Commander in Chief

This review is now complete. And as Commander-in-Chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. After 18 months, our troops will begin to come home. These are the resources that we need to seize the initiative, while building the Afghan capacity that can allow for a responsible transition of our forces out of Afghanistan. – excerpt from President Obama’s speech

From the “be careful what you wish for” department we have the previous statement from the first US President to invoke the “Powell Doctrine.” Ever since the Vietnam War we have been inundated with the oft repeated chorus of “don’t send in troops without an exit strategy”. From Reagan to Bush II it has been the same refrain and to a man none of them heeded the warning. Each one of them to a man committed American troops without consideration of how they will be extracted. The closest to come to observing this doctrine was the elder Bush with the Gulf War when he went against conventional wisdom and did not allow US troops to enter Baghdad.

How anyone could be surprised by the president’s decision is beyond me. Even as a candidate Senator Obama stated that he wasn’t against all wars, just dumb wars and that he felt the trouble with Afghanistan was a lack of resources. So he decides to provide the resources for a limited amount of time and see if this will provide the impetus needed to reverse the momentum loss caused by the previous administration’s lack of focus. We must remember that there were no good options. The thing that troubles me about many of the critics of the President’s policy is their seeming naiveté concerning what those options were. They provide the false dichotomy of only two options: escalation or retreat. This President would be damned if he did and damned if he didn’t. If he had chosen to remove our presence from Afghanistan and there would be another terrorist attack on American soil as so many of the wing-nuts is hoping for, he would receive a mortal wound and not just him but the Democrats as a whole.

Right, wrong or indifferent we invaded Afghanistan and as a result of that invasion we owe it to those folks to give them our best effort and after that effort if we fail then at least we tried. To say that we are packing up and leaving at this stage was a viable option was not only disingenuous but also foolish. No rational person would advocate limitless war as many on the right seem to be doing, but at the same time we have an obligation to make an effort to meet our goals. The problem previously has been that there were no goals, at least now we have goals and a strategy. No one knows if they will succeed, thus the need for an exit strategy.

A legitimate concern is that this escalation could lead to a more protracted conflict; after all we have been there for almost eight years. In this instance we have to trust the man elected to be commander in chief to stand by his word. The question then becomes do we have reason not to trust this president? This is a question every American has to answer for themselves. I for one have not received enough evidence to the contrary not to at least give him the benefit of the doubt. Undoubtedly there will be those who would argue the opposite and they are entitled to their opinion, but where are the facts?

The bottom line remains the same as it is in Iraq and that is if the Afghanis are not willing to support our efforts and themselves then no amount of troop increase or expenditure of wealth will make this effort a success. The key to this or any military action comes down to the folks who will be left behind when we finally leave and make no mistake we will leave. Too often our past foreign policy decisions have been based in the false premise that all nations want our form of government and our capitalistic society. The truth is that there are many nations who are not willing to accept our excesses as their own, who have historical cultures that predate our own that are not conducive to democracy. Does that make them wrong? Maybe, but that is not an issue for us to decide but for the citizens of that country. Our goal should be to provide them with the opportunity to choose for themselves and the wherewithal to defend those choices.

I for one applaud the President’s decision making process and his willingness to take the political hits to be thoughtful and deliberate. I applaud the fact that he did not make this decision in the heat of the political winds and that he realized the gravity of this decision. I may not agree with the exact decision, but I respect how he arrived at it enough to give him the benefit of the doubt and I think the men and women in our military feel the same way. Part of the greatness of America despite the fear mongering of the wing-nuts is our ability to have debate without fear of reprisals, such as being called traitors or un-American. Thank God those days are over, so even if you disagree with me and the president I promise I want dismiss you as being unpatriotic.


“The first quality for a commander-in-chief is a cool head to receive a correct impression of things. He should not allow himself to be confused by either good or bad news.” - Napoleon

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Who Said Change Was Hard?

It’s hard to believe that a year has come and gone since then candidate Obama became President-elect Obama and then President Obama. For some reason it seems like it has been longer than that I guess if you listen to the “newsmakers” and other talking heads he has been in office for at least 3 years. I mean after all the war in Iraq is still going on, not to mention Afghanistan and the possibility of its escalation, unemployment is nearing record highs, we still don’t have health-care reform, and gays still can’t serve openly in the military. The list of unfulfilled promises is longer now than it was during the campaign. What has this guy done, besides win the Nobel Peace prize?

