Bill Perry comments on Feb 12 presentation

The funniest thing about the phoney INTEL Bush is promoting, is the masses will believe it~~Hannity, Limbaugh et al have the have the dogs salivating...

HOWEVER:

US weapons stopped going to Shah-land in 1979. The last 26 years, Iran has used the standard guerrilla Mortar Tubes that fire 82 mm projectiles.

The Viet Cong used 82's, because when they found US 81 mm shells, they could fire them out of 82 mm tubes.

The US couldn't use VC arms caches of 82's, because they wouldn't fit into our 81mm tubes.

This was ranked right behind the AK-47 Kalishnikov being incredibly better than our AR 15, M-16's

The idiots who brought out "Iranian" mortar shells have shown, CLEARLY. US nomenclature on the shells, not Farsi, Arabic, or "Persian"

They are marked 81mm HE, { just like ours }

A- Insurgents use 82mm projectiles

B- HE stands for "HIGH EXPLOSIVE", ( other markings include WP, for White Phosphorous, CS, for Gas, etc )

ALSO:

They have recently discovered that "Insurgents" are using .50 Caliber "Sniper Rifles", made in Austria.

By Dubya's logic, shouldn't we

1- bomb, and Tomahawk missile Austria

2- Incarcerate and waterboard Arnold Schwartznegger?

Be Well, RAISE HELL !
Bill Perry 215-945-3350
Delaware Valley Veterans For America
Disabled American Veteran, VVAW, VFP, VFW, VVA

http://www.arlington-libertybell.net/

http://www.VFP144.org

In a message dated 2/15/2007 9:24:18 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, xxx writes:

I agree with Wayne and add some more thoughts here.

The weapons thing is ironic:

They are also coming from Australia, oh and America. We are the
biggest arms trader in the history of the world.

Our media hardly every reports the truth, if you want the truth you
must look for sources outside the U.S.A.

Whenever a reporter on CNN, Fox, MSNBC, refers to "government sources
say" it's time to get on the internet and read what the rest of the
world is saying,

Black ops is very busy these days in Iraq, Iran and Syria.

The guys who ran black ops and death squads in Central America in the
eighties are now in Iraq.

We have a cornered animal in the white house who is probably capable
of attacking Iran so he can repeat the glory days of post 9/11 90%
approval ratings.

And who is there to control G.W.Bush.

Maybe the Democrats and some Republicans, if we can convince them
that we're mad as hell and won't take it anymore.

We as Americans, have to make a choice, a bi-partisan choice. The
politicians are mostly concerned with looking good and getting
elected, rather than doing what is needed.

We have to be able to communicate to them that we want to...

END THIS WAR or face the consequences in 08.

Cheers,
Jeanne

Follow-up to presentation

One thing that bothered me about Bush's speech to the UN of 12 Sep 02 about Saddam Hussein's scary, scary weapons of mass destruction was the complete lack of follow-up, the total absence of supporting details. We have here some indication as to why that was. Reporters attempting to get details about the scary, scary presentation of bomb fragments that supposedly proved something concerning Iranian involvement in the Iraq War were given the following:

Pressed repeatedly, [Press Secretary Tony] Snow answered, "Look, the Department of Defense is doing this. What I'm telling you is, you guys want to get those questions answered, you need to go to the Pentagon."

A call to the Defense Intelligence Agency brought a referral to the main Pentagon press office. That office referred a caller to the Washington office of the Multi-National Force-Iraq, which responded with an e-mailed copy of Sunday's briefing slides -- containing no mention of the "highest levels" allegation and a request for questions in writing. Written questions brought no response. An official from the Pentagon Joint Staff said last night that Pace had seen the briefing slides but had "no personal knowledge of any senior involvement by senior Iranian officials."

And they wonder why we lefties are so skeptical!

From Ed Aguilar

In reply to Rich's posting on the blog about the Inquirer Iran story, it's true it's important that both sides get out. Unlike 2002, when the adminstration had almost a monopoly of the mass media on their side, this time, much of the media, Gordon-Miller notwithstanding, are very skeptical.

Further, public opinion is now heavily anti-war. Nevertheless, it's still important to keep the discussion going, and the facts on both sides out.

E.g, Heidi Lang's Op-Ed in today's Inquirer (Feb 12), shows a much more accurate perspective on what the everyday Iranian public is like-- it's worth reading and passing on.

On the contentious nuke issue, here's a wire service report on the other side, with negotiator Ali Larijani:

Iran ready to resume nuclear talks

"Today we announce to you that the political will of Iran is aimed at the negotiated settlement of the case and we don't want to aggravate the situation in our region," Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said.

"We know that this issue can be settled in a constructive dialogue and we welcome that."

Last year, Moscow proposed that Iran move its enrichment work to Russian territory.

Larijani said Iran did not reject the Kremlin's plan. "We would have to have necessary guarantees in place that the fuel would be supplied," he said.

"We would not be against such proposals."

In a wide-ranging speech, Larijani blamed the U.S. occupation of Iraq for fomenting terrorism in the region, and said Tehran's influence was having a stabilizing effect on the situation in that country.

"Terrorists are justifying their presence in Iraq because of the occupation, but the Americans are forced to increase the size of their forces because of terrorists. How do we break this vicious cycle?"

Larijani said the violence in Iraq was limited mainly to regions where the main U.S. garrisons were based.

"The secure parts of Iraq have two characteristics -- they border Iran and in those provinces U.S. troops are not present," he said.

Those who want to get a full briefing on preventing a new, disastrous war, may attend the March 28 Beyond Nuclear Weapons conference, where how to stop new US weapons, as well as many non-proliferation issues including Iran and North Korea, will be discussed.

Go to www.Nuclearawareness-usa.org, to learn more, or email us below at PNA, to sign up for this free conference.

Thanks,

Ed

Edward A. Aguilar
Executive Director
Project for Nuclear Awareness
Nonukearms@aol.com

PNA Alliance Members:
Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities
Global Security Institute
Lawyers Alliance for World Security
Nuclear Policy Research Institute
Physicians for Social Responsibility

Inky headline about Iranian bombs in Iraq

Michael Gordon of the NY Times, whose article is reprinted on the front page of the Philly Inq or Inky today (Feb 10) also worked with Judith Miller in producing her now-discredited (But never accepted by the left blogosphere) scare stories about Iraqi WMD in late 2002 and early 2003. Gordon is in full Pravda mode here, citing "officials" and "intelligence" without once examining or analyzing whether any of his charges are accurate or even credible.

Jonathan Schwarz throws further cold water on the theory, "revealing" (snark alert) that "According to Jill Abramson, the paper's Managing Editor, Gordon was purchased for $27.95 at a Radio Shack on West 43rd Street." Y'see, "Gordon" is just a voice-activated tape recorder that regurgitates Bush Administration talking points on cue. It's all really very amusing, you see. Well, of course, people die from these cute little "jokes" but hey...well...err...hmph.

Update:
Right-wing blogs have been claiming for several years that there was a sort of a "Ho Chi Minh Trail" running from Iran to the Iraq insurgency. Major problem with that thesis is not simply the lack of evidence for any such trail, but the complete lack of a need for one. As the (British) Independent puts it: "...most Iraqi men possess weapons. Many millions of them received military training under Saddam Hussein." The Iraqi Army received training in advanced armaments directly from US and US-allied sources. The ammo dumps, storing vast quantities of ammunition that can be fashioned into IED's (Improvised Explosive Devices) were left unsecured in the rush to take Baghdad in March-April 2003. The technology used to fashion IED's is not terribly advanced, in fact, it was used back during World War I and immediately afterwards. Shaped charges (The devices that are designed to "...explode and spit out molten balls of copper that cut through armor") were developed during that war and roadside bombs, which can be detonated from afar, were developed during the Irish war of independence in 1919-21. The assertion made by the US that serial numbers on retrieved bomb fragments prove that the bombs came from Iran calls for an unbelievable level of incompetence from Iranians that would be on a par with an agent sneaking into an enemy country on a secret mission and carrying his ID card with him. Why on earth would a country identify the materials that it was sending over to another country if it wanted to keep its involvement secret?
It is not possible to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Iran is not sending arms into Iraq. What is very unclear is why Iraqi insurgents would require any such help in order to fight American troops or, given the hostility left over from the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-1988 (Iraqi Shiites are friendly to Iran. The insurgents are mostly Sunnis, who hate Iran), why they'd welcome any such help.

