The One Party System

We often read about leaders and governments “over there” that have elections that involve a single political party and the pundits and talking heads wax on and on about how unfortunate those citizens are. They talk about how much better they would be if they were exposed to our democracy, multiple Parties that provide choices and different philosophies. Unfortunately the truth is that we don’t have a multi-party system either and haven’t had one for awhile. We in the US feign democracy and tell ourselves we live in the most free nation on earth while in reality we in the US have long abdicated our responsibilities as citizens of a free society.

In a nation where barely half of all eligible voters actually vote, with voter disenfranchisement growing with every election cycle, and with new election laws restricting voter participation rather than encouraging it. We have long ago retired from the political process to pursue consumerism. Elections don’t really matter so long as they continue to feed the monster. No sacrifice and no surrender of the American “way of life”. We don’t want to hear about savings, we don’t want to hear about cutting back, and we don’t want to hear about fuel efficiency. In the midst of a thirty year energy crisis rather than cutting back and downsizing we became addicted to the largest vehicles in the history of automobiles.

We complain about the political system and the politicians but we don’t do anything to change it. We no longer have a multi-party system, in stead it has been replaced by a single party system. The single party system we now have is incumbency. Politicians today are concerned with only one thing, to be re-elected. Many of them begin campaigning right after coming to Washington. The founding fathers never conceived of career politicians, the concept was never even considered. They just assumed that our system would promote turn over among our public officials. Somewhere there has been a disconnect between what they had envisioned and what we have today. The political system we have today is a mockery of the original design of the founders of this nation.

When your major concern as a public servant is getting re-elected this prevents you from having any real convictions. It prevents you from making any tough decisions, because your main focus is fund-raising you follow the funding. The main funding is coming from special interests and corporations so all legislation is tilted towards those groups. Public officials today no longer work for the good of the country, today they work for re-election. The truth is that it doesn’t matter whether they are Republican or Democratic, they have all abandoned the people who they are suppose to be protecting. I believe that if the founders of this nation could see the system we have today they would not be able to recognize it. And the sad truth is that we have allowed it to happen through apathy and the pursuit of selfish pleasure.

A perfect example of this modern phenomenon is the case of Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska. Senator Stevens is a six-term Senator. It is written that power corrupts and that absolute power corrupts absolutely. The case of the senator from Alaska is a portrait in corruption and the arrogance of power. Senator Stevens has been a senator for forty years and in that time he has amassed a personal fortune as a public servant. The senator has been at the center of political controversy for many years, he has been a poster child for “pork barrel” spending and questionable donations. He is the builder of the “bridge to nowhere” and the “airport for no one”. Yet despite his obvious disdain for the American people and what is best for them, he has won every election with an average of 66% of the vote. Currently the Senator is under indictment on corruption charges. No public official should ever be allowed to stay in office for this long. It doesn’t matter who it is or what Party they belong to.

Washington is currently broken, it is broken because of this party of incumbency. The election of 2006 is another prime example of this phenomenon. The Democrats campaigned on the issue of ending the war or at least making the White House more accountable with the purse strings. Needless to say because of political pressure and fear of losing they did nothing. They allowed themselves to be bullied by a President with a 30% approval rating, despite the fact that the majority of people wanted the war to end. So rather than doing what is right for the country and standing for one of the most important issues of our time they are more concerned with re-election. Senator Reid and House leader Pelosi are typical of this attitude of appeasement for the sake of political expediency and in the process we all lose.

The list could go on and on. There would be the torture issue, the loss of personal freedoms, and of course the military tribunals in Gitmo. We are now facing a housing crisis, an economy that is tanking, and gas prices that are through the roof. With our country facing these monumental issues what can we expect from our representatives? Absolutely nothing. Unless one Party has an absolute majority no one will have the courage or be able to overcome the politics of obstruction now so prevalent in American politics. The American people have taken a back seat to re-election politics. Unless we begin to demand term limits and remove those who would rather obstruct than to govern, we can expect little to change.

