Rally for Citizens of Gaza 27Sep2024

 

The Fridays at Fettermans crowd assembles again, as they have for about the past year.

Next rally at Senator Fetterman's office (200 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia 12:15 PM to 1:30 PM) will feature speeches by Medea Benjamin of Code Pink, Aly Halpert, Singer-Songwriter; George Lakey, Quaker Activist & Author; Shane Claiborne, Red Letter Christians; Lisa Sharon Harper, Freedom Road; Lewis Webb, Jr., American Friends Service Committee; Rachel Betesh, Poet. This will mark the one-year anniversay of the war in Gaza. 

 

Terry Rumsey, organizer of the rallies that have continued non-stop for the past year.

It's been a bit tough to keep writing about Gaza as it's just been more and more bad news for its residents. It's been clear for quite a while that Israeli Prome Minister Netanyahu simply doesn't have a "day-after" plan to administer Gaza after Hamas is defeated.

In the absence of a post-war plan, [US Secretary of State Antony] Blinken added, “Hamas will be left in charge, which is unacceptable. Or if not, we’ll have chaos, lawlessness and a vacuum that eventually will be filled again by Hamas or maybe something — if it’s possible to imagine — even worse.”

"Total defeat" of Hamas is a great idea in theory, but unworkable in practice. Hamas must be replaced with an effective government that can govern to provide what people there need. The piece here was written in May and is still true.

Not that Hezbollah's any better. During Israel's invasion of Lebanon both sides are violating the laws of war. 

 

 

Ukraine/Russia? There have been a few changes, but Russia continues to utilize its greater resources, both in military goods produced by Russia and its allies North Korea, Iran and to some extent from China and in manpower, mostly from the provinces as opposed to the Moscow-St. Petersburg region. Ukraine's invasion of Russia in the Kursk area should count as one of Putin's "red lines" that requires a nuclear response from Russia. As President Biden has provided Ukraine with more long-range missiles, along with a continued hesitancy to allow Ukraine to actually use those weapons, we have an interesting situation there.

Early on, when not many people had arrived yet.

As I pointed out to a person in an online conversation, an innocent person would seek a speedy trial so that he could go to thhe public as a cleared person. As Trump is clearly not innocent, he and his allies in the Judicial Branch have sought to delay his trials. The Supreme Court tossed a monkey wrench into these trials by declaring that Trump can't be prosecuted for official acts or for official communications. Naturally, they didn't go into detail as to what these were, but they went much further in defining official acts than was previously understood. Judge Chutkan and Special Counsel Smith appear to be ready to to define just what Trump can be charged with. They're trying to still not cross any boundaries that the Supreme Court has appeared to suggest. Of course, as Trump and his allies desire, any conclusion to his trial must take place after November's election.

 

Robin Rumsey

In their weekend round-up of political news for the week, TPM covers a Russian online version of the Washington Post (Russia has generally ramped up election interference efforts), how routine maintenance of voter rolls gives rise to comspiracy theories and how Melania Trump's description of Donald as a "family man" provoked a number of rebuttals from online progressives.

Haitian migrants in Springfield OH have been the target of toxic rhetoric by Senator Vance, Donald Trump and assorted wannabe Nazis.

As I've said, Trump is a wannabe fascist dictator.

“One rough hour. And I mean real rough, the word will get out and it will end immediately. End immediately. You know, it will end immediately,” — Donald Trump on the phony epidemic of crime by immigrants in 2024

Ruth Ben-Ghiat is a historian and commentator on authoritarianism and propaganda.  She comments here on how authoritarians like Trump really, really hate it when people make fun of them! Authoritarians "don’t mind being called evil, but being ridiculed is a different matter."

Facing towards the speaker.

Unfortunately, living in a "pro-life" state means living in a maternity care desert. "in 1,104 US counties, there is not a single birthing facility or obstetric clinician." That's out of 3,143 counties total.

RLGardner.net

Amnesty Internation & Ukraine

 Reuters:

Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International's secretary general...called on the Ukrainian government to ensure that its forces were located away from populated areas or for all civilians to be evacuated from those areas first.

I dunno, that seems pretty difficult. Recall that Russia attacked Ukraine from several directions in February and that they’ve fired missiles so that they land all over the country. A real problem with the Amnesty report is that Russians hits civilian targets all the time. 

Balloon Juice blog:

Ukraine responds strongly to criticisms by Amnesty International.

Russian abuse of civilian populations (example: Bucha) means many Ukrainian civilians feel more secure being close to their military.

Amnesty deliberately ignored the opinions of their Ukrainian staff.

The Secretary General of Amnesty International gives a very highly defensive reaction to being criticized.

