Feingold: You're Getting Nothing for Xmas

Keeping with my theme of This Week in Zombie News, Russ Feingold has prognosticated:

Feingold: 'We're headed in the direction of absolutely nothing'

Russ Feingold tells a Wisconsin crowd of the prospects for health care legislation:

"Nobody is going to bring a bill before Christmas, and maybe not even then, if this ever happens," Feingold said. "The divisions are so deep. I never seen anything like that."

Feingold reiterated his appraisal a bit later.

"We're headed in the direction of doing absolutely nothing, and I think that's unfortunate," he said when asked about the plight of uninsured Americans.

Shorter version:

Video: The Republicans Channel the Liberal Party

And stage a walk out:



The difference between the two stunts though is that the Liberal party left the building over Harper's attempt to bully the senate over the crime bill.

The Republicans refused to deal with two of their own being slapped with contempt charges:

The House of Representatives voted Thursday to cite Joshua B. Bolten, the White House chief of staff, and Harriet E. Miers, a former White House counsel, for contempt for refusing to testify about their participation in the firing of federal prosecutors.

The measure calls for House officials to seek enforcement of the contempt citation by the courts if, as expected, the Justice Department declines to act on the resolution.

The vote was a lopsided 223 to 32 in favor of the contempt citation, after most Republican members walked out to protest what their leaders called a political move.

Call the whambulance.
 

Iraq, Bush, Vietnam & The Cheerleading Democrats

If you can't beat 'em (even when you have the majority in congress and choose to not even try), join 'em.

You could smell this coming from a mile away:

The leading Democratic candidates for the White House have fallen into line with the campaign to praise military progress while excoriating Iraqi leaders for their unwillingness to reach political accommodations that could end the sectarian warfare.

"We've begun to change tactics in Iraq, and in some areas, particularly in Anbar province, it's working," Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) said in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Monday.

"My assessment is that if we put an additional 30,000 of our troops into Baghdad, that's going to quell some of the violence in the short term," Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) echoed in a conference call with reporters Tuesday. "I don't think there's any doubt that as long as U.S. troops are present that they are going to be doing outstanding work."

Advisers to both said theirs were political as well as substantive statements, part of a broader Democratic effort to frame Petraeus's report before it is released next month by preemptively acknowledging some military success in the region. Aides to several Senate Democrats said they expect that to be a recurring theme in the coming weeks, as lawmakers return to hear Petraeus's testimony and to possibly take up a defense authorization bill and related amendments on the war.

It didn't take a political genius to figure out that when the Dems crowed about really pushing back against the Iraq war in September they would, as usual, just cave. Somehow, Nancy "Everything opposing Bush is off the Table" Pelosi and "Give 'em hell" Harry Reid (who can't even manage a "heck" or a "darn" most days) thought their ingenious strategy of siding with the WH and Republicans was going to give them leverage. (Don't ask me - I didn't invent that game plan.)

The Dem leadership (and I use that term loosely) justifies this Good News™ about Iraq burst as a "preemptive strike" (hmmm...where have I heard that before?) against a barrage of right-winger war pimping ads that will play the next month. A $15 million budget? They'll need a helluva lot more money than that to turn things around in the polls. And that is what has people like me scratching our heads and wondering why the Democrats are so damn afraid to pick a position and stick to it. Cut the funding. Get it over with. Can't do that though if you're beholden to oil and military industrial complex lobbyists, right?

Meanwhile, Bush Saint Dubya (patron saint of chickenhawks) invoked the Vietnam war as a warning today during a speech he gave to vets. Now, all you need to know about that is this:

1) Bush speeches are carefully calculated fearmongering propaganda. I don't doubt that Bush actually believes the shit that he spews, but trying to reignite a debate about the Vietnam war is just a distraction. If he was so damned concerned about the Vietnamese people, he wouldn't have been playing a game of Where's Dubya in the US during the war and would have bucked up to actually go over there to fight.

2) Bush is an idiot.

Here's what he said:

"One unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens whose agonies would add to our vocabulary, new terms like 'boat people,' 're-education camps' and 'killing fields.'"

Here's a reality check:

Few Americans realize that close to two million people died, that none of the perpetrators have been brought to justice and that the United States helped bring about the crisis that lead to the Khmer Rouge takeover.

And, of course, war criminal Henry Kissinger is one of Bush's Iraq war advisers. So there actually is a similarity between then and now. Unfortunately, for Saint Dubya, it doesn't work in his favour.

I'm sure the newly rekindled Vietnam war debates will be quite lively in the next little while, but Bush's predictions about what will happen in Iraq when troops withdraw have no basis in current reality. Different war. Different time. Different circumstances. And, as CNN analyst David Gergen put it, you really have to wonder why Bush would refer to Vietnam when his administration hasn't even bothered to learn the lessons of that war ie. the "quagmire" predicament. So, what is there to argue about and why are the Dems still cowering when it comes to Iraq?

Oh, and one more thing:

Democrats Would Want Australian Troops To Stay In Iraq As Long As Possible

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - Sources close to Sens. Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama have said a Democratic president would ask Australia to maintain its troop presence in Iraq for up to a further three years. A Democratic administration would also look to use Australian assistance in training Iraqi forces and seek its assistance worldwide.

So no, Dem supporters, your precious top tier candidates don't plan to bring US troops home any time soon. Sorry to burst that bubble, but someone has to do it.
 

Video: Olbermann on Bush's Urge to Surge

The transcript is available here.

And while the media reports that Republicans are revolting (in more ways than one), they're still supporting Bush's surge by doing things like successfully filibustering the Dems' attempt to have "longer troop rests between combat deployments".

The Senate voted 56-41 to cut off debate on an amendment to the annual defense policy bill by Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) that would have mandated that troops be granted home leave between deployments of at least as long as their previous combat tours. Already stretched National Guard and Reserve units would have been granted three-year breaks between assignments.

Just keep wearing out those soldiers, Republicans. But don't be surprised when they refuse to support you in next year's elections.

And this is the reality about the Dems' weak efforts to end this illegal war:

The Senate's failure to break the filibuster, however, signaled that Democratic efforts to mandate troop withdrawals almost certainly will fail in the face of Republican parliamentary roadblocks.

