Quick Petraeus Follow-up
There's obviously loads of coverage on Day 2 of the Army's musical chairs campaign (see SWJ for the best round-up). But this bit from Tom Ricks and Ann Scott Tyson caught Charlie's eye.
Indeed, military officials familiar with the relationship between Petraeus and Odierno said mutual trust would make it easier for Petraeus to turn his attention to pressing regional issues such as Iran, Pakistan and Lebanon while Odierno assumed the reins in Iraq. As Centcom chief, Petraeus would oversee more than 200,000 U.S. military personnel in the region.That's obviously a happier tune than Charlie and AM were singing yesterday (what, we told you they were initial impressions), but it follows a lot of the email traffic Charlie received after the initial announcement."Petraeus has the opportunity to hand off with confidence and expand his area of control and responsibility," said Lt. Col. Nathan P. Freier, a former adviser to Odierno in Iraq.
Indeed, the inside-baseball picture she's getting is that Petraeus wanted Odierno at the helm in Iraq because he knew his former deputy already understood his intent (and would be unlikely will strike out and try to create his own Iraq "legacy"). With Odierno continuing to execute his strategy in Iraq, Petraeus can turn to Afghanistan, Iran, etc. with greater comfort. Now Charlie doesn't fully buy into all of this: she thinks the jury is still out on Odierno, and agrees with AM that it will be psychologically and emotionally hard for Petraeus to move past Iraq. But she's markedly more sanguine than she was yesterday afternoon.
32 comments:
Question is, how much perspective is the institutional Army in DC going to lose on Iraq now that it no longer will benefit from Odierno's?
The institutional Army in DC may miss out on Odierno's insights for a year, but isn't it a better use of talent for those insights to go to the war that the field Army is fighting?
Well... those who truly wish for accurate information should keep in mind that the Washington Post and the New York Times are hardly neutral or unbiased news sources - they have already put the spin on, you know.
They are suitable for serving as a military echo chamber, though... as when stories about Iraqi WMDs are fed to the likes of Miller and Gordon, published on the front page of the NYT, and then referenced by Cheney that evening - a perfect circle.
That stuff is for public consumption, not real analysis. The UPI has some good articles, though:
http://www.upi.com/International_Security/Energy/Analysis/2008/04/18/interview_iraqi_american_chamber_leader/5647/
Yes... the battle for Sadr city and Basra continues, and the contracts are still floating out there, so close and yet so far. Those Iraqis - they just don't understand that allowing Chevron and Exxon and Halliburton and Shell and BP in to run the show is just the smart thing to do.
How can we show them that this plan is really in their best interests? They might need more softening up - time for another bombardment?
Alice--I think the question is rather more would Odierno have had an easier time making changes within Big Army (given his conventional chops, etc.).
Chiarelli is popular with the COIN (and Cav) crowd, but I don't know exactly how he's seen elsewhere. But if we're trading Odierno's perspective for Chiarelli's, it's at worst a wash and likely much better.
King David, the spinning general ;-) You should nick him "The Dervish", or something... But he is undeniably a brilliant intelligent general, just so that is not misunderstood.
Charlie and AM think Petraeus will have a hard time moving on? Is that based upon some experience with the General or is that simply blowing smoke out of one's behind? One may find he is all too happy to "move on" and tackle something a bit different.
"Chiarelli is popular with the COIN (and Cav) crowd..."
Charlie, soon-to-be GEN Pete Chiarelli is most popular with the only person who matters: SecDef Gates.
For the past 1 1/2 years, he's been the military assistant to the SecDef.
Click on my name for a recent essay that lays out how LTG/GEN Chiarelli envisions future warfare and the role the US military will play in it.
I'm also a bit flummoxed to see that UPI is dragged out as a source counter to a right-wing, Cheneyesque "military echo changer."
UPI is owned by News World Communications, the outfit that prints the Washington Times. In other words, it's controlled by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
I'm not by any means a political man, but I would put the opinion pages of WAPO and NYT a bit to the left of the Washington Times and the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
We are witnessing the breaking of the American Army under the watches of these generals. Lets hope we don’t have to fight anybody anytime soon.
It is so ironic to watch folks fall all over themselves talking about these generals like they are baseball players when underneath their soft caps is the withering away of the American Army.
