Fitz!

I second that Fitz.

How can anyone not call this a civil war?

O/T news- Gay bashing amendment just failed in the Senate.

Good riddance to this time-wasting POS.

Democrats would do well to stand up, speak out and demand redeployment from Iraq. The people want to rally to our side, but we have to give them a reason on the number one issue that’s on their minds.

And the beauty of it? We don’t have to lie to tell them what they want to hear.

WIN-WIN-WIN

future historians will refer to U.S. policy in Iraq as “the war to advance Iranian hegemony.”

Gonna be tough to talk about anything but elections, today, Taylor . . . but let’s give it a try, shall we?

What an interesting war we’ve stumbled into here. On one side are folks turning to militias tied to extreme religous factions, and on the other side are folks turning to militias contractors tied to folks whose main goal is to make a buck or billion. Meanwhile, between these two is a killing zone.

I like the idea of the “friend in Iraq” from the quote you cited. What it shows is a desire to change the terms of the battle from top-down to bottom-up. God knows the top-down model sure isn’t working.

When you think about it, it’s kind of like the netroots, with guns instead of money. Where’s the Iraqi version of Lamont, who’ll stand up to the folks who want to hunker down?

(Maybe that last one will bring the political commenters along . . .)

EPU’d…

Cheap Eating in Las Vegas

http://govegas.about.com/cs/va…..aplsit.htm

pat lang has a post on ignatius’ column:

http://turcopolier.typepad.com….._tyrannis/

Lina @ 6

I hope future historians clearly understand the war in Iraq as part of a larger campaign undertaken on the behalf of the misguided incompetence of the neocons, and their most famous stooges the Bush Administration.

Sinister AND incompetent, before BushCo, who would of thought those two were possible together.

Taylor — excellent posts this a.m. on both the elections and Iraq. The news is dreadful in Iraq, and there is no risk-free, satisfying answer. But your clarity that we need to change the presumption that favors hunkering down and hoping things will improve, without having a clue as to how that might actually happen, is helpful.

I was about to post on the previous thread, but would have lost my head. There but for the grace of the goddess . . .

We’ve NEVER had a plan for Iraq, so it’s pointless to expect a plan to salvage it now. The best we can offer is to advise any Iraqi citizen with the means to do so to get the hell out of there. Based on recent numbers of Iraqi passport issues, they seem to have gotten this message on their own.

Can you say Quagmire ? I thought you could !

sophist at 10:

and they couldn’t have done it without the help of everyone’s favorite double agent, Mr. Chalabi! Take a bow, Mr. C. You earned it.

Iraq is quite different from Viet-Nam ! It’s dry heat in Baghdad and the US advisors dont speak Arabic instead of not speaking Vietnamese. Way different!

Frank Probst — I once thought that a helpful way to think about our presence in Iraq was to imagine that we weren’t there now, but somehow, Iraq had gotten to its current horrific status all by themselves. Then ask ourselves, “is there anything useful we could do by going in (e.g., as “peace keepers”)?” I couldn’t envision a scenario in which going in, in small, medium or even huge numbers would be tenable. It didn’t matter whether we were alone or with NATO. Conclusion: we may as well get out, because we can’t make things better (nevermind the argument that we are making things worse).

I have always thought that mayhem and instability really was the mission all along.

For those of you who are not old enough to have experienced Vietnam, here’s my personal rememberance. After I finished my 2nd tour in “Nam” and returned home in 1968. I listened to Nixon promise America “He had a secret plan to get us out of VN with Honor”. He got my Vote! He won and I couldn’t wait to see that plan. The plan turned out to be a non plan, a political ruse. He spent the following years fighting and bombing and sacrificing America’s youth as he had his buddy Kissinger waste time in endless and fruitless negotiations while Nixon built up and transferred the war over to the ARVN(Army of the Republic of Vietnam). Then, finally he claimed success “A negotiated peach treaty”. We got our POWs out, including McCain and withdrew our boys home from VN. The majority of our casualties occured while carrying out Nixons Secret non plan. Thousands were lost during the years of negotiation and building up The ARVN. You know what happened next? Well it wasn’t very long before the “Peace treaty was ignored and soon thereafter the ARVN collapsed and South Vietnam fell to the North Vietnamese. If we learn anything from VN we must learn that all the kings men couldn’t put humpty dumpty back together again! How many American lives must we waste repeating history?

?Aquaria #5: Sorry, I can’t read the symbol before your name. Anyway, YES, YES, YES. But we need presidential candidates who will offer ideas of how to get out of the quagmire. Just keeping silent or saying, oh well, we can’t do anything, the ball’s in Bush’s court and he has to come up with a plan WON’T WORK. There’s a whiff of Bush’s “Trust me” in those Demo pols who play this line.

Frank @ 12

Sure there was a plan for Iraq, it was break up and balkanize all the states surrounding Israel, then through U.S. presence and support of Israel, make it the regional superpower. Thats pretty much was ‘Clean Break‘ is all about. In this context the ‘civil war’ in Iraq is according to plan.

It’s amazing how often you find ‘war without end’ in the context of interpreting ‘Clean Break’. The civil war is a result of that madness, that was the intention for Iraq, and for the other states in that region.

The goal was for a ‘world war’ in that region, and thats pretty much where the Neocon warmongers want to take the world. The alternative for them is unthinkable. They’ve stirred up such a hornets nest of trouble in that region that they have to push the conflict along, otherwise the backlash and investigation will clearly show complicity, and war crimes tribunals will follow.

Thanks, scarecrow. Oh, and one thing FrankP, BushCo was provided with plans. They just chose to ignore them.

3 years ago, i wrote my SC Senator, & suggested the US/UK build new, fortified, secure ‘cities’ & permit a controlled flow of the regular Iraqis into these monitored fortress-cities. Leave the existing, broken down, rats nests of squalor in the city, to the insurgents and terrorists & their militias.

?simplistic? too hard to develop or oversee?
the old model of sweep the area of enemy then move on to the next area …is a lost cause
->> let’s attempt something different !

Colbert I. King gave commentary on all news DC radio this morning, asking if there is a real plan and real hope for Iraq in the White House, or as in Vietnam, is it all just pride and bravado? How long do we wait to find out?

http://wtop.com/emedia/23815.mp3

It’s refreshing to hear people speaking the truth around these parts for a change.

Taylor @ 21:

Thank you for that reminder. State had the plans, but they were flushed in favor of neo-con spin.

It goes right along side of the fact that BushCo was also provided with decent intelligence on the situation. They treated the intel pros who raised questions with contempt, and went with their own neo-con folks who had no use for any questions since they already knew the answers.

And the list of names on the yet-to-be-built monument to folly just keep getting longer . . .

steve at 13
as digby once overheard, “liberals have been calling it a quagmire for years.”

victoras says
June 7th, 2006 at 9:05 am
3 years ago, i wrote my SC Senator, & suggested the US/UK build new, fortified, secure ‘cities’ & permit a controlled flow of the regular Iraqis into these monitored fortress-cities.

In other words, everyone who’s nice or wealthy gets to live in a safe ‘green zone’ and everyone else gets to live in a slum and be shot at? Can we say the Iraqi version of ‘gated and guarded community’? (Those are not, btw, very popular with their ungated, unguarded neighbors. It’s an attitude thing: the gates and walls say ‘we have money, we don’t have to care about anything’.) How will this make Iraq safer or better?

The only reason Iraq looks like a big clusterfuck is because you folks aren’t thinking in the same terms as the Bush admin. If you would look at Iraq from the perspective of a sadistic war profiteer then you would know that Rummy is doing a heckava job.

Look, we can’t even begin to have a policy discussion about Iraq until somebody states objectives that are consistent with a permanent force of 40,000 troops. All of the withdrawal proposals pretend that this elephant isn’t in the room, as does the administration’s stand up/stand down rhetoric.

The establishment of permanent bases, reported variously by George Packer in the New Yorker, Fred Kaplan in the Atlantic and 3 years ago by the Chicago Tribune calls into question the most fundamental assumptions underlying Iraq’s future, especially those that involve its existence as a sovereign state.

Until somebody in the government stands up and talks about those bases, what they are for, who will be occupying them and under what authority they will be commanded, proposals like Murtha’s and Kerry’s are as substanceless as Bush’s vague stay the course pronouncements.

Moreover, as reported by Kenneth Pollack in the Atlantic a few months ago, there are no plans to equip the Iraqis with weaponry or training that would allow the country to be have an effective national defense. No armor will be permitted. No air capability. Minimal logistical support. The plans are for an armned force that can only conduct brief internal operations.

The US is really on a path toward helicopters landing on the embassy roof.

Hi Taylor – you holding down the fort during YKos week?

(Safe travel wishes to all those headed to Vegas).

It seems that as long as the “cut and run” meme for leaving Iraq is allowed to be hung around the neck of anyone who suggests withdrawal, the political will won’t be able to develop.

To paraphrase the LA punk band X
(The world’s a mess, it’s in my kiss):

Iraq’s a mess
“we just can’t miss”

I guess the Iraqi government is taking a page out of Bush’s playbook and has constructed a bubble for itself, one that will allow it to be as clueless about what to do next as our own bubble-boy. Sigh.

We have – what? – 130,000 troops on the ground? Depending on who you talk to, or who you believe, there are some 240,000 “trained” Iraqis in this as well. If almost 400,000 “troops” cannot control the violence and stabilize the country, there is likely no force large enough to do the job.

We don’t know who we’re fighting. Are we fighting insurgents who are fighting us, or are we only thinking we are fighting insurgents when in fact we are in the middle of a fight between the Sunnis and the Shi’ites? If we can’t figure out which is which, it’s time to pull back and figure it out.

Freedom is not on the march. Democracy is not on the march. Freedom and democracy are stuck in the gridlock of a civil war that we provided the conditions for by our failure to implement a workable plan for the peace and choosing instead a plan that was always doomed to fail.

The only marching that needs to happen now is our troops over the horizon – as Murtha suggested – and Donald Rumsfeld out of the Pentagon/Defense Department.

i can’t help but think iran will annex iraq and become a theocratic, oil-rich, nuclear superpower by the end of the decade. perhaps that’s not as bad as some would believe, but it really seems more and more likely, and only willful blindness would have kept our leaders from seeing this possibility…

we gotta pull back, but we must also have a pragmatic plan for the potential ethnic cleansing of civil war… tough situation to say the least…

Nothing much has changed – except for the worse – since I posted this in 2004:

http://www.bgladd.com/War_President/
_____

It is argued that Bush “had no plan” for “postwar” Iraq. That could not be more wrong. (Read the Naomi Klein article “Baghdad Year Zero.”)

