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

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"We do not have it within our power to make the will of America the law of the land"

[cross-posted at And, yes, I DO take it personally]

a quote that will live in infamy...

a cursory glance at today's home pages of the washington post and the new york times show sparse coverage of the intense feelings of anger and disappointment burning through the liberal/progressive grassroots and blogosphere about the dismal performance of what we thought was "our" democratic congressional leadership, the people we elected to the majority in large part to halt the illegal war in iraq...

After Victory on Hill, President Shifts Tone on Iraq

House, Senate Pass Iraq War Funding Measure

Congress Passes War Funds Bill, Ending Impasse


instead, most of the stories seem to take this tack...

[P]arty leaders vowed it was only a temporary setback in their efforts to bring home American troops.

[...]

[B]ackers said the bill's provisions -- including benchmarks for progress that the Iraqi government must meet to continue receiving reconstruction aid -- represented an assertion of congressional authority over the war that was unthinkable a few months ago.

how many times is it possible to hear statements like that before they cease to have any meaning whatsoever...? before, during and after the 2006 elections, the democratic leaders have consistently failed to demonstrate their understanding that the bush presidency is destroying our country, and it's not just about iraq... the actions taken by bush and his criminal colleagues in the past 6 1/2 years call for responses that reflect the utmost urgency but that is never what we hear... instead, we get this...

"We do not have it within our power to make the will of America the law of the land," [Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.)] said.

and there ya have it... the country we've been assured all of our lives was governed "by the people, for the people, and of the people", is nothing of the kind...

and, oh, yeah, opposition did get a few mentions...

• Antiwar groups demanded that Democrats continue pressing for withdrawal dates and bombarded congressional offices with angry phone calls and e-mails in the hours before yesterday's votes.

• Antiwar groups warned lawmakers who supported the spending bill that they could become election targets.

• "We are moving backward," said Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), a war opponent.

isn't it interesting how "antiwar" can be made to sound like a disparaging epithet rather than something noble...?

and then the unkindest cut of all...

The votes yesterday marked a rare moment of bipartisanship in an otherwise contentious and emotional debate.

i've grown to truly detest that word... it's become synonomous with "complicit..."

There's more: ""We do not have it within our power to make the will of America the law of the land"" >>

Reid Surrenders

Doug Mills/The New York Times

“Congressional Democrats relented today on their insistence that a war spending measure sought by President Bush also set a date for withdrawing troops from Iraq. The decision to back down, described by senior lawmakers and aides, was a wrenching reversal for some Democrats, who saw their election triumph as a call to force an end to the war.”

“We don’t have a veto-proof Congress,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader.

Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the House Democratic majority leader, said the new bill was still being assembled, but he acknowledged the political reality facing Democrats. “The president has made it very clear that he is not going to sign timelines,” said Mr. Hoyer. “We can’t pass timelines over his veto.”

So what? The American people want the troops home. NOW.

The American people want timelines. NOW. Let aWol keep vetoing the bill. It's HIS FRICKING WAR! Let him OWN IT!!! If aWol refuses to accept the will of the American people, you know...the people he and Congress WORK FOR...then aWol is not supporting the troops. Democrats should continue to pass appropriation bills with timelines. Over and over and over, if necessary. aWol would take the political heat, not Democrats. Why is that so difficult to understand?

At least Russ Feingold contines to get it:

“Under the President’s Iraq policies, our military has been over-burdened, our national security has been jeopardized, and thousands of Americans have been killed or injured. Despite these realities, and the support of a majority of Americans for ending the President’s open-ended mission in Iraq, congressional leaders now propose a supplemental appropriations bill that does nothing to end this disastrous war. I cannot support a bill that contains nothing more than toothless benchmarks and that allows the President to continue what may be the greatest foreign policy blunder in our nation’s history. There has been a lot of tough talk from members of Congress about wanting to end this war, but it looks like the desire for political comfort won out over real action. Congress should have stood strong, acknowledged the will of the American people, and insisted on a bill requiring a real change of course in Iraq.”

Emphasis mine. And Paul Krugman states the case more eloquently than I--"Confronting Mr. Bush on Iraq has become a patriotic duty":

Since the beginning, the administration has refused to put funding for the war in its regular budgets. Instead, it keeps saying, in effect: “Whoops! Whaddya know, we’re running out of money. Give us another $87 billion.” ...

What I haven’t seen sufficiently emphasized, however, is the disdain this practice shows for the welfare of the troops, whom the administration puts in harm’s way without first ensuring that they’ll have the necessary resources.

As long as a G.O.P.-controlled Congress could be counted on to rubber-stamp the administration’s requests, you could say that this wasn’t a real problem, ... just part of its usual reliance on fiscal smoke and mirrors. But this time Mr. Bush decided to surge additional troops into Iraq after an election in which the public overwhelmingly rejected his war — and then dared Congress to deny him the necessary funds. As I said, it’s an act of hostage-taking.

Actually, it’s even worse than that. According to reports, the final version of the funding bill ... won’t even set a hard deadline for withdrawal..., only an “advisory,” nonbinding date. Yet Mr. Bush plans to veto the bill all the same — and will then accuse Congress of failing to support the troops.