They might as well spend the summer on the beach for all the good they're doing:

Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin said today that despite growing Republican discontent with the Iraq war, convincing GOP members to support withdrawal legislation remains a daunting challenge that so far has netted few results.
[...]
Durbin also conceded that the Democrats, with a bare majority in the Senate, won't be able to placate liberal Democratic calls for a specific end date, including a funding cut off.

"Obviously there are folks who want the war to end today, and all the troops to be home tomorrow. And even though I think that is a worthy goal, it is not a realistic goal," said Durbin. A major redeployment of troops will have to be done gradually and in a responsible manner, he noted. "We also understand that just leaving cold turkey, with everything gone, could have the whole region descend into chaos," Durbin said.

Nice GOP talking point there, Dick.

And then he decided it was a good idea to attack John Edwards while he had a captive audience:

Durbin, an early booster of Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign, singled out former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) for helping to fuel unrealistic anti-war expectations for congressional action. Edwards has chastized his fellow Democratic candidates who are currently serving in the Senate, for not pushing hard enough to end the war.

"I recall when John voted for this war. So it's understandable that he feels badly about that decision and wants to see something done to undo the harm that has happened," said Durbin. "But it has to be done in a sensible way."

I'm no fan of Edwards, but that is a very low blow coming from someone with Durbin's position. Apparently Durbin seems to think that Americans are just plain stupid and have all been influenced by Edwards' opposition to this nightmare of a war. I'm sure Edwards will be pleased to hear he has so much power.

Maybe Durbin should just quit his job as majority whip and go out on the campaign trail with Obama full time. This is what happens when politics is electioneering 24/7, 365 days a year. Politicians seem to forget that they actually have important work to do on behalf of the country they're supposed to be serving and which is currently involved in two wars that aren't getting any better.

Blogging for The Guardian, Roy Greenslade notes several questions that US journalists are failing to ask about the situation in Iraq according to author Robert Dreyfuss with this one being key:

Dreyfuss concludes: "The dénouement of America's failed occupation of Iraq could be bloody indeed. But not enough reporters and news analysts are looking at the other possibility: In the wake of an orderly withdrawal over, say, the next year, might not Iraq's nationalists join forces against the separatists and struggle to create a new center in Iraqi politics? As Zbigniew Brzezinski says: 'The only Iraqis who want us to stay are the ones who will have to leave when we leave'."

The Democrats and Republicans need to stop parroting Bush talking points and get down to the nitty gritty of examining the entire situation in Iraq from a new perspective. By refusing to do so, they continue to support the carnage in Iraq while giving their incompetent commander-in-chief free reign over a war he has absolutely no idea how to manage.
 

The Best Democratic Presidential Debate Summary

a la gauche has the absolute best recap of Sunday nite's Democratic presidential candidates' debate I've seen anywhere. If you watched the debate, it's a must read. If you didn't watch the debate, it's a must read. Really. Even if you don't like politics, it's a must read.

Obligatory warning: If you really really really like the Dems, take your blood pressure pills first. Some content may be is offensive. Mind you, some content in the real debate was offensive too (especially all of that warmongering crap) - just depends on your perspective, I guess.

Voila:

My Summary of the CNN Democratic Debate

h/t Madman in the Marketplace
 

Sunday Food for Thought: 'Nattering Nabobs of Negativism'

As much as I hate to borrow a phrase from a Spiro Agnew speech (written by right-wing propagandist William Safire), in this case, it truly fits.

Edward Wong writes in the NYT:

Iraq’s Curse: A Thirst for Final, Crushing Victory

PERHAPS no fact is more revealing about Iraq’s history than this: The Iraqis have a word that means to utterly defeat and humiliate someone by dragging his corpse through the streets.

The word is “sahel,” and it helps explain much of what I have seen in three and a half years of covering the war.

It is a word unique to Iraq, my friend Razzaq explained over tea one afternoon on my final tour. Throughout Iraq’s history, he said, power has changed hands only through extreme violence, when a leader was vanquished absolutely, and his destruction was put on display for all to see.

"Sahel" in Arabic means shore, border or coast of the Sahara desert) [and] is the boundary zone in Africa between the Sahara to the north and the more fertile region to the south, known as the Sudan (not to be confused with the country of the same name)." I wasn't able to find any online reference to it in relation to that purported Iraqi definition that Wong provides, so I guess I'll have to take him at his word.

Regardless, Wong then goes on to detail Iraq's history in a very abbreviated form to provide support for this conclusion:

“One day we’ll find that we’ve returned back to 1917,” said Sheik Muhammad Bakr Khamis al-Suhail, a respected Shiite neighborhood leader in Baghdad, referring to the installation here of a Sunni Arab monarchy by the British after World War I. “The pressure of the Arab countries on the American administration might push the Americans to choose the Sunni Arabs.”

Sitting in the cool recesses of his home, the white-robed sheik said he was a moderate, a supporter of democracy. It is for people like him that the Americans have fought this war. But the solution he proposes is not one the Americans would easily embrace.

“In the history of Iraq, more than 7,000 years, there have always been strong leaders,” he said. “We need strong rulers or dictators like Franco, Hitler, even Mubarak. We need a strong dictator, and a fair one at the same time, to kill all extremists, Sunni and Shiite.”

I was surprised to hear those words. But perhaps I was being naïve. Looking back on all I have seen of this war, it now seems that the Iraqis have been driving all along for the decisive victory, the act of sahel, the day the bodies will be dragged through the streets.

So, how do you think a blogger who labels himself as a progressive, liberal, Democrat would react to that idea?

Like this?

It gives me no pleasure to agree with this sheik. I wish it were not so that Iraq needs a ruthless leader, a Hitler or Franco or Muhbarak [sic], to restore order. But, it is either that, or it is this. And this isn't working.

And, as too many Democrats are prone to do these days, the hope falls on an imaginary scenario that is never going to happen:

We'll keep defeating politicians that support this war until there are no politicians that support this war left in office.

So, going back to the first choice which Booman thinks the Iraqis "need" : a strong-arm dictator who is supposedly going to bring order to Iraq by "killing all extremists". Well, that assumes numerous unsaid myths.

