We can’t win an occupation.

There is and was no plan for after the initial invasion

Unless the plan you mean cronyism

Rajiv Chandrasekaran writes

After the fall of Saddam Hussein’s government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans — restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O’Beirne’s office in the Pentagon.

To pass muster with O’Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn’t need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What seemed most important was loyalty to the Bush administration.

O’Beirne’s staff posed blunt questions to some candidates about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade.

Many of those chosen by O’Beirne’s office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq’s government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance — but had applied for a White House job — was sent to reopen Baghdad’s stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq’s $13 billion budget, even though they didn’t have a background in accounting.

There is no plan. There is no winning. And the “plan” has nothing to do with “winning”

Barbara at Mahablog quotes Chalmers Johnson

..Military Keynesianism … creates a feedback loop: American presidents know that military Keynesianism tends to concentrate power in the executive branch, and so presidents who seek greater power have a natural inducement to encourage further growth of the military-industrial complex. As the phenomena feed on each other, the usual outcome is a real war, based not on the needs of national defense but rather on the domestic political logic of military Keynesianism

… George W. Bush has taken this natural political phenomenon to an extreme never before experienced by the American electorate. Every president has sought greater authority, but Bush … appears to believe that increasing presidential authority is both a birthright and a central component of his historical legacy.

… John Yoo, Bush’s deputy assistant attorney general from 2001 to 2003, writes in his book War By Other Means, “We are used to a peacetime system in which Congress enacts laws, the President enforces them, and the courts interpret them. In wartime, the gravity shifts to the executive branch.”

Last time I checked we did NOT have a monarchy, we had a Republic – i.e. representatives of the PEOPLE.

YOUR job Reid and Pelosi since you’ve chosen to accept it is to do YOUR job.

Again Mr. Johnson

Easily the most important right in our Constitution, according to James Madison, who wrote much of the document, is the one giving the right to go to war exclusively to the elected representatives of the people, to the Congress. Never, Madison continued, should that right be given to a single man.

I have to run now (things to do) otherwise I’d go off on what Commander-in-Chief means in the original meaning of the title. (and we know they love “original meanings” when it comes to nominating judges)

Most importantly, the Iraqi’s want us to leave. You can’t continue an occupation without the support of the people who are occupied because by definition everyone is then an insurgent

Hey Harry and Nancy, you got a pair?

These are the times that try mens souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country;
but that he stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict the more glorious the triumph.

DON’T give in!!!

If Pelosi and Reid cave on this, they should know that they will be reviled as cowards and morons – and perhaps worse, no better than Republicans. Or maybe that’s what they’re trying to be, so Bush/Republicans/the media aren’t mean to them.

Good luck with that.

This untreated alcoholic with obvious personality disorders

The untreated alcoholic who has simply stopped drinking treats anxiety as an enemy, and with good reason: He is often more challenged by anxiety because he has lost his time-tested means of numbing its sting. He knows that anxiety is a threat to his abstinence – he fears anything that might lead him back to the bottle – but his years of drinking get in the way of learning other methods to manage uncomfortable feelings. Bush manages his anxiety through his inflexible daily routines – the famously short meetings, sacrosanct exercise schedule, daily Bible readings, and limited office hours. All public appearances are controlled and staged – even the ones that appear to be spontaneous. They have to be.

The immorality of this person

If he presented an inflexible worldview characterized by an oversimplified distinction between right and wrong, good and evil, allies and enemies, I would question his ability to grasp reality. And if his actions revealed an unacknowledged – even sadistic – indifference to human suffering, wrapped in pious claims of compassion, I would worry about the safety of the people whose lives he touched.

This is the person you’re deferring to?

I don’t care if he’s the pResident – YOU are the Congress – AN EQUAL branch of government. YOU are our representatives, and it’s time you do some representin’

YOU have a mandate. YOU have political capital – USE IT!!!

