The Power Of No

[Crossposted from Docudharma]

Thank you Chris Dodd.



This is Leadership, this IS how it works.

Until one person says no, evil cannot be stopped. Until one respected figure, one LEADER, finds the courage to step forward and OPPOSE, weaker people, not finding the courage within themselves, have nowhere to turn and no one to follow.

The sad, no....the horrifying part, is that it is not one of the leading candidates, the 'mainstream' candidates, the 'electable' candidates who stood up for our rights and for the Rule of Law. Now after being led by Dodd, they are (seemingly a bit reluctantly) falling in line. Because the power of no cannot be denied.

Is our politicians learning?

Let us hope to god they are, for as we all know, the stakes are incredibly high.

"When you give up basic Constitutional rights, you give terrorists a far greater victory in ways." Dodd said.

One man stood up and said no!

And...was rewarded by The People. Contributions totalling over $200,000 in just 36 hours, as well as with adulation in the blogosphere and beyond.

For saying what amounts to one word....no.

What we have been saying on the blogs for quite a while has now penetrated the MSM's bubble. Watch this Chris Mattews interview. The Democratic Party's "strategy" of cowering before Bush is being exposed already, more than a full year before the election. Cowards do NOT win elections. Right now, as Dodd has proven, standing up to Bush and saying no is leading. It is newsworthy. It is popular. It is a winning strategy. And it is what it will take to begin to reverse the damage.

One would think it would be obvious Saying no to the most unpopular President ever.....makes you popular.

Whoever says no to George Bush INSTANTLY gains support.

This is not politics as usual....because people are DYING because of Bush, this is not 'an issue,' It is literally a life and death struggle. Whoever says no to George Bush is an instant hero to the 75% of the country who disapprove of The Worst President ever. It seems like a no-brainer, but it took one man to do it, to stop the pathetic, pervasive capitulation that has swept the Democrats like a virus.

Let's hope it is contagious.

Let's hope it is a trend.

Let's hope that it leads to a rash of saying no.

Because once the first no appears and is successful, who knows where no can lead.

Chris Dodd is the first to point out that the Emperor has no clothes. Learn his lesson Democrats....if you want to be elected....Just say no.

But more importantly, if you want to take America back and restore Justice and the Rule of Law, the whole process starts with just one tiny word....

no

[Read all posts about Chris Dodd]

There's more: "The Power Of No" >>

The Myth of AQI

[Republished with permission from The Washington Monthly]

The Myth of AQI

Fighting al-Qaeda in Iraq is the last big argument for keeping U.S. troops in the country. But the military's estimation of the threat is alarmingly wrong.
By Andrew Tilghman

In March 2007, a pair of truck bombs tore through the Shiite marketplace in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar, killing more than 150 people. The blast reduced the ancient city center to rubble, leaving body parts and charred vegetables scattered amid pools of blood. It was among the most lethal attacks to date in the five-year-old Iraq War. Within hours, Iraqi officials in Baghdad had pinned the bombing on al-Qaeda, and news reports from Reuters, the BBC, MSNBC, and others carried those remarks around the world. An Internet posting by the terrorist group known as al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) took credit for the destruction. Within a few days, U.S. Army General David Petraeus publicly blamed AQI for the carnage, accusing the group of trying to foment sectarian violence and ignite a civil war. Back in Washington, pundits latched on to the attack with special interest, as President Bush had previously touted a period of calm in Tal Afar as evidence that the military's retooled counterinsurgency doctrine was working. For days, reporters and bloggers debated whether the attacks signaled a "resurgence" of al-Qaeda in the city.

Yet there's reason to doubt that AQI had any role in the bombing. In the weeks before the attack, sectarian tensions had been simmering after a local Sunni woman told Al Jazeera television that she had been gang-raped by a group of Shiite Iraqi army soldiers. Multiple insurgent groups called for violence to avenge the woman's honor. Immediately after the blast, some in uniform expressed doubts about al-Qaeda's alleged role and suggested that homegrown sectarian strife was more likely at work. "It's really not al-Qaeda who has infiltrated so much as the fact [of] what happened in 2003," said Ahmed Hashim, a professor at the Naval War College who served as an Army political adviser to the 3rd Cavalry Regiment in Tal Afar until shortly before the bombing. "The formerly dominant Sunni Turkmen majority there," he told PBS's NewsHour With Jim Lehrer soon after the bombing, "suddenly ... felt themselves having been thrown out of power. And this is essentially their revenge."

A week later, Iraqi security forces raided a home outside Tal Afar andarrested two men suspected of orchestrating the bombing. Yet when the U.S. military issued a press release about the arrests, there was no mention of an al-Qaeda connection. The suspects were never formally charged, and nearly six months later neither the U.S. military nor Iraqi police are certain of the source of the attacks. In recent public statements, the military has backed off its former allegations that al-Qaeda was responsible, instead asserting, as Lieutenant Colonel Michael Donnelly wrote in response to an inquiry from the Washington Monthly, that "the tactics used in this attack are consistent with al-Qaeda."

This scenario has become common. After a strike, the military rushes to point the finger at al-Qaeda, even when the actual evidence remains hazy and an alternative explanation—raw hatred between local Sunnis and Shiites—might fit the circumstances just as well. The press blasts such dubious conclusions back to American citizens and policy makers in Washington, and the incidents get tallied and quantified in official reports, cited by the military in briefings in Baghdad. The White House then takes the reports and crafts sound bites depicting AQI as the number one threat to peace and stability in Iraq. (In July, for instance, at Charleston Air Force Base, the president gave a speech about Iraq that mentioned al-Qaeda ninety-five times.)

By now, many in Washington have learned to discount the president's rhetorical excesses when it comes to the war. But even some of his harshest critics take at face value the estimates provided by the military about AQI's presence. Politicians of both parties point to such figures when forming their positions on the war. All of the top three Democratic presidential candidates have argued for keeping some American forces in Iraq or the region, citing among other reasons the continued threat from al-Qaeda.

But what if official military estimates about the size and impact of al-Qaeda in Iraq are simply wrong? Indeed, interviews with numerous military and intelligence analysts, both inside and outside of government, suggest that the number of strikes the group has directed represent only a fraction of what official estimates claim. Further, al-Qaeda's presumed role in leading the violence through uniquely devastating attacks that catalyze further unrest may also be overstated.

Having been led astray by flawed prewar intelligence about WMDs, official Washington wants to believe it takes a more skeptical view of the administration's information now. Yet Beltway insiders seem to be making almost precisely the same mistakes in sizing up al-Qaeda in Iraq.

[keep reading...]

Despite President Bush's near-singular focus on al-Qaeda in Iraq, most in Washington understand that instability on the ground stems from multiple sources. Numerous attacks on both U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians have been the handiwork of Shiite militants, often connected to, or even part of, the Iraqi government. Opportunistic criminal gangs engage in some of the same heinous tactics.

The Sunni resistance is also comprised of multiple groups. The first consists of so-called "former regime elements." These include thousands of ex-officers from Saddam's old intelligence agency, the Mukabarat, and from the elite paramilitary unit Saddam Fedayeen. Their primary goal is to drive out the U.S. occupation and install a Sunni-led government hostile to Iranian influence. Some within this broad group support reconciliation with the current government or negotiations with the United States, under the condition that American forces set a timetable for a troop withdrawal.

The second category consists of homegrown Iraqi Sunni religious groups, such as the Mujahadeen Army of Iraq. These are native Iraqis who aim to install a religious-based government in Baghdad, similar to the regime in Tehran. These groups use religious rhetoric and terrorist tactics but are essentially nationalistic in their aims.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq comprises the third group. The terrorist network was founded in 2003 by the now-dead Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. (The extent of the group's organizational ties to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda is hotly debated, but the organizations share a worldview and set of objectives.) AQI is believed to have the most non-Iraqis in its ranks, particularly among its leadership. However, most recent assessments say the rank and file are mostly radicalized Iraqis. AQI, which calls itself the "Islamic State of Iraq," espouses the most radical form of Islam and calls for the imposition of strict sharia, or Islamic law. The group has no plans for a future Iraqi government and instead hopes to create a new Islamic caliphate with borders reaching far beyond Mesopotamia.