- that the Iraqis are completely incapable of fashioning their own peaceful, democratic state.
- that continued militarism is the solution.
- that Iraqis have absolutely no imagination, intelligence or hope and are people who must be ruled with an iron fist in order to be kept under control.
- that it's even possible to kill all extremists which, as we already know, is Bush's grand idea.
- that the solution to Iraq's current nightmare involves just Sunnis and Shiites. Kurds? Christians? Outside influences? What exactly would the new dictator do about them?
- that the US will actually leave Iraq at some point, physically or politically, leaving it to sort out its issues on its own. (One word: oil. The US isn't going anywhere until it bleeds the country dry.)

On it goes...

That attitude shouldn't be surprising though. Take a look at the top 3 Democrat candidates' foreign policy positions and their unflinching support of the military-industrial complex. They all prefer to see militarism as an Olympic sport: who can be better, stronger, faster.

John Edwards

Via Meet the Press, February 2007:

I had internal conflict because I was worried about what George Bush would do. I didn’t have—I didn’t have confidence about him doing the work that needed to be done with the international community, the lead-up to a potential invasion in Iraq.

I didn’t know, in fairness, that he would be as incompetent as he’s been in the administration of the war. But I had—there were at least two things going on. It wasn’t just the weapons of mass destruction I was wrong about. It’s become absolutely clear—and I’m very critical of myself for this—become absolutely clear, looking back, that I should not have given this president this authority.

Those 2 highlighted words are an extremely important clue to his thinking - not that Edwards hasn't been quite open about the fact that he supports military intervention.

Barack Obama. Just see if you can distinguish his position from Bush's.

And Hillary? Are you going to trust a politician who voted for the AUMF on Iraq when she didn't even read the NIE before she uttered her "yay" - sending over 100,000 American troops into harm's way - to be your next commander-in-chief?

Earlier this year, on the presidential campaign trail in New Hampshire, Clinton was confronted by a woman who had traveled from New York to ask her if she had read the intelligence report. According to Eloise Harper of ABC News, Clinton responded that she had been briefed on it.

“Did you read it?” the woman screamed.

Clinton replied that she had been briefed, though she did not say by whom.

The question of whether Clinton took the time to read the N.I.E. report is critically important. Indeed, one of Clinton’s Democratic colleagues, Bob Graham, the Florida senator who was then the chairman of the intelligence committee, said he voted against the resolution on the war, in part, because he had read the complete N.I.E. report.

Graham said he found that it did not persuade him that Iraq possessed W.M.D. As a result, he listened to Bush’s claims more skeptically. “I was able to apply caveat emptor,” Graham, who has since left the Senate, observed in 2005.

Beyond what any of these Democratic candidates might actually do to end the Iraq war (and they rarely, if ever, speak about the Afghanistan war anymore - as if that's running itself) or to bring their troops home (which will not happen for many years to come with permanent bases established in Iraq), the truth is that the current top 3 picks can ensure their supporters of one thing: continued militarism or "New & Improved Militarism Lite".

Interventionism. Exceptionalism. Continued arms sales (overt and covert). Refusals to participate in international treaties or the ICC (International Criminal Court). Plundering of "American interests" (ie. oil) around the world. Extraordinary renditions, torture and kidnappings (do you really think they're going to end covert CIA programs?). Continued, unconditional support of Israel via money and arms. Supplying weapons to whichever government of the day is an ally against some perceived American "enemy". Proudly proclaiming supremacy from the mantle of "The Leader of the Free World" while further dismantling the civil, legal and human rights of their own citizens and others around the world that they deem to be "enemy combatants" or potential threats to US security while leaving open gaping holes in domestic security by not properly funding necessary protections (which enables whoever is in power to perpetuate the fear meme endlessly, thus always necessitating the need for a mythic saviour/hero/heroine in the form of "a strong leader").

"Nattering nabobs of negativism".

I see no hope or optimism in the idea that the disease of militarism can be cured by being even more or more efficiently militaristic and violent or in believing that some strong-armed dictator is going to save Iraq by killing more people.

There's a reason that people who are antiwar are seen as being on the fringe. That lesson was learned by the illumination of the fact that most Americans turned against the Iraq war because it wasn't 'winnable' - not out of any desire to reverse the damaging affront that US military might has wrought upon the world or to stem its future ambitions. The Democrats know that and they have no reason to change their stripes. They're just trying to come across as the kindler, gentler warmongers.

If Wong's interpretation of the word "sahel" is to be taken at face value, it certainly can't be seen as a concept that is in any way foreign to the United States military or its supporters. They may not literally drag their "kills" through the streets for all to see but they certainly do so metaphorically via gung-ho speeches and the dehumanization of the victims whom they can't even bring themselves to assign anything more than numbers too. And, as far as that's concerned, they can't even be honest about just how many corpses they're really claimed except to proclaim that at some future point "victory" will be at hand and this will all have been just a blib on the radar screen. There's always collateral damage, you see. How unfortunate.

I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma...
- George W Bush

The Democrats have had their chance to storm the gates of congress. They've failed. And it's not just because they hold a "fragile" majority in the senate. The real reason is that there just isn't much difference between the two major parties on foreign policy issues. Anyone who thinks otherwise needs to think long and hard about that.

And when you have a so-called progressive, liberal, self-identified Democratic blogger caving to the defeatism that says that Iraqis are too weak to understand anything but more tyranny and killings, I think it's safe to say that he is probably speaking for perhaps millions of Americans who have just given up on either party being able to provide a rational outlook on the future of a country their president illegally invaded and turned into a rotting nightmare.

But, as far as I'm concerned, no American has the right or luxury to give up at this point. This war belongs to all of you.

Get your troops home, but don't abandon the spirit and will of the Iraqi people who stand for peace and justice. They deserve far more than that.

Iraq is not cursed to have a future of "extreme violence" and neither are its people.

h/t to Marisacat for her posts on Edwards and Hillary.
 

Iraq: Lowering Expectations to Define "Success"

Bush defined "success" in Iraq on May 2, 2007 as this:

"Either we'll succeed, or we won't succeed," he said. "And the definition of success as I described is sectarian violence down. Success is not no violence."

While saying "succeed," Bush appears to chuckle.

