Discourse.net

Big Day In Congress on Iraq Votes

Matt Stoler argues that something really big happened in Congress today.

Open Left:: House Republicans Collapse on Iraq: Today, about 100 House Republicans refused to vote for more war funding, voting ‘present’. They are trying to hand off the war to the Democrats, but even Democrats were able to increase their ‘no’ vote number on funding from 141 to 149.

…

This war is going to end because it is politically unsustainable. The Senate is going to add the funding back in and the House will make sure the money goes to the war, but recognize how big a deal this is. The Republicans in the House and the Senate are going to utterly collapse this fall, and Democrats will have a mandate to end the war. It’s something Obama has promised to do, and now the political logic there is undeniable. The question is whether there will be residual troops in the country, and that is where we can have an impact.

He may be right. The “present” votes are odd and cowardly, and should make some good hay.

But this final bit of triumphalism is over the top: “The Republicans are going to face, as Tom Matzzie said, extinction, because they kept the war going.” No such luck. They make take a pasting, but as we’ve seen from the Democrats’ return from the wilderness, it doesn’t last.

McCain Thinks First Gulf War Was a Mistake (But Still Supports This One)

John McCain famously supports the war in Iraq. Today he said that the war in Iraq was about oil. Even CNN recognized this for the huge gaffe that it is — you just can’t say that in the US, especially if it might be true. So they called his campaign and offered McCain a chance to explain/retract. And explain it he did: making it much worse.

See the clip for yourself.

McCain’s explanation? Despite the context which pretty clearly refers to the current Iraq War, McCain now says he meant the First Gulf War—when the US came to the rescue of Kuwait after Iraq invaded it.

In other words, McCain’s explanation is that what he was saying is that in a world where the US had energy independence he’d use that freedom to abandon allies like Kuwait if they were invaded, but would support a policy of attacking and occupying countries like Iraq when they don’t invade their neighbors.

I. Am. Not. Making. This. Up.

In any rational media ecology this would be a million times worse than something your ex-pastor said. Can I at least hope for a little box on page one promoting the article on A24?

Why Should Petraeus's Confirmation Be a Cakewalk?

The SCLM is busy assuring me this morning that Gen. Petraeus’s confirmation as the head of CenCom is a done deal.

Asked about Petraeus’s prospects for Senate confirmation, Gates said he already had conferred with Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, as well as Senator John McCain of Arizona, a presidential candidate and ranking Republican on the panel, and Senator John Warner of Virginia, a top Republican voice on military issues.

`High Respect’

“I think they all have high respect for General Petraeus,” Gates said. “He has clearly been successful in his current assignment, and so I don’t really anticipate any problems.”

Levin limited his public comments to a statement saying he was “hoping to schedule a prompt confirmation hearing.”

McCain, a strong supporter of the U.S. military buildup in Iraq that Petraeus advocated and then commanded, called him “one of the great generals in American history” who had achieved “dramatic success” in Iraq.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was less welcoming. Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said he will be “looking for credible assurances of a strong commitment to implementing a more effective national security strategy” when the nomination comes before the Senate. Reid said the battles against the Taliban in Afghanistan and al-Qaeda in Pakistan and the overall readiness of U.S. ground forces “have suffered as a result of the current costly Iraq strategy,” requiring “fresh, independent and creative thinking.

Perhaps because the relevant committee is the generally pliant Armed Services Committee, the easy confirmation story may be correct. But why should Petraeus’s confirmation be a cakewalk? There are three ways in which this appointment is unusual, and the combo ought to be enough to give one pause.

First, and perhaps least important, there’s the Army policy issue. As I understand it, the practice in the Army is to rotate commanders in from outside the area, rather than promoting up from within. The Army justifies this on two grounds: first, it gives its top commanders the opportunity to develop a wider perspective. Second, it’s a quiet way of getting rid of bad policies, as the new broom comes in and lets the bad ideas wither on the vine; promoting from within means that one gets more of the same, good or bad. I rate this ‘least important’ because I’ve long had doubts about the Army’s rotation (or, if you prefer, revolving door) policy. We did it Vietnam, and it contributed to our failure there by creating a ‘ticket-punching’ mentality; there’s a lot to be said for the WWII approach in which commanders were responsible for the consequences of their actions, and either got removed or got promoted to jobs they were most likely to understand quickly. In principle I don’t necessarily object to overriding this norm, although I have doubts about both Petraeus and General Ray Odierno who will replace him as the commander in Iraq. (Seems Ray Odierno has a bit of reputation.)

Second, there is the politics of the thing. Promoting Petraeus to the theater command is like leaving a minefield for the next President, especially if s/he’s one who would like to withdraw from Iraq, or even downsize our occupation there. Especially if he’s angling for a GOP Presidential nomination in the future, he has every incentive to balk.

Third, and by far the most important reason to hold up the confirmation, there are some unanswered questions about Petraeus’s veracity. See for example, this debate a year ago over whether Petraeus lied to a Congressional committee about US policy on arming Sunni tribes, and was at the most charitable very highly misleading to Congress about the level of violence in Iraq. Not to mention the suggestion he may recently have been less than forthcoming about discussions with Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki regarding military action in Basra.

Why should Congress confirm Petraeus to such high office at a critical time in our two ongoing military actions when he has a proven record of failing to testify fully and honestly?

But I Don't Have Any Dumb Friends

Scholars and Rogues, How to win the Iraq war debate against your dumb friends.

Recently I was arguing with one of my dumber friends about the Iraq war. He loves Bush and thinks bigger bombs is the answer in Iraq. I wasn’t gaining any ground in the argument until I used a simple analogy. I said, “Your solution is like shattering an expensive vase and then saying, ‘We need to keep smashing it until it’s fixed.’”

I stumped him. He was silent. So here’s a brief list of other analogies you can use on your dumb friends. And the truth is, I’ve seen similar ones work on some of the smartest political pundits.

Actually, I’m not sure if I know anyone who supports the war any more, although I know people with varying views about how one extricates from it. If they do support it, they’re awful quiet about it. Statistically, you’d expect there would be a number in the student body, but then I don’t spend that much time talking politics with students. Maybe I should?

Sick

I wasn’t going to post anything on this sad milestone of 4,000 US military fatalities in Iraq. The number is at once numbing, infuriating, obscene, and vastly under-stated, as it leaves out the non-military US fatalities, many many US military casualties whose injuries will plague them and their families for the next sixty or more years, the physically raped US civilian workers with no recourse, the metaphorically raped US taxpayers, the many tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed, who knows how many Iraqi civilians injured, the millions of Iraqis displaced or forced into exile, and on and on.

And then I saw this: Crooks and Liars » Cheney on 4000 American Dead: “They Volunteered”

And so I posted something after all.

Fallon Firing Fallout: Petraeus Wins

It looks to me as if the big winner in the Fallon firing (and even Steve Clemons says it is a firing) is Adm. Fallon’s nominal subordinate Gen. David Petraeus. It didn’t look good for Petraeus to have his boss on a different page; it revealed Petraeus’s spin for what it was.

And it’s important for Petraeus to look good: not primarily because he’s at least a long-shot contender for the vice-presidential slot on the McCain ticket, but because Petraeus is the key to the administration’s domestic strategy for the fall.

