Striking Oil

Yes, yes…. everybody is awaiting Bush’s “Forward Ho” speech on Iraq today.  But the recent retooling of the Administration, both at the State Department and in the military, hints at a strategy that is even more wrenching to consider.

Averse to temperance, consider this image — fronting the latest cover of BIDOUN, a hybrid visual arts/politics/culture magazine about the Middle and Near East — as the contents of a collective Administration thought bubble.  (The fact the tool, with its slightly more refined nature, is being wielded more like a blunt force instrument, seems dead-on.)

And while we’re pinning up graphics, what about this one from yesterday’s newswire, buried in all the hubbub of the Bush speech (as well as, yes, something about cruise missile strikes in Somalia).

Are the two visuals actually representations of the same thing as Uncle Sam (in spite of a reinvigorated Congress) launches himself into still hotter water?  …And then, what I’m wondering is, why is it so difficult to keep nuke submarines and foreign oil tankers separate from each other — especially when, according to the U.S. Central Command, the sub was “engaged in operations for maritime security.”

(image 1:  Cover. bidoun.com image 2: AFP Graphic.  1/9/07. Via YahooNews)