The president then compared Iraq to the United States, saying that there were parts of the US with "a certain level of violence," but that "people feel comfortable about living their daily lives" in those areas. That level of violence, said Bush, is what the US is aiming to achieve in Iraq.

Earlier this month, Jon Stewart featured a montage of Bush clips featuring his ever-changing definitions of success. He seems to have a new vision of that every other week.

Now, according to the LA Times, that definition has been dressed down once again. Interesting, considering the Dems jumped on the "let's see if the surge works and things look better in September" bandwagon. Yes, after decrying the surge, they are now supporting it.

BAGHDAD -- U.S. military leaders in Iraq are increasingly convinced that most of the broad political goals President Bush laid out early this year in his announcement of a troop buildup will not be met this summer and are seeking ways to redefine success.

In September, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, is scheduled to present Congress with an assessment of progress in Iraq. Military officers in Baghdad and outside advisors working with Petraeus doubt that the three major goals set by U.S. officials for the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki will be achieved by then.

Enactment of a new law to share Iraq's oil revenue among Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish regions is the only goal they think might possibly be achieved in time, and even that is considered a long shot. The two other key benchmarks are provincial elections and a deal to allow more Sunni Arabs into government jobs.

With overhauls by the central government stalled and with security in Baghdad still a distant goal, Petraeus' advisors hope to focus on smaller achievements that they see as signs of progress, including deals among Iraq's rival factions to establish areas of peace in some provincial cities.

"Some of it will be infrastructure that is being worked, some of it is local security for neighborhoods, some of it is markets reopening," said a senior military official in Baghdad who spoke on condition of anonymity in discussing military tactics.

After 4 years, the best they can offer is the small stuff to try and prove what a glorious march for freedom this failed experiment in American imperialism has been.

Military officers said they understood that any report that key goals had not been met would add to congressional Democrats' skepticism. But some counterinsurgency advisors to Petraeus have argued that it was never realistic to expect that Iraqis would reach agreement on some of their most divisive issues after just a few months of the American troop buildup.

It's been years. They've had years to work these things out. The Democrats never should have bought the fantasy that somehow things would change in September. Seriously, were they even paying attention?

So in September, Petraeus will share his happy fuzzy puppy stories about Iraq, the Dems will be all up in arms as if they're completely shocked and, once again, they'll agree to further fund the war. Oh but they'll have the small stuff to fall back on as some sort of consolation prize for the blank check they wrote Bush last week.

A bandaid on a gaping head wound. That's all they have. And I truly believe that Bush sees "success" in the Iraq war as his leaving office while it's still going on - never having been impeached for his lies and never having to face prosecution for war crimes.

Monday: 123 Iraqis Killed, 233 Wounded

Ignorance really is bliss:

WASHINGTON — Confronted with strong opposition to his Iraq policies, President Bush decides to interpret public opinion his own way. Actually, he says, people agree with him.

And not just that 28%.
 

Video: More Olbermann

This is, in fact, a comment about… betrayal.

Few men or women elected in our history—whether executive or legislative, state or national—have been sent into office with a mandate more obvious, nor instructions more clear:

Get us out of Iraq.

Yet after six months of preparation and execution—half a year gathering the strands of public support; translating into action, the collective will of the nearly 70 percent of Americans who reject this War of Lies, the Democrats have managed only this:

* The Democratic leadership has surrendered to a president—if not the worst president, then easily the most selfish, in our history—who happily blackmails his own people, and uses his own military personnel as hostages to his asinine demand, that the Democrats “give the troops their money”;
* The Democratic leadership has agreed to finance the deaths of Americans in a war that has only reduced the security of Americans;
* The Democratic leadership has given Mr. Bush all that he wanted, with the only caveat being, not merely meaningless symbolism about benchmarks for the Iraqi government, but optional meaningless symbolism about benchmarks for the Iraqi government.
* The Democratic leadership has, in sum, claimed a compromise with the Administration, in which the only things truly compromised, are the trust of the voters, the ethics of the Democrats, and the lives of our brave, and doomed, friends, and family, in Iraq.

You, the men and women elected with the simplest of directions—Stop The War—have traded your strength, your bargaining position, and the uniform support of those who elected you… for a handful of magic beans.
You may trot out every political cliché from the soft-soap, inside-the-beltway dictionary of boilerplate sound bites, about how this is the “beginning of the end” of Mr. Bush’s “carte blanche” in Iraq, about how this is a “first step.”
Well, Senator Reid, the only end at its beginning... is our collective hope that you and your colleagues would do what is right, what is essential, what you were each elected and re-elected to do.
Because this “first step”… is a step right off a cliff.

Read on...

Video: Olbermann - Iraqus Interruptus

Olbermann: Which of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow?

Iraq funding compromise. The Democrats get benchmarks, the president has the right to waive the benchmarks. What the hell kind of benchmarks are they if the president can just waive them?
[...]
And you thought that big statue of Saddam Hussein fell over quickly and symbolically and with surreptitious help.

Our fifth story on the COUNTDOWN, right up there with the fall of Baghdad itself, you can now add the fall of the Democratic Congress, agreeing to fund the conflict in Iraq without any timelines for withdrawal, with mere benchmark, which the president can waive, Democrats in the White House reaching a so-called bipartisan agreement to keep funding the war through September without holding President Bush accountable.

After weeks of refusing to back down to the White House, today Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pretty much did just that, only days after rejecting a measure put forward by Republican John Warner as too weak, today Mr. Reid accepting an agreement that looks remarkably like the Warner war supplemental funding bill.

The agreement would fund the Iraq War through September, requiring President Bush to give Congress reports on Iraq‘s progress. As for benchmarks, yes, there are benchmarks. And the president has the ability to waive the benchmarks, the only possible fly in that ointment, emphasis on the word “possible,” Speaker of the House Pelosi saying earlier this evening she would not be likely to vote for anything that does not have timetables in it, adding she would wait to see what the final draft of the legislation actually says.

If Bush won't set a timetable...

Maybe the Iraqi parliament will:

BAGHDAD -- A majority of Iraqi lawmakers endorsed a draft bill calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops and demanding a freeze on the number already in the country, lawmakers said Thursday.

