdrawal would require at least two years. (Full-fledged cutting and running, on the other hand, would take a fraction of that time, which is why it’s the only intelligent approach and thus a forbidden subject.)

What this means that some version of what is discussed above will most likely become a reality very soon. I hope I’m wrong. I’m quite confident that I’m not.

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