The essential questions are: How large is the presence of AQI, in terms of manpower and attacks instigated, and what role does the group play in catalyzing further violence? For the first question, the military has produced an estimate. In a background briefing this July in Baghdad, military officials said that during the first half of this year AQI accounted for 15 percent of attacks in Iraq. That figure was also cited in the military intelligence report during final preparations for a National Intelligence Estimate in July.

This is the number on which many military experts inside the Beltway rely. Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow in foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution who attended the Baghdad background briefing, explained that he thought the estimate derived from a comprehensive analysis by teams of local intelligence agents who examine the type and location of daily attacks, and their intended targets, and crosscheck that with reports from Iraqi informants and other data, such as intercepted phone calls. "It's a fairly detailed kind of assessment," O'Hanlon said. "Obviously you can't always know who is behind an attack, but there is a fairly systematic way of looking at the attacks where they can begin to make a pretty informed guess."

Yet those who have worked on estimates inside the system take a more circumspect view. Alex Rossmiller, who worked in Iraq as an intelligence officer for the Department of Defense, says that real uncertainties exist in assigning responsibility for attacks. "It was kind of a running joke in our office," he recalls. "We would sarcastically refer to everybody as al-Qaeda."

To describe AQI's presence, intelligence experts cite a spectrum of estimates, ranging from 8 percent to 15 percent. The fact that such "a big window" exists, says Vincent Cannistraro, former chief of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, indicates that "[those experts] really don't have a very good perception of what is going on."

It's notable that military intelligence reports have opted to cite a figure at the very top of that range. But even the low estimate of 8 percent may be an overstatement, if you consider some of the government's own statistics.

The first instructive set of data comes from the U.S.-sponsored Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. In March, the organization analyzed the online postings of eleven prominent Sunni insurgent groups, including AQI, tallying how many attacks each group claimed. AQI took credit for 10 percent of attacks on Iraqi security forces and Shiite militias (forty-three out of 439 attacks), and less than 4 percent of attacks on U.S. troops (seventeen out of 357). Although these Internet postings should not be taken as proof positive of the culprits, it's instructive to remember that PR-conscious al-Qaeda operatives are far more likely to overstate than understate their role.

When turning to the question of manpower, military officials told the New York Times in August that of the roughly 24,500 prisoners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq (nearly all of whom are Sunni), just 1,800—about 7 percent—claim allegiance to al-Qaeda in Iraq. Moreover, the composition of inmates does not support the assumption that large numbers of foreign terrorists, long believed to be the leaders and most hard-core elements of AQI, are operating inside Iraq. In August, American forces held in custody 280 foreign nationals—slightly more than 1 percent of total inmates.

The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), which arguably has the best track record for producing accurate intelligence assessments, last year estimated that AQI's membership was in a range of "more than 1,000." When compared with the military's estimate for the total size of the insurgency—between 20,000 and 30,000 full-time fighters—this figure puts AQI forces at around 5 percent. When compared with Iraqi intelligence's much larger estimates of the insurgency—200,000 fighters—INR's estimate would put AQI forces at less than 1 percent. This year, the State Department dropped even its base-level estimate, because, as an official explained, "the information is too disparate to come up with a consensus number."

How big, then, is AQI? The most persuasive estimate I've heard comes from Malcolm Nance, the author of The Terrorists of Iraq and a twenty-year intelligence veteran and Arabic speaker who has worked with military and intelligence units tracking al-Qaeda inside Iraq. He believes AQI includes about 850 full-time fighters, comprising 2 percent to 5 percent of the Sunni insurgency. "Al-Qaeda in Iraq," according to Nance, "is a microscopic terrorist organization."

So how did the military come up with an estimate of 15 percent, when government data and many of the intelligence community's own analysts point to estimates a fraction of that size? The problem begins at the top. When the White House singles out al-Qaeda in Iraq for special attention, the bureaucracy responds by creating procedures that hunt down more evidence of the organization. The more manpower assigned to focus on the group, the more evidence is uncovered that points to it lurking in every shadow. "When you have something that is really hot, the leaders start tasking everyone to look into that," explains W. Patrick Lang, a retired U.S. Army colonel and former head of Middle East intelligence analysis for the Department of Defense. "Whoever is at the top of the pyramid says, 'Make me a briefing showing what al-Qaeda in Iraq is doing,' and then the decision maker says, 'Aha, I knew I was right.'"

With disproportionate resources dedicated to tracking AQI, the search has become a self-reinforcing loop. The Army has a Special Operations task force solely dedicated to tracking al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Defense Intelligence Agency tracks AQI through its Iraq office and its counterterrorism office. The result is more information culled, more PowerPoint slides created, and, ultimately, more attention drawn to AQI, which amplifies its significance in the minds of military and intelligence officers. "Once people look at everything through that lens, al-Qaeda is all they see," said Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer who also worked at the U.S. State Department's Office of Counterterrorism. "It sort of becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Ground-level analysts in the field, facing pressures from superiors to document AQI's handiwork, might be able to question such assumptions if they had strong intelligence networks on the ground. Unfortunately, that's rarely the case. The intelligence community's efforts are hobbled by too few Arabic speakers in their ranks and too many unreliable informants in Iraqi communities, rendering a hazy picture that is open to interpretations.

Because uncertainty exists, the bar for labeling an attack the work of al-Qaeda can be very low. The fact that a detainee possesses al-Qaeda pamphlets or a laptop computer with cached jihadist Web sites, for example, is at times enough for analysts to link a detainee to al-Qaeda. "Sometimes it's as simple as an anonymous tip that al-Qaeda is active in a certain village, so they will go out on an operation and whoever they roll up, we call them al-Qaeda," says Alex Rossmiller. "People can get labeled al-Qaeda anywhere along in the chain of events, and it's really hard to unlabel them." Even when the military backs off explicit statements that AQI is responsible, as with the Tal Afar truck bombings, the perception that an attack is the work of al-Qaeda is rarely corrected.

The result can be baffling for the troops working on the ground, who hear the leadership characterizing the conflict in Iraq in ways that do not necessarily match what they see in the dusty and danger-laden villages. Michael Zacchea, a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Reserves who was deployed to Iraq, said he was sometimes skeptical of upper-level analysis emphasizing al-Qaeda in Iraq rather than the insurgency's local roots. "It's very, very frustrating for everyone involved who is trying to do the right thing," he said. "That's not how anyone learned to play the game when we were officers coming up the ranks, and we were taught to provide clear battlefield analysis."

Even if the manpower and number of attacks attributed to AQI have been exaggerated—and they have—many observers maintain that what is uniquely dangerous about the group is not its numbers, but the spectacular nature of its strikes. While homegrown Sunni and Shiite militias engage for the most part in tit-for-tat violence to forward sectarian ends, AQI's methods are presumed to be different—more dramatic, more inflammatory, and having a greater ripple effect on the country's fragile political environment. "The effect of al-Qaeda has been far beyond the numbers that they field," explains Thomas Donnelly, resident fellow for defense and national security at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. "The question is, What attacks are likely to have the most destabilizing political and strategic affects?" He points, as do many inside the administration, to the February 2006 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samara, a revered Shiite shrine, as a paramount example of AQI's outsize influence. President Bush has laid unqualified blame for the Samara bombing on al-Qaeda, and described the infamous incident—and ensuing sectarian violence—as a fatal tipping point toward the current unrest.

But is this view of AQI's vanguard role in destabilizing Iraq really true? There are three reasons to question that belief.

First, although spectacular attacks were a distinctive AQI hallmark early in the war, the group has since lost its monopoly on bloody fireworks. After five years of shifting alliances, cross-pollination of tactics, and copycat attacks, other insurgent groups now launch equally dramatic and politically charged attacks. For example, a second explosion at the Samara mosque in June 2007, which destroyed the shrine's minarets and sparked a wave of revenge attacks on Sunni mosques nationwide, may have been an inside job. U.S. military officials said fifteen uniformed men from the Shiite-run Iraqi Security Forces were arrested for suspected involvement in the attack.

