Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

( opening comment:

I consider myself a protestor against the U.S. war in Iraq. I am not impressed yet with anything the Democrats, after their electoral victory on November 7th, say they are planning in order to end the war soon. This article looks at the contrast between the Democratic attitudes toward the war and the anti-war movement.)


(paste from truthout.org)


Iraq Report: "A Giant Step Sideways"
By Sarah Olson
t r u t h o u t | Report

Tuesday 12 December 2006

US anti-war movements have myriad criticisms of the much-anticipated, recently released Iraq Study Group report. The report has been popularly received as a stinging rebuke of the Bush administration's foreign policy. This week's headlines trumpeted a 2008 troop withdrawal from Iraq and numerous changes in US foreign policy.

But the prevailing mood within the anti-war movement is not so sanguine. Despite the mainstream media's sound and fury, many analysts say the report has little to do with leaving Iraq any time soon. Instead, they fear the report's diligent research and assiduous recommendations serve to obfuscate the depth of the US-created crisis, change the nature of the occupation, pave the way for multinational privatization of Iraq's resources, and distract from increasingly stentorian calls for immediate withdrawal.

Anti-war advocates may be grateful for the report's criticism of the Iraq War and its frank analysis of the political difficulties the US government is facing. "Iraq is a centerpiece of American foreign policy," the report says. "Because of the gravity of Iraq's condition and the country's vital importance, the United States is facing one of is most difficult and significant international challenges in decades." But many activists are unwilling to embrace the recommendations enumerated in the report.

Last week members of United for Peace and Justice, a coalition of over 1,400 organizations across the US, held a conference call to discuss peace movement concerns regarding the Baker/Hamilton Iraq Study Group report.

Meaningful Diplomatic Efforts Still Needed

The Iraq Study Group calls for a "New Diplomatic Offensive" as one panacea for Iraq War troubles. Since many have called the Bush administration's foreign policy jingoistic and belligerent, there is an understandable temptation to view calls for increased diplomacy as a good thing.

The problem, according to Phyllis Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, is that current calls for diplomacy have no teeth. "The Iraq Study Group report provides a limited set of proposals. What it doesn't do is provide for US policy that substantively changes our diplomatic posture."

The New Diplomatic Offensive seeks to "marginalize extremists and terrorists, promote US values and interests, and improve America's global image," and it should start no later than December 31st, 2006. Unfortunately, these diplomatic goals are rather United States-centric, and provide little in the way of incentives for Iraqis or for other negotiating partners in the region.

Bennis says the mere fact the US now deigns to negotiate with Iran and Syria is unlikely to bring those countries to the table. "Expecting that the most powerful country in the world can say 'We will talk to you now,' and everything will be OK, is arrogant," she says.

Other advocates say that by definition neither diplomacy nor meaningful political negotiation can be conducted between occupying and occupied nations. "We believe diplomacy will not succeed if the US has a long-term military presence in Iraq," says Nancy Lessen, co-founder of Military Families Speak Out. One partner's military dominance of the other is inimical to diplomatic success.

Troop Withdrawal by 2008?

Despite the brouhaha to the contrary, the report does not recommend complete withdrawal from Iraq - ever. "Even after the United States has moved all combat brigades out of Iraq, we would maintain a considerable military presence in the region, with our still significant force in Iraq and with our powerful air, ground, and naval deployments in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar, as well as an increased presence in Afghanistan."

The report envisions a variety of continued roles for the US military in Iraq. More forces would be embedded with existing Iraqi Army battalions. US military would also provide assistance with intelligence, transportation, air support, and logistics. Remaining US forces would also include rapid-reaction and special operations teams.

When the report does talk about withdrawal, its language is rife with ambiguity. "While these efforts are building up, and as additional Iraqi brigades are being deployed, US combat brigades could begin to move out of Iraq. By the first quarter of 2008, subject to unexpected developments in the security situation on the ground, all combat brigades not necessary for force protection could be out of Iraq."