Bush desperately wants a Republican to succeed him, not just to avoid the visible repudiation but also to keep the scandals under the rug. The linchpin of the political strategy is to tar the Democrats as not just weak on defense but part of the Dolchstoßlegende (stab in the back) tendency. And the man who’s going to do much of the heavy lifting for Bush is Petraeus, who’s currently hoping to do another round of testimony on the Hill on or about 9/11/08 — just as the electoral season kicks into high gear.

(Why the Democrats would allow this testimony on such a charged date is beyond me, but there’s no understanding the political death wishes and spinelessness of our Senators. They allowed it last year.)

[Update (3/12): I’m told this year’s testimony is actually scheduled for April 8 and 9 — the dates that US forces took Baghdad and the Saddam statue came down. Another triumph of Democratic planing.]

Vladeck on Omar and Munaf

At PrawfBlawg (like the blog, hate the name), Steve Vladeck has a very insightful post on two cases pending before the Supreme Court: Did Omar and Munaf Just Become the Same Case?

Steve being a friend, I know he’ll forgive me for my quoting it in full:

Over at Opinio Juris, Kevin Heller has news of an immensely important development — the Iraqi Court of Cassation’s reversal of Mohammed Munaf’s conviction by the Central Criminal Court of Iraq (the “CCC-I”). Munaf’s habeas petition is one of two brought by U.S. citizens detained in Iraq set to be argued before the Supreme Court later this month (and in which I co-authored an amicus brief in support of the federal courts’ jurisdiction).

Significantly, the distinction between Munaf and the other detainee — Omar — relied upon by the D.C. Circuit was Munaf’s conviction by the CCC-I… the lower courts concluded that, where the U.S. citizen-detainee had not been tried and convicted (Omar), there was jurisdiction; where he had, there wasn’t (Munaf).

If Munaf’s conviction has now been reversed, that has the potential to change the whole complexion of the two cases; now, both present a challenge to “pure” executive detention, without the wrinkle added by Munaf’s conviction (subsequent to the filing of his habeas petition). Indeed, Munaf’s almost becomes the stronger case, since his, unlike Omar’s, is not in the posture of a grant of a preliminary injunction…

How will the government respond? Will the Supreme Court now just decide Omar, and vacate and remand Munaf for further proceedings not inconsistent therewith?

One thing is for sure: If this all pans out, the reversal of Munaf’s conviction serves to reinforce the deep flaws in his trial in the first place, and the reason why federal judicial review of his detention via habeas was—and continues to be—so critical in his case.

I Like This Video

I like this What is this ‘Iraq war’ charge on my bill? video from Less Jobs. More Wars. Especially the ending.

Why Republicans Will Lose The Presidency In 2008

YouTube - Why Republicans Will Lose The Presidency In 2008

Well, that and the economy.

Lies, Lies, Lies

Lies abound.

• Lies, Damned Lies, a Searchable Database of Lies — links to and describes a new database of Bush administration lies about Iraq
• Computers piece together millions of shredded Stasi documents — unraveling Communist lies
• Why similar forensics may be needed here in the USA: Plame Investigation and Missing Emails: Analysis on Emails

Another Reason for Americans to be Proud of Our Government

Not.

Kevin Jon Heller, Bilal Hussein’s Kangaroo Court (summarizing Scott Horton’s excellent An Update on the Trial of Bilal Hussein).

Given how raw the US’s behavior is, this case has gotten remarkably little media: You’d expect reporters to care more about the treatment of a fellow journalist. Perhaps the Pentagon’s anti-reporter tactics are getting better?

Petraeus: Hero, REMF, or Model Proconsul?

Reading this rabidly negative deconstruction of Gen. Petraeus’s fruit salad (the tabs and medals on an officer’s dress uniform), I was struck by the extent to which it remained open to a counter-narrative. It may be that Patraeus is the antithesis of a fighting General, but it may also be that he is a very good administrator (even if he’s also a man who married well and is very good at ascending in environments studded with greasy poles).

It is possible to distrust, even despise, the bootlicking of superiors — evident in the General’s public and obsequious support of the Bush administration’s political objectives — traits alleged in that article to be long-running hallmarks of a career, and yet admire the ability to motivate subordinates and manipulate the media. Even if one discounts for the besotted reporter factor, it seems pretty clear that the areas of Iraq that General Petraeus’s troops occupied were more peaceful and stayed bought longer than other non-Kurdish areas under US control. That was an achievement, exactly the sort we hope for from our modern military Proconsuls, although not one that can easily be replicated on a larger scale now that he’s starting from a worse position.

What's Big, Wet, and Can Drown 500,000 People?

A nightmare: a dam built on a foundation of gypsum —which dissolves when it comes into contact with water.

Iraqi Dam Seen In Danger of Deadly Collapse: The largest dam in Iraq is in serious danger of an imminent collapse that could unleash a trillion-gallon wave of water, possibly killing thousands of people and flooding two of the largest cities in the country, according to new assessments by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other U.S. officials.

Even in a country gripped by daily bloodshed, the possibility of a catastrophic failure of the Mosul Dam has alarmed American officials, who have concluded that it could lead to as many as 500,000 civilian deaths by drowning Mosul under 65 feet of water and parts of Baghdad under 15 feet, said Abdulkhalik Thanoon Ayoub, the dam manager. “The Mosul dam is judged to have an unacceptable annual failure probability,” in the dry wording of an Army Corps of Engineers draft report.

At the same time, a U.S. reconstruction project to help shore up the dam in northern Iraq has been marred by incompetence and mismanagement, according to Iraqi officials and a report by a U.S. oversight agency to be released Tuesday.

Right, dictator’s stupid decision followed up by US incompetence and mis-management in Iraq. If only it was only a nightmare.

See also The Carpetbagger for the usual good commentary.

We Need More of This

I don’t endorse every word of this, but I like the spirit of it.

Davis Fleetwood, STUDENTS: A CHALLENGE FOR YOU:

Yes, we need lots more of this.

Icelandic Army of One Heads Home from Iraq

It seems that Iceland was one of the countries counted in the ‘coalition of the willing’ in Iraq — even though it had exactly one soldier on the ground, a press aide. And now, the coalition is down one member because he’s going home.

Comedian Andy Cobb has done a video to commemorate this event:

Spanish 'Downing Street Papers'

They’re calling the scoop by El Pais the Spanish Downing Street Memo.

Just as with the UK version, the leaked Spanish transcript of a talk between GWB and Spanish PM Aznar in February 2003 shows Bush planning to invade privately while publicly denying it. This time he’s saying,

Saddam Husein will not change and will keep on playing games. The time has come to get rid of him. That’s the way it is. For my part, I will try, from now on, to use the most subtle rhetoric possible, while we seek approval of the resolution

In other words, as if you didn’t know, the invasion decision was taken well before the authorizing resolution.

But, come on people, were there really many folks who thought Bush had sent basically the whole US Army to sit on Iraq’s borders just to bring them home again?

No, the issue now is if they ever get to come home.

Rats

In 14 Spy Squirrels In Iranian Custody we learn that Iranian authorities have recently arrested more than a dozen squirrels for espionage. Unfortunately, this has no connection with the other piece of Middle-East bait-related news, U.S. Aims To Lure Insurgents With ‘Bait’: Snipers Describe Classified Program.

From the second story:

A Pentagon group has encouraged some U.S. military snipers in Iraq to target suspected insurgents by scattering pieces of “bait,” such as detonation cords, plastic explosives and ammunition, and then killing Iraqis who pick up the items, according to military court documents.