The American capacity for amnesia has never failed to amaze me and in the case of this President it has reached a new all-time record for brevity. Don’t get me wrong I have my own concerns that there is still much work to be done, but I think that what has been lost in these calculations was whether the Obamania would translate into actual activism and not just the usual round of after election complaining. So far there has been very little transformation of the electorate into a more activist population. I love it when people tell me they are supporters of this person or of that policy and then when you ask them what have they actually done to bring about the programs or policy changes that they supposedly support, they will often times say nothing. It kills me to see all of the people still sporting their Obama bumper stickers, yard signs, and tee-shirts (oh did I mention their chia’s) as if they are some new sort of chic fashion to say, “whoo I’m still cool.” If all you do is wear a tee-shirt or sport a bumper sticker on your Honda then you are not a supporter and you are not cool, you are someone who is trying to be identified with something you never understood.

Many people have expressed their displeasure with the pace and direction of change taking place in America and are ready to start blaming the President. To those people I say it took 244 years to end slavery in America, it took 144 years for women to vote, and it took 219 years to elect the first black President so change comes slowly to this country. When you add to this mix an entrenched opposition whose only plan is criticizing and opposing your plans then you really have the ingredients for rapid change. Why hasn’t anyone noticed that the loyal opposition has yet to submit a plan for anything since the President has taken office? Shouldn’t they be required to present some sort of alternative plan to be taken seriously? It’s amazing how little we require of our elected officials. I realize that after W. the bar has hit an all-time low but this is ridiculous. The opposition should be required to present an alternative plan within 60 days of the majority party’s introduction of a program. Ok, you don’t agree with this plan or this solution so what are the alternatives? The least they could do is to present the American public with their alternative and let them decide which plan has more merit.

The fact that change is difficult should not be a reason to accept doing nothing; it should be a rallying cry to continue the push for change. As much as I enjoy sitting behind my laptop and pumping out these compelling diaries what I know is that real change does not occur from behind this screen. For change to be real and sustained it must occur in the streets and in our local communities. A perfect example is the “summer of rage” and the “teabaggers” now of course these were Astroturf demonstrations but imagine if they had of been real the effect they could have had. Hell, they almost had an effect and they were fake. The point is that throughout the history of America real change has required people who were willing to get out of their comfy Lazy-Boys and slippers and take to the streets for what they believed in. If it had not been for those types of folks we would still be sending young men to their deaths in Vietnam and black folks would still be dodging fire hoses and police dogs.

We will only get the change that we are willing to stand up for, not sit around complaining about and if that change does not come fast enough who can we blame for it? One of my biggest concerns following the election would be that too many people would believe that the election changed everything. The truth is that the election changed nothing. It was a nice historic photo-op but the reality is that those who wish the status quo to remain the same are still wielding the levers of power and if you think that one lone black man is going to change that, then you are more delusional than I thought you were. Those levers must be as Charleston Heston famously put it, “pried from their cold dead hands.” Who said change was hard? Change is not hard, the hard part is remembering what needs to be changed and what needs to be changed is our attitudes. Change is not hard. What’s hard is draggin my lazy ass off the couch, now that’s hard!

Those who expect moments of change to be comfortable and free of conflict have not learned their history. - Joan Wallach Scott

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Send Them Back To Iraq

Who says you can’t get away with murder. It just all depends on who you murder and where you murder them at. In what will surely be another case of justice delayed and justice denied, the Justice Department is laying the groundwork for not pursuing the case against the Blackwater employees involved in the killing of 17 innocent Iraqi civilians. In an effort to prepare us for their failure to bring charges, the people at Justice have been meeting with Congressional staffers to discuss the “difficulties” involved in the case.

WASHINGTON — Justice Department officials have told Congress that they face serious legal difficulties in pursuing criminal prosecutions of Blackwater security guards involved in a September shooting that left at least 17 Iraqis dead.

In a private briefing in mid-December, officials from the Justice and State Departments met with aides to the House Judiciary Committee and other Congressional staff members and warned them that there were major legal obstacles that might prevent any prosecution. Justice officials were careful not to say whether any decision had been made in the matter, according to two of the Congressional staff members who received the briefing.[1]

I guess we don’t have any laws on the books that cover the killing of innocent civilians by American corporate employees? Yeah, they hate us for freedoms. The freedom to go anywhere in the world and kill people without consequence is a great freedom to have, it’s no wonder the “terrorists” are angry. They kill innocent people and they get hunted down or have huge rewards offered for their capture, we do it and we don’t have anything to charge them with. I got it, how about pollution for breathing the same air that I breathe. Is this the height of arrogance or what? Americans have the freedom to kill anyone with no repercussions, unless you are a young blond white girl, no one is allowed to kill them.

If we do not have the laws or the jurisdiction to punish the guilty I have an idea, let’s send them back to Iraq and let the Iraqis put them on trial. I would be willing to bet that they have laws that deal with killing innocent Iraqis. In what would surely be seen as a move to demonstrate the sovereignty of the Iraqi government, we could give them the guards and let them put them on trial. But, no we can’t do that because that would equate the value of an Iraqi life with that of an American life and as many people around the world know that isn’t true. Just ask the many families that have witnessed the refusal of the US military to allow its members to be subject to the laws of their countries. There are well documented cases of US military personnel being sheltered from charges stemming from murder to rape in foreign countries.

