Republican base smells... victory... or is it burning humvees?; no, it's definitely victory, probably, kind of, someday maybe

From the Washington Post:

With public opinion tilting firmly toward ending U.S. involvement in the war in Iraq, Rep. Wayne T. Gilchrest (R-Md.) might have expected praise for his votes that would start to bring the troops home. Instead, at town hall meetings on the Eastern Shore, the former Marine and Vietnam combat veteran has been called a coward and a traitor.[emphasis added] ...the GOP's core voters...see the war in Iraq in fundamentally different terms than Democrats and political independents do, said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Voters from those groups tend to see unremitting gloom, but Republican base voters continue to see a conflict that is going reasonably well, with a decent chance of military success. House Republican Conference Chairman Adam H. Putnam (R-Fla.) said yesterday on CNN's "Late Edition." "Everybody knows war is ugly. But the fact of the matter is that defeating al-Qaeda in Iraq and bringing stability to that country is important to the security of this country."

Note to militant jingos: Grow up. No matter how much you want to be able to tell stories of military glory, it's not going to happen here because this isn't a comic book; it's a complicated political situation that doesn't lend itself to straightforward military victory. You could kill people and destroy things to your heart's content and we would be no closer to a workable political resolution or a stable Iraqi state. While there is not much positive that can be achieved with further use of military force in Iraq, there is a whole lot of negative stuff we can bring about if we stay. Continuing the occupation will make it harder to achieve stability in Iraq and harder to defeat al Qaeda. If those are the indeed the goals (rather than, um, you know, avoiding having to admit responsibility for a monumental clusterfuck), then ending the occupation is the best thing we could do now. It wouldn't be pretty, because we're fresh out of happy endings at this point, so we need to act like adults, accept the consequences of our actions, and minimize the further damage that we do.

A day late and a dollar short

Washington Post on Tenet's book:

White House and Pentagon officials, and particularly Vice President Cheney, were determined to attack Iraq from the first days of the Bush administration, long before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and repeatedly stretched available intelligence to build support for the war, according to a new book by former CIA director George J. Tenet.

Thanks for telling us, George.
A little fucking late though.

UPDATE:
Larry Johnson and Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity pen an open letter to Tenet at HuffPo:

We agree with you that Vice President Dick Cheney and other Bush administration officials took the United States to war for flimsy reasons. We agree that the war of choice in Iraq was ill-advised and wrong headed. But your lament that you are a victim in a process you helped direct is self-serving, misleading and, as head of the intelligence community, an admission of failed leadership. You were not a victim. You were a willing participant in a poorly considered policy to start an unnecessary war and you share culpability with Dick Cheney and George Bush for the debacle in Iraq.

...You helped send very mixed signals to the American people and their legislators in the fall of 2002. CIA field operatives produced solid intelligence in September 2002 that stated clearly there was no stockpile of any kind of WMD in Iraq. This intelligence was ignored and later misused. On October 1 you signed and gave to President Bush and senior policy makers a fraudulent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)--which dovetailed with unsupported threats presented by Vice President Dick Cheney in an alarmist speech on August 26, 2002.

You were well aware that the White House tried to present as fact intelligence you knew was unreliable. And yet you tried to have it both ways. On October 7, just hours before the president gave a major speech in Cincinnati, you were successful in preventing him from using the fable about Iraq purchasing uranium in Africa, although that same claim appeared in the NIE you signed only six days before.

Although CIA officers learned in late September 2002 from a high-level member of Saddam Hussein's inner circle that Iraq had no past or present contact with Osama bin Laden and that the Iraqi leader considered bin Laden an enemy of the Baghdad regime, you still went before Congress in February 2003 and testified that Iraq did indeed have links to Al Qaeda.

You earned your fucking medal, George.

No such thing...

...as class in America. Nope.

D'oh!

Tenet Says He Was Made a Scapegoat Over Iraq War

No shit sherlock. So you want us to believe that the head of US intelligence was the last person in the world to figure out that this medal was a reward for providing the White House with the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) Bush and Cheney wanted to justify the war they were already committed to, going with Powell to the UN so as to impress the world with the apparent solidity of the administration's intelligence, and then allowing the CIA to take the blame for "intelligence failures" which allegedly misled the administration? That's the story you're going to stick with?

I guess the alternative is to admit that you knowingly played along with this murderous charade until now.

Either way: Way to go, hero.

General Cockup

Thomas Ricks writing in the Washington Post:

An active-duty Army officer is publishing a blistering attack on U.S. generals, saying they have botched the war in Iraq and misled Congress about the situation there.

"America's generals have repeated the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq," charges Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, an Iraq veteran who is deputy commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment. "The intellectual and moral failures . . . constitute a crisis in American generals."

"After going into Iraq with too few troops and no coherent plan for postwar stabilization, America's general officer corps did not accurately portray the intensity of the insurgency to the American public," he writes. "For reasons that are not yet clear, America's general officer corps underestimated the strength of the enemy, overestimated the capabilities of Iraq's government and security forces and failed to provide Congress with an accurate assessment of security conditions in Iraq."

Yingling said he decided to write the article after attending Purple Heart and deployment ceremonies for Army soldiers. "I find it hard to look them in the eye," he said in an interview. "Our generals are not worthy of their soldiers."

There are all different kinds of courage, but they don't give medals for the kind Col. Yingling shows here. He'll have the respect of his fellow officers but, for his sake and for ours, I hope he doesn't pay for it with his career.

PAF is still pissed off

Not long ago, a famous career DC think-tanker and pundit came to my University to give a big public lecture. Before his talk, he had dinner with a couple dozen of us in one of the school's fancier reception rooms. Rubber chicken, wine, pretty nice affair by our standards. When the subject of Iraq came up, he defaulted to the "bad intelligence" defense: We were all misled, he told us; Everybody had the same faulty intelligence and everybody was equally mistaken in believing that Saddam had WMD, was linked to al Qaeda, and represented some kind of real threat. Who knew???