Utter insanity

Good heavens! These people are insane!!! In mid-1996, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu came up with a plan called "A Clean Break."

"Ten years later, 'A Clean Break' looks like nothing less than a playbook for U.S.-Israeli foreign policy during the Bush-Cheney era. Many of the initiatives outlined in the paper have been implemented—removing Saddam from power, setting aside the 'land for peace' formula to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, attacking Hezbollah in Lebanon—all with disastrous results."
------
"More recently, Netanyahu himself, who may yet return to power in Israel, went as far as to frame the issue in terms of the Holocaust. 'Iran is Germany, and it's 1938,' he said during a CNN interview in November. 'Except that this Nazi regime that is in Iran … wants to dominate the world, annihilate the Jews, but also annihilate America.' "

Now remember, Germany in 1938 was a major industrial power, roughly equal to the US in it's level of technology. In fact, German was the standard scientific language for the world (French was the usual diplomatic language. English didn't become the universal language until after World War II). The US, Germany, Italy, France, Britain, the Soviet Union and Japan made up the seven "Great Powers" of the world. Far from being a "Great Power," Iran is at best a "Regional Power." Also, Iran is surrounded by American-occupied Afghanistan to the East, long-time American friend Saudi Arabia to the South and American-occupied Iraq to the West. Obviously, Russia to the North can take care of itself.

"Nevertheless, neoconservatives still advocate continuing on the path Netanyahu staked out in his speech and taking the fight to Iran. As they see it, the Iraqi debacle is not the product of their failed policies. Rather, it is the result of America's failure to think big. 'It's a mess, isn't it?' says Meyrav Wurmser, who now serves as director of the Center for Middle East Policy at the Hudson Institute.'My argument has always been that this war is senseless if you don't give it a regional context.' "

"She isn't alone. One neocon after another has made the same plea: Iraq was the beginning, not the end. Writing in The Weekly Standard last spring, Reuel Marc Gerecht, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, made the neocon case for bombing Iran's nuclear sites. Brushing away criticism that a pre-emptive attack would cause anti-Americanism within Iran, Gerecht asserted that it 'would actually accelerate internal debate' in a way that would be 'painful for the ruling clergy.' As for imperiling the U.S. mission in Iraq, Gerecht argued that Iran 'can't really hurt us there.' Ultimately, he concluded, 'we may have to fight a war—perhaps sooner rather than later—to stop such evil men from obtaining the worst weapons we know.' "

Problem with giving the Iraq War a "regional context" of course, is that the US can barely provide enough people to keep the Iraq War going all by itself. Sure, if the US could call up millions of people and send them in uniform to the Gulf in the hundreds of thousands, the neocon plans might have a chance. But the Republican Party as a whole has shown absolutely zero enthusiasm for even suggesting a draft and voluntary additions to the Army and Marine Corps have obviously declined as enthusiasm for the war has declined. No other nation has shown any desire to join in. Why should they? The US has not offered to share Iraq's oil, so there's no percentage in it for anybody else.

As for bombing not causing any trouble (PDF p.14) for the US,

"It sounds simple. Air planners always tell a good story. By the same token, they almost always fall short of their promises, even in strictly military terms. That was true in World War II. It was true in Korea. It was true in Vietnam. It has just proved true with the Israeli attacks on Hezbollah. No serious expert on Iran believes the argument about enabling a regime change. On the contrary, whereas the presumed goal is to weaken or disable the leadership and then replace it with others who would improve relations between Iran and the United States, it is far more likely that such strikes would strengthen the clerical leadership and turn the United States into Iran’s permanent enemy."

As to the idea that US forces would have nothing to fear from Iran, the same study points out that "Moqtada al-Sadr has said publicly that if the United States were to attack Iran, he would target U.S. forces in Iraq." There is no reason whatsoever to believe that Iraqis would defend the US occupiers in the event they came under attack from Iranian and Iranian-inspired attackers. Iran has had several years to infiltrate and to prepare their forces to hit Americans inside Iraq and Iraqi insurgents have spent years learning how to most effectively attack US troops. The US could very easily lose the entire army in Iraq. Remember also that the Straits of Hormuz (Only 20 miles wide at some points) would come under attack with the objective of cutting off ship traffic. Not only would making that journey perilous bump oil up to $100-$125 a barrel, that's where the main supply line for the US forces in Iraq is. Putting a crimp in that line would cause serious problems. Sure, airplanes could still get through, but a modern army needs thousands of tons of supplies to function effectively. Back in the days of the Hundred Years War (1337 to 1453), an army could live off the land, requisitioning food from the civilian population and manufacturing arrows from local materials. Those days are long gone.

Let's take a look at one of the people backing Bush's "surge" proposal:

"Kagan's study, on the contrary, suggested that with a massive surge of new troops America could finally succeed. It cites the military's new counter-insurgency manual, which suggests that a nation can be secured with a force of one soldier for every 40 to 50 inhabitants. That calculus would call for stationing more than 150,000 troops in Baghdad alone (there are currently 17,000 there), far more than is politically feasible today. But Kagan skirts this issue by asserting that 'it is neither necessary nor wise to try to clear and hold the entire city all at once.' Focusing instead on certain areas of Baghdad, he concludes that the deployment of 20,000 additional troops would be enough to pacify significant sections of the city."

Who's Frederick Kagan? Well, he IS a scholar, but his studies have no clear relevance to either the Middle East or to guerrilla warfare, nor has he ever served in uniform. His specialty has been in Eastern Europe. He has indeed written a few peer-reviewed articles, but none of them have anything to do with the relevant subjects here, they concern the Soviet Union, Napoleon and Star Wars/SDI/Missile Defense. Bush is favoring the study of some guy who really doesn't have a clue as to what he's talking about.

These people are insane and with an attack on Iran, are threatening unparalleled disaster for the US.

David (Dean) Broder steps in it

The two critical sentences in his piece:

How does Broder feel about bloggers?

"Mike Gravel, a strident critic...[made a proposal] that not even a deranged blogger could love"

How does he feel about liberals and the military?

"...retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who repeatedly invoked the West Point motto of 'Duty, Honor, Country,' forgetting that few in this particular audience have much experience with, or sympathy for, the military."

My comments to Broder:

As you probably know by now, the blogger Oliver Willis (Your comment that "Mike Gravel, a strident critic...[made a proposal] that not even a deranged blogger could love" makes your feelings towards bloggers quite clear.) is calling you a liar over your comment that "...retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who repeatedly invoked the West Point motto of 'Duty, Honor, Country,' forgetting that few in this particular audience have much experience with, or sympathy for, the military."

This is far less true for Democrats than it is for the chickenhawk administration of G.W. Bush and Co. Bush and followers like to TALK about their love for the troops, but they very rarely follow it up with any real action. People battling in Iraq have been pointing out that they lack the equipment necessary to do the job and numerous critics, bloggers among them, have pointed out that the number of troops in Iraq is about a third of what it needs to be if the US expects to accomplish anything there.

How does the President "love" the troops? Why, by accusing anyone who doesn't like HIS war plans of not loving the troops! The confusion here, and I believe it's one that has been deliberately and consciously fostered by Bush & Co., is to conflate "the troops" with "the mission." Just as Saddam Hussein was constantly conflated with Osama bin Laden, just as the Bush Administration constantly invoked 9-11 when discussing the Iraq situation, just as our troops are told during training, that the US is in Iraq to avenge 9-11, we're now being told that we can't criticize the mission in Iraq because that means we're criticizing the troops.

As a member of one of the Philadelphia chapters of Veterans for Peace, I can asure you that not only are veterans actively involved with the anti-war movement, but we have received absolutely zero disrespect from those who have protested the war.

Sad case of a former liberal

Liberals, leftists & progressives have long since concluded that WaPo columnist Richard Cohen is a concern troll, a person who's allegedly from the left, but who takes positions that would discredit lefty viewpoints on the issues if, of course, people thought Cohen was truly a member of the left. His latest attempt to appear to be a member of the left is his airy dismissal of the Valerie Plame/Niger/Yellowcake Uranium case wherein Iraq was alleged by the Bush Administration to be trying to acquire uranium from Niger to fashion into atomic bombs. There were always a great many questions about the case and Ambassador (Retired) Joseph Wilson's NY Times op-ed on the case confirmed a lot of suspicions about it. The current court case is about the subsequent outing of Wilson's wife as a CIA agent who was working on Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) issues.

