Real News: Iraq Events Moving Out Of US Control

July 21, 2008, 8 min 46 sec: Iraq events moving out of US control

Sabah al-Nasseri: Washington cannot dictate politics in Iraq

Sabah al-Nasseri: "They are instrumentalizing the internal resistance within the Iraqi Parliament, within the Iraqi societies, against the United States, against the presence of US troops in Iraq, and so on, to actually negotiate new deals concerning securities agreement, oil agreement, etcetera, by saying, "Look, we cannot signs all of these kind of agreements. Otherwise we'll commit political suicide."

Born in Basra, Iraq, Sabah al-Nasseri is Professor of Political Science (Middle East Politics) at York University, Toronto. Prior to that he was a Lecturer of Political Science at the J.W. Goethe University, Frankfurt. Currently he is working on an article, “Understanding Iraq.”



July 26, 2008, 6 min 49 sec: Who will determine Iraq's future?

Sabah al-Nasseri: The majority of US troops and private security firms will stay in Iraq

Sabah al-Nasseri: "He [Obama] did not talk about the occupation. He never mentioned a word about the occupation, so as if things in Iraq will be determined in Washington and not on the ground by the Iraqi people themselves. So my argument is that Obama will not withdraw the troops, US troops. He will move few brigades, probably, from Iraq to Afghanistan, but the majority of the US troops and the private security firms or military firms, companies, will stay in Iraq."

There's more: "Real News: Iraq Events Moving Out Of US Control" >>

Inside Halliburton On Camera

Ben Carter, a former Halliburton/KBR water purification specialist, discusses discovering Halliburton was providing dangerously contaminated water to troops, and the serious long-term implication:

Senate Democratic Policy Committee Hearing
“An Oversight Hearing on Whether Halliburton Has Failed to Provide Clean Water to United States Troops in Iraq” [pdf]
Ben Carter, Former Halliburton Employee, January 23, 2006

My name is Ben Carter, and for the last twenty years I have worked as a water purification specialist. I currently reside in Cedar City, Utah. From January 2005 through early April 2005, I worked for Halliburton subsidiary KBR at Camp Ar Ramadi in Iraq, also known as Junction City. Ar Ramadi is home to between 5,000 and 7,000 troops at any given time, served by roughly 70 KBR personnel.
...
Although I was hired to work as a water treatment specialist, I was not allowed to inspect the Ar Ramadi water delivery systems until more than a month after I arrived at the base... After a month, I was finally allowed to work with the ROWPU unit.
...
I had been told by the usual ROWPU lead that the water was chlorinated, and knew that such an organism could not survive in chlorinated water. I decided at that point to test the water in the employee’s bathroom for chlorination. The test results indicated zero presence of chlorine. I then tested at several other locations in the KBR section of the base, and discovered no chlorine at those sites either. I then tested the nonpotable water storage tank and, to my shock, realized that the water in the tank tested negative for chlorine; that the access lid of the tank was not in place, let alone secure; and that the air vents to the tank were turned upward and left unscreened, leaving the water supply vulnerable to contamination from dust, insects, rodents, or even enemy attack. I was stunned. No trained water treatment specialist could claim that the water was fit for human use.
...
When KBR site management learned that I was preparing a report, they insisted on approving its contents before I sent it to Mo. I did, and they offered comments questioning my conclusions. I have brought a copy of that e-mail exchange [pdf] with me today.
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I accepted a position with Halliburton with the belief that my particular skills would be of service to the troops in Iraq. But when I tried to notify the troops that they may be exposed to a serious health risk, I was told that the military was none of my concern, and to keep my mouth shut. I don’t know how bad the problem might be — how many troops may have been exposed to untreated water, and how many might have gotten sick as a result. I can’t know, because Halliburton apparently has no records and refuses to acknowledge there might be a problem. I do know that I have been diagnosed with an unidentified organism in my digestive tract, and that I sometimes suffer from gastrointestinal problems that I did not experience before going to Iraq.

Let me conclude by saying that I’m here today because I believe that supporting the troops has to be more than a slogan. Our men and women overseas deserve the best our taxpayer dollars can buy, and it saddens me to report that we’re falling short on something as simple and essential as providing them with clean, safe water.

The Sludge Report - Halliburton moves to Dubai:

There's more: "Inside Halliburton On Camera" >>

Provocation in the Strait of Hormuz

Cross Posted at Edgeing, at Docudharma and SanchoPress

If the Iranians attack a US ship in the gulf, or shut down the strait, it will be, in historical context, retribution and retaliation for US Foreign Policy and imperialism over the past century, and we will be as much or more to blame than they.

We get what we give. As we sow, so we reap.

Imperialism is coming home to bite us on the ass, bigtime. It has been coming for a long time...

In about a year, when there will probably be a Democratic President sitting in The White House, we're going to have the same "Foreign Policy" we've had for the past nearly a century.

Nothing more, nothing less, and nothing changing.

"Ancient History": U.S. Conduct in the Middle East Since World War II and the Folly Of Intervention

If the chief natural resource of the Middle East were bananas, the region would not have attracted the attention of U.S. policymakers as it has for decades. Americans became interested in the oil riches of the region in the 1920s, and two U.S. companies, Standard Oil of California and Texaco, won the first concession to explore for oil in Saudi Arabia in the 1930s. They discovered oil there in 1938, just after Standard Oil of California found it in Bahrain. The same year Gulf Oil (along with its British partner Anglo-Persian Oil) found oil in Kuwait. During and after World War II, the region became a primary object of U.S. foreign policy. It was then that policymakers realized that the Middle East was "a stupendous source of strategic power, and one of the greatest material prizes in world history."

Subsequently, as a result of cooperation between the U.S. government and several American oil companies, the United States replaced Great Britain as the chief Western power in the region.(5) In Iran and Saudi Arabia, American gains were British (and French) losses.(6) Originally, the dominant American oil interests had had limited access to Iraqi oil only (through the Iraq Petroleum Company, under the 1928 Red Line Agreement). In 1946, however, Standard Oil of New Jersey and Mobil Oil Corp., seeing the irresistible opportunities in Saudi Arabia, had the agreement voided.(7) When the awakening countries of the Middle East asserted control over their oil resources, the United States found ways to protect its access to the oil. Nearly everything the United States has done in the Middle East can be understood as contributing to the protection of its long-term access to Middle Eastern oil and, through that control, Washington's claim to world leadership. The U.S. build-up of Israel and Iran as powerful gendarmeries beholden to the United States, and U.S. aid given to "moderate," pro-Western Arab regimes, such as those in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Jordan, were intended to keep the region in friendly hands. That was always the meaning of the term "regional stability."

Provocation in the Strait of Hormuz
By Marc Ash, t r u t h o u t | Perspective, Tuesday 08 January 2008

Two separate news reports relying mostly on information provided by the Pentagon were picked up and disseminated by US mainstream media outlets Monday. The reports point to two separate instances involving US armed forces operating in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.

The first, typified by The New York Times, "US Describes Confrontation With Iranian Boats", and the second, tucked away from the features sections, "Navy Fighter Jets Crash in Persian Gulf", reported by the Associated Press, are not connected directly in the reports, but bear consideration side-by-side nonetheless.

The report in The Times, in fact, tells you everything you need to know, albeit in a conclusionless form. US Warships are in the Persian Gulf. The Strait of Hormuz, through which all warships must pass to enter the Gulf, is the same passage through which all oil-bearing ships must pass bringing oil to the US. And "Oil prices on world markets spiked briefly on the news, which was first reported by CNN." That pretty much says it all.

US Navy warships are parked a few miles off the coast of Iran. They are there, apparently, to protect oil shipping lanes into and out of the Persian Gulf. Tensions are mounting. If provocation is at issue, those facts must remain front and center. If Iranian warships ever made it as close to the American coastline as US warships now lie to Iranian shores, our military would in all likelihood attack them. Iran is not attacking our warships - parked on their doorstep.