The whole situation brings to mind what Abraham Lincoln said ... in 1860, about secessionists who blamed the critics of slavery for the looming civil war: “A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, ‘Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!’ ”

So how should Congress respond to Mr. Bush’s threats? ... Confronting Mr. Bush on Iraq has become a patriotic duty.

Democrats won control of both Houses of Congress with a mandate to change things. The Republican-controlled Congress did nothing against aWol's wishes. The Dems should make the changes. It's their patriotic duty.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., co-founder of the liberal Out of Iraq Caucus, said she will vote against the new measure and predicted that many of colleagues will join her.

"Every time we negotiate, it (the bill) becomes weaker," said Woolsey, D-Calif. "This is a Republican bill, so it better be Republican votes that pass it."

Woolsey's right, no one should vote for this thing. It's a Republican bill, let them pass it.

I'm with Blue Girl.

If this passes the House, there will be an electoral bloodbath in November of 2008, and the carcasses of Republican and Democrat alike will litter the landscape.

Damn straight.

There's more: "Reid Surrenders" >>

An Open Letter to Congressman Cleaver (and every sitting congresscritter, for that fact)

Congressman Cleaver;

I know I am a pain-in-the-ass constituent. I admit that freely - wear it as a badge of honor, in fact.

I am also fed up with this feckless president that has brought our country low. I simply will not abide a congress that enables him. He needs to be impeached, not placated for fucks sake.

I am just a humble-blogger – but I am getting less humble about it every day.

The hell with the press – they are all bought and paid for. We are actually watching you, We are actually reading the policy papers and We are actually writing about your records from the public record. We are unconcerned with “access” because we don’t have any; and for the record - veracity doesn't need a bio (or a byline for that fact).

I issue a friendly warning now – any Representative that backs this apostasy of a funding bill with no timelines – especially in light of the Iraqi parliament backing withdrawal plans with timelines – will face the wrath of the blogs. And any Representative that does not take that seriously is in for a rude awakening.

If this passes the House, there will be an electoral bloodbath in November of 2008, and the carcasses of Republican and Democrat alike will litter the landscape. The way the system is gamed, we are a two-party system, and only a perfect storm of feckless perfidy will change that.

Say hello to Unity 08 and the Progressives.

Check the calendar. It’s storm season.

[Cross-Posted from Blue Girl, Red State & Watching Those We Chose]

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Democratic leadership DID cave

And, without any Bush guarantees.

That’s the worst part. It’s not compromise, it’s retreat:

White House spokesman Tony Snow declined to comment on items that might be in the proposed bill.

“I don’t want to say yes or no to any of these things. I’m just going to say, ‘No comment,’ “ Snow said.

Democrats may claim they’ve added a minimum-wage rider (still no COLA for that, but that’s yet another story) and other domestic programs, but what if this gets vetoed, too? How much further do you fall back?

And, “benchmarks with consequences,” as the CNN story says? What consequences? Hand-slaps? What teeth do they have?

People like Reid and Pelosi knew they were backpedaling when the rumors started coming out yesterday.

That’s the sad part. They expect people to believe they’re really, really trying hard. It’s kind of like somebody at TPM said: Send Bush the same damn bill, or something close to it, at least, and let him keep vetoing it.




Update: Feingold is calling them out.

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More WaPo crap on Iraq

[cross-posted at And, yes, I DO take it personally]

yesterday it was fred hiatt, today it's david ignatius...

President Bush and his senior military and foreign policy advisers are beginning to discuss a "post-surge" strategy for Iraq that they hope could gain bipartisan political support. The new policy would focus on training and advising Iraqi troops rather than the broader goal of achieving a political reconciliation in Iraq, which senior officials recognize may be unachievable within the time available.

The revamped policy, as outlined by senior administration officials, would be premised on the idea that, as the current surge of U.S. troops succeeds in reducing sectarian violence, America's role will be increasingly to help prepare the Iraqi military to take greater responsibility for securing the country.

ok, one more time... let's look at the wording...

• "post-surge" strategy
• gain bipartisan political support
• new policy would focus on training and advising
• unachievable political reconciliation
• time available
• revamped policy
• current surge succeeds in reducing sectarian violence
• Iraqi military to take greater responsibility
  

and this is all in ONLY THE FIRST TWO PARAGRAPHS...! if you read further, it only gets worse...

• "Sectarian violence is not a problem we can fix"
• the administration is talking with Iran and Syria
• the post-surge policy would track the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton report which the president now supports
• policy adjustments must be made
• an approach that would have sufficient bipartisan support so it could be sustained even after the Bush administration leaves office
• build bipartisan support from Congress and the American public
  

and, yes, it goes on (and on and on and on) but i don't have the stomach for the rest, so let me just cut to the chase...

if you were an average schmoe, moderately but not exhaustively well-informed, who happened to read ignatius' op-ed piece, here is what i believe you would come away with...