The legislation was being discussed even as U.S. lawmakers were locked in a dispute with the White House over their call to start reducing the size of the U.S. force in the coming months.

The proposed Iraqi legislation, drafted by the parliamentary bloc loyal to anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, was signed by 144 members of the 275-member house, said Nassar al-Rubaie, the leader of the Sadrist bloc.

The Sadrist bloc, which holds 30 parliamentary seats and sees the U.S.-led forces as an occupying army, has pushed similar bills before, but this was the first time it garnered the support of a majority of lawmakers.

The bill would require the Iraqi government to seek approval from parliament before it requests an extension of the U.N. mandate for foreign forces to be in Iraq, al-Rubaie said. It also calls for a timetable for the troop withdrawal and a freeze on the size of the foreign forces.

That bill hasn't been formally presented yet but it certainly would be a slap in the face to the Bush administration and all of its Iraq war supporters if it actually became law.

Some angry Republicans (yawn) who are concerned about the future of their party and the effect the war is having on their political futures met with Bush on Wednesday and apparently expressed their concerns.

Participants in Tuesday's White House meeting said frustration about the Iraqi government's efforts dominated the conversation, with one pleading with the president to stop the Iraqi parliament from going on vacation while "our sons and daughters spill their blood." The House members pressed Bush and Gates hard for a "Plan B" if the current troop increase fails to quell the violence and push along political reconciliation. Davis said that administration officials convinced him there are contingency plans, but that the president declined to offer details, saying that if he announced his backup plan, the world would shift its focus to that contingency, leaving the current strategy no time to succeed.

Oh let's get real. Like he even has a Plan B.

The GOP members then apparently felt the need to state the obvious to the completely oblivious president - not that he cares what the people actually think. He's "commander guy" after all.

Davis, a former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, also presented Bush dismal polling figures to dramatize just how perilous the party's position is, participants said. Davis would not disclose details, saying the exchange was private. Others warned Bush that his personal credibility on the war is all but gone.

The Democrats, in the meantime, can't even get it together enough to come up with a unified plan - with senate Dems criticizing the House Dems' bill. Is it really that difficult? Bush will just veto whatever moderate compromise they hatch - and that's all the Dems have been doing: compromising. They've taken impeachment "off the table" and are just floundering with hesitation as the war drags on. Drooling party sycophants who want to believe the Dems will actually take some tough action against this president seem to be quite comfortable waiting for September, or October '07, or even November '08 because, surely, if a Dem wins the White House, the war will end then, right?

Republicans may be pissed off that the Iraq parliament wants to take a couple of months off this summer but, let's face it, the GOP has taken years off while they let The Decider have his way with this war. Hypocrites.

So, who knows? Maybe the Iraq parliament actually will pass this draft timetable bill and save the US congress and the Bush administration from having to make that decision. Iraq is, supposedly, a sovereign country after all.
 

Bush's Veto

Bush vetoes the Iraq spending bill and then spouts hypocrisy like only he can (although there are several runners up in that category):

The veto was only the second of Mr. Bush’s presidency. In a six-minute televised speech from the White House, the president called the measure a “prescription for chaos and confusion,” and said, as he has for weeks, that he could not sign it because it contained timetables for troop withdrawal.

“Setting a deadline for withdrawal is setting a date for failure, and that would be irresponsible,” Mr. Bush said. He said the measure would “impose impossible conditions on our commanders in combat” by forcing them to “take fighting directions from politicians 6,000 miles away in Washington, D.C.”

Oh let's get real here. Look up "chaos" and "confusion" in the dictionary and you'll find this:


And isn't he one of those Washington politicians who's giving the troops their "fighting directions" (what kind of phrase is that?) from the comfort of his cushy oval office while pretending to actually give a crap about the troops?

Seriously...

On Thursday, Oliver Stone and Moveon.org will release an ad attacking Bush for his veto.

The Stone directed ad, which airs nationwide on CNN Thursday, features an impassioned interview with Bruhns as he attacks the administration's treatment of soldiers. [Ron] Kovic [of "Born on the Fourth of July" fame] provides voiceover for the ad.

"I feel that my patriotism has been used and exploited," says former US Army Infantry Sergeant Bruhns. "I am very proud of my military service, but I'm very disappointed in the civilian leadership and administration for sending us needlessly into combat."

Bruhn's interview was selected by the public as part of VideoVets: Bring Our Troops Home. The project features 20 video interviews of soldiers and family members critical of the American occupation in Iraq. Over half a million MoveOn members and others watched the videos. The public voted to select one video to be directed by Oliver Stone. The project is sponsored by MoveOn.org and VoteVets.org. VoteVets is the only political action committee headed by veterans of the war in Iraq, dedicated to electing other veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to public office.

Here's Bruhn's interview:


So, the Democrats made their symbolic move - which took far too long. Bush vetoed it, as expected. What's next?

Democrats concede they do not have enough votes to override the veto. But, speaking in the Capitol shortly after Mr. Bush’s remarks, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, and the Senate Democratic leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said they would not be deterred from pushing the president as hard as they could to bring the troops home.

“If the president thinks by vetoing this bill he will stop us from working to change the direction of the war in Iraq, he is mistaken,” Mr. Reid said. He added, “Now he has an obligation to explain his plan to responsibly end this war.”

Riiight...and pigs will fly. Stay tuned.

The next chapter begins Wednesday, when Congressional leaders are expected to meet Mr. Bush at the White House to open negotiations on a new bill. They are expected to look for ways to preserve the benchmarks for Iraqi progress that were included in the initial bill while eliminating the timetables for troop withdrawal that Mr. Bush has emphatically rejected.

Several Republican leaders said Tuesday that they were likely to support such benchmarks, and White House aides said Tuesday that Mr. Bush, who has supported goals and benchmarks for the Iraqi government, might back such a measure — but only if the benchmarks are nonbinding.

[Insert swear words here.]
 

Iran: If Bush had his way...

I think we know the end to that sentence. If Bush had had his way during the Iranian/British captives crisis, it's quite possible a full-fledged war would have broken out.

Via The Guardian:

The US offered to take military action on behalf of the 15 British sailors and marines held by Iran, including buzzing Iranian Revolutionary Guard positions with warplanes, the Guardian has learned.

