Paying The Dane-Geld

Your tax dollars at work.

From the "Everything Old and Stupid is New and Brilliant Again" department, CNN reports that the practice of bribing bad guys not to kill us might actually not be the Best Policy Decision Evah:

Surge or splurge in Iraq?

By Jamie McIntyre and Laurie Ure
CNN Washington Bureau

(CNN) -- On the fifth anniversary of the war in Iraq, with nearly 4,000 American lives lost, is Iraq really on a path to peace?

Three factors are often cited in explaining the improvement in security: the U.S. troop surge, the political "awakening" of the Iraqi people, and the cease fire ordered by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

But some say a controversial fourth dynamic is at play as well -- cash, being doled out by the barrelful.

It's a truth many hold to be self-evident that more American troops translate into less Iraqi violence. As President Bush said in January's State of the Union speech, "Some may deny the surge is working, but among the terrorists there is no doubt."

But some military experts do have doubts, arguing there's actually a mightier force at work -- hundreds of millions in cash given to Iraqis, for everything from picking up garbage to taking up arms against al Qaeda. VideoWatch Bush discuss the troop surge »

Retired Army Col. Doug Macgregor, a longtime critic of top Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus, said it's a "cash-for-peace" scheme that is bound to backfire.

"Normally when you begin paying off your enemy on the scale that we are, it is seen by your enemy as well as others as a tacit admission of failure, not of success," Macgregor said.

It's hard to pin down exactly how many millions are going to former insurgents to switch sides, but Macgregor argues the result is artificial progress.

"What we've done is we've also flooded the Sunni-Arab insurgents with cash to create a temporary cease-fire to reduce the numbers of U.S. casualties," he said.

…

So that happens when the money dries up?

Critics, Macgregor among them, predict a quick return to civil war.

"We have to understand that this expedient policy of paying your enemy is very dangerous. It's fragile, and eventually, hatred of the foreign occupier overwhelms greed," he said.

Where oh where have we heard this somber warning before?

Actually about a century ago, via Rudyard Kipling.

Here's a snip from "The Dane-Geld"

…
It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation
To call upon a neighbour and to say: --
"We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight,
Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld,
And the people who ask it explain
That you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld
And then you'll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation,
To puff and look important and to say: --
"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you.
We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld;
But we've proved it again and again,
That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld
You never get rid of the Dane.
…

Remember when this was a war that was going to pay for itself?

A Magic Super War, in support of which the Greatest Act of Patriotism you the American Prole could perform was to keep buying as much crap as possible.

Which wasn’t going to require your tax dollars to win, could be fought ouchlessly over a long weekend by our mechanized 21st Century military, and was going to spread a love of America and Democracy in an unstoppable tide from the Jordan River to the Ural Mountains.

Instead we now air-lift in palette trucks of your hard-earned and rapidly devaluing money so this Administration can pay what we still quaintly refer to in Chicago as “protection” to local warlords, and bribe factions to not slaughter each other and us long enough to declare the Surge an Unmitigated Success and get McCain/Lieberman elected to George Bush’s Third term.

And wouldn't it be ironic if the blowback from our rapidly imploding debt-driven monetary system turns out to be that our Iraqi gunsels start refusing to take American dollars and we had to start doling our our bribes in Euros?

Of course eventually, no matter how thick you slather this debacle in Happy Wingnut Horse-shit, you run out of cash, fresh troops, and public patience.

But you will never, ever, ever get rid of the Dane.