The “plan” was simple, an 11-Step Program (appropriately for GW, one step shy of an AA regimen):

[1] Shock & Awe;
[2] Bad Guys pee their aggregate britches and vanish “at the first whiff of gunpowder” (the ‘cakewalk’ thing);
[3] Us Noble Liberators are greeted with showers of flowers;
[4] Secure the Oil Ministry;
[5] Hang out the “Iraq-is-Now-Open-For-Business” sign (as Paul Bremer in fact did. Again, see Klein’s article);
[6] Install Ahmad Chalabi — the Iraqi Andrew Fastow — as Prime Minister;
[7] Oil gushes forth, reconstruction is “cost-free”;
[8] We get our strategic Big Footprint smack in the middle of the region;
[9] All regional Hostiles are duly cowed into compliance before the Blinding Majesty of Bushdom;
[10] PNAC opening salvo complete;
[11] On to Damascus and Tehran and beyond.

Simple. elegant. “Light and Mobile.” It just didn’t work. They NEVER considered that it might not, so in the thrall of their own fevered visions of Magnificence were they.

Our Iraq misadventure has swirling down the drain from the day Clusterfuck pumped his fist and said “feels good!”

Personally, I’m so mad I could spit, about the Busby crap — so I’m going to vent on that.

An election with 30% turnout is a failure, folks. If all of the energy and money that was poured into this race can’t get the turnout up to 35 or 40 or god forbid 50%, the Team Democrat plan is something they’ve fished out of the toilet.

Here’s the deal — phonebanking doesn’t work. You know why? The GOP has figured out that phone jamming is illegal, and gets Unka Karl’s operatives thrown in jail. The RNC spent how much — $2 million? $3 million? defending the White House operative who got caught in New Hampshire. Bad form, and very expensive. What is a Rovian dirty trickster to do? Why, flood Democrats with 10, 20, 50 phone calls a day, telling them to vote for a Republican!!!

This way, when our lonely MoveOn or Busby phonebanker calls, they get hung up on immediately, and the voter is so pissed they won’t even vote at all!!!

High tech robo call voter suppression folks — and all Team Democrat says is clap louder and send more money . . .

Point two — Team Busby said they had 300 GOTV volunteers, which was all they could handle. 300? They should have had 3000 — the way to get low frequency Democratic voters to the polls is KNOCK and DRAG.

KNOCK on their doors, and DRAG them to the polls.

Grrr — anger!!!

[/rant]

Beyond that, we MUST reinforce Matt Stoller’s analysis — first because it’s true, and second because we have to beat it into the heads of the Beltway Dems.

http://www.mydd.com/story/2006/6/7/101138/8639

MyDD excerpts to follow . . .

I fully agree with this article! Several sub-issues swirl around, which don’t get enough reporting by the MSM.

1. The Green Zone: name ONE top-tier gov’t official, OR his wife or kids, who have been murdered/kidnapped by the insurgents over the past 12 months. Oh…you could name plenty of 1st, 2nd cousins, some nephews/nieces, and so forth…but that’s it. The top tier Iraq leadership are all safely nested in their cocoon…with no reason to get off their ass and move forward….and get shot.

2. Another swirling sub-issue is the arming (ummm…LACK thereof) of the so-called new Iraqi armed forces. Truth of the matter is, we (USA) don’t want to arm them…we’re afraid those arms would go straight to the bad guys. We keep inventory on rifles and ammo issued, and collect same at the end of the day. We do not give them what an army needs…mortars, artillery, heavy machine guns, lots of grenades…all because we fear (and with reason) that all such “heavy weapons” will find their way to the bad guys and thus be used against our forces. (probably true)….???can you imagine the uproar if we gave heavy mortars to the Iraqi army…those mortars made their way to the bad guys, and the Green Zone starts getting shelled? Oh jeez.

3. Training: ummmm…Houston, we got a problem. Look, basic training for US soldiers is about…4 months. We’ve now had over THIRTY SIX months of “training”. And the Iraqis got….nothing. What the hell?
Condi, Rummy, et al continue to lie thru their teeth about “all the progress in Iraq”…and we’ll keep losing American soldiers in convoys and patrols…which are nothing more than target practise for the bad guys.

Ghostman

Ed – what is amazing is that you can put that post together without banging your head on the keyboard from frustration. Vietnam, and the Korean war for that matter, neither were that long ago and we don’t seem to have learned any lessons.

Ed Beckman — you and your buddies took the brunt of the war; I was there after you, 1969-70, after Nixon’s “plan” went into effect. The key elements were to unleash the B-52s and carpet bombing throughout the region, including neighboring countries, and try to force the NVA to consider some face-saving agreement that would allow Nixon to claim “peace with honor.” In the meantime, “vietnamize” the war by pushing the South Vietnamese Army and CIDG (local militia) to the point, while limiting US casualties. It did not “win” the war, but it won the elections of 68 and 72. The reason it was secret before the 1968 election was because if he’d told the public that his plan to end the war was to expand and intensify it, the American public might not have supported it, though one wonders.

The parallels with today are scary. “As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.” So why did we just send in another Battalion from Kuwait?

What is astonishing about the Iraq Invasion is that at its core the justification was a lie. Like any untruth, with no grounding in reality, the enterprise collapsed. So Joe, Hillary and the GOP are supporting a conflict that already has failed its goals of setting up a puppet government and dumping Iraqi oil on the world market. To keep the conflict going forever, the proponents have turned it into the Clash of Civilizations; Christianity against Islam, a Holy War. A billion verses the other billion monotheists.

In the end, there are only two alternatives, start the draft and conquer the Middle East Oil fields: The Oil Spot Plan; or, Re-partition Europe, North America and the Middle East into Jew, Muslim and Christian sectors and develop alternative fuels. The Joe and Hillary option of a low grade never ending war cannot continue as the Volunteer Army rots, the US dollar collapses, and fundamentalists on both sides push for the Apocalypse.

Does the new Iraqi ruling elite have the courage to live in the city like the people, who are now fleeing to the outskirts of Iraq and beyond because they have no leadership? More importantly, do they have the incentive to lead Iraq? Or is Prime Minister al-Maliki expecting the U.S. to do it for him through force of our military that he expects will remain on the ground indefinitely?

I am getting really tired of you repeating, as though constant repetition will somehow make it true, this manifest falsehood. The majority of Iraq’s parlimentarians including, especially the party leaders, do NOT live in the green zone. They live either in their constituencies or they stay in apartments in Baghdad – generally close to their respective party’s headquarters. Anybody who has ever lived in Iraq, or has Iraqi friends (although thanks to your country Taylor Marsh I now have a hell of a lot fewer living Iraqi friends than I had even six months ago,) and who can talk to those friends in their own language, can tell you so.

Secondly your fascination with what goes on in “the green zone” while understandable is misplaced. Who Iraqis are really interested in is the guy who sits in the governor’s seat in their governorate. Iraqi provinces are called governorates. They’re not particularly interested in Maliki or anyone in his “government” because they see him as being under the thumb of the invaders. Moving the ministries out isn’t going to change that the only thing that will change that is for American troops and the “advisers” embedded in the ministries to leave.

Tell ‘em for signs saying any of the following:

%u062E%u0631%u0648%u062C

%u0645%u062E%u0631%u062C

%u0645%u063A%u0627%u062F%u0631%u0629

And to take the advice profered.

PS: The days when (mostly white) Americans or Europeans could dictate what brown people must do in their own countries are over – long over – get used to it.

Hey, punaise. I’ll be here through tomorrow, but then I’ll be covering YearlyKos through Saturday. I leave Sunday for Washington D.C., where I’ll be at the Take Back America conference.

Bwaaaa ha ha ha ha ha FDL’s code page can’t handle Arabic ha ha ha ha who’d a thunked it.

Steve @ 13:

I believe that’s spelled qWagmire.

Sophist @ 20 – yup.

Truth of the matter is, we (USA) don’t want to arm them%u2026we’re afraid those arms would go straight to the bad guys

And yet no one seems to concerned about the shipments of assault weapons (was it 200,000 they totalled?) that just went *poof* (mfi is a bad influence) missing.

The problem with insurgencies is they can wreak havoc on the cheap and there are plenty of sources of funds and supplies for them. Actually, a lot the same problems that the Brits had with the American revolutionaries.

1. The Green Zone: name ONE top-tier gov’t official, OR his wife or kids, who have been murdered/kidnapped by the insurgents over the past 12 months. Oh%u2026you could name plenty of 1st, 2nd cousins, some nephews/nieces, and so forth%u2026but that’s it. The top tier Iraq leadership are all safely nested in their cocoon%u2026with no reason to get off their ass and move forward%u2026.and get shot.

The deputy prime minister last month.

Next

…progressive and other traitors should stop their whining… don’t cha remember Bush told us “The mission has been accomplished !! “…

That, my friends, is the only thing he has ever said that I believe.

Instability and mayhem = victory.

Chaos and rising hatred = endless war and rising profits.

BASTARDS !!

markfromireland:

maybe we should all reread T.E. Lawrence (?)

p.s., you might like pat lang’s blog:

http://turcopolier.typepad.com….._tyrannis/

Mary @ 43 – I did a piece on that on my other blog here: “Business as usual“

ummm, markfromireland, not to be coy, but I think you know we all detest what our govt. is doing in Iraq. Any facts/local knowledge that you can bring to the table are of course helpful. I’ll leave it at that….

Markfromireland –

My Arabic’s a little rusty anyway. What’s the message on those signs?

My take on the suggestion to “move out into the provinces” was as a general thought to be less focused on the central administration and more on the local conditions in each area. Thus, it’s pretty much in line with what you’re saying.

But you’ve hit on it with the notion of speaking to folks in their own language. Most Americans are sadly lacking in the linguistic department, and we’re led by a president who takes seeming delight in his inability to get English right.

Meanwhile, my folks are away visiting your fair island, which leads me to ponder about your recent history there. Any parallels to draw from various attempts to end The Troubles by force of arms and centralized power that might help us sort out this mess in Iraq?

ck, you put your finger on a problem with elections which is not discussed much. I remember all the hoopla about how we registered so many more voters than the Republicans in the 2004 presidential race, and, bingo, they didn’t show up to vote on election day. I am particularly concerned about younger, single women with or without children. I volunteer in a food bank, and that group is so large and so disenfranchised. We need to have voter registration marathons, as we did for the blacks in the sixties, and then follow up and get them out to vote. We’re missing huge parts of our natural base on election days.