In the first few days after the captives were seized and British diplomats were getting no news from Tehran on their whereabouts, Pentagon officials asked their British counterparts: what do you want us to do? They offered a series of military options, a list which remains top secret given the mounting risk of war between the US and Iran. But one of the options was for US combat aircraft to mount aggressive patrols over Iranian Revolutionary Guard bases in Iran, to underline the seriousness of the situation.

The British declined the offer and said the US could calm the situation by staying out of it. London also asked the US to tone down military exercises that were already under way in the Gulf. Three days before the capture of the 15 Britons , a second carrier group arrived having been ordered there by president George Bush in January. The aim was to add to pressure on Iran over its nuclear programme and alleged operations inside Iraq against coalition forces.

At the request of the British, the two US carrier groups, totalling 40 ships plus aircraft, modified their exercises to make them less confrontational.

The British government also asked the US administration from Mr Bush down to be cautious in its use of rhetoric, which was relatively restrained throughout.

If the captives had been American, things would obviously look very different today.

It's not surprising that Bush had to be asked to back off and squelch the presence of military might in the region since his first instinct is to shoot first and ask questions later. Any diplomatic posturing by that administration lends the appearance of negotiations but it's all geared towards one end: a push towards that so-called "last option". Well, Bush wasn't able to use this incident as an excuse to invade Iran (much to his chagrin, I imagine).

Experts are launching serious warnings Bushco's way. Let's hope at least some of them are getting through.

The results of an attack on Iran could be horrendous. After all, according to a recent study of "the Iraq effect" by terrorism specialists Peter Bergen and Paul Cruickshank, using government and Rand Corporation data, the Iraq invasion has already led to a seven-fold increase in terror. The "Iran effect" would probably be far more severe and long-lasting. British military historian Corelli Barnett speaks for many when he warns that "an attack on Iran would effectively launch World War III."

It's important to reframe the context of the situation with Iran in order to understand the ramifications of the US's behaviour towards that country, as Noam Chomsky points out:

Doubtless Iran's government merits harsh condemnation, including for its recent actions that have inflamed the crisis. It is, however, useful to ask how we would act if Iran had invaded and occupied Canada and Mexico and was arresting U.S. government representatives there on the grounds that they were resisting the Iranian occupation (called "liberation," of course). Imagine as well that Iran was deploying massive naval forces in the Caribbean and issuing credible threats to launch a wave of attacks against a vast range of sites -- nuclear and otherwise -- in the United States, if the U.S. government did not immediately terminate all its nuclear energy programs (and, naturally, dismantle all its nuclear weapons). Suppose that all of this happened after Iran had overthrown the government of the U.S. and installed a vicious tyrant (as the US did to Iran in 1953), then later supported a Russian invasion of the U.S. that killed millions of people (just as the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran in 1980, killing hundreds of thousands of Iranians, a figure comparable to millions of Americans). Would we watch quietly?

It is easy to understand an observation by one of Israel's leading military historians, Martin van Creveld. After the U.S. invaded Iraq, knowing it to be defenseless, he noted, "Had the Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy."

And he reaches a conclusion that is sorely obvious:

These facts suggest a possible way to prevent the current crisis from exploding, perhaps even into some version of World War III. That awesome threat might be averted by pursuing a familiar proposal: democracy promotion -- this time at home, where it is badly needed.

That would, of course, depend on the actions of the Democrats who now hold congressional power and who recently backed away from attempting to stop Bush from using the military option with Iran. Their series of Iraq war resolutions, while symbolic, may show that they have the will to counter the Bush administration but he's also shown that it's his way or the highway - democracy and the will of the people be damned. Democrats need to pull out every single tool they have to take back power from the executive branch which is using its cherished unitary executive theory - in essence turning the US into a monarchy. Words just aren't enough. Serious cohesive action is desperately needed.

The world is waiting - and not all that patiently anymore. Following 9/11, the world actually cared about what happened to America. All these years later, you can't blame people if they're just turning their backs now and walking away while US democracy continues to be a shadow of its former self - not that it ever was perfect - but at least it was actually seen as a model to be admired to some extent. That perspective has faded significantly.
 

No, freedom is not on the march

Via Reuters:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The Iraqi government raised the death toll on Saturday from a truck bomb in the town of Tal Afar to 152, making it the deadliest single bombing of the four-year-old war.

Interior Ministry spokesman Brigadier Abdul Kareem Khalaf said 347 people were wounded in Tuesday's attack on a Shi'ite area. There was another truck bomb in the mixed northwestern town on Tuesday, but it was small.

Khalaf said 100 homes had been destroyed in the main blast, which officials have blamed on al Qaeda. The explosion left a 23-meter (75-ft)-wide crater.
[...]
The past week has been the bloodiest in Iraq since the government launched a security crackdown in Baghdad in February aimed at halting the country's slide toward civil war.

Bombings blamed on Sunni Islamist al Qaeda have killed 400 people in Shi'ite areas across the country in the past week.

Now, first of all, it is a civil war. Let's all agree about that, shall we? Just how much more evidence do you need when attacks like this are not aimed at the occupiers but are squarely targeting other Iraqis?

Meanwhile, as Democrats are more than eager to continue funding the war and the failed "surge", Bush was busy complaining on Saturday about all of the pork attached to the supplemental spending bill as if his Republicans have never added their own bacon to previous bills. And, while Bush has been crying about how the troops will run out of money and that an acceptable bill must be signed "within weeks", the truth is that the military has more than enough funds to last until July.

Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a House panel on Thursday that after April 15, without emergency funding, the Army would have to begin curtailing some troop training, which "could over time delay their ability to go back into combat."

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that if the funds were not approved by May 15, the Army might have to extend some soldiers' tours, because other units would not be ready, and reduce equipment repair work, among other things.

But...

WASHINGTON, March 30 (Reuters) - The U.S. Army has enough money on hand to finance the Iraq war through most of July, according to a congressional study that challenges President George W. Bush's assertions that an infusion of funds is needed more urgently.

According to a Congressional Research Service memo dated March 28 and sent to the Senate Budget Committee, "The Army could finance the O&M (operations and maintenance) of both its baseline and war program ... through most of July 2007" by shifting around money in existing accounts.