The US State Department last year warned Iran, "not to interfere with US interests in the region." What the State Department did not explain to the American people is what interests average Americans have in the region. The answer to that question is, likely none. That leads to the next question: whose interests is the American Navy protecting in the Persian Gulf? The owners of the oil tankers, apparently. The American people are the end consumers; we pay what's marked on the pump. Bluntly stated, the United States Navy appears to be in the Persian Gulf to protect the interests of US-based oil businesses, not the interests of the American people. Incidentally, the second-largest deposits of oil in the world lie beneath the soil of Iraq, so the same formula applies there as well.

Could Iranian forces sink an American ship a few miles off the Iranian coast? Yes, although it is highly unlikely that they would say beforehand, "I am coming at you, and you will explode in a few minutes." Would such a sinking take the lives of many good American sailors? Yes, it would. Such a sinking and the attendant loss of life would affect the best interests of the American people. The American armed forces are the true interest of the American people. For too long, the American people have turned a blind eye to their interest: their service members. It's time to bring our soldiers home and let the gas station mind its own business.

*emphasis added

This cannot be taken out of historical context. To do so is the "neocon" way.

If anyone is doing any "provocatin'" in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, it has been successive US and British administrations, and oil companies, for nearly a century...

There's more: "Provocation in the Strait of Hormuz" >>

Why Do Debacles Like Iraq Happen?

Zeitgeist: What do Christianity, 911 and The Federal Reserve have in common?

The more you begin to investigate what we think we understand, where we came from, what we think we're doing, the more you begin to see we've been lied to, we've been lied to by every institution...

"Zeitgeist is originally a German expression that means 'the mind of the age', literally translated as 'time (Zeit) mind (Geist)'. It denotes the intellectual and cultural climate of an era." --wikipedia

John Fitzgerald Kennedy
Address to the American Newspaper Publishers, 27 April 1961

The very word "secrecy" is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths, and to secret proceedings.
...
For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence -- on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific, and political operations.

Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed.
...
Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed -- and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment -- the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution -- not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply "give the public what it wants" -- but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate, and sometimes even anger public opinion.

Zeitgeist 2007: 1 hr 56 min. Or watch the film in parts on the flip.

• Part 1: 26 min: Greatest story ever told



• Part 2: 33 min: All The World's A Stage



• Part 3: 47 min: Don't mind the men behind the curtain

What do Christianity, 911 and The Federal Reserve have in common?

This is the full Zeitgeist production.

"They must find it difficult...
Those who have taken authority as the truth,
rather than truth as the authority."
--Gerald Massey, Egyptologist (1828–1907)

Part 1: 26 min: Greatest story ever told:

This section explores the little known foundations of the Cult of Equinoctial Christolatry (Christianity) which, unannounced to most, rests in the astrotheological belief systems of the ancient world.

Part 2: 33 min: All The World's A Stage:

9/11/2001 was the production of the century. "and the Emmy goes to..."

Part 3: 47 min: Don't mind the men behind the curtain:

The Revolution is Now.

The men behind the curtain?

In order to regain its status as the respected leader of the world's nations, America must eradicate the neoconservative movement from its body politic, and the only '08 presidential candidates committed to that goal appear to be Democrat Dennis Kucinich and Republican Ron Paul. If you think the neoconservatives packed up shop subsequent to their Mesopotamia mistake, think again. The neocons not only didn't learn anything from Iraq, they're betting large that nobody else did either--and that's a bet they stand a good chance of winning.
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The top tier candidates from both parties talk of new approaches to the Iraq problem, but none of them--with the possible exception of Barack Obama--offer anything realistic that's substantively different from "stay the course." And though Kucinich and Paul touch on the essential task that lies ahead in setting the course of U.S. foreign policy, the mainstream information gatekeepers continue to treat them like pipsqueaks.

Is it possible that, under the surface, all of America's national profile politicians have crawled into the neocons' pockets?
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With the exception of significantly increasing America's defense spending, the neocons' dreams of U.S. global dominance have dashed themselves against the shoals of reality. Today, though we spend more than the rest of the world combined on defense, friends and enemies alike shun us. We have to kiss up to countries like Turkey and Pakistan while the greatest threats to our national security are backwater outfits like Iran and North Korea, all states whose economies and defense budgets are less than five percent of ours and none of whom would amount to a pimple on our posterior if we hadn't let the neocons persuade us to stick said posterior into the crack its in now. Moreover, our security, prosperity and principles are more in peril than they have been since the beginning of World War II, and as recent events in Pakistan illustrate, our efforts to promote political freedom abroad have been dismal failures.
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If America were still a true republic, the neocons would have been ridden out of town two years ago at the latest; they don't have enough tar, feathers or rails in Washington D.C. to give those characters the kind of send off they deserve. But they're still around and reeking havoc. Dick Cheney still lurks in undisclosed locations in between appearances at GOP fundraising and warmongering functions. Cheney side buoys like David Addington continue to infest the White House. Backyard variety chicken hawks such as John Bolton, Fred Kagan, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Newt Gingrich hang out in the Scholars and Fellows lounge of the influential neoconservative think tank American Enterprise Institute.

There's more: "Why Do Debacles Like Iraq Happen?" >>

A Line In The Sand

clammyc asked on Sunday at Docudarma in Selling out values for political expediency is disastrous:

...we progressives constantly find ourselves banging our heads against the wall or just shaking our heads as we read, see or hear about yet another situation where our core values are being sold out for reasons that I can't fathom.
...
Why is this?  Is it out of fear?  Is it out of complacency?  Is it out of not wanting to rock the boat in order to potentially win big next year?  Either way, the answer isn't a good one.  Right now,  we are at a crossroads as the general public still trusts Democrats more on nearly every issue, yet we have always been good at being ahead of the curve.

What happens if a few things that I mention above backfire?

Magnifico noted on Saturday in A Tale of Two Iraqs:

If Americans prove incapable of even admitting we have a problem, let alone working on solutions, in the coming months, then America might be in need of an intervention.

It appears that that intervention is happening, and has been in the works for some time.

The world has had enough of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, and of those who enable them.

Time to pay attention, Nancy. Now you are free to concentrate on avoiding an electoral debacle in 2008, by ending the occupation of Iraq.

Iran's Capital, Tehran.

This is the country that Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Leadership, through their complicity and their refusal to do what they were elected in November 2006 to do - stop funding and end the Iraq Occupation - are helping George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to expand their Iraq Debacle into with the continued funding that they provide to Bush.

Fortunately, there are clearer heads in the world than Bush's, Cheney's, or Pelosi's, and if the Democrats will not put a stop to or set a limit to Bush's insanity, it now appears that our old "enemies" the Russians, will.

Pepe Escobar wrote in Asia Times on Friday of something that has been, as many things are, almost completely ignored by our complicit mainstream media:

The barely reported highlight of Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Tehran for the Caspian Sea summit last week was a key face-to-face meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

A high-level diplomatic source in Tehran tells Asia Times Online that essentially Putin and the Supreme Leader have agreed on a plan to nullify the George W Bush administration's relentless drive towards launching a preemptive attack, perhaps a tactical nuclear strike, against Iran. An American attack on Iran will be viewed by Moscow as an attack on Russia.
...
Iranian hawks close to Ahmadinejad are spinning that Putin's proposal involves Iran temporarily suspending uranium enrichment in exchange for no more United Nations sanctions. That's essentially what International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohammad ElBaradei has been working on all along. The key issue is what - in practical terms - will Iran get in return. Obviously it's not the EU's Solana who will have the answer. But as far as Russia is concerned, strategically nothing will appease it except a political/diplomatic solution for the Iranian nuclear dossier.

US Vice President Dick Cheney - who even Senator Hillary Clinton now refers to as Darth Vader - must be foaming at the mouth; but the fact is that after the Caspian summit, Iran and Russia are officially entangled in a strategic partnership. World War III, for them, is definitely not on the cards.

And it's not only the Russians drawing a line in the sand. China and other Asian countries are also doing their best to box Bush And Cheney and the necocons in and render their imperialist ambitions impotent. Unfortunately their strategies will likely impact all of us.

Pluto, a currency trader, noted in a comment at Docudharma last Thursday that from a monetary standpoint:

...the World is killing us:

Last night (while you were sleeping) Japan, China and Taiwan sold U.S. Treasuries at the fastest pace in at least five years in August.