In the interests of not disrupting a University function with an ugly tirade against an invited guest, I bit my tongue (and began formulating a somewhat pointed but hopefully still civil response for the public lecture afterward). But I was really pissed off, and still am, that this DC bigshot could come in here and feed us bullshit which he should have known to be false. He should have known it because others knew it, and said so, before the fucking war began. And you didn't have to have some kind of esoteric security clearance to know it, because (among others) Knight-Ridder reporters were all over it, as Bill Moyers has helpfully documented for us (once you get to Moyers' page, scroll down for a veritable catalog of links to sceptical Knight-Ridder stories).

For instance, here's one from September 6, 2002 , seven months before the war began (reported By Jonathan Landay):

Senior U.S. officials with access to top-secret intelligence on Iraq say they have detected no alarming increase in the threat that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein poses to American security and Middle East stability.

Another from October 8, 2002, six months before the war began (reported by Strobel, Landay, and Walcott):

While President Bush marshals congressional and international support for invading Iraq, a growing number of military officers, intelligence professionals and diplomats in his own government privately have deep misgivings about the administration's double-time march toward war.

These officials charge that administration hawks have exaggerated evidence of the threat that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein poses - including distorting his links to the al-Qaida terrorist network - have overstated the amount of international support for attacking Iraq and have downplayed the potential repercussions of a new war in the Middle East.

They charge that the administration squelches dissenting views and that intelligence analysts are under intense pressure to produce reports supporting the White House's argument that Saddam poses such an immediate threat to the United States that pre-emptive military action is necessary.

"Analysts at the working level in the intelligence community are feeling very strong pressure from the Pentagon to cook the intelligence books," said one official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

A dozen other officials echoed his views in interviews with Knight Ridder. No one who was interviewed disagreed. [emphasis added by PAF]

And there were many more stories like this for those willing to look beyond the big mainstream news outlets which had already capitulated to the administration's duplicitous militarism. The alternative news outlets listed near the top right of this blog carried many of these sceptical stories, which is why I recommend them to you now. For more on the (ahem) mature and symbiotic relationship between executive power and the mainstream press, watch the Moyers video.

So Mr. DC big-shot, PBS News Hour TV fixture, household name, trusted voice of reason and official bipartisan moderation, if you happen to be one of the three people (including me) who ever reads this, up yours.

No one suffers more than George and Laura

America blog reports on an interview with first lady Laura Bush, who asks for our sympathy:

Laura Bush wants you to know the President is suffering over Iraq. In fact, Laura told Anne Curry on the Today Show, that the American people need to know that "no one suffers more than their President and I do." No one? She's as delusional as her husband. Of course, her husband is the person who caused the suffering -- and is the one person who can end it. I would wager that there are 3,300 families in America that are suffering more than George Bush. And, there are tens of thousands of injured soldiers who are literally suffering.

Buck up pal, George and Laura are really suffering.

Insightful analysis of regional politics and the Iraq War

I learned some things from reading the analysis of Oxford's Hussein Agha:

"Overt political debate in the Middle East is hostile to the American occupation of Iraq and dominated by calls for it to end sooner rather than later. No less a figure than King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, arguably the United States' closest Arab ally, has declared the occupation of Iraq 'illegal' and 'illegitimate'. Real intentions, however, are different. States and local political groups might not admit it - because of public opinion - but they do not want to see the back of the Americans. Not yet. "

"For this there is a simple reason: while the US can no longer successfully manipulate regional actors to carry out its plans, regional actors have learned to use the US presence to promote their own objectives. Quietly and against the deeply held wishes of their populations, they have managed to keep the Americans engaged with the hope of some elusive victory."

Of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Hussein says this:

"Al-Qaida and its affiliates arguably benefit most from the occupation. They established themselves, brought in recruits, sustained operations against the Americans and expanded. The last thing they want is for the Americans to leave and deny them targets and motivation for new members."

Thanks to Juan Cole's Informed Comment for pointing this out.

Survey Says!:

We are making lots of enemies in the Muslim world

Headlines from new public opinion poll of four predominantly Muslim countries:

• Majorities Want US Forces Out of Islamic Countries And Approve of Attacks on US Troops;
• Large Majorities Agree With Many Goals of Al Qaeda, But Oppose Attacks on Civilians;
• Most Support Enhancing Role of Islam in Their Society, But Also Favor Globalization and Democracy.

These people are not terrorist supporters, but clearly oppose US foreign policy which they believe specifically targets them:

"Large majorities across all four countries believe the United States seeks to weaken and divide the Islamic world.” On average 79 percent say they perceive this as a US goal, ranging from 73 percent in Indonesia and Pakistan to 92 percent in Egypt. Equally large numbers perceive that the United States is trying to maintain “control over the oil resources of the Middle East” (average 79%). "

Stabbed in the Back

Prompted by an angry and insightful post at Rising Hegemon, I dug out an article by Kevin Baker, published in the June 2006 issue of Harper's. In it, Baker discusses the venerable right wing myth of the "stab in the back," perhaps most famous as the hyper-nationalist rationalization for German defeat in World War I, and justification for pogroms against various alleged internal enemies during the Nazi period, prominently including leftists, Jews, and gays.