This doesn't sit well with United for Peace and Justice's national coordinator Leslie Cagan. "The bottom line for UFPJ is that the only thing that needs to happen is for the US to withdraw. No permanent bases. No military advisers. All troops out."

"This is not a proposal to end the war, but rather, to change the nature of the occupation," says the Institute for Policy Study's Phyllis Bennis. "Occupation and continued US presence is the problem, not the solution."

Indeed, 655,000 Iraqis - or 2.5 percent of the population - have been killed in this conflict, according to the November 2006 Johns Hopkins study. Approximately 3,000 people continue to die each month. Veteran anti-war activist and former California state assemblyperson Tom Hayden says the idea that the situation would deteriorate further after US withdrawal is spurious. "People want the troops out. We don't have right to meddle in the affairs of other countries, and then say leaving is a bigger mistake. If there's going be bloodbath when we leave, why would 80 percent Iraqis prefer us gone? We are living in a blind, elitist paradigm."

Both Bennis and Hayden say the report's real goal is not to withdraw troops from the region, but to have a frigorific effect on essential public debate. "The current administration does not want the war to be an issue in the 2008 elections," Hayden says. Placating the American public's inchoate criticism of the war is perhaps the best way to stanch the debate.

Supporting the Troops

While most politicians give lip service to supporting the troops, some military families and veterans groups say this is rarely backed by actual services. Instead, they say the Bush administration's "support the troop" rhetoric is transparently designed to whip citizens into a frothing, patriotic fervor, and silence the war's critics.

But the troops remain in Iraq, for longer and longer periods of time. Nancy Lessen of Military Families Speak Out says that stop-loss and redeployment programs give the military what amounts to a back-door draft. "Troops are now going on 3rd and 4th and 5th deployments," she says. "We have troops with tremendous PTSD kept in battle. The military is beyond stretched, and this damages individuals, families and communities."

And what happens as these soldiers return to the United States? Many are finding that the fabled services provided by the military do not exist. Iraq veterans are rapidly joining the existing legions of homeless veterans in the United States. While an estimated 500,000 veterans were homeless during 2004, the VA had the resources for only 100,000 of them.

The college money and job training many join the military to receive often proves elusive. According to the GI Rights Hotline, only about 35 percent of recruits receive funding for higher education. Those who do receive money typically receive far less than the promised $70,000. Job training rarely has practical applications outside the military; and one study found only 12 percent of male veterans and 6 percent of female veterans ever use their military training in a professional environment. Further, veterans typically earn only 85 cents to the non-veterans' dollar.

According to a recent Army study, nearly 20 percent of returning soldiers meet military medical criteria for mental health treatment. Because of the negative stigmas associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, these numbers are likely to be low. Studies find that even among soldiers diagnosed with PTSD, only 20 to 40 percent seek treatment.

Troop casualties continue to escalate. According to the Iraq Study Group's statistics, attacks on US soldiers in Iraq are averaging close to 180 per day. Nearly 3,000 Americans have died in the war, and an additional 21,000 have been physically wounded.

Lessen is concerned that the recommended partial withdrawal puts remaining troops in further danger. "We saw early on that people have trouble distinguishing between support for troops and support for war. Our position is that it is very possible to cut off all funds for war, and have funds sufficient to bring the troops home safely."

US Troops Out, WTO In

Anti-war movements have long charged the Bush administration with fighting a war for Iraqi oil, and inviting an elite coterie of corporate cronies to profit from reconstruction efforts. The report does little to assuage their concerns. "This is a call," says Tom Hayden, "for an American multinational take over of what there is of the Iraqi oil industry and the imposition of neo-liberal prices on the Iraqi people."

The report recommends that the US government "provide technical assistance" in drafting a law defining the rights of regional and local governments to oil resources. The US military is instructed to provide security to protect oil infrastructure. The International Monetary Fund is invited to apply pressure on Iraq to reduce its energy subsidies, concluding, "ntil Iraqis pay market prices for oil products, drastic fuel shortages will remain."