The really sad aspect of Cohen's talking on the issue is his amazing lack of familiarity with the case. One would think that a pundit, someone who's paid to have opinions on the issues, would be completely familiar with the details. Considering that the case dates from mid-2003 and that it's an important case (The Bush Administration couldn't credibly claim to be misled by Ahmed Chalabi because Chalabi had nothing to do with the case.) one would think Cohen wouldn't make an absolute howler of a mistake like this:

"Joe Wilson had, in his New York Times op-ed piece, misrepresented the genesis of his trip to Africa. It was not Vice President Cheney who sent him, it was the CIA, and possibly his own wife."

Wilson made no such claim. Wilson had made it quite clear at the time that it was "agency officials" from the CIA who requested he make the trip. He was specifically asked about whether Cheney or Cheney's office had anything to do with the trip and Wilson simply couldn't say. He had his suspicions of course, but no first-hand knowledge.

Obviously, Cohen needs to spend less time scarfing down cocktail weenies at the fashionable parties and more time doing research. He needs less time to goof off and needs to put in more hours to do his job!

Gonzales & Warrantless Wiretapping

This came out a few days back, but I just ran across it. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales "did not cite any specific activist jurists, or give examples of national security cases, in his prepared text." but he felt that:

" '...judges generally should defer to the will of the president and Congress when deciding national security cases. He also raps jurists who 'apply an activist philosophy that stretches the law to suit policy preferences.' ”

and that:

“ 'We want to determine whether he understands the inherent limits that make an unelected judiciary inferior to Congress or the president in making policy judgments,' Gonzales says in the prepared speech. 'That, for example, a judge will never be in the best position to know what is in the national security interests of our country.' ”

I like how Gonzales carefully places Congress into the group that judges should defer to, and I agree with the MSNBC piece that he's probably referring to the warrantless surveillance decision by U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in August 2006, but Congress only came into the picture very recently. The program has allegedly been going since long before 9-11, but as we well know, the Bush Administration seeks to use 9-11 as an all-purpose excuse for just about anything. The September 11 Commission pointed out that the Bush Administration's charge that the program might have been able to prevent 9-11 from occurring was disproven by the fact that the Clinton Administration had information on two of the leading hijackers in January 2000, but that the Bush Administration later lost track of them. The fact that 9-11 occurred cannot be taken as proof that the warrantless surveillance program was not operating before 9-11.

Congress did come into the picture when the "Rubber-Stamp Republicans" sought to pass a number of bills authorizing the warrantless eavesdropping, but none of the bills were finalized before the Congress switched over to Democratic control. While Democrats may wish to legalize the spying, they have no mandate to do so. As no one outside the Administration and some sworn-to-secrecy Congresspeople were even aware that the program existed, Gonzales really should be just saying "judges generally should defer to the will of the president" and should leave all mention of Congress out of it.

Fundamentally, the assertion here that there are certain issues that judges are not competent to rule on is just absolutely the most despicable, un-American, pro-dictatorial assertion imaginable. It completely contradicts two-plus centuries of American law and utterly lacks even the pretense of a dedication to democracy. When Judge Taylor ruled that the warrantless surveillance program should be terminated immediately, she was not making a policy decision, nor did she go outside her expertise or authority. Her decision was solidly grounded in the law, which is why the blogger Glenn Greenwald has been able to compile an impressive list of blog posts which support her decision.

Gonzales is grasping at straws here. He's trying to justify blatant law-breaking on the part of his boss and simply has no serious arguments with which to do so.

Liz Cheney's complaint

Sen. Hillary Clinton declared this weekend, " I'm in to win." Anyone who has watched her remarkable trajectory can have no doubt that she'll do whatever it takes to win the presidency. I wish she felt the same way about the war.

Now, in fairness, Vice-President Cheney's kids can say things like this. Liz here has five kids, one very recently and her sister Mary is a lesbian, so she can't serve in uniform either. The Bush kids have no such excuse. George W. has two daughters, both in good physical condition and who are of military age, his brother Jeb has three sons, also in good physical condition and of military age. Any call for doing whatever one can about the war would sound mighty peculiar coming from any of the younger Bushes.

Liz points out: “We are at war.” Yes we are, but who put us there? Did President Bush point America to real threats and genuine emergencies or did he and his buddies make up a bunch of stuff and get us into war for their own, still unknown purposes?

We will have to fight these terrorists to the death somewhere, sometime. We can't negotiate with them or "solve" their jihad. If we quit in Iraq now, we must get ready for a harder, longer, more deadly struggle later.

This is the kind of hysterical, overwrought screaming and yelling we've been listening to since late 2002. When I read this sort of stuff I just think of people running down the street, naked, screaming and waving their arms.

If we restrict the ability of our troops to fight and win this war, we help the terrorists

Okay, let's take Liz's word for that. Question: Does remaining in Iraq do anything whatsoever to inhibit the terrorists? Al Qaeda has troops inside Iraq. Al Qaeda did not have troops inside Iraq before March 2003. By giving Arab jihadists easy and plentiful targets to shoot at, did the US inhibit the growth of jihadist groups all over the Mideast or did it encourage them?

Beware the polls. [The American people]...did not say that they want us to lose this war.

I'd be very, very skeptical about what a member of a political party that got a “thumping” at the polls says about what their loss means. As a solid majority of Americans say they want US troops to withdraw from Iraq, I'd like to know how that can be interpreted as “Let's remain and fight on.” Seems to me that during the 2006 midterm election, Bush & Co stated quite clearly and quite frequently that leaving = losing, but Americans voted for Democrats anyway.

[Americans] did not say that they want us to allow Iraq to become a base for al-Qaeda to conduct global terrorist operations.

As Iraqis don't like al Qaeda by the very large majority of 94%, I very seriously doubt al Qaeda would survive the departure of American troops from Iraq by more than a few weeks. Obviously, Iraqis will not fight al Qaeda while US troops remain in their country, but it seems very highly unlikely that Iraqis would put up with their continued presence afterwards.

They did not say that they would rather we fight the terrorists here at home.

Again, this is the kind of mindless, hysterical, screaming overstatement I spoke of earlier. Even if we leave aside all of the conspiracy theories concerning 9-11, the theories about Bush & Co. arranging for 9-11 to happen or at the very least knowing about it all well beforehand, we still have the very strong, clear evidence that 9-11 was a one-time event. There were far too many warnings beforehand, there was much too much evidence beforehand for anyone to take seriously the idea that any such attack could succeed a second time. My brother, a conservative, pro-Bush person, went to a briefing about power plants and assures me we've got nothing to worry about on that score. One might also keep in mind that the Nazis made a single guerrilla landing on American shores back in World War II (Long Island), and were promptly rounded up. Hitler concluded American intelligence agencies were completely on the ball and aware of what was going on and never tried again.

We are fighting the war on terrorism with allies across the globe, leaders such as Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan and Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan.

Um, Afghanistan and Pakistan are right next to each other, an alliance of those two does not exactly constitute a globe-spanning movement. Seriously, there really aren't many others in the “Coalition of the Willing” anymore. All of the big countries except Britain refused to sign on to begin with and British citizens appear to be highly inclined to send Tony Blair off to the Hague to stand trial for his part in the war.

Brave activists are also standing with us, fighting for freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the empowerment of women. They risk their lives every day to defeat the forces of terrorism.

Now here's where Liz just becomes completely incoherent. Terrorists don't care about any of that stuff. Individual terrorist groups may be concerned that their women are getting too liberated or that some of the people in their country have the incorrect religious opinions, but the idea that terrorists as a whole, even just the ones fighting US troops in Iraq, have a coherent set of political “platforms” or even opinions is just crazy. That sort of viewpoint takes wild, insane conspiracy theories to new heights of lunacy.

What about Iran?

What about it? Iran's nuclear program isn't going to produce anything for another decade at least and there simply isn't any evidence that Iran is seriously contributing to the Iraq War. Iran will wait until George W Bush leaves office, at which point the US can fashion a sane and sensible policy.

[US soldiers] know that free people must fight to defend their freedom.

Are the Iraqis free or are they being occupied by US troops? Iraqis seem to feel that it's the latter, that they're living under an occupation. If Iraqis had control of their own country and invited Americans in that would be a different situation entirely.

American troops will win if we show even one-tenth the courage here at home that they show every day on the battlefield.

It takes very considerably more than courage to win a guerrilla war. Iraq is not your basic, classic, straightforward battlefield. An occupier in a guerrilla war requires at least 15 soldiers for every 1,000 civilians. The US currently has about five soldiers per 1,000 Iraqi civilians, about a third of what's needed at the minimum. Is the US capable of raising enough soldiers through a draft? We'll never know because Republicans have refused to even raise the issue and Democrats have no mandate to do so.