Japan cut its holdings by 4% to $586 Billion, China cut its holdings 2.2% to $400 Billion, and Taiwan's holdings slid 8.9% to $52 Billion... Japan's selling was at the fastest pace since 2000, China's since 2002, and Taiwan's since 2000...

This sell off was the biggest sell off of Treasuries since Russia defaulted in 1998.

Stick a fork in the U.S.

We're done.

We can't borrow any more money to kill people.

The funny thing is that the entire world knows this. And is talking about it today. Only the Americans are kept clueless.

Pluto also explained in Asia Sez to Americans: "All Your Money Are Belong to Us" that:

My focus is on global markets and currencies (with side orders of petroleum and commodities). Meanwhile, the world's focus is on deliberately kicking America's ass (even if it hurts them in the short term). Many nations are willing to take a hard economic hit to rid the world of a dangerous invading nation with an insane leader threatening to "throw atomic bombs" at his make-believe enemies. As a result, experienced U.S. investors have been dumping their US dollars (frantically over the past ten days)

The world has had enough of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and the neocons, has run out of patience, and is now sending multiple messages that make it obvious that if we don't put a stop to the idiocy ourselves, we will be slapped down by the world.

There's more: "A Line In The Sand" >>

Why Is The Middle East So Volatile?

How did we get here? Why is there so much strife in the Middle East? Why are there so many deadly competing cultural, national, political and economic interests there? What is the history behind it all? How can we understand it all without spending years and years becoming becoming scholars of Comparative Religion or Historians?

There is no easy way of course, but the following two 90 second animated Flash maps, courtesy of Maps Of War, can help to give us a good nutshell summary of answers to questions that have perplexed and caused untold misery and death for centuries.

It helps to visualize all that history from an "80,000 foot view" to understand what happened without getting buried by the details of years of history study.

Hint: Hover your mouse pointer over the dates above and below the yellow bar in the first one. There are pop up descriptive balloons.

There's more: "Why Is The Middle East So Volatile?" >>

al-Maliki: Senate Proposal "a Catastrophe"

Iraq PM: Senate Proposal "a Catastrophe"
CBS News/The Associated Press
via t r u t h o u t, Friday 28 September 2007

Prime Minister sharply rejects government decentralization plan pushed by Biden, others.

Baghdad - Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Friday rejected a U.S. Senate proposal calling for the decentralization of Iraq's government and giving more control to the country's ethnically divided regions, calling it a "catastrophe."

The measure, whose primary sponsors included presidential hopeful Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., calls for Iraq to be divided into federal regions for the country's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish communities in a power-sharing agreement similar to Bosnia in the 1990s.

In his first comments since the measure passed Wednesday, al-Maliki strongly rejected the idea, echoing the earlier sentiments of his country's vice president.

"It is an Iraqi affair dealing with Iraqis," he told The Associated Press while on a return flight to Baghdad after appearing at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. "Iraqis are eager for Iraq's unity. ... Dividing Iraq is a problem and a decision like that would be a catastrophe."

More at truthout ...

When will they learn?

The Washington Consensus Of Iraq Reality Is Delusion:

Every time Iraqis kill another American soldier, it is, in my view, a "request" to Washington to withdraw all the troops. Some of the puppet government of Iraq would deny that I think. But they are a puppet government, and a large percentage of the social groups in Iraq are rejecting that puppet government and doing their damnedest to force it to collapse.

Iraqis don't want US troops in their country, and they don't want a US puppet government running their country for the benefit of America.

Will they learn?

There's more: "al-Maliki: Senate Proposal "a Catastrophe"" >>

Chickenhawks, Chickenshits, Cowardly Candidates and a Craven Congress, Aint That America?

The progress being made in our 4 1/2 year war of terror on Iraq is phenomenal. So impressive are our recent gains that the "top tier" Democratic candidates who have lined up in competition to become the heirs of this great struggle for freedom, for Middle Eastern democracy, for oil and gas rights for western corporations and of course for lucrative contracts in arms sales and private security for campaign contributors, last night went way out on a limb and declared their goal of removing our troops from the quagmire in Mesopotamia by the end of their first term in office in 2013.

Despite their boldness, they did not report whether or not they could guarantee the colonization of Mars, a cure for cancer, or flying pigs within that time frame.

The Congress of the United States of America, a legislative body established by the American Constitution over two centuries ago has declared itself to be toothless, spineless and ultimately meaningless. Yesterday they condemned a reputable political organization for running a completely truthful newspaper ad and voted to declare the military of a sovereign nation a terrorist organization in order to present their Fuhrer with a gift wrapped excuse for his next adventure.

They were asked by Bush's Defense Secretary for an additional 190 billion ($190,000,000,000) dollars to continue their criminal enterprises in Iraq and Afghanistan and despite the fact that a sizable majority of the people of our country want to end this war, the cowardly swine will approve it. That will bring the total publicly reported expenditures to 800 billion dollars ($800,000,000,000). Most of this has been spent, squandered, swindled, bamboozled away since our chief arrogant little asswipe stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier and declared that the mission had been accomplished.

Hell, they sacked one of our principle Generals at the outset of this insanity for declaring that the war would cost as much as 25 billion when Rumsfeld and Cheney's various staff were reporting that it could be done for seven billion which would be financed through the sale of, get this,Iraqi Oil.

Congress will of course, make another face saving gesture and ask for full progress reports, which will be dutifully drawn up by the neocon advertising/marketing/propaganda staff in the white House and fed to an "ass kissing little chicken shit" general for presentation to our parliament of gutless wonders and we will continue, down the same path following some vague vanishing point into a future where the only things that are certain are the deaths of thousands more of our troops and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians.

Since our current crop of wars of empire are progressing so swimmingly (as planned at the highest levels) they now are preparing to embroil us in another war with Iran and this time they plan to pull out all the stops and use the nukes that they have been slathering over all these long years.

Last week on television, I witnessed a room full of mostly young college students sit pacifically and watch passively as a half dozen hired goons brutalized another student with Tasers, for speaking. For Speaking.

I felt that I was seeing a vision of America's future.

No matter what this criminal government and their corporate masters do, no matter what the excess, no matter what the crime, no matter what horrors they commit in our name the people of this country are sitting, sitting as acquiescently as that room full of meek children, sitting and cowering in the face of authority.

America in the first decade of the twenty first century is beginning to look a lot like Germany in the third decade of the last century and I'm beginning to be relieved that this is my last decade.

Bob Higgins
Worldwide Sawdust

There's more: "Chickenhawks, Chickenshits, Cowardly Candidates and a Craven Congress, Aint That America?" >>

In Search Of A Reality

Good opinion piece from the NYT yesterday... for the most part.

They start off so well it's tempting to go with them all the way...

In Search of a Congress
NYT, Friday 21 September 2007

If you were one of the Americans waiting for Congress, under Democratic control, to show leadership on the war in Iraq, the message from the Senate is clear: "Nevermind." The same goes for those waiting for lawmakers to fix the damage done to civil liberties by six years of President Bush and a rubber-stamp Republican Congress.

The NYT editors have missed the boat in two places, however. They've nailed the problem with the GOP, but make the I think badly mistaken assumption that the Democratic Leadership is not complicit with Bush's goals, with:

The Democrats don't have, or can't summon, the political strength to make sure Congress does what it is supposed to do: debate profound issues like these and take a stand. The Republicans are simply not interested in a serious discussion and certainly not a vote on anything beyond Mr. Bush's increasingly narrow agenda.

And they do it again in my opinion, with:

Democrats and Republicans who oppose the war have a duty to outline alternatives. Those who call for staying in Iraq have a duty to explain what victory means and how they plan to achieve it. Both sides are shirking an obligation to deal with issues that must be resolved right now, like the crisis involving asylum for Iraqis who helped the American occupation.

They're right that both parties need to be articulating clear alternatives, but they're still stuck in the quicksand of assuming that Iraqis are incompetent children incapable of finding their own path and managing their own affairs to their own satisfaction in their own ways, regardless of what the rest of the world, or the "Washington Consensus", wants Iraqis to do.

If Iraqis want help they'll ask for it. It cannot be forced on them, and any attempt to force "help" on them has, is, and will continue to backfire.