The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations, the European Union, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, many Arab nations, and of course the United States are all instructed to participate in Iraq's reconstruction projects. "An essential part of the reconstruction efforts in Iraq," according to recommendation 65 "should be greater involvement by and with international partners, who should do more than just contribute money. They should also actively participate in the design and construction of projects."

The legacy of US corporate involvement in Iraqi reconstruction efforts is now legendary. Despite corporate consumption of billions of US taxpayer dollars, actual living conditions in Iraq remain dire, according to a November Inter Press Service article by Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily. "The average household in Iraq now gets two hours of electricity a day," they write. "There is 70 percent unemployment, 68 percent of Iraqis have no access to safe drinking water, and only 19 percent have sewage access."

Just last month, Bechtel packed its bags and left Iraq, claiming exhausted funds and exasperation with the country's deteriorating security. It had accepted 2.3 billion dollars for its efforts to rebuild the country, but left without finishing the job. Halliburton was 8 billion dollars richer in 2004, thanks to US military contracts, and outside of palatial US military bases, it too has little to show for time spent in Iraq. The report does little to address concerns of corporate corruption and war profiteering; instead, it lauds the effects of US corporate participation and recommends an increase in multinational involvement.

Helping the Iraqis Help Themselves

The Iraq Study Group report is replete with paternalistic references to an irresponsible, feckless Iraqi government lacking the political will to lead an intractable population. It concurrently views the United States as a benevolent grandfather of a nation, bent on bringing democracy to a confused and foreign region.

The report concludes that "the United States could become its own worst enemy in a land it liberated from tyranny." It rejects the idea of Iraq proceeding unassisted by US military forces "because the Iraqi people and their leaders have been slow to demonstrate the capacity or the will to act."

Military Families Speak Out's Nancy Lessen says this is typical US condescension. "There is a sense that we need to talk tough. That we need to call on the Iraqi government to take responsibility, to not be a slacker," she says. "But the problem isn't the Iraqi government. It's the occupation, and it's the US government that started this war based on misrepresentation and lies."

Though perhaps not unexpected, it is still shocking how little attention the Iraq Study Group gives to the idea of unwelcome US forces in Iraq. Instead, it persists in viewing the imposition of US hegemony in the region as liberation. Despite compelling evidence that Iraqis want the US military to leave their country, astoundingly, the report recommends using further US involvement as an incentive for good behavior.

"If the Iraqi government demonstrates political will and makes substantial progress towards the achievement of milestones on national reconciliation, security, and governance," says the report's 20th recommendation, "the United States should make clear its willingness to continue training, assistance, and support for Iraq's security forces, and to continue political, military, and economic support for the Iraqi government."

The report frames its recommendations for Iraq in terms of helping the Iraqis help themselves, and doesn't shy away from placing the lion's share of the blame for the escalating violence and instability at the feet of the Iraqi government. "The Iraqi government needs to show its own citizens - and the citizens of the United States and other countries - that it deserves continued support."

This talk of requisite Iraqi responsibility suggests one thing to Tom Hayden. "Among Machiavellian leaders of super powers, reputation is important," he says. "This looks a bit like the end game of the Viet Nam war. We hand this military fiasco over to Iraq and then blame them for the inevitable, ensuing collapse." In short, President Bush needs a scapegoat.

And how must the Iraqi government take responsibility? Ironically, it appears the Study Group believes the Iraqi government best achieves real leadership by meekly following a set of guidelines laid out by the United States.

Responding to Continued Occupation

The anti-war movement is mapping out its response to the shifting US foreign policy. United for Peace and Justice is planning a demonstration in Washington, DC, on January 27th.

"We want representatives from every state, and from each of the 435 Congressional districts," says Leslie Cagan. "We want to send a message to Washington that people from all walks of life and from every district in the nation are coming to where Congress does their work, insisting that politicians do the work the American public sent them to Washington to do."