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The Ticking Time Bomb

There is a story taking place in America that is being buried by the media, the armed forces, and the politicians. This story is so frightening that no one wants to address it or even talk about it. This story has the potential to bring more violence to the streets of America than any terrorist attack. The frightening tale that is being ignored is the fact that we have ticking time bombs within our midst. They do not belong to al Qaeda or any other shady terrorist cell, they will not be profiled because they don’t have Mid-Eastern ancestry, nor are they Muslim extremists. These ticking time bombs are our own sons, daughters, fathers, and brothers. They are the returning soldiers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Just like everything else in these wars the brunt of the fighting has fallen on a very small group of individuals and their numbers are shrinking. These unfortunate few have been forced to fight this war on an almost constant deployment. No sooner than they arrive home, they are redeployed back to the war zone. Many are unable to retire or discharge themselves from their respective services due to stopgap measures instituted by the White House and the services designed to keep those shrinking numbers on a constant rotation. Because we have never fought a war like this one no one knows the consequences of placing these young men and women in this state of constant fear and agitation. Whenever there is any clinical evidence concerning the stress levels of returning service people it is buried.

I have often wondered why with so many Americans against this war there isn’t a stronger outpouring of protest and outrage. Then I am reminded of how the warrior sheep have framed and prosecuted this war. Short of the relatively small number of families being asked to prosecute this war, the rest of us have had to make little if any sacrifices. The warrior sheep have placed the cost of the war on future generations. They are satisfied with using a dwindling volunteer force, a rogue mercenary army staffed by US security firms, and proxy forces from countries who cannot enforce the rule of law in their own nations, so there is no draft. We still have plenty of commodities albeit more expensive than before the war, but there are no shortages and rationing. So honestly what is this war costing us?

The study found troops in the unit reported low morale, spousal abuse and attempted suicides. And yet, troops had to wait up to two months for an appointment with a mental health expert once they returned, it said.

A separate report by the Army released earlier this month found that soldiers on their third or fourth combat deployment were at particular risk of suffering mental health problems.

Major General Gale Pollock, the Army's deputy surgeon general, said the results simply "show the effects of a long war."

A similar report by the Army's Mental Health Advisory Team released in 2007 found that 28 percent of soldiers who had been in high-intensity combat were experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder, or acute stress.[1]

What is disconcerting about these numbers is that they keep rising. The original studies concerning PTSD in returning Iraqi veterans placed the numbers at 1 in 12, now they are at 1 in 4. The numbers are rising not due to the nature of the conflict but due to the continued policy of longer and more repeated deployments. Or as the General in the study called it, “the results of a long war”. Eventually what is going to happen is that these ticking time bombs are going to begin to explode. They are not getting the psychological treatment they deserve and need and at some point they are going to break. Humans can only take so much stress and trauma before we psychologically break.

For those too young to know the term “going postal” came into existence because of a large number of veterans given jobs at the Postal Service for their years of service and sacrifice for their country began to break with reality and began killing supervisors and customers. I believe that if these psychological issues are not addressed soon we are going to see a level of violence unprecedented in American history. We are already seeing the number of suicides rise among these veterans, eventually that violence will be turned away from themselves and towards society. The thing about the false patriots in this country is that they are only patriotic at others expense, they have put nothing in place to deal with the trauma they have helped to create. This type of phenomenon happens over the course of years, it was years after Vietnam that the “postal” veterans began striking.

The scary thing about all of this is that you will not know when or where it is going to happen. That fine young man sitting next to you at Starbucks could be just waiting to open up his coat and unleash a barrage of death and destruction. The randomness of it will be what makes it so frightening. And of course our warrior sheep will blame everything but the war for these homegrown suicidal killers. These will be the terrorists created by the war on terror. How ironic. Because we don’t fully understand or can predict the causes and extent of the damage of these PTSD sufferers isolating or tracking them will be next to impossible. We have no conclusive evidence of what causes or who suffers from these horrors of war. But make no mistake in the end we will all suffer as innocents begin to be slaughtered by war heroes.

But given her research, and the study in this week's New England Journal, it's clear that brain injuries don't have to be massive to cause significant emotional and mental problems, and that "shell shock," as it used to be called, may be caused by physical injury or, in turn, cause physical symptoms — it's not just a reaction to the horrors of war. And if that's the case, better and earlier medical and psychological intervention, along with better protective armor that shields the body as well as the head, could make life after combat a lot easier to endure.[2]

Remember just because the story is being buried doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. One of the most repugnant aspects of the Neo-Con mindset is that they believe if they ignore or deny something enough then it doesn’t exist or by the same token if they say something enough then it does exist. The question is then, “If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around does it make a sound? I guess depending on how you answer that question will determine your depth of knowledge concerning this storm on the horizon. Do we honestly think we can bring home all of these psychologically scarred people and there not be any fallout? I guess it is just considered more collateral damage. We haven’t even begun to study the mercenary armies of the security firms. What skeletons are going to come falling out of that closet is anybody’s guess. We have already begun to see the mental cases they have under arms and in charge.