Poor Bush. Having to veto the Dems' generous war-funding bill because he doesn't like not getting his way. Very few in congress though seem to actually want to end this war as soon as possible. How many more people will die thanks to the Democrats refusing to stand up to the most corrupt commander-in-chief ever? Why would they take impeachment "off the table" as Nancy Pelosi did in a bargain of Faustian proportions when this president clearly deserves it? What, exactly, are the Democrats waiting for (besides the '08 election, which brings absolutely no guarantee that this war won't go on endlessly)? Why are they continuing to fund this war at all?

I say the entire congress should be forced to go and spend a month in Iraq - outside of the Green Zone - and then come back to their constituents and explain why they think continuing this war into March '08 or whenever is in anyone's best interests. This idea that hell will descend on Iraq after US troops leave belies the fact that hell actually has already descended on that country with a fury.

Saturday: 1 GI, 59 Iraqis Killed; 94 Iraqis Wounded.

That is Iraq, day after day, month after month, year after year. Every single congressperson owns that now unless they are calling for an immediate pullout. It's been 4 years and it's getting worse, not better.

There is no "winning" to be had. Everybody has lost. There is no glory in continuing a bloodbath when your very presence escalates the nightmare and gore. War for war's sake is the privilege of those who are never touched by it directly. For millions of others who actually have to live through it, it's the worst curse imaginable.

Tortured mangled bodies, dead children, extreme pain, grief and trauma. That is what war is on a daily basis. It certainly is no glorious display of humanity. It's a scourge perpetrated by the powerful against the powerless. It's a crime of the highest order. Yet some attempt to stand on their pedestals of moral purity while proclaiming they are the righteous when they are in fact the morally bankrupt who continue to drag their followers into a pit of endless destruction. It's all a lie. All of it. There is nothing "just" about war.

Why is peace so threatening?
 

Pointless

So the House Democrats passed the emergency supplemental war spending bill on Friday which Bush has promised to veto. In response, Bush held a press conference in which he surrounded himself with veterans and called the passage of the bill "an act of political theater". Pot. Kettle Black.

And, in an act of absolute hypocrisy, he added "Our men and women in uniform should not have to worry that politicians in Washington will deny them the funds and the flexibility they need to win."

That, coming from a so-called commander-in-chief who didn't send in enough troops to begin with thus guaranteeing that soldiers would die needlessly. That, coming from a so-called commander-in-chief who sent troops into battle without the body armour and protection they needed to survive. That, coming from a so-called commander-in-chief who is responsible for billions of dollars going missing in Iraq with no accountability whatsover. That, coming from a commander-in-chief who refuses to allow pictures of the dead in their coffins coming home from his failed war. That, coming from a so-called commander-in-chief who kept Rumsfeld on as defence secretary despite the fact that his unwillingness to compromise and change course cost American soldiers their lives. That, coming from the worst commander-in-chief ever.

And he has the audacity to state that a narrow majority in the house "abdicated its responsibilty"? That, coming from a president who takes no responsibilty for anything?

If the majority abdicated any responsibility they had, it was in passing a bill that they knew would be vetoed anyway when they could have supported a bill calling for an end to the war. Period. Instead, so-called "progressives/liberals" in the Democratic party caved on their principles and refused to stand up for what the majority of Americans want - an end to this nightmare. They took the softer, easier way out because they're worried about their political future.

What they should be concerned about is the fact that hundreds of thousands of people have died, millions are displaced, one third of Iraqi children are malnourished, water and electricity are still scarce, the Iraqi government is moving on a law to contract out oil profits to multinational companies, tortured corpses are still showing up every single day, the notion of security is an absolute farce, troops are in the middle of a civil war with no end in sight, their soldiers continue to die with tens of thousands wounded in a war they should never have been in to begin with, chlorine trucks are exploding, government corruption is rampant, yet politics is their main consideration. They're playing politics with peoples' lives. This is no time to be timid, no matter what Boy King Bush threatens.

No one won today but millions of people certainly did lose - a lot - again.

Related: Support The Troops By Sending Them To War!
The Pelosi-crats and the War
The Gutless Mini-Politics of the Congressional Democrats
 

Iraq: Flailing in the Abyss

So, it looks like the House Democrats have finally agreed on a plan to get out of Iraq. Via their press release:

The Reid Joint Resolution builds on the longstanding Democratic position on Iraq and the Levin-Reed Amendment: the current conflict in Iraq requires a political solution, Iraq must take responsibility for its own future, and our troops should not be policing a civil war. It contains binding language to direct the President to transition the mission for U.S. forces in Iraq and begin their phased redeployment within one-hundred twenty days with a goal of redeploying all combat forces by March 31, 2008. A limited number of troops would remain for the purposes of force protection, training and equipping Iraqi troops, and targeted counter-terror options. A full description of the Reid Joint Resolution is attached to this release.

The Washington Post has more.

No doubt, Bush is yawning somewhere while the predictable response form the warbloggers is that this plan is the 'Democrats' Road Map For Terrorists'. That talking point just never gets old for them, does it? They have no idea how to get out of this clusterfuck but they're happy to attack anyone who even hints at a way to do that. Pathetic.

Meanwhile:

The day-to-day commander of American forces in Iraq has recommended that the heightened American troop levels there be maintained through February 2008, military officials said Wednesday.
[...]
President Bush has often said that he will listen closely to advice from commanders in the field in making decisions about strategy and manpower in Iraq, but Pentagon officials emphasized Wednesday that no decision to extend the “surge” had been made. Military officials said General Odierno had provided his assessment to his superior, Gen. David H. Petraeus, who took over as the top American commander in Iraq this year. General Petraeus has yet to make a formal recommendation to the Pentagon.
[...]
“We’re looking, as we should, at each of the three possibilities: hold what you have, come down, or plus up if you need to,” Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at the Pentagon.

"Plus Up". That's the new brand of Republican kool-aid.

When the Bush administration announced its troop buildup in January, it said it was sending 21,500 troops to Baghdad and Anbar Province. Since then, the Pentagon has said that as many as 7,000 additional support troops would also be deployed, including some 2,200 additional military police that General Petraeus had asked for to handle an anticipated increase in detainees. These increases would bring the total number of American troops in Iraq to around 160,000.

