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Getting out

Thursday, September 13, 2007

A few thoughts jotted down while I don’t watch Bush’s speech.

There’s been some talk, as I mentioned recently, to the effect that whoever gets elected in 2008 will soon own the war that Bush will bequeaths to him or her. At this point, as anyone case see, his entire strategy is to repeat his life story-leave a mess behind and let someone else clean it up.

It’s an unfortunate thing that so few of the Democratic candidates are willing to do what needs to be done if and when they get elected: Get out of Iraq completely. Bill Richardson says that he will, and I assume Dennis Kucinich feels the same way, but the front tier candidates get vague when they talk about their plans for the future. Each of them plans to maintain an imperial presence.

There’s no doubt that as we depart, either from a combat role or completely, there will be massive bloodshed. That’s happening now and it may very well increase for a while. That’s a result that was fated from the moment we went in. That blood is on Bush’s hands, not that he cares.

If we stay, in any role, we will be a permanent irritant. We have had, and will have, no success in being a force for good in the Muslim world. There was, in fact, a time when we had a good reputation among Muslims-back in the palmy days of Roosevelt when we were viewed as anti-colonialists.

We don’t understand the Muslim world, and never will. If we step aside they will not have us to kick around, so will, no doubt, start kicking each other, which appears to be something they enjoy doing. If we stay, we will hasten our own demise as a great nation. We have already entered that period in an Empire’s history where the cost of Empire exceeds the gains. This is amplified in our system where the fruits of empire go not to the nation, but to corporations- mostly oil companies. (Okay, in fact the fruits of empire always go to ruling elites)

It’s time for us to recognize that we harm ourselves as much as our still undefined “enemies” by wasting our blood and treasure on maintaining our presence in a part of the world where we can do no good. We could, on the other hand, help ourselves tremendously in the Muslim world by announcing that we will stand down from interfering in their countries. If the people of Iran, for instance, were secure in the knowledge that we did not intend to attack them, the chances would increase tremendously that the present government would be replaced by one more rational. Ahmadinejad is almost as unpopular as Bush; he stays in power by playing the same fear card that works for George.

Back to where I started, most of the Democrats feel the need to prove their manhood (be the candidate male or female) by proposing that we maintain a presence in Iraq. Any other course, apparently, would be a sign that they are not serious people. Staying will be a disastrous mistake, and if the next president makes that mistake, he or she truly will own Iraq policy. Our only hope, oddly enough, is that we’ll end up leaving as we did in Vietnam, with the last guy hanging off a helicopter.

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Cold comfort, but comfort nonetheless

Thursday, September 13, 2007

According to a poll commissioned by Daily Kos, Ned Lamont would handily beat Joe Lieberman today, if the voters of Connecticut had another chance to vote. Most of the shift, as you would expect, comes from the Democrats and Independents who were taken in by Lieberman. By the way, it’s hard to believe that the election was less than a year ago. So much damage has been done by LIeberman and his pals since then that it’s hard to believe they could do it all in a year.

The folks at Firedoglake have it about right:

That Ned was willing to enter the race last year when the geniuses at the head of the Democratic Party were telling everyone to shut up about the war, put his own money into challenging the war lobby by beating its own toad prince in the primary and then fighting him and his Democratic Senate buddies in the general, is to his credit. He awakened the shiftless and the recalcitrant up to the reality that the party’s voters wanted their candidates to do more than smile, kiss babies and be Not Republican. We want them to end the war.
We owe him and everyone who worked on his behalf a great debt of gratitude.

Joe won the election but in doing so diminished himself into the pitiful, Ann Coulter loving spectacle that he is today. We in Connecticut who backed Ned from the first can be justly proud that we were instrumental in changing the national conversation and in pushing the leaders of the pathetic Democratic Party into listening to the people for once instead of the pundits.

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The Day drinks the Petreaus Kool-Aid

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

In an effort to prove that they are very serious people, the Day has opined that despite its belief that we should end our military involvement in Iraq, we should not in fact end our military involvement in Iraq. We should, as the editorial is titled GIVE NEW IRAQ STRATEGY TIME.