If Iraqis have sectarian differences and kill each other in a civil war, it is their civil war, and neither The U.S. nor any other country has any more right to intervene for U.S. benefit than any other more powerful country had the right to intervene in the American Civil War for their benefit.

All that Washington's "help" has ever done for Iraq is make the situation worse. Continually. Never better. Only worse.

Since Bush started a fire that is burning the Iraqi house down the first thing to do is stop throwing fuel into the fire. And since Bush's invasion destroyed the infrastructure of the house before he started the fire and he made no effort to rebuild it, once we stop throwing fuel in and get out of the way before we are thrown out of the way, someone else will rebuild it.

It probably won't look anything like what the "Washington Consensus" would like it to look like when they're done, but too bad.

The vast majority of Iraqis DO NOT want U.S. troops occupying their country.

It is time to recognize that reality, and face up to it.

The Washington Consensus Of Iraq Reality Is Delusion, and the NYT, even in their criticism of both parties, is still buying the delusion. And still selling the delusion.

What will help to begin fixing Iraq is not "doing" something.

What will help to begin fixing Iraq is "not doing" something.

Not funding the occupation any longer and complete and total withdrawal of all U.S. military from the country is what will begin fixing Iraq.

Iraq will be fixed. Eventually. But it will not be republicans or democrats, or even the U.S. that fixes it. It will be, and can only be, Iraqis that fix Iraq.

The U.S. presence in Iraq, and the refusal to leave, is the problem.

It is time to leave Iraq. Long past time.

There's more: "In Search Of A Reality" >>

General Pace's Wonderland

(Originally posted at The Motley Patriot)

The Charlotte (NC) Examiner has an article authored by Rowan Scarborough about General Peter Pace. This statement by General Pace shows just how large of a betrayal the Iraq war has been for both American and Iraqi:

“One of the mistakes I made in my assumptions going in was that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi army would welcome liberation, that the Iraqi army, given the opportunity, would stand together for the Iraqi people and be available to them to help serve the new nation,” Pace said.

He said the Iraqi army more or less “disintegrated.” The Bush administration made a much-criticized decision in 2003 to disband the army rather than reorganize it, beginning the long process of building a new force from scratch.

Pace said if he could have foreseen the Iraqi army’s lack of cooperation, “I probably would have made a different recommendation about the total size force going in.”

Rowan correctly notes that the Iraqi Army did not merely "disintegrate", but, in fact, it was disbanded by the Bush Administration and Paul Bremer in May, 2003; two months after our invasion.

General Pace was the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs. He would be one of the few who would have known the Iraqi Army was being disbanded by Paul Bremer prior to the decision being made. He would have had to be informed so that the commanders on the ground could plan for it militarily. General Pace claims in February, 2004, that that wasn't so:

The Joint Chiefs of Staff were not consulted on the US decision to disband the Iraqi army shortly after the end of major combat operations in Iraq last May, General Peter Pace, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said.

Pace said Paul Bremer, the head of the coalition provisional authority in Baghdad, ordered the army disbanded on his own authority.

"Those of us in Washington did not second guess those who were on point," he said at a question and answer session here at the Council on Foreign Relations. "We were not asked for a recommendation, or for advice."

Pace said he did not know what input Bremer received from military officials in the Iraq theater, but it was never specifically addressed by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

So, according to General Pace in 2007, the Iraqi Army merely disintegrated in May, 2003, when Paul Bremer disbanded it despite the fact he placed the blame for disbanding the army on Bremer three years ago? So, according to General Pace in 2007, the Joint Chief's had zero input or even knowledge of the decision despite the fact that they would have had to coordinate our military response to such an action?

In the June 2003 statement to Congress given by General Pace, there was no mention of the disbanding of the Iraqi Army. In the July 2003 statement to Congress given by General Tommy Franks, there was no mention of the disbanding of the Iraqi Army, or, that there were adverse effects from that act. I bring this out to show that if our commanders had indeed been blindsided by the act of disbanding the Iraqi Army, if they indeed had been forced to rethink their entire plan at the last moment, there should have been some statement to this effect. There is not one that I can find.

It wasn't until February 2004 that suddenly, the disbanding of the Iraqi Army became an issue. Why would that be you ask? Days prior to General Pace blaming Bremer and disavowing all knowledge that the Iraqi Army would be disbanded, the center where new Iraqi officers were being trained was bombed killing 23 people and, suddenly, everyone magically realized there was no security in Iraq; something Iraqi's knew all to well.

So, not only do we know that the General has zero integrity, but, that he lives with Alice in Wonderland: he assumed that the Iraqi's would welcome liberation and that the Iraqi Army would cooperate prior to being disbanded!

In the September 2003 Congressional testimony given by Paul Bremer, he stated:

Most Iraqis welcomed us as liberators and we glowed with the pleasure of that welcome. Now the reality of foreign troops on the streets is starting to chafe. Some Iraqis are beginning to regard us as occupiers and not as liberators. Some of this is inevitable, but faster progress on reconstruction will help.

Of course, we know how well reconstruction went under Paul Bremer! But, Mr. Bremer did mention the disbanding of the Iraqi Army when he stated that the second key goal was Iraqi "National defense" and "—a new [Iraqi] army and civil defense system."

Now, if we put 2 and 2 together (Greenspan's statement on oil and Bremer's above statement) we see exactly why disbanding the Iraqi Army was a necessary goal for the Bush Administration; once Iraqi's realized we planned to occupy their country, the Iraqi Army would have been a major force used against us.

It is now September, 2007, and the Iraqi reconstruction effort abandoned. It is now almost five years after we invaded Iraq and the reconstitution of Iraqi security forces has been abandoned. The Iraqi people see exactly what our goal is, and was, when we invaded;

- destabilize their entire country
- disband their ability to defend themselves
- force Iraq to depend on the United States for security
- force Iraq to open the oil industry to private oil firms

The fact is that all of the the rats, like General Pace, are jumping ship and trying to blame everybody else for the Iraq war; meanwhile, our troops continue to die in Iraq for oil.

There's more: "General Pace's Wonderland" >>

We have been betrayed; again

(originally posted at The Motley Patriot and cross-posted at TalkLeft)

How does a man, or woman, betray their country? How does a person justify watching other people die for lies? What purpose can be called "noble" that it cannot be named outright, instead, lies are necessary in order to carry out that cause? America's involvement in Vietnam did not start with the "shock and awe" of invasion and it did not begin with the American public being fed lies by our President; that came later.

In 2005, Melvin Laird, former Secretary of Defense from 1969 to 1973 under President Nixon, wrote an article entitled, `Iraq: Learning the lessons of Vietnam`. In the article, he wrote:

They join their voices with those who claim that the current war is "all about oil," as though the loss of that oil were not enough of a global security threat to merit any U.S. military intervention and especially not "another Vietnam."

The problem with this assertion by Mr. Laird isn't that oil is a security issue to the world, but, that the United States could lose something that it clearly never owned; the oil in the Middle East.

In 1953, the CIA deposed a democratically elected leader in Iran. In 1979, the Iranian people took back their government. What "loss" did the United States suffer when the Shah of Iran was deposed? Did America lose access to the Iranian oil, or, did we merely lose the ability to control something that wasn't ours?

Mr. Laird states that when he took over as Secretary of Defense in 1969, America started a four-year withdrawal from Vietnam:

The memo had remained in limbo in the defense secretary's desk, neither approved nor rejected. As my symbolic first act in office, it gave me great satisfaction to turn down that request formally. It was the beginning of a four-year withdrawal from Vietnam that, in retrospect, became the textbook description of how the U.S. military should decamp.

The memo to which Mr. Laird refers is the memo authored by General Westmoreland requesting that U.S. troop levels be increased from 500,000 to 700,000. By 1968, the United States had 538,000 troops in Vietnam. 16,592 troops died in Vietnam in 1968 alone. From 1960 thru 1968, a total of 36,152 troops had died in Vietnam. During the four-year "withdrawal" from Vietnam that Mr. Laird cites, 20,863 additional troops were killed or declared dead. Mr. Laird wrote:

I cannot speak for the dead or the angry. My voice is that of a policymaker, one who once decided which causes were worth fighting for, how long the fight should last, and when it was time to go home. The president, as our commander-in-chief, has the overall responsibility for making these life-or-death decisions, in consultation with Congress. The secretary of defense must be supportive of those decisions, or else he must leave.