The truth of the matter is that these guards will not face trial and it has nothing to do with “legal hurdles”. If these men were brought to trial it would open the flood gates and put the whole prosecution of the war on trial. It would reopen Abu Ghrab, water-boarding, and a whole host of other topics this administration would rather not revisit.

In a report to be issued Wednesday, the group, Human Rights First, argues that the laws are sufficient to prosecute contractors, including those working for the State Department, and that the Bush administration has failed to do so because of a lack of political will. The report specifically criticizes the government’s response to the September shooting in Baghdad.

“The U.S. government’s reaction to the shootings,” the report says, “has been characterized by confusion, defensiveness, a multiplicity of uncoordinated ad hoc investigations, and interagency finger-pointing. These failures underscored the Justice Department’s unwillingness or inability to systematically investigate and prosecute allegations of serious violent crimes.”[2]

Once again, the loss of innocent foreign life will fade into the darkness of past American atrocities. What are seventeen lives out of hundreds of thousands? The world will once again witness the hypocrisy that has characterized our foreign policy for decades and led to the backlash of anti-American feelings throughout the world. We talk about international law and respect for human life unless it runs contrary to our “national interest”, then it’s who needs French fries?

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/washington/16blackwater.html?hp
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/16/washington/16blackwater.html?hp

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Robert M. Gates; Al Qaeda Terrorist?

On the surface this may seem completely insane and unworthy of any critical thought, but on his recent visits to Afghanistan and Iraq there were suicide bombers following him everywhere he went; coincidence? Maybe or maybe he is one of those Al Qaeda plants that we have heard so much about. The rise in the level of bombings on demand should give the “surge is working” crowd pause, the surge is working because those who are opposed to our presence there are allowing it to work. No one knows what their overall schemes are, but make no mistake the lull in violence is not under the control of our military or the Iraqi government. The opposition has for some reason decided it is in their best interest to quell the violence.

BAGHDAD, Dec. 5 — Car bombs in Baghdad and three northern Iraqi cities killed at least 23 people and wounded more than 40 others today as Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates arrived for an unannounced visit with senior Iraqi officials.

Indeed, the four car bombs — the first of which detonated in the northern city of Mosul shortly before Mr. Gates’s plane arrived there early today, seemed timed to coincide with his visit. None of the bombings, however, occurred anywhere close to the defense secretary or his entourage.

In Baghdad, Mr. Gates was to meet also with President Jalal Talabani as well as with American commanders. Mr. Gates flew to Iraq from Afghanistan, where on Tuesday he heard appeals from senior Afghan leaders for more money and weapons to combat the recent rise in insurgent activity there. There were two suicide bombings in Kabul during his visit. The first, on Tuesday morning, wounded 22 Afghan civilians; the second, early Wednesday, killed 7 Afghan soldiers and 6 civilians, and wounded 17 others.[1]

Anyone who believes that we are driving the level of violence in Iraq and Afghanistan is suffering from a serious case of delusion. The level of violence in Iraq is dependent on the Iraqis and their willingness to buy into the current government and its ability to solve their daily problems, so far that government has been either unable or unwilling to provide solutions. This lull in violence will only be temporary, if the government of Prime Minister al-Maliki does not begin to resolve the issues that are currently dividing the Iraqis. If this government fails to act, I believe that not only will there be a return to pre-surge levels of violence but also an increase in the number of people taking part in the new violence.

As the frustration level of the Iraqi people grows, the violence will begin to target more of the Iraqi government and less American targets. This decrease in violence is a honeymoon period, but if the delivery of needed public services and infrastructure development do not improve this honeymoon will come to an explosive end. Right now the people are just happy for a respite in the violence, but this will not last. There will be growing protests against the occupation and the impotent government.

The fact that the US security company massacres are passing with little or no response from the Iraqis should be reason alone to raise concerns. I hate to burst some bubbles but we are not that good nor are we in Iraq in sufficient numbers to maintain a continued peace. Many believe that it will be the Sunnis who will restart the cycle of violence, I believe it will actually be the Shias and will not be an orchestrated uprising. In my opinion it will be due to the continued frustration of the Iraqi people to the lack of improvements in their daily lives. Contentment with no violence will only last so long, then what? We should not let these lulls in violence convince us that everything in Iraq is honky-dory, because it is not. And despite the Neo-Con pundits and war supporters the surge is not a success. In their desperation for some semblance of good foreign policy news, they have duped a war weary public into believing that their bankrupt policies are working.