From Riverbend, yesterday:

Emily Dickinson wrote, “hope is a thing with feathers”. If what she wrote is true, then hope has flown far- very far- from Iraq%u2026

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com

Riverbend and I used to correspond regularly — one time she even passed along her recipe for bamia (a meat, okra and tomato stew), which I make often now.

But eventually the shame of what my country was costing hers grew insupportable, and after Bush’s re-election, I fell silent under it. Thousands of deaths ago.

I don’t know, and couldn’t take in if I did, more than a fraction of what’s come of this gifted young woman’s life — of her gifted country’s life — but I do know what’s on America’s soul now and forever because of it.

I still can’t bear to write to Riverbend, but by God I can work every way I can think to help bring to account those who have destroyed her land and people, and may even have doomed Riverbend herself.

I can and will do that, and pray for her, and search for the thing with feathers for her.

As Swopa points out at Needlenose, Ignatius has been a long time cheerleader of the “American project in Iraq”, and the salvaging bit sounds a bit like a not quite bright entrepeneur on the Titanic.

My take, to paraphrase Bush, is that either the Iraqis are standing up and so it is time for us to stand down and leave or the Iraqis won’t stand up and so we should leave. Either way, we should just leave.

hey lotus! (the bloggist formerly known as lotuslander)

Where is the new Iraqi government working? Again, inside the Green Zone. This will never work. They have to get out of the Green Zone and set up their ministries among the people. I can’t say it any plainer than that.

Lina yah – I did a piece on that too called “A barefaced and stupid lie” on gorilla’s guides back at the start of May.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Lawrence’s famous map. If not I’ve a copy of it here:

http://photos1.blogger.com/blo…..h_qual.jpg

(Incidentally note how where the Kurds are is marked with ? ) I read Pat Lang’s blog regularly – don’t always agree but he does at least know the region and does argue his POV logically.

OT, but oh so funny:

From current WaPo chat with “Reliable Sources”:

Alameda, Calif.: Is Ann Coulter dumping on 9/11 widows in her little black dress — all before breakfast, with children in the room — really the image that Republicans want one of their leading pundits to present as the face of the party?

(Or maybe this question should be posed to Robin for fashion critique: What does a fashionable Republican spokesperson wear when trashing widows before breakfast on national TV?)

Roxanne Roberts: I caught part of her interview with Matt on the “Today” show. I know being provocative is part of her act, but I think she went so over the edge this time that even diehard conservatives will distance themselves.

We should get out, and be sure to acknowledge what we have left in our wake.

“What would you think if you were the parent of one of those dead Iraqi children?”

Revenge

Brother or sister?

Revenge

Neighbor or teacher?

Revenge

Insurgents blowing our soldiers up and civilians feeling cold hard hatred and impotent rage for now. What tomorrow?

This country of ours has to examine our crimes, come clean and seek forgiveness.

Ghostman talks above about the failure to arm the Iraqi forces, etc. At this point, do you think that the situation in Iraq will improve with increased arms and militarization?

I would urge everyone to read Anthony Arnove’s new “Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal”

Thanks, Taylor, for this post. We need to stop this war NOW!

September 21, 2006 is International Day of Peace. Come to DC and help save the world!
peace,
jim

I cannot blame the Iraqis for the situation we are in– not now, not tomorrow, never. The dictator Saddam was our ‘friend’and we armed him against Iran. We fought the 1st Gulf War after reassuring Saddam (via April Glaspie) that we would not interfere (now there are many different takes on that– funny how history changes). We bombed them and continued murderous sanctions until this admin decided to go in again and murder and destroy again, only this time for keeps. We executed his sons and put him in jail and fomented a civil war.

This is our fault. Yes, we need to leave. Yes we have to acknowledge our failure and responsiblity. Yes, we have to pay reparations and ask forgiveness. Then we have to evidence our repentence by impeaching the administration and then trying lots of them for war crimes and never, ever going down the road of preventive war, a war based on lies and designed to impose our neocon imperialism on others.

Mary @35 I guess you havn’t seen the Keyboard dents on my forehead! ;=}
Scarecrow @36 No one had it “Better” in Nam. I still wake up to dreams of the rumble of those beautiful B52′ and I don’t mean a rock band either. Welcome home brother.

mc — qWagmire, it is!

As we talk motivating voters and election day GOTV, seems to me we’ve got an urgency to get nonvoters to become STAKEHOLDERS now.

What can we do this week, this summer, toward that end? What are the hot buttons we need? This is where the outreach, the successful election day must begin. You can be sure the Rethugs are busy with this right now…which is why there’s a special sweetness to the outcome of that gay-bashing amendment. And hearing on my car radio that SD moderate Republicans are becoming Dems.

We need to think in multi-dimensions, not just linear thinking.

And EPU’ed from last thread: Porto Bello, welcome and thanks for de-lurking…speak out more. You other lurkers, dive into the conversation, the water’s fine…

Peterrr they’re all the variations on one word:

“Exit”

Taylor they’re not a government because they are seen by the vast majority of Iraqis, correctly, as being little more than American puppets. Until such a time as your troops and “advisers “ are out of there they’re not going to have any legitimacy either. What part of this are you incapable of understanding?

And while you’re here – please outline your thoughts on exactly how independent the parliament is or will be perceived as being when physical access to it is controlled by US troops and US troops alone you’re (as in the US) is the single overiding problem in Iraq. Nothing else can be solved until that one is solved. And please everyone spare me the “Oh they’ll have a civil war” It won’t be peaceful your government has seen to that but a civil war is very unlikely.

In Iraq, the militias are the parties and the parties are the militias, and guess who make up the police and army.

Yoohoo, punaise!

OT I think that the http://www.senate.gov/ site is great since you can see easily how individual Senators voted.

On the vote for cloture on the Marriage Protection Amendment 49 voted for and 48 against thus dooming the measure. It was interesting how some of the Senators voted.

Byrd (D-WV) and Nelson (D-NE) were the only two Democrats who voted for cloture, supporting Bush’s proposal.

The following were the Republicans who voted against cloture and hence against Bush’s position:

Chafee (R-RI)
Collins (R-ME)
Gregg (R-NH)
McCain (R-AZ)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Sununu (R-NH)

The following did not vote:

Dodd (D-CT)
Hagel (R-NE)
Rockefeller (D-WV)

http://www.senate.gov/pagelayo…../votes.htm

OT: Eric Boehlert interviewed today By Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!

markfromireland – What part of “US out of Iraq” don’t you understand? I don’t care what you call the government, or if you feel like arguing about parliament. It’s time to get out of Iraq. Again, how much plainer can I get? Quit arguing with me and CONTACT CONGRESS, pressure Congress to redeploy, do something.

I agree with markfromireland, and disagree with Taylor Marsh on one point in particular. Telling another people whose culture we know relatively little about, and whose language we don’t speak, how to govern themselves, is the height of presumption, the moreso when it comes on the heels of a brutal invasion of their country, etc., ad nauseam.

I’ve said this before on other threads, but it bears repeating here. This is essentially a 21st century version of the “White Man’s Burden,” and as such, has never been disavowed by the national officials of either the Democrats or Republicans, nor by current liberal heroes such as Murtha.

In my opinion, it is simply not ours or anyone else’s place to tell Iraqis what to do while we’re pointing guns at them. To have opinions about what they should do is fine, to try to persuade them that our cultural values suggest ways in which they could govern themselves better is also fine, but only when it’s part of a conversation between equals, and only when we are not torturing their men, butchering their children, and wrecking their country.

Anything else is pure arrogance.

Hugh – cloture is not a vote on the bill itself, but a vote to limit debate to 30 additional hours, after which the bill would come to a vote. It requires 2/3 to approve.

Those who voted to end cloture may not necessarily also be in favor of the bill itself, but I think that’s a reasonable conclusion to draw.

I second that William Timberman @ 957.

Any one who says “cut and run” to me, I say “go and enlist” right back.
Typity type type….

Live Hagee briefing on CNN.

we can salvage Iraq, the plan is simple

our military already succeeded their mission, which I don’t agree with, but theri mission was to overthrough sadam

that mission was accomplished

rebuilding Iraq is not a military problem with a military solution it’s a political one

we need to break Iraq into the three countries that it is, we need to allow those three countries to govern for themselves

and the people responsible for the instablility need to take responsibility for the decisions that they themselves made

that’t’s the solution

Make that “live Hagee speech,” I guess.

oh, 59, jim preston: I may not have been clear on the issue of arming the Iraqi army. At this point in time….I tend to agree with you. Arming them would/might have more of a negative effect than positive. If we’d done this 30 months ago…possibly a different story. But that was then, and this is now. I tend to agree that fully arming the Iraqi army would/could be dangerous.

*** Also, Ms. Marsh posted, the other day, a link where you can phone your Senator to support the Kerry plan. Might want to think about doing that.

Ghostman

Anne 70
…cloture …requires 2/3 to approve.

if I may: cloture requires 60 votes to cut off debate

Good Morning Firerpups,

was up till all hours talking to the college girl, am a little fuzzier than usual -

Random Quibbles -
Ignatius and others speak of the militias as if they’re some post war phenomena -not!
they’re called tribes. a portion of our missing $9 billion was distributed along tribal lines (so why would they need an army?)and certainly went to strengthen the militias

how does one get a column in the WaPo about ’salvaging Iraq’ without mentioning Moqtada al-Sadr and his army (it is an army) or that they await their orders from Tehran ?

so, Ignatius joins the ’smartest guys in the room’: Wolfowitz and Perle, ignoring millenia of tribalism – something any 11 year old with a social studies book could have seen. Of course, everyone seemed to forget what happened to the British last century – maybe it was pushed aside with everything else that got in the way of the sunshine, lollipops, & roses scenario

wouldn’t pretend to know where if any place to start wrt ’salvaging Iraq’, but I’d sure like to see someone, anyone, outside the blogosphere keeping it real with some facts

Are you deliberately misunderstanding Taylor?