Mr. Laird is correct; he cannot speak for the dead. But then, who does? Who spoke up in 1969 for those who were going to die that year? Who spoke up in 1970 for those who were going to die the following the year? Who is speaking for the dead from Iraq? Who is speaking for the troops that will die tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year?

The most important lesson learned from Vietnam was that the American media had to be controlled, manipulated, and the true cost of war hidden. Today, our soldiers who are dying for a cause so "noble" that the public couldn't even be told the truth of it. Our soldiers are being flown back in coffins, not like heroes fighting for a "noble" cause; but in secrecy.

The American public knew why our forces were fighting in Vietnam; it was the reason to escalate that fight that was a lie. The Gulf of Tonkin incident, whether real or not (and there are still many contradicting accounts of it), was at best a gross mis-characterization of an incident to justify the escalation in Vietnam. It was that "incident" in 1964 that justified the escalation, that justified the continued fight, that justified the war that raged for another 5 years before we even began to withdraw from it. For Iraq, the lies to invade and occupy Iraq started from the beginning.

The lies were repeated for months by the administration and media with almost no fact checking at all. The justifications were changed over the years, until finally, the reason for the very war itself was lost.

Like Vietnam, we've had our "surge" and we've seen it fail. We have watched General after General enter and leave this fight in Iraq that has no clear mission, nor, a clear end to it. Like Vietnam, the American public is now tired of the war, tired of the rhetoric, tired of the dead piling up, and wants out. But, it is not 1969 and the withdrawal is not even beginning. It is, in relative terms, 1965, and the American public wants out only to know that more years of war, more years of dead, await us before a withdrawal begins in earnest.

After Vietnam, the American public, rightfully, was distrustful of our military leaders. After Vietnam, the American public, rightfully, was incensed by the fact that our government abandoned American soldiers. Once again, we are fed lies by our military leaders. Like Kent State, protesters are attacked, only this time with wooden dowels instead of real bullets. Yes, we have been betrayed, as a nation, as citizens, and as soldiers, once again, for the true lesson that was learned; that if you manipulate the media you can wage any war, at any time, for any pretext; that you can attack and smear anyone in the media without consequence; that you can torture and kill; and that nothing can stop you if you just refuse to listen. Mr. Laird wrote:

I didn't miss the fact that it was an ugly, mismanaged, tragic episode in U.S. history, with devastating loss of life for all sides. But there are those in our nation who would prefer to pick at that scab rather than let it heal.

And yet, even as he acknowledges that the Vietnam war was ugly, mismanaged, tragic and held devastating loss of life for everyone involved (except those who dodged the draft or got their daddy to get them cushy flying jobs in the Guard), he states:

The truth about Vietnam that revisionist historians conveniently forget is that the United States had not lost when we withdrew in 1973. In fact, we grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory two years later when Congress cut off the funding for South Vietnam that had allowed it to continue to fight on its own.

This is revisionist history at its finest. We had not lost in Vietnam when we started to withdraw our forces in 1969? We had four years of withdrawal, by his own account, and four years of soldiers continually dying as we withdrew; but we hadn't already been defeated? By his own words, President Nixon was elected, not because the Vietnam war was being won and needed another President to continue the war, but because the war was being lost and America said it was time to leave. This statement by Mr. Laird should sound familiar:

Over the four years of Nixon's first term, I had cautiously engineered the withdrawal of the majority of our forces while building up South Vietnam's ability to defend itself.

Yes, we were merely standing down as the South Vietnamese "stood up". Yes, and they stood up so well during that "cautious four year withdrawal" that, two years after the withdrawal, Saigon fell. But, it was those nasty people in Congress that "lost Vietnam"? If only we had not withdrawn our forces for 4 years, if only the South Vietnamese had 8 years instead of 6 years, they could have "stood up" enough?

This is the same rhetoric we hear today. We have heard since 2003 how we've progressed in Iraq despite all evidence to the contrary. We have heard how the insurgency was in its "last throes" as it only grew larger and more determined. We have heard how they will "stand up as we stand down" only to be told they cannot stand up in the time already allotted to them. We have already heard how we need our forces to remain in Iraq to protect Iraq because they, supposedly, cannot protect their own country. We continue to hear the same lies and rhetoric we heard during, and after, Vietnam.

What type of person does it take to betray their country, their military, and their own citizens? What type of person does it take to lie, over and over, about why our soldiers are dying while they sneak the coffins back into the country? What type of people use our military as backdrops and props, just to smear any veteran, any active duty person, who dares speak out against them?

No, it is not wrong to call it a betrayal, or, to call those who have betrayed us out for it. We do not own the Middle East or the oil in it. We could have invested in alternative energy sources for decades; but our government didn't. We could have found ways to avoid becoming so dependent on oil that it becomes a national security issue; but we didn't. No, it is not wrong to place the blame on our government for leading us into a war based on lies, or, to hold those in the military leadership accountable for supporting it.

There's more: "We have been betrayed; again" >>

War On Terror: The Rise Of The Politics of Fear: Nightmares, Lies And Manipulations

Incinerated body of an Iraqi soldier on the "Highway of Death," a name the press has given to the road from Mutlaa, Kuwait, to Basra, Iraq. U.S. planes immobilized the convoy by disabling vehicles at its front and rear, then bombing and strafing the resulting traffic jam for hours. More than 2,000 vehicles and tens of thousands of charred and dismembered bodies littered the sixty miles of highway. The clear rapid incineration of the human being [pictured above] suggests the use of napalm, phosphorus, or other incendiary bombs. These are anti-personnel weapons outlawed under the 1977 Geneva Protocols. This massive attack occurred after Saddam Hussein announced a complete troop withdrawal from Kuwait in compliance with UN Resolution 660. Such a massacre of withdrawing Iraqi soldiers violates the Geneva Convention of 1949, common article 3, which outlaws the killing of soldiers who "are out of combat." --War Crimes

The 1990/91 Gulf War, The Death Of Reason, the ensuing long years of the sanctions war against the people of Iraq, the 2003 invasion of the country, and the ongoing occupation of Iraq since, are all aspects of and symptoms created by something much larger and much more insidious: War On Terror: The Rise Of The Politics of Fear.

To help shake off and counteract what Maryscott O'Connor called "the System's monopoly over opinion-moulding", watch the following BBC documentary from Adam Curtis. It's a long one, three hours in total, split into three one hour segments. I highly recommend it for a fuller and clearer historical context and understanding of how we got to where we are today.

Video: The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear
Written and produced by Adam Curtis, via AxisOfLogic, 06 August 2007

Editor's Note: This 3-hour, BBC documentary shows that the "threat of terrorism" is to a very large extent, "a fantasy manufactured by politicians, national security profiteers and Islamic terrorists in order to project and consolidate their own political power". The documentary reveals the origins of the "war on terrorism" in the Reagan Administration under the influence of Neocons like Michael Ledeen and their ally, former CIA Chief, William Casey. The two videos below offer a taste of the entire documentary which is linked below the following brief video excerpts. - LMB (Les Blough, AxisOfLogic)

Here are two short excerpts: (You can watch the full 3 hour production in 3 parts, on the flip)

Video Excerpt: Interview of Melvin Goodman, Head of Office of Soviet Affairs, 1976-1987: "The CIA's chief of Soviet affairs from 1976 to 1987 admits Ronald Reagan had nothing to do with the downfall of the Soviet Union".

Video Excerpt: CIA admits that "lies became reality" while hyping the Soviet threat. (includes Michael Ledeen, pro-war neocon, and his argument installing "democracy" by force in other sovereign nations. Melvin Goodman describes the beginning of the mythological "war on terror" under Ronald Reagan.)

Watch the full 3 hour production in 3 parts, on the flip
The first 2 1/2 minutes of each video below have the same intro.