President Zelenskyy takes very strong issue with Amnesty’s claim. 

And also:  

Russians distributing weapons and ammunition among civilians in the city of Kherson, in violation of the laws of war.

 

The BJ piece also looks at: 

Russian spies look for missile targets in Ukraine.

Brittney Griner’s fate.

US Social Forum Philadelphia June 25 - 28

We're very pleased to announce that the upcoming Third US Social Forum (USSF) will be taking place at several sites at Temple University and along American St. in Philadelphia on June 25-28! The USSF is a convergence driven by the understanding that people's movements are what create real social change. This will be an opportunity for regional and issue-specific social justice projects to work towards broader unity and cooperation. 

The Philadelphia USSF is anchored by the Poor People's Economic Human Rights Campaign, Disabled In Action, and Youth United for Change, and rooted in the themes of immigration, political democracy, disability, and poverty. As a movement we will create spaces for strategy discussions, political education, People's Movement Assemblies, local actions, art and culture, convergences, movement schools, marches, housing takeovers, community building, healing, and collective empowerment. We know that a better world is possible and that it can be achieved.

Learn more by visiting the Philadelphia USSF website at ussfphilly.org, emailing us at outreach@ussfphilly.org or calling 215-869-4753 for more information.

Social Principles Conference

On Saturday, the 5^th of October, I went to the Social Principles Conference of the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church, where we listened to "The Social Principles: Our Call to Action" by Jim Winkler, of the General Board of Church & Society, followed by a series of workshops. Nancy Tkacs later told me she was also there, though I didn't see her at the time.

I attended the Climate Change and the Implementing the Social Principles in Your Church workshops.

The sermon by Pat Hoerth of the Perry First United Methodist Church of Perry, OK, has a good run-down on the challenges faced by the people of this planet (Pat gives facts and figures about Global Warming starting on page 10 of the PDF) concerning the enormous amount of carbon dioxide that industrial society is pumping into the air and the effect that all that carbon is having. Unfortunately, Hoerth reports that we might reach 399 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere (275 ppm is the proportion that we all enjoyed in ages past, 350 ppm is the maximum safe limit) by the end of this century and 350.org reports that our air is already at 400 ppm. And yes, certainty that Global Warming is caused by humans has now reached 95%, meaning we as a race, are long past the point where action became necessary.

The official Methodist position on Global Warming is contained in the Social Principles of the United Methodist Church - 160.D Global Climate Stewardship:

We acknowledge the global impact of humanity’s disregard for God’s creation. Rampant industrialization and the corresponding increase in the use of fossil fuels have led to a buildup of pollutants in the earth’s atmosphere. These “greenhouse gas” emissions threaten to alter dramatically the earth’s climate for generations to come with severe environmental, economic, and social implications. The adverse impacts of global climate change disproportionately affect individuals and nations least responsible for the emissions.  We therefore support efforts of all governments to require mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and call on individuals, congregations, businesses, industries, and communities to reduce their emissions. 

The introduction to the Implementing the Social Principles in Your Church module makes it clear that supporting social justice goals requires both justice and charity. If you don't work to perform works of charity (and thus perform direct services for those who are unable to provide those services themselves), then there's no guiding purpose behind your actions. If you don't perform those actions for the cause of serving justice (and thus press for social change that will provide more permanent solutions), then you might grow to eel superior to those you're helping.

The Methodist Church has Peace with Justice Grants, money for pursuing various goals:

• Objective 1: Assist United Methodists in understanding and responding to violence and militarism.

• Objective 2: Involve United Methodists in efforts to end conflicts and violent aggression around the world.

• Objective 3: Promote just national and international policies and actions (governmental and non-governmental) seeking to restore communities and respond to the disproportionate effect of injustices on racial and ethnic persons.

• Objective 4: Support policies that promote systematic economic justice and the self-development of peoples.

They also support groups like Equal Exchange, a program that sees to it that small-scale farmers are paid fair, honest and reasonable prices for their produce.

What does The Bible say about paying a living wage? A Methodist Church pamphlet lists four passages supporting living wages and quotes the 1908 Social Creed, which calls for “A living wage in every industry. The highest wage that each industry can afford and for the most equitable division of the products of industry that can ultimately be devised.”

The UMC statement on the government shutdown appears a bit too even-handed and “both sides are to blame” for my own tastes, but it calls attention to both the Federal employees and the regular people that are being hurt by the shutdown and contains no arguments that oppose the Affordable Care Act/Obamacare, the ostensible target of the shutdown.

All in all, a good and useful gathering.