We have heard nothing about the internal refugee problems or the lack of basic services. If the best you can come up with after almost 5 years of occupation is a drop in violence, you know the redevelopment efforts are in trouble. The bottom line in Iraq continues to be the daily improvement in the lives of everyday Iraqis, until there is progress made in that area any peace will be transitory and elusive. The surge has worked to the point of exposing why we should have never entered into this quagmire in the first place. It has exposed that even with the most technological military in the history of the world, it will never bring peace or democracy. The best you can hope for by its usage is stability in the face of a bad situation. The surge has exposed that without diplomacy there can be no lasting peace. Of course for many of us it is a lesson we already knew, something about being a student of history.

Is Robert Gates an al Qaeda terrorist? Probably not, but I sure don’t want him coming to my town. The guy appears to be a suicide bomber magnet and I have no desire to be part of the collateral damage which also seems to follow.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/world/middleeast/06gates.html?hp

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Blackwater Highlights Bigger Issue In Iraq

The incident with the Blackwater Security Corporation in Iraq has been well documented. I certainly would not want to retrace the many stories detailing the charges and counter-charges. The Iraqis have completed their investigation and have concluded the attack against the civilians was unprovoked. The government of Iraq has asked the State Department to remove Blackwater from Iraq. It seems that the government of Iraq is tired of having its citizens being used for target practice for trigger happy mercs. This case and the findings of the Iraqi investigation brings up what I believe is the crux of the problem in Iraq. I think it is why the Iraqis have not worked harder at resolving their differences and trying to meet the benchmarks set up by the US.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The Iraqi investigation into last month's Blackwater USA shooting is complete, and it proves that the private contractors committed unprovoked and random killings in the incident, an adviser to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said Tuesday.

Adviser Sami al-Askari told CNN al-Maliki has asked the U.S. State Department to "pull Blackwater out of Iraq."

Al-Askari said the United States is still waiting for the findings of the American investigation, but the Iraqi leader and most Iraqi officials are "completely satisfied" with the findings of their probe and are "insisting" that Blackwater leave the country.[1]

The fly in the ointment is sovereignty. The Bush Administration is big on talking about Iraqi sovereignty, but the truth of the matter is they don’t have any. This administration talks about how they are the guest of the Iraqi government and that government can request the US to leave at anytime, but this is false. Here is a government under occupation; they can’t even prosecute the random murders of 17 of their citizens. The government can’t kick the perpetrators out of the country and so they appear impotent and unable to protect their citizenry.

The government on the other hand refuses to honor any timetable placed upon them by the US. Their only form of protest is to delay reconciliation and prolong the conflict. So you have the government we put in place fighting against the aims of our government. What is rarely reported on by the US media is the pride of the Iraqi people, that pride has been repeatedly ravaged by our insensitivity to their culture, their women, and their religion.

The government of Prime Minister al-Maliki is caught between a rock and a hard place, on the one hand they have the Americans dictating that they must meet this goal or that and then they have their people who want and expect them to show independence from the occupiers. The next election, if we get that far will be a real eye opener for Washington whoever is President. I have a feeling the Iraqi people are going to send a clear message to Washington by electing a nationalistic candidate, a candidate who will distance himself from the US and demand the removal of US troops. By our refusal to allow the al-Maliki government the semblance of sovereignty we are setting the stage for the next radical leader to ascend to the throne. You cannot continue to stick your thumb into the eye of your host and not expect there to be a backlash.

The blowback of the Iraqi people will take the form of a conservative Islamic militant leader, who will play to the Iraqis desire to remove the US occupying army. The one thing most Iraqis agree upon, whether they are Sunnis or Shia is the desire to have the US troops gone. The next leader will campaign on the weakness of this government and its inability to rein in not only US troops, but US civilians as well. The rage of the Iraqi people is seething just below the surface and is never reported by the US press, so to most Americans the results will come as a surprise and they will view the Iraqis as ungrateful and uncivilized. Because of the lack of security the US press doesn’t have a real sense of the mood of the Iraqi people; it is pretty difficult to gauge the mood of the average Iraqi from behind the Green Zone barricades.

The problem with Iraq is even if we accomplish our goals, we still lose. Eventually the “warm welcome” we have received will turn sour and no matter how big or secure our embassy will be it won’t be able to withstand the will of the Iraqi people. Once again we will overplay our hand and overstay our welcome and the end will be worse than the beginning. Instead of having a secular government open to relations we will have a fanatical Islamist in power who will overturn all of our “progressive” agenda and return Iraq to another Middle Eastern theocracy. How’s that for a legacy Mr. Bush and your Neo-Con friends?

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/10/16/iraq.blackwater/index.html

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Another Monster Part 2

Back in April, I posted a diary entitled “We’ve Created Another Monster”. In that diary I discussed how the Kurds were making plans to secede from Iraq through annexing Kirkuk, negotiating independent PSA’s with oil companies, and destabilizing the northern region. This crisis as I predicted is continuing to intensify with the Iraqi Kurds unwillingness and the Iraqi and US governments unable to stop the cross-border raids of the PKK. The PKK is the terrorist wing of the Kurdish independence movement and has been designated as a terroristic organization by most governments including the US.