THEY’RE NOT A GOVERNMENT

And your habit of writing pieces in which you order ‘em around undersocores exactly why they’re not a government. I suggest you follow those links to see what Iraqis think of what you write and the tone you adopt.

http://gorillasguides.blogspot…..eface.html

http://gorillasguides.blogspot…..about.html

And if you’d been for a while you’d know a few things:

1) I don’t live in America.
2) I’m a felix, that’s an Army Officer specialising in bomb disposal on attachment to the Red Crescent.
3) I’m currently not living in the middle east either that’s because my driver contracted a sudden case of high velocity lead poisoning causing us to drive over something that went bang.
4) When I’m cleared fit for duty I’m going back.
5) I’m not in the US army.
6) For the record my son who is also a felix and also comments here is currently serving in Afghanistan. I think it can be fairly said that he and I both are doing something.
7) “Quit arguing with me and CONTACT CONGRESS, pressure Congress to redeploy, do something.” The day you adopt a less high handed tone is the day I’ll start debating with you.

Ghostman – http://www.johnkerry.com/action/call/senate/?sc=hp

The parallels with today are scary. “As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.” So why did we just send in another Battalion from Kuwait?

Because we weren’t really standing up. We were just kinda slouching around, see? So we send in more guys again, stand up real real tall, then the Iraqis will also stand up, really, and we can stand down.

Our posture was just wrong. Slouching just doesn’t cut it. Bad example to provide, ya know?

This time…this time it will work. Honest.

Peace with honor.

Either your server is messing up or my comment has gone into moderation.

oh and Taylor, thanks so much for posting here and helping the community out as it heads to Sin City-

and yeah, get the fuck out of Iraq now !

Anne # 70

I know what cloture is or at least I thin I do. My point was there will be no vote on the bill because there will be no end to the debate on it, thus dooming the bill.

I thought what I was saying is that cloture is not reached without 60 votes…sometimes, I am the only one who understands what I’m saying *g*

From senate.gov:

The only procedure by which the Senate can vote to place a time limit on consideration of a bill or other matter, and thereby overcome a filibuster. Under the cloture rule (Rule XXII), the Senate may limit consideration of a pending matter to 30 additional hours, but only by vote of three-fifths of the full Senate, normally 60 votes.

“we need to break Iraq into the three countries that it is, we need to allow those three countries to govern for themselves”

Who the hell do you think you are to decide to break a country up? If you knew even the tiniest bit of Iraqi history you’d know why that’s a completely daft suggestion.

america’s broke, which is why our glorified leaders of both parties voted to send our youth into iraq — the war’s been a great success: friends of our leaders have been lining their pockets ever since we invaded — moreover, the resulting deficit spending has generated plenty of liquidity, propping up our stock & bond markets — it all shows what marvels our leaders can accomplish when they sacrifice other folks’ kids as cannon fodder

I’ll say one thing, this is an interesting thread…..

bridgehome at 9:33 am –

Thanks for the props — you’ve touched on one of the stickiest chicken-and-egg problems we on the Progressive and Democratic side faces.

A significant percentage of Americans who are eligible to vote don’t believe the system works for them, so they don’t bother. In turn, the DC Democrats look to the frequent voters and corporate donors, and try to carve narrow victories out of smaller and smaller number of swing voters.

The result? The disfranchised are further shut out of the system, and the DC Dems centerist narrative is reinforced.

Anyway — this is a big issue, and this thread is about Iraq.

mark from ireland, you’re right — among those wanting to break iraq apart is that preening jackass, joe biden, who shows why it’s a shame that even the smallest states have two senators

Gosh MFI – don’t ya know you’re not supposed to confuse HRH Taylor with the facts? Now you’ve made her all cross – somebody’s serf is in for a lashing. Bad bad MFI!

I thought the mission was to find WMD’s…

>>>>>>>>>
THE PRE-WAR MISSION WAS TO RID IRAQ OF WMD

Bush: “Our mission is clear in Iraq. Should we have to go in, our mission is very clear: disarmament.” [3/6/03]

http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=1133

Hagee – I did not see the very beginning, but I don’t hear Geneva Conventions mentioned. I think he has had to back away from his first round of remarks. Depressing. Standards are the moving targets; Iraqi civilians the stationary ones. Hagee does stand up and say “I’m accountable” but he knows, everyone knows, the buck stops higher up the chain and transferring the standards to a private Pentagon etchasketch was a decision that wasn’t made in his office.

Thank you for the links mifi. Taylor – I think Mark does a whole lot in his way and as someone not an American citizen. He also has a very direct, personal interest in what is happening.

Ed, take care of yourself. I can’t even come up with words.

You do remember, don’t you, everybody, that at some point today you need to run by and get you some
http://driftglass.blogspot.com?

Comment #18, Ed Beckmann,

With your permission, I would like to quote your comment when I write my senators asking them to support Senate Joint Resolution 36–to make sure our combat troops are home by the end of 2006.

I agree with your comment–how many American (and Iraqi lives) must be lost daily while we stumble around looking for a face-saving (for the Bush Adm) exit from Iraq? There is no good way out of this–the results will be the same if we leave now or if we leave later. Yes, we could use massive force, and the US civil war tactics used by General Sherman in his march to the sea. This might work in the short term, at the cost of many more lives, but in the long term, the Iraqis will still have to put things back together on their own.

I have Vietnamese foster children. Their father was ARVN and was imprisoned after the US pull out in ’75. The children later escaped and were in a refugee camp before coming to our family. That war cost so much in terms of American lives lost, American troops whose injuries and illnesses were disabling, and Vietnamese whose lives were lost, whose injuries and illnesses were war related, whose families were broken, who suffered all the ugly things that war brings. Sadly, our presence there only prolonged the misery. Ultimately, the Vietnamese people had to put it back together on their own.

Too many troops have died and continue to die on a daily basis. Obviously our presence is not preventing Iraqis from killing each other and in increasing numbers daily.

Our troops did their job—they of removed Saddam Hussain from power. Iraqis had their elections. They established a government. The troops have done enough. The rest of the work is up to the politicians (God help us all).

bridgehome way back at #19 had a really good point that the Democrats position on Iraq is Trust us. In fact, the Democrats are all over the map on Iraq from Hillary who is indistinguishable from Bush to Murtha who is. BTW Murtha’s plan is not “cut and run” but more stop being stupid. For any who get hit with the cut and run talk, ask, Which is better? Cut and run or stay and rot.

Not quite OT:
CNN.com poll:

Are Congress and the White House focused on the nation’s most important priorities?

Yes 7% 1964 votes
No 93% 27739 votes
Total: 29703 votes

This will probably be EPU’d but I wrote a diary over at dKos about the latest on the black sites story.

Essentially, the report implicates the UK among other EU countries and actively or passively allowing the rendition flights to the black sites.

I was researching the journalist Robert Fisk who writes for The Independent. He did an excellent interview with the inane CBC talking head on Newsworld about Bush “eternal” WOT and the implications of the terrorism arrests here.

Mary 92, I caught no more of Hagee than you, but given the rest of your appraisal (with which I agree), not much of his saying or doing is/can be too material anyway.

What a cliff we’ve run off, into what a chasm.

OT Polygamists #1

So that explains the polygamists!

If you saw TDS and Bill Bennett defending the sanctity of marriage last night (the Republicans aren’t anti-Gay, they’re pro-marriage!…anything else would be wedge politics) you may have got a whiff of the strategy employed by the Rovian propagandists and an understanding of the possible breadth and depth of their corrupting psyops. Bennett at one point early in the interview began to bleat about the threat that polygamists were to the institution of marriage as a tactic to derail his confrontation by Jon Stewart about same sex marriage. I didn’t know that there was such a concern about polygamy until coverage at CNN began several weeks ago with their focus on a fugitive cult leader.
~

Sorry, Hugh – Having a very disjointed day – no intent to offend or accuse – just a case of me not expressing myself as clearly as I should. :-)

You stated that those who voted against cloture were opposed to Bush’s position, which I think is certainly correct. The flip side of that – that a vote for cloture is a vote in support of the position – is also generally true, but not necessarily true. Some will vote “yes” on cloture, on the theory that the bill deserves a vote, but would then vote “no” on the bill.

Frankly, there is nothing to debate at this point. I respect your service and salute you, markfromireland, though you don’t need me to admire what your heart is propelling you to do through your service; same goes for your son, as well as the thousands of U.S. soldiers serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond. I hear from them all the time.

That said, we need to all pressure Congress, which is not a high handed suggestion. All of us are working hard to change the situation, but we can still spread the word about getting out of Iraq, because we all have a vested interest, no one person’s interest being more important than another.

It is a common American philosophical tenet (perhaps even all Western philosophies)that “all problems have solutions”.

This may be pleasing to optimists or those who want to be optimists, but it also may not be true.

In the case of Iraq, there may have been no solution before the war to pleasantly excise the cancer that was Saddam and the Baathist party.

And it may also be true today that there is no pleasant solution to extricating ourselves from the mess our presence has helped to make.

The forces for war (Repugs, con-artists neo-cons, facists conservatives, whatever you want to label them as) have a line in the sand which they say they cannot cross; to wit: “We will lose our Honor if we don’t Win”.

The forces against the war plaintively cry: “We have already lost our Honor and we can never Win”.

It ain’t pretty when all you have left is painful choices.

Most human beings tend to procrastinate when faced with choices that all result in pain.

My choice is: It’s time to go; wish we never went, but now it’s past time to go!

the answer is simple yet painful. release saddam, give him back his army, get the fuck out and there will be no problem.

much like before.

OT Polygamists #2

If the GOP strategy on this issue to rally the base is to take as centrist pro-marriage approach by featuring a myriad of threats (same sex marriage, polygamists), instead of the previous unilateral threat of gay marriage, it makes you wonder what other ‘terrors’ to the institution they plan to feature. As bizarre as polygamy is and as compelling a ratings earner it promises to be in their continuing series of installations on this story, isn’t it a little convenient that this story is given so much attention now when so many more important things are happening.
Maybe someone knows who is producing this series for CNN. It would be interesting to see the potentially limited number of degrees of separation between that story and Karl Rove.
Kinda looks manufactured to order.

CNN The most trusted name in skews
~

“we need to break Iraq into the three countries that it is, we need to allow those three countries to govern for themselves”

Who the hell do you think you are to decide to break a country up? If you knew even the tiniest bit of Iraqi history you’d know why that’s a completely daft suggestion.

good one, who do I think I am…hehe

for your uneducated brain, it IS three differant countries, we changed that.

read some up a bit, then come back for more education

I completely agree with angie’s feelings and attitudes about Iraq. We’ve blown them to smithereens, shattered their existence, and now we’re frustrated and mad because they’re not cooperating with our “plan”??? And we have the audicity to call the current situation “sectarian violence.” I feel shame when I think about what we have wrought on this planet. It’s not ever going to be a simple stay or go solution. Sure we need to end the damn war. But then what about the mess we created? Throw more money at it? I detest these people running our country into the ground.

hagee– the investigation is ongoing, if anyone in my administration, er, chain of command, did anything wrong, they will no longer work in this administration, er, military. (with the usual caveats, fingers crossed)

He is superman, though — he spoke with 20,000 marines over the past week and their morale is good.