But as Baker points out, the stab in the back myth also has an enduring resonance among the American far right. It was deployed in order to recast the post-war settlement at Yalta as nefarious appeasement by an enfeebled FDR and his allegedly communist and homosexual-ridden administration. It was clearly implied by the "Who lost China" campaign waged by the right wing after the Maoist revolution. During the Korean war, MacArthur's folly in provoking Chinese intervention, and his breathtakingly reckless attempt to compensate by urging nuclear war against China, were recast in terms of the traitorous perfidy of lily-livered, limp-wristed Democrats who would not allow him to "win" the war by escalating it into World War III. And then Vietnam -- an unwinnable war in defense of a thoroughly corrupt and unpopular regime which existed only as the creature of US foreign policy and was expressly designed to frustrate the aspirations of Vietnamese nationalism, a war fought against a determined foe able to sustain literally millions of deaths in order to throw off foreign domination -- all of this reduced to the classic stab in the back narrative as exemplified in Rambo's supremely simple-minded slogan: "Do we get to win this time?" (as if 1-2 million Vietnamese killed by our war machine was somehow the result of us not really trying). Layered on top of this is the still resonant -- if factually unsupportable -- mythology of the wholesale abandonment of American Prisoners of War presumably now populating secret geriatric facilities hidden deep in the Vietnamese jungle (on the MIA myth see various works by H. Bruce Franklin).

These stories of American martial prowess betrayed by Democrats, progressives, Jews and gays, these legends of the dastardly stab in the back, are a common raw material of political myth-making on the American right. In light of this, it would be surprising if this story line wasn't trotted out yet again to account for the many failures of the war on terror otherwise inexplicable to the nationalists and jingos for whom America can do no wrong.

Based upon the relatively limited engagement of the American public with the GWOT, Baker believes the stab in the back story won't get a lot of popular traction this time around. After four years of being called a traitor for opposing this war, I'm not so sure. And as unpopular as the Iraq debacle is now, I ask myself whether the stab in the back myth won't make a strong comeback after the next terrorist attack.

Dateline: Washington

Having failed to find a real general to assume responsibility for the Global War on Terror, PAF has learned that the Bush-Cheney admininstration will nominate a fictional character to be the new Supreme Commander, Generalissmo, and Czar of the Global War on Terror (military acronym: SCGaCo'GWOT, but SCGaTo'GWOT is also acceptable). General Buck Turgidson, Air Force commander in the 1964 Stanley Kubrick film Dr. Strangelove, could not be reached for comment on his nomination, but excitement is running high in the capital. The nomination was described as "daring," "innovative," and "downright neo-Reaganite" by Washington insiders at the American Enterprise Institute, who praised General Turgidson as a military strategist with a demonstrated ability to redefine catastrophe as victory, an ability sorely needed as the administration tries to get the GWOT out of its IED-strewn rut. Administration officials, who requested anonymity on the grounds that they do not want their names known, have told PAF that Turgidson's strategy of a devastating preemptive attack on a country unrelated to real terrorism was just the kind of thinking the country needs to "reunemasculate" its foreign policy. "It will send an unmistakable signal of American firmness and resolve to Badenov and the terrorists," said one White House advisor. "And, when it comes to plausible deniability for the White House, it's hard to beat assigning ultimate resposibility to a superbly acted fictional character."

In a related story, a videotape of Boris Badenov was broadcast worldwide in which the reputed terrorist mastermind issued the cryptic command, "Keel moose". While officials at the NSA's super-secret interception and decryption facility declined to comment on the meaning of Badenov's message, Homeland Security officially raised the national threat level to burnt umber. Administration spokespersons emphasized that this latest release only underscores the need for Congress to swiftly approve the Turgidson nomination.

Case Closed

BREAKING NEWS: A couple of guys named Curveball and Rocco have provided PAF with definitive proof that the Russians have acquired the bomb and Doug Feith insists they have "mature and symbiotic" links to global terrorism. Here reavealed for the first time in an exclusive virtual scoop, the proof: a mature and symbiotic Boris Badenov caught in the act.



But, you might say, that's not proof; it's a fucking cartoon. Three words: mobile bioweapons trailers. The precedent is set: For purposes of launching a preemptive war, cartoons count as proof.

PAF has it on good authority that tomorrow morning Vice President Cheney will appear on Meet the Press to say that it has been "pretty well confirmed" that Boris Badenov met Mohammed Atta in Prague, and Cheney will announce that the Turgidson Strategy is now the key to Victory in the War on Terror.

Start practicing those Duck and Covers.

A semblance of strategy

Since my earlier post, in which I realized that the US no longer has even the semblance of a strategy in Iraq, PAF has been scouring the internets for the semblance of a strategy. Now this is a strategy:



Of course, if you wanted to nitpick, you could belabor the point that this is a strategy for a pre-emptive nuclear attack on Russia, and is totally irrelevant to the Global War on Terror. But in defense of the Turgidson Strategy, I would point out that it is no less relevant to the GWOT than was our attack on Iraq. So it's no less likely to defeat the terrorists, and therefore worth a try.

PAF's new slogan for the GWOT:

Duck and cover, or the terrorists win.

Hey look!

Bill Bennett has an online store. Wow, lots of morally conservative swag. Or swagly conservative morals. Or something. As Slim Pickens once said: "Why shoot, a fella could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all of this stuff."

War dehumanizes us all

Washington Post:

The Marine Corps chain of command in Iraq ignored "obvious" signs of "serious misconduct" in the 2005 slayings of two dozen civilians in Haditha, and commanders fostered a climate that devalued the life of innocent Iraqis to the point that their deaths were considered an insignificant part of the war, according to an Army general's investigation."All levels of command tended to view civilian casualties, even in significant numbers, as routine and as the natural and intended result of insurgent tactics," Bargewell wrote. He condemned that approach because it could desensitize Marines to the welfare of noncombatants. "Statements made by the chain of command during interviews for this investigation, taken as a whole, suggest that Iraqi civilian lives are not as important as U.S. lives, their deaths are just the cost of doing business, and that the Marines need to get 'the job done' no matter what it takes."

We are some sick puppies

NPR reported this morning that Cho's parents are under FBI protection and being moved daily. This suggests that they have received death threats. If so, we are as sick as their son.

Grasshopper,

When is Congressional testimony like the sound of One Hand Slapping a Forehead?

What's the plan?