Many in the anti-war movement are placing their hopes in the newly-elected Democratic Congressional majority. Many see the sweeping Democratic victory as a referendum on an increasingly unpopular war. However, it's not entirely clear the Democrats in Congress are prepared to precipitate the sweeping changes anti-war activists are hoping for.

Most Democrats have not substantiated their evanescent tough talk on Iraq with meaningful action. Newly-elected speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi recently said she would not withhold Iraq War funding. "Absolutely not," Pelosi said. "Democrats will be there to support the troops." Instead, Pelosi calls for hearings, oversight, and accountability.

But Military Families Speak Out's Nancy Lessen says a cut in funding is precisely what is needed. "We call on Congress to cut off funding for the war, and to bring troops home now." She is also quick to recognize that it has never been politicians who end wars, but instead persistent, dedicated social movements. She thinks it's incumbent on the US anti-war movement to provide the structure and leadership to create this type of meaningful and long-lasting change.

--------

Sarah Olson is a freelance journalist and radio producer based in Oakland, California. She can be reached at solson75@yahoo.com.


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"Occupation and continued US presence is the problem, not the solution."

Yep, that’s the problem all right. The report kind of pussy foots about that.

Both Bennis and Hayden say the report's real goal is not to withdraw troops from the region, but to have a frigorific effect on essential public debate.

I heard Diane Rehm call the report “political cover.”






Frigorific is the secrete word, and the duck comes down and gives the lucky contestant a 100 bucks.


I don’t consider my self so much anti war as anti violence. I am a fool.




I can't speak to the part of the article dealing with supporting the troops, too much pain. Maybe tomorrow, too tired tonight for fear and loathing.

sorry for the ramble
Good article. Thanks

SECOND ARTICLE : The "Bloodbath" fallacy

(paste)


Published on Thursday, December 14, 2006 by TomPaine.com
The Bloodbath We Created
by Gareth Porter

Of all the faults of the Iraq Study Group the most serious was its warning, highlighted by Co-Chairman Lee Hamilton, that a “precipitate withdrawal” would cause a “bloodbath” in Iraq as well as a region-wide war. The cry of “bloodbath”—now given bipartisan status—will certainly be used to crush any attempt in Congress to advance a plan for a timetable for withdrawal.

In offering this bloodbath argument, the ISG has unconsciously mimicked the argument used by President Richard Nixon to justify continuing the U.S. war in Vietnam for another four years. Nixon, too, warned of a postwar “bloodbath” if there was a “precipitate withdrawal” of U.S. troops. If the Vietnam era bloodbath argument sought to distract the public’s attention from the very real bloodbath that the U.S. war was causing, the new bloodbath argument distracts attention from the relationship between the U.S. occupation and the sectarian bloodbath that is continuing to worsen with every passing month.

You would think that the political elite might be wary of an argument suggesting that the U.S. military presence in Iraq somehow helps restrain the Shiites and Sunnis from civil war—in light of the escalating sectarian killings in Baghdad since thousands of U.S. troops poured into Baghdad ostensibly to curb the sectarian war. Yet that is exactly what we are asked to believe by the ISG.

The bloodbath argument evades the central fact that the U.S. occupation has never been aimed at avoiding or reducing sectarian war between Sunnis and Shiites. On the contrary, the U.S. has used sectarian conflict for its own purposes. The main purpose of the U.S. occupation has been to claim victory over those who resisted it, which has meant primarily suppressing the Sunni armed resistance throughout the Sunni zone. The Bush administration had to have Iraqi allies against the Sunni resistance, and after Sunni security units showed in 2004 that they would not fight other Sunnis on behalf of the occupation, the administration began relying primarily on Shiites to assist its war against the Sunnis.