“What an interesting war we’ve stumbled into here. On one side are folks turning to militias tied to extreme religous factions, and on the other side are folks turning to militias contractors tied to folks whose main goal is to make a buck or billion. Meanwhile, between these two is a killing zone.”

Nice post, Peterr, but I’d like to pipe up and remind everyone that we didn’t stumble into the war in Iraq. We started it.

meta 104 -

Common thological interpersonal dynamic known as the “Rescuer-Victim-Persecutor Triangle” also operates at the macro/political level.

I summarily intervene to “rescue” you from your plight. You, the “victim” then show insufficient gratitude and compliance, which then justifies my becoming your persecutor.

I thought we “liberated” these people.
What we did was whack a hornet’s nest like it was a pinata and ran like hell when candy didn’t come out.

re Peterr @ 7

Gonna be tough to talk about anything but elections, today, Taylor

OK, I’ll take my lumps . . . I was wrong.

(See George, it’s not that hard to say . . .)

Future Mrs. C: Bingo! — as to Afghanistan. Can’t wait to hear you on Iraq!

i’ve never been to iraq, but i’m going to go out on a limb here and speculate that the different groups there who are currently dragging each other off buses and executing one another at an ever increasing rate don’t want a unified country either…

Y’all seen this ?

Army Officer refusing Iraq deployment orders

“I feel that we have been lied to and betrayed by this administration,” Watada said Tuesday in a telephone interview from Fort Lewis. “It is the duty, the obligation of every soldier, and specifically the officers, to evaluate the legality, the truth behind every order %u2014 including the order to go to war.”

linked text

Translations provided by BTS – Bushspeek Translation Service

Chapt 1 – General Translations (Wrong = Right)

Bad = Good
Up = Down
Black = White
Failure = Success
Low in polls = More support

Chapt 2 – WarSpeek (War = Peace)

Flowers at Our Feet = Lots of people will die and florists will provide kickback $$
Mission Accomplished = Things are really bad here
Last Throes = We are mired/quagmired in an unwinnable situation
Plan for Victory = Plan for a Civil War
Sectarian Violence = Full Blown Civil War
Murdered Babies = Dangerous Insurgents
Rapture = Nuclear Annilation

Chapt 3 – Politspeek (Death = Liberty)

Compassionate Conservatism = Yes we love homo-erotic torture
Fiscal Responsiblity = We will max out all credit, then sell the fixtures
Protesters Booing = Cheers for our policy
Anarchist, a troll, a terrorist, Anti American or stupid (variations: YAWN, bla bla bla, LOL) = Someone who makes an intelligent, irrefutable, point

Please note… There are many other chapters of Bushspeek Translations… Once you learn to understand Bushspeek, translations should become automatic.

Courtesy BTS – Bushspeek Translation Service

http://tinyurl.com/a6erq

^^^ Grassroots Petition Drive

cbl, that was on CNN earlier — ‘parently he’s having a presser soonish. Is that in your link?

The Future Mrs (FeinGORE) Colbert, er, whatever… make up your mind!

I would disagree that we ran like hell… we’re just hanging around getting repeatedly stung.

CNN/BBC: House of Commons shut: anthrax alert

1,174 DAYS AND THE KILLING GOES ON AND ON AND…

markfromireland:

I hear you brother and I wish others over here, particularly those who have not served or those to whom military service is some kinda political genetic marker, would also hear you…or at least begin by listening carefully.

You are of course absolutely correct that we can not allow Irag to be split up into three…that is exactly what the corporate fascists want. The whole of the African continent is bein’ turned into a killing field in order to squeeze the last precious resources out of it while keeping the metropolitan populations subdued with the fear of terror.

We Americans AND British must take responsibility for this mess nd take back our politics from the corporate oligarchs who have made this mad grab for the last of the earth’s treasure. And we must insure that the solutions to the terrible problems we have created in the post colonial world are solved by the indigenous populations ith the facilitation of the United Nations.

Keep the faith Mark…I wish I had the talent and the youth ta come over and give you a hand but suffice it that I will work what’s left of my ass off to force my government to do the right thing.

KEEP THE FAITH AND LEARN WHO THE ENEMY IS!!

Taylor the differnce is very simple. I’ve known all my life that days when the US could barge into other people’s countries particularly Muslim countries are over. If there’s one good thing that might come from this it’s that Americans in general might start to realise it too. Until you people start dealing with Muslim country’s on their terms not yours theirs there isn’t even the remotest chance of peace in the middle east. They don’t want western democracy or secularism they want an Islamic society how they do it is up to them not us. There’s nothing nothing in Islam that’s inimical either to democracy or to human rights. But until westerners stop threatening them in their own homes they’re going to continue to be attracted to anybody and everybody who resists. given what western democracy and secularism has brought them who the hell can blame them for wanting no part of it.

I would disagree that we ran like hell%u2026 we’re just hanging around getting repeatedly stung.

I concede that point to you, Dr. Bong. We are currently standing in the wreckage waving our big stick.
Do you think there is any way that this can be fixed? Seriously, is there a solution that I’m too blind to see?

More bug spray?

Taylor, I want to thank you for taking on what has become a Twilight Zonish responsibility of blogging here in our hosts’ absence. We shouldn’t disregard what a huge task this is and remember that when we fail to uphold the standards that we ourselves set when responding to posts by Jane or Christy or Pach (especially if in disagreement) when we respond to the people they choose to represent them, it is also a slap at our hosts.

MFI: You always bring much needed insight into the workings and culture of the ME. Many of us love you for that and for the sacrifices you’ve made and witnessed…and I understand your frustration over some of our blindspots.

I just thought our side was all about sanity and diplomacy no matter what we’re disagreeing about. It grieves me to see us going after each other this way.

Interesting comparison – Colonialism via Napolean to the US in Iraq – Daily Star/Beirut in 2003

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=983

Grandmatoo @95 I’m honored of course you can quote me. I just saw a story on CNN about Iraqi orphans it brought me to tears. Once again I find myself forced to feel I, as an American citizen have to take responsibility for these horrors.
Bless you and all the grandmas who bear the burdens and joys of caring for those victims of our ungodly wars!

OT – I just found out that Michael Greco, Pres of the ABA, is speaking at the SF Commonwealth Club tonight. Topic is whether Bush has blown the constitution to bits. I can’t go but hope there will be some press out of it.

mfi, what’s the one book you’d have us all read first this summer?

I was against this war from the beginning, said so and campaigned against, so I don’t need any lectures from anyone. I railed about it on radio before the Democrats blew the vote, and criticized them for it from the get go. I lost my radio show and have continued to push against this type of foreign policy at all costs, which I’m continuing to do, even though people would rather argue about yesterday than amass a movement to change what’s happening today and into the future. I will continue my work, regardless of the cost, which has been substantial, as many others are doing around this country.

US out of Iraq.

P J Evans @ 10:23 am (#96) – If ever there was a week when the answer to that question would be “no”, it’s this one.

I think that even if I were against gay marriage I’d be honked off at Congress for wasting its time.

Will the last person leaving Iraq please turn out the lights?….oops, sorry, the lights aren’t even on.

mfi,

You turned me, through gentle prodding on my miguided belief that no American Government could be so heinous as to deliberately create a civil war in a sovereign country deliberately. Your frustration at others is showing through, as the situation further deteriorates. My heart grieves for all those in the Middle East that these policies have caused such great harm.

Best wishes to you and your drivers speedy recovery and I always read your comments with great interest. This is why I am on the internet, to get unfiltered ideas and links drug in that provide info I wouldn’t be otherwise aware of.

Please continue with your efforts of enlightenment to those like me who truly need, and are in search of it. I realize your patience is wearing thin. Your voice is needed here.

I feel an EPU coming on, but I need to share this OT:

Ghostman, your point about Ann Coulter the REPUBLICAN PUNDIT/SPOKESPERSON was so absolutely right! This am on the View, that little wingnut, Elizabeth Somethingorother was defending her criticism of the 911 widows because….”They have a political bias!” Argh! Ptooey! Coulter needs to be tied around their necks and pulled real tight.[/endrant]

lotus,

don’t believe there was anything in the link about pressers -

this guy is in for it – he will be paying for all the ‘bad’ news AND the recent spate of Ret. Generals speaking out

excuse me, Gen. Hagee – Ishaqi ?!?!?

Audrey – Do ya now?

NPR’s TOTN will discuss the Busby/Billbray race — if the teaser is any indication, the theme will be those evil 11 million illegal immigrants, and the threat they pose to our precious bodily fluids.

Not sure I’m going to listen . . .

Hehe!! I was right! Here he is now!! Oooh, I’m so psychic! ;)

Well, I sure didn’t want to get in a fight with the Ghostman, so I’m glad that he wasn’t advocating pumping more arms into Iraq at this point.

There will be debates for many years (or until we start another war) about whether this one was screwed up by Bush and Rummy or was a failed effort from the initial conception. I’m pretty far in the tank for the second theory, since it has gone almost exactly as I predicted (I’m no expert, just a shrewd analyst of human stupidity).

One thing that I can tell you for sure is that it is up to the people to stop this war. The politicians are waiting for the people to tell them that it is time to get out of Iraq. They need the people to tell them that the honorable and brave thing to do at this point is to come up with a withdrawal plan. For every Dennis Kucinich, Russ Feingold, or Jack Murtha, there are 50 reps and senators who are afraid to be standing up to stop the war. Take a look back at last September 24, only Maxine Waters and Cynthia McKinney were willing to stand with us on the Mall to stop the war. Granted, Hurricane Rita was about to hit and a lot of people don’t want to be associated with ANSWER, but am I to believe that there were only TWO representatives who thought that it was worthwhile to stand with Cindy Sheehan and over 100,000 Americans to tell the administration that the war needs to end? Shame on all of us for letting our representatives believe that flag-waving, troop-hugging, and yellow-ribbonning are more important that bringing peace to our planet!

This year let’s do more, do better, and get further!!
peace,
jim

At the risk of perpetuating the “dumb Okie” stereotype, I will share an actual quote from a co-worker.

“It pisses me off when people compare Iraq to Vietnam. Vietnam is a jungle. Iraq is a desert. No comparison.”

