As the invasion of Iraq progressed, I remember constant references to CENTCOM. Journalists would receive their briefings from CentCom, a tent in Kuwait by all appearances. I thought CentCom represented central military communications there, a safe spot behind our lines where generals could command artillery, logistics, etc.
Learning about the newly formed AFRICOM and the established EUROCOM, each beachhead assertions of US superpower control over world regions, I have to revisit US CENTRAL COMMAND for what it is, and its terribly telling dominion. Central? By the emblem I see you don’t mean the time zone. You are not talking about defense of the American Midwest. Do you really mean to refer to the Middle East, including its extended oil producing nations, as the center of your realms to command? I’d sooner concede to American ethnocentrism than to Judeo-Christian pre-occupation with Jerusalem, sooner than hold Mecca in the center cross-hairs of our bomb sights.
I’m happy to report there are currently no eager takers for Bush’s announced AFRICOM, command central for our extraction-industry ambitions on that continent.
After Bin Laden’s loudly felt complaint about the US unholy presence in Saudi Arabia, CENTCOM facilities had to be moved further from Mecca, to the crony dictator states of Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and the UAE. The US Central Command assets include many military bases and undisclosed “weapon pre-positioning sites,” six of which have been revealed to be located in Israel.
Acronyms sound so official don’t they? Very salutable, and ignorable at the same time.
My favorite is DEAFCON. It’s the readiness warning when no one is listening to anyone else. The spoiler is that DEAFCON WON, but that won’t be an envelope opened at the Oscars this year. Wagons-ho! as the Academy sponsors would say!
Oh, were we talking about ethnocentrism? I thought we were simply clearing space for more parking lots. Green is the color of choice, and not the sustainable kind. Religious war? Yes, lots of prey, for sure!
(and for those who visited the Centcom link above, did you notice that it conveniently translates into Arabic? No other languages, just Arabic. What the hell happened to the U.N.-Com? Oh that was COM for Communications… diplomacy is so archaic, I must be getting old.)
Maybe it stands for COMpound, like the COMpounded abuses of the ‘Government by Gunfire’ advocates over the past 2 centuries.
Or the temporary COMpound where they’re going to take emergency shelter, until the COMmanders decide they’re not going to be able to sustain such an expensive defense and toss them to the COMmon people who got fed up with the COMedian(s) in Chief treating every man jack of us like we’re COMpletely helplessly stupid.
Maybe it’s the COMpost they’re going to be once these COMmoners COMe through the gates of the COMpound and COMpletely trash the place and it’s occupants.
Happy Bastille day.
I’m probably about a month early with that but, hey, it’ll be OUR Bastille (s) getting stormed.
Ok so I was just checking the date for Bastille Day version 1.0
July 14. But I came across this little gem from 3 years ago…
Bastille Day | News | guardian.co.uk
Exactly 215 years ago today the French were revolting. Here’s the best of the web on how they celebrate that event.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2004/jul/14/netnotes.france – 51k – Cached – Similar pages
So it’s an old gag coming back to gag us once more…