Apr 08 2008
Above title comes from MoJo, short for Mother Jones, for those not in the know.
It covers this:
Washington Dispatch: We asked a dozen national security experts what Congress should ask the top military commander in Iraq at this week’s hearings. Here’s what they came up with.
Mar 19 2008
You want fiction? Here’s some to mark today’s 5th Anniversary of the Iraq War.
Scene 1
September, 2006: Brothers George, John, and Ringo stand together in the front hallway on George’s house. They have just answered the door, greeting Petraeus, President of a local construction company. They exchange greetings and lead him to the kitchen table, where the conversation begins.
GEORGE: We’re, uh, glad you could come to see us, Mr. Petraeus. As I think my brother John told you when he called, it’s about the house we’re having built on the lot we inherited from our parents.
PETRAEUS: Yes, I’ve taken a look at the house and I’ve talked to the contractors, and the contractors before that, and the original contractors.
JOHN: Well, as you should know then, you can see that the construction process has been a complete disaster.
GEORGE: I wouldn’t say it’s been a disaster, exactly.
more
Feb 27 2008
“To surge or not to surge! That is the question! Whether it is nobler to send more Americans off to face possible death, or to say I was wrong.”
Heh! Like I’m going to say I was wrong about something – G.W. Bush, Presnit USA
Back, oh a few months ago, the Bush/Petraeus/Cheney/Liberman/McCain Surge™ was going swimmingly! We were told that it was going so VERY WELL that before the year 2008 was over, we would be reducing the number of American soldiers in the Iraqi theater down to less than the number of troops that were there pre-Bush/Petraeus/Cheney/Liberman/McCain Surge™.
Well. Not so much.
If you would be so kind as to read on below.
Feb 12 2008
Lest we think that the Iraqization of the war is underway and that US trops will be coming home, this blunt reminder. AP reports:
FORWARD OPERATING BASE FALCON, Iraq – In a clear sign the drawdown of U.S. forces from Iraq will be suspended, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday he favors taking time this summer to assess security gains before more troops leave the country, an idea President Bush is expected to support.
It was Gates’ first public endorsement of a possible suspension, and it would seem to mark an end to the Pentagon chief’s previously stated hope that conditions in Iraq would permit American troops to withdraw in the second half of this year as rapidly as they are leaving now.
“A brief period of consolidation and evaluation probably does make sense,” Gates told reporters during a short stop at this U.S. base in southern Baghdad. He had just finished private meetings with Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and the No. 2 commander, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno.
Gates did not say how long the pause might last, noting that it ultimately would be a decision for the president.
Friday is Iraq Moratorium #6, a loosely-knit nationwide effort that asks people to take some action, individually or in a group, on the third Friday of every month to call for an end to the war. Those actions range from simple gestures like wearing a black armband or button to participating in a large-scale protest.
Since the Moratorium began in September, more than 600 events have been listed with the group’s website, IraqMoratorium.org, which has a list of upcoming actions, and reports, photos and videos from previous month’s events. You’ll also find suggestions on things you can do by yourself.
What are you going to do?
Jan 27 2008
John McCain is riding high in the polls right now. As of right now, he seems to be on the inside track to win the Presidential nomination. He is one of the few candidates who is currently leading Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in the general election polls. And yet, it turns out that the McCain Doctrine on Iraq is now unraveling.
John McCain, whose campaign was left for dead last summer, was able to revive in part by portraying himself as a heroic figure who stood up and challenged the Bush administration on Iraq and called out Donald Rumsfeld. He was therefore able to attract Republican critics of the war that might otherwise have gone to Ron Paul; he was able to attract them by showing how the war was allegedly mismanaged. But McCain is now a ticking time bomb who is in danger of imploding. He hitched his wagons to the Petraeus Surge so that when there was more stability in Iraq, he could turn around and say that he was right all along. Already, Mitt Romney is drawing even with McCain in the polls in Florida.
John McCain’s political fortunes in this race rise or fall with the success or failure of the “surge.” And given the stories below, it seems that it has not addressed the ongoing violence in Iraq. People may argue at this point that there is a lot more stability in Iraq than there was several months ago. But the current relative stability in Iraq has nothing to do with the so-called “surge.” But it turns out that the current stability, which could unravel at any time, was a result of deals that were brokered by Northern Ireland and South African negotiators and 16 of the main Iraqi political factions. So, even if there was stability, John McCain cannot justifiably claim credit for it in the first place.
Jan 17 2008
Families gathered at the 5th Marine Regiment Memorial Park at Camp Pendleton, Calif.,(right) to spend their last few moments with loved ones before they left for Iraq. Regimental Combat Team 5 left Camp Pendleton on January 3 for their one year deployment to the Al Anbar province of Iraq.– USMC Photo.