Second, it remains unclear whether the original Samara bombing was itself the work of AQI. The group never took credit for the attack, as it has many other high-profile incidents. The man who the military believe orchestrated the bombing, an Iraqi named Haitham al-Badri, was both a Samara native and a former high-ranking government official under Saddam Hussein. (His right-hand man, Hamed Jumaa Farid al-Saeedi, was also a former military intelligence officer in Saddam Hussein's army.) Key features of the bombing did not conform to the profile of an AQI attack. For example, the bombers did not target civilians, or even kill the Shiite Iraqi army soldiers guarding the mosque, both of which are trademark tactics of AQI. The planners also employed sophisticated explosive devices, suggesting formal military training common among former regime officers, rather than the more bluntly destructive tactics typical of AQI. Finally, Samara was the heart of Saddam's power base, where former regime fighters keep tight control over the insurgency. Frank "Greg" Ford, a retired counterintelligence agent for the Army Reserves, who worked with the Army in Samara before the 2006 bombing, says that the evidence points away from AQI and toward a different conclusion: "The Baathists directed that attack," says Ford.

Third, while some analysts believe that AQI drafts Baathist insurgents to carry out its attacks, other intelligence experts think it is the other way around. In other words, they see evidence of native insurgent forces coopting the steady stream of delusional extremists seeking martyrdom that AQI brings into Iraq. "Al-Qaeda can't operate anywhere in Iraq without kissing the ring of the former regime," says Nance. "They can't move car bombs full of explosives and foreign suicide bombers through a city without everyone knowing who they are. They need to be facilitated." Thus new foreign fighters "come through and some local Iraqis will say, 'Okay, why don't you go down to the Ministry of Defense building downtown.'" AQI recruits often find themselves taking orders from a network of former regime insurgents, who assemble their car bombs and tell them what to blow up. They become, as Nance says, "puppets for the other insurgent groups."

The view that AQI is neither as big nor as lethal as commonly believed is widespread among working-level analysts and troops on the ground. A majority of those interviewed for this article believe that the military's AQI estimates are overblown to varying degrees. If such misgivings are common, why haven't doubts pricked the public debate? The reason is that alternate views are running up against an echo chamber of powerful players all with an interest in hyping AQI's role.

The first group that profits from an outsize focus on AQI are former regime elements, and the tribal chiefs with whom they are often allied. These forces are able to carry out attacks against Shiites and Americans, but also to shift the blame if it suits their purposes. While the U.S. military has recently touted "news" that Sunni insurgents have turned against the al-Qaeda terrorists in Anbar Province, there is little evidence of actual clashes between these two groups. Sunni insurgents in Anbar have largely ceased attacks on Americans, but some observers suggest that this development has less to do with vanquishing AQI than with the fact that U.S. troops now routinely deliver cash-filled duffle bags to tribal sheiks serving as "lead contractors" on "reconstruction projects." The excuse of fighting AQI comes in handy. "Remember, Iraq is an honor society," explains Juan Cole, an Iraq expert and professor of modern Middle Eastern studies at the University of Michigan. "But if you say it wasn't us—it was al-Qaeda—then you don't lose face."

The second benefactor is the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, often the first to blame specific attacks on AQI. Talking about "al-Qaeda" offers the government a politically correct way of talking about Sunni violence without seeming to blame the Sunnis themselves, to whom they are ostensibly trying to reach out in a unity government. On a deeper level, however, the al-Maliki regime has very limited popular support, and the government officials and ruling Islamic Dawa Party feel an imperative to include Iraqi troubles in the broader "global war in terrorism" in order to keep U.S. troops in the country. In June, when faced with increasingly uncomfortable pressure from the Americans for his failure to resolve key political issues, al-Maliki warned that Iraqi intelligence had found evidence of a "widespread and dangerous plan by the terrorist al-Qaeda organization" to mount attacks outside of Iraq.

Elsewhere within the Shiite bloc of Iraqi politics, Moqtada al-Sadr has his own reasons for playing up the idea of AQI. "The Sadrists want to overstate the role of al-Qaeda in a way to emphasize on the 'foreignness' of the current problem in Iraq; and this easily fits their anti-occupation ideology, which seems to gain more popularity among Shia Iraqis on a daily basis," said Babak Rahimi, a professor of Islamic Studies and expert in Shiite politics at the University of California at San Diego.

Bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, remain eager to take credit for the violence in Iraq, despite the bad blood that existed between bin Laden and AQI's slain founder, al-Zarqawi. They've produced a long series of taped statements in recent years taunting U.S. leaders and attempting to conflate their operations with the Sunni resistance in Iraq. "They want to bring this all together as a motivating tool to encourage recruitment," said Farhana Ali, a terrorism expert at the RAND Corporation.

The press has also been complicit in inflating the threat of AQI. Because of the danger on the ground, reporters struggle to do the kind of comprehensive field reporting that's necessary to check facts and question statements from military spokespersons and Iraqi politicians. Today, for example, U.S. reporters rarely travel independently outside central Baghdad. Few, if any, insurgents have ever given interviews to Western reporters. These limitations are understandable, if unfortunate. But news organizations are reluctant to admit their confines in obtaining information. Ambiguities are glossed over; allegations are presented as facts. Besides, it's undeniably in the reporter's own interest to keep "al-Qaeda attacks" in the headline, because it may move their story from A16 to A1.

Finally, no one has more incentive to overstate the threat of AQI than President Bush and those in the administration who argue for keeping a substantial military presence in Iraq. Insistent talk about AQI aims to place the Iraq War in the context of the broader war on terrorism. Pointing to al-Qaeda in Iraq helps the administration leverage Americans' fears about terrorism and residual anger over the attacks of September 11. It is perhaps one of the last rhetorical crutches the president has left to lean on.

This is not to say that al-Qaeda in Iraq doesn't pose a real danger, both to stability in Iraq and to security in the United States. Today multiple Iraqi insurgent groups target U.S. forces, with the aim of driving out the occupation. But once our troops withdraw, most Sunni resistance fighters will have no impetus to launch strikes on American soil. In that regard, al-Qaeda—and AQI, to the extent it is affiliated with bin Laden's network—is unique. The group's leadership consists largely of foreign fighters, and its ideology and ambitions are global. Al-Qaeda fighters trained in Baghdad may one day use those skills to plot strikes aimed at Boston.

Yet it's not clear that the best way to counter this threat is with military action in Iraq. AQI's presence is tolerated by the country's Sunni Arabs, historically among the most secular in the Middle East, because they have a common enemy in the United States. Absent this shared cause, it's not clear that native insurgents would still welcome AQI forces working to impose strict sharia. In Baghdad, any near-term functioning government will likely be an alliance of Shiites and Kurds, two groups unlikely to accept organized radical Sunni Arab militants within their borders. Yet while precisely predicting future political dynamics in Iraq is uncertain, one thing is clear now: the continued American occupation of Iraq is al-Qaeda's best recruitment tool, the lure to hook new recruits. As RAND's Ali said, "What inspires jihadis today is Iraq."

Five years ago, the American public was asked to support the invasion of Iraq based on the false claim that Saddam Hussein was somehow linked to al-Qaeda. Today, the erroneous belief that al-Qaeda's franchise in Iraq is a driving force behind the chaos in that country may be setting us up for a similar mistake.


Andrew Tilghman was an Iraq correspondent for the Stars and Stripes newspaper in 2005 and 2006. He can be reached at tilghman.andrew@gmail.com.

There's more: "The Myth of AQI" >>

Never Give An Inch

If you ever doubted it...

...this should resolve the question once and for all: We are on our own.
...
Asked about her "greatest mistake," Pelosi said Why don't you tell me? 'Cause I think we're doing just great." Remember when Georgie stumbled over a similar question and couldn't recall any mistakes? It seems Our Only President is not the only one so afflicted.

The hand-off...
It has been pointed out to me many times that the Iraq Occupation and the FISA amendment are only two issues of many, on most of which the Democrats are incrementally better than Republicans, and this has been used as an argument against the conclusion that there is no difference between them.