Well, true to the script that Iraq is a black hole from which there is no escape; the Kurds are on the move. In the past few weeks the PKK has been conducting deadly cross-border raids against the Turkish military culminating with the kidnap of 8 Turkish soldiers. This incident is causing great alarm in Turkey with demonstrations being held throughout the country calling for government action against the PKK. The PKK has been using northern Iraq to stage their raids against the Turks with the silent acquiescence from the Iraqi Kurds. The patience of the Turks is wearing thin and they are amassing troops on the border with Iraq, the Turkish military has also asked and received authority to cross into Iraq to quell the terrorist attacks and to locate its troops.

The ambush on Sunday was the most serious in recent memory by the militants, separatist fighters of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or P.K.K., and came only four days after the Turkish Parliament formally approved contingency plans for military retaliation across the border.

The Turkish military struck back inside Turkey, killing as many as 34 Kurdish militants, the military said today, a higher number than had earlier been reported. But the Kurdish ambush still drew strong public outrage here, and its brazenness could effectively force the government to make good on its warning to send forces into northern Iraq.[1]

As the tensions continue to escalate the Iraqi Kurds seem content to allow events to spiral out of control. I believe this is part of their plan to destabilize the region and create a crisis for the Iraqi government. It will be during this crisis that the Kurds will make their play to try to break away from the Iraqi central government’s authority. As the past weeks have shown the Kurds continue to negotiate and sign PSA’s with oil companies despite calls from the government of al-Maliki and the US to stop the practice.

Saddam Hussein was hung for what he did to the Kurds; I wonder what punishment the current Prime Minister will receive for cracking down on the Kurds? The Kurdish problem has long been a thorn in the sides of Turkey, Iraq, and Iran. Prior to our setting up the Kurds in northern Iraq each country had initiated crackdowns in various forms to subjugate their minority Kurdish populations. Because we allowed the Kurds autonomy in Iraq, they are using that freedom to export terrorism and fan the flames of independence for Kurds in the region. It is these activities that will cause the war in Iraq to escalate into a broader regional conflict. The problem with not studying the country and region you are invading is that you have no perspective or history of the underlying conflicts of that region.

This Kurdish issue is not going to resolve itself quietly through diplomacy I’m afraid. The Kurds seemed to be determined to push this crisis to the breaking point. They have continued to talk of reigning in the PKK and yet have brought none of the leaders to justice. In what appears to be a strategy of forcing the hands of the Turks and the Iraqi central government, the Kurds appear to be playing a game of brinksmanship to take this situation beyond a regional issue into an international issue. I am not sure if the Kurds believe they can bring enough international pressure to form a separate independent Kurd nation or if they want to have the sovereignty of the state of Iraq but still be able to act independently.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who called on the PKK to cease fighting and to turn itself into a political organization, angered Turks further on Sunday by saying: "We will not hand any Kurd over to Turkey, not even a Kurdish cat," according to media.

At the same time, Mr. Talabani seemed to shrug off Turkish requests that the Iraqis hand over P.K.K. leaders hiding in northern Iraq.

“The leaders of P.K.K. do exist in Kurdistan’s rugged mountains, but the Turkish Army with all its power could not stem or arrest them, so how can we?” he said after the meeting which took place in Sulaimaniya in northern Iraq. “Handing over P.K.K. leaders to Turkey is a dream that will never be realized.”[2]

It is obvious by these statements that the Kurdish officials in northern Iraq have no intention of reining in the PKK or of doing anything to lower tensions in the region. It is a dangerous game that they are playing and in the process whatever little success we have in Iraq could be the first casualty of a larger conflict. The US does not seem to have any leverage over the Kurds who are acting as if they are independent of Iraq and the US.

Due to their desperate need to show progress in Iraq and the region, the US has allowed itself to be co-opted by terrorists who have little desire for peace or a unified Iraq. It will be difficult to criticize the Kurds after having held them up as the model of democracy for the whole region. They have us by the short hairs and they know it. This is the monster created from removing a monster…

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/world/europe/23turkey.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/world/europe/23turkey.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&hp

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We Created Another Monster

There is a growing storm brewing in Iraq that no one seems to want to talk about. Although it may be a long ways off, it is brewing none the less. The storm I speak of is the Kurdish issue in Iraq and how it will affect its neighbors, specifically Turkey.