From the first story:

“In recent weeks, intelligence operatives have arrested 14 squirrels within Iran’s borders,” state-sponsored news agency IRNA reported. “The squirrels were carrying spy gear of foreign agencies, and were stopped before they could act, thanks to the alertness of our intelligence services.”

One story is horrific — our tax money is now being used to shoot civilians who bend over to investigate shiny stuff on the street — and the other story is just weird. The article is silent as to what sort of bait was used to catch the squirrels.

Priorities

The Democrats (and a some Republicans) want to increase funding for medical care for poor children. The specter of healthy poor children cased by the expenditure of tax money has so terrified GW Bush that it has turned him into a born-again fiscal tightwad, or so his stennographers would have it. (Actually, for some strange reason the stenography is silent on the subject of the children…)

The debate is pretty simple: how many kids to insure in the federal scheme, with the understanding that as the number grows, the program reaches up into the working poor and even if funded to Democratic levels, substantially above the poverty line.

The Speaker’s office has more on the issue, along with a nice chart comparing the cost of this program to a few weeks of the Iraq occupation. (They call it a war.)

Political Dysfunction on a Cosmic Scale

alicublog writes:

It is worth noting that today’s session was mainly about a plan for withdrawal from an occupation which is disapproved by citizens of the occupying country as well as those of the occupied country. But neither the Democratic leadership nor the Republican Administration perceive a political benefit to themselves from a quick exit. So they talk about timetables and drawdown and leave it to their operatives to spin the analysis to their advantage.

I found my way there because Kevin Drum says it’s one of the funniest blogs and I wanted a laugh.

Myself, I think you need a pretty bleak sense of humor to find this funny.

Hard at Work

Great compilation at The Democratic Party | It’s Working? That Old Line Again?:

“The terrorists and the Baathists loyal to the old regime will fail because America and our allies have a strategy, and ours trategy is working.”
President Bush
November 1, 2003

“Our strategy is working.”
Vice President Cheney
September 28, 2004

“That’s our strategy. And it is working and it is going to work, for the good of the country.”
President Bush
June 24, 2005

“Our strategy is working.”
White House’s “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq”
November 30, 2005

“This approach is working.”
President Bush
December 7, 2005

“It is a concrete example of how our strategy is working.”
Frm. White House spokesman Scott McClellan
March 20, 2006

“It took time to understand and adjust to the brutality of the enemy in Iraq. Yet the strategy is working.”
President Bush
March 20, 2006

Expect to be worked over again next week when the White House issues its report under Gen. Petraeus’s name.

Wesley Clark: Too Loyal To His Friends, Not Loyal Enough to the Nation?

boingboing reprints an allegation that Wesley Clark knew that the administration decided to attack Iraq (and several other countries) long, long before the actual invasion:

“About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in. He said, ‘Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second.’ I said, ‘Well, you’re too busy.’ He said, ‘No, no.’ He says, ‘We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.’ This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, ‘We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?’ He said, ‘I don’t know.’ He said, ‘I guess they don’t know what else to do.’ So I said, ‘Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al Qaeda?’ He said, ‘No, no.’ He says, ‘There’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.’ He said, ‘I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments.’ And he said, ‘I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.’ So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, ‘Are we still going to war with Iraq?’ And he said, ‘Oh, it’s worse than that.’ He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, ‘I just got this from upstairs’—meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office—“today.” And he said, ‘This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.’ I said, ‘Is it classified?’ He said, ‘Yes, sir.’ I said, ‘Well, don’t show it to me.’ And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, ‘You remember that?’ He said, ‘Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you!’”

Clark only told this story for the first time recently. If true, and if it wasn’t just contingency planning but a real “go” order, didn’t he have a duty to speak out much sooner?

How the Bush Administration REALLY Treats Soldiers

Below I quote a very disturbing story from the Army of Dude blog by Alex Horton, a 22 year old from Frisco, Texas.

Last week I heard a story of official blackmail similar to this one from a friend who is a reserve officer regarding the treatment of some career officers he knows — so this blackmail isn’t limited to the enlisted ranks.

Army of Dude: Happy Dependence Day!: Four years of war and this Army is a skeleton of its former self. Equipment is broken or obsolete, thousands are dead and wounded and many of us can’t wait to get off the Hindenburg. For awhile, deployments were kept to a year, with at least twelve months back home to recuperate, to get new equipment, to bury the dead. To keep the surge going, deployments have been extended to fifteen months to keep the year at home from shrinking down to nine or less months. The number of people getting out was devastating, so the Army needed a new plan to keep people in. New slogan and advertising campaign? Check. Stop loss program? Check. Bigger bonuses? Check. Guaranteeing non-deployable positions at training posts and recruiting stations, acknowledging people are scared stiff to go to Iraq? Check. Still the numbers are low. After watching too many 80s gang movies, someone thought of such a simple, foolproof idea: good ol’ fashioned blackmail.

Before we left Baghdad, the re-enlistment briefs got a little more disturbing. Instead of letting you know what a bum you’ll become if you leave the Army after your enlistment, they put it in simple terms: if you don’t re-enlist, you’ll be thrown in 5th Brigade, the Stryker unit on Ft. Lewis that was being stood up, and yes, they were deploying as soon as they could. So you might as well stay where your friends are and come back to Iraq with them. Otherwise, you’ll be taking your chances by getting your ass stop-lossed and sent to Iraq in as little as six months to a year after you returned. Better off with the sure thing. Here’s a pen, junior. If you got out after July 2008, you were screwed. I, on the other hand, was in the clear since I was getting out at the end of 2007. The options were re-enlist, extend to meet the unit’s needs, or take no action. I checked take no action, which meant my name would be added to the pool of possible candidates for 5th Brigade. No matter. It was of no consequence if I separated from the Army in 3rd or 5th Brigade. A lot of us were in that boat. Still, it spooked us that someone could come to us with a list and a smile and say in so many words that we were fucked into another deployment unless we added years to our contracts. In short, the thanks we got for serving our country was being forced into a game of Russian Roulette. Take the risk, pull the trigger. See what happens.

I suggest you tell this story the next time anyone dares suggest that anything short of calling for withdrawal amounts to “supporting the troops.”

Iraq Vets Ask Bush to Stop Blocking Tillman Investigation

A group of Iraq War veterans invites you to sign on to their letter asking Bush to stop blocking the investigation into the death of Cpl. Pat Tillman.

Full text of the letter below.

President George W. Bush The White House
Washington, DC

Mr. President, Sir:

On behalf of the veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, and those troops still in theater, we implore you to reconsider your decision to invoke claims of executive privilege in refusing to share vital documents regarding the death of Corporal Pat Tillman with the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

As you know, this week the Associated Press obtained the medical examiner’s finding at the time of his death that Corporal Tillman’s fatal wounds seemed to indicate shots fired from ten yards away, or less. The doctors who examined Corporal Tillman urged a criminal investigation into his death be opened at that time, and were refused. Since that time, the Department of Defense has put forth two explanations for the death of Corporal Tillman, the first of which was proven false, and a second which now seems to have been proven to be a lie, as well. In both cases, the White House has actively pushed these false findings to the public.

Your administration has faithfully shared a number of documents with the committee, but has withheld a number of requested documents under the specious argument that sharing the documents would violate confidentiality among you and your staff. For instance, the Committee has requested a number of communications between senior administration officials and the Pentagon, which may offer important details into the death of Corporal Tillman, and if there was an attempt to cover them up, by some in the Executive Branch.