Review of "Hubris"

Showed on 9:00pm on Monday 18 February. Rachel Maddow previewed it a few days beforehand. Real Clear Politics presents all of the ten-minute segments of it. I agree with David Swanson, the show has some flaws, but I'm very happy that it was shown. As I've related to many people, I had read appeals before President George W. Bush's UN speech (Made just after the first anniversary of 9-11) to give Bush a chance to make his case for war against Iraq and to not dismiss his case out of hand, so I got the NY Times the day after and read his case from beginning to end. I immediately concluded that Bush was lying and that he had already made up his mind to go to war. I made it to what I believe was the first demonstration opposing the Iraq War.

At the demonstration, it was clear that everyone had reached the same conclusion that I had, that there was no point in even trying to persuade Bush to not go to war. Our protest was instead aimed squarely at the general public. One item that Hubris mentioned, that I remember well, was that President Bill Clinton had, in 1998, decided to bomb Iraq to make a point and to force compliance with American edicts. Not wanting American weapons inspectors to get hurt, he ordered the inspectors to be withdrawn. The annoyance and aggravation came on the American side when the Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, had refused to let the inspectors back into Iraq after the bombing.

In August of 2002, Bush declared that Hussein had kicked out the inspectors. I knew immediately that this wasn't true as I had been following the story in 1998, but also because back then, Clinton was undergoing all sorts of trouble from Republicans with the Monica Lewinsky scandal and for Hussein to have treated Americans with such contempt would have driven Clinton to declare war right off the bat. Sure enough, Fair.org published a piece in October showing the media headlines in 1998 and how the same publications discussed the same event in 2002 with very different headlines. So yes, when Bush made his speech at the UN to gin up enthusiasm for a war with Iraq, the press treatment of Bush's inspectors claim really sealed the deal to convince me that the traditional media was hopelessly in Bush's pocket.

Maddow does a good job in allowing the Colin Powell spokesperson Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson and Douglas Feith to get plenty of screen time to make their cases, but the Powell case is fatally undermined by the demonstration earlier in the show that all of Powell's major points were debunked many months before he made his speech at the UN. He made his speech shortly before the February 15th march. It was the largest protest in history and was especially important as it was scattered all over the world. I didn't watch Powell's speech myself, but asked my brother-in-law about it later. He said "Yeah, it was convincing to people who didn't know anything about the issue beforehand. As someone who was pretty informed on the issue, it wasn't convincing to me at all."

It was clear to me, though I admit things may look different from inside the Washington DC bubble than it does to ordinary citizens out in the country, that Bush's evidence for the need to go to war with Iraq was all quite vague and very heavily dependent on taking the word of government officials for it all. We common citizens were asked to simply trust that what those government officials were saying was true. Valerie Plame Wilson was shown in Hubris, speaking about how she and another CIA person were reacting to Colin Powell's "revelations" that had been obtained from the highly unreliable "Curveball." A scene in Fair Game, a movie based in part on Wilson's book "Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House," made it clear that there were quite a few people in the CIA who felt that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were very eager to go to war and quite willing to say whatever it took to convince Americans to support that effort.

Update: Colonel Wilkerson takes exception to David Swanson's accusation of knowingly lying. Swanson explains his conclusion and adds that the honorable thing for Wilkerson to have done was to have resigned rather than to participate in a lie. 

Women in the military vs being anti-war

We in the UFPJ-DVN are peaceniks, we think peaceful methods of resolving disagreements should always be our nation's first resort. We think resorts to military force should be way down the list of acceptable responses to these disagreements. That said, how do we view women serving in our armed forces? Liz Trotta of Fox News feels that women should not be serving in the military at all. She feels that for male soldiers to rape their female fellow soldiers, their comrades-in-arms, is not so much an acceptable thing to do as it is an inevitable result of males living in close quarters with each other and of needing to be brutal towards the bad guys, the nation's enemies.

Trotta was condemned for expressing this view, but she decided to double down on it anyway. Is the military being used as, in Trotta's words, “a social services operation or a testing ground for gender wars” or is it and should it be “a fighting machine”? Trotta's reasoning, in her defense of keeping women out of the military, is that the mission of the military must come first and that allowing females to serve alongside males is partially based on the (rather obsolete) idea that success in war depends on the physical strength of the combatants.

How critical is it that combatants be physically capable? I was told a rather amusing story when I was back in the Navy, a small group of sailors was listening to an officer (Not sure whether he was from the Army or the Marines) who tried to get them all motivated and bloodthirsty towards the enemy of the day (This was during the Clinton Administration, so not really sure who the enemy of the day was) and said “You guys are killers!” My fellow sailors gave the officer the outward appearance of agreement, but thought to themselves “Yeah, we kill. We push a button and ten miles away something blows up. But no, we don't go around sticking bayonets into bad guys and getting their blood all over our uniforms. Yeah, technically, we're killers, but not in the sense like this officer is relating to us.”