They are incrementally better. Is that a reason to give them a pass for being complicit in the mass death caused by the Iraq Occupation and in the bankrupting of America? Or a reason to give them a pass for hacking away at freedom and privacy?

Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Leadership are confidant that they will win the presidency and the Congress next year simply on the strength of peoples fear of Republicans.

Sadly, if that happens "rethugs" will be back in power for another four or eight years, dressed up as and self-labelled as "democrats". And the shell games will continue.

And it all can be turned around - if enough people quit whining about how powerless they feel, and remember that they have the power.

If every time a Democratic candidate met with constituents or knocked on peoples doors or phoned them looking for money or votes they heard...

"If you Democrats defund and end the occupation of Iraq before November 2008 I'll contribute to you and vote for you.

Don't waste my time with excuses. Come back or call back when you're done and you'll get my money and my vote. Have a nice day."

... the Democratic Leadership would quickly sit up and listen.

And the Iraq occupation would be history. Along with the FISA amendment. And along with all the bullsh*t of the past seven years.

If enough people quit whining about how powerless they feel, and remember that they have the power...

and use it.

If they believe they will have the votes without doing what they were elected to do, and instead keep enabling Bush, then they have no reason to change and there is no effective difference between them and the rethugs.

I will not, two years down the road, be defending myself for supporting people who enabled Bush when they had the power to stop him.

I also will not wait for millions or tens of millions of other people to use the threat of support withdrawal to pressure them before I will do so.

Waiting for that to happen would mean someone else would have to go first, and would mean that I do not have the courage of my own convictions  but would stand with my finger in the wind...

Someone has to go first. If it's me then so be it. I've stood alone most of my life.

There are two taglines on my blog. One from Hunter Thompson: "The Edge... There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over."

And one from me: "The opposite of conventional wisdom is the likely truth of most things."

"If you Democrats defund and end the occupation of Iraq before November 2008 I'll contribute to you and vote for you.

Don't waste my time with excuses. Come back or call back when you're done and you'll get my money and my vote. Have a nice day."

There's more: "Never Give An Inch" >>

False Hope?

Big Tent Democrat writes this morning at TalkLeft: False Hope On FISA?

Glenn Greenwald has hope on FISA:

But at least thus far, from everything I can tell, the picture is more complicated and less depressing than this NYT article suggests, and the defeat is not yet a fait accompli. To begin with, the bill to be proposed today by the House Democratic leadership actually contains some surprisingly good and important provisions. . .

But that bill will never see the President's desk. As Glenn himself notes:

It is definitely possible that this is all just deceit, that House leaders introduced this bill strictly to placate their Progressive Caucus and their base and that they have no real intention of fighting for these provisions, but instead will give Bush what he wants once Mike McConnell starts accusing them of Helping the Terrorists and they begin negotiating in secret again.

Yes, that is exactly what will happen. We know the cast of characters already. This is a repeat of the Iraq Supplemental fight in March. The House bill will be eviscerated.

Glenn hopes for this:

But it seems that there are important House Democrats really ready to fight on these issues, to prevent Steny Hoyer and Rahm Emanuel (who unfortunately seem to be the real Speakers of the House) from conniving like they did in August to manipulate their caucus into supporting something far worse.

Here is where Glenn and I part company on strategy and tactics:

The real problem here seems to be that the wretched, principle-free, administration-revering Democratic faction on the Senate Intelligence Committee -- particularly Jay Rockefeller, joined by the Dianne Feinsteins and Bill Nelsons -- is eager to reach a "compromise" with their Bush-loyal "colleagues" (such as "Kit" Bond and the Responsible, Honorable, Serious Mike McConnell). And they are, as always, even more eager to deliver bountiful gifts to their generous contributors in the telecom industry and their sleazy friends in the Clintonite-telecom-lobbying-circle.

No, they are what they are and they do what they do. The problem REMAINS, as it is on Iraq, in the House. The inability to say NO to Rockefeller, Feinstein, et al. The inability to say NO to Bush.

The House does not have to accede to anything. It can say no to the Senate. It can say no to Bush. The problem has been it will NOT say no.

As Glenn himself acknowledges:

The question, then, is to what extent the more principled members of the House Democratic caucus -- and they do exist -- can exert influence over the House Democratic leadership to prevent the worthless Senate Democratic caucus from enacting the bill the White House wants, complete with amnesty for lawbreaking telecoms and massively expanded warrantless eavesdropping powers.

How much worth is there in the House Democratic Leadership if pressure needs to be exerted on them to do the right and smart thing? Sorry, that is the problem. Greenwald does get this part very right though:

If the Democratic Congress capitulates yet again, there will be plenty of time and opportunity for all sorts of recriminations. I think it is quite encouraging that much of the "netroots" is now devoting its energies and resources not to supporting Democrats, but to opposing Congressional Democrats who merit defeat.

(Emphasis supplied.) Exactly right.

How much worth?

How much worth is there in the House Democratic Leadership if pressure needs to be exerted on them to do the right and smart thing?

If they are going to continue to pursue the same policies as Bush and the Republicans... what difference is there?

To be fair, it has been pointed out to me many times that the Iraq Occupation and the FISA amendment are only two issues of many, on most of which the Democrats are incrementally better than Republicans, and this has been used as an argument against the conclusion that there is no difference between them.

They are incrementally better. Is that a reason to give them a pass for being complicit in the mass death caused by the Iraq Occupation and in the bankrupting of America? Or a reason to give them a pass for hacking away at freedom and privacy?

I think that Glenn Greenwald was close with "It is definitely possible that this is all just deceit, that House leaders introduced this bill strictly to placate their Progressive Caucus and their base and that they have no real intention of fighting for these provisions, but instead will give Bush what he wants"

I think it is definitely likely. They still are confidant that they will win the presidency and the Congress next year simply on the strength of peoples fear of Republicans.

Sadly, if that happens "rethugs" will be back in power for another four or eight years, dressed up as and self-labelled as "democrats". And the shell games will continue.

And it all can be turned around - if enough people quit whining about how powerless they feel, and remember that they have the power.

If every time a Democratic candidate met with constituents or knocked on peoples doors or phoned them looking for money or votes they heard...

"If you Democrats defund and end the occupation of Iraq before November 7, 2008 I'll contribute to you and vote for you.

Don't waste my time with excuses. Come back or call back when you're done and you'll get my money and my vote. Have a nice day."

... they would quickly sit up and listen. And the Iraq occupation would be history. Along with the FISA amendment. And along with all the bullshit of the past seven years... if enough people quit whining about how powerless they feel, and remember that they have the power.

And use it.

There's more: "False Hope?" >>

The Democrats Who Enable Bush

(via truthout)

The Democrats Who Enable Bush
By Helen Thomas, Hearst Newspapers, Thursday 04 October 2007

Washington - President Bush has no better friends than the spineless Democratic congressional leadership and the party's leading presidential candidates when it comes to his failing Iraq policy.

Those Democrats seem to have forgotten that the American people want U.S. troops out of Iraq, especially since Bush still cannot give a credible reason for attacking Iraq after nearly five years of war.

Last week at a debate in Hanover, N.H., the leading Democratic presidential candidates sang from the same songbook: Sens. Hillary Clinton of New York, and Barack Obama of Illinois and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards refused to promise to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq by 2013, at the end of the first term of their hypothetical presidencies. Can you believe it?

When the question was put to Clinton, she reverted to her usual cautious equivocation, saying: "It is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting."

Obama dodged, too: "I think it would be irresponsible" to say what he would do as president.

Edwards, on whom hopes were riding to show some independence, replied to the question: "I cannot make that commitment."

They have left the voters little choice with those answers.

Some supporters were outraged at the obfuscation by the Democratic front-runners.

On the other hand, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., are more definitive in their calls for quick troop withdrawals.

But Biden wants to break up Iraq into three provinces along religious and ethnic lines. In other words, Balkanize Iraq.

To have major Democratic backing to stay the course in Iraq added up to good news for Bush.

Now comes a surprising Clinton fan.