Last we heard, the plan was to Vietnamize the Iraq war. In an ironic sense, they're doing a great job of that.

"U.S. officials said they once believed that if they empowered their Iraqi counterparts, they'd take the lead and do a better job of curtailing the violence. But they concede that's no longer their operating principle."

Seems the ARVN can't fight, or Charlie don't surf, or some such; but it certainly sounds like Vietnamization. And that wasn't such a roaring sucess. House of cards, actually.

So: Ok, Plan A is not working out so well. They're not standing up and we're not standing down. But at least US officials recognize the old plan isn't working. That much is progress. So what's the new plan?

"Many officials are vague about when the U.S. will know when troops can begin to return home. Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the U.S. is trying to buy 'time for the Iraqi government to provide the good governance and the economic activity that's required.' One State Department official, who also asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject, expressed the same sentiment in blunter terms. 'Our strategy now is to basically hold on and wait for the Iraqis to do something,' he said. "

[At this point, PAF takes a break for defibrilation - CLEAR: zot; cough, snort, hack; resume typing]

Keep doing what you're doing, even though it is demonstrably failing, and just hope for the best??

That's not a strategy; it's not even an acceptable fortune cookie slogan. (Be honest, you'd return that cookie, wouldn't you: "Could I have another fortune cookie please; this one is defective").

It's time to admit that military victory is not going to happen here. It's time to create the conditions for a political settlement. We need to set a timetable for withdrawal, bring the Sunni insurgents into talks with the Shiite dominated government, vigorously pursue regional negoitiations, and allow the people of the region to determine their own futures. The only thing standing between us and the end of the war is the unwillingness of our political leaders to admit their folly in launching this catastrophe.

Cheney's War

Impeach Cheney

Key to Political Solution in Iraq: Recognition that Sunni Insurgents are not the same thing as al Qaeda

Marc Lynch at the American Prospect:

"Far from vindicating the American escalation strategy in Iraq, recent tensions between insurgent factions and al-Qaeda bolster the case for withdrawal. "

"...The real story in Iraqi Sunni politics right now is the growing power struggle between al-Qaeda's Islamic State of Iraq and a tentative alliance of insurgency factions opposed to its methods and goals. This doesn't mean that these insurgents are "good guys" -- they are the most effective forces fighting the American presence in Iraq, with much American blood on their hands, and their goal is to keep the insurgency's focus on fighting the American occupation. But their goals are not the same as al-Qaeda's. "

"...Al-Qaeda presents a global vision of Iraq's role and future. In a document published by the London-based Arab newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi, al-Qaeda laid out a strategic agenda that placed Iraq at the center of a global jihad. The Islamic State of Iraq would become a central base for exporting jihad against kafir Arab regimes, the West, and Iran (with a high priority placed on the last). What that means is that al-Qaeda is in no hurry to see the Americans leave, since this would deprive it of its main source of propaganda and direct access to Americans targets. Thus, al-Qaeda rejects any negotiations with the United States. Indeed, at least some of its global rhetoric is likely tailored to feed American fears of withdrawal."

"The Islamic Army of Iraq and other locally rooted insurgency factions explicitly reject this vision of global jihad, insisting instead on a strict focus on liberating Iraq from American occupation. These factions have certainly been radicalized by the spiraling civil war in Iraq, but they lack al-Qaeda's monomaniacal fixation on the Shia and have on occasion entertained proposals for a cross-sectarian alliance. In recent weeks, some of these factions have gone out of their way to reassure neighboring Arab states that they consider the jihad exclusively Iraqi, and would not tolerate Iraq becoming an exporter of jihad. These insurgent factions have said that they would talk to the United States on the condition that it commit to withdrawing. (In fact, they probably already did talk to U.S. officials earlier this year, and according to recent reports are currently talking with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.) And unlike al-Qaeda, these factions actually badly want an American withdrawal from Iraq."

"..The insurgency's turn against al-Qaeda -- if it comes to fruition -- actually strengthens the case for an American withdrawal, by putting to rest fears of Iraq becoming a new base for global jihad. The escalating confrontation we've witnessed between the insurgents and al-Qaeda suggests that they would not afterwards tolerate the kind of al-Qaeda presence that Americans fear. Meanwhile, the currently dominant trends in the insurgency have made it ever more clear that they are willing to talk to the Maliki government and the United States, if only they get a strong commitment to withdrawal. "

Lynch is a professor at Williams College and proprietor of the blog, Abu Aardvark.

More from Lynch on this topic here.

Stop It

Physicians for Social Resposibility has a web form here which will allow you to send a letter to your Congressional representative and Senators asking Congress to investigate the use of torture and other abusive practices at US run detention facilities.

That Light at the end of the Tunnel is an IED

Juan Cole:

"Bloody Wednesday: Guerrillas, Violence kill Nearly 300 Iraqis:

I guess those Baghdad markets aren't as safe as Senator John McCain thought."

Two Virginia Techs Every Day

Juan Cole:

"Iraq Has Two Virginia Techs Every Day."

"Part of the American Landscape"

Washington Post reports overseas reaction to horrific Virginia Tech shootings:

In a special report on BBC 24 Monday evening, a commentator, Gavin Hewitt, said mass murder on school campuses had become "part of the American landscape." The network showed video footage of Columbine High School in Colorado and the Amish shooting in Pennsylvania, and noted that the powerful U.S. gun lobby had blocked gun restrictions that Europeans regard as simple common sense. "Even after today's horrific tragedy, laws are unlikely to change," Hewitt said.

More on how people abroad see the violence of America.

Why the World Bank staff is fed up with Wolfowitz

Circling the Wolfies

Republic? What Republic?

A Robert Greenwald film for the ACLU


Habeas Corpus?? Big deal, we don't have that right anyway (or so says the Attorney General of the United States).