The Army and the Marines are indeed close-up killers, who take on the enemy in a hand-to-hand manner, but the Navy and the Air Force are more technical services who mostly do their fighting at a distance. Back in Roman times, every single person on the field engaged in hand-to-hand combat. Nobody was in a separate supply corps because soldiers foraged for their food each night, taking meals from either the woods and forests or from the civilian population. By the time of the America Civil War, military units were beginning to develop a long “tail,” a supply line that stretched back to the home front that carried not only ammunition, but food, uniform items and other necessities.

It simply isn't necessary for everyone who wear a military uniform to be a physically strong, hand-to-hand-combat-capable male. That's why it's entirely possible to have females serve alongside males without any loss of combat effectiveness. Can females serve in an actual combat capacity? Well, they did just that in Iraq and are doing so in Afghanistan, where they aren't formally part of combat units but there are no real, formal front lines there anyway, so their official status as combatants or non-combatants isn't terribly relevant. Mibazaar list all current female casualties of the Iraq War and it says that as of February 2012, there are 102 of them. As of December 2011, another site lists 45 female casualties in Afghanistan.

Who's to “blame” for females serving alongside males in combat? Liz Trotta blames feminists, I blame the people who first developed artillery pieces in China (1132) and who then introduced them to Europe (1415). With the move away from swords and spears to artillery and then hand-held rifles, combat was no longer the exclusive province of the rough, tough guys who could engage in hand-to-hand combat.

So, why do females and gays and other minorities wish to take part in the military and/or combat? What's in it for them? Well, blacks during the Civil War recognized that if they were to take an active role in helping to free their brothers and sisters who were still in bondage in the Southern states, then they would have a moral claim to a dignified and respected citizenship in the society that would follow. In the Reconstruction period, this theory wasn't always observed or adhered to, but they sure gave it a good try.

Central to Reconstruction was the effort of former slaves to breathe full meaning into their newly acquired freedom, and to claim their rights as citizens. Rather than passive victims of the actions of others, African Americans were active agents in shaping Reconstruction.

Seems pretty obvious to me that females and gays are building on the example of African-Americans to gain full citizenship and, contrary to Trotta's assertions, it's far from clear that US military effectiveness has to be sacrificed as a result. I've collected a number of pieces at the United for Peace & Justice - Delaware Valley Network - Education Committee page under the tag of “Military Rape,” which heartbreakingly, details the struggle that our military sisters are having to wage in order to gain full citizenship.

Postscript: Interestingly, Trotta agrees with the lefties who claimed back in 2003 that PFC Jessica Lynch was in no real danger after being taken into custody by the Iraqi army, that she was being medically cared for by humane and dedicated Iraqi doctors. In contrast to the early, melodramatic incarnation of the Lynch story, the leftist Guardian of Britain covered the revised view of the story in May 2003. ABC News followed along in June of that year. Lynch herself gave formal testimony in February 2009. Of course, in April 2003, a few days after the event in question, the Toronto Star was noting archly that the Lynch story was a propaganda victory, an

...archetypal, blonde-in-peril, made-for-TV movie coming to a ratings sweeps period near you. (And doesn't Saddam Hussein make the perfect Oil Can Harry, tying the pure-hearted heroine to the railroad tracks?)

Trotta's view that Lynch was presented as a feminist archetype, as a capable, kick-ass female heroine was something that I'm quite, certain no one thought of at the time. A woman getting captured by sinister bad guys and rescued by “elite teams of hunky U.S. Army Rangers and U.S. Navy SEALs” is hardly the stuff of feminist propaganda, but rather the stuff of Karl Rove's public-distracting PR machine and that of other propagandists going way, way back in history. We lefties thought the main purpose of the story was to distract from the non-existent WMDs and the fearful toll in blood that was being spilled for no good reason. In that, the Lynch story served its purpose.

Joke Line vs Krugman

Joke Line (Time Magazine's Joe Klein) is the guy who was supposed to be a liberal back during the build-up to the Iraq War, but apparently forgot which side he was supposed to represent and decided to go with the other team. Apparently, Klein is still confused about which team he's supposed to be playing for.

Are there problems with teachers unions and other public-employee unions? Yes, I'm afraid there are. Klein does a good job of sketching out what those problems are. Are those problems the reason, the cause, the focus of the protests in Wisconsin? Not in the slightest.

Paul Krugman does an excellent job sketching out what the protests in Wisconsin are really about.