When is the last time, on the average, a field grade armor or infantry major planned and executed a battalion calfex?
In three years from now think about the crop of artillery battalion commanders and ask how many times they fire battalion 18s as a battalion s3 or xo. Or today, ask yourself what Paul Yingling's rocket battalion is doing in Iraq? guarding detainees.
I talked to an officer who is deployed in a combat outfit in Iraq, they have a couple of months on this fifteen months rotation and he is already being told that they are scheduled to redeploy back to Iraq in October of 09 giving them about 14 months back at home.
How much longer can we keep this up? Is Iraq worth breaking the American army over?
If AM, Charlie, Kip, the American people, et al think so then so be it, but at least ask yourself that question.
How much longer can we keep this up? Is Iraq worth breaking the American army over?
False start above.
"How much longer can we keep this up? Is Iraq worth breaking the American army over?"
Well, apparently breaking the Army over Iraq is worth it, at least to our president and many politicians. One also wonders about some of our generals, especially those being enthroned as the latest military geniuses. Maybe if they believe they'll never go back to the Army. Maybe if a future in politics beckons...
Chiarelli's move to VCSA might actually be very good news. From all appearances, he's a fine officer; he also seems to care about the Army.
Keep reminding us, Gentile.
Mmm... good point, Charlie. I suppose the other thing to follow is how this reshuffling affects Big A - field A communication overall, and the personal relationships at play are key.
"In autum 1941 a dispute arose between Hitler and his commanders as they wanted to proceed to Moscow while Hitler gave the order to turn to Ukraine and secure the raw materials there. Guderian made a plea, lasting for hours, for the attack on Moscow. When Guderian at last finished, Hitler said one sentence "My generals understand nothing about war economics.""
And UPI? Well, at least they have an energy news section that is brief & straightforward - and at least they provide some coverage of Iraqi oil conferences, unlike either the WP or the NYT. Alexander's Oil & Gas Connections might be a better place to look, tho.
What are the current economic tangles? In Iraq, there's oil. and the fact that all that fuel being burned by the U.S. military isn't free.
Afghanistan has the opium. What are we going to do if we find our anti-Taliban counterinsurgency allies growing opium?
Something bothers me about this refrain of oh-good-now-Petraeus-can-create-a-countrywide-integrated-COIN-strategy-in-Afghanistan-like-he-did-in-Iraq.
It's a gross oversimplification of the two theaters. In fact, it's a conflation of two very different sets of circumstances. Nobody would claim that Petraeus hasn't the smarts to do things better in Afghanistan, but there are some huge differences between Iraq in Afghanistan. Some:
-The biggest issue people on this blog seem to see in Afghanistan is the absence of a nation-wide, integrated COIN strategy. I couldn't agree more. But did Petraeus really forge one in Iraq? The biggest obstacle to integrated COIN in Afghanistan is the fact that non-US coalition members hold most of the terrain -- in fact, some of the very toughest parts of the country. Did Petraeus really solve that problem in Iraq's case...or even truly face it? Do non-US coalition members hold the toughest parts of the ground anyplace in Iraq, or are they doing armed reconstruction/development while the US has the areas where a harder COIN is needed? In fact was the UK performance in Basra really any better than the Allied performance in southern Afghanistan? If Petraeus didn't solve such a significant example of the challenges of multinational COIN in Iraq, what makes us think he should import those techniques to Afghanistan, where the multinational aspect of the campaign is the feature, nearly absent in Iraq, that poses the biggest obstacles to success.
-If we can make such comments about the difference between the multinational natures of the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters, we can certainly say the same for the national, interagency natures of the two wars. In Iraq, it might not be too hard to sew together a US interagency approach if there's nobody else in the interagency doing anything outside of Baghdad; work Baghdad and you work the whole interagency problem. In Afghanistan, this is not the case -- many non-military US agencies are doing things in the provinces; therefore, the problem of non-parallel management structures among various organizations makes it difficult to create integrated approaches. Can we say the same for Iraq, or isn't the integration of kinetic/nonkinetic efforts really a little bit more about intramilitary, not interagency, coordination? Furthermore, in Afghanistan it is impossible to create a general approach to the problem, as the situation from province to province varies so greatly that organizations have vastly different levels of infrastructure, organization, and effort in different places.