This editorial deserves to be annotated, so rife is it with irrational thinking and ignorance of the facts. Let’s try to scrape the surface.

First, there’s the title. This is not a new Iraq Strategy. This is a strategy (the surge) that was announced in December of 2006 and, according to its proponents would bear fruit by this time. Keep in mind that the fruit it would bear would be political reconciliation- i.e., a stronger central government with more popular support. It has failed spectacularly on those terms. In any event, there is no new strategy-Petraeus is offering more of the same.

Now, the introduction, in which the editorialist notes that the good general is testifying on the anniversary of the World Trade Center attack, which as it acknowledges in the fourth paragraph, was and is entirely unrelated to the war in Iraq. So why make a connection that is acknowledged to be without foundation?

Then we have this:

What resulted was four years of terror bombings, bloodshed and revenge killings. Most ironically, al-Qaida, a non-factor in Iraq when the late Mr. Hussein was in power, now is a significant player and seeks to fuel the sectarian violence in hopes of handing the United States an embarrassing foreign policy failure in the Middle East. (Emphasis added)

It’s the line they’ve been pushing, of course, but couldn’t the Day do it’s homework and learn a little about the subject from non-propagandists. It might start here, (washington monthly), where it would find that al-Qaida’s presence in Iraq is miniscule, and it is not even clear that those calling themselves “Al-Qaida in Iraq” have any formal connection to Osama’s Al-Qaida. But why let facts get in the way of a good story line.

The Day goes on to tell us that:

At the local level, Sunni tribal leaders have worked with our nation’s forces to root out al-Qaida and other terrorist elements.

You mean these guys (see, Washington Post, In Iraq, a Perilous Alliance With Former Enemies)

U.S. commanders are offering large sums to enlist, at breakneck pace, their former enemies, handing them broad security powers in a risky effort to tame this fractious area south of Baghdad in Babil province and, literally, buy time for national reconciliation.

American generals insist they are not creating militias. In contracts with the U.S. military, the sheiks are referred to as “security contractors.” Each of their “guards” will receive 70 percent of an Iraqi policeman’s salary. U.S. commanders call them “concerned citizens,” evoking suburban neighborhood watch groups.

Yes, that’s right. We are busily arming people who have, until recently, been bowing our soldiers to bits. What could go wrong?

But the Day recognizes the problem, in a way, doesn’t it?

These Sunni tribal groups that our forces now work with by providing money and military aid could one day turn on the central government or other factions, generating the civil war the U.S. policy has sought to avoid.

Earth to Day: The Civil War has been raging for years. It just may be that we are now taking sides against the central government we created (while still supporting the central government-it gets so confusing, doesn’t it?). What a great position to be in-on both sides of a civil war in a country we refuse to understand.

Some more tidbits. According to the Day, Congress should drink more of the Kool-Aid the Day has been drinking because it supported the surge in the past. To the best of my recollection Congress had nothing to say in the matter. How convenient to forget how impotent is our Congress. In any event, the surge was “sold” on the terms I mentioned above, and it was to be judged based on its success exactly now. On the pre-announced terms, it has failed.

Like all the serious folks in Washington, the Day doesn’t appear to notice that the goal posts keep moving, and the rules keep changing. There are some constants that the Day should keep in mind: Everything they say is a lie, they can always find some general to be their front man (see, Powell, Colin and Thompson, Tommy) and their only goal is to run out the clock to leave someone else to clean up their mess.

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Misdirections, a Republican specialty

Monday, September 10, 2007

I’ve been reading the blogs, etc., about the Petreaus testimony, and it appears to me that once again the Republicans have succeeded at something at which they excel: misdirection.