Then there's this Pulitzer prize winning report by the Boston Globe's Charlie Savage:

"President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

...Far more than any predecessor, Bush has been aggressive about declaring his right to ignore vast swaths of laws -- many of which he says infringe on power he believes the Constitution assigns to him alone as the head of the executive branch or the commander in chief of the military.

Many legal scholars say they believe that Bush's theory about his own powers goes too far and that he is seizing for himself some of the law-making role of Congress and the Constitution-interpreting role of the courts.

...Bush has also said he can bypass laws requiring him to tell Congress before diverting money from an authorized program in order to start a secret operation, such as the ''black sites" where suspected terrorists are secretly imprisoned.

Congress has also twice passed laws forbidding the military from using intelligence that was not ''lawfully collected," including any information on Americans that was gathered in violation of the Fourth Amendment's protections against unreasonable searches. Congress first passed this provision in August 2004, when Bush's warrantless domestic spying program was still a secret, and passed it again after the program's existence was disclos \ed in December 2005. On both occasions, Bush declared in signing statements that only he, as commander in chief, could decide whether such intelligence can be used by the military.

In October 2004, five months after the Abu Ghraib torture scandal in Iraq came to light, Congress passed a series of new rules and regulations for military prisons. Bush signed the provisions into law, then said he could ignore them all. "

I guess I was mistaken about that "Separation of Powers" thing too.

What, Me Worry??

Iraqi Insurgents are not just al Qaeda

Despite the administration's repeated assertions that the war in Iraq must be continued because it is the central front in the War on Terror, the Washington Post reports increasingly tense relations between Sunni Insurgents and al Qaeda in Iraq:

"The Sunni insurgency in Iraq has long been fractious, in part because secular nationalists, tribal leaders and former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party and army have rejected al-Qaeda's tactics, particularly beheadings. But the emerging rift represents the Sunni groups' most decisive effort since the 2003 invasion to distance themselves from al-Qaeda in Iraq."

"...Insurgent leaders, in interviews in person or by telephone, offered different explanations for their split. Many said their link to the al-Qaeda groups was tainting their image as a nationalist resistance force. Others said they no longer wanted to be tools of the foreign fighters who lead al-Qaeda. Their war, they insist, is against only the U.S. forces, to pressure them to depart Iraq."

This is further evidence that the war in Iraq is not reducible to the so-called War on Terror, and ending the Iraq war is not equivalent to capitulation to al Qaeda as the administration continues to claim in their last-ditch efforts to justify their misbegotten and unwinnable war in Iraq. Rather, ending the occupation is a recognition that ultimately it must be the Iraqis who have the last word about what happens in their country. The price of continuing to deny that is the continuation of unconscionable bloodshed.

Cheney: hippies and Democrats undermining War on Terror

Vice President Cheney speaking to a Heritage Foundation audience:

"In the early 1970s, the far left wing turned the Democratic Party away from the confident Cold War stance of President Truman, President Kennedy, and Senator Scoop Jackson. The result, as we know, was ...the beginning of a long period in which the American people largely declined to trust the Democratic Party in matters of national security... Today, as the United States faces a new kind of enemy and a new kind of war, the far left is again taking hold of the Democratic party's agenda. The prevailing mindset, combined with a series of ill-considered actions in the House and Senate over the last several months, causes me to wonder whether today's Democratic leaders fully appreciate the nature of the danger this country faces in the war on terror -- a war that was declared against us by jihadists, a war in which the United States went on offense after 9/11, a war whose central front, in the opinion and actions of the enemy, is Iraq. "

"...Opponents of our military action there have called Iraq a diversion from the real conflict, a distraction from the business of fighting and defeating Osama bin Laden and the al Qaeda network."

"Yet the evidence is flatly to the contrary. And the critics conveniently disregard the words of bin Laden himself. 'The most serious issue today for the whole world," he said, "is this third world war [that is] raging in [Iraq].' He calls it 'a war of destiny between infidelity and Islam.' He said, 'The whole world is watching this war,' and that it will end in 'victory and glory or misery and humiliation.' And in words directed at the American people, bin Laden declares, 'The war is for you or for us to win. If we win it, it means your defeat and disgrace forever.' This leader of al-Qaeda has referred to Baghdad as the capital of the caliphate. He has also said, 'Success in Baghdad will be success for the United States. Failure in Iraq is the failure of the United States. Their defeat in Iraq will mean defeat in all their wars.' "

"Obviously, the terrorists have no illusion about the importance of the struggle in Iraq. They have not called it a distraction or a diversion from their war against the United States. They know it is a vital front in that war, and it's where they have chosen to make a stand. Our Marines are fighting al Qaeda terrorists in Anbar province. U.S. and Iraqi forces recently killed al Qaeda terrorists in Baghdad, who were responsible for numerous bomb attacks. Iraq's relevance to the war on terror simply could not be more plain. Here at home, that makes one thing, above all, very clear: If you support the war on terror, then it only makes sense to support it where the terrorists are fighting us. (Applause.)"

PAF bites his tongue hard and resists the urge to say to Mr. Cheney what he said to Senator Leahy.

There are a number of things wrong with the Vice President's justification for continuing his war, so many it's hard to know where to begin. So here's a couple of points to start with.

First, in a deliberate and cynically ahistorical misrepresentation, Cheney suggests that the primary significance of the Iraq war is and has been about al Qaeda and the "War on Terror", and we know this to be false. Iraq had nothing to do with al Qaeda until the US occupation of Iraq created a big, juicy, red-white-and-blue target right in the neighborhood which would be almost irresistable to any self-respecting jihadist. Further, Cheney's war has created a colossal public relations windfall for al Qaeda throughout the Islamic world by appearing to confirm Osama's primary propaganda claim that the US is seeking military domination of the Middle East as part of an aggressive war against Islam. To the extent that the Iraq war represents an opportunity for al Qaeda, it is an opportunity which the Vice President and his comic sidekick have created for them and delivered to them on a platter. Cheney's war has been good for al Qaeda, so it is seriously twisted for the Vice President to blame the war's critics for al Qaeda's good fortune.