There is growing rhetoric and posturing on both sides concerning this volatile issue that has been simmering for a while now. It began when the US, after the first gulf war created a semi-autonomous Kurdistan region in northern Iraq. For over 10 years the Kurds have had the run of northern Iraq under the protection of the US and have been held out by this administration as a model of democracy. In our usual benevolent way we have armed and financially backed the Kurds allowing them to have free rein in that region. Now granted this region has been a model of stability for Iraq, however considering the other regions in Iraq this is not really hard to do. It’s sort of like being the valedictorian of the “special class”. Your parents are proud, but you’re not going to get a call from Harvard. By allowing the Kurds to progress autonomous of the rest of Iraq, we have created a separate entity that does not seem to have much federalist or Iraqi nationalist fervor.

Fouad Masoun, a Kurdish legislator and deputy chairman of the parliament's constitution review committee, said: "There are some revisions which are necessary, but there are also demands by certain parties we reject, such as returning Iraq to a centralized government or reducing the powers of the Kurdistan region and other regions.

The Kurds do have nationalistic plans, but for the Kurdistan Republic and thus the tension with Turkey. For those that don’t know, Turkey has a large minority population of Kurds who have been trying to become autonomous. The idea of having a nation of Kurdistan on its border has always been unacceptable to Turkey. The issue has continued to complicate our relationship with Turkey whom we consider an ally in the region. Turkey does not want its Kurdish population to get any ideas of becoming autonomous, which is becoming more and more difficult as the Iraqi Kurds get more autonomy. Should the Iraqi Kurds complete their plan to annex the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, a serious diplomatic crisis would ensue. So far, the administration has been able to placate the Kurds through cash and concessions. Should the situation in Iraq continue to deteriorate the Kurds being the strongest and most organized force in Iraq could basically take the city and the oil revenues that it represents. If this were to happen the war would immediately escalate into a regional conflict that Washington could no longer manage.

The Kurds are doing their best to carve out enough oil revenue to fund their nationalistic plans. They have continued to resist having Iraq’s huge oil reserves under the authority of the central government which would go a long way to insure that Iraq remains unified. The Kurds have made their intentions known that they would prefer to have Iraq divided. They also are in favor of independent PSA’s for the oil reserves with foreign oil companies taking control and negotiated at the regional level, again to keep the oil revenues in their hands.

Currently we have a war of words and rhetoric between the Iraqi Kurds and the Turks, but history tells us this will not continue for much longer. Rather than spending some of the “political capital” he may still have, the President and this administration are hoping that this crisis will just go away. You know the same strategy they are prescribing for that whole “global warming” thing.

Mark it down people, we have not heard the end of this confrontation and as long as it is ignored it will continue to fester and spread. This is another of those worsening situations that invading Iraq has fostered. This will be no “Young Frankenstein” I’m afraid.

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The Terrorists Have Won

Since 9/11, America has lost not only the war on terror, but America itself. Before a shot was fired in Afghanistan or Iraq, the terrorists had won. The terrorists won when we allowed this administration and the Neo-Cons to hijack America and turn us into a tyrannical monster. I don’t know if it was by design or by happenstance, but when those planes hit with GW Bush in office it set forth a chain of events that caused our defeat. I know that we have the greatest military power in the world and in conventional tactics we could crush anyone, but we are a defeated nation when this happens.

The debate over how terrorism suspects should be held and questioned began shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the Bush administration adopted secret detention and coercive interrogation, both practices the United States had previously denounced when used by other countries. It adopted the new measures without public debate or Congressional vote, choosing to rely instead on the confidential legal advice of a handful of appointees.

The Bush administration had entered uncharted legal territory beginning in 2002, holding prisoners outside the scrutiny of the International Red Cross and subjecting them to harrowing pressure tactics. They included slaps to the head; hours held naked in a frigid cell; days and nights without sleep while battered by thundering rock music; long periods manacled in stress positions; or the ultimate, waterboarding.[1]

There will be those hawks, wing-nuts, and pundits that will claim the opposite that we are winning the war but once we crossed this line we lost. When we began spying on each other, disallowing habeas corpus, and torturing we lost. Many like Mr. Bush will claim that the ends justify the means; there have been no new attacks so it must be working. This is a false conclusion based on a false premise, the reason we defeated communism was not because of our military power, it was because of what we provided to the world.

What we provided to the world was a dream, a dream that no matter what your circumstances, your religion, or your status you could have a say in your life. Granted that dream was never fully realized and was tarnished for many, but it still existed as a light to walk towards. That light has been darkened by the Bush Administration. There are many things that this President has done that I have found personally reprehensible, but what he has done here is unforgivable. He has taken us across a line that no matter what the world was doing we would not cross, not because we couldn’t but because it was wrong. It was wrong in previous wars and it is wrong in this one.