Tick, Tick, Tick…


[1] http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=24894
[2] http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1708624,00.html

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The Latest Surge News

For those who have been captivated by the Hillary, Obama, and Reverend Wright debacle unfolding before our very eyes you may have missed the latest surge news. It appears that the ill-advised strategy of Prime Minister al Maliki to disarm the militias in Southern Iraq is having unintended consequences in Baghdad. What many considered a heavy handed attempt by the Iraqi Prime Minister to weaken his political opponents has awakened the sleeping dogs of Sadr City where al-Sadr’s militia has held sway. What the offensive has demonstrated is how fragile any gains from the surge have been and how at any moment they can be reversed, it has also demonstrated how unprepared the Iraqi army and security forces are at being able to secure their nation.

BAGHDAD, April 29 -- A four-hour battle Tuesday between U.S. soldiers and Shiite militiamen left at least 28 Iraqis dead in the capital's Sadr City neighborhood, making it one of the bloodiest days in a month of sustained street fighting.

The clashes underscored how deeply U.S. forces have been drawn into heavy combat in the huge Shiite district since Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki unexpectedly launched an offensive in southern Iraq last month against Shiite militias, primarily the Mahdi Army of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.[1]

April will now be the deadliest month for US casualties since September of 07 and is harbinger of many more deaths to come. The fighting in Sadr City has led to 50 US deaths for the month of April, as the US has been drawn into a larger role in taking on the militias. The US military has become the big brother who has been drawn into a fight by a younger sibling (al-Maliki) knowing that his actions will be defended no matter how foolish. The original strategy was for the offensive to highlight the improvement of the Iraqi military and its ability to fight independently of US forces, needless to say that has not been the case. Once again the Iraqi forces are on the outside as the American forces carry the fight to the militias.

As we here in America revisit the infamous “Mission Accomplished” moment of George Bush aboard the aircraft carrier the USS Abraham Lincoln, the current increase in violence has underscored how foolish that declaration was then and how foolish any “surge is working” declaration is today. While much has changed since that “Top-Gun” incident, much has stayed the same. What has changed? There have been more deaths of innocent Iraqis and US service personnel, there have been more people injured, and there have been worsening economic consequences for America. What has stayed the same? We are no closer to liberating Iraq than we were then, the Iraqis are no closer to taking responsibility for their nation, and of course we are no closer to defeating the so-called reason for the war al-Qaeda.

I find it very interesting that as the level of violence increases and the US forces are poised to begin house to house missions in Sadr City that the military leaders who were suppose to bring victory are being promoted even though we are no closer to victory. I find it hard to believe that now is the time to make a change in military leadership in Iraq when there have been no concrete gains and the level of violence is increasing. I wonder what General Petraeus has done worthy of a promotion on the ground? Maybe it isn’t what he has done on the ground in Iraq, but on the ground in Washington. Since May 1^st 2003, the Iraqi War has changed from a fighting war to a political war. The war is driven not so much by the results in Iraq, but how they play in the US. The thing about a fight against an insurgency or an occupation is that the enemy does not have to score a convincing military victory, all they have to do is give the impression that they are invincible to the folks at home.

If the offensive against the militias, especially the ones in Sadr City continues to be pushed by US forces the number of casualties will continue to increase. What is taking place in Baghdad today is precisely what the independent military leaders have feared; urban warfare against an entrenched enemy that enjoys popular support. Even if we are able to dislodge the militias, the cost could be the loss of the populace from heavy casualties or heavy-handed tactics. The other problem that the US troops will face is that the militias had been filling in for the government by providing badly needed services and if they are removed and there is no replacement of services by the Iraqi government then we will have to worry about more than the militias.

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[1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/29/AR2008042900560.html?hpid=sec-world

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Some Would Rather Switch Than Fight

It would seem that the Iraqization of the war is not going quite as well as planned. After 5 years of training and billions of dollars, the Iraqi Army and police forces are still a long way from standing on their own. There had been rumors and reports that it took the American and British forces to provide much needed support during the Iraqi government’s badly planned, badly executed offensive in Basra against the “criminal element” that had taken over the city and the oil rich port. Many have reported that the offensive was designed and executed by the al-Maliki government to weaken possible rivals in the upcoming elections. The main target appeared to be the Mahdi Army militia, the militia formed by the powerful cleric Moktada al-Sadr.