Victory is the only option. We must have the fortitude and the courage to do what it takes. In the words of Winston Churchill, we must deserve victory.

We must be in it to win.

Very stirring and heartfelt words, but “victory” ain't gonna happen. The US is not willing to do what it takes, heck, the Bush family is not willing to do what it takes. President Bush refuses to attend the funerals of any soldiers, his wife refuse to be photographed visiting wounded soldiers in the hospital and Bush's two healthy, military-age daughters are still not in uniform. There's simply no way Americans are going to make any serious sacrifices for the Iraq War until the First Family does.

Dinesh D'Souza & Iraq

Like many other commentators in the left blogosphere, I found "Not a clash of religions" by Dinesh D'Souza in the Philadelphia Inquirer to be an appallingly stupid piece. D'Souza appears to be under the impression that the Iraq War is not about material objectives for things like oil and strategic control of raw materials, but a tender concern on the part of Islamic jihadists for the souls of Americans. Yes, it's the liberals lack of godliness that has motivated the radicals half a world away to oppose the American invasion of their country. They had no objection to being invaded of course. That would have been okay if only Americans hadn't been such godless, disrespectful heathens.
If one looks at the American conquest of the Philippines in the first years of the 1900s, concern over the religion of the Filipinos was an obviously secondary aspect of the struggle. Once coaling stations had been acquired, allowing the US to expand its presence overseas, the Filliping religion was an afterthought, a follow-on to the initial wave. Would Islamic jihadists be concerned about the US state of religion? Sure, if they were in the position of being able to take over and occupy the US. As that's extremely unlikely ever to happen, I really can't see them worrying about our religion to begin with.

Tom Friedman, "liberal"

Tom Friedman, NY Times' columnist, mischaracterizes liberal complaints about GW Bush's planned/actual war against Iraq.

"Some opposed it for military reasons"

Presumably this means that opponents thought that the US would lose the military confrontation between Saddam Hussein's official army and US troops, tanks & planes. Were Friedman to expand on this point a bit, we might learn whether he was referring to the foreseen and predicted guerrilla war that followed the initial confrontation.

"because they’re against war"

Yes certainly, there were and are pacifists among the anti-war protesters, people who steadfastly believe that war is always wrong. That's not the position of many of the anti-war groups in this country. PRAWN does not have an official position on that. Some of us believe that, many of us do not and just oppose this particular war. We also however, oppose war against Iran because we're seeing many of the delusional predictions that were offered for Iraq being recycled again for Iran. We feel a war against Iran would turn out much, much worse than war against Iraq did.

"some opposed it because they hate George Bush"

I can assure Mr Friedman that we would have opposed it just as strongly had VP Cheney or some other authoritative person been proposing it. Colin Powell was a respected fellow before his speech at the UN on 5 Feb 03. Now, after Powell gave a mendacious speech full of lies and distortions, if we liberals saw Powell on fire across the street, we wouldn't cross the street to spit on him in order to put the fire out. Our personal regard for Mr Powell was much, much higher than for President Bush, but today they're regarded in much the same light.

"some opposed it because they didn’t believe Arabs are capable of democracy"

Arab countries today are generally not democracies, but we liberals regard that as a function of their economic lack of development rather than any inherent Arab desire to be against democracy. When someone from the Arab part of the world arrives in America, they usually adapt quickly and very soon become proponents of democracy.
If the Bush Administration had any desire to see democracy flourish in Iraq, the fall of Baghdad in early '03 would have been followed by an energetic reconstruction program or at the absolute, rock-bottom minimum, the US would have seen to it that all of Baghdad's government offices were secured against looting. As it was, Iraqi government offices were looted down to the bare walls. A bureaucrat without an office is pretty much like a sailor without a ship, i.e., pretty much useless. That might perhaps have been okay if the US had an efficient reconstruction corps ready to go to restore electricity and get water purification back on line, etc. As it was, electricity is STILL not up to the standards of delivery that the evil dictator Saddam Hussein met with ease. "The average household in Iraq now gets two hours of electricity a day. There is 70 percent unemployment, 68 percent of Iraqis have no access to safe drinking water, and only 19 percent have sewage access. Not even oil production has matched pre-invasion levels."

I’m really sorry. Next time — Next time Ishwar [caller], I promise, I really promise, I’ll be a better liberal.

Sorry Tom, but you're not a liberal at all. A true libral would not have so grossly mischaracterized liberal, progressive, leftist and Democratic opposition the war, either before the war started or now that it's been dragging on for so man years.

A piece from Britain's Independent offers some serious reasons to be against the war (Bit lengthy at 28 kilobytes), the main reason being summarized as being the extreme unfairness of the economic deal being offered to Iraq. The US didn't invade Iraq for free. US corporations stand to profit a great deal from this occupation, as they were clearly meant to do so long before the first shots were fired.

Re: "Warning Syria, Iran" Letter Jan 20

The letter writer demonstrates precisely why it is that the Commander-in-Chief is not delegated the authority to declare war all by himself. In lieu of actually declaring war, Congress passed resolutions for both Vietnam and Iraq, but at least Congress was involved in the decision and retained the "power of the purse" to finally call a halt to those wars. The letter writer appears to feel that attacking Iran and Syria would be "a cakewalk" and that "American troops will be greeted with flowers" and other such happy horseshit.
Thanks heavesn we've had the following statement from the Speaker and Majority Leader: "The president does not have the authority to launch military action in Iran without first seeking congressional authorization." ("Pelosi and White House trade barbs on troops" Jan 20)
Yay, Harry & Nancy! I feel ten times safer with them sharing the driver's seat.

Follow-up on MediaTank presentation

Mediatank held a really marvelous presentation of first the two Federal Communications Commissioners Michael J. Copps & Jonathan S. Adelstein, then had a panel of eight other media professionals and then opened the floor to comments from the audience (Audience members signed up to speak at the entrance to the forum and were then called in the order they signed up in). The closing of WHAT Radio was a major subject and how different organizations used their resources to bypass the major media and get critical stories out to the public was another.
I spoke on my recent PhillyIMC piece on the major media and how the left blogosphere, an aroused and active citizenry that uses blogs, among other tools to raise awareness that a profit-obsessed major media can't be bothered with.
There's an extremely sad report from Media Matters that demonstrates just how severely messed up the major media is. Reporter John Solomon from the Washington Post tries desperately to "gin up" a scandal by ignoring neighborhood housing prices and darkly suggesting that first Senate then-Minority Leader Harry Reid "collected a $1.1 million windfall on a Las Vegas land sale" and now suggesting that "Sen. John Edwards recently sold a home for $1.4 million more than he had paid for it." What Solomon leaves out of course, are the housing prices typically paid in those neighborhoods. Had he done so, he would have seen that there was absolutely nothing noteworthy about either sale.
"Twice in three months, Solomon has written an article in which he makes much of a real estate transaction in which a prominent Democrat appears to have made a million-dollar profit. Twice in three months, Solomon has hyped the gaudy number without placing it in context. In both cases, that context showed the profit to be far from atypical."
This is very clearly the behavior of a writer trying desperately to re-live the "glory days" when journalists could say whatever they liked about progressives. As the blogger Atrios puts it: "Under 'the Clinton rules of journalism,' you can say any goddamn thing you want -- as long as you say it about the Clintons. This [sic] rules have already begun to affect the way Campaign 08 is covered."
Personally, I really couldn't care less how much journalists enjoyed the Clinton Presidency when they could say whatever they pleased about progressives with no consequences. I and many, many millions of progressives, radicals, liberals and moderates HATED those days and HATED the "Clinton rules"!
Is the next president likely to be a Republican? Two years is an awfully long time and lots can happen, but the situation does NOT look good for Republicans. It's looking a lot like the next several election cycles will be Democratic ones. We lefty bloggers, liberals, citizen activists and Democrats will need to keep the pressure on for a good long time, until the media grows up and stops looking to play "Gotcha!" with us all.

What?!?!?

Joe Lieberman (I-CT):

"I think the consequences for the Middle East, which has been so important to our international stability over the years, and to the American people, who have been attacked on 9/11 by the same enemy that we’re fighting in Iraq today, supported by a rising Islamist radical super-powered government in Iran, the consequences for us, for—I want to be personal—for my children and grandchildren, I fear will be disastrous."