Thus the militant Shiite political parties and their military wing became the administration’s primary Iraqi allies. Unfortunately those were the very sectarian organizations that were motivated by revenge against Sunnis. As soon they had gained control of the state organs of violence through the January 2005 election, those organizations began to unleash retribution against the Sunni community in Baghdad—seizing Sunni mosques and killing Sunni political and religious leaders. The torture and killing of Sunni detainees by such Shiite paramilitary groups as the Badr brigade and the Wolf brigade were well documented by mid-2005.

The Bush administration was hardly unaware of the dangerous rise of the pro-Iranian Shiite militias in Baghdad who intended to carry out ethnic cleansing against Sunnis. Their closest Iraqi collaborator, the secular Shiite interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, was warning them in no uncertain terms. In July 2005 , Allawi warned publicly that Iraq was “practically in stage one of a civil war as we speak.”

For a period of months in late 2005 and early 2006, the administration fretted over the new threat of sectarian civil war. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad publicly resisted Shiite control over the interior and defense ministries and threatened to reconsider U.S. assistance if they were not put in non-sectarian hands. As reported by the Sunday Times of London December 10, Khalilzad even carried on secret negotiations with Sunni resistance leaders for two months on their offer to be integrated into the national army and to “clean up” the pro-Iranian militias in Baghdad with arms provided by the United States.

In the end, however, Bush pulled back from making a deal with the Sunnis. When a permanent government was finally negotiated under firm sectarian Shiite control in April 2006, the administration resumed its support for its Shiite allies in the official war against the both Sunni resistance and al-Qaida-related terrorists. The interests of the military command and the White House in claiming a success in “standing up” an Iraqi army and police force trumped any concern about sectarian civil war.

The ISG failed to consider the full implications of that policy. Contrary to the official administration line that involvement in sectarian violence is limited to a minority of “extremists” in the military and police, in fact virtually the entire structure of Shiite military and police units is either actively participating or complicit in terrorism against Sunnis. When the SCIRI and its allies took over the interior department in 2005, its Badr militia was given wide latitude to infiltrate thousands of its loyal militiamen into the national police.

Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militiamen dominate the police both in parts of Baghdad and the Shiite south. Both Badr and Mahdi army recruits have been implicated in sectarian killings. The Defense Department admitted in its August 2006 report to Congress that it has no system for screening police for membership in Shiite militias. Wayne White, who was Deputy Director of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research’s Near Eastern Division and coordinated Iraqi Intelligence until his retirement in 2005, and an adviser to the ISG, says the Iraqi police force have such close ties with the Shiite militias that it is “probably beyond help.”

The U.S.-sponsored Iraqi army is scarcely less sectarian in nature. The ISG itself admits that there are “significant questions about the ethnic composition and loyalties of some Iraqi units—specifically whether they will carry out missions on behalf of national goals instead of a sectarian agenda.” Reporter Tom Lasseter, who was imbedded in the all-Shiite first brigade in October 2005, was told by one sergeant that they would do to the Sunnis what Saddam did to Shiites: “Start with five people from each neighborhood and kill them in the streets and go from there.”

Nevertheless, the United States has already transferred 287,000 AK-47 rifles, 17,000 machine guns, 7,600 grenade launchers, and 1,800 high mobility wheeled vehicles to these forces, according to official Central Command figures. The transfer of weapons to the police accelerated this past year, despite the well-known involvement of police units in death squad activities. And the Defense Department plans to send yet another 50,000 rifles to the police and another 86,000 to the army—along with 3,000 more vehicles.

We have every reason to fear that these weapons will become the basis for a higher level of warfare by Shiites against Sunnis in the future. Despite the administration’s complaints that Iran is supporting the Shiite militias who are causing sectarian violence, the United States itself is the quartermaster of the forces of sectarian civil war. And the recommendations of the ISG would continue this role for the indefinite future.

Why, then, should the occupation be considered as representing a restraint on the sectarian civil war already underway? It has no realistic plan or strategy for protecting the victims of “sectarian cleansing” except for “pressure” on the Shiite prime minister, which Shiite leaders rightly regard as serving domestic U.S. political purposes. And the idea that thousands of U.S. trainers swarming into Iraq will somehow transform the existing sectarian anti-Sunni army into one that will effectively oppose sectarian violence is, of course, laughable.