Groan

lotus,

my bad -

“Watada met over the weekend with Olympia peace activists, and had hoped to attend the press conference. But after a Tuesday meeting with an Army colonel, he was given written orders not to attend during duty hours between 6:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. Instead, he expects to offer a video statement.”

they are gonna fuck this guy hard

And the democratic party will end up in the shit. The MSM will blame the liberals for cutting and running and thus we will be responsible for the mess. We must get out now! We must convince Dems and the country that it is to our advantage, and to Iraq’s advantage that we leave now! How?

cbl, yes, I went and read that. It’s in his DNA, right where it needs to be, eh? Bravo, the Watadas!

I’ve got CNN on mute and just glimpsed a caption re this — focused more on his name than what it said about the timing of the presser. Will try to alert you in time, if possible.

Wrong me to me – although people like you would love to make it so just to prove yourselves right, and to hell with all the innocent civilians who actually live there.

Now if you’re capable of anything other than ad hominem I’d like to tell me as you’re so expert:

Who do you think is funding and arming the death squads? Hint it’s not Iran.

Who do you think Iraqis believe is funding and arming the death squads? Hint it’s not Iran.

As you’re so educated you are sufficiently fluent in Arabic to talk to them in their own language aren’t you? And you have lived there very recently. Haven’t you?

Are are you just another pompous little bloviator who doesn’t have a clue what he/she/it is talking about?

Taylor you might try clicking those two links to my blog to see what Iraqis think of what you wrote. I know most of them BTW they’re a mix of Shia and Sunni from all over Iraq and they’re all proudly Iraqi. And every of them single one started out pro-American there’s a lesson there.

Have you noticed by the way that some of the shia militas are now attacking occupation troops?

New fiber upstairs

On Coulter and her ilk – She and O’Rielly do more good for us than harm (or good for their own side). I posted a long time ago that the Coulter’s and O’Rielly’s of the world continually need to ratchet up their rhetoric of lies and outrageous accusations, and in doing so they will just alienate more people – -and specifically the people they think will “agree” with them. And they will be quicker and more and outrageous as their position continues to deteriorate.

There is nothing original in that thought – it was what ultimately sank McCarthy, when he went after the Army.

No difference here. Coulter on 9/11 widows, O’Rielly on the massacre at Malmedy.

They are their own worst enemies and thus our friends. No matter how repugnant their lies, their smears, in the end it will help defeat them sooner.

1,174 DAYS AND THE KILLIMNG GOES ON AND ON…

markfromireland:

Your post @119 is perfect…I hope Taylor Marsh reads it carefully. The days that the US could go barging into other countries SUCCESSFULLY is long over and this foray into Irag is going to destroy whatever capability we had to initiate any other adventures. Our military is going to be left with only the physical capability to occupy and subdue the United Stats…and I think that is the ultimate goal of the oligarchs.

KEEP THE FAITH AND FIND ALL THAT ORDINANCE MARK!!!

lotus @ 126

The Great War for Civilisation : The Conquest of the Middle East

by Robert Fisk

cbl: Reckon it’s this video that CNN is promising? That ST story must predate the CNN promise by some hours, maybe many.

I don’t see people going after one another here. I see some disagreement over perspective. I think this is as painful a subject as any we will have to deal with in our lifetimes and because of its intrinsic complexities and horrific implications; I think it deserves as honest discourse as is humanly possible. It is an emotional subject with real life and death consequences,and like all things worth learning about and doing, it may be uncomfortable to say the least.

OK I’ve a stack of email to do and stuff to translate. Norske the main worry as I’m sure you remember is to stop the ordinance finding you :-)

*poof*

Thanks, mfi! Your other recos welcome too.

ED, comment #125: Thanks for your kind words. My foster “kids” are now well-adjusted, happy adults with their own families.

Thank you for your service to our country. My son is currently active duty.

For anyone who may be interested in contacting their Senators to request their support of Senate Joint Resolution 36: I believe I forgot to include the link in my previous post (via the “Friends of John Kerry” website):

http://www.johnkerry.com/actio…..e.20060602

EPU 144: Amen!

You’re right, EPU. The great thing about Coulter is she is openly Republican. O’Reilly is not. He claims to be “nonpartisan”, IIRC. Of course, only Republicans would believe that. But then, there’s no limit to what they’ll believe, as we’ve all seen.

Merely out of curiosity and with the desire to stimulate debate and general acrimony, why is it racist and illiberal to promote the view of the US as a Christian society but it is perfectly OK to do so with regard to Islamic societies, even though as can be seen in Iraq this serves as a cover for the rampant suppression of women’s rights?

I remember talking to a Shia couple from Kuwait who spoke of their country’s religious tolerance and how they were now allowed to worship openly. When I asked did this extend to Christians, they said, yes, Christians were allowed to worship quietly in their own homes and as long as they didn’t disturb the neighbors. When I persisted and asked were there no churches, they looked horrified and said no, there were none. Religious tolerance had its limits it seems.

What I am saying is that while it is all well and good to promote the idea that people should make their own choices, it is also true that there is such a thing as individual and universal human rights. These can be overlooked or suppressed by societies but such societies will doom themselves to isolation and backwardness because most of the world is going the other way.

Spreading Freedoom is hard work. Anyone who knows anything about war will tell you that the killing of innocents is rather commonplace. Consider what is known about Viet Nam.

In Iraq, soldiers are locked down in protected areas that they cannot leave without serious risk. They cannot go to town for entertainment or any diversion. When they go out on patrol they are shot at or blown up.

Under these conditions, after repeated exposure, many people would get so nervous that they might shoot anything that moves – even a child. Then there is the issue of retaliation for the injury or death of a comrade…
I’m not defending the soldiers, but I do not entirely blame them for all the killing. The leaders are responsible – especially Dubya, The Penguin, Rummy, Wolfowitz, Feith, Rice, Powell, Rove, Scooter, Katherine Harris, Poppy’s lawyer…

The reality is that lots of civilians are getting killed b/c it was the deciderer’s choice to make war for no good reason suitable to American citizens. Good reasons for the enrichment of the Military Industrial Complex that the prick Eisenhower warned us about. He didn’t do anything about it, but he did warn us about it.

markfromireland

I for one have most always found you comments, perspectives and musings to be interesting, thoughtful and informative. As I am sure many others here have also.

This time around though you are un-civilly shrill and disrespectful to Taylor… in making your point. Whether you give a shit or not you are damaging your authority.

Well, Hugh, the difference is that Freedom of Religion is not guaranteed in every democracy’s constitution. It is in ours. Ironically, the old Iraqi Constitution under Saddam was secular (as ours is) and not driven by religious law. The new one is definitely more so. Hmmm…

You want to know what Faux money grubbing viewers are being told?

>>>>>>

Summary: On Fox News’ Your World, Jonathan Hoenig, managing member of Capitalistpig Asset Management LLC, asserted that bombing Iran would raise the Dow Jones industrial average. Hoening stated: “[F]rankly, if you want to see the Dow go up, let’s get the bombers in the air and neutralize this Iranian threat. We’ve gone to the negotiating table, we have danced around with these people” and “that’s not going to help this country nor the stock market.” During the discussion, host Neil Cavuto stated that “the message is just, ‘Avoid people with beards,’ ” after airing a split-screen shot of Federal Reserve Chief Benjamin S. Bernanke and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Both have beards.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200606060009

it IS three differant countries, we changed that.

Uhh…by “we” do you mean the Brits? As far as I recall from history, it was Britain that created the f*cked up map of the ME that EVERYONE suffers under today. Wanna fix it? The TE Lawrence, as in “Lawrence of Arabia”, map was the correct way to do it. Perhaps we could convince those in the ME to go with it? Dump virtually ALL the modern borders and go with the Lawrence map which actually took into account the reality on the ground (at least the way it was) vs the political “reality” the Brits wanted to create.

I don’t believe the US created Iraq at all. We’re just taking the f*cked up map as it, a hornet’s nest, ramming our military stick in it, and stirring vigorously.

if you want to see the Dow go up, let’s get the bombers in the air and neutralize this Iranian threat.

Such talk is virtually criminal on its face. It is certainly immoral and repugnant. Beyond the point of “bomb and kill first, ask questions later” that it makes, it is not proper foreign policy to kill people to keep gas under $3/gal OR keep the stock market rising. That crap is irrelevant as far as killing people goes. Plus, it wouldn’t do what he thinks it would. The Straight of Hormuz and ALL the oil and other traffic that passes through it would be kaput. THAT would shoot gas prices through the roof AND shoot their precious DOW through the floor.

Faux News is entirely populated by wannabe war criminals.

from Juan Cole:

Oil Nationalization, continued Armed Resistance in Iraq

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m23…..1&hd=0

Yes, yes, and yes Praedor.

But I really believe that there are many that think just this way… not just on teevee, but in the government.

The racist implications of “these people” and “the beards” is also familiar cesspool diving, but it germinates in the conciousness of the sheeple until such time as the hatemongers can fertilize it and realize a bumper crop.

The problem is that Americans don’t really care and prefer to remain ignorant. I have no idew what could change that, if anything.

larry @ June 7th, 2006 at 11:27 am

I respectfully disagree. markfromireland speaks boldly, but he speaks a truth Taylor and others seem — to me, at least — indisposed to hear. We are not the sole possessors of truth, Islamic culture is not inferior to our own, and we have no right, God-given or otherwise, to pontificate on Iraqi political choices.

Sadly, it sometimes takes a bit of brusqueness to make a point in any political discourse. In this case, I think mfi is more than justified by what seem to me to be the arrogance of some of the FDL posters/commenters, Taylor not excluded.

Ya gotta love religion. Better hope Jeb never gets in.

William Timberman – That is just rubbish. Brusqueness doesn’t bother me, but changing the subject away from the most important topic at hand does. As for arrogance, there is nothing whatsoever arrogant about saying WE NEED TO GET OUT OF IRAQ, which was the topic of this post. Changing the subject won’t get that done. Right, Larry?

Let me add in conclusion, if FDL readers cannot band together to begin the drive to pressure Congress to redeploy from Iraq, then we are truely lost and sadly, so are the Iraqi people.

Popping in…

saw this up in post #7, Peterr…

What an interesting war we’ve stumbled into here. On one side are folks turning to militias tied to extreme religous factions, and on the other side are folks turning to militias contractors tied to folks whose main goal is to make a buck or billion. Meanwhile, between these two is a killing zone.”