In other words, Bush seriously misunderestimated the number of troops needed for his little surge project. Is there anyone out there, besides the Plus Up drinking warbloggers, who actually believes he knows what he's doing anymore?

Update: In response to the Democrats' proposal, the White House was quick to issue a veto threat. Looks like that one is dead in the water.

Next?
 

About that 'must-do' list...

Sunday's New York Times editorial board has produced a must-do list, encouraging the Democrats to fight back against the assaults on human rights and civil liberties perpetrated by the Bush administration.

Here's what that list consists of:

1. Restore habeus corpus
2. Stop illegal spying
3. Ban Torture, really
4. Close the C.I.A. prisons
5. Account for "Ghost Prisoners"
6. Ban extraordinary rendition
7. Tighten the definition of combatant
8. Screen prisoners fairly and effectively
9. Ban tainted evidence
10. Ban secret evidence
11. Better define "classified" evidence
12. Respect the right to counsel

As the editors point out, many of these policies were written into law last fall via the passage of the Military Commissions Act which was developed after the Bush administration was rebuked by the Supreme Court.

Even if the Democrats could use their majority status to overturn that act however, long ingrained American traditions would remain.

There's no doubt that Bush has used his unitary executive power to override and sidestep congress every step of the way since he kicked off his so-called war on terrorism, but it's also important to examine how America reached the point where that type of unchecked power could actually come to exist.

Take the actions of the CIA, for example. Since its formation, it has acted virtually unimpeded through its use of covert operations worldwide in order to do everything from causing coups d'etats to carrying out assassinations. The investigations done by the Church Committee in the 70s were supposed to ensure more oversight - a fact that some people claim actually hamstrung the agency and led to the 9/11 intelligence failures.

While the old CIA may have been noted for the “cowboy” swagger of its personnel, the new CIA is, in the words of one critic, composed of “cautious bureaucrats who avoid the risks that come with taking action, who fill out every form in triplicate” and put “the emphasis on audit rather than action.” Congressional meddling is primarily responsible for this new CIA ethos, transforming it from an agency willing to take risks, and act at times in a Machiavellian manner, into just another sclerotic Washington bureaucracy.

The agency obviously didn't stop taking those risks, as we all know now.

That 2001 article by Stephen F. Knott led to this conclusion, the effects of which we are all now witnessing:

The response to the disaster of September 11th starkly reveals that members of Congress are quite adept at invoking “plausible deniability.” They are often the first to criticize, and the last to accept responsibility, for failed U. S. policies and practices. Oddly enough, a restoration of executive control of intelligence could increase the potential that the president, or his immediate deputies, would be held responsible for the successes and failures of the intelligence community. But this is a secondary consideration, for only by restoring the executive branch’s power to move with “secrecy and dispatch,” and to control the “business of intelligence,” as Alexander Hamilton and John Jay put it in The Federalist, will the nation be able to deter and defeat its enemies.

I wonder how professor Knott feels about endorsing that position today.

Regardless of all of the revelations over the decades of the "work" the CIA is doing in America's name, the mythology of the sexy spy with the nifty gagdets whose death-defeating tactics are pushed by Hollywood and applauded by millions won't end any time soon. Who would dare accuse CIA agents of being treasonous (besides people like Cheney and his henchmen who choose to out them when it's politically convenient rather than protecting them, as they're bound to do)?

While it's the job of the Democrats to try to wrestle power back from the Bush adminitration for those items detailed in the NYT's "must-do" list, the public also needs to remember that their party has used covert methods and actions when they thought it would be expedient as well.

As Scott Ritter notes*:

I personally witnessed the Director of the CIA under Bill Clinton, James Woolsey, fabricate a case for the continued existence of Iraqi ballistic missiles in November 1993 after I had provided a detailed briefing which articulated the UN inspector's findings that Iraq's missile program had been fundamentally disarmed. I led the UN inspector's investigation into the defection of Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamal, in August 1995, and saw how the Clinton administration twisted his words to make a case for the continued existence of a nuclear program the weapons inspectors knew to be nothing more than scrap and old paper. I was in Baghdad at the head of an inspection team in the summer of 1996 as the Clinton administration used the inspection process as a vehicle for a covert action program run by the CIA intending to assassinate Saddam Hussein.

I twice traveled to the White House to brief the National Security Council in the confines of the White House Situation Room on the plans of the inspectors to pursue the possibility of concealed Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, only to have the Clinton national security team betray the inspectors by failing to deliver the promised support, and when the inspections failed to deliver any evidence of Iraqi wrong-doing, attempt to blame the inspectors while denying any wrong doing on their part.

Obviously, this culture of covert corruption has a very long history that runs through the administrations of both of the big two parties, yet we're now expecting the current crop of Democrats (including many longstanding members who have been complicit in these affairs) to turn around and bring everything to light in order to end these types of activities? Isn't that rather like the fox guarding the hen house, as the old cliche says?

This Democratic congress may hold hearings, may investigate the Bush administration's horrendous abuses, may even impeach the president (although Nancy Pelosi has made it clear that impeachment is "off the table"), but do they have the power or the willingness to end the disastrous policies of the CIA? Will they stand up to an administration full of ex-CIA officials who now run the White House? And where does the American public stand on these issues?

It's clear the majority are outraged over the Bush administration's abuses, and so they should be. Are they willing, however, to give up the power exercised on their behalf as members of the so-called "greatest country in the world" by CIA agents and those in the numerous other intelligence agencies that are a part of the US government in order to keep them "safe"? My guess would be that only a small minority would actually demand full accountability and transparency and, even if they did, they wouldn't get it from the Republicans or the Democrats who are so entrenched in the use of those powers that they'd be loathe to surrender many of them in the end.

That's the dilemma the American people face, as do those worldwide who've been affected by these covert actions. It's doubtful they'll find much justice any time soon and time is already running out for the Democrats to deal with all of what Bush has wrought prior to the end of his term. Perhaps they should be spending less time speechifying and fundraising on the '08 campaign trail and more time actually working on the business of the country. As for the CIA, the more it changes, the more it stays the same.

* h/t Madman in the Marketplace whose work you can find at Liberal Street Fighter.