The thing that troubles me the most is not that Mr. Bush did what he did; it was that we allowed him to. There were not enough principled and honorable people to stop this from happening, that good people went silent when we needed their voices the most. I have a hard time supporting any candidate for President, because they were all culpable in this transformation, to some degree. Worst yet are the Progressives, was there no one to articulate the dangerous waters we were swimming headlong into? Was there no sane voice of reason that could have turned the tsunami of 9/11 into an opportunity to demonstrate to the world what super power really means? I’m not sure it would have even mattered, but we owed it to our children to try.

Never in history had the United States authorized such tactics. While President Bush and C.I.A. officials would later insist that the harsh measures produced crucial intelligence, many veteran interrogators, psychologists and other experts say that less coercive methods are equally or more effective.

With virtually no experience in interrogations, the C.I.A. had constructed its program in a few harried months by consulting Egyptian and Saudi intelligence officials and copying Soviet interrogation methods long used in training American servicemen to withstand capture. The agency officers questioning prisoners constantly sought advice from lawyers thousands of miles away.[2]

The terrorists have won not because they were smarter, stronger, or even right in their beliefs; they won because we defeated ourselves. We used the tragedy to unleash our paranoia and righteous indignation against a world that was becoming less and less compliant to our demands. The world had to be taught a lesson, noses had to be bloodied as Mr. Friedman has said and it came at a cost not only that was prohibitive to the world but also to our freedom.

We are not safer today than we were on 9/10; we are only more closed up. Travel to the US is way down, the world does not like what we have allowed ourselves to become. We may think we’re safer, but so is the guy on a deserted island. If isolation is what it takes to be safer, is it worth it? If being cut-off from the world is the answer, then we are asking the wrong questions. The opinion of the US in the world has never been lower, not only in the Middle East but even amongst our allies. We have imprisoned ourselves and shut out the world, because of this the terrorists have won.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/washington/04interrogate.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/04/washington/04interrogate.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

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America Supplying Arms to Kurdish Insurgents In Turkey

WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 — Weapons that were originally given to Iraqi security forces by the American military have been recovered over the past year by the authorities in Turkey after being used in violent crimes in that country, Pentagon officials said Wednesday.

The discovery that serial numbers on pistols and other weapons recovered in Turkey matched those distributed to Iraqi police units has prompted growing concern by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that controls on weapons being provided to Iraqis are inadequate. It was also a factor in the decision to dispatch the department’s inspector general to Iraq next week to investigate the problem, the officials said.[1]

In the echo of the drumbeat to war with Iran, I found this article very interesting. It is a glimpse into the hypocrisy of not only this administration, but all the media outlets that support it and in a larger sense the idea of American supremacy in the world that so many people support. To view the article in and by itself it appears completely harmless, a few lost American weapons show up in Turkey big deal. It’s not like that region isn’t awash with weapons that we have supplied to help arm the Iraqis, so what if some of them happen to end up in Turkey. It’s not like our government is party to supplying these “insurgent groups” with American arms to kill Turkish citizens.

However, according to the logic of the Bush administration, our government must be involved in their distribution. We have serial numbers that tie them to purchases made by the US military for distribution in that region. This of course is the same logic being used to justify the claim that Iran is supplying Iraqi insurgents with arms to kill US forces.

Markings on the EFPs and mortars, as well as the machining processes, identified the weapons as being Iranian made. "The weapons had characteristics unique to being manufactured in Iran ... Iran is the only country in the region that produces these weapons," according to the anonymous defense official. "The dates of manufacture on weapons found so far indicate they were made after fall of Saddam Hussein."[2]

So if confiscated weapons can be traced back to the country of origin or to the purchase made by a certain country then that constitutes unequivocal evidence that the “government at the highest levels” is involved in the supplying of arms to the insurgents, case closed. So using this logic, then it only stands to reason that our government at the highest levels is also supplying the Kurdish insurgents with weapons that are killing Turkish military personnel. This of course is not how the story is being played, because see in America our motives are pure as the driven snow. Unlike those filthy Persian heathens who are aligning themselves to attack and kill Americans with WMD’s and of course we don’t want to wait for the mushroom cloud before we act.

The amazing thing to me is that there are not more weapons being touted in front of the media from a host of countries. I would be willing to bet if all the information concerning the origin of arms found in that region were published, you could make a case against Israel and most of Europe. Let’s face it there are more weapons in that region, thanks in large part to our weapons giveaway program, that who and how they are being supplied is a lesson in futility. You could make the case of arming the insurgents against a number of countries, including our own. So, after Iran, do we attack ourselves? We have seen the enemy and you know the rest.

Is Iran using the instability of Iraq for its own policy goals? Of course they are, but let’s remember who created this situation for them to try and exploit. I guess Iran is the only country that ever tried to extend its influence on another country during a chaotic situation, those bastards. The insanity of all of this is that we want other countries to help so long as they do it for our benefit and the way we want them to. If they are not there to serve our interests then the hell with them, Iraqi neighbors you can help stabilize the country so long as you don’t interfere with our agenda. So Syria, Jordan, and Iran we will have a conference, but don’t expect to have any input in the outcome. You are only there as a courtesy, for photo-ops for the American media and public.