President Bush told Bill Sammon - Washington Examiner correspondent and author of a new book titled "The Evangelical President" - that Clinton will beat Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination because she is a "formidable candidate" and better known.

Sammon says Bush revealed that he has been sending messages to Clinton to urge her to "maintain some political wiggle room in your campaign rhetoric about Iraq."

The author said Bush contends that whoever inherits the White House will be faced with a potential vacuum in Iraq and "will begin to understand the need to continue to support the young democracy."

Bush ought to know about campaign rhetoric. Remember how he ridiculed "nation building" in the 2000 presidential campaign? Now he claims he is trying to spread democracy throughout the Middle East.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is another Democratic leader who has empowered Bush's war.

Pelosi removed a provision from the most recent war-funding bill that would have required Bush to seek the permission of Congress before launching any attack on Iran. Her spokesman gave the lame excuse that she didn't like the wording of the provision. More likely, she bowed to political pressure.

Is it any wonder the Democrats are faring lower than the president in a Washington Post ABC approval poll? Bush came in at 33 percent and Congress at 29 percent.

Members of Congress seem to have forgotten their constitutional prerogative to declare war; World War II was the last time Congress formally declared war.

Presidents have found other ways to make end runs around the law, mainly by obtaining congressional authorization "to do whatever is necessary" in a crisis involving use of the military. That's the way we got into the Vietnam and Iraq wars.

So what are the leading Democratic White House hopefuls offering? It seems nothing but more war. So where do the voters go who are sick of the Iraqi debacle?

There's more: "The Democrats Who Enable Bush" >>

Pelosi's Pathetic Doubletalk On Iraq

Pelosi's Pathetic Doubletalk On Iraq
By Big Tent Democrat, Talkleft, Sunday September 30, 2007

In an interview with Wolf Blitzer this morning, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi demonstrated she has no intention of doing anything to end the war in Iraq:

BLITZER: Let's talk about the war in Iraq. When you became speaker, you said, "Bringing the war to an end is my highest priority as speaker."

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER: It is.

. . . BLITZER: The war, if anything, is not only continuing, but it's expanding. There's more troops now in Iraq than there were when you became the speaker. What are you going to do about that?

PELOSI: Well, we did, when we took office, we took the majority here. We changed the debate on the war. We put a bill on the president's desk that said that we wanted the redeployment of troops out of Iraq to begin in a timely fashion and to end within a year. The president vetoed that bill.

He got quite a response to that veto, and the Republicans in the Senate then decided he was never going to get a bill on his desk again. So we have a barrier and it's important for the American people to know that while I can bring a bill to the floor in the House, it cannot be brought up in the Senate unless there's a 60 vote, now 60 votes.

He got quite a response? What the heck is Pelosi talking about? He got, FROM HER, a bill with no timetables! Who does Speaker Pelosi think she is fooling? Blitzer is not fooled:

BLITZER: But you could in the House of Representatives use your power of the purse, the money, to stop funding the war if you really wanted to.

PELOSI: I wish the speaker had all the power you just describe. I certainly could do that. That doesn't bar the minority from bringing up a funding resolution. They have their parliamentary prerogative as well.

So Madame Speaker, why not MAKE THEM USE IT! Force them to forward a motion to recommit. Then you can truthfully say Iraq is a Republican War.

BLITZER: You know your base is really frustrated. Really angry...

PELOSI: I'm frustrated myself.

BLITZER: ... that this war continues. And they say you should be doing more, and that's reflected in what former Senator John Edwards, the Democratic presidential candidate, repeatedly says.

He says this. He says, "Congress must stand up to President Bush and pass a funding bill with a timetable for withdrawal. If the president vetoes that bill, Congress must send it back again and again, as many times as it takes for the president to finally get the message that he can't defy the American people."

Why didn't you do that?

PELOSI: I completely concur. But I just said to you we did that, we sent it to the president, he vetoed it. Any further attempts to do that have been met by the 60-vote barrier in the United States Senate.

Now, I'll be the last person to give you a civics lesson about what that means. But what it does mean is that the Republicans in the Senate have now taken ownership of the war in Iraq. It was President Bush's war. And now it is the Republicans' in Congress war.

Madame Speaker, you can say that over and over again but that does not make it true. It is NOT true when a Democratic Congress chooses to continue to fund the war. It is YOUR war too now.

Blitzer asks the right question:

BLITZER: So, are you telling your angry base out there in the Democratic Party that wants to see this war over with, wants to see the U.S. troops home, that you, as speaker, there's nothing you can do, you have to just throw your hands up and say...

PELOSI: No. I didn't say that at all.

BLITZER: ... given the legislative problems in the Senate and the president's stubborn refusal to back down, that there's nothing that you can do?

PELOSI: How could you have ever gotten that impression?

BLITZER: All right, well, tell us...

PELOSI: What I have said, for those who pay attention, is that we will hold this administration accountable time and time again for the conduct of this war in Iraq. I have to discuss how we went in on a false premise. That's well-known to the American people. What we do have to do is to show them every step of the way how the president is taking us farther down a path in which it is going to be harder to redeploy out of Iraq, and so whether it is...

Holding him accountable while you FUND the Debacle? Puhleeeaze. Blitzer nails Pelosi:

BLITZER: But holding the president accountable, I just want you to explain, what does that mean? Besides just complaining and holding hearings? Specifically, is there anything else you can do?


PELOSI: Well, holding hearings and the oversight that we have on the corruption in contracting in Iraq, the hearings that we're holding and the harm to the readiness of our troops that the president is causing with his obstinance in this war in Iraq.

The retired generals tell us about if we want to talk about stability in the region -- and that's what we're talking abut here. How do we bring -- how do we have a vision of stability in the region?

Democrats are saying our vision for stability in the region begins with the redeployment of troops out of Iraq, and the generals say you cannot have stability in the region until you deploy the troops out of Iraq.

And the generals say you cannot have stability in the region until you redeploy the troops out of Iraq.

So what we're saying is now, with what happened in the past two weeks with General Petraeus' presentation and what happened on the Webb resolution in the Senate, that the Republicans are committed to a 10-year war in Iraq with the highest level of troop presence there, with permanent bases.

The Democrats are proposing a redeployment out of Iraq, a greatly diminished mission there, out of the civil war, protect our diplomats and protect our troops who are there, fight the Al Qaida.

And if we have to train the troops -- if we have to continue to train the Iraqi security forces, we can do -- it doesn't have to be in country and it doesn't have to be all-American. That can be done out of country.

So we're talking about a greatly diminished force there and a redeployment that's safe and responsible within the next year. The president is talking about 10 years and then after that, a Korea-like presence in perpetuity. That's the choice.

Blah, blah blah blah, blsh. She could have just answered "yes," all Dems in Congress are going to do is talk. Pathetic performance by Pelosi.

There's more: "Pelosi's Pathetic Doubletalk On Iraq" >>

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?" >>

Senator Chris Dodd Blasts Clinton And Obama

In a video released yesterday Democratic Presidential hopeful Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) challenged fellow Senate Democrats to state whether they would vote for Iraq legislation that does not include a firm, enforceable deadline for withdrawal:

In a statement released today Dodd got even more specific and strongly criticized both Clinton and Obama for trying to have their cake and eat it too with Orwellian rhetoric and stepping backwards on Iraq:

"I was disappointed that Senator Obama's thoughts on Iraq today didn't include a firm, enforceable deadline for redeployment, and dismayed that neither he nor Senator Clinton will give an unequivocal answer on whether they would support a measure if it didn't have such an enforceable deadline.

"It is clear to me - especially after yesterday's testimony - that half-measures aren't going to stop this President or end our involvement in this civil war. I thought it was clear to Senators Obama and Clinton as well after they finally came around to supporting the Feingold-Reid measure and voting against a blank-check supplemental spending bill this spring. If 'enough was enough' then, why isn't it after the bloodiest summer of the war?

"Senator Obama has a gift for soaring rhetoric, but, on this critical issue, we need to know the substance of his position with specificity. Without tying a date certain to funding how does he plan to enforce his call for an immediate redeployment?