--Finally, at the grandest level, in Iraq the US basically pulled onto itself the remit to do the entire thing -- security, reconstruction, development, and all-- and then asked other countries if they'd accept a role. In Afghanistan it was the opposite: the Bonn Conference issued the roles, and the US's was only part of the solution. Therefore, the US never had the universally-acknowledged control of (and responsibility for) the whole effort in the same way as in Iraq. Since unity of effort is one of the obvious prerequisites for success in a COIN -indeed, since lack of that unity is exactly the criticism of the Afghanistan effort that I see most on this blog- doesn't it seem like General Petraeus will suffer handicaps in Afghanistan that Iraq didn't present?
So, my comment here comes down to this: The toughest part -in fact, the defining parts- of the national campaign in Afghanistan are its multinational and interagency aspects. General Petraeus's experience in Iraq really didn't require him to go up against those problems, at least not in a way that had bore any resemblance to the magnitude of those challenges in Afghanistan.
None of this is to say that Petraeus wouldn't or won't do a brilliant job in Afghanistan -- and I hope he will get the chance soon. But there has been a sub-theme on this blog that suggests if-only-we-had-the-A-team-we-have-in-Iraq-in-Afghanistan. That's foolish, as I'm sure Gen Petraeus would agree. And when he does assume the responsibility for Afghanistan, I am sure he will readily recognize the change in circumstances I noted above.
"Something bothers me about this refrain of oh-good-now-Petraeus-can-create-a-countrywide-integrated-COIN-strategy-in-Afghanistan-like-he-did-in-Iraq."
My observation would be that, while creating a set of COIN grand tactics, neither GEN Petraeus nor anyone ele in theatre has come up with a "strategy" beyond whack-a-muj/strategic hamlets. With the CLC's we essentially conceded national soverignty over the Sunni parts of Iraq (as we have de facto in the Kurdish north)/ Now we've gone beyond this to actively joining the Shia Malikist faction in suppressing the Shia Sadr faction for the only reason (as far as I can tell) that the Sadrists are against our eternal squatting on their turf. This isn't COIN, it's the Eight-Trey Crips against the Hollister Bloods only with tac air.
Afghanistan's perennial problem has been that it isn't a state - it's a collection of warlords with tribal fighting tails nominally "ruled" by the warlord in power in Kabul. I fail to see how tapping the guy whose geopolitical cluelessness (or domestic political syncophancy) made him deaf, dumb and blind to the strengthening of sectarian warlordism in Iraq will help in the place where an already-entreched warlord problem is one of the hearts of the problem.
fnord said "...But [Patraeus] is undeniably a brilliant intelligent general, just so that is not misunderstood."
The more I hear (and see) this particular 4-star in the news, front page, and saluted by the unwashed masses, the more I think of the name...
General Wesley Clark
SNLII--copy all on Gates and Chiarelli. But, as you know, SecDef's come and go, but the Army stays. Which is why Chiarelli's relations with others *inside the Army* is key.
I'd just like to remind everyone -- including you, Gian -- that the previous VCSA was GEN Richard Cody.
If you really believe that Richard Cody has been as good for Big Army as LTG/GEN Pete Chiarelli will be, then well enough.
I, however, might suggest that we didn't exactly fare all that spendidly under the collective wisdom of GENs Schoomaker, Casey and Cody, plus their super hero sidekick SMA Preston.
I don't imagine my hypothesis could be tested -- that GENs Petraeus and Chiarelli have been net betters for the Army than Sanchez, Casey, Schoomaker, Cody and Preston combined -- but I'm willing to posit it.
On another note, Charlie, had I been SecDef or POTUS and I had my choice at CENTCOM, I might linger over one James N. Mattis, USMC.
Or, more likely, to put Mattis (last seen by me at USJFCOM) as CMNF-I and let Petraeus rise to CENTCOM.
The reason why I liked Mattis for CENTCOM is because at USJFCOM/NATO he's learned a great deal about the players who rotate in and out of Afghanistan, their political realities and what they actually can provide to the fight.
That, and I remember him as a relatively young Bn Cmdr. TF Ripper, brothers. TF Ripper.
He also fought in OEF.
Good man.
Mattis should be placed in charge of all Forces in Afghanistan.
SNLII:
You are right; too much generalization (no pun intended) on my part. My statement was over a sense of frustration that the army is being grinded down and most folks arent really talking about it.