Now, having been a comickal book reader for many years (DC-Vertigo is my current favorite brand) I'm well aware of what a super-powered individual is, even though all the ones I know of are fictional. I haven't the vaguest clue as to what a "super-powered government" is, even if we're talking in strictly fictional terms.
Are we fighting the same people in Iraq who attacked the US on 9-11? Well, it has been a frequent accusation that al Qaeda is operating in Iraq (See al-Zarqawi, Abu Musab) but it's been clear from mid-2003 on that foreign fighters make up, at best, about 5% of the folks the US is fighting in Iraq. No one really knows how many of the foreigners are al Qaeda. I found it very interesting, though that "94%[of Iraqis] express disapproval of al-Qaeda." So yeah, that statement is accurate in a very strict technical sense, but you really have to be very careful in your definitions and have to realize that out of 100 opponents fought, one, possibly two are al Qaeda for the statement to be regarded as true.
Lieberman regards the Iranian government as "rising" eh? Well, if they add about half of Iraq to their territory, we all know who gets the major credit for that, G. W. Bush! If Iraq hadn't been invaded, Iran wouldn't have any sort of foothold there.

Advice & the President

From Bush’s defensive radio address this morning:

Members of Congress have a right to express their views, and express them forcefully. But those who refuse to give this plan a chance to work have an obligation to offer an alternative that has a better chance for success. To oppose everything while proposing nothing is irresponsible.

This demand follows a very highly specific pattern of other Presidential requests for advice. Back in mid-December, Bush sought advice on the Iraq Study Group's recommendations. And hey wow! Amazingly enough, all of the consulted experts thought the ISG's advice was terrible! The favorite news channel of the Bush Administration, Fox News, is now advocating an attack on Iran! Gee, just as the rest of the Bush Administration is doing. How does Bush feel about recieving advice from steadfast friends & allies that contradict his plans? He ignores it. Here's an expecially interesting quote from the 2006 State of the Union Address:

Yet there is a difference between responsible criticism that aims for success, and defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure. Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy.

A Retired Major General noted all-too-accurately that: "They only need the military advice when it satisfies their agenda." The same could be said about every member of the Bush Administration under all circumstances. Bush and his people will take advice, but only if it fits their pre-concieved notions.

Joe Klein the wanker

Joe Klein, the "liberal" Time Magazine columnist and author of Primary Colors (He wrote it under the pseudonym "Anonymous.") tries his hand at blogging. Yeesh1 What an embarassment! Apparently, war advocates who recommend counterinsurgency doctrines in Iraq are not delusional. Never mind the fact that the doctrine calls for several hundred thousand troops. Troops that do not appear to be available. I mean, Joe's right. There are several strategies that would be effective, if y'know, conditions were different, like y'know if the US had any real allies besides Britain, which could happen if, y'know the Bush Administration had any clue about diplomacy and such.

And my response upon seeing the latest from Joe Klein [Emits a low groan, slapping hand to forehead] "Oh, good grief! *Sigh!* Whatta we gonna do wit' dis guy?!?!"

"I've been opposed to the Iraq war ever since...2002..."

Really? I've never heard of Klein putting up any opposition. Ah, now I see, Atrios quotes a Klein column from 2003:

"This is a really tough decision. War may well be the right decision at this point. In fact, I think it--it's--it--it probably is."

Ahh! There's the kind of deep, serious, full-throated opposition that's going to make the warmongers sit up and take notice [/snark]! Yeesh! THAT's the "liberal" columnist from Time Magazine?!?! But this is an interesting statement:

"But it's possible to have been against the war and to hope for the best in Iraq. I'd bet that the overwhelming majority of Americans who now oppose the war are praying for a turn for the better in Iraq. Listening to the leftists, though, it's easy to assume that they are rooting for an American failure."

The "best" huh? According to Editor & Publisher:

"Past surveys have hinted at this result, but a new poll in Iraq makes it more stark than ever: the Iraqi people want the U.S. to exit their country. And most Iraqis now approve of attacks on U.S. forces, even though 94% express disapproval of al-Qaeda."

So what exactly constitutes "the best" for Iraqis? Do Iraqis want an American "success"? Wouldn't an American "failure" be more agreeable to them? Obviously, Klein and the Iraqis do not agree on what constitutes either success or failure. To say that "Americans" as opposed to "leftist," are "praying for a turn for the better" raises the very serious question of just what is "better"? I'd like to see less killing and destruction, but my solution would be for the Iraqis to get their country back and if they then want to establish a theocracy under Moqtada al-Sadr, hey well, have at it! That solution certainly fits within Klein's vague formulation of "the best," but I don't think that's what Klein means.

Update: Shorter Atrios - Joe Klein had the opportnity to be a mensch, to be prescient, to win the admiration of the left, but he blew it by being way, way too cautious.

Madam Speaker Pelosi lays down the law!!!

The Speaker of the House sketched out the new rules very clearly:

"If the president wants to add to this mission, he is going to have to justify it," said Pelosi, speaking to host Bob Schieffer. "And this is new for him because up until now the Republican Congress has given him a blank check with no oversight, no standards, no conditions. And we’ve gone into this situation, which is a war without end, which the American people have rejected."

"If the president chooses to escalate the war, in his budget request we want to see a distinction between what is there to support the troops who are there now. The American people and the Congress support those troops. We will not abandon them."

More quotes
Video
Full transcript

Annoyingly, Senator Joe Biden demonstrates he's not a team player.

Major media vs the left blogosphere

A couple of statements were made in a recent Washington Post editorial (All highlights mine):

"But instead of allowing Republicans to fully participate in deliberations, as promised after the Democratic victory in the Nov. 7 midterm elections"
"A few Democrats, worried that the party would be criticized for reneging on an important pledge..."
"House Republicans have begun to complain that Democrats are backing away from their promise to work cooperatively."

As the blogger Digby points out, what promises? As a highly partisan Democrat, I can assure folks that I was paying close attention to statements made by Democrats during and after the recent mid-term elections. At no time did I recall hearing anything about Democratic promises to work with Republicans in a cooperative manner. At no time do I recall any such "pledge" ever being made.
Do we know of any Democrats who would have made such a pledge? As a matter of fact, we do. Senator Joe Lieberman was about the only nationally-known Democrat to run on an explicitly bipartisan platform, to promise closer cooperation between Democrats and Republicans. Well, guess what, Lieberman ultimately won the Senatorial race for Connecticut, but he ran as a member of the CFL Party because Democrats kicked him out of the party. Lieberman's pledges to work in a cooperative, bipartisan manner were not promises that Democrats were in any mood to listen to or to reward.
Does the editorial ever substantiate its claims that Democrats promised to run things in a co-operative and bi-partisan manner? Does the editorial ever name a specific Democrat who ever made any such pledges? Does the editorial provide us with the exact wording of this oh-so-important pledge?
No to all of those questions. Folks, this your major, mainstream media at work. This is your big, important paper that allegedly carefully checks all of its' facts and diligently follows up on all of its' tips and leads. This is an organization with plenty of money and personnel to make sure all of the items printed in their paper are accurate.
This is a paper that deliberately and consciously made up "an important pledge" out of thin air. Like the advice columnist Miss Manners, I refuse to engage in mind-reading. I don't know why they said this and I really don't care. The point is, this is why the left blogosphere exists. Major media gets things wrong and makes things up. They put out a lot of information that's just plain wrong. Recently, ABC TV put out a four-hour miniseries about 9-11 that should have landed them in court with a major slander suit on their hands. Why didn't they? Don't know, don't care. What is quite clear is that had the left blogosphere not made a major stink about this piece of trash, it would have aired in an unaltered fashion and would have been accepted as conventional wisdom.
We need to keep an eye on the major media. We need to pay close and careful attention when they get things wrong and we need to react immediately and strongly when they try to peddle lies and misinformation. Former President Bill Clinton took a lot of trash for reacting to the 9-11 miniseries the way he did, but his was the correct response. Fox News was not acting in an impartial manner, they took a blatantly partisan stance and Clinton correctly called them on it. The miniseries did not become conventional wisdom precisely because Clinton made it clear that he was not going to sit still for being misrepresented. We owe absolutely nothing to the major media, who had little or nothing to say about the whole issue.

Rundown on (pro-war) Stupidity

A conservative blog commented on a post on firedoglake and I found a few of the claims worth commenting on.

"I would ask her to 'acknowledge' the outstanding work of the troops, instead of using our soldiers and the deaths she 'uses' to make her politcial (sic) points."