According to reports, at least 1300 Iraqi police and armed forces refused to fight or deserted during the offensive. This has to be troubling news to the White House, General Petraeus, and the Republican war cheerleader and nominee John McCain. The reason it is troubling is because at some point the American public is going to expect the Iraqis to shoulder more of the responsibility of rebuilding their country and at least providing for its security. There are few things Americans detest more than cowardice. In a country where the national icons are John Wayne and Ronald Reagan there is no place for deserters and cowards, especially among those whose country we are “liberating”. I almost wish that I watched the talking heads and pundits on this one; I would love to hear how they reconcile the exploits of the Iraqis with the John Wayne narrative. Or about how much American blood is being spilled for their liberation.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi officials said Sunday that they had fired about 1,300 soldiers and police officers who refused to fight Shiite Muslim militias during the recent government crackdown, desertions that raise questions about the likely performance of Iraqi forces as U.S. troop levels decrease.

Whatever the reasons, the desertions are a sign of what critics have said were broader problems with the offensive ordered by Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, including overly rapid deployment of shaky troops and lack of planning. Some say this points to weaknesses in Maliki’s leadership and portends ongoing problems as future American troop levels continue to be a focus of debate in Washington.

“There’s a certain bravado to the current [Iraqi] leadership, believing they can come into a difficult situation and just with a show of force make things happen the way they want,” said the American military official, who spoke anonymously because of his critique of the U.S.-backed Iraqi leader.

“There’s so much that it takes to plan a military operation. All that stuff had not been done,” the official said.[1]

For those with eyes to see it is becoming ever more apparent that the reason we must remain in Iraq is not to fight al-Qaeda, but to ensure the survival of whatever puppet regime we install. The wing-nuts have no intention of spending all that coin and expending those lives for the Iraqis to choose their on way of government. We came to spread democracy and damn it that’s what we are going to spread. Could you imagine if after all the lives and material we have expended and we end up creating another Iran what the fall-out to the Republican brand would be? This is no longer about al-Qaeda, oil, or democracy; it is now about the future of government in America. The Republicans can not leave Iraq and have any hope of ever gaining a majority again. They know this and that is why regardless of their personal feelings about this fiasco they will continue to stay in lock-step with their leadership.

The Republicans have staked their long-term political future on the “war on terror” and as long as they are hitched to this issue they will not go quietly into that good night. The war on terror has morphed into just plain terror, no war or enemy to fear just be afraid; be very afraid. With the latest performance of the Iraqi military and government I can see why they are afraid, but why are we afraid? Anyone who still buys the notion that the terrorists will have a victory if we leave Iraq or that they will follow us home seriously needs to have their Thorazine dosage increased. There were no terrorists in Iraq before we got there and there will be none left when we leave. They will not follow us home either, hell I’m a black American citizen and I can barely get back into the country from Mexico. Is this to say there won’t be anymore attacks? Of course not. If someone is willing to die to further their cause there is no defense against that, despite all the Republican wing-nut rhetoric.

However, there is some good news to report from the Basra debacle. It seems that we are actually making progress in training and preparing the Iraqi troops. According to reporters who have been reporting from Iraq since the beginning of hostilities the number of desertions has actually gone down. So at this rate we should be able to field a full cadre of Iraqi forces in another 10 years. Thank God for progress…

There are sure to be more volleys, though a comment last week on the PBS program Charlie Rose added some perspective to the number of desertions — 1,300 — that has provided so much fuel for the debate. Rather than being surprised, Dexter Filkins, a Times correspondent who reported from Iraq between 2003 and 2006, called the desertions “remarkable” for being so limited. Here’s why:

In 2004, when they tried to push the Iraqi army into battle, it disappeared. They all defected.

“Progress has been made,” Mr. Filkins continued. “Whether it’s enough progress” is another question entirely, he added in a joint appearance on the program with John F. Burns of The New York Times.[2]

[1] http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/14/8272/
[2] http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/back-and-forth-and-back-again-on-iraqs-deserters/index.html?ex=1208836800&en=a16567ed8115a889&ei=5099&partner=TOPIXNEWS

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Mission Accomplished?