The Power of Nightmares Part 1: Baby it's Cold Outside

The Power of Nightmares Part 2: The Phantom Victory

The Power of Nightmares - Part 3: The Shadows in the Cave

Articles on Hyping Terror:

Hyping Terror For Fun, Profit - And Power
by Thom Hartmann

The Myth of an al Qaeda Takeover of Iraq
by Ted Galen Carpenter, Cato Institute

Everyone we fight in Iraq is now "al-Qaida"
by Glenn Greenwald

http://www.armchairsubversive.org/nmares.html

There's more: "War On Terror: The Rise Of The Politics of Fear:
Nightmares, Lies And Manipulations" >>

American Exceptionalism In Iraq

This film by John Pilger was made before George W. Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, but after George H.W. Bush attacked Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War in response to the Iraqi invasion Of Kuwait. "After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the United Nations (backed strongly by the US and UK) imposed harsh sanctions on Iraq that lasted for 10 years (1991-2001); the harsh restrictions on imports of everything, including access to key medicines, resulted in over a million deaths, more than half a million of which were women and children. That's more deaths than the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan and 9/11 combined." The film is an hour and fifteen minutes long. Watch it. While you're watching it, keep in mind that George W. Bush's Iraq and Mid-East Debacle has happened to Iraq since this film was made.

I saw someone earlier today make the claim that the Democratic control of Congress is too narrow for a fast, effective action to get us out of Iraq. That, in the sense that matters most, is utter, unadulterated, self-deceiving bullshit. The only sense in which it is true is that too many Democrats in Congress are placing their own interests ahead of the the lives of the soldiers and the Iraqis that are dying everyday, while those Democrats cynically try to use supporting/funding/continuing the debacle to win elections next year.
If the Democrats don't want to do the right thing... it becomes obvious that they want to continue the occupation.

For what? Cheap gasoline? Or the neocon vision of world domination?

What has been needed all along and is needed now is for the Democrats to show that they have some balls and display A Measure of Morality in Congress:

If you could secretly tell a magic genie "Yes" and suffer horribly and die but save the lives of a million people you've never met, would you say No? This one they don't even ask in philosophy school, much less Congress. But let's think about it for a minute. What's the worst fate a Congress Member could face as a result of voting against funding the war? For most it must be the loss of their seat. How horrible is that? Some of these congress members are freshmen, first elected last November campaigning on promises to end the war. Now they're prepared to vote $100 billion for the war in hopes of getting elected again in 2008. What in the hell did they want to get elected for in the first place? What district is going to receive less money if we end the war and redirect our spending to useful projects than if we continue the war but fund special pieces of pork here and there?

So what if they chance losing their seats. How horrible is that?

Personally, I think it is the best way for them to retain their seats.

The continuous whine that "we don't have the votes" is also part of the big lie.

If the Democrats stand up NOW and announce that they will no longer fund the occupation and that there will be no more emergency supplementals introduced when the current one runs out, the situation will become one of NO votes needed to NOT pass a bill. The ball will be in Bush's court.

The Democrats have absolute power in this debate. What good is it and why should voters let them retain it next year if they are too weak kneed to use it to end the Debacle? If they will not, then by default they proclaim their complicity with Bush.

The argument that 'defunding endangers the troops' is utter bullshit and is completely and irrefutably debunked. Let the rethugs try to accuse Democrats of it. Democrats will win that political argument, but ONLY if they have the cohones to do what they know is the right thing. ........................................................... Maybe America needs an Exceptional new National Anthem.

When I was a child I caught a fleeting glimpse, Out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look but it was gone. I cannot put my finger on it now. The child is grown, the dream is gone. I have become comfortably numb.

There's more: "American Exceptionalism In Iraq" >>

The Washington Consensus Of Iraq Reality Is Delusion

Recognition of the realities of the situation that has been created in Iraq is all well and good and important, but... and it's a big but.

This from Jay Ackroyd's post at TPMCafe really bothers me:

If you saw Taylor Marsh at YKos, you heard a clear delineation of this DC consensus. This isn't a matter of reflexive use of force as the only solution by crazy neocons. This is a recognition that Iraq is a failed state without a sovereign government and without the capacity to defend itself. The US Congress passes resolutions declaring what laws Iraq must pass, while the Pentagon makes all military decisions. Iraq's government plays no role other than certifying US policy. And, these days, we're hearing talk of changing the government. That talk is taking place in Washington. And there can be no freely elected, sovereign government in Iraq, because, in the Washington consensus, those bases are more important than a reprentative government--and no represesentative government would permit military bases defending Israel and threatening Iran.

This leaves the Democratic candidates in a very difficult position. They are part of this Washington consensus.

Iraq is a mess. That's undeniable reality. It's not going to be fixed easily. I think that's also undeniable reality.

Taylor Marsh is describing another, separate reality, however. The Washington Consensus. Which appears to distill down to the attitude that Washington must make the decisions for Iraq, almost as if Iraqis are incompetent children who cannot manage their own affairs. And I see nearly no recognition, if any at all, even grudging recognition, that is is Iraqis who are going to make the decisions. As they are doing now, successfully or not from their point of view.

The whole of the "recognition of reality" by the Washington consensus described in Ackroyd's post seems to me to be excuses and justifications for imperialism/colonialism/control of Iraq and the countrys resources, regardless of and without concern for what Iraqis want.

One of the things we know Iraqis want is to NOT be occupied by American military.

Every time Iraqis kill another American soldier, it is, in my view, a "request" to Washington to withdraw all the troops. Some of the puppet government of Iraq would deny that I think. But they are a puppet government, and a large percentage of the social groups in Iraq are rejecting that puppet government and doing their damnedest to force it to collapse.

Iraqis don't want US troops in their country, and they don't want a US puppet government running their country for the benefit of America. I think that's also undeniable reality.

The "Washington consensus" is focused only on what the "Washington consensus" wants.

I don't think Iraqis, in the main, care in the least what the "Washington consensus" wants, and I think that's also undeniable reality.

I think that if there are any "benchmarks" to be set or to be met, or "decisions" made by anyone about what is or is not "progress" for Iraq, rightfully those benchmarks and those decisions should be being set and made by Iraqis. Required benchmarks to be met by Washington for the "right" and the "privilege" of being allowed to stay and "help". And I believe now that in actual fact that is exactly what is now happening in Iraq.

Both the rate, with upwards of 10,000 Iraqi deaths from foreign terrorism each month now, and the total number of Iraqi deaths from foreign terrorism, are huge problems, that are probably creating hundreds of thousands of people who absolutely hate America and would like to kill as many Americans as possible.

Saba Ali Ihsaan, Baghdad, Irak

The American "surge" as with everything else they have done is a failure...

All I care about is that your country has its troops in my land raping its people, raping its resources, slaughtering our children, and defiling our Holy Places...

The Americans in Irak are reflecting their culture. Racist, callow, shallow, and seemingly unable read a map, it's just that they are a little more honest, a little bit more openly barbaric about it.

There is only one measure of progress that matters in Irak and that is the progress in chewing the invader forces into pieces and then spitting them out. Progress on that is excellent.

They came here as predators and now they are prey. The only thing an American understands is force, we sand nig*ers know a thing or two about that.

I think that, for good or for ill for the people of Iraq, it is not up to anyone in the US to decide for Iraqis what is or is not "progress".

To metaphorize a bit, since we destroyed the infrastructure of the house before we started the fire and made no effort to rebuild it, once we stop throwing fuel in and get out of the way before we are thrown out of the way, someone else will rebuild it.

It probably won't look anything like what we'd like it to when they're done, but too bad.

It's their business, in other words. Not America's. Regardless of how often the "national security interests" line is uttered.

The U.S. presence in Iraq, and the U.S. refusal to leave, is the problem.

It is in Americas interest obviously, to NOT have a failed state of anarchy in Iraq, and to not have Iraq aligned with Iran.

But that can't be forced on Iraq. Iraqis have the right to, and will, decide for themselves.

And they are.

All that Washingtons "help" has ever done for Iraq is make the situation worse. Continually. Never better. Only worse.

Iraq will get fixed. Eventually.

But I think it will not be republicans or democrats, or even the U.S. that fixes it. If Iraq can be fixed it will be Iraqis that fix it. They will, and do, set the benchmarks. I think not recognizing that is delusion.

When Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah opened the Arab Summit in Riyadh [...] speaking about Iraq as a land where "blood flows between brothers in the shadow of an illegitimate foreign occupation and hateful sectarianism," he offended many policymakers in Washington. But the statement was only one signal among many that, in the face of explosive conflicts that the Bush administration has caused or failed to contain, the king is out to assert Saudi Arabia's role as an independent leader in the region. The goals--to stabilize Iraq, build an Arab-Israeli peace and contain the growing influence of Iran--are the same as Washington's. But the means to those ends are very different. In an exclusive interview, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal sat down with NEWSWEEK's Christopher Dickey to trace the dramatic changes in his country's policy over the last year.

What will fix Iraq is not staying there and fantasizing that continuing to do the same things that are causing the problems there will somehow magically begin to solve the problems.

What will fix Iraq is not "doing" something.

What will fix Iraq is "not doing" something.

Not that I expect it will ever happen, but not funding the occupation any longer and complete and total withdrawal of all U.S. military from the country is what will begin fixing Iraq.

Along with massive reparations paid to the Iraqi people, perhaps equal to the trillion dollars spent to destroy their country.

There's more: "The Washington Consensus Of Iraq Reality Is Delusion" >>

The Iraqis Don't Deserve Us. So We Betray Them..

The Iraqis don't deserve us. So we betray them...
By Robert Fisk, The Independent, 23 August 2007

Always, we have betrayed them. We backed "Flossy" in Yemen. The French backed their local "harkis" in Algeria; then the FLN victory forced them to swallow their own French military medals before dispatching them into mass graves. In Vietnam, the Americans demanded democracy and, one by one - after praising the Vietnamese for voting under fire in so many cities, towns and villages - they destroyed the elected prime ministers because they were not abiding by American orders.

Now we are at work in Iraq. Those pesky Iraqis don't deserve our sacrifice, it seems, because their elected leaders are not doing what we want them to do.

Does that remind you of a Palestinian organisation called Hamas? First, the Americans loved Ahmed Chalabi, the man who fabricated for Washington the"'weapons of mass destruction" (with a hefty bank fraud charge on his back). Then, they loved Ayad Allawi, a Vietnam-style spook who admitted working for 26 intelligence organisations, including the CIA and MI6. Then came Ibrahim al-Jaafari, symbol of electoral law, whom the Americans loved, supported, loved again and destroyed. Couldn't get his act together. It was up to the Iraqis, of course, but the Americans wanted him out. And the seat of the Iraqi government - a never-never land in the humidity of Baghdad's green zone - lay next to the largest US embassy in the world. So goodbye, Ibrahim.

Then there was Nouri al-Maliki, a man with whom Bush could "do business"; loved, supported and loved again until Carl Levin and the rest of the US Senate Armed Forces Committee - and, be sure, George W Bush - decided he couldn't fulfil America's wishes. He couldn't get the army together, couldn't pull the police into shape, an odd demand when US military forces were funding and arming some of the most brutal Sunni militias in Baghdad, and was too close to Tehran. ...>>

There you have it. We overthrew Saddam's Sunni minority and the Iraqis elected the Shias into power, and all those old Iranian acolytes who had grown up under the Islamic Revolution in exile from the Iraq-Iran war - Jaafari was a senior member of the Islamic Dawaa party which was enthusiastically seizing Western hostages in Beirut in the 1980s and trying to blow up our friend the Emir of Kuwait - were voted into power. So blame the Iranians for their "interference" in Iraq when Iran's own creatures had been voted into power.

And now, get rid of Maliki. Chap doesn't know how to unify his own people, for God's sake. No interference, of course. It's up to the Iraqis, or at least, it's up to the Iraqis who live under American protection in the green zone. The word in the Middle East - where the "plot" (al-moammarer) has the power of reality - is that Maliki's cosy trips to Tehran and Damascus these past two weeks have been the final straw for the fantasists in Washington. Because Iran and Syria are part of the axis of evil or the cradle of evil or whatever nonsense Bush and his cohorts and the Israelis dream up, take a look at the $30bn in arms heading to Israel in the next decade in the cause of "peace".

Maliki's state visits to the crazed Ahmedinejad and the much more serious Bashar al-Assad appear to be, in Henry VIII's words, "treachery, treachery, treachery". But Maliki is showing loyalty to his former Iranian masters and their Syrian Alawite allies (the Alawites being an interesting satellite of the Shias).

These creatures - let us use the right word - belong to us and thus we can step on them when we wish. We will not learn - we will never learn, it seems - the key to Iraq. The majority of the people are Muslim Shias. The majority of their leaders, including the "fiery" Muqtada al-Sadr were trained, nurtured, weaned, loved, taught in Iran. And now, suddenly, we hate them. The Iraqis do not deserve us. This is to be the grit on the sand that will give our tanks traction to leave Iraq. Bring on the clowns! Maybe they can help us too.

© 2007 Independent News and Media Limited

There's more: "The Iraqis Don't Deserve Us. So We Betray Them.." >>

Don't Watch This Video

From Bear Republic Action Group. This is what is being done in Iraq in your name, while Republicans continue to support George W. Bush and the Democrat controlled Congress refuses to stop funding and put an end to George W. Bush's occupation of that country:

Warning: This video is ugly, savage and without a doubt not for the kids or the squeamish….But it is what George W. Bush and his ‘Rubber Stamp Republican Party’ are doing in the full light of day. Send a link to this to anyone you know who thinks the ‘Surge’ is working or that, in fact, the people ‘running’ this brutal, illegal occupation have any fucking idea what they are doing. And I do mean any idea at all.

[Cross-Posted at Edgeing]

There's more: "Don't Watch This Video" >>

George W. Obama? Or Hillary R. Bush?

[Cross-Posted at Daily Kos]

Ira Chernus, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has written probably the most sobering article I've yet seen about the prospects for the Iraq occupation, and what can be expected from Democratic presidential candidates.

Tomgram: Ira Chernus, Democratic Doublespeak on Iraq

Start with the simplest, most basic fudge. Newspapers and the TV news constantly report on various plans for the "withdrawal of American troops" from Iraq, when what's being proposed is the withdrawal of American "combat troops" or "combat brigades." This isn't a matter of splitting hairs; it's the difference between a plan for full-scale withdrawal and a plan to remain in Iraq in a different military form for the long term. American combat brigades only add up to perhaps half of the troops we presently have in that country.

Pity the poor Democratic candidates for president, caught between Iraq and a hard place. Every day, more and more voters decide that we must end the war and set a date to start withdrawing our troops from Iraq. Most who will vote in the Democratic primaries concluded long ago that we must leave Iraq, and they are unlikely to let anyone who disagrees with them have the party's nomination in 2008.

But what does it mean to "leave Iraq"? Here's where most of the Democratic candidates come smack up against that hard place. There is a longstanding bipartisan consensus in the foreign-policy establishment that the US must control every strategically valuable region of the world -- and none more so than the oil heartlands of the planet. That's been a hard-and-fast rule of the elite for some six decades now. No matter how hard the task may be, they demand that presidents be rock-hard enough to get the job done.

So whatever "leave Iraq" might mean, no candidate of either party likely to enter the White House on January 20, 2009 can think it means letting Iraqis determine their own national policies or fate.
...
So the Democratic front-runners must promise voters that they will end the war -- with not too many ideologically laden ifs, ands, or buts -- while they assure the foreign-policy establishment that they will never abandon the drive for hegemony in the Middle East (or anywhere else). In other words, the candidates have to be able to talk out of both sides of their mouths at the same time.

It's depressing, but I'd recommend reading the entire article.

George W. Obama?

"The single most important job of any president is to protect the American people," he affirmed in a major foreign-policy statement last April. But "the threats we face.... can no longer be contained by borders and boundaries.... The security of the American people is inextricably linked to the security of all people." That's why the U.S. must be the "leader of the free world." It's hard to find much difference on foreign policy between Clinton and Obama, except that Barack is more likely to dress up the imperial march of U.S. interests in such old-fashioned Cold War flourishes.