For many years while we were supporting Saddam Hussein, the Iranians were supporting the Shiites that are now in power. Is it a far stretch of the imagination that they look to those that provided them support and a refuge from the brutality of the Sunni minority, now that they have achieved majority political status. How foolish it must seem to the Iraqis to hear Washington say “stay away from Iran”, sure we supported the brutal dictator and we encouraged you to rise up against that dictator and left you hanging, but we're here now. Forget the fact that they provided you material support and comfort in your darkest days and that many of your current leaders were exiled to Iran, they are bad. They are supplying arms to insurgents, we are supplying arms to insurgents, everyone is supplying arms to the insurgents. No wonder there is no shortage of materials to kill US service people and Iraqi civilians.

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[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/washington/30contract.html?hp

[2] http://billroggio.com/archives/2007/02/evidence_of_iran_sup.php

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The Language of Defeat

As I was channel surfing one night I came across Senator John McCain on the Charlie Rose Show. If these guys weren’t so frightening they would be laughable. As I was listening to him speak, I couldn’t get over how he kept using the same catch phrases from decades ago. It’s as if these guys are living in a time warp, this is still 1950 in their minds and nothing can change that. The rhetoric is still the “gunboat” philosophy that has characterized our foreign policy for a generation.

He continually used the buzz words, “Israel” and “projection of American power”. Is it just me or have these guys been cryogenically frozen for the last 60 years? The world has changed their view of it has not. As long as our foreign policy is being conducted by those who are still living in some “glorious past”, we will never be safe or free. We must adjust our foreign policy goals to reflect the real world and not some false assumption provided by “analysis” that haven’t seen the real world in who knows how long. The more we continue to bang the same song on the same drum the sooner we escalate our descent into irrelevancy. We are becoming nothing more than the sandlot bully, gone are the principles and credibility of democracy. They have been replaced by the tenets of greed and racism.

I think what shocked me the most was an exchange between Mr. McCain and Charlie Rose when Mr. McCain was talking about the Chinese building aircraft carriers and how that was something we needed to watch closely. According to Mr. McCain the aircraft carrier allows the host nation to project its power around the world. Charlie Rose retorted that we have aircraft carriers why shouldn’t the Chinese, it was at this point the hypocrisy became unbearable. Mr. McCain said that the difference was that the US “didn’t have a history of imposing its power on other nations”. Charlie Rose then asked if the Chinese had such a history and Mr. McCain said no, but they still had to be watched carefully.

First of all the line about the US not having a history of imposing it’s power on other nations by the use of aircraft carriers was ridiculous. I think Mr. McCain is suffering from selective amnesia, so just in case let me just refresh his memory. Obviously he has forgotten about Iraq, Grenada, the whole southern hemisphere, Cuba and the list goes on and on. For our leaders to go on television and make these types of statements, it is no wonder the credibility of the US is at an all-time low.

This rhetoric of good versus evil has to stop. The politics of the cold war must be replaced by the diplomacy of the new world. We can’t continue to kill those who don’t agree with us. At the same time we silence dissent at home by violating the very document that is supposed to stand for democracy. Before we start trying to repair what’s wrong in the world, maybe we should spend a little time righting what is wrong here in this country. With this shoot first and ask questions later foreign policy, it is we who have the rest of the world leery. Is America the source of all that is wrong in the world? No, but we have to accept our culpability where applicable and strive to not repeat the mistakes of the past.

The current crop of politicians and media types appear to have learned nothing from the past and are dead set on repeating the same mistakes. Mr. McCain and others, the world has changed and continues to evolve, it is a shame that you people have not. If my truths do not evolve, but remain steadfast in false premises then I have learned nothing. Worse than the fact that I have learned nothing is that with this mindset I am incapable of learning, which is not only foolish but dangerous. It is this mindset that will cause us to be defeated in Iraq as it has caused our defeats in the past.

There's no principles in what you say
No direction in the things you do
For your world is soon to come to a close
Through the ages all great men have taught
Truth and happiness just can't be bought-or sold
Tell me why are you people so cold

I'm...... Going back to Saturn where the rings all glow
Rainbow, moonbeams and orange snow On Saturn
People live to be two hundred and five
Going back to Saturn where the people smile
Don't need cars cause we've learn to fly On Saturn
Just to live to us is our natural high

We have come here many times before
To find your strategy to peace is war
Killing helpless men, women and children
That don't even know what they're dying for
We can't trust you when you take a stand
With a gun and bible in your hand
And the cold expression on your face
Saying give us what we want or we'll destroy

Saturn
Stevie Wonder

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