Respectfully, Sir, when it comes to outright lies conveyed to the public about the death of a soldier - especially one like Corporal Tillman whose service was used as a recruiting poster for the military - there is nothing which cannot be shared with the Legislative Branch or the people.

Confidence in the institution of the military from those within is at stake, the longer you withhold information. The longer questions remain about the death of Corporal Tillman and possible White House involvement in an ensuing cover-up, the more our troops will question whether this government will properly honor their sacrifice and let their families know the truth, if they are killed in action. It is simply impossible for the military to function, if those in its ranks do not have full faith in our leadership up the chain of command, all the way to Washington.

Additionally, by letting questions fester regarding the death of Corporal Tillman, you are placing an undue burden on our recruiters, at a time when our Army and Marine Corps can ill-afford more of a drop off in recruiting. Our military depends on being able to visit homes and gaining the trust of mothers and fathers to allow their 18-year old son or daughter to wear the uniform. What mother would allow her son or daughter to serve a nation she feels will not honor her child’s service?

Finally, as Commander in Chief, you owe the complete and total truth to Corporal Tillman’s mother, Mary Tillman. Those of us who served know that it is the duty of any officer to write to the families of those under us who were killed, and tell them the entire truth regarding their love one’s death. To lie about any details or withhold any information would not just cause unjust pain to the survivors, but is to dishonor the fallen. As our nation’s top commander, it is your duty to Pat Tillman and his family to release all materials related to his death.

For the good of our military, our troops, the Tillmans, and our nation, we respectfully call on you to comply with all past and future requests of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform on the matter of the death of Corporal Tillman.

Respectfully,

Jon Soltz
Chairman, VoteVets.org
Iraq War Veteran, US Army
New York, NY

Michael Breen
Former US Army Ranger
Iraq and Afghanistan War Veteran
Seattle, WA

Brandon Friedman
Iraq and Afghanistan War Veteran, US Army
Dallas, TX

Elliot Anderson
Afghanistan War Veteran, US Marine Corps
Las Vegas, NV

Lt. Col. Andrew Horne (ret.)
Iraq War Veteran, US Marine Corps
Louisville, KY

Peter Granato
Iraq War Veteran, US Army
Washington, DC

John Bruhns
Iraq War Veteran, US Army
Philadelphia, PA

Joseph Kramer
Iraq War Veteran, US Army
Pittsburgh, PA

The Past Is Not Past

Charles Pierce links the current Iraq debacle to our national failure to punish the people behind Iran-Contra—in part due to an earlier round of presidential pardons. There more than something to that, but I think it goes deeper.

Today’s brazenly pardoned crimes may be linked to yesterday’s brazenly pardoned crimes, but today’s policy blunders have their roots a bit earlier: it was much worse for your career (both iin the bureaucracy and in the legislature) to be right too early about Vietnam than it was to be wrong too long. And too many people in DC have learned all those lessons all too well.

Had Enough?

Four years ago, GW Bush told US attackers in Iraq to bring them on. And they did.

Since then, 3,372 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq, and tens of thousands more injured or wounded. (Details.) Not to mention the civilian death and destruction.

And for what, exactly?

Memorial Day (III)

I’m very happy to be in Italy today for this interesting conference, but I’m just a little bit sorry that as a result I can’t join in with any of the activities designed to Support the troops. End the war.

If you’re in the US today, you can.

Memorial Day (II)

Juan Cole has some thoughts about Memorial Day 2007.

Memorial Day

Daily Kos: Numbers

Q: “Tony, American deaths in Iraq have reached 2,500. Is there any response or reaction from the President on that?”

MR. SNOW: “It’s a number, and every time there’s one of these 500 benchmarks people want something.” — White House Press Conference, 15 June 2006

Things Are Looking Up in Iraq -- Official

(via Jim Henley)

A General Takes a Strong Stand on Torture

Gen. David H. Petraeus, the US military commander/viceroy in Iraq may be “overrated”, but he’s done at least one thing right: taking a strong stand against torture.

John Edwards to Organize War Protest Memorial Day Weekend

Democratic Presidential hopeful John Edwards is starting a new effort to “support the troops and end the war” and he’s registered a very long domain name to organize it: supportthetroopsendthewar.com: Support the troops. End the war. Take action May 26th, 27th, 28th.

Take Action May 26th, 27th, 28th

As citizens, we honor and support our troops for their service and sacrifice.

As Americans, we are blessed by that sacrifice and support, which keeps us safe and keeps us strong.

As patriots, we call on our government to support our troops in the most important way it can - by ending this war and bringing them home.

This Memorial Day weekend, we will all take responsibility for the country we love and the men and women who protect it. We will volunteer, we will pray, and we will speak out. Each of us has a responsibility to act, a duty to our troops and to each other. Support the troops. End the war.

The site invites people to sign up for demonstrations and other activities in their neighborhoods.

I heard about this because for reasons never explained to me I was invited onto a very brief one-way conference call in which Edwards announced the initiative. He didn’t talk long, but he said all the right things: that the movement to end the war was more important than a political campaign, that the point of the event was to support the troops by bringing them home.

“We’re going to reclaim patriotism.”

…

“The best way to serve our troops is to end this war.”

Edwards also has a YouTube promo for the event.

Now I feel bad that I’m going to be at a conference in Bologna over Memorial Day weekend. So I won’t be demonstrating in Miami. But I do agree that the time has come to be visible, and I’m going to have to find other ways to do that.

I'm Part of the Majority

TPM Cafe, New Poll: Solid Majority Wants Congress To Send Bush Another Bill With Timetables,

Fifty four percent of Americans oppose President Bush’s veto of Congress’ Iraq withdrawal bill, and a solid majority wants Congress to send Bush another Iraq bill containing withdrawal timetables

I am part of the majority. Why is it so silent?

Silent or not, I do think that the electorate will take its revenge at 2008. Bush is making Hoover look good. And Hoover defined his party for over a generation. We’ll get the enablers.

Basic Lessons in Democracy

“…democracy: Politicians run countries. You got a problem with that?”

Well, yes, some Leo Straussian right-wing types do have a problem with that.

A Grim Prognosis for Iraq

Juan Cole has an anonymous guest commentator, described as “a canny Vietnam veteran” who has a grim prognosis for Iraq. Not pleasant reading. If even half of these thing are right…

Do The Numbers

Some statistics from Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office:

Number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq as of May 1, 2003: 139 [DoD, 5/1/07]

Number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq: 3,351 [DoD, 5/1/07]

Number of U.S. troops wounded in action in Iraq: 25,090 [DoD, 5/1/07]

Number of wounded in action and unable to return to duty: 11,215 [DoD, 5/1/07]

Number of troops killed so far this month (April): 104 [icasualties.org, 4/30/07] 

Number of troops killed in December 2006: 112 – the highest since November 2004 [icasualties.org, 4/30/07]

Percent of U.S. troops killed by Improvised Explosive Devices in March 2007: nearly 60 [Brookings Institution, 4/26/07]

Number of insurgents in Iraq in November 2003: 5,000 [Brookings Institution, 4/26/07]

Number of insurgents in Iraq in March 2007: 70,000 (Sunni only) [Brookings Institution, 4/26/07]

Number of multi-fatality bombings in May 2004: 9 [Brookings Institution, 4/26/07]

Number of multi-family bombings so far this month (April): 41 [Brookings Institution, 4/26/07]

Estimated number of people killed by multiple fatality bombings since May 2003: 12,108 [Brookings Institution, 4/26/07]