I just have one question for the architects and proponents of this global war on terror, how will we know when it is over? Who will sign the treaty papers for the terrorists? Will it be Osama bin Laden? The truth is that there will be no surrender ceremony because we are not really fighting a war. We are not fighting a war in the conventional sense. It is sort of like the “war on poverty” or the “war on drugs” there is no identifiable point of success or failure. Because our enemy is undefined and really impossible to defeat there are no “benchmarks” to gauge our successes or failures. We have been fighting the war on poverty since 1964 and poverty has not surrendered yet. We have been fighting the war on drugs since 1972 and drugs have yet to surrender. In fact in both case we have actually lost ground to both enemies. The problem with declaring war on these types of enemies is that you become entrenched in the mindset of the original declaration.

For instance, we are still fighting poverty and drugs in many of the same ways we were when the wars were declared. Even though we know from study after study that we are not fighting them efficiently or with any great success, we continue doing the same things. In the war on poverty there were some initial large scale successes, but a lot of that was due to the severity of the problems. Poverty had been so widespread in many parts of America that any efforts to alleviate its effects brought welcome change to those suffering its ill-effects. However, due to a relentless campaign by the Right to vilify the poor a lot of the gains that were made were lost to inertia and false propaganda. There are those who have even falsely reported that poverty no longer exists in America. The war on drugs has produced similar results, the biggest fallout being the new prison industrial complex that now houses over 2 million Americans. The largest number of an imprisoned populace in the industrialized world.

Which brings us to the war on terror, due to the nature of the conflict we have the potential of an endless conflict. For the sake of argument let’s say we “win” in Iraq, will this be the end of the war? What about Pakistan? Iran? The Philippines? The definition of terrorist has become so generic and nonspecific that anyone can be classified as one and any conflict can be recast as an insurgency. Those who are now classified as terrorist for the most part are those who have not accepted globalization and the Western civilization model. So we have an unlimited supply of enemies and potential trouble-spots, the question now becomes how can the American public be persuaded to continue their unwavering support for a war that can not be won, against an enemy that cannot surrender?

I read a commentary a few days ago about the situation in Iraq. In it the author discussed how the war in Iraq has already been won as much as we can win it from a military standpoint. Our troops did an outstanding job of doing what armies prior to the war on terror were supposed to do. They routed the Iraqi army and deposed a dictator. So from a military standpoint the military did what it was created to do. The problem is that since then we have asked them to do what they were not created to do and the results have been well documented. The job of the military is to launch an attack and defeat a known enemy. Our military did an amazing job of carrying out it’s role in this ill advised invasion, they crushed the Iraqi army and rolled into Bagdad in less than two months. No one can argue that our military did not complete the mission it was designed to do. The Bushies have placed the military in an untenable position.

The military is stretched beyond any sustainable level with no end in sight, enlistments are at all-time lows, and we have yet to feel the healthcare crisis from the long deployments of our military personnel. And yet despite all of these facts, we have Senator McSame and the General claiming that victory is at hand. My question is victory over whom? The victory is not ours to declare in Iraq, our victory has already been completed. As long as we continue to define victory and loss in obsolete terminology we will be destined to repeat the same mistakes we have made in the our other two ill-fated wars. We constantly read and hear about how the war on terror is a new type of warfare, yet we continue to define it in antiquated terms. The war in Iraq has nothing to do with the war on terror and the sooner we force our politicians and our military leaders to separate them the better off we will be as a nation. As long as we allow them to keep the two connected, we will continue to spend billions on a war we can never win.

Imagine if we had taken all the money that we have spent fighting the war on terror in military terms and had spent that money actually improving the lives of the people in these countries. We could have declared victory in the war on terror without ever firing a shot. But lets face it, there’s no profits in peaceful resolution of conflicts. There is profits in armaments. There is profits in reconstruction of the damage caused by those armaments. We spend billions of dollars destroying countries and ruining lives, money which could be used to renovate and rejuvenate these ailing societies. But just like the war on poverty at home has been fought with little enthusiasm, so has our efforts abroad to actually overhaul these societies through peaceful means.

I know it hasn’t been reported yet but the terrorists have surrendered. There was just no one at the table to take their surrender. We were too busy fighting the crusade to fight the real war. We were too busy invading and occupying the wrong countries to address the real terrorists. So the next time someone says that the mission was accomplished, they will be telling the truth. The problem is the mission that was accomplished wasn’t the mission they were sent to do. What should have been a military operation under George Bush became a political operation and we continue to deal with the fall-out.