But al-Qaeda linked jihadists are a relatively small part of the insurgency in Iraq, which is primarily a struggle of Sunni nationalists against an occupying army (layered on top of a low-grade sectarian civil war). Despite what Osama says, the war in Iraq is not primarily about him and his jihadist allies, and the Vice President is wrong to allow Osama to take credit for a struggle in which he and his allies have played a marginal role. Although we face defeat in Iraq, this political reality has everything to do with the fact that most Iraqis don't want us there, and has almost nothing to do with al Qaeda, which has no popular base of support in Iraq. Of course Osama will try to claim this as a victory for propaganda purposes. And the Vice President, for his own political purposes, is defining this struggle in the very terms which Osama wants him to, and making it easier for Osama to claim victory when Cheney's unnecessary, criminal and tragically doomed war finally comes to an end.


Oh, and one more thing, Mr. Vice President: go fuck yourself.

"The Iraqi resistance is fighting to end the occupation"

Haifa Zangana, an Iraqi exile writes in The Guardian (UK):

"There is only one solution to this disaster, and that is for the US and Britain to accept that the Iraqi resistance is fighting to end the occupation. And to acknowlege that it consists of ordinary Iraqis, not only al-Qaida, not just Sunnis or Shias, not those terrorists - as Tony Blair called them - inspired by neighbouring countries such as Iran. To recognise that Iraqis are proud, peace-loving people, and that they hate occuption, not each other. And to understand that the main targets of the resistance are not Iraqi civilians. According to Brookings, the independent US research institute, 75% of recorded attacks are directed at occupation forces, and a further 17% at Iraqi government forces. The average number of attacks has more than doubled in the past year to about 185 a day. That is 1,300 a week, and more than 5,500 a month. Another way of understanding this is that in any one hour, day or night, there are seven or eight new attacks. Without the Iraqi people’s support, directly and indirectly, this level of resistance would not have happened."

Call me overly sensitive, but it seems like we've worn out our welcome.

Failure is not an option (unless we fail)

Hearts and minds? Not so much (ingrates);

Rising death rate for US troops;

Retired generals warning that the army is near the breaking point;

Can't find enough troops to sustain even a modest Baghdad-centered surge;

Can't protect the Iraqi Parliament in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone despite the troop surge targeted specifically at Baghdad;

Can't retain your most promising officers;

Can't find a Generalissimo to assume responsibility for it all...

Smells like... victory.

Wanted: Generalissimo

Thinking of a career switch?

Have you considered a career in the fast paced, rapidly growing field of US military disasters?

If you would like to be Commander-in-Chief of Operation ClusterFuck (CINC-FUCK), dial 1-800-FALLGUY now.

RNC operatives and Regent University graduates are standing by to take your call.

Uniforms and Medal of Freedom included. BYO body armor.

More war, less safe

According to National Security expert Steven Simon:

"Polls indicate that most Iraqis want the United States to pull out. Moreover, the Iraq war has fueled the jihad and apparently been a godsend to jihadi recruiters — and the process of self-recruitment — as indicated by the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the global war on terror. More broadly, the Iraq war has had a very damaging effect on the U.S. reputation in the Arab and wider Islamic world. Authoritative opinion surveys show this as well. The continued presence of U.S. forces is thus a severe setback in the canonical war of ideas, which the Bush administration has correctly assessed as crucial to American interests."

The conclusion that the way we are waging the Global war on Terror is making us less safe is affirmed by a new study from the Oxford Research Group:

"The US-led and British-backed war on terror is only fuelling more violence by focusing on military solutions rather than on root causes, a think tank warned Wednesday.”The ‘war on terror’ is failing and actually increasing the likelihood of more terrorist attacks,” the Oxford Research Group said in its study, titled “Beyond Terror: The Truth About The Real Threats To Our World.” It said Britain and the United States have used military might to try to “keep the lid on” problems rather than trying to uproot the causes of terrorism. It said such an approach, particularly the 2003 invasion of Iraq, had actually heightened the risk of further terrorist atrocities on the scale of September 11, 2001."

And what will happen to our civil liberties, and perhaps even our republic, if another such attack should occur in the US?

Anyone??

Anyone???

Tragedy and farce

Hail, hail Fredonia, land of the brave and free.

Amen, says I.

This says

a lot of what I had wanted to say. Thanks to whoever put these powerful images to Dylan's angry and beautiful and, sadly, all too relevant song.

Liberals and academics rule.

Who knew???

"America, the crowd is told, is being ruled by evil, clandestine organizations that hide behind the veneer of liberal, democratic groups. These clandestine forces seek to destroy Christians. They spread their demonic, secular humanist ideology through front groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union, People for the American Way, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Organization for Women, Planned Parenthood, the Trilateral Commission and “the major TV networks, high-profile newspapers and newsmagazines,” the U.S. State Department, major foundations (Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford), the United Nations, “the left wing of the Democratic Party” and Harvard, Yale “and 2,000 other colleges and universities.” All of these groups have joined forces, LaHaye has warned, to “turn America into an amoral, humanist country, ripe for merger into a one-world socialist state.”

Chris Hedges, reporting on the conspiracist schtick of millennialist preacher, and co-author of the best-selling Left Behind book series, Tim LaHaye.

Aside from the hallucinogenic character of LaHaye's description of modern American politics, demonic secularism sounds like an oxymoron to me: secular humanists don't generally hang with demons. Supernatural beings of all kinds tend to, you know, avoid us for some reason.

Repeat after me:

There is no such thing as "class" in America.