While my old regiment ships out again,I have to ask:
Are we headed, as many in the antiwar movement have feared, into an Iraq-free zone during this election season? Have the Dems decided to wait until next year to try to do anything?
Noah Feldman, in last Sunday’s NY Times magazine:
What if the United States were at war during a presidential election – and none of the candidates wanted to talk about it? Iraq has become the great disappearing issue of the early primary season, and if nothing fundamental changes on the ground there – a probable result of current policy – the war may disappear even more completely in the new year…
… elections demand that candidates differentiate themselves, yet various plausible front-runners’ positions on Iraq are not all that far apart. There are subtle differences regarding the completeness and timing of withdrawal: John Edwards, for instance, says he would remove even the troops who are training the Iraqi Army and police. But basically, the leading doves say they want to leave, but not too fast; while the hawks claim they want to stay, but not too long.
This week’s Democratic debate in Las Vegas highlighted what Feldman said. Clinton, Obama and Edwards all offered their nuanced positions, including this clarification of an old question about whether they would have all US troops out by 2013:
(Follow below the fold- ek hornbeck)
Jan 14 2008
As if we needed another, here is reason Number 486,948,231 (and counting) to do something to end the war and occupation in Iraq:
A year after he ordered a large increase in American troops in Iraq, President Bush said Saturday that he was prepared to slow or even halt further reductions of forces there, emphasizing that any decision depended on security and the stability of the Iraqi government.
After meeting with Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker here at a sprawling desert base in neighboring Kuwait, Mr. Bush noted the sharp reduction in attacks on American troops and Iraqi civilians in recent months, saying the decline in violence was too hard-won to be squandered.
So the surge, intended to buy time to allow for some political progress in Iraq — which has not happened — now must be sustained simply to maintain the status quo, it appears.
Is anyone surprised? Even the Democrats who keep funding the war without demanding any plans for troop withdrawals?
More, on the anniversary of the “surge,” from the NY Times:
Mr. Bush said that additional withdrawals would depend solely on conditions in Iraq, which General Petraeus was reviewing. During an 80-minute meeting, the president instructed the general, who is due to report in the spring on suggested troop levels, to make no recommendation that would jeopardize improvements in security.
“My attitude is, if he didn’t want to continue the drawdown, that’s fine with me in order to make sure we succeed, see,” Mr. Bush told reporters inside a command center that oversees Army operations in a region stretching from Kenya to Kazakhstan. “I said to the general, ‘If you want to slow her down, fine.’ It’s up to you.”
Friday, January 18, is Iraq Moratorium #5.
If you like the way things are going, and will be content to keep US troops in Iraq as long as we’ve kept them in Korea, don’t do anything.
But if you thing there’s something rotten in Washington, not to mention Baghdad, please do something to turn up the heat on the President — and, more importantly, on the Congress and the presidential wannabes in both parties.
It’s got to stop, and we’ve got to stop it.
Oct 19 2007
As Seymour Hersh has reported, the Bush Administration has made a deliberate calculation to change the rationale for its warmongering against Iran. They realized that the lie about Iran’s nascent nuclear weapons program wasn’t selling, so they decided to recalibrate and relaunch with a new marketing campaign claiming Iran is a major cause of the violence in Iraq. Of course, there wouldn’t be much violence in Iraq, had Bush not launched an invason, but we’re talking about catapulting propaganda, not reality.
So, the first Iran War rollout wasn’t working, and the Administration decided on another one; because it’s not the facts that matter, it’s the selling of war. So, Iran suddenly became a dangerous influence in Iraq. And some-time general, and full-time political hack, David Petraeus was recently in England, trying to sell the same story– although the Brits aren’t buying it. Apparently, neither are the people who would actually know something about it: the Iraqis.
The New York Times is reporting:
Iraq has agreed to award $1.1 billion in contracts to Iranian and Chinese companies to build a pair of enormous power plants, the Iraqi electricity minister said Tuesday. Word of the project prompted serious concerns among American military officials, who fear that Iranian commercial investments can mask military activities at a time of heightened tension with Iran.
Or maybe those American officials are actually worried that it’s going to be hard to sell a war based on Iranian meddling in Iraq when Iraq itself is inviting Iranian businesses into Iraq to build power plants.
The Iraqi electricity minister, Karim Wahid, said that the Iranian project would be built in Sadr City, a Shiite enclave in Baghdad that is controlled by followers of the anti-American cleric Moktada al-Sadr. He added that Iran had also agreed to provide cheap electricity from its own grid to southern Iraq, and to build a large power plant essentially free of charge in an area between the two southern Shiite holy cities of Karbala and Najaf.
So, Iran’s going to actually help solve Iraq’s electricity problem. Something at which we’ve not been doing such a good job.