So it’s not about the budget; it’s about the power.

In principle, every American citizen has an equal say in our political process. In practice, of course, some of us are more equal than others. Billionaires can field armies of lobbyists; they can finance think tanks that put the desired spin on policy issues; they can funnel cash to politicians with sympathetic views (as the Koch brothers did in the case of Mr. Walker). On paper, we’re a one-person-one-vote nation; in reality, we’re more than a bit of an oligarchy, in which a handful of wealthy people dominate.

Given this reality, it’s important to have institutions that can act as counterweights to the power of big money. And unions are among the most important of these institutions.

As Rachel Maddow pointed out via an interview with Wisconsin State Senator Jon Erpenbach (D), the fight is entirely about the continued existence and viability of unions. Are unions important to the non-wealthy? Heck, yes!!! Of the top ten institutions that contributed money to the 2010 Congressional campaigns, three of them were controlled by progressives and all three of them were unions. Without unions, progressives can't put much of anything into the field.

As Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) put it in the wake of the ACORN “sting” (James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles didn't actually uncover anything in the way of illegal conduct, but ACORN was disbanded anyway):

“Defunding the left is going to be so easy,” said Bachmann, “and it’s going to solve so many of our problems.”

The idea on the right wing of “defund the left” has a history that stretches back to the Civil Rights Movement as the Movement used the tax-exempt status of their foundations to fund voter-registration drives. Real pushback against the sources that provide funding for left-leaning political movements started with the Reagan Administration and The Heritage Foundation with the two of them working arm-in-arm to do as the anti-environmentalist Ron Arnold claimed: "We want to destroy the environmentalists by taking away their money and their members."

How useful is money to the left? Well, probably the most high-visibility project that the anti-war left in Philadelphia undertook in recent years was the “Sea of Tombstones” done by the Delaware Valley Veterans For America. It was lots of fun to take part in that project, but it involved a bit of money. We met in the backyard of one of our prime members, he purchased wood and hammers and nails and paint and rented a truck to get the “tombstones” down to the area of the Liberty Bell and spent several hours setting it all up. We all took turns guarding the set-up and answering questions and handing out literature.

The Coalition for Peace Action is also a reasonably successful peace group. If one does a Google search for “news of..” the CFPA, it's clear that they're a well-known group in New Jersey. They do fund-raisers and concerts and are active in nuclear issues. On the other hand, a search for the less-cash-rich Philly Against War comes up with not a whole lot other than the publicity that the group and allied groups have themselves generated.

The lesson here is that a peace group can have a fair impact on public perceptions without spending a lot of money, but money sure helps! Money magnifies your impact many times over. The right wing is absolutely correct in that going after progressive sources of funding is a good way to weaken the public impact of progressives in general.

The fight in Wisconsin is absolutely critical. Progressives must win or their influence on the rest of America will pretty much evaporate.

Proposed piece: "Where's the peace movement?"

Backstory: Couple of years ago, an executive from the Inky advised us to write articles for the paper. I composed one and sent it in, but it was rejected and they never even told me why, so I stopped. A few days ago, a right-winger in the online comments section of the paper stated that we weren't out in the streets protesting because Obama was a Democrat. When I said that wasn't true, he asked me "Where's the peace movement? I haven't seen a protest since Obama became president." I wrote out an answer, but the Inky didn't see fit to post it, so the following is my answer.

What's the peace movement doing these days? Are they quiet because the peace movement was always just a way to attack a Republican President and now that the President is a Democrat, they're demobilized?

Actually, there was a march back in October 2009 in Philadelphia and another one in Washington DC in March 2010. The NorthWest Greens of Germantown continue to do a weekly vigil at the Borders Bookstore there and the First United Methodist Church of Germantown and other peaceniks do a monthly vigil a few blocks North of City Hall. But yeah, okay, there aren't that major street actions these days. Why would that be?

Well, the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq proceeds on the schedule agreed upon by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and former US President George W. Bush. The Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) is expected to end by August 2010, the troop level is scheduled to be 50,000 by September 1st and US forces are expected to withdraw completely by the end of 2011. There's really nothing for the peace movement to complain about here as the withdrawal schedule is a matter of an international treaty between two sovereign nations and neither nation appears to have any desire to renegotiate anything about it.

Withdrawal from Afghanistan appeared to also be on schedule until late July 2010 when Vice-President Joe Biden suggested that in July 2011, the scheduled date for the beginning of the withdrawal of US forces from there could see as few as “a couple of thousand” US troops depart. Richard Holbrooke, Obama's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, testified as to the benchmarks that the US will be utilizing to track the progress towards a full US withdrawal and those benchmarks appear to be awfully vague and frankly, just plain unmeasurable. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also recently suggested that US troops will be departing as late as the end of 2014.