Considering that the "outstanding work of the troops" includes essentially losing Anbar Province and of achieving nothing in "Operation Together Forward," I have no words of condemnation for the troops as they were placed into a crappy situation, but neither is their work particularly praiseworthy. No matter how many schools they paint or bicycles they fix, they're losing territory and influence. The numbers and figures offered afterwards are interesting, but as I explained in an earlier piece, it's not the total numbers of troops either involved or that die that count, it's the purpose for which our troops are fighting and the troops in Iraq see increasingly less purpose in the fighting there.

The interview with a soldier "using the soldiers (sic) ACTUAL words" is interesting, but as the blogger doesn't provide a link or even the name and rank of the soldier or the college or even the geographical vicinity of the college where the interview was supposedly conducted, it's completely unverifiable. Allegedly, the soldier escorted SecDef Rumsfeld around while the troops treated him like a rock star and heaped praise upon him. Real tough work there. Yup, our SecDef su-u-ure enough is a he-e-ero. Boooy, it sure must be tough to wander around getting praised everywhere you go. Whatta hero [/snark].

"What about the fact that our reenlistment rates , are at an all time high, is that not the military talking with their boots on the ground?"

There's no reason to doubt this statement. Soldiers today are kept in their units from start to finish. Unlike the situation in Vietnam, they don't arrive and depart as individuals. When a soldier's enlistment is up, he or she goes back home, but feels guilty to leave friends and comrades behind in a dangerous situation. It's quite natural in such circumstances for soldiers to re-up.

"Regular enlistments are also above the goals set, these are people that KNOW they will be going to Iraq."

Now this statement I have problems with. According to a study by the Marine Corps (PDF), reenlistment rates are actually falling. "For first-term enlisted Marines making reenlistment decisions in FY04, there is a strong negative relationship" and the Stanford Progressive argued in January 2006 that:

"The U.S. Army's recruitment rates have been falling, and the Army is clinging to very high retention and reenlistment rates to make up for it, avoiding a shortage crisis that way. If those numbers begin falling in the near future, however, we are headed for trouble."

The Army chaplain quoted at length seems to be very enthusiastic about the war, but he's clearly speaking for just himself. The following is a highly amusing quote:

"Let me offer a different way of thinking about this: We won the war in Iraq. Yes, past tense: we won. You see, militarily, we invaded Iraq, defeated their Army, and captured their leadership. On this point, we had a crushing and overwhelming victory. No questions about it. We did what we said we were going to do: invaded the country and deposed Saddam (remember, right before the war started, we gave Saddam 48 hours to leave office), and we inforced (sic) the weapons inspections. That was the 'war.' We won that.

"What is happening now is the reconstruction and reconstitution of Iraq. In other words: putting it back together. We helped the Iraqis democratically elect a government. Check. We have trained and Army and Police Force. Check. The problem is that the government and military of Iraq are not doing a good job. That is the point on which things are failing. We have to stop thinking about this phase as winning or losing a war."

Where to begin? .The "war" was not won. The war has not been won. It's still ongoing. The toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue in Baghdad simply marked a new phase in the war, where the struggle changed from a battalion vs battalion, stand-up, mechanized war to a guerrilla war. Saddam Hussein's army simply reconstituted itself as a guerrilla force and kept fighting. The American troops were the same in the second phase, the opponents were the same.
It's ridiculous to blame the government of Iraq for anything as the guerrilla war was going poorly for the US long before the US "helped the Iraqis democratically elect a government."

"Over the past two years, we had one political party (the Democrats) pretending that nothing was going right over there, and we had the other political party (the Republicans) pretending that everything was going right over there. (In other words, BOTH are to blame) In the meantime, the Iraqis get hurt by our own self-obsession."

This is an accurate statement, but suffers from excessive even-handedness. Sure the Democrats may have genuinely felt that "nothing was going right over there," but it wasn't until Ned Lamont beat Joe Lieberman in Connecticut's Democratic primary that Democrats really felt free to come out against the war. Even then, Democrats weren't in power and haven't been in control of Congress since 1994. It won't be until Democrats actually take office that they can have a real and serious effect on events on the ground. No, it is grossly inappropriate to evenhandedly blame both sides.

"What I find interesting about the Iraq Study Group report- which works under the assumption that we're 'losing'- is that the people who seem to object to the report the most are the Iraqis."

First off, the ISG did not begin with the thesis that "we're 'losing' ", it concluded "we're 'losing' ". Big difference. Second, in an January survey:

"A new poll found that nearly half of Iraqis approve of attacks on U.S.-led forces, and most favor setting a timetable for American troops to leave."

This doesn't sound to me like a population that's crying out for the Americans to save them nor does it sound like a population that's helplessly awaiting American action. Riverbend, a secular, educated Sunni Arab, makes it quite clear that she is not waiting for the Americans to rescue her or anybody else.

Another quote from another anonymous soldier:

"He said that those that say they support the troops but not the war and say they are 'losing' in Iraq, obviously do not have confidence in us. (he swept his hand around to all his fellow soldiers standing there in Iraq)"

No, it means we've looked at the strategic situation and have concluded that to get enough troops to truly win in Iraq, we'd need as many as 500,000 more. Victory with less is very unlikely ever to occur. Will there ever be a draft? Very highly unlikely, as Republicans appear convinced that a draft is a one-way ticket to losing political power for a very long time to come. Democrats have no mandate to institute a draft as they have no mandate to continue the war in the first place.

"It IS a pity that the war in Iraq has become so political, but it HAS. Clearly the lines on Iraq are drawn between political entities. It is what it is. I do NOT see [the blog] Crooks and Liars asking the AP, or NYT to stop politicizing the war and start giving both sides"

The Iraq War was politicized by the Bush Administration from the very beginning.

This statement by Kenneth Adelman (“Cakewalk In Iraq,” the Washington Post, February 13, 2002), made in the immediate aftermath of President Bush’s Axis of Evil speech, epitomized the mindset of the ruling political establishment in Washington in the months leading up to the current war.
----------

Summary: During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, writes the intelligence community's former senior analyst for the Middle East, the Bush administration disregarded the community's expertise, politicized the intelligence process, and selected unrepresentative raw intelligence to make its public case.
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You've probably read Rajiv Chandrasekaran's account in the Washington Post today of how the Iraq occupation became, in part, an employment agency for the children or relatives of well-connected Republican party operatives or ideologically correct hacks, with much less expertise than others turned down.
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The Iraqi Most Wanted deck employs game metaphors as a strategic means of describing attacks conducted on Iraq. Politicized use of ‘fun’ game metaphors communicates positive, can-do thinking and masks the real casualties of war.

And so on and so forth. At absolutely NO time during the entire Iraq conflict has the subject NOT been relentlessly politicized by the Bush Administration. It is cynical and one-sided in the extreme to complain that liberals are all of the sudden politicizing this very highly politicized war.

Re: "How many war deaths are too many?" Jan 1

Letter to Philadelphia Inquirer in response to article at
http://www.philly. com/mld/inquirer /16359666. htm

The answer to that question is very much "it depends." Back in 1859, Napoleon III assisted Italian nationalists against Austria in the Battle of Solferino. In 16 hours of fighting, both sides lost about 40,000 soldiers. Napoleon III was sickened by the slaughter, examined his motives for engaging in the fight in the first place and decided that he simply wasn't the warrior his famous namesake and uncle was. France was a monarchy at the time, so there were no opinion polls then or provincial elections to lose, but there's no indication that his withdrawal caused him any political difficulties back home.

In 1916, a mere 57 years later, France was under a more democratic government (And thus, presumably, a more peace-loving government) and engaged Germany in the Battle of Verdun as part of World War I. The German General Erich von Falkenhayn justified his launching of the battle in terms that sound surprisingly similar to "We're fighting them over so we don't have to fight them over here." He allegedly wanted to "bleed " the French Army so as to soften them up to suffer further setbacks and losses.

The slaughter was immense. Nearly 800,000 soldiers were lost on both sides. Again, there's no indication the French government suffered any political damage, this time from stubbornly holding onto Verdun at immense cost. In 1859, France did not object to withdrawing from a war after 40,000 soldiers were lost on both sides. In 1916, France held firm in the face of 800,000 casualties on both sides.
What changed in those 57 years? Did the French national character change? Did France become more warlike? Did French mothers and wives become more callous towards losing sons and husbands? No to all of those questions.