Number of civilian casualties in Iraq since U.S.-led invasion: estimates range from 54,000 – 76,500 [Brookings Institution, 4/26/07]
 
Average number of daily attacks by insurgents in July 2003: 16 [Brookings Institution, 4/26/07]

Average number of daily attacks by insurgents between November 2006 and February 2007: 149 [Brookings Institution, 4/26/07]


Cost of the War to American Taxpayers

“The annual cost of the Iraq war has more than doubled between 2003 and 2006, according to a new U.S. government report. With 20,000 more troops being prepared to go to Iraq, the costs will rise even more.”
— “Annual Iraq war cost has doubled since ‘03,” UPI, 1/10/07

Amount appropriated for the Iraq War so far: $379 billion [House Appropriations Committee]

Approximate amount U.S. currently spending in Iraq per month: $8 billion [CRS, 9/22/06]

Amount in President Bush’s request for new DOD spending for the wars in Iraq & Afghanistan: $235 billion (including a FY 2007 supplemental of $93 billion and a FY 2008 supplemental of $142 billion) [Bush budget]


Strain on the Military

“The thousands of troops that President Bush is expected to order to Iraq will join the fight largely without the protection of the latest armored vehicles that withstand bomb blasts far better than the Humvees in wide use, military officers said.”
— “Better armor lacking for new troops in Iraq,” Baltimore Sun, 1/10/07

Number of U.S. troops currently in Iraq (approximate): 146,000 [Brookings Institution, 4/26/07]

Projected number of U.S. troops in Iraq when the “surge” is completed (by summer 2007): 160,000 [Palm Beach Post, 4/16/07]

Number of soldiers in the Army that have served more than one tour in Iraq: 170,000 [Christian Science Monitor, 1/9/07]

Percent of the Army’s available active duty combat brigades that have served at least a 12-month tour in Iraq or Afghanistan: 100 [Washington Post, 9/14/06]

Number of active duty or reserve brigades in the U.S. considered “combat ready”: 0 [Christian Science Monitor, 9/22/06]

Number of active duty military who have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001: 1.1 million [DoD, 3/31/07]

Number of National Guard and Reservists who have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001: 421,981 [DoD, 3/31/07] 

Number of National Guard and Reservists deployed more than once since 2001: 84,198 [DoD, 8/31/06]

Percent of troops currently deployed who are in the National Guard and Reserves: 22 [DoD, 3/31/07]

Number of months longer Army troops in Iraq will have to serve as a result of a blanket tour extension order issued by the Pentagon: at least 3 months [Pentagon News Briefing, 4/11/07] 

Length of average mobilization for Reserve and National Guard members: 18 months [Washington Post, 11/5/06] 

Percent of National Guard or Reserve units so poorly equipped they are rated “not ready”: 88 [Washington Post, 3/2/07]

Amount of essential equipment the Army National Guard has on-hand here at home: 30% [GAO Testimony, 9/21/06]

Amount Army needs to repair or replace equipment destroyed/deteriorated in Iraq: $66.1 billion [CBS/AP, 9/25/06]

Amount of time Army needs to catch up on backlog of equipment repairs generated from Iraq war: 3 years [ABC News, 2/10/07] 


Reconstruction Problems and Lack of Accountability

“A recent Defense inspector general investigation into interagency purchases placed through the Treasury Department’s FedSource program uncovered major problems, including inadequate competition. Every award examined by the IG was flawed. Other problems included missing contracting agreements, insufficient price documentation and a lack of market research. Defense auditors also identified 21 potential violations of the Anti-Deficiency Act, which bars spending in excess of available resources.”
— “Defense IG finds major flaws in contracts issued via Treasury,” National Journal, 1/3/07

Amount Iraqi government says is needed over the next 4 years to rebuild country’s infrastructure: $100 billion [Reuters, 10/31/06]

Amount of Iraqi reconstruction funds unaccounted for by the Coalition Provisional Authority: $8.8 billion [Boston Globe, 4/6/06]

Tons of cash shipped to Iraq in December 2003 and June 2004 under the authority of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority: 363 [Reuters, 2/12/07]

Amount of the $11.8 million worth of U.S.-financed electrical generators at Baghdad airport that are no longer working: $8.6 million [NYT, 4/29/07]

Number of hours per day of electricity in Baghdad prior to the war: 16-24 [Brookings Institution, 4/26/07]

Number of hours per day of electricity in Baghdad, April 2007: 5.8 [Brookings Institution, 4/26/07]

Oil production – barrels per day – prior to the war: 2.5 million [Brookings Institution, 4/26/07]

Oil production – barrels per day – April 2007: 2.1 million [Brookings Institution, 4/26/07]

Unemployment rate in Iraq (December 2006): estimates range from 25% to 40% [Brookings Institution, 4/26/07]

Average rate of inflation in Iraq in 2006: 50% [DoD, 3/07]

Amount the U.S. has allocated to private contractors for reconstruction and rebuilding efforts in Iraq since the beginning of the war. $50 billion [60 Minutes, 2/12/06]

Amount of taxpayer dollars squandered by the government in reconstruction contracts according to U.S. auditors: $10 billion [CNN, 2/15/07]

Amount of taxpayer money spent by Halliburton that the Defense Contract Audit Agency has deemed either excessive or insufficiently documented:  $1.47 billion [Boston Globe, 6/28/05]

White House office that helped facilitate a no-bid Iraq reconstruction contract worth $7 billion to Halliburton: Vice President Cheney [GAO, June 2004]

Amount Halliburton has received in “cost plus” contracts for Iraq reconstruction: $25.7 billion [House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Democratic Staff, 3/07]

Amount the “virtual pandemic” of corruption costs Iraq each year according to the Special Inspector General of Iraq Reconstruction: more than $5 billion [Associated Press, 4/30/07]
 
Number of weapons bought by the U.S. intended for Iraqi troops that are now missing: 14,030 [SIGIR, 10/29/06]


Public Opinion

“Only 12% of Americans back a troop increase, compared with 52% who prefer a timetable for withdrawal, a recent Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll found.”
— “Democrats will soon get a say on Iraq,” Los Angeles Times, 12/27/06

Percent of Americans who are disapprove of the way President Bush is handling the situation in Iraq: 66% [Wall Street Journal/NBC, 4/25/07]

Percent of Americans who favor setting a timetable that provides for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq in 2008:  64% [CBS News/New York Times, 4/26/07] 

Percent of Americans who believe that Congress, not the President, should have the last say when it comes to setting troop levels in Iraq:  57% [CBS News/New York Times, 4/26/07]


Terrorism & Weapons of Mass Destruction

“A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.”
— “Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat,” New York Times, 9/24/06

Days since 9/11 attacks that Osama bin Laden has remained free: 2,058 [4/30/07]

Estimated minimum number of nuclear weapons likely produced by North Korea during the Bush Administration: 7 [Reuters, 10/26/06]

Percent decrease in funding for the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program to contain loose nuclear material under the President’s Fiscal Year 2007 budget: 10.4 [Center for American Progress, 5/3/06]

Tell Me Again About the 'Good News' from Iraq

One of the more tiresome talking points from the administration and its fellow travelers is that the (so-called) liberal media just doesn’t report enough of the good news from Iraq. You know, all the great new schools and hospitals. The electricity that now works four hours a day. And so on.

Well someone went out and looked at some of the so-called good news (the parts in the areas where it isn’t suicidal to go look) and found that the news wasn’t all that good in many cases: Rebuilt Iraq Projects Found Crumbling.