The Chinese will be paid about $940,000,000 for their plant, and the Iranians about $150,000,000 for theirs. Don’t ask where the money’s coming from. The article doesn’t say whether it’s out of the funds we’re giving Iraq, but it would be interesting to trace it. Because we are giving them a lot. And these are expensive projects. So, it does actually seem plausible that our tax dollars will be going to Iran, to help them rebuild Iraq.
And there’s this:
Oct 11 2007
An interesting dimension of the Bush Administration’s attempts to catapult the propaganda about Iran has been reported in a series of separate articles, in the Guardian, the past couple weeks. They’re trying to sell a war to Britain. Thus far, Britain’s not buying.
On September 30, the Guardian reported that John Bolton was in England, doing what John Bolton does: warmonger.
John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, told Tory delegates today that efforts by the UK and the EU to negotiate with Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike on suspected nuclear facilities in the country….
He added that any strike should be followed by an attempt to remove the “source of the problem”, Mr Ahmadinejad.
Because that worked so well in Iraq, let’s try it again: bomb them, then remove their leadership. Because we’re allowed to do such things. Because we’re exceptional.
On Monday, the Guardian reported that some-time general, and increasingly full-time political hack, David Petraeus, was also in England, also to sell a war:
The commander of US forces in Iraq, General David Petraeus, yesterday sharpened America’s confrontation with Iran, claiming that a leader of its Revolutionary Guard corps was in direct charge of policy in Baghdad.
The charge that Tehran’s ambassador to Baghdad, Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, was a member of the Quds force, a unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, takes US accusations of Iranian meddling in Iraq’s violence to a new level. It strengthens suggestions that Washington is ratcheting up the rhetoric against Tehran in preparation for military strikes against Revolutionary Guard facilities in Iran.
Ratcheting up the rhetoric is right. Whether or not the rhetoric has any relation to the truth is, as always with the Bush Administration and its minions, irrelevant. And the Guardian had already reported that during last Spring’s standoff over the Iranian capture of fifteen British sailors, even Tony Blair’s government turned down Bush Administration offers of aggressive and provocative military patrols in Iranian airspace.
The latest encouraging news came from the Guardian’s sister paper, the Observer, last Sunday:
Oct 02 2007
Not what I thought was going to pour from my fingertips yesterday but you know how those freaky muses are. Besides, Sun Tsu never met a weakening of his enemies defenses he didn’t like.
Feels like such an odd diary to write since I don’t even want anybody I know to be involved in the Iraq War. I don’t get a choice though in the matter and we have thrown in the towel on getting out any time in the near future so please allow me to focus constructively on something that can be done and affects all those on the ground in Iraq.
Sep 17 2007
I have never been a fan of George Lakoff. I imagine he may be an effective academic. I believe he is clueless when it comes to politics. For example this:
MoveOn’s “General Betray Us?” ad has raised vital questions that need a thorough and open discussion. The ad worked brilliantly to reveal, via its framing, an essential but previously hidden truth: the Bush Administration and its active supporters have betrayed the trust of the troops and the American people.
MoveOn hit a nerve. In the face of truth, the right-wing has been forced to change the subject — away from the administration’s betrayal of trust and the escalating tragedy of the occupation to of all things, an ad! To take the focus off maiming and death and the breaking of our military, they talk about etiquette. The truth has reduced them to whining: MoveOn was impolite. Rather than face the truth, they use character assassination against an organization whose three million members stand for the highest patriotic principles of this country, the first of which is a commitment to truth.
(Emphaiss supplied.) This has to be the dumbest thing I have read yet in defense of the Move On ad. I’ll just focus on the two bolded statements:
In the face of truth, the right-wing has been forced to change the subject — away from the administration’s betrayal of trust and the escalating tragedy of the occupation to of all things, an ad!
I would change a few words, “in the face of the truth, the right wing has been forced to WAS ABLE TO CHANGE THE SUBJECT — away from the administration’s betrayal of trust and the escalating tragedy of the oupation to of all things, an ad!” And Lakoff calls this ad brilliant? IS he joking? The Move On ad enabled the REFRAMING of “the truth” about Iraq. It allowed the Iraq Debacle to be overwhelmed by the stupidity of an ad, and Lakoff says Yay! He calls that good framing. Lakoff is perhaps the worst political strategist I have ever seen in my life.
More.
Sep 17 2007
In which some of the week’s top stories are given theme songs.
Democrats are impressed with General Petraeus’s shiny medals, before he proceeds, as expected, to catapult the propaganda about the war.
Even Democrats who despise the war policy were deferential in the face of the general’s even-keeled demeanor and his shiny silver stars, four to a shoulder. “He’s one of the best,” said Democratic Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, who ran proceedings in the ornate hearing room and ordered a succession of protesters ejected when they shouted their anger at the war.
Bush speaks to the nation, to catapult the propaganda about the war.