France's military objectives changed. Sometimes, an objective is worth an immense cost in lives. Sometimes the loss of a single soldier is a single life too many. The Iraq War is a very different war from the Civil War, where 3000 soldiers could be lost in a single hour of fighting. Our current president has failed to explain what the Iraq War is about in terms that make sense to the American people. I read President Bush's casus belli speech against the government of Iraq (Which was personified as Saddam Hussein) in September 2002. I concluded then that the Iraq War wasn't worth a single life, military or civilian, Iraqi or American. As Americans now agree, in the words of New York Times reporter Judy Miller "I was proved $%&# right!"

Well, the PLAN sounded real good...

Byrd-Obey Approps Move Puzzles OMB, Lobbyists
By Emily Pierce and Kate Ackley
Roll Call Staff
Wednesday, Dec. 13; 2:45 pm

The announcement this week that the new Democratic Congress will eliminate all 2007 spending earmarks and instead pass a stopgap measure to keep the government funded for the entirety of this fiscal year has caused widespread confusion and anxiety, both within the Bush administration and on K Street, as lobbyists scramble to figure out how their clients will be affected.

What happened here was that the Republicans were planning to stick the Democrats with all of their spending bills and the idea was obviously that the Democrats would be too busy figuring out what to keep and what to chuck to make any real decisions as to how to make things more (Capital-D) Democratic.
Bwah-hah-hah-hah!!!!!

Bush & McCain both out of it

Obviously, neither President Bush nor Senator McCain reside in what a Bush aide snidely referred to as the "reality-based community." Bush commented on the possiblity of opening up discsussions on Iraq with Syria and Iran:

"Countries that participate in talks must not fund terrorism, must help the young democracy survive, must help with the economics of the country," Bush said. "If people are not committed, if Syria and Iran is not committed to that concept, then they shouldn't bother to show up."

The demand of "help the young democracy survive" sounds to me like a real deal-killer. Syria & Iran may not consider it in their interests to maintan the government of Iraq precisely as it is. They might prefer that a genuinely popular leader like Muqtada al-Sadr take charge. Obviously, that course of action would not fit Bush's definition of "help the young democracy survive" as he doesn't like Hugo Chavez of Venezuela either, despite that fact that Chavez has been absolutely and unequivocally, properly and legitimately elected.

Syria & Iran might also have problems with "help with the economics of the country" as they might prefer that American oil companies give France & Russia back the oil fields that those two nations were rudely ejected from back in March 2003. As that would cost American oil companies future oil sales as well as make it impossible for the US to hoard all of Iraq's oil for itself, Bush would obviously define that as hurtful to Iraq's economy.

Also, Bush's whole odd notion of diplomacy presumes that opponents/enemies/people who are not friends have more to gain from talking to the US than the US gains from talking to them. That's not necessarily true and it appears especially untrue with regards to the Iraq situation. Sure, it would be nice for Syria & Iran to live next to neighbors that aren't at war and the Iraq War might spill over its borders to destablize those two countries, among others. But Syria & Iran aren't losing people at the rate of a little over two soldiers a day and many, many more wounded. American desire to continue with the war is also quite low, the number of Americans who want US troops to leave Iraq is now at 71%. Bush is hardly in a position where he can make demands as to the conditions that Syria & Iran must meet before he'll talk with them.

McCain? Well, he's now demanding that Republicans reject:

"...the major recommendations of the [ISG] group because they did not present a formula for victory."

Of course, it's not at all clear what a "formulas for victory" would look like. Obviously, McCain's major recommendation of adding more troops to the mix gives us a clue that his formula includes more violence, more killing and more bloodshed, but has the rather serious problem of not being at all realistic. Affluent people feel: "Military service isn't for our son. It isn't for our kind of people." With the war being as unpopular as it is, recruiting is down and the Republicans have shown absolutely zero desire to institute a draft. It's not at all clear where the soldiers would come from that McCain wants to throw into the battle.

Neither Bush nor McCain counts as a member of the reality-based community.

Evaluating the ISG Report

First of all, Glenn Greenwald in talking about the James Baker-led Iraq Study Group Report, makes the extremely good point that the decision to be made by America citizens concerning the Iraq War and the ISG Report is not, never was and never can be one that involves any degree of nuance. It's a strict, up-or-down, yes-or-no, get-out-or-stay-in choice. Anybody seeking to introduce any kind, form, shape or variety of nuance is simply aiding and abetting President Bush and his "We're going to stay in Iraq until Hell freezes over" strategy. As Greenwald puts it:

"In 2002, it was clear that the President was intent on invading and occupying Iraq, and all sorts of people endorsed that central idea but then -- like James Baker or Tom Friedman -- added their own caveats about how they thought it should be done. That didn't matter. Anything other than unambiguous, emphatic opposition to the invasion counted as support for the war. It fueled, rather than impeded, Bush's ability to invade at will."

And as Jonah Goldberg adds:

"The report undercuts the Murtha crowd by delegitimizing the quick bug-out (AKA redeployment) option and makes staying in Iraq at least until '08 the "conventional" or "mainstream" point of view.

"For Bush, isn't this the only part of the ISG report that matters? And when it comes to the actual situation in Iraq, the report basically confirms established policies of the White House and the Pentagon. So, in effect, doesn't the heralded bipartisan commission in effect give Bush the leeway to — ahem — stay the course?" [emphases in original quote]

As Bush himself puts it:

"We [Bush & British Prime Minister Tony Blair] agree that victory in Iraq is important; it's important for the Iraqi people, it's important for the security of the United States and Great Britain, and it's important for the civilized world. We agree that an Iraq that can govern itself, defend itself and sustain itself as an ally on the war on terror is a noble goal. The Prime Minister and I seek a wide range of opinions about how to go forward in Iraq, and I appreciate your opinions and your advice."

Yeah sure, you can disagree with eternal, neverending war in Iraq, if of course you don't think "the civilized world" is important. I mean, if you think "the security of the United States and Great Britain" can be tossed to one side like a used-up hankie, then sure, go right ahead and advocate withdrawal. Part of the last sentence is pretty classic here: "The Prime Minister and I seek a wide range of opinions about how to go forward in Iraq" In other words, If your advice does NOT concern how to get Iraq to "sustain itself as an ally on the war on terror" then geddouddahere, you're wasting your breath. The advice Bush & Blair are looking for concerns "how to go forward." Period. If Iraq wants to be an Iran-lite, an Islamic theocracy and a slacker in the WOT (War on Terror), obviously that just won't do.

You see, the Iraq War does not involve, ordnary, mortal adversaries:

"The primary victims of the sectarian violence are the moderate majority of Iraqis -- Sunni and Shia alike -- who want a future of peace. The primary beneficiaries are Sunni and Shia extremists, inside and outside of Iraq, who want chaos in that country so they can take control and further their ambitions to dominate the region."

It's chaos and extremism vs the "moderate majority," It's a "future of peace" vs those "inside and outside of Iraq" who want to "take control." There's no possible, conceivable way that Bush and his buddies can ever seek any sort of accomodation or coexistence or tolerance for the other's existence. Bush is defining the enemy in absolutist, sharp-edged terms. No nuance here whatsoever. It's life or death, glorious victory or humiliating defeat.

Progressives and Democrats can either do as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reed and Speaker Nancy Pelosi are doing, i.e. pick and choose what they will and won't support, take the ISG Report on an a la carte basis or they can call BS on the whole thing and demand a pull-out.

Update: Hoo boy! I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall at THIS meeting!! Bush had a meeting with Democrats at which he rambled on about how he was the greatest, most bestest president evuh and how Harry Truman was also misunderstood and underestimated and how everybody realized later tha Truman was right and people should just siddown an' shuddup and let him do his thing.

[Senate Majority Whip-elect Richard] Durbin [D-Ill] said he challenged Bush's analogy, reminding him that Truman had the NATO alliance behind him and negotiated with his enemies at the United Nations. Durbin said that's what the Iraq Study Group is recommending that Bush do now — work more with allies and negotiate with adversaries on Iraq.

Bush, Durbin said, "reacted very strongly. He got very animated in his response" and emphasized that he is "the commander in chief."