The notion that years more of U.S. military occupation will help stanch the bloodletting between Shiites and Sunnis is a self-deception of monumental proportions. If the objective were really to end the bloodletting, the United States would actively seek a peace agreement with the Sunni resistance based on a rapid, phased withdrawal and stop supporting the Shiite war against them. That would give international diplomatic efforts a more serious chance to succeed.

The bloodbath argument foisted on the public by the ISG is really about the refusal of a large segment of the political elite to accept the fact that the United States has broken Iraq in a way that can no longer be fixed by U.S. power—and has lost a war it entered into with such arrogance. It is a statement of ideological belief by an elite still deep in denial.

Gareth Porter is a historian and national security policy analyst. His latest book, Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam was published in June 2005. During the Vietnam War, Porter was a Ph.D. candidate specializing in Vietnamese history and politics who debunked the Nixon administration's "bloodbath" argument in a series of articles and monographs.

http://www.trumanlibrary.org/annan.htm

Kofi Annan good bye at the truman library
in a small town in Missouri where Churchil gave the Iron Curtain Speach.

Kofi socks it us, no idea what this anti war voice is, most of all I trust the veterans and the the professors in the physics department.

I hope mnaz was not serious about his last angry poem
I can hardly contain my outrage at the blood shed caused by that good moral christian man we call pastor president, who is determined to save us from his devils.

shit rambel
sorry

here is a excerpt and link to the transcript.[/b

Paste]Standing here, I am reminded of Winston Churchill's last visit to the White House, just before Truman left office in 1953. Churchill recalled their only previous meeting, at the Potsdam conference in 1945. "I must confess, sir," he said boldly, "I held you in very low regard then. I loathed your taking the place of Franklin Roosevelt." Then he paused for a moment, and continued: "I misjudged you badly. Since that time, you more than any other man, have saved Western civilization."
My friends, our challenge today is not to save Western civilization — or Eastern, for that matter. All civilization is at stake, and we can save it only if all peoples join together in the task.
You Americans did so much, in the last century, to build an effective multilateral system, with the United Nations at its heart. Do you need it less today, and does it need you less, than 60 years ago?
Surely not. More than ever today, Americans, like the rest of humanity, need a functioning global system through which the world's peoples can face global challenges together. And in order to function, the system still cries out for far-sighted American leadership, in the Truman tradition.
I hope and pray that the American leaders of today, and tomorrow, will provide it.
Thank you very much.
http://www.trumanlibrary.org/annan.htm

Yes, ST:

Let's not forget that we ( the U.S.) are STILL pursuing unilateralism, in spite of the diluted panaceas recommended by "experts."

The latest report seems to indicate we'll send more troops and bombs as some kind of "adjustment"

DUBKO is still saying he can get his "victory", as if it were possible, in a Lewis Carroll way, to make words mean whatever you wish they meant.

http://www.sundials.org/about/humpty.htm


--Z

Well we could always nuke them



nothing changes



Victory is at hand

The military are speaking up
since rumsfeld gone
but rumsfeld ain't really gone it seems
He lingers at the fringes
When will he say his last good bye?

nice day in san antone
according to the Hearst paper here you would not even know there is a war on. Page 7A had a bit about

"Breaking Point for the Army?" General Shoomaker said Thursday that the misssion in Iraq, "will break" the Army without an expansion of the active-duty force or the remobilization of the National Guard and Reserve units.

....

I can't imagine what is going on in the white house, a bunker mentality?

Phillip Gaily St Pete Times editorial page editor just wrote an article in Sunday's Perspective section about his opinion that a late surge in US troops won't hack it, also echoeing what has happenned to the US military in the process.