Many years ago now, the Sainted Ronald was caught red-handed selling weapons to the Iranians. That was a bad thing to do, perhaps warranting impeachment, but it was quickly forgotten when Ed Meese revealed that the money from the arms sales had gone to the Contras in Nicauragua, but the Great Man did not know about that. The acknowledged crime was quickly forgotten while everyone obsessed about whether Reagan knew about the transfers to the Contras. Meese knew just what he was doing-the scandal bogged down in further misdirections and obfuscations.

Now we argue about whether Petreaus’ statistics about violence levels, death rates, etc. are correct, while virtually ignoring that the escalation has clearly failed, judged on the terms by which it was sold. That is, there is no “political reconciliation”. Everyone admits that. But that fact is mostly ignored while we argue about irrelevant issues.

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The RTM stays

Monday, September 10, 2007

This is strictly Groton news. The Charter Revision Commission voted not to abolish the RTM. We now go to the harder work of refashioning the Charter.

Of course, the overriding issue, as always, is the budget referendum. It will be interesting to see how things go on that issue.

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Bush prepares to go out Cheney style

Sunday, September 9, 2007

A few weeks ago I predicted we’d be hearing more about Bush’s plans to complete the destruction of the United States of America, starting with the environment, before he left office.

I was hardly going out on a limb. Anyone could have predicted it. Today we get a glimpse of some more of the damage Bush and his minions have in mind:

And now President Bush has his cabinet and staff busily writing far-reaching rules to keep his priorities on the environment, public lands, homeland security, health and safety in place long after the clock strikes midnight and his presidential limousine turns into a pumpkin.

Naturally, the Bushies have more plans for the environment. Why they have a special affinity for environmental destruction is anyone’s guess, but it appears to be first priority at this point. But of course, they have no intention of stopping there. They’ve already tried to undermine children’s health care. Who knows what further evil lurks in the heart of darkness.

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A brief hiatus

Friday, September 7, 2007

My wife and I are off to Maine to a wedding. With any luck, I will not be in front of a computer again until Sunday night.

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Mr. 9/11 exposed

Friday, September 7, 2007

This is all over the net, but it needs to be widely seen, from a documentary by Robert Greenwald:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0E0wfShJ58&v3[/youtube]

Surprisingly, Greenwald doesn’t mention that another reason Rudy put the command center near the World Trade Center was so he could have a comfortable place to commit GOP retroactively sanctioned adultery.

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What report?

Friday, September 7, 2007

Apparently the question of the authorship of the Petreaus report has been settled. Originally, Petreaus was going to write it; then the White House was going to write it. Now, apparently, it will simply not be written:

In the latest twist to the ongoing saga over the Petraeus White House report, a senior military official tells the Washington Times today that there will actually be no report at all:

A senior military officer said there will be no written presentation to the president on security and stability in Iraq. “There is no report. It is an assessment provided by them by testimony,” the officer said.

The only hard copy will be Gen. Petraeus’ opening statement to Congress, scheduled for Monday, along with any charts he will use in explaining the results of the troop surge in Baghdad over the past several months.

These are people who learn there lessons. Recently a lot of folks have been talking about the suspect numbers (here and here, for example) that the war supporters have been throwing around. There will be nothing in anything Petreaus says that will be verifiable; it will all be the sort of slippery stuff that eludes authentication. This sort of testimony could be made to look foolish if:

1. The Democrats refuse to be cowed by the uniform and treat him as the Bush flunky that he has become; and

2. The individual Democrats decide to give up their TV time and use a skilled cross examiner to question Petreaus who is both informed and dogged.

I have no hope that the Democrats will expose this huckster. They will genuflect to his brass stars and vote to give him more time.

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Americans already don’t believe Petreaus

Thursday, September 6, 2007

In a recent post I hazarded the following guess about the American reaction to the Petreaus report:

My sense is that the truth has sunk in to the American people, and they’re not going to be convinced by anyone’s flimflam, no matter how many stars on his shoulder.

Looks like I was mostly right. According to a Rasmussen poll only 39% of the people in this country believe the report will reflect the general’s honest opinion. But of course, everyone in Washington will pretend that it does, even though they are probably almost as aware as the average American that the general is a shill.

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