Failing to build in mechanisms for maintenance is one of the most common errors in development assistance. And here, as in everything else to do with Iraq, this administration has not only failed to learn from experience, it has demonstrated a total lack of interest in it.

Yes, more money down the rat hole. And remember that we’re borrowing to pay for all this while giving the richest 1% of the population big tax cuts. These deferred taxes mean that my kids will be stuck with the bill.

For an equally depressing example of administration cluelessness and financial waste that hurt people — in this case the victims in New Orleans, see this exposé of how the U.S. failed to utilize foreign assistance for Katrina — in some cases turning it down, in others just letting it rot.

What's Doing (Reptiles Dept.)

I just want to thank all the people who have kept the comments lively at The Buck Doesn’t Even Stop By For Visits while I’ve been somewhat distracted by work.

If I know what’s good for me, blogging will be light for the next few days — I have to write an exam and do major surgery to a paper.

The world certainly is doing its best, however, to be very distracting.

For one thing, there’s a good-sized scaly toothed reptile back in the campus lake. I saw about seven eights of it, but not the snout which it had lodged under something at the bank of the lake, so I don’t know if it’s a gator or a croc, but I’d guess gator. The whatever-it-was had beached the front of its face, nose first, only 100 feet or so from the Rathskeller where students were happily boozing it up on a Friday afternoon, but there was a campus cop keeping the passing students from getting too close. He didn’t seem to be enjoying the job, and gave a rather grim smile when I observed that the gator had a police escort.

Previous posts on our toothy friends include Crocodile Reminder, Crocodile Coincidence, What? A Croc?, Croc II !, Cold Front Flushes Out UM Croc, Fair Warning (Alligator Dept.), Who Gets Custody of the Alligator ? and of course Exam Question: Is an Alligator a Deadly Weapon?. It’s not an obsession, really, just a fact of life.

Speaking of reptiles, the DoJ has done another Friday evening document dump.

Speaking of sinking your teeth into things, or maybe it’s man-bites-dog, don’t miss Army Officer Accuses Generals of ‘Intellectual and Moral Failures’ an amazing article about a Lt. Col. attacking his superiors (generically, not by name) in a prestigious army journal for incompetence and dishonesty in their prosecution of the Iraq war and for misleading Congress about it.

“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.”

Next to last, but not least, the Bush administration war on the rule of law continues apace with its latest attempt to make it impossible for lawyers to provide meaningful or effective representation for Guantanamo detainees. I would write about this but words fail me to describe the petty viciousness of this idea and the manifest hostility to the very due process that I would have thought was one of the great achievements of our civilization. The NYT has an editorial which says part of what needs saying; some more of it is found in this Conversation with Gitmo Lawyer on Proposed DOJ Rules. Don’t look to the Supreme Court to do anything fast — in tangentially related cases, it’s not rushing the process, which is Shakespearian in its delay:

“For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,”

Meanwhile, only the willful blindness of one or two men (Bush, Chaney, take your pick), ensures that the US Army will continue to bleed itself dry in Iraq, to no visible benefit to anyone outside the White House. I understand that our departure could lead to horrors — and think we have a duty to mitigate them, especially be admitting a very large number of refugees here in order to protect all the people who have helped us. If there were a plausible scenario by which staying on would allow us to enact the ‘Pottery Barn rule’ (you broke it, you pay for it), I could support that. But the occupation is as big a failure as the initial military campaign was a success. No one arguing for staying on has a winning strategy that they can articulate other than “retreat is not an option”.

I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.

Iraq: Bad to Bad (or Worse)

If the administration were smarter it wouldn’t let anyone intelligent visit Iraq, as they tend to report that the emperor has no clothes — or at least no realistic Iraq policy.

Lawrence Korb just got back from a trip to Iraq. “Unreal” seemed to be his overall reaction to the PowerPoint-laden presentations he heard from various American and Iraqi officials, most of which were entirely divorced from the ground-level reality of day-to-day life in Iraq. In a different sense it also applies to his conclusions about the surge:

Getting through Iraqi customs was a chore….The long wait did allow me to speak to some of the contractors about the situation on the ground. When I assured them I was not a member of the press, they were unanimous that the surge was not working….The most optimistic projection was “maybe temporarily.” But most people speaking off the record believe that the insurgents will shift to other areas and lay low for a while in Baghdad.

Actually, wasn’t the ban on brains the initial US occupation strategy?

IRAC and Ruin

Concurring Opinions: IRAC in Iraq. Great and wrenching post.

The Five Stages of Rightist Iraq Commentary

Sadly, No! brings us a modified Kübler-Ross process, Iraq edition:

1. Denial: “The media doesn’t show the good news in Iraq.”

2. Anger: “The treasonous far-left-liberals and their media lapdogs are making us lose in Iraq.”

3. Bargaining: “If we send x-thousand more troops to Iraq, victory will be ours.”

4. Depression: “Did you catch 300 yet? [munch-munch-burp] God, it made me hate liberals even more. [channels flipping] They wouldn’t last a day in ancient Sparta.”

5. Advanced Literary Theory: “The hegemonic binary of ’success’ and ‘failure’ traumatizes the (re)interpretive possibilities of an ethos of jouissance regarding the War in Iraq.

Introducing the iRack

OK, this is really funny.

YouTube - MADtv - iRack :

There Must Be Peace

There Must Be Peace, a video photo montage and commentary by Stirling Newberry.

The music, incidentally, is from the last three movements of Newberry’s own Piano Sonata in C, “Ares”.

Florida's Troop-Killers

The other day, Republican members of the House Appropriations Committee unanimously opposed requiring that the troops sent to Iraq be properly prepared for their mission and protected with armor. As they’ve done often before, and as they will undoubtedly do again.

Over at Daily Kos, one of the diarists has come up with a name for the Representatives who send troops into harm’s way without adequate equipment, training or rest.

He calls them “troop-killers”.

Harsh? You bet. Justified? Yes. It has come to that. There really is no ‘nice’ name for people from a country as rich as ours who send other people’s children, spouses, and parents into combat without basic necessities like body armor, armor for their vehicles, or the weapons they trained with. I recognize that there might be conflicts — like World War II — in which the Army would have to suspend its rotation policies and send units that have served a tour of duty back into theater without the year’s rest, rehab and equipment refit that our doctrine says is needed. But I don’t accept that Iraq, a war of (erroneous) choice, is a conflict on which national survival depends.

• Ander Crenshaw, 4th District in Jacksonville;
• Dave Weldon, 15th District - Melbourne & Vero Beach;
• C.W. “Bill” Young, 10th District - Pinellas County.

If you happen to be reading this from their neighborhood, why not give them a (polite) call and tell them what you think of this sort of behavior.

What Have I Done to End the War Today?

Richard Landeck, 56, of Wheaton, IL recently sent off a letter to President Bush, signing it as the “proud father of a fallen soldier.” Landeck’s son, Captain Kevin Landeck, died this past February in Iraq.

You can read the full painful text of the letter at A Father Addresses George Bush.

Then ask yourself what you will do to end the war today.

Notes From An Alternate Reality

Someone has a very active imagination. If only this video was real:

Soldiers Claim Medically Unfit Being Resent into Combat Theater to Make Up Shortages

This is an amazingly serious charge. It seems credible given that it’s corroborated by several soldiers.