So, until just a few weeks ago, there may have been suspicions, but there was no real proof that the Obama Administration was planning to overstay its welcome in Afghanistan. Anti-war groups in Philadelphia had already agreed to hold actions in early October 2010 and they're sure to call attention to the administration's plans for remaining in Afghanistan.

But no, I think we can safely say that the relative quiet of the peace movement for the past two years has nothing to do with the president being a Democrat and everything to do with conditions on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Demonstration against War in Afghanistan on December 2nd

A blogger reports that he was pleasantly surprised at one aspect of President Obama's announcement that he was preparing to send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. That aspect was what the President didn't say. The President made no attempt to follow the example of the last President. Nowhere in Obama's speech was there any reference to trying to help the Afghan people. He presented the escalation of the war there as something that was in the strategic interests of the US. It was not presented as an attempt to help out any particular groups in that country, but as something that would benefit people here at home. Of course, it falls apart on that basis as well, but this is a modest bit of progress in the right direction.

Reacting to President Obama's announcement, local anti-war activists made it clear that they weren't pleased about it. Brandywine Peace Community had arranged for a demonstration to take place soon after the announcement was made. The group Philly Against War issued a press release once the exact date was known. The announced demonstration was moved from the City Hall plaza to the sidewalk facing it as there was a Christmas celebration taking place at the projected time. About 100 of us gathered and as the photos show, we made a splash! Oh, and a local activist has compiled a whole set of resources for further research on the War in Afghanistan.

Is the Iraq War on a path to ending?

There was the guy at the Bureau of Indian Affairs who was found sobbing at his desk. What's the trouble? He raised his head. "My Indian died."

Ronald Reagan joke as related by Peggy Noonan

When we on the left comment on President Obama's speech concerning the winding down of the Iraq War, it's been a real fear of mine that we would be seen as defending our own interests by saying that nothing has changed and that the war continues. In the joke above, the bureaucrat at the BIA had a job for as long as a particular Native American remained alive. The bureaucrat was crying for himself because when the Native American perished, the bureaucrat had to go out, in Reagan's thinking, into the "real world" and find himself a "real job," he couldn't depend on some "cushy, taxpayer-funded job" anymore. Of course, the two situations are not the same in that being a member of the anti-war movement is not a job that pays anything. I listened to lots of accusations back before the war started that communists and/or foreigners were funding the anti-war movement.

Being unemployed at the time, I assured the accusers that if there was any money to be made in opposing the war, I would have found a way to make some.

In any event, I don't want us in the anti-war movement to be seen as defending "our turf" by saying "The war continues." The President certainly doesn't try to make it sound as though everything is peachy-keen and that the US can start drawdowns with ease or that all is smooth sailing ahead:

"But let there be no doubt: Iraq is not yet secure, and there will be difficult days ahead. Violence will continue to be a part of life in Iraq. Too many fundamental political questions about Iraq’s future remain unresolved. Too many Iraqis are still displaced or destitute. Declining oil revenues will put an added strain on a government that has had difficulty delivering basic services. Not all of Iraq’s neighbors are contributing to its security. Some are working at times to undermine it. And even as Iraq’s government is on a surer footing, it is not yet a full partner – politically and economically – in the region, or with the international community."

As a veteran, I appreciated his words for the troops:

"For the men and women of America’s armed forces – and for your families – this war has been one of the most extraordinary chapters of service in the history of our nation. You have endured tour after tour after tour of duty. You have known the dangers of combat and the lonely distance of loved ones. You have fought against tyranny and disorder. You have bled for your best friends and for unknown Iraqis. And you have borne an enormous burden for your fellow citizens, while extending a precious opportunity to the people of Iraq. Under tough circumstances, the men and women of the United States military have served with honor, and succeeded beyond any expectation."

The drawdown is clearly split up into two distinct pieces, and after 31 August 2010, we'll get to the second part of it:

"After we remove our combat brigades, our mission will change from combat to supporting the Iraqi government and its Security Forces as they take the absolute lead in securing their country. As I have long said, we will retain a transitional force to carry out three distinct functions: training, equipping, and advising Iraqi Security Forces as long as they remain non-sectarian; conducting targeted counter-terrorism missions; and protecting our ongoing civilian and military efforts within Iraq. Initially, this force will likely be made up of 35-50,000 U.S. troops."

Obama promises to work with the region as a whole, including Iran and Syria.