"The only specificity Senator Obama offered was a call for a new constitution, but that will do nothing other than provide the Iraqis and the Bush Administration another excuse to delay -- the ink is barely dry on the constitution they have.

"It is going to take bold leadership to change our course in Iraq. We need to do more than write letters to the President, we need to be clear with him.

"I urge Senators Obama and Clinton not to backtrack on the need for a firm, enforceable deadline and state clearly and directly whether they will support an Iraq measure if it does not include one."

I congratulate Chris Dodd for going this far and it's nice to hear, but in my opinion, even coming from Dodd who has been one of the most progressive, it's still not going quite far enough, and he and the rest of them need to be calling for complete and total withdrawal of all troops, not just combat troops, and an end to the occupation of Iraq before the 2008 elections, if not sooner.

Speaking for myself I believe that:

... if leading Democrats heard enough people say to them that they will not vote for ANY Democrats next year EXCEPT Democrats who have been vocally, and by their votes on supplementals, calling for total withdrawal from Iraq they would quickly notice.

They are politicians after all, and they are concerned with winning elections.

They would notice if enough people turned the tables on them and used fear to motivate them, instead of voting simply out of fear of republicans.

If Democrats were filled with fear that they would lose Congress and the presidency UNLESS the occupation was ended before the 2008 elections, they would end the occupation of Iraq.

Can The Iraq Occupation Be Ended Before The 2008 Elections?

There's more: "Senator Chris Dodd Blasts Clinton And Obama" >>

Betray Us Report

Betray Us Report
By David Swanson

"Someone must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning…"

If you read the rest of The Trial by Franz Kafka you'll find that K. is not just arrested, but also executed, and that his execution comes as the perfectly natural conclusion to a series of infuriating steps, stages, and shiftings of goal posts.

In the end, General David Petraeus will appear in Congress on Monday, ask each Congress Member to turn and kneel, and put a bullet in the back of each of their heads. At first, that sounds outlandish. But let's review.

In 2003, Congress approved of a war based on a series of transparent lies. In 2006, the public voted an opposition party into power in Congress with the clear demand that it end the war which had now become an apparently permanent occupation of a foreign country with dozens of apparently permanent military bases constructed at enormous expense but not discussed and never approved. Of course the opposition party had already been in power in the Senate when it approved the war, but that was forgotten.

By 2006 all of the lies that had been told in 2003 were openly acknowledged as lies or at least "mistakes", but it was considered impudence to mention it. Right up through 2005, people like Senator Jay Rockefeller played the role of uncoverers of lies. Once in power in 2006, they forgot all about it. There will be no "Phase 2" report from the Senate Intelligence Committee any more than there will be a "Petraeus Report." In fact the leadership of the new majority party announced right away that ending the occupation and impeaching the president who had lied them into it were both "off the table." The new power in town opened up with a "100 hour agenda" that did not even acknowledge that the war existed.

The hall of mirrors was just beginning. In March of 2007, a minority within the new majority party proposed to end the occupation through an amendment that would be proposed to a bill funding the continuation of the occupation. So, nobody lobbied against the bill, because they wanted the amendment. In fact, most of the well-funded backers of the new majority quietly opposed the amendment and backed the bill. On the day before the vote on the bill, the party leadership announced that no amendments would be allowed.

"And the case begins all over again?" asked K. almost incredulously.

Forgotten before it could even be thought of was the fact that you could end the occupation by simply not voting on any bills to keep funding it. With that firmly forgotten, the bill was passed and promoted as a way to gradually end the occupation through a series of steps. Now the steps could all be "waived" by the president, so forcing him to end his war would require his cooperation. And instead of bringing the soldiers home, they would be "redeployed" to occupy some other country. But there would be so many loopholes that actually they could all stay right where they were. Nonetheless, the bill required that the president meet certain silly goals (or claim to have done so) by July 1 and others by October 1or begin "redeployment" and be done in 180 days. Of course, the president vetoed this.

And the peace groups that had opposed the bill now protested its veto, because their televisions had told them for weeks it was a bill to slowly end the war. They completely forgot how enraged they had been when it passed, so enraged were they when it was vetoed.

Universally accepted was that we all needed a new bill.

Again, it had been firmly forgotten before even being thought of that you would end the occupation by not bringing up bills to fund it. So, on May 7, the minority for peace within the majority party for peace cut a deal with the leadership. If this time they could be allowed a vote on their proposal to end the occupation, even though they'd lose the vote, they'd be happy to vote again for an even worse bill that the president wouldn't veto.

The new bill deleted everything related to "redeploying" the troops, but nobody was allowed to mention that topic on television or in a newspaper. Instead, the whole discussion was about the silly goals or "benchmarks" and how tough they were, even though the president was already known to approve of them. On May 10th, Congress voted on a bill to end the occupation, which failed, and then all but 10 of the same Congress Members who had just voted to end the occupation turned around and voted for the new bill to fund the occupation.

Congress Members Nancy Pelosi and David Obey turned against their own bill. They made sure it came up for a vote and passed, but voted against it. They were quite distressed. Obey remarked on the floor: "I hate this agreement. I'm going to vote against the major portion of this agreement even though I negotiated it." Too confused to cover this nonsense, the media finally remembered that this new bill said nothing about ending the war.

The president signed the bill.

But even this bill did say something about a bunch of stupid "benchmarks" and actually required that the president report to Congress on his progress, even though Congress wouldn't actually do anything about it, no matter what he said. The president was required by this law, which he himself signed into law, to produce two reports, one by July 15th and the other by September 15th . And the law requires that:

"Prior to the submission of the President's second report on September 15, 2007, and at a time to be agreed upon by the leadership of the Congress and the Administration, the United States Ambassador to Iraq and the Commander, Multi-National Forces Iraq will be made available to testify in open and closed sessions before the relevant committees of the Congress."

Thus was created the notion that Congress couldn't get its act together and end the occupation until after September. That little fiction ate up four months. The White House announced that General David Petraeus, as the commander in Iraq, would produce the report. Then somebody leaked word that the White House would actually produce the report. Then somebody else leaked the content of an early draft of the report, and it conflicted with known facts. Then somebody else let it be known that there would be no written report at all, but that Petraeus would testify and might bring some "charts."

Petraeus is still widely expected to show up and claim that violence is down in Iraq, although that would seem to be grounds for ending the occupation. But it is widely known that violence is actually up in Iraq, which might also seem to be good reason to end the occupation. The leadership in Congress has again made clear that it will provide yet more money for the occupation quite regardless of what Petraeus says. And again a minority of about 72 Congress Members is making a stand, but their position now is to "redeploy" the troops by 2009. However, they're unlikely to stand by that.

Petraeus will come to Congress on Monday to murder it. After this, there can be no more pretense that Congress is an independent branch of government.

"A melancholy conclusion," said K. "It turns lying into a universal principle."

http://www.BetrayUsReport.com

There's more: "Betray Us Report" >>

A Message For Congressional Democrats

A Date Certain For Ending The Iraq Debacle
By Big Tent Democrat, Talkleft, Wednesday August 29, 2007

The Bush Administration will request the Congress exercise its Spending Power and increase the funding for the Iraq Debacle:

President Bush plans to ask Congress next month for up to $50 billion in additional funding for the war in Iraq, a White House official said yesterday, a move that appears to reflect increasing administration confidence that it can fend off congressional calls for a rapid drawdown of U.S. forces.

The request -- which would come on top of about $460 billion in the fiscal 2008 defense budget and $147 billion in a pending supplemental bill to fund the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq -- is expected to be announced after congressional hearings scheduled for mid-September featuring the two top U.S. officials in Iraq. Army Gen. David H. Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker will assess the state of the war and the effect of the new strategy the U.S. military has pursued this year.

. . . Most of the additional funding in a revised supplemental bill would pay for the current counteroffensive in Iraq. . . . The decision to seek about $50 billion more appears to reflect the view in the administration that the counteroffensive will last into the spring of 2008 and will not be shortened by Congress.