You talking about Iraq or the War on Mexican Immigrants? ;^)

shorter mfi: iraqis should be free to kill each other without american interference…

(i don’t neccesarily disagree with this, but we shouldn’t pretend this won’t be the outcome. power vaccums being what they are and all…)

Taylor Marsh @ June 7th, 2006 at 12:11 pm

I was responding to Larry’s remarks about mfi’s incivility. I would never doubt that you yourself are tough enough to deal with them, uncivil or not. You’re not an honored poster on FDL for no reason, and for what it’s worth, like FDL’s founders, you have my respect.

I certainly agree with you that those of us who are American citizens should try to persuade our government to leave Iraq forthwith.

Where I disagree with you — and agree with mfi — is in the idea that you seem to have that we are in a moral position to advise the Iraqis on how to conduct their government. Despite the fact that you appear to have changed your mind — and if so, good on you for that — I remember that not so many weeks ago, in one of your posts here on FDL, you seemed to be advocating that the U.S. should remain in Iraq until an effective government could be formed.

I may , of course, be misinterpreting what you said then and now, for which I take full responsibility. What I’ve said may be rubbish, but until persuaded that what I read didn’t mean what I thought it meant, I stand by it.

markfromireland:

You’re a valuable and welcome member of this community. But your tone and phrasing “people like you” is dismissive and irritating. Please adopt another way of addressing people here that is more respectful, less lined with the whiff of veiled contempt.

travy @ June 7th, 2006 at 12:25 pm

Let me pose a hypothetical question to you from our own history. Would the British have been justified, do you suppose, in intervening in the American Civil War? (For purely humanitarian reasons, it goes without saying.)

“…if FDL readers cannot band together to begin the drive to pressure Congress to redeploy from Iraq, then we are truely lost…”
Right on!

“Get together, right now, over” WORLD PEACE.

GET OUT OF IRAQ!

then, get together around the 60 year old festering sore of Palistine. Could that problem have anything to do with the continued occupation and permanent bases established and financed by the Western, Christian-Judean Allied Powers?

william- interesting example as the civil war was itself a humanitarian intervention. and, i’m no historian, but i believe the civil war battles were largely fought between the opposing armies and did not involve much door to door killings of non-combatants. but to answer your question, yes, imo, the brits should have intervened if genocide was occuring.

btw- i find rwanda to be a better situation to compare…

W.T. #169 – It’s rubbish that you think I’m unwilling to hear the truth. I study this subject all the time, learning continually.

I have not changed my mind. I wanted parliament chosen, a P.M. in place, first, which has happened. That’s a “government” of sorts, though it’s doubtful it will hold. The Iraqis still need a defense and interior minister, two of the most important positions in the new government, which they have put off choosing indefinitely. That decision by the Iraqis, to choose to ignore these two appointments, is what led to my first post that it was time to get out of Iraq.

The time for debate is over. For me, there is no issue more important to this country right now than pressuring Congress to get us out of Iraq. It is my assessment that we simply cannot afford to get distracted.

Now, I simply must sign off.

travy, point taken. Sometimes the case for intervention does seem compelling, Rwanda or Kosovo being reasonable examples.

I’d make two points, though. One, our invasion of Iraq was not for that purpose, even though some have portrayed it as such after the fact, and two, if the intervention is not widely supported — in the UN, for example — a unilateral intervention by the power du jour would always be fraught with danger.

The principle I would advocate is “first, do no harm.” Saddam may have been a horror, but what we’ve inflicted on Iraq is no less a horror, in my opinion. Besides, which, Saddam, for all his faults, was an Iraqi. That may seem a trivial distinction, but in the light of historical aversions to conquest by others, I don’t think it is at all.

william- i, nor others who’ve been on the receiving end of mfi rages have ever said the war was for humantiarian reasons. but the dogamatic get out now crowd always seems to stick their fingers in their ears when the what next questions come up…

if FDL readers cannot band together to begin the drive to pressure Congress to redeploy from Iraq,

That’s misdirection. People like mifi are not saying that they can’t or won’t act to put pressure on about the war. There’s a failure to recognize that they are saying “get out of Iraq” too. But the post went to many other things about Iraq other than “just” getting out. To say that if someone doesn’t agree with you and every i you dot they are unwilling to band together against the war is ranting, not reasoning, IMO, but I rant too so fwiw.

travy shorter mfi: iraqis should be free to kill each other without american interference…

I don’t agree. For one thing, do we have any idea how often the “american interference” is that the Americans are the ones doing the killing? Killings have a way of generating greater and greater needs for revenge and — more killings. Taking one chunk of well armed killers out of the equation — well, it has as good a shot as anything of REDUCING the killings.

Iraqis on both sides use the troops there, not as a shield but as a weapon. And as we have already seen after the mosques, after the Afghanistan uprisings, after other uprisings in Iraq — American troops on the streets in those situations incite more violence. They do not serve as a deterrent and they are pulled in and holed up so they don’t make things worse.

Take a street riot in LA and send in a bunch of uniformed Chinese army, none of whom speak the language, and see if they reduce or inflame the violence.

I don’t think there is any empirical evidence that our leaving would create more violence. Iraqis, who are living the violence, seem to attribute huge chunks of it to Americans and their presence. Indeed, the violence has mounted and mounted the longer we have stayed. What have we done to effectively counter any of it? The ONLY response we launch is clearing and partially or wholly destroying cities and whoever is left in them. Kill off livestock maliciously in a scorch earth policy – let a family starve so an insurgent won’t eat, destroy a village so a group of insurgents has no place to hide. That is not a moderating influence in the area – even Sadaam didn’t wholly destroy a city the size of Fallujah.

To be honest, Iraqis are not nearly so likely to destroy their own infrastructure than Americans, bent on ferreting out that “one” insurgent or terrorist at whatever cost. Think about it. Would American troops in America bomb a residential area with old men, women and children on the word that there might be a terrorist hiding there? We’ve had our bad moments – I can’t say they don’t exist. But by and large – no. But we do it without hesitation in Iraq.

You think removing that hairtrigger will create a vacumn that makes things worse – but we are the ones that created the current situation and its ever worsening trajectory. We’ve also done it at the cost of telling our troops that decades of training on UCMJ, Geneva Conventions, laws of armed conflict, etc. are all out the door — openly and at the highest levels that is the cost of our continued presence. A military trained to commit war crimes.

There’s creating a power vacumn (and since we have no control or power except in very small areas, you have to wonder how big a hole that will leave in any event) and then there’s cutting out a cancer. The argument becomes that excising the cancer is a bad idea bc somethng worse might grow in its place. I don’t think so.

What is or is not civillity for the site is not or me to say, but the sources of the lectures on civility have in some instances been pretty funny.

Well, Ms. Mary you just took some of the words right out of my mouth. Thank you!

all good points mary. however, it really seems to me like the civil war is escalating and the two main groups who’ve not really liked each other for a long time are preparing for the next phase after the americans leave…

and really, who could blame them? it is the opportunity of a lifetime. for a once battered people, seizing control of an oil rich nation strategically located in the middle east is tempting to say the least. certainly worth killing and dying for…

i am not for staying in iraq another second, but something must be done to somewhat ensure the safety of the average iraqi in the interim. anyone have any ideas beyond “get out now”?

travy, I’m not one of those who thinks than anyone here is justifying the invasion of Iraq by citing the humanitarian interest, but I do think that there’s a maddening — and, for the most part, unconscious — sense present in many postings that, as American liberals, we’re uniquely qualified to tell the rest of the world how to conduct their business. I’m just trying to make that bias visible to the people who seem to be afflicted by it.

Besides, which, I’m old enough to remember that the “strategic hamlets” in Vietnam were invented by academic sociologists with impeccable liberal credentials.

from wiki:

>>>>>>>>
The Republic of Iraq sits on land that is historically known as Mesopotamia (Al-Rafidayn in Arabic and Beth Nahrain in Aramaic), which means ‘land between the rivers’ in Greek, also largely comprising the eastern and bigger arm of the Fertile Crescent. This land was home to some of the world’s first civilizations, including the Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian whose influence extended into neighboring regions as early as 5000 BC, and Median (Medes) cultures. These civilizations produced some of the first writing, science, mathematics, law and philosophy in the world, making the region the center of what is commonly called the “Cradle of Civilization”. Ancient Mesopotamian civilization dominated other civilizations of its time.

>>>>>>>>>>>>

We’re pretty young compared to them– I think they can figure it all out.

One would hope that criminal prosecution and eventual incarceration would be applied to those political leaders that knowingly made this hell on earth possible.

Not to sound flip, but one good suggestion is: Let’s stop having American soldiers kill them. ?

It is not a matter of two main groups, it is a much broader panorama than that. And many of those that we are not killing are being killed for “collaberating” with us and for following western ways. Whenever we pull out, we enshrine Sharia as the law of the land, so we really have no say over people being killed over wearing shorts, praying incorrectly, or wearing makeup. We helped “make it so.”

If you stay, you need a goal and a mission. The “maybe we can keep people from killing each other” mission — how do we implement that one? HOw HAVE we implemented it? We just do not have the capacity to implement it and recognizing that is the first step of any plan.

Next, redeployment on peripheries (while there are still some that will tolerate our presence and before we lose even that) doesn’t mean we cannot send forces in to address situations of a massive unrest, but we do have to figure out what we are supposed to do in those situations first. What HAVE we done in those situations so far, where they have existed? We’ve holed the troops up and let the Iraqis handle it.

By staying, how have “we insured the safety” of the average Iraqi? Answer that as the first question. Have we established water? Power? Are we letting Iraqis handle the rebuilding of their country? Do we have oil flowing? Are we even keeping track of oil flow, of $$, of weapons, of war crimes, of any of it?

Listen to some of the soldiers coming back from Iraq – how they REALLY talk about Iraqis. There is no love lost. After what they go through over there, they don’t come back talking about protecting the poor Iraqi people, they come back talking about hating Muslims, hating Iraqis, their friends who were killed or lost limbs, Iraqis as ungrateful, Iraqis as dangerous, etc.

Do you really think you hear less hate towards the Iraqis than exists in the groups that are fighting it out. And over and over, the younger soldiers don’t understand (and so they resent the hell out of) Iraqis who won’t support the US presence. Who smile at them one day and hide an insurgen the next, who drive too close and “make us kill them” only to find over and over, no bombs, no weapons, dead children. And yet, no matter how many civilian clothed suspects you round up, or you kill, or how many times you go to a city or village and roust the bad guys, or how many times you hand out candy, or try to fix a water system, or do any G*dD*mn thing, they next day its a suicide bomber – the car you didn’t open fire on, the person you didn’t shoot.