"This reflects a fundamental truth: we can no longer deal with regional challenges in isolation – we need a smarter, more sustainable and comprehensive approach. That is why we are renewing our diplomacy, while relieving the burden on our military. That is why we are refocusing on al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan; developing a strategy to use all elements of American power to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon; and actively seeking a lasting peace between Israel and the Arab world."

Concerns here, but a generally sound and sensible policy. And yes, this speech is absolute music to my ears after Bush's lies and nonsense and straw-man arguments and simplistic verities. The liberal blogger Juan Cole asks: "So has Obama been reduced to 'Bush Lite' on the Tigris?" commenting that Obama "has made the left of his party as nervous as a vegan in a butcher shop." Cole points out that producing a navy and an air force are developments that will take an independent Iraq many, many years to accomplish, so we shouldn't expect any quick drawdown of either. Cole swats aside the claim that Bush's policies prepared the way for Obama to achieve such a success. He makes it clear that staying out of Iraq to begin with would have been the better, less destructive policy.

John McCain, like an Arizonan Cassandra, harped on the small terrorist movement that styled itself "al-Qaida in Mesopotamia," and predicted that "If we leave Iraq there will be chaos, there will be genocide, and they will follow us home." Obama's compromise decisively rejects McCain-style fear-mongering and his quixotic quest for long-term bases.

The new president forcefully rejected Bushian mission creep. Obama admitted, "We cannot rid Iraq of all who oppose America or sympathize with our adversaries. We cannot police Iraq's streets until they are completely safe, nor stay until Iraq's union is perfected." In other words, he is prepared to depart Iraq even if it remains somewhat divided, even if a drumbeat of subdued violence continues in its cities, and even if anti-Americanism retains a certain purchase on the population.

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) feels that as the US has been training Iraqis since the war began, then there's really very little hope that their training will be completed any time soon. The interviewer pointed that he called Obama's speech a "step in the right direction" four times in four minutes. Siun of firedoglake points out that:

At the same time, the level of control Obama has granted the Petraues/Odierno team over the withdrawal is worrying– in particular, his willingness to allow them to keep the bulk of US forces in Iraq through the next election – and then some.

Here’s why:

Nowhere in the speech (nor in the various commentaries) have I seen a mention of our plans for withdrawing US forces to bases this June as required by the SOFA. This requirement - meant to get US forces out of the day to day active involvement in Iraq security seems to be forgotten – and given Odierno’s statements even as the SOFA was being signed that we could ignore that requirement – why not?

 

The SOFA is the Status Of Forces Agreement that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki insisted that President Bush agree to. Bush clearly agreed because he saw no alternative.

Askari said the United States didn't give in to Iraqi demands for the power to prosecute American soldiers but that Maliki decided this was the best deal Iraq could get.

Maliki may have felt that he had to settle for the details of the final deal, but clearly, the deal was not simply dictated by the US. It was the result of intense bargaining between the US and Iraq.

It's troubling that the SOFA was not spoken of as the final word on the deal. Cole agrees that large-scale troop withdrawals might have to wait until after the Parliamentary elections of December 2009. March to December is an awfully long time to wait and still keep up political pressure to see to it that withdrawals happen on schedule.

It's also troubling that there appears to be some mission creep going on.

"But I think that we can say without equivocation that our military was successful, and if we get it right over the next few months and years, that there is the strong possibility that we can leave Iraq as a stable, peaceful partner in the region."

If this is indeed a redefinition of the mission, then it could turn out to cause very major problems down the road. If the US is determined to withdraw, period, that's one thing. If the country adopts the goal of leaving Iraq in a particular shape, then it's very hard to say when, or even if, we'll see a withdrawal occur.

And it's not like things will be quiet here on the domestic front until after the Parliamentary elections in Iraq. Obama seems to be taking a seriously positive, progressive approach to the economic mess that the last president left us. NY Times columnist and economist Paul Krugman explains how the housing crisis happened. And concerning the televised rant on the Chicago trading floor a little while ago:

Commodity trader Rick Santelli made himself into a national hero of sorts with his televised diatribe about being forced to pay the mortgages of "losers" who could not afford, or would not pay, the full cost of their mortgage. Santelli apparently hit a chord among those who want to blame deadbeat homeowners for the country's economic woes.

Was his rant a hit among "The Village," the Washington DC-based press corps? Oh my, yes!

In terms of revealing deep truths about the corporate media, I'd suggest Santelli's off-kilter tirade, followed by his puffed-up prancing around, and the press corps that cheered him on, told us a helluva lot more abut the press than did Matthews' split-second "Oh God" utterance.