Pelosi and historical "babes"

There's an excellent discussion of "framing" at firedoglake. Well worth reading and it's expecially heartening because it shows very clearly that Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi "gets it." Just like Kathleen Turner "got it" for the movie "Serial Mom," (Turner very clearly understood the joke that was at the center of the movie) the rhetoric Pelosi uses reminds me of an historical "babe" (Obviously, my definition of "babe" doesn't necessarily have much to do with a woman's looks) who really "got it", Elizabeth I of England. The dialogue she has with her sister "Bloody Mary" is priceless! She has to convince her suspicous sister that yes, she's a loyal and faithful and devoted subject. But she also has to convince Mary that no, she can't convert to Roman Catholicism or do anything else which might weigh on her conscience, i.e, that would compromise her popularity with the English people. Brilliant stuff!
I think we're in for some good times with Pelosi in charge

Job vs vacation

"Instaputz" whipped up a list of "Instapundit's" many, many erroneous statements and predictions. Reading the list, one has to wonder how Instapundit maintained a career as a law professor. I should think he would have been let go a long time ago. In any event, I followed one of the links, which led me to the following piece:

The Psychology of Bush Hatred
Sunday, November 28, 2004
........

I thought of that insight today when I glanced at Maureen Dowd's column and read this sentence, "Maybe it's because George Bush is relaxing at his ranch down there (again) while Osama is planning a big attack up here (again)."

That is the voice of a petulant child, angry that she has a tummy ache while Daddy is at work or Mommy is visiting a friend, or the voice of a grouchy wife angry that she has a migraine while her husband is out coaching the kids' baseball team. You're upset that you're in pain (we've all been there), so you get mad at someone whose presence wouldn't make the pain any better. No mature student of politics believes the president of the United States goofs off on vacation. It's not the kind of job you escape. George Bush may be completely insane to voluntarily. spend July in Texas--as opposed to Bill Clinton's favored coastal retreats--but Osama bin Laden is no more or less a threat than in Bush were in Washington. But if blaming Bush makes people feel better, safer, or at least able to focus their anger on someone they can hurt, they'll blame Bush. "

It was pretty obvious to progressives like myself at the time, but it's become even clearer since this post was published that Bush has a real problem with extended vacations. His first month-long summer vacation was in 2001. He received a PDB on August 6th that said "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." How do he respond? As far as anybody can tell, he didn't. He had a summer vacation to conduct, after all. Might have helped if the guy had taken a shorter vacation and y'know, had done his job.
The second vacation of note was in 2003. It's doubtful that anything the US could have done in the summer of 2003 would have resulted in victory in Iraq, but there was a window from the fall of Baghdad to about the time the fall season began that Iraq's insurgency could have been weakened and delayed with an energetic and well-funded reconstruction program. Bush wandered off to Crawford, Texas, about the time that the existence of a serious, long-term insurgency became impossible to deny. The US Army needed a full-time Commander-in-Chief who was dedicated to doing the job. The Army didn't get that in 2003.
The third time of note was in 2005, when Bush was hanging around during his final week of vacation. Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, Bush consulted by closed-circuit television with Louisiana officials, then went back to his vacation. Bush went to Arizona to celebrate John McCain's birthday,. then to an Arizona resort to discuss Medicare drug benefits. That evening, Governor Blanco said "Mr. President, we need your help. We need everything you’ve got.” [Newsweek]. Thinkprogress: "2PM CDT — PRESIDENT BUSH PLAYS GUITAR WITH COUNTRY SINGER MARK WILLIS [AP] BUSH RETURNS TO CRAWFORD FOR FINAL NIGHT OF VACATION [AP]"
Again, Bush seems to have had a real problem doing his job.
To complain about Bush taking long vacations is hardly "Bush Hatred." It's entirely reasonable to expect the President to do his frickin' job, even if that job interferes with his precious vacation time!!

Silly, silly people

Rumsfeld received an award at the Union League tonight. Why? Who knows? The Union League apparently thought Rumsfeld was obviously doing a good job. So much for their good sense and discrimination.

UPDATE: The Philadephia Inquirer did a nice piece on the protest.

David Horowitz, who used to be a lefty radical back in the 1960s, but then "went bad" and turned conservative, sent out an appeal today:

"Simply put, Professor Beinin has set out to chill our free speech. He asserts that we've defamed him by putting his picture on our booklet, 'Campus Support for Terrorism.' That booklet's been out for more than a year."

The claim that this fellow would have for damages against Horowitz seems pretty self-evident, but I agree that waiting a year before launching the case seems a bit peculiar. My only claim to legal expertise is that my sister was a paralegal for a number of years and that we sometimes discussed a few legal cases here and there. My wild, off the top of my head guess is that because courts like to deal in solid, proven quantifiable facts, people probably wait until the damage to their reputations has been done, count up what the false accusation cost them and then, with a solid cost in hand, go to the courts for relief. According to my theory then, the plaintiff was confident after a year about just how much Horowitz's action cost him in terms of lost jobs, lost pay raises, people's refusal to hire him, etc. I say toss the book at Horowitz! He should pay enough to have to cancel his next vacation, perhaps enough to make him sell a yacht or two!

George Will, whose columns I remember reading back in the 1970s, is clearly experienced enough that this can't possibly be an error. Here's the original set of statements:

"At a private reception held at the White House with newly elected lawmakers shortly after the election, Bush asked Webb how his son, a Marine lance corporal serving in Iraq, was doing.

"Webb responded that he really wanted to see his son brought back home, said a person who heard about the exchange from Webb.

“I didn’t ask you that, I asked how he’s doing,” Bush retorted, according to the source.

"Webb confessed that he was so angered by this that he was tempted to slug the commander-in-chief, reported the source, but of course didn’t."

And now George Wills' version:

"When Bush asked Webb, whose son is a Marine in Iraq, 'How's your boy?' Webb replied, 'I'd like to get them [sic] out of Iraq.' When the president again asked 'How's your boy?' Webb replied, 'That's between me and my boy.' "

Completely absent from Will's version is Bush's arrogant, snippy, response to Webb's desire to bring US soldiers back home. "I didn't ask you that" comes across to me as an absolutely imperial disdain "How dare you question ME, your glorious Dear Leader, you peasant?!?!" Was it appropriate for Webb to inject politics into what appeared to be a friendly, non-political question? Perhaps not, but both of them are politicians, this sort of thing comes with the territory.
My real question here is not so much about Will himself, but the supposed difference between bloggers and people who write for mainstream media newspapers and TV. The alleged difference is supposed to be that MSM people are supposed to have editors who are supposed to catch stuff like this. When a writer is being blatantly dishonest and unfair, editos are supposed to, well, edit. As leaving out that snippet changes Bush's comment from one of imperial disdain to one where people wonder "What's Webb getting so excitable about?" an editor REALLY should have caught that!
Jacob Weisberg's piece in Slate is a reasonably good look at the Iraqi situation until we get to this part:

"As in the final stages of the Vietnam War, we face the question: If we have lost, why are we still there? One answer is that George Bush is a stubborn man—even this week, he was insisting we won't withdraw 'until the mission is complete'—an apparent synonym for 'when hell freezes over.' A better answer is that we're staying to prevent genocide. Without a military force separating Sunnis and Shiites, the present savagery could go Cambodian, with remaining secular democrats as the first victims."

Okay, the situation in Iraq has ALREADY gone "Cambodian." Maybe it hasn't reached those numbers of casualties yet, but there's simply no question that slaughter and torture and brutality are the daily fare of Iraqis. Are US troops preventing genocide? For US troops, simply protecting themselves is a full-time job. The great majority of the violence in that country is the violence of Iraqi insurgents against American soldiers or Iraqis who collaborate with the American occupation. Sorry, but US troops are not in Iraq to keep the two main religious groups apart and they aren't doing any such thing in any event. As in Cambodia 1975, the US simply has no power to prevent a massacre from taking place after US troops leave or are driven out.

DailyKos has more. "What, does [Weisberg] think the people of these nations will happily see their men and women in uniform sent into the Iraq meat grinder to try and save Bush's incompetent ass?"


Yglesias has a marvelous comment concerning Charles Krauthammer's latest nutty notion.

Glenn Greenwald examines NY Times columnist Tom Friedman: "It is still the case in Establishment Washington that having been pro-war in the first place is a pre-requisite to being considered a "responsible, serious" foreign policy analyst. And having been anti-war from the start is the hallmark of someone unserious. The pro-war Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden are serious national security Democrats but Russ Feingold, Nancy Pelosi and Jack Murtha are the kind of laughable losers whom Democrats need to repudiate."

Very, very intriguing piece in which Sara Robinson compares reporters to the "Kewl Kidz and Queen Bees" of junior high school. These people haven't really changed since they were 11 and they WON'T change until the Democratic grown-ups take charge.