The Army is ordering injured troops to go to Iraq: As the military scrambles to pour more soldiers into Iraq, a unit of the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division at Fort Benning, Ga., is deploying troops with serious injuries and other medical problems, including GIs who doctors have said are medically unfit for battle. Some are too injured to wear their body armor, according to medical records.

On Feb. 15, Master Sgt. Jenkins and 74 other soldiers with medical conditions from the 3rd Division’s 3rd Brigade were summoned to a meeting with the division surgeon and brigade surgeon. These are the men responsible for handling each soldier’s “physical profile,” an Army document that lists for commanders an injured soldier’s physical limitations because of medical problems — from being unable to fire a weapon to the inability to move and dive in three-to-five-second increments to avoid enemy fire. Jenkins and other soldiers claim that the division and brigade surgeons summarily downgraded soldiers’ profiles, without even a medical exam, in order to deploy them to Iraq. It is a claim division officials deny.

Read the whole thing. I suppose it might not be true — but we’ll never know for sure unless Congress (or SecDef Gates) investigates. And if true, it’s just further black irony on the “support the troops” mantra.

Very Ugly War Stories. But Are They True?

Joshua Key is said to be a US Army deserter who fled to Canada (which, incidentally, has an extradition treaty with the US for deserters and draft dodgers now). He’s published a book, The Deserter’s Tale, which purports to be an account of atrocities he witnessed while serving in Iraq. An excerpt — very ugly if true — is online at Why I fled George Bush’s war.

As a deserter, Key has an obvious interest in justifying himself. So I think these very serious allegations require corroboration before we can safely rely on them. But serious charges of random violence and apparent gang rape demand at least some investigation. Especially as the book is going to have Canadian, Australian, French, German, Dutch, Indian, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish and Japanese editions.

Unfortunately, that sort of investigation is not at all easy. And the US Army presumably has no great interest in risking corroboration. I fear we may never know for sure.

A Good Question

Steve Vlakeck would like to know How many U.S. citizens are being detained by the U.S. military in Iraq?.

It’s a good question. Actually, Steve has a whole raft of them up at Niemanwatchdog.org.

Two Weeks is Forever in PR

If a week is a long time in politics, then two weeks must be forever in PR.

New Evidence Clouds U.S. Case against Iran: Two weeks ago, the Bush administration organized an intelligence briefing for journalists in Iraq to demonstrate that Iran was providing weapons to Iraqi insurgents. According to the anonymous briefers, the weapons — particularly explosively formed penetrators or E.F.P.s — were manufactured in Iran and provided to insurgents by the Quds Force — a fact that meant direction for the operation was “coming from the highest levels of the Iranian government.”

Well. A raid in southern Iraq on Saturday seems to have complicated the case.

It seems the Iraqis were making the stuff that the US had been saying could only have come from IraqIran. And from the markings on the boxes, it seems most of the key parts came straight from non-Iranian factories.

I hope the Times and Post put this on their front pages with the same prominence they gave the scare stories two weeks ago.

If True, There is No Way to Spin This as a Smart Move

The following item is from the Inter Press Service, an organization that I don’t know much about. According to the not-100%-reliable Wikipedia, IPS is an Italian-based organization dedicated to giving third world news and journalists more prominence. The fact of the raid is also reported by the International Federation of Journalists. What is most disturbing, though, is the all-too-plausible account of what motivates these raids quoted below; how much credence you give this, despite its plausibility, must turn at least in part on what one makes of the source.

IRAQ: Another U.S. Military Assault on Media

BAGHDAD, Feb 23 (IPS) - Iraqi journalists are outraged over yet another U.S. military raid on the media.

U.S. soldiers raided and ransacked the offices of the Iraq Syndicate of Journalists (ISJ) in central Baghdad Tuesday this week. Ten armed guards were arrested, and 10 computers and 15 small electricity generators kept for donation to families of killed journalists were seized.

This is not the first time U.S. troops have attacked the media in Iraq, but this time the raid was against the very symbol of it. Many Iraqis believe the U.S. soldiers did all they could to deliver the message of their leadership to Iraqi journalists to keep their mouth shut about anything going wrong with the U.S.-led occupation.

“The Americans have delivered so many messages to us, but we simply refused all of them,” Youssif al-Tamimi of the ISJ in Baghdad told IPS. “They killed our colleagues, closed so many newspapers, arrested hundreds of us and now they are shooting at our hearts by raiding our headquarters. This is the freedom of speech we received.”

Some Iraqi journalists blame the Iraqi government.

“Four years of occupation, and those Americans still commit such foolish mistakes by following the advice of their Iraqi collaborators,” Ahmad Hassan, a freelance journalist from Basra visiting Baghdad told IPS. “They (the U.S. military) have not learned yet that Iraqi journalists will raise their voice against such acts and will keep their promise to their people to search for the truth and deliver it to them at any cost.”

There is a growing belief in Iraq that U.S. allies in the current Iraqi government are leading the U.S. military to raid places and people who do not follow Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s directions.

And these same people think they are smart enough to avoid become Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz’s puppets? (Have you read Sy Hersh’s latest yet? You really should.)

Bombs Give Exam Stress a New Meaning

Law students are notorious for suffering from exam stress — and complaining about it.

She, like thousands of university students in Iraq, is taking her mid-term tests, starting today. They have a fixed schedule, i.e. are sitting ducks - for ten days. Since the beginning of this academic year, the students in her college have been led quite a dance; a deadly dance. The college is situated in an area that has become more like a war zone than a normal neighborhood; it is too near Haifa Street for it to quiet down for more than a few days at a stretch.

They started out by going to college every day. Their college more like a fortress for its security, than an educational facility.

Attack after attack on the surrounding residential area frightened the Dean into improvising a random lecture schedule that allows them to attend their lectures in no pattern that lasts more than one week.
…
With heavy heart I am won over by her insistence, and she attends the random lectures for three weeks.

A great big double explosion takes place at the main entrance of Al-Mustansiriya one Tuesday, killing more than 120 students and wounding more than 200, most of whom were female students. One car bomb and one explosive belt … body parts were brought down from the date palms, as were remnants of their uniforms.

Although hurting for all the families that weredevastated that afternoon, I thanked God my daughter was not harmed.

At home for another two weeks.

Go attend Baghdad University. Also protected. No way.

All this time studying at home and online, doing her best not to lose yet another year to chaos, she is now taking her mid term exams at her college. A sitting duck.

She is mad to continue.

I am mad to let her.

US Bombing Outskirts of Baghdad

air strikes were aimed at insurgent strongholds in Bo’aitha, a sparsely populated neighbourhood on the west bank of the Tigris, south of the city centre.

While lying within the city limits, Bo’aitha is a district of farms and smallholdings, whose scattered villages are known to house the hideouts of Sunni insurgent gangs linked to al-Qaeda.

Late Saturday, the US Air Force launched a series of bombing raids on southeast Baghdad. This is absolutely shameful, that the US is bombing from the air a civilian city that it militarily occupies. You can’t possibly do that without killing innocent civilians, as at Ramadi the other day. It is a war crime. US citizens should protest and write their congressional representatives. It is also the worst possible counter-insurgency tactic anyone could ever have imagined. You bomb people, they hate you. The bombing appears to have knocked out what little electricity some parts of Baghdad were still getting.

As near as I can make up by comparing this map, which shows Bo’aitha as region 89, but lacks a legend showing the scale, with this map which has a scale but no marking for Bo’aitha, that region is about six kilometers from the city center, which is roughly the distance between the University of Miami and the center of downtown Miami.