New York Times
March 29, 2007

Income Gap Is Widening, Data Shows

By David Cay Johnston

Income inequality grew significantly in 2005, with the top 1 percent ofAmericans — those with incomes that year of more than $348,000 — receiving their largest share of national income since 1928, analysis of newly released tax data shows. The top 10 percent, roughly those earning more than $100,000, also reached a level of income share not seen since before the Depression. While total reported income in the United States increased almost 9 percent in 2005, the most recent year for which such data is available, average incomes for those in the bottom 90 percent dipped slightly compared with the year before, dropping $172, or 0.6 percent. The gains went largely to the top 1 percent, whose incomes rose to anaverage of more than $1.1 million each, an increase of more than $139,000,or about 14 percent. The new data also shows that the top 300,000 Americans collectively enjoyed almost as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans. Per person, the top group received 440 times as much as the average person in the bottomhalf earned, nearly doubling the gap from 1980.

No such thing, right?

Right??

Vee haf vays...

...of telling Uncle Sam to piss off.

Mommy, this Sunni Insurgent followed me home

The Bush administration likes to scare us into staying the course by telling us that if we remove our troops from Iraq, the enemy will follow us home.

On this, as on so many other important claims made by the White House, the President is full of shit.

First, while there is an ongoing low-grade civil war in Iraq, the war being waged against US forces there is primarily a Sunni nationalist insurgency against an occupying army. Remove the occupying army and you remove the reason and the opportunity for nationalist insurgents to attack Americans. The Sunni nationalist insurgents in Iraq tolerate the presence of a small number of foreign jihadists only insofar as they contribute to the anti-ocupation insurgency. The jihadists do not have a popular base of support in Iraq. If we end the insurgency by ending the occupation -- and especially if we do so in a way which promotes accommodation between Sunnis, Shiia, and Kurds -- Iraq will not become a terrorist super-base as Bush insists.

Second, our invasion and occupation of Iraq lends credibility to Osama's narrative that the West, led by America, is waging an aggressive war against Islam.

"The war in Iraq isn't preventing terrorist attacks on America," said one U.S. intelligence official, who spoke only on the condition of anonymity because he's contradicting the president and other top officials.* "If anything, that - along with the way we've been treating terrorist suspects - may be inspiring more Muslims to think of us as the enemy."

The war in Iraq is not keeping us safe from terrorist attack (London calling), so ending the war won't make us less safe. On the other hand, by prolonging the occupation we will be even more likely to provoke terrorist acts by extremists, and to increase their base of popular support worldwide, making future terrorist attacks here more, rather than less, likely.

Finally, the Iraq invasion and our overall policy of being a global asshole is making lots of people hate us, not just militant jihadists. Hard to see how that makes us safer.

* Let's pause for a moment to reflect on the reluctance of this US intelligence official to speak the truth in public. Why would that be? Might it have anything to do with the chilling effect of a career deliberately, vindictively destroyed? And who would do something like that?

Another Whack...

...at the Zombie Horse

Robert Parry is admirably direct and clear about the administration's continuing practice of telling us bald-faced lies:

"While other politicians might spin some facts in a policy debate or a tell a fib about a personal indiscretion, President Bush and Vice President Cheney act as if they have the power and the right to manufacture reality itself, often on matters of grave significance that bear on war and peace or the future of the nation...

So, on April 5, Cheney showed no hesitancy in telling Limbaugh’s listeners both an old canard about how Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was in league with al-Qaeda terrorists and a new one about how a U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq would “play right into the hands of al-Qaeda.”

Cheney surely knows that U.S. intelligence analysts have reached the opposite conclusions on both points – that there was no operational relationship between Hussein’s regime and al-Qaeda; that terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was based in a section of northern Iraq outside Hussein’s control; and that the U.S. occupation of Iraq has been a boon to al-Qaeda that the terrorist group wants to extend, not end.

As one of Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenants, known as “Atiyah,” wrote two years ago, “prolonging the war is in our interest.” The letter, dated Dec. 11, 2005, and obtained by U.S. intelligence after Zarqawi’s death in June 2006, urged that Zarqawi’s jihadists in Iraq show patience and restraint in deepening their ties to Iraqi Sunni insurgents."

Even before the U.S.-led invasion – when the Bush administration was hyping Hussein’s alleged ties to al-Qaeda – then-CIA Director George Tenet told the Senate Intelligence Committee that “there are several reported suggestions by al-Qa’ida to Iraq about joint terrorist ventures, but in no case can we establish that Iraq accepted or followed up on these suggestions.”

Despite this evidence and a broad consensus within the U.S. intelligence community, Cheney keeps alive his discredited claims about a pre-war al-Qaeda role under Saddam Hussein’s regime."

And we thought this guy was full of shit!







Meanwhile, an MSNBC anchor gets some help reviewing the record of Cheney's misrepresentations about Iraq and finds it all "very confusing" because, you know, saying something like "The Vice President appears to have told us a whole string of profoundly consequentiual untruths, and continues to do so" just wouldn't be objective journalism, or something. So instead, she's objectively confused.

CBC News documentary: The Lies that Led to War

The Lies that Led to War, Part 1 (9:44)



The Lies that Led to War, Part 2 (9:57)


The Lies that Led to War, Part 3 (9:44)



The Lies that Led to War, Part 4 (9:58)

Way Out

The invaluable Juan Cole, of Informed Comment, and the University of Michigan, on how to end the Iraq war with some hope for a better and more peaceful future:

"The US repression of Sunnis has allowed Shiites and Kurds to avoid compromise... The key to preventing an intensified civil war is US withdrawal from the equation so as to force the parties to an accommodation. Therefore, the United States should announce its intention to withdraw its military forces from Iraq, which will bring Sunnis to the negotiating table and put pressure on Kurds and Shiites to seek a compromise with them. But a simple US departure would not be enough; the civil war must be negotiated to a settlement, on the model of the conflicts in Northern Ireland and Lebanon. "

Department of Infuriatingly Undead Horses

By now you might think that there would be no need to point out - yet again - that the Iraq war was premised on deliberately misleading representations of half-assed conjectures as if they were established facts, facts which justified the most serious and consequential action any nation can take. Literally hundreds of thousdands have died as a direct result of the decision to lauch this war. Why?