Clearly, though, Gens Casey and Cody have been doing much to highlight the strain that the army is under.
As far as your posit? well, that really depends on how one frames the posit; and I will take the easy way out of the problem now by quoting something Malcolm X once said: "Time will tell."
gian
Anonymous said: " But there has been a sub-theme on this blog that suggests if-only-we-had-the-A-team-we-have-in-Iraq-in-Afghanistan. That's foolish, as I'm sure Gen Petraeus would agree. And when he does assume the responsibility for Afghanistan, I am sure he will readily recognize the change in circumstances I noted above."
A team in Iraq? If the A team has been in Iraq, then we should be glad that Al Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan haven't invaded *us*.
The current strategy in Iraq for the past year and a half has been to desperately buy enough time before the breakdown that Bush & Co can leave office, and blame others for the defeat.
-Barry
gian p gentile said...
"We are witnessing the breaking of the American Army under the watches of these generals. Lets hope we don’t have to fight anybody anytime soon.
It is so ironic to watch folks fall all over themselves talking about these generals like they are baseball players when underneath their soft caps is the withering away of the American Army.
When is the last time, on the average, a field grade armor or infantry major planned and executed a battalion calfex?"
Forest for the trees - if you have the people, you can train them. What's the current quit rate for the West Point Class of 2002? How low have enlisted standards gone? What's happened to basic training washout rates as the standards have dropped? (IIRC, it's gone down by 1/3).
What shape is the NG and reserve in?
The period 2009-2015 will probably be just like the 1970's for the US Army.
-Barry
Meanwhile, Mullen is threatening Iran with war if they do not "stop supporting militias in Iraq". And keep their damn boats on land. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/25/usa.iran
I really like following all of you younger military folks in grappling with what's going on in the Army and specifically, the impact of Iraq and Afghanistan on the institutional Army, which is, lest we forget, tasked with defense of the nation, and not just pacifying a couple of Mideastern countries. This is why I'm so sympathetic to what Gian Gentile's now trying to do in swimming upstream by reminding us of the Army's true mission.
I'm nobody. Just an old retired guy who did the Vietnam thing and lived through the aftermath. Wasn't pretty. There was a time when we were very vulnerable. I was in West Germany in the mid-70s, out there in Cav country, on the border, and it was a given that we were doomed if the Russians decided to do something very stupid. My biggest concern was wondering if my family and those of my troops would somehow get out through the ridiculous evacuation program the Army had. As history's unfolded, we've learned that there were lots of things that deterred the Soviets from doing what we feared, but nobody knew for sure. So, the reality was that at that time in history, the ultimate deterrent and safeguard for us and Western Europe was nukes. The U.S. Army, the Army CofS Shy Meyer termed the "hollow Army," was ill-prepared to fight a conventional war.
I bring up this history for you younger COIN-centric folks only because ISTM we're seeing history repeat itself. I'd like to see something other than political rhetoric about "fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here" to reconcile what's happening with the Army and its ultimate national security mission. Which does not, IOTM, providing 911 service for the rest of the world.
We Vietnam guys believed every bit as much in our mission as do you latter-day "warriors." Of course, we weren't warriors; we were just American soldiers. We had the domino theory; you have something that says, ISTM, that if we do all of this stuff in these faraway places, we'll somehow prevent the next 19 guys with boxcutters from wreaking havoc in the U.S. I'm at a loss to explain all of this in any other terms. We dealt in serious, Westphalian terms about state-on-state warfare. You're dealing with prevention of criminal acts, an intelligence and law enforcement function. One wonders if the Army is the best instrument for that. One also wonders if the whole idea of COIN is not really a self-inflicted wound. From where I sit, what we're now doing in Iraq and Afghanistan is setting right what we screwed up. At immense cost, in blood and money.
I don't think what we're doing is worth the cost, to the nation, and to the Army. And, getting back to Petraeus, I get the impression that he's declared himself a free agent, signing up with the political leadership, someone above focusing on his responsibilities to the institutional Army. I trace this back to his infamous op-ed in the WaPo in 2004, timed just right for the presidential elections, and to his testimony to Congress. I view him as a MacArthur rather than a Marshall. Or, for those who like roman-a-clefs, as a Massengale rather than a Damon.
And I don't see anything that's going to stop the next 19 guys with boxcutters.
