Marine slang: A clusterfuck was any group of Marines big enough to draw enemy fire, or several Marines close enough together to be wounded by the same incoming round. More generically, a clusterfuck was something that was all screwed up, i.e. "That blocking operation was a giant clusterfuck!" Whenever three or more CAP Marines gathered in the open, talking or working on something, somebody was sure to call out "clusterfuck!" and one or more guys would walk away. (Capmarine.com)
Clearly, Bush's war of choice in Iraq is "all screwed up"; that makes it a clusterfuck by definition. However, the term is even more a propos. Tactically, Bush's war of choice in Iraq is a clusterfuck. The analogy to "Marines close enough together to be wounded by the same incoming round" is clear. In Vietnam, "in the open" meant being exposed in the rice paddies or jungles. In Iraq, "in the open" means (1) urban warfare where (2) troops (and contractors) must be supplied by trucks which (3) are not armored thereby making them vulnerable to (4) the "incoming rounds" of IEDs placed along the roadside. Nice work, Inerrant Boy. (And the resonance to the words of Matthew 18:19, "wherever two or three are gathered together," is heartbreaking.) NOTE: A tip of the Ol' Corrente Hat to the man in the grey turtleneck for mainstreaming the word "clusterfuck" when applied to Bush's war of choice in Iraq.
Comments
It's just a rebranding, sayeth Clyburn
There's no policy aspect to it at all.
What it does do is make it easier for genuine reformers to call bullshit. I suspect that's why we're not hearing much about it -- even from "progressives."
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Brief discussion
Check out the first 3:25 of Part 1 here.