There aren’t too many who come back from the high pressure areas with lots of loving feelings of protecting a bunch of innocent civilians – they see them as all enemy or potential enemy from what I see or hear. Of course, that’s just one set of experiences and from So. IN – WKY – a lot of them went to Iraq from here already hating.

So while we just add another, better equipped, element to the hate equation with no clear mission and no love lost, it doesn’t proetect the average Iraqi.

Not having US troops force the average Iraqis to pay the price for insurgent operations in their villages and areas is a protection – but not one that they can have until we leave.

Getting other elements involved in Iraq – Sunni and Shia moderate influences – won’t happen with us there bc all of those components do not want to be associated with us or our occupation. If we are redeployed and on the periphery, they are in better positions to make deals and receive financial and other support from us – it will be corrupt, but no more so than the corruption that has lost 9+ billion in one year and 200,000 assault weapons this year.

I don’t see any outcry from the “average Iraqi” to keep us there. Surely they are better able to assess the nature of the menace confronting them from these factions than we have been?

enshrined – past tense – Sharia is already the done deal we backed – other typos I won’t worry about

Mary @ 177, etc.

Wish I had your clarity of insight, and your ease of exposition, which I first came to admire in your legal posts, and now am delighted to find here, deep in the EPU’d “green zone.” Makes me feel like one of those disheveled Hyde Park ranters by comparison.

When people speak of the elevated level of discourse on FDl, yours is one of the first names that springs to mind, and not just because we happen to share a viewpoint or two on foreign policy.

Mr. Timberman,

You seriously underestimate your abilities. I, for one, appreciate both of you. ;)

mary- i’m not arguing for staying. i’m asking what next? we’ve had this discussion here before, and i’ve never really heard any ideas or speculation as to what’s going to happen once the americans leave. i see lots of arrogant-liberal strawpeople getting knocked down, but nothing about who will take control and how the iraqi society will organize and police itself…

Isn’t it time for Ignatius and his cohorts to call “gunmen dressed in police uniforms” by their real name, i.e., policemen?

As Robert Fisk has pointed out several times, are we supposed to believe that there are warehouses filled with police uniforms where “gunmen” can go to play dress-up before they head out on their kidnapping and murder sprees?

What we are seeing are not “gunmen dressed in police uniforms” but policemen who are members of death squads. It’s Negroponte’s dream — the El Salvador Option — come true.

travy @ June 7th, 2006 at 3:06 pm

Again I say, this is manifestly not up to us to decide. If we want to be helpful, how about:

1. An immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. personnel.

2. A public apology to the citizens of Iraq from the United States government for the damage we’ve done.

3. An offer of substantial reparations to whatever national government the Iraqis set up in our absence, whenever they manage to create such a government.

As Bush was told before the beginning of the war: you break it, you bought it.

The US can’t be allowed to cut and run. It needs to salvage what can be salvaged. It’s called being responsible for your actions. And yes, since the American people re-elected Bush AFTER the war was started (with about a 3 million votes margin, wasn’t it?), they need to bear this responsibility too.

Don’t talk about how the US can withdraw troops, but about how it can bring in more of them (also from other countries), under a UN mandate. And for goodness’ sake, reinstate the draft. If there were a draft in the US today, there would be riots in the streets…

Sorry travy – I did read it more as an argument for staying based on the premise that if we don’t stay we won’t be insuring the safety of Iraqi civilians.

Unfortunately, 9/11 taught that we don’t really “insure” the saftey of our own citizens.

As to how the society will organize and police itself, I think you will see it organized along very sectarian lines. But that is what you are also seeing with us there. What I personally believe will happen is that the al-Qaeda related groups, with no US targets for legitimacy and therefore a more vivid highlighting of their attack posture against the Shia, will be under much more, and more direct, response from native Iraqis, primarily Shia but also some Sunnis, and they – with Syrians and outsiders will be more pushed back and out.

With respect to the overall society – it will be, at least for some period of time, more repressive and restrictive. At least with respect to “westernization” issues such as women being able to drive and to operate in the workforce – that is going to (and has to a large degree already) hit the skids in many areas, based on the outlook and teachings of local Immans and local politicians/warlords.

Local militia will be very opposed to westernization, but will also be able to do a much better job than we have, IF they are given access to $$ and equipment, to restoring power and water in areas and protecting those restorations. It will be via a series of successive smaller power bases as opposed to a nationalized response and you will likely see Sunni engineers and workers in Sunni areas and Shia in other areas, and more broken down even than that based on the ties of local Immans and “govt” with various subgroups.

So — is that a bad thing? It’s not the ideal thing. But it is a way to start with restoring power, services and structure. It is also, while more drastic to our eyes based on our expectations, not that different than what we saw here after 9/11 or in Louisiana. Armed militia and civil rights crackdowns and embraces of more fundamentalist authority.

What we can do about that is a long term commitment to actually supporting what we are currently fighting in Venezuela – a govt system that treats the countries revenues as being available for betterment of the lives of all Iraqis. There is definitely leanings in that direction from the sectarian leaders. The non-sectarian Chalabis see a more centralized – in their hands only – dictatorial response to those incomes.

Our resistance to that via strong pressures on the oil companies operating in those areas needs to be a part of the plan and no one is talking about it much. But as local groups see that they receive the benefits of their countries oil income in fairly real and substantial ways – insurgent abilities to, and desire to, sabotage lines and pumps is undercut.

The Sunnis are under the most direct threat to their perceptions at least and we need to be talking now to other Sunni powerhouses in the area about how they can address concerns about and protection of Sunni interests as we pull back. OPEC Countries need to be handling a lot of this and none of them want to handle or address it as American pawns and proxies. But the truth of the matter is – you have Iran as a very central component (and one that Bush only wants to even talk to in the context of nucular weapons and there only because of absolute failures by Rice to garner support for any other aventue).

We can exercise tremendous impact in Iraq by diplomacy with Iran – which is NOT currently in a state of chaos, but which we seem to be wanting to push in that direction. Iran is not stupid. They know that their primarily persian heritage means that there is resistance to them in Iraq, even among Shia. THey also know that Sunnis within the ME are nothing but a source of huge trouble if not dealt with in some manner amicably.

The only thing holding the powers that be on those fronts from more actively working with bringing stability to Iraq is that Iran is benefitting by the anti-Americanism and SA and others cannot afford politically to be seen as coming into situation American puppets.

We can’t stay in large part bc our rhetoric cannot match our actions (can we continue to rant about democracy, regime changes, etc. and not have a destablizing affect on Saud.A?) By leaving, we can realign our political, military and moral values and begin a diplomatic approach that will emphasize increases in the physical security and anti-poverty efforts as a baseline. With anti-poverty efforts as the speartip of the approach, those things that we cannot impose well through an occupation presence or militarily, will begin to form.

The next challenge is education and progandizing. We have seen here how our educated nation was able to be propagandized into the war in a flash and a heartbeat. Countering the many years of propaganda in that area, along with lack of education, will not come easily.

But it will come much more readily from attempting business partnerships and economic and educational alliances than from military occupation and threats of invasion and bombings. Our involvement with relief and rehabilitation and aid organizations will begin the process of rebuilding not only Iraq but our relationship with Iraq. To be honest, we won’t be a welcome “public” partner to many organiations and enterprises.

Some of that involvement, due to where we now find ourselves, may HAVE to be covert initially and may not show the immediate impact and results we Americans like to see. It may come from very “Rovian” influences of implementing pro-Western propaganda tied with relief and sometimes only tied very insidiously.

Sanctions that impoverish the many and leave the few still wealthy and operating freely— those have been shown to not work. And not only that, but they countervail the interests of having business and economic partnerships that strengthen alliances over time.

No instant panaceas, and in some cases no public face to the efforts. But long term commitment to improving life quality in the ares, while we also develop alternative energy sources here, and brainstorm on positive economic and business plans for areas like Afghanistan that have a drug based economy and also to covertly and openly promote distributions systems in the ME, not just Iraq, that begin to de-concentrate oil wealth from a couple of families and dessimnate more broadly in the area, again while developing other economic interest and partnerships so that the countries are not subject to their own imminent collapse if the world begins to have a better alternatives approach over the next couple of decades.

Economics and ignorance and cruelty feed terrorism. The “battlefield” is there.

Bc we are so distrusted and our presence is so provocative now, in some places we can only do battle on those fronts under as “enemy combatants” undercover and as, in essence, sleeper cells. Not a rosey “here’s how everyone lives happily ever after” approach, bc there is no question but that there will be repression in the interim – but it faces the reality that there is repression now.

With all that – there will be a need for establishing things like no-fly zones as we did in the Kurdish areas before and there will and will have to be military aspects and involvement to parts of the plans – securing supply lines at times, supporting positive aspects we possible. There will also be a need for the ubiquitous intelligence services – no way around that either. But all of it needs to take place within a plan and framework that the ultimate goals and mission are economic stability, anti-poverty and pro- education efforts.

The ulitmate goal is not the take down of a regime. It is not the uprising of the people, but the raising up of the people. That stabilizes the world. All IMO and typed while I am also trying to follow a conversation involving severed minerals owned by a gazillion people, so FWIW on thought skips, grammar and syntax disasters, etc.

thanks much mary… i’m still most worried about sunnis and shia trying to eradicate each other. everytime a busload of students gets dragged out and shot, i get more and more cynical about any succesful outcome… (and again, this isn’t a knock against the iraqis. new york would melt down just like baghdad under similar circumstances.)

Mr. Timberman @ 180

I believe that “strategic Hamlets”, (just like concentration camps) were a product of British, not U.S. imperialism.

By all accounts, they worked very well in colonial Malaya, for the superficial difference between an ethnic Chinese Communist and the indigenous Malay was readily apparent. Not that that was ever really going to get in the way of eventual Independence.

Translate that system into a scenario were there is less ethnic diversity, such as Vietnam or Iraq and the whole concept of “strategic Hamlets” simply serves to alienate more of the population, no matter which side of the cultural divide they fall.

P.S.

Bunker Buster contaminated soil Truck Very angry Iranian with a terminal dose of radiation is not going to do much for the Dow. Or is it?

P.P.S.

Talking of superficialities, am I the only man on the whole face of Earth who finds Condoleesa Rice very attractive?

@ 170 Gee Pach you noticed that I treated some contemptible bs with the contempt it deserved. It was grievous lapse of memory on my part. I’m so sorry Pach you see I’d forgotten momentarily that the US is an empire now and that you can create your own realities.

Working really well isn’t it?