Publius,
As one of those new guys you dismiss as a "warrior," I respectfully disagree with your whole argument. Certainly the Army and Marine Corps are under significant, even severe strain, but losing a couple of wars will not help that, it will only make it worse. You, like some politicians, may have decided that we've already lost anyway. That's your right. I, on the other hand, have seen first-hand what we've done in the past year. I know we can succeed, and I believe our sacrifice, and the strain on the force, is worth it.
As for GEN Petraeus: you know what you read in the papers, you "get an impression"; again with respect, you know nothing about him. The man is far from perfect, but he is as dedicated a public servant as we have. With at least what, 30 months or so in Iraq (at least?), he knows the sacrifices our service members are making. I can speak only for myself, but I've had the opportunity to watch him command, and I'll gladly serve under him again.
Well, anon 3:32, you've really not addressed the issue I'm all about, and that's the state of the Army and the defense of the nation. You're understandably preoccupied with the two current wars but I'm using a different lens.
You think we can "win" these things. Well, I happen to think we've already lost Iraq and are in danger of losing Afghanistan as well. Even so, even if you are right, and we end up somehow "winning" in Iraq, it would be a pyrrhic victory, one we wondered why we cared about "winning." IMO, this nation may never fully recover from the stupendous blunder that is the invasion of Iraq.
In this context, I will refer you back to Vietnam, something from which our nation has still not recovered. And it wasn't because it was a loss, a factor that's contributed mightily to today's narrative because of the "stab-in-the-back" fiction widespread amongst Republican and military circles. Vietnam was unwinnable because we did not know how to "win." Same thing with Iraq. If you think "winning" in Iraq, whenever politicians finally decide that's been accomplished, will somehow make everything right, you're sadly mistaken.
Tote up the cost in lives and national treasure to date in Iraq and then add the costs that will be incurred in rebuilding the Army and its people—veterans and active duty alike—once we extricate ourselves from the Iraq mess, and you will see where I say, "pyrrhic victory." You might also add the costs of loss of faith in our government and our military on the part of the citizenry. They count, you know.
Petraeus? I'm glad you like him. I personally think General Miracle is an exceptional officer, very talented in most every way. Especially politics.
This is how it looks to a lot of folks who care about the nation and the Army out here in civilian-land. And you haven't done anything to tie "winning" in Iraq to what we do about those 19 guys with boxcutters.
anon 3:32: Fair enough, but please define your premises. What is your definition of sucess? You say that the strain of the forces and the sacrifice is worth it, what is "it". And worth what, compared to what? What threat-reduction has ben lowered by the invasion of Iraq? How did this weaken core-AQ?
If the problem is, as Publius says, how to fight AQ then Iraq has clearly been a stupid blunder, yes? Now, if the political aim was to exert geopolitical influence in the ME and basically build a clientstate with lotsa oil and a perfect freemarket, it has also been a stupid blunder for a whole lot of different reasons, COIN or no COIN. Because it didnt work, did it? ANd y`all who are experts here, is it not safe to say that the COIN doctrine has come as a result of necessity? That its basically a formalization of improvisations made on the ground by smart and desperate US commanders?
To hail the (possibly) succesful act of saving your collective arses from utter disgrace due to series and series of monumental screwups as "victory" seems to me to set your standards low. It also provides a useful narrative for those responsible for the mentioned screwups to hide behind. "70000 dead due to us having no plan B, but hey, it worked in the end. No need to be angry. Look, Britney!"
Gah. I want to see Paul Bremer nailed spread-eagled in Times Square with specially imported vultures eating his entrails.
No, Publius, I am not using a different lens. Believe it or not, those of us involved in these things are capable of keeping the big picture in mind.
I didn't come up with the rationale for OIF, so I won't defend the direct connection to 9/11. What I will do is note that, unfortunately, the losses suffered to date (including some of my friends, to be absolutely cold about it) are now sunk costs, and the question is, where do we go from here? I also don't believe in some neocon fantasy of victory. Iraq will be Iraq.