• Saddam had sought Yellowcake uranium to make into nuclear weapons? No. And the administration knew it. Did I mention that they knew it?


• Saddam purchased Aluminum Tubes which could only be used in centrifuges for the enrichment of unranium? Yeah, he had some tubes, but they were better suited for making standard artillery rockets of a kind which posed no threat to the US. The administration was told this repeatedly, but gave no indication that the intelligence community was at best equivocal about whether the tubes had any relation at all to WMD.


• Saddam had mobile Bio-chem Trailers for the stealthy production of WMD? Um, not so much. And the informant who said so -- the aptly code-named "Curveball" -- was an alcoholic former taxi-driver from Iraq known to be a fabricator of bullshit which he tried to sell as "intelligence". Intelligence officers issued numerous warnings about Curveball's truthfulness which were bureaucratically suppressed or ignored as the administration incorporated Curveball's fabrications into their case for war.


• Saddam was supporting al-Qaeda? Nope. And they knew it.

Many of us knew these claims were highly questionable at the time they were originally made as the justification for war. And now we know the Bushies were deliberately misleading us. What do we call that when someone deliberately misleads us?

And are they the least bit contrite? Nope.

From the Washington Post (April 6, 2007):

"Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with al-Qaeda before the U.S. invasion of Iraq, according to a declassified Defense Department report released yesterday.

The declassified version of the report, by acting Inspector General Thomas F. Gimble, also contains new details about the intelligence community's prewar consensus that the Iraqi government and al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and about its judgments that reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information.

The report's release came on the same day that Vice President Cheney, appearing on Rush Limbaugh's radio program, repeated his allegation that al-Qaeda was operating inside Iraq "before we ever launched" the war, under the direction of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the terrorist killed last June. "This is al-Qaeda operating in Iraq," Cheney told Limbaugh's listeners about Zarqawi, who he said had "led the charge for Iraq." Cheney cited the alleged history to illustrate his argument that withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq would "play right into the hands of al-Qaeda."

[The Post goes on to explain:]
Zarqawi, whom Cheney depicted yesterday as an agent of al-Qaeda in Iraq before the war, was not then an al-Qaeda member but was the leader of an unaffiliated terrorist group who occasionally associated with al-Qaeda adherents, according to several intelligence analysts. He publicly allied himself with al-Qaeda in early 2004, after the U.S. invasion. "

Cheney is still at it.

Unfuckingbelievable.

Literally.

So we continue to beat the Zombie Horse.

Letter to Osama

Dear Osama,

Thank you for your letter. It was very thoughtful of you to write to us. As I re-read your letter the other day, it occurred to me that very possibly no one had gotten back to you. So I wanted to write and let you know that you are still in our thoughts. Here are my responses to your letter.

You say to us:

"The freedom and democracy that you call to is for yourselves and for white race only; as for the rest of the world, you impose upon them your monstrous, destructive policies and Governments, which you call the 'American friends'. Yet you prevent them from establishing democracies."

Yeah, OK, fair enough. I guess I find your views of American foreign policy to be not totally unreasonable. Our government is, as you suggest, attempting to dominate the Middle East. And they are using oppressive governments in the region, as well as direct military force, to help them do that. And their hypocrisy in doing all of that in the name of freedom is pretty breathtaking. But they are not doing it because our financial system and media are controlled by Jews, as you erroneously suggest (Osama, allow me to point out that you have been taken in by an historical hoax). Rather, our government is doing it for the somewhat more straightforward reason that your part of the world contains the great bulk of the world's oil reserves, and the capitalist system on which the wealth and power of America depends itself depends upon access to that oil. Fordism, don'tchaknow. Of course, that doesn't make it right, as perhaps we could agree.

You see you are quite wrong to suggest that we have consented to this policy and made it our own. Literally millions of us demonstrated against this war in Iraq before it ever began and continue to oppose it strongly. In fact, large numbers of us would support a post-imperial foreign policy in a more just and equitable world. So I think we could find a way to co-exist with people in your part of the world which did not rely on using military power and support for oppressive regimes to dominate you.

This is something I might be prepared to discuss with you if it weren't for that other thing.

Osama, I have to tell you that you have caused me and many others great pain by your actions, and like the Dixie Chicks, I'm not ready to make nice. I'm still very angry with you, and although I don't endorse the imperial project my government has launched under cover of their supposed "War on Terror," yet part of me will rejoice in your death if they find you. I'm not proud of that reaction, Osama, but I don't deny it.

Finally, Osama, let me thank you for your invitation to accept Islam. I don't disagree with your criticisms of our culture as fostering corruption and immorality, and I have much respect for your religion, with its traditions of compassion, social justice and equality. But I don't believe in a supernatural creator, and I am perfectly capable of making moral decisions without recourse to shariah or the ten commandments or any other supposedly divine revelations. I don't need you or Pastor Ted or anybody else with a speed dial to god to tell me how to make moral decisions. And by the way, Osama, you need to get over this:

"Who can forget your President Clinton's immoral acts committed in the official Oval office? After that you did not even bring him to account, other than that he 'made a mistake', after which everything passed with no punishment. Is there a worse kind of event for which your name will go down in history and remembered by nations?"

You tar us with serious and plausible charges of aggression and support for tyranny, and then you say our worst historical offense was failing to punish a blow job in the oval office?? Really, dude, I think you need to take this up with your therapist.




I'm glad to see that you have taken up karaoke. It's important to have a hobby, and I hear you don't get out much anymore.

Best wishes to Ayman and the kids.

sincerely,

PAF