I believe this request provides Congress another chance to set an end date to the Iraq Debacle. The Congress must set a date certain for ending funding for Iraq Debacle operations. If they lack the political courage to say no to this funding request, the Congress must insist that this is the LAST request and that there will be no more funding for Iraq Debacle operations after a date certain. I suggest March 31, 2008. The Reid-Feingold framework:

Let me explain again - I ask for three things: First, announce NOW that the Democratic Congress will NOT fund the Iraq Debacle after a date certain. You pick the date. Whatever works politically. If October 2007 is the date Dems can agree to, then let it be then. If March 2008, then let that be the date; Second, spend the year reminding the President and the American People every day that Democrats will not fund the war past the date certain; Third, do NOT fund the Iraq Debacle PAST the date certain.

Some argue we will never have the votes for this. That McConnell will filibuster, that Bush will veto. To them I say I KNOW. But filbustering and vetoing does not fund the Iraq Debacle. Let me repeat, to end the war in Iraq, the Democratic Congress does not have to pass a single bill; they need only NOT pass bills that fund the Iraq Debacle.

But but but, defund the whole government? Defund the whole military? What if Bush does not pull out the troops? First, no, not defund the government, defund the Iraq Debacle. If the Republicans choose to shut down government in order to force the continuation of the Iraq Debacle, do not give in. Fight the political fight. We'll win. Second, defund the military? See answer to number one. Third, well, if you tell the American People what is coming for a year, and that Bush is on notice, that i t will be Bush abandoning the troops in Iraq, we can win that politcal battle too.

Understand this, if you want to end the Iraq Debacle, this is the only way until Bush is not President. If you are not for this for ending the war, tell me what you do support. I think this is the only way. And if you shy away from the only way to end the Debacle, then you really are not for ending the war are you?

[emphasis added to closing paragraph]

There's more: "A Message For Congressional Democrats" >>

An obvious Democratic strategy

The Democratic strategy for dealing with Iraq, especially given the importance given to withdrawal by the electorate in the 2006 elections, should have been obvious. The question is, why wasn't this strategy, or something like it, pursued?


First, put pressure on Bush himself and keep it there. Don't let up. Articles of impeachment, censure, special prosecutors, investigations, throw everything but the kitchen sink at the guy. This is the most unpopular and worst President that we've ever had. The Republicans and conservative Democrats will vote down or otherwise obstruct these measures, but keep the narrative simple: "The problems in Iraq are due to Bush's lies getting us involved and his incompetence in prosecuting the occupation. And he's gutting the Constitution in the process." Whatever happens in Iraq is Bush's fault, either directly or by virtue of the buck stopping at his desk. Keep the narrative focused on Bush himself; don't put the spotlight even on Cheney (except to impeach him as well).

Second, put pressure on the commercial media. Have press conferences and talk about every lie, every distortion, every misstep. The commercial media will probably back off and become more neutral, or they will be exposed indubitably as conservative shills.

Step 1: Fail dramatically; construct a narrative.

Introduce a bill asking for everything: "Here's $10 billion, get all the troops out in 90 days." Pelosi & Reid can force it out of committee, even if a Democrat doesn't support the bill: "Although I don't support this bill, because of its importance, Speaker Pelosi/Majority Leader Reid has asked me to release it from committee so the full House/Senate can debate its merits." It gets voted down, but now the progressives have a strong tool to use against conservative Democrats in the 2008 primaries. Let the Republicans blather, and keep the narrative simple: "We're trying to end the war in Iraq. Period. The illegal/immoral/incompetent occupation prevents any other means from achieving progress."

Step 2: Ju jitsu

When things get financially critical, use ju jitsu: Tell Bush he can have anything he wants for six months, let him write the bill, and make sure it passes without debate. The narrative is then, "We weren't willing to sacrifice the troops. Bush obstructed our efforts to end the war and forced this bill down our throats using our soldiers as hostages. Anything bad that happens is his fault." Once the bill passes, nitpick every fault in the conduct of the war, past and present.

Keep up the pressure on Bush personally. Use the narrative of "holding the troops hostage" to sway fence-sitting Democrats and moderate Republicans concerned about how their support of Bush will look. Who knows, Bush might stumble so badly writing his own bill that impeachment might actually happen, or, even better, force a resignation.

Step 3: End the war

Repeat step 1. Now the narrative is even more compelling: "We tried to stop the war, we were stymied only by Bush holding the troops hostage, we have to stop the war now and any bad consequences are Bush's fault." It'll pass. Keep up the pressure on Bush personally; even if Bush hasn't resigned, the pressure will have rendered him ineffective.

End result: The Republican party is marginalized. The right-wing commercial media is neutralized. Conservative pro-war Democrats are undermined. The war in Iraq ends early in 2008. The 2008 election gives us a Democratic president (whichever of Clinton or Obama who fought most strongly) and a solid progressive Democratic majority in the legislature, which outweighs the right-wing domination of the Supreme Court.

This is not rocket science. I'm writing this now instead of eighteen months ago just because I'm not a political analyst. It's still pretty obvious, Negotiation 101 stuff. So why didn't the Democrats pursue this strategy? Why is congress's ratings so low? Why is there still some chance that fascist Giuliani or yet another damn Republican actor might be elected President in 2008? Why are we talking about Edwards' haircut and Clinton's cleavage?

I can't do much more than speculate, but here are my speculations.

One reason is the historical structural disorganization of the Democratic Party. As Will Rogers said, "I don't belong to an organized political party: I'm a Democrat." The Republicans pick up most of the authoritarian, traditionalist sheep; The Democrats get the most of the splintered counter-cultural idiots and the people who use logic and reason. Logic and reason are much more difficult to sell than conservative, traditionalist dogma.

Another reason is the role the pro-Israel* lobby, such as AIPAC, has in the Democratic party. This lobby clearly wants a hot war with the Middle-Eastern Islamic nations, thinking (erroneously, I suspect, but at least a bit more rationally than Bush & Co.) that war will enhance Israel's status and power. No Democratic politician can mount an effective bid for President without their support, and if the Democratic candidates for President don't support a political strategy, it's doomed to failure.

*Unless Israel declares itself something other than a secular democracy, pro- or anti-Israel has absolutely nothing to do with pro- or antisemitism. Most Americans who are Jewish oppose the war in Iraq. I don't know about Israeli Jews, but last I heard the U.S. government doesn't represent them.

Another reason is the love that progressives, especially progressive political bloggers have for inside baseball. Strategy and tactics, demographics, the details of political horse trading; progressives love to talk about this stuff. The progressive movement is chock full of armchair quarterbacks. The rank-and-file Republicans, and the conservative, right-wing bloggers, on the other hand, push a moral narrative. It's a rotten moral narrative, full of lies, distortion and bullshit, but it's always about good and evil, not how to squeeze out a few more votes. Progressive moralists, such as Arthur Silber and Dennis Perrin are more or less marginalized. Compare and contrast the TLB "higher beings" and the difference is obvious.

Fundamentally, though, I think the biggest reason is that most Democratic politicians are supported by the same economic elite that owns the commercial media and supports the Republican party. This elite supports Democratic politicians so as to give the appearance of dissent, not to have them actually change anything.

And both Democrats and Republicans have their eyes on the second largest oil reserves in the world.

I'm appalled by the sheer evil and suffering in Iraq, and I'm very pessimistic about the political situation here. I think if a Republican candidate is not elected outright, Clinton or Obama will eke out a narrow victory, compromised by support for war against Iran and tepid opposition to the war in Iraq. Democrats will not obtain a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. At best, we'll withdraw half our troops from Iraq, leaving tens of thousands (and tens of thousands of mercenaries private contractors) acting as a permanent political irritant. Even a Democratic President will probably start yet another war in Iran, if Bush doesn't get there first.

There's more: "An obvious Democratic strategy" >>

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]

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Who Pays The Price For The Idiocy?

Iraq Ambush Caps Bloodiest Months for US
By Robert H. Reid, The Associated Press, Friday 29 June 2007

Baghdad - A huge bomb explosion followed by a hail of gunfire and grenades killed five U.S. soldiers, the military said Friday. The attack climaxed the deadliest three-month period for the Americans since the war began.