DO … NOT … give in on this

More if I have time

This is about the sissies (I want to be blunt but someone might be offended) in the leadership of the Democratic Party

Here it’s more oblique

[…]

The answer is quite simple. They beat us because they are abusers. We can call it hate. We can call it fear. We can say it is unfair. But we are looped into the cycle of violence, and we need to start calling the dominating side what they are: abusive. And we need to recognize that we are the victims of verbal, mental, and even, in the case of Iraq, physical violence.

As victims we can’t stop asking ourselves what we did wrong. We can’t seem to grasp that they will keep hitting us and beating us as long as we keep sticking around and asking ourselves what we are doing to deserve the beating.

Listen to George Bush say that the will of God excuses his behavior. Listen, as he refuses to take responsibility, or express remorse, or even once, admit a mistake. Watch him strut, and tell us that he will only work with those who agree with him, and that each of us is only allowed one question (soon, it will be none at all; abusers hit hard when questioned; the press corps can tell you that). See him surround himself with only those who pledge oaths of allegiance. Hear him tell us that if we will only listen and do as he says and agree with his every utterance, all will go well for us (it won’t; we will never be worthy).

Here it’s more pointed

And watch the Democratic Party leadership walk on eggshells, try to meet him, please him, wash the windows better, get out that spot, distance themselves from gays and civil rights. See the Democrats cry for the attention and affection and approval of the President and his followers. Watch us squirm. Watch us descend into a world of crazy-making, where logic does not work and the other side tells us we are nuts when we rely on facts. A world where, worst of all, we begin to believe we are crazy.

How do you change the situation?

First, you must admit you are a victim. Then, you must declare the state of affairs unacceptable. Next, you must promise to protect yourself and everyone around you that is being victimized. You don’t do this by responding to their demands, or becoming more like them, or engaging in logical conversation, or trying to persuade them that you are right. You also don’t do this by going catatonic and resigned, by closing up your ears and eyes and covering your head and submitting to the blows, figuring its over faster and hurts less if you don’t resist and fight back.

Instead, you walk away. You find other folks like yourself, 57 million of them, who are hurting, broken, and beating themselves up. You tell them what you’ve learned, and that you aren’t going to take it anymore. You stand tall, with 57 million people at your side and behind you, and you look right into the eyes of the abuser and you tell him to go to hell. Then you walk out the door, taking the kids and gays and minorities with you, and you start a new life. The new life is hard. But it’s better than the abuse.

We have a mandate to be as radical and liberal and steadfast as we need to be. The progressive beliefs and social justice we stand for, our core, must not be altered. We are 57 million strong. We are building from the bottom up. We are meeting, on the net, in church basements, at work, in small groups, and right now, we are crying, because we are trying to break free and we don’t know how.

This is important

Any battered woman in America, any oppressed person around the globe who has defied her oppressor will tell you this: There is nothing wrong with you. You are in good company. You are safe. You are not alone. You are strong. You must change only one thing: Stop responding to the abuser.

And this

Don’t let him dictate the terms or frame the debate (he’ll win, not because he’s right, but because force works).

DON’T let him frame the debate. Do … not … let him frame the debate. I mean you Harry Reid continuing to call this a war – it’s an occupation!

Sure, we can build a better grassroots campaign, cultivate and raise up better leaders, reform the election system to make it fail-proof, stick to our message, learn from the strategy of the other side. But we absolutely must dispense with the notion that we are weak, godless, cowardly, disorganized, crazy, too liberal, naive, amoral, “loose,” irrelevant, outmoded, stupid and soon to be extinct. We have the mandate of the world to back us, and the legacy of oppressed people throughout history.

STOP!!! Acting like a Gawd Damn victim! Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi this means YOU!!!

More in a few

Ok, Readers Digest version …

NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOO, don’t give in on the benchmarks

Longer version coming, if the door doesn’t slam shut on me

Yes, yes, and yes. There is no excuse for this war. They are making murderers of us all, and we are making murderers of our troops. No. No. No. Always, no to this war.

Show up at your congresscritters door. Less time and money than a trip to DC, which will only be ignored anyway. Hit them where they live.

NO MORE MONEY.