But you know what? If provincial elections go off reasonably well in 2008, and then national elections follow in 2009; if the Iraqis can agree on a mechanism to seek foreign investment while maintaining control of their oil resources; if the GOI can improve its bureaucracy, and start spending much of that oil windfall they're receiving; if the control of disputed territories in the north can be peacefully resolved under UN supervision; if local security initiatives can be incorporated over time under the authority of the state; if new political voices can be developed and encouraged; if the worst aspects of Iranian influence can be limited, while the best are encouraged; and if Iraq can be more and more integrated into the community of nations; then I think we will have achieved a very acceptable outcome.
This outcome is certainly not assured, but we have seen significant progress in all these areas recently, and so it is very much possible. I believe that such an outcome would restore much of the faith which you correctly note has been lost by friends, allies, and the American people. It would also mark a significant setback for our adversaries. Would it make everything that's gone wrong since March of 2003 "worth it"? Probably not. But we cannot, alas, go back and undo the decisions made in that period.
I respect your Vietnam experience, sir, and know that those who ignore the lessons of history set themselves up to repeat past errors. Still, I humbly suggest that you are brushing up on the limits of the usefulness of your experience. Iraq is not Vietnam, and those who view things through the lens of their personal experience run the risk of missing many critical variables outside that experience.
FROM CAROL HERMAN
The problem, really, is drugs. For Afghanistan, that's their big export item. And, they've been selling drugs since man began caravaning around.
Later, when Magellen (early 1500's), figured out you could "go east" on toop of the water; Portugal was the first country to co "international" and grow rich.
Ah. You learned to call this "THE SPICE ISLANDS." Perhaps, you are thinking cinnamon? But you'd be wrong. HALUCINAGENS.
Big, and secret, market. Just like sex. Something else that trades "under the table."
And, in the West? Since we're the buyers, it's a very schizophrenic environment. Thank the War on Drugs for "going nowhere."
As to NATO? In time, back at home, the Europeans will have to learn to deal with what runs amok in their own home towns.
ME, AGAIN. FROM CAROL HERMAN
I've noticed that "what we are fighting for," has changed.
Israel is now smart enough to know there are no "peace treaties" out there, where you can trade what you've won in battle, to a plan where your enemies will "normalize trade relations."
For Israel? It means no matter the hoopla; they're not gonna go in, ever again, and take territory from arabs.
That will go in and hit, though. Just as they did Saddam's Osirik. (GREAT BOOK: RAID INTO THE SUN) About the 1981 Israeli raid to do the job.
Later? Well, during the Gulf War, which did have the UN on board; our American air force "finished the job." Where Israel scored a direct hit on the domed reactor; our American pilots peppered all of "Al-Tuwaitha," nuts, screws and bolts.
Here's my premise. We are actually AHEAD. (Except for the "drug war part") ... And, in Afghanistan? At least some of the European troops get exposed to "something." A knack they'll need down the road.
Is it surprising that Europeans are so lackluster at war skills? Well, just look back. We had the Civil War; which drew to a conclusion. They had the Crimean War, which just drew bloody battlefields. Adding pomp and circumstance to their marching music. But NOTHING in the way of cooperation!
Two wars: WW1 and WW2. Began teaching Americans that we'd never get cooperation out of the European generals. Fuhgetaboutit.
We've got to move on!
And, in the future? I'll predict it won't be about "passifying the natives." Why? Won't be any natives, left.
To win you've got to kill. All the rest of it is just destructive diplomatic stuff. A fancy pants dancing to the tune of "wasted time."
HELLO, IF YOU'RE LISTENING
FROM: CAROL HERMAN, yet again.
RE: the 19 boxcutters.
STOP! The Saud's won't pay for another crew!
Sure. The Saud's thought Jr. Bush was in their pocket. He'd see to it that the "NEW MID-EAST" plunked them down in a top spot in Iraq. Didn't happen. And, that Syria would fall into their hands, too. In The Summer of 2006.
Why not? Because the IDF is smarter than that. No matter what you hear, you'll see a failure of James Baker, to push Olmert, into sending in the IDF, to reach "American goal posts." So, Assad still has his head. Baker still kicks the furniture.
Gates, on the other hand, is doing his best to salvage Bush's reputation.
And, Iran hangs out there like a piece of ripe fruit.
Do you think the Saud's will kick this applecart, again? Yes. They're rich. And, they are stupid. But not "that" stupid.
The circus of Homeland Security is a boondoggle to give jobs to "blue collar workers," who saw their old jobs toodle off to China.
"Wasting Time," it's not just a musical, anymore.
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