• the "surge" (not an escalation) that is taking place in iraq is not only temporary, it has a definite time limit, and its conclusion is close enough to begin detailed planning for what takes place afterward
• the u.s. will still be in iraq after the surge is over
• there is a serious desire on the part of the bush administration to craft a plan that would appeal to both political parties
• focusing on training and advising is a "new" policy
• the surge will succeed in reducing sectarian violence but political reconciliation cannot be achieved and the problem of sectarian violence cannot be fixed (huh...?)
• the u.s. is in active discussions with iran and syria
• george bush has changed his mind and now supports the recommendations of the iraq study group
• george bush is flexible enough to see that his policies in iraq need to be changed
• a plan can be crafted that will have the support of congress, the american people, and both political parties
• the u.s. will still be in iraq when george bush leaves office

yes, i added comments to two of those conclusions... i can't help myself... but do you see how insidious this kind of journalism really is...? the washington post is in the best position of any newspaper in the world, with the possible exceptions of the new york times, the independent, the financial times, and the wall street journal, to influence and shape public opinion, and it is seriously abusing that power... a REAL opinion piece would clearly point out the following...

• george bush has stonewalled all advice and input from other than his most loyal, bubble-protected, ideologically correct colleagues for six and one-half years
• george bush chose to interpret the 2006 elections as a call for victory in iraq when it was precisely the opposite
• george bush rejected the conclusions of the iraq study group out of hand immediately after it was issued, preferring instead to escalate the number of troops and exacerbate the violence of an already-violent situation
• george bush has chosen to ignore the will of the american people to disengage from iraq as expressed in the 2006 elections, national polls, and congressional efforts
• george bush wanted everyone to believe that the troop increase in iraq was both limited in numbers and in time when, in fact, it was neither
• all efforts at "bipartisanship" have been rebuffed
• george bush has consistently labeled the two countries that could potentially be the most helpful in stabilizing iraq, iran and syria, as part of the "axis of evil," has refused to engage in dialog with either, is covertly fostering a regime change strategy in both, and has repeatedly threatened to attack one of them
• a plan that has the support of everyone (congress, democrats, republicans and the american people) that will be sustainable after the bush administration leaves office not only ignores the fact that formulating such a plan is impossible, but also that "the american people" have clearly said, in multiple forums, that remaining in iraq is not an option

as long as this is the kind of journalism our major media prefer to engage in, the opportunity for the american people to get an accurate picture of events and, as a result, to make the right choices as responsible citizens, is seriously diminished...

There's more: "More WaPo crap on Iraq" >>

Are The Democrats Going To Cave To The Commander Guy Or What?

On my way to the office this morning, I heard a story on NPR that Democrats were about to give the President a no strings Iraq funding bill. TPM and The New York Times are strongly denying the story. Apparently the Democratic leadership was ready to throw in the towel, but decided to pull back.

OK, Nancy, and all the rest of you fair weather Democrats in the Democratic leadership, here is the deal. We, the people, elected you guys in November, 2006, to stand up to the commander guy and get our asses out of Iraq. If you surrender to Bush on the war you can probably kiss the 60% to 70% of your support goodbye. Triangulate that.

John Edwards is right, send the President the same bill over and over again until he signs it. Right now he is making you look like fools.

Cross Posted from Watching Those We Chose

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Parsing more WaPo/White House Iraq propaganda

[cross-posted at And, yes, I DO take it personally]

(i've taken to posting on how our media sucks us in to accepting things as fact that are anything but, and looking how words are used to take us there... today's wapo article on the highly dubious re-birth of the iraq study group, is a case in point...)

here we go... pushing the totally fallacious myth that bushco is in the least bit interested in a "bipartisan solution" in iraq... there are potential solutions aplenty floating around out there, and virtually the only ones that have the slightest chance of working involve GETTING THE HELL OUT...

After an initially tepid reception from policymakers, the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group are getting a second look from the White House and Congress, as officials continue to scour for bipartisan solutions to salvage the American engagement in Iraq.

With negotiations continuing this week on a new war funding bill, the administration is strongly signaling that it would accept the idea of requiring the Iraqi government to meet political benchmarks or else risk losing some assistance from the United States. That was one of the key proposals from the group headed by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former Indiana congressman Lee H. Hamilton, but it was initially dismissed by the White House when first proposed last December.

does anyone think for one single minute that bush is going to do a 180 and suddenly embrace the isg...? the disingenuousness is mind-boggling...

here's something else that musn't go unchallenged...

...scour for bipartisan solutions to salvage the American engagement...

where to start...? first of all, the word "scour" strongly implies that "solutions" are in short supply and that "bipartisan" solutions are desirable or even possible... uh, no... the only solutions that are in short supply are solutions that make sense AND totally meet the demands of the white house, not exactly the definition of bipartisanship, and the reason those are in short supply is because THERE AREN'T ANY... reasonable solutions and meeting the demands of the white house is a pure oxymoron, a contradiction in terms of the highest magnitude...

the second part of the snippet, "salvage the american engagement" clearly leads one to believe that the "engagement" is "salvageable," which it's not, that it must continue, which it shouldn't, and that the accomplishment of both is the most reasonable way to proceed, which is just plain crazy...

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