Iraq 'surge' won't solve quagmire By PHILIP GAILEY, Times Editor of Editorials
Published December 17, 2006

to which i replied
"nice going phill ya finally got yer cojones in order
nam vet"

also timely postings thanks
the next step in the unfolding saga
images of thhe new Iraqi parliament sitting and talking
about bringing back old saddamn's military commanders, mercy, and be sure to privatise the oil fields too. onfoortunately, the oil giants will lose out, but hey, they made a lot of moneys as stockholders and directors of the various private contractors in this war and are so filthy rich already, we know they consider themselves to be a superior class of people to us minions, serfs, military pawns. taxpayers. gimme an F!

Frigorific is the secret word, and the duck comes down and gives the lucky contestant a 100 bucks.

where is groucho marx when we need him

Main Entry: frig·o·rif·ic
Pronunciation: "fri-g&-'ri-fik
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin frigorificus, from frigor-, frigus frost
: causing cold : CHILLING

Main Entry: in·cho·ate
Pronunciation: in-'kO-&t, 'in-k&-"wAt
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin inchoatus, past participle of inchoare to start work on, perhaps from in- + cohum part of a yoke to which the beam of a plow is fitted
: being only partly in existence or operation : INCIPIENT; especially : imperfectly formed or formulated : FORMLESS, INCOHERENT <misty>

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary

Both Bennis and Hayden say the report's real goal is not to withdraw troops from the region, but to have a frigorific effect on essential public debate. "The current administration does not want the war to be an issue in the 2008 elections," Hayden says. Placating the American public's inchoate criticism of the war is perhaps the best way to stanch the debate.

We certainly hope to keep the heat on and encourage ongoing criticism of this absurd unmitigated arrogant tragic aggression by the USofA's neo-con bullshitters onto the Iraqi people. But we're not fooled, we the American people of insight and dissent. We, who have watched this unfolding with dismay, know the best that can happen for all parties is for the USofA to leave Iraq alone, and let somebody with some brains and helpfullness do the job of settling down the futile cleansing, like their immediate neighbors, without USofA'ss interference.

Kerizt! America this ain't us. We are better and we will get better someday.

(More on the suggested post-withdrawal "bloodbath" to follow) I can only say right now from my aerial geographic knowledge of the Southeast Asia combat theatre, including Thailand, where a massive air war was based, and Cambodia as well, is that we left eastern Cambodia and South Vietnam with vast unpopulated areas. The survivors of that bloodbath and ecocide had already gone to the urban areas. There was no post-war bloodbath in either Vietnam or Laos.

In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge Maoists, enraged by the massive carpet bombing of the eastern quarter of their country, walked into a vacuum virtualy unopposed by only an absurd post-royal army already weakened by dissent and the subterfuge of the CIA due to the overthrow of their neutralist leader by the royal army, paid off and allowed to run away. We watched as the killing fields occurred. American neo-cons used this as justification for the tragic and horrendous policies we had carried out in Southeast Asia over the prior war years. We also condemned the post-war Vietnamese as "imperialists" when they went into Cambodia, stifled the Khmer Rouge, turned the country over to the United Nations, and withdrew when peace was re-established. Cambodia is now a neutralist nation once again.)
In other words, any ensueing bloodbath would be blamed on the American dissenters, not on the arrogant policies that upset the applecart to begin with.
Yet out "quartermaster" policy of arming the new Iraqi army and police will go as they the Iraqis want it to go, Shiites and Sunnis, and nada we can do about it except blame somebody else, Amerika
There were many much more creative ways to deal with Saddamn, and the suffering of the Iraqi people, including the water purification projects thhat the Veterans for Peace had inside Iraq during the 1990's. He was no threat, only our stooge in Baghdad who had outlived his usefullness to the imperial neo-colonialists.

The power vacuum has been created by fifty years of cold war policies in the mid east. All that was left after all the coups was the fundamentalists.