Seven soldiers were wounded in the attack Thursday in the Rasheed district, a mixed Sunni-Shiite area of southern Baghdad where U.S.- led forces recently stepped up pressure on extremists. The commander of U.S. forces in Baghdad suggested the ambush could be part of an escalating backlash by Sunni insurgents.

Those deaths brought to 99 the number of U.S. troops killed this month, according to an Associated Press count. The toll for the past three months - 329 - made it the deadliest quarter for U.S. troops in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion. That surpasses the 316 soldiers killed during November 2004 to January 2005.

Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., who heads U.S. forces in the Iraqi capital, said U.S. casualties had mounted because Sunni extremists are "starting to fight very hard" as U.S. forces press into areas of the capital where militants once had free rein.

Part of an escalating backlash by Sunni insurgents?

As I noted on Thursday, these would be the same Sunni insurgents that Bush, out of his "respect" for the US military, has decided to supply with weapons:

The "insurgency" IS Iraq. It is Iraqis.

By arming Sunnis to ostensibly help fight al-Qaeda (who was NOT in Iraq before the invasion and is such a small minority the Iraqis will slit all their throats the moment they are not distracted by throwing the US out) but who will use the help to fight Shias Bush is now taking sides in a civil war with people who composed Saddam's Ba'ath Party, against the very Shia backed puppet government Bush set up in the first place.

There's more: "Who Pays The Price For The Idiocy?" >>

IRAQ: Paying The Price For Idiocy

The main reason Iraq is such a mess now is that Bush has put the US military into an impossibly conflicted situation.

They are now fighting to defeat the very people Bush claimed to have invaded to liberate.

The "insurgency" IS Iraq. It is Iraqis.

By arming Sunnis to ostensibly help fight al-Qaeda (who was NOT in Iraq before the invasion and is such a small minority the Iraqis will slit all their throats the moment they are not distracted by throwing the US out) but who will use the help to fight Shias Bush is now taking sides in a civil war with people who composed Saddam's Ba'ath Party, against the very Shia backed puppet government Bush set up in the first place.

As Bill Arnett showed two days ago, the lies get more idiotic as Bush and the GOP (with complicity from the Democratic Leadership now) flail blindly trying to save their own political asses:

With the four-month-old increase in American troops showing only modest success in curbing insurgent attacks, American commanders are turning to another strategy that they acknowledge is fraught with risk: arming Sunni Arab groups that have promised to fight militants linked with Al Qaeda who have been their allies in the past.

11 days later:

The number two US military commander in Iraq on Friday denied that US forces were arming insurgents willing to fight forces of the Al-Qaeda network, but said the military was "reaching out."

"I want to make one thing very clear: we are not arming these groups," Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno told reporters via teleconference from Baghdad.

It was "lost" more than fours years ago.

It was a lost cause the day the invasion began.

It is a lost cause now.

It will be a lost cause until the last US Soldier leaves Iraq.

The only question remaining is how many (besides their own, of course) American and Iraqi lives are the people arguing for continuance of this debacle willing to sacrifice to be able to remain in their denial?

It is US Soldiers and Iraqi civilians who are paying the price with their lives for this idiocy.

Remember that when they come begging for your votes next year, from either side.


[Cross-posted at Edgeing]

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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" >>

Democratic Leadership: "End the Iraq Debacle To Avoid An Electoral Debacle In 2008"

The argument that 'defunding endangers the troops' is utter bullshit and is completely and irrefutably debunked.

How the Peace Movement Can Win
Lawrence S. Wittner | April 26, 2007

One explanation for the weakness of the U.S. peace movement, often expressed by cynics about human nature, is that demagogues spouting patriotic propaganda easily hoodwink people.
...
Another explanation, expressed by Green Party supporters and assorted leftists, is that the Democratic Party is a sort of reactionary vampire that schemes, successfully, to drain the blood of the peace movement and other progressive forces. First it seduces them, and then it abandons them--or so the argument goes.

But this explanation begs the issue. After all, if the peace movement were strong enough, would the Democratic Party dare to abandon it?

What the Peace Movement Should Do Now
Robin Hahnel, Michael Foley, and Matt Meyer | June 6, 2007

An overwhelming majority of the American public wants the war in Iraq ended and the troops brought home now. If anyone believed the Democrats in Congress were going to end the fiasco without massive pressure from the peace movement, that illusion just flew out the window with the Democrats acquiescing in funding the war without even any deadlines for withdrawal. Whether one thinks of it as making more Democratic lawmakers afraid to anger the peace movement, or showing sympathetic Democrats that the peace movement can cover their backs when Republicans try to pin the disaster on any who vote to cut off funding, is of little practical importance. The overwhelming antiwar sentiment that already exists must be mobilized.

It has to be in the fall of 2007 because spring 2008 is too late. First, most Americans understand that every month that passes is more American and Iraqi lives lost for absolutely nothing. Second, the Democrats in Congress will face important choices in September, so that is when the pressure needs to be applied. And third, by spring 2008 too many supporters and activists in the peace movement will be drawn into primary campaigns. Unless we have made ourselves vocal and visible as an oppositional movement, the pressure to subordinate peace politics to the strategies of the candidates will be overwhelming.

There's more: "Democratic Leadership: "End the Iraq Debacle To Avoid An Electoral Debacle In 2008"" >>

Defunding Iraq: 96% In Favor: The Poll Continues As More Register Support Everyday

>>> GO VOTE THE POLL.

The Bush Administration, and Republicans and Democrats in Congress alike, repeat almost daily that they will not defund the troops, with both sides vying for public support with the same bullshit.

It's the biggest load of crap there is.

The Democratic Leadership apparently is afraid of not funding the Iraq occupation either because they are afraid of being attacked by Bush and the GOP for not funding the troops, or because they want to continue the occupation.

Defunding Iraq: Misperceptions, Disinformation And Lies

The continuous whine that "we don't have the votes" is 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.

As John Freelund wrote on May 27 at TPMCafe:

Pin Bush and Gates Down

At the next presidential press conference, I'd suggest question 1-5 be the following:

"Are you Mr. President, and Mr. Secretary, prepared to leave troops in Iraq without adequate supplies?"

Watch them squirm, watch them dance. They will not be able to say "yes." This is what the media and the Democrats should have been asking, over and over again, to frame this debate properly.

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?

What the Peace Movement Should Do Now
Foreign Policy In Focus, June 06, 2007
Robin Hahnel:

While it is important for supporters, activists, and leaders of the peace movement to engage in some thoughtful soul searching over program and strategy, I am concerned that the most urgent activity the peace movement should be organizing is going neglected. We need a massive showing of anti-war sentiment in the fall of 2007, and this can only happen if the major peace organizations launch the initiative now.

An overwhelming majority of the American public wants the war in Iraq ended and the troops brought home now. If anyone believed the Democrats in Congress were going to end the fiasco without massive pressure from the peace movement, that illusion just flew out the window with the Democrats acquiescing in funding the war without even any deadlines for withdrawal. Whether one thinks of it as making more Democratic lawmakers afraid to anger the peace movement, or showing sympathetic Democrats that the peace movement can cover their backs when Republicans try to pin the disaster on any who vote to cut off funding, is of little practical importance. The overwhelming antiwar sentiment that already exists must be mobilized.

It has to be in the fall of 2007 because spring 2008 is too late. First, most Americans understand that every month that passes is more American and Iraqi lives lost for absolutely nothing. Second, the Democrats in Congress will face important choices in September, so that is when the pressure needs to be applied. And third, by spring 2008 too many supporters and activists in the peace movement will be drawn into primary campaigns. Unless we have made ourselves vocal and visible as an oppositional movement, the pressure to subordinate peace politics to the strategies of the candidates will be overwhelming.

Defunding Iraq: Misperceptions, Disinformation And Lies
The updated story is here and with 96% In Favor: Polling Continues....

Would you support the Congress' setting a binding withdrawal date of March 31, 2008 by announcing that after March 31, 2008 (or an earlier date), it will not fund the Iraq War?

** END THE IRAQ DEBACLE TO AVOID A DEMOCRATIC ELECTORAL DEBACLE IN 2008 **

>>> GO VOTE THE POLL.

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