Regardless of the legal issues, this doesn’t seem to be a tactic well-calculated to win the hearts and minds of the average Baghdad resident.

And, hey, since that’s all going so well, let’s plan to attack Iran! (link is to Sy Hersh’s latest). How long before we start calling this a ‘tilt’ to the Sunnis?

Iraqi Oil Law?

A bunch of evening clicking around led to me to what purports to be an unofficial English translation of the latest draft text of a proposed Iraqi Oil Law. Apparently, this draft text has been a closely held secret.

Please feel free to widely distribute this document. It’s important to start a stronger debate and to try to educate Iraqis and Americans about this catastrophic law that will facilitate the further looting of Iraqi oil, and will achieve nothing other than increasing the levels of violence and anger in Iraq. This law legalizes PSAs (production sharing agreements) in Iraq. Iraq will be the only country in the middle east with such contracts privatising Iraqi oil and giving foreign companies crazy rates of profit that may reach to more than three fourth of the general revenue. Iraq and Iraqis need every Dinar that comes from oil sales. In addition to the financial aspects of this law, it can be considered the funding tool for splitting Iraq into three states. It undermines the central government and distributes oil revenues directly to the three regions, which sets the foundations for what Iraq’s enemies are trying to achieve in terms of establishing three independent states.

Nor am I so sure that dividing Iraq yet sharing oil revenue is necessarily such a terrible outcome, at least compared to the other imaginable outcomes. As for PSAs, I’d think the devil is in the details — Iraq is presumably short of capital for exploration and development (the capital having been destroyed, denuded. and of course stolen) so unlike its neighbors it may need these deals — if somehow they were concluded in an equitable fashion…which I admit is not all that likely in the current circumstances where the government has such a weak hand to play.

By raising these questions I don’t want to sound like I’m claiming the blog quoted above is wrong. I simply don’t have enough information to form a judgment either way. And, for what it’s worth, the same bout of clicking did bring to me to Digby’s quotation of this line by conservative she-guru Ann Coulter, “Liberals are always talking about why we shouldn’t go to war for oil. But why not go to war for oil? We need oil.”

The Mountain Has Labored and Brought Forward ...

I suppose I ought to be happy that the House has passed a non-binding Measure Opposing Troop Surge.

But. It seems clearer each day that there is no serious strategy for victory in Iran — however defined (and it usually isn’t defined by those who shout for it most loudly). There is no serious plan for how we will staff the conflict other than extending the rotation of troops who have suffered enough. There is no serious plan even for equipping the troops on the ground, many of whom are being deployed without the armor that might protect their vehicles against IEDs and the like.

There is, at last, some sort of plan in the next budget for paying to replace the equipment this war is chewing up. The contractors will be OK; if only we had equally good plans for the soldiers and families being chewed up by this war. Not to mention the Iraqis.

Otherwise, what planning we find in the White House seems to be about rattling sabers at Iran and hoping they take the bait, allowing massive air strikes in retaliation. This is the sort of planning you expect from drug addicts scheming for a new fix.

In this atmosphere, the House of Representatives has labored hard. Members debated for 44 hours and 55 minutes. Over the past four days, a total of 393 Members spoke on the House Floor: 221 Democrats, and 172 Republicans. And then they voted. And now we have a totally precatory resolution aimed at the surge that doesn’t even condemn the war, and doesn’t address the Iran situation.

The radio said “Bush suffers a major political defeat.” Let me tell you how much that defeat matters: while the House was debating today, the Pentagon shipped off another 1,000 troops.

Wee, sleekit, cowrin’, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickering brattle!

And, yes, it could be even worse: the Senate tomorrow will vote on whether it can even vote on a similar, equally precatory, resolution. UPDATE: And may not even pass the resolution with the 60 votes needed to allow debate.

I’m so excited and heartened I can’t hardly stand it.

Bush Iraq Plans Were 'Delusional'

Iraq invasion plan ‘delusional’: The US invasion plan for Iraq envisaged that only 5,000 US troops would remain in Iraq by December 2006, declassified Central Command documents show.

The material also shows that the US military projected a stable, pro-US and democratic Iraq by that time.

The August 2002 material was obtained by the National Security Archive (NSA). Its officials said the plans were based on delusional assumptions.

The US currently has some 132,000 troops in the violence-torn state.

Terribly Upsetting Photo

Don’t click to view this terribly upsetting photo unless you have your handkerchief ready. (Via CorrenteWire).

Yes, there is hope here as well as tragedy, but the tragedy was so unnecessary…

GOP Senators Are Now the Ostrich Party

A long-awaited Senate showdown on the war in Iraq was shut down before it even started yesterday, when nearly all Republicans voted to stop the Senate from considering a resolution opposing President Bush’s plan to send 21,500 additional combat troops into battle.

Almost every Republican Senator — including Lieberman but excluding endangered Collins and Coleman — voted to prevent debate on even the watered-down precatory Warner resolution on Iraq. Even Senator Warner voted against (debating) his own resolution! And that Chuck Hagel, talking so brave last week about the moral imperative of ending the war, why, suddenly he’s against debate too.

In the short run, this means that today — after serious arm-twisting by the capo di tutti capi (Cheney) — a slim majority of the Senate is for debate, but far too little for cloture. But more importantly, unless it does something to clean off this taint soon, the Senate GOP has just taken ownership of what used to be Bush’s war and McCain’s escalation. This has the potential to be a party-defining vote. And it significantly increases the odds that the GOP nominee will not be a Senator or Congressman — a big boost to Romney and Giuliani, and even the hapless Huckabee, I suppose. Not to mention harming the electoral hopes of several Senators.

I believe that the country is way ahead of the Senate on this one.

The Place of War Criticism

This post by Glenn Greenwald, Our little Churchills, is unusually good even by the exalted standard we’ve come to expect from him.

Veterans Against Escalation

VoteVets Action Fund has a harrowing spot out opposing the escalation. The cameo by Iraq war veteran Robert Loria is pretty devastating.

Hagel

An honest man who’s had enough:

It's All About Metrics

archy asks,

Remember the days when we used to kill the number three guy in al Qayda very few weeks? It seems like months since we last killed him. Does this mean we're losing our edge?

Jim Morin on Bush's Speech

The Herald's Jim Morin is frequently predictable, but now and then he hits one out of the park:

Posted by Michael at 12:53 PM | Link | Comments (1)

A Hypothesis about Irbil

rc3 asks, Anyone have any light to shed on the US arrest of Iranian "diplomats" in the Kurdish area of Iraq on Wednesday?

I think I have a hypothesis, but it sort of fits the facts. From what I can gather, the so-called "consulate" at which these Iranian officials worked was not accredited to the national Iraqi government headquartered in Baghdad. Rather, they were there at the invitation of the Kurdish authorities. While the Kurdish authorities operate what is almost a defacto state, and indeed have invited diplomats from their nearby neighbors to come and set up 'consulates' neither the US nor Iraq-in-Baghdad nor most of the world recognizes the independence of Kurdistan and thus those governments also do not recognize the validity of any diplomatic credentials or immunities issued by what they see as a mere provincial government.

Thus, from the US point of view, the building in question had no special legal status, regardless of whether it was flying (as reported) an Iranian flag.

As to what motivated the US action, I still have no more idea than I did yesterday, when I worried that this might be a deliberate provocation of Iran in the wake of Bush's bellicose speech. And I don't see why the US forces would be willing to act in a way that would doubtlessly anger (and did anger) the local Kurdish authoritie