The historical parallel appears to be that of Lyndon Johnson trying to have both guns and butter and ultimately having to "go all in" on Vietnam. Obama has proven himself to be a very smart fellow, see his proposed approach to handling further Republican obstructionism on the budget (He's threatening to use the budget reconciliation process to make the 60-vote margin for Senate votes irrelevant) and I'm unwilling to say flat-out that he'll end up as badly as Johnson did.

Progressives on the left can certainly make a convincing case that Obama intends to allow the Iraq War to continue, but it's certainly a harder sell than it was under Bush.There are many open questions and Obama's a lot smarter than the last guy was.

A story in Michael Yon's blog

Danger Close - Chapter One is a story that begins with a confrontation between two young and polite soldiers and a very large and very unreasonably hostile anti-war protester. The confrontation goes on for several pages, with the two young soldiers just trying to enjoy themselves by doing what young men do everywhere, trying to hook up with the ladies in the bar, and the soldiers display the absolute best of manners by trying to avoid a fight with the belligerent, hostile protester. But the protester persists in making himself more and more obnoxious. Curiously, the reader has no idea what the protesters motivation is. The protester doesn't even go to the extent of revealing his ignorance by making wild accusations against the soldiers. The bouncer in the bar doesn't remove the hostile person or tell him to go home, but intervenes just enough to show that he is there.

I of course cannot claim to know whether or not the story was true, but I most certainly was bothered by these elements of the story. First of all because I took part in a fairly large march/demonstration just a few weeks back and I'd say that we were about half and half male and female. A large percentage of the males were much too old to go around picking fights in bars and quite a few were veterans. So it seems to me that the percentage of the peace movement that's going to go around being belligerent towards soldiers in bars would be vanishingly small.

Besides, we're fully aware that former soldiers from the Vietnam era felt very hurt and abandoned and shafted when they got back home. Their fathers from World War II and Korea were greeted with parades and celebrations and when they had settled in, picked up good jobs without difficulty. When the Vietnam vets got home, they were greeted with indifference and then unemployment. In fact, according to some vets, they were actually spat upon by war protesters. The movie Sir, No Sir! features the author of the above-referenced study spending a fair amount of time examining this myth. As with many urban legends, spitting was always reported to have occurred in the next town over or at the other airport or to a friend of a friend. The researcher in the movie was unable to locate any returning veterans who reported a first-hand experience with having been spat upon.

Having taken part in protests against the Iraq War from the very beginning (Sept 2002), I can testify that as a military veteran myself (PN3(Ret), USN, 1991-2001), I've run into absolutely zero prejudice against the military. Peaceniks have, from the very beginning, sought out veterans to be their allies. The very names of the organizations Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War testify eloquently to that fact. The VFP and IVAW have sought from the very beginning of the peace movement to be in the forefront of each protest, precisely to tell Americans that the peace movement is not anti-military.

As I said, I didn't read past the first few pages of this book, but on the theory that the first story in the book is meant to provide foreshadowing to the rest, I'm guessing that the peace movement as a whole is consistently represented here as a hostile, implacable and utterly inexplicable force that seeks to repeat history with a reprise of the "Dolchstosslegende" (Stab in the back legend) that der Fuhrer made so popular.

Supporting the troops

Just watched Jon Stewart's Daily Show where Stewart debates Senator John McCain. Good conversation between the two. They did an awful lot of trying to talk over the other, but they both got out a lot of good points.

One complete non-sequitur was when Stewart identified several areas where the Bush Administration has very clearly not supported the troops. McCain replied that the troops are determined to succeed.

What really bothers me about that is something Chris Robinson said at the NW Peace & Justice meeting tonight. He said that he and others were conducting one of their usual vigils when they saw someone make a u-turn on the busy street in front of them. The soldier, dressed in civvies because he was home on leave from Iraq, got out and asked them if they supported the troops. Chris and the others were happy to tell him about the peace movement's attitude towards the troops, we support them wholeheartedly! If there are any "bad guys," well, as Michael Dukakis said about GW Bush's father, "The fish rots from the head." The soldier appeared to be pleased with that answer, especially because he seems to have already suspected that.

He and his buddies have been told over and over that the peace movement doesn't support the troops, that the peace movement considers the troops to be morally deficient because they're just doing their jobs.

Well, first of all, the soldiers ARE just doing their jobs. A very large proportion of them were in the service before the Iraq War began and have been kept in the service through stop-loss programs and psychological manipulations. A large number of them continue to be told that they're avenging 9-11 and lies about Saddam Hussein's connections to al Qaeda continue to be told. Of course the troops continue to believe their cause is a worthwhile one!

I would suggest that the soldiers and Marines in the fields and cities of Iraq are not the ones with the best, most accurate views of the Iraq War. When they've been home for awhile is when they start to gain a bit more perspective.