Ali: Lets be clear. I'm an atheist. There is a big vacuum in the Muslim world. Secular impulses that were very strong and took the form of nationalism, socialism or communism were wiped out after the pre-emptive war waged by Israel (backed by the US) in 1967. In Indonesia which had the largest communist party of the the non-communist world there was a CIA-supported massacre in 1965 when over a million communists were killed. In this vacuum , after the Cold war, Islamists of various hues stepped in. The young are attracted by jihad because they see NO other resistance to the Washington consensus. It is a rejection of neo-liberal consumerism and military expansionism. I respond to them by arguing that the Empire will only be defeated politically, not militarily. And that requires a politico-economic vision that is infinitely superior to what the Empire offers. A return to early Islam or Talibanisation is a grotesque joke.

http://www.globalpolicy.org/wtc/fundame ... battle.htm

Stall stall stall
and then blame the disaster on the democrats and hillary in 2008.

I will breathe easier in 2008, I have high hopes that it will turn around by them. Unless Michael is right and we will have a coup here. President declared mentally incompetent, Dick Cheney residing in the Spiro T Agnew wing at a federal pen in Leavenworth KS. Speaker of the HOuse Pelosi becomes president.

Yeah roll another one just like the other one
let my spirit be unchained
in blissful fantascies.


America don't you know me?
I am your native son.
Be gone five hundred miles when day is done Steve Goodman

Of course, ST:

You are certainly right to quote this passage:

(paste)

The young are attracted by jihad because they see NO other resistance to the Washington consensus. It is a rejection of neo-liberal consumerism and military expansionism. I respond to them by arguing that the Empire will only be defeated politically, not militarily.

( end paste)

But, unfortunately, even though you are well aware of these tensions and resentments, most of the population, which turned to the Dems because there was, they thought, nowhere else to turn on November 7th, is not.

They operate from a willed blindness tantamount to that of DECIDING IMBECILE I, GWB, whose own father must be shedding tears of rage and popping Lithium.

A "surge"? How many times did we "surge" in Vietnam? From fifty advisors to 600 thousand combat troops, then helicoptered out with our red, white and blue tail between our legs and called it victory.

You like to quote song lyrics, so here are some for you:

( paste)
. . . Our lives change like the weather but a legend never dies

He said, "I ate the last mango in Paris
Took the last plane out of Saigon
Took the first fast boat to China
And Jimmy, there's still so much to be done.

I had a third world girl in Buzios
With a pistol on each hand
She always kept me covered
As we moved from land to land
I had a damn good run on wall street
With my high fashion model wife
Til I woke up dry beneath the African sky
Just me and my Swiss Army knife . . .

--Jimmy Buffet, THE LAST MANGO IN PARIS

We imagine ourselves to be legends even though there is ample evidence to the contrary. Often we imagine our "legendary" presence in a country is enough. But the world isn't buying that one any more . . .

Good post. Thank you.

--Z


. . .

From Codepink

We were appalled to hear Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, on Sunday's ABC show "This Week," say he would support a "short-term" increase of U.S. troops in Iraq. AN INCREASE IN TROOPS? What is Harry thinking? The voters didn't put his party in power to escalate this war, but the end it!

Harry's website may be named GiveEmHellHarry.com, but now it's time for us to give him hell for buckling so quickly to Bush's war machine.

Please take a moment out of your busy holiday schedule to call, email or FAX Harry Reid and tell him this just isn't acceptable.

Call: 202-224-2158 -- Democratic Leadership Office in DC
(If that doesn’t work call his scheduler: 202-224-7003)

Email: Susan_McCue@reid.senate.gov (chief of staff)
Fax: 202-224-7327 -- DC Office

This guy Reid is a sleeze, he does not offer me much reason for optimism.
I would so much rather see Boxer as majority leader. And Rockefeller who voted for the war along with the rest of the chicken hawks is going to be head of the senate intelligence committee. I wonder what intelligence he has now that he did not have then?
I can see why mnaz don't think much of the demos either.
I may sleep through 2007. Wake up in 2008 and see what is new.