That delights neoconservative guru Robert Kagan, who summed up Obama's message succinctly: "His critique is not that we've meddled too much but that we haven't meddled enough.... To Obama, everything and everyone everywhere is of strategic concern to the United States." To control everything and everyone, he wants "the strongest, best-equipped military in the world.... A 21st century military to stay on the offense." That, he says, will take at least 92,000 more soldiers and Marines -- precisely the number Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has recommended to President Bush.

Hillary R. Bush?

Hillary Clinton declares forthrightly: "It is time to begin ending this war.... Start bringing home America's troops.... within 90 days." Troops home: It sounds clear enough. But she is always careful to avoid the crucial word all. A few months ago she told an interviewer: "We have remaining vital national security interests in Iraq.... What we can do is to almost take a line sort of north of, between Baghdad and Kirkuk, and basically put our troops into that region." A senior Pentagon officer who has briefed Clinton told NPR commentator Ted Koppel that Clinton expects U.S. troops to be in Iraq when she ends her second term in 2017.

Why all these troops? We have "very real strategic national interests in this region," Clinton explains.

You are being played again.

They are counting on getting your vote by default, because they know that people are afraid that if they DON'T vote Democratic EVEN if the Democrats will not end the occupation they will end up with the rethugs back in power.

Remember all the fearmongering that Bushco did? The Democrats are now using it against you.

BUT, if they are elected next year in spite of that fact that they continue the occupation... WHAT DIFFERENCE is there between them and the rethugs?

What difference? NONE. It won't be any different from electing rethugs.

In other words by electing the Democrats next year out of fear of the rethugs, even if the Democrats won't end the occupation, EFFECTIVELY the country will have re-elected rethugs (called democrats).

Cheerful prospect, hmmm?

Think it through. Don't vote out of fear. You have the power and the dems know you have the power. So they fearmonger.

The only hope you reading this have, the only hope any of us have, is to threaten the Democrats with loss of support if they will not use the power they have to stop funding the Iraq occupation and force a COMPLETE withdrawal. Otherwise settle in for a never ending occupation if Iraq while you watch the death tolls grow.

It's the only way to change the paradigm.

Foreign Policy in a post-Bush America

On January 20th, 2009 America's new President will face a new era of foreign policy with challenges and options different than those faced by prior administrations. Many of these new challenges have been brewing for decades, but most were created or exacerbated by mistakes made since the turn of the century.
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If American wants to maintain its position of influence over world affairs, and the privileges which that influence brings, we need to dramatically change our approach to foreign policy. As popular as Clinton is overseas, a return to 90's style diplomacy in a post 3/20/2003 world will not be enough. A clear rejection of the Bush Doctrine of Preemptive Strike and a return to coalition building is certainly a good start but we need to go beyond that. We can no longer expect to world to accept that our intentions are in good when they see negative consequences of our actions.

We can no longer use our military might to protect our access to resources such as oil without expecting repercussions in the form international anger and angst which expresses itself as protests, or much worse, terror. We cannot continue to negotiate trade agreements which favor our corporate interests and neglect the rights of workers abroad and needs of workers at home. As we select a new face to govern America, we must also choose a leader who is able to reevaluate America's approach to foreign affairs and establish a new doctrine of policies which can carry us forward, repairing the damage from our mistakes and building a strong foundation for our relationships with nations around the globe.

Katrina Vanden Heuvel, The Nation
End the War (On Terror)

With the 2008 elections looming, it is unlikely that the Democrats (with a few honorable exceptions) will rethink their official national security strategy in any significant way. But citizens committed to a vision of real security can launch a debate framed by our own concerns and values. If we have learned anything in the past six years, it is that even overwhelming military power is ill suited to dealing with the central challenges of the 21st century: climate crisis, the worst pandemic in human history (AIDS), the spread of weapons of mass destruction, stateless terrorists with global reach, genocidal conflict and starvation afflicting Africa, and a global economy that is generating greater instability and inequality.

A real security plan would widen the definition to include all threats to human life, whether they stem from terrorism, disease, environmental degradation, natural disasters or global poverty--a definition that makes it clear that the military is only one of many tools that can be used to address urgent threats. A last resort. This alternative security strategy would also reconfigure the US presence in the world - reducing the footprint of American military power, pulling back the forward deployments drastically and reducing the bloated Pentagon budget by as much as half.

Yes, at home, all this will take time and have to overcome the fiercest kind of political resistance. Yet this is not an impossible political goal, now that Americans have seen where the military option leads. Dealing intelligently with reality is not retreat. It is the first wise step toward restoring real national security.

Princeton Universities Wilson School has in fact been working on devising a new cogent and workable foreign policy for America that may show promise. The Princeton Project on National Security on September 29, 2006 released their final report in the form of 96 page PDF document titled "Forging a World of Liberty Under Law, U.S. National Security In The 21st Century, which according to their mission statement was developed by 400 contributors over a 2 year period, to "set forth agreed premises or foundational principles to guide the development of specific national security strategies by successive administrations in coming decades".

The Princeton Project's report is here.

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In 2008 either the Democrats or the Republicans will take control of the Executive Branch and the Presidency, and therefore the administration of US Foreign Policy.

The purpose of this post is to highlight the need for, and to ADVOCATE for a drastic overhaul of US Foreign Policy.

My own politics are best described this way: I am not at all concerned with which party "wins" next year. I want the occupation ended as soon as possible so that the fewest Americans and Iraqis die. Preferably none. Period. I also see the occupation as a specific instance of the more general doctrine of preemptive war - really imperialist hegemony - that the neocons and rethugs want to pursue. I want the specific instance ended and the mindset behind the general doctrine made politically and socially unacceptable and people who hold that mindset treated as pariahs, so that no matter which party is elected it will not happen again.

A new and sensible Foreign Policy framework is something that is badly needed if America is to move forward as a respected and respectable member of a community of nations, and avoid creating terrorism and tragedies like 9/11 in future.

"Ancient History": U.S. Conduct in the Middle East Since World War II and the Folly Of Intervention:

After 70 years of broken Western promises regarding Arab independence, it should not be surprising that the West is viewed with suspicion and hostility by the populations (as opposed to some of the political regimes) of the Middle East.(3) The United States, as the heir to British imperialism in the region, has been a frequent object of suspicion. Since the end of World War II, the United States, like the European colonial powers before it, has been unable to resist becoming entangled in the region's political conflicts. Driven by a desire to keep the vast oil reserves in hands friendly to the United States, a wish to keep out potential rivals (such as the Soviet Union), opposition to neutrality in the cold war, and domestic political considerations, the United States has compiled a record of tragedy in the Middle East. The most recent part of that record, which includes U.S. alliances with Iraq to counter Iran and then with Iran and Syria to counter Iraq, illustrates a theme that has been played in Washington for the last 45 years.

NOTE: Ira Chernus, besides blogging at The Smirking Chimp, is also the author of the book: Monsters to Destroy: The Neoconservative War on Terror And Sin:

In an ambitious effort to clarify a complicated issue, Ira Chernus tackles the question of why U.S. foreign policy aimed at building national strength and security has the paradoxical effect of making the country less safe and secure. His answer: The "war on terror" is based not on realistic appraisals of the causes of conflict, but rather on "stories" that neoconservative policymakers believe about human nature and a world divided between absolute good and absolute evil. The root of the stories lies in these policymakers' terror of the social and cultural changes that disrupted American society during the sixties. The neoconservative stories portray those responsible for change not simply as political opponents, but as enemies or sinners acting with evil intent to destroy American values and morals--that is, as "monsters" rather than human beings.

Exploring both secular and religious components of this political ideology, Chernus shows that after 9/11 the Bush administration transferred the story from a domestic to a foreign stage. The goal of the war on terrorism is to keep on fighting monsters forever, to give Americans a global arena where they can show that they still believe in eternal moral values and have the strength to resist the winds of change. Traditional conservatives support the war on terrorism because its story mirrors their own stories about a war against sin. Liberals accept an endless war against foreign evil because they fought the same kind of war against communism for forty years. They act out old stories that feel familiar and safe, rather than finding new policies that would actually make us more secure. This turns the United States into a national insecurity state.

There's more: "George W. Obama? Or Hillary R. Bush?" >>