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Napalm In The Morning

It’s time for another round of “a funny thing happened on the way to al Qaeda” starring the latest in a long line of political military men General David H. Petraeus. It seems surprising that in the midst of a hotly contested election the General received little fanfare this trip. There were no full page ads, no massive protests, or no political lynching. Can I say the word lynching when talking about a white man or would that be construed as racist since I am black? Oh well, let the rhubarb begin. How long will we continue to accept no answer as an answer? The last General that provided fewer details about a war effort, it’s eventual conclusion and was able to keep his job was also a Republican military hack by the name of George McClellan.

WASHINGTON — Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior American commander in Iraq, recommended on Tuesday halting any additional withdrawals of American troops after July for at least 45 days and possibly more, telling Congress that progress there was “fragile and reversible.”

General Petraeus said that security progress has been “significant but uneven.” Under questioning, he declined to estimate American troop levels beyond the withdrawal by July of five additional combat brigades sent to Iraq last year. And he acknowledged that the government’s recent offensive in Basra was not sufficiently well-planned.[1]

I don’t know if ever a man was brought so far to say so little. We know absolutely no more today than we did 15 months ago when this General who “wrote” the book on terrorist and counter-insurgent warfare began his crusade to liberate the Iraqis. The refrain from these guys is always the same, we just need more time. I don’t get it we defeated two enemies in two different theaters in the past with a lot less sophisticated weapons and systems than we have today and in less time. It appears that Bush’s war of attrition is working, the problem is it isn’t working on the insurgents in Iraq it is working on the American public. It is difficult for many Americans to deal with the tanking economy, the housing crisis, and general uneasiness of our job markets to have much time left over for an unpopular war over there.

I am surprised by the reactions of many to the news that the General has to offer, we must remember that he is the commander of troops who are in a deadly conflict and regardless of the situation he must remain positive. Do we really think he will come to Washington and say that we are in a situation that we can not win? It isn’t going to happen. What we must do as a nation is to listen to what he is saying and put it into context of what we know to be true. The problem with the politicians and the military leaders involved in this conflict is that they have allowed the Bushies to define the nature of the conflict, irrespective of the true facts on the ground. By not understanding or discussing the true nature of the conflict we can never define victory or defeat.

Our political and military leaders would like us to believe that the war is about al Qaeda, that this is just an extension of the “war on terror”, the truth is that it isn’t. The biggest obstacles to Iraqi unity and reconstruction is not al Qaeda or Iran, it is the tribal divisions of the Iraqis themselves. We do not and cannot control the events in Iraq and anyone who believes that we can is either ignorant of the precarious position of occupations or worse they are deliberately being disingenuous for political goals. We do not nor can we ever have enough “boots on the ground” to control the events in Iraq, no more than we control the events in Korea, Japan, or Western Europe. Would anyone claim that we control the events in any of these regions? Of course they wouldn’t.

We need to move beyond the unrealistic goals being discussed in our political and military circles. We need to move from trying to control the events in Iraq and to influencing the events. Currently, we do not influence the events in Iraq because we have leveraged ourselves with the war on terror rhetoric and the Iranian demagoguery. Instead of continuing the imperialist strategy of empire building, we need to adopt a more reserved role similar to the Europeans. Our greatest efforts on the world stage have come not from controlling events, but from influencing events. We cannot offset the Iranian regional expansion through control, every time we have tried to control events in the Middle-East, we have failed miserably.

Mr. McCain and Mrs. Clinton reserved their real fire for each other. Shortly after the hearing began, Mr. McCain was out of the gate with an opening statement that called on Americans to reject the calls for a “reckless and irresponsible withdrawal of our forces at the moment when they are succeeding” and that promising such a withdrawal, “regardless of the consequences,” was a “a failure of political and moral leadership.”[2]

What is a failure of political leadership is to use our troops for political gain by relying on the fabrication of the al Qaeda in Iraq and the Iranian training grounds myth. We cannot begin to exert influence in Iraq and the region until we disengage from this crusade mentality and instead of becoming of a dictator we become a partner. Until we do this, no surge or temporary decrease in violence will be worth it’s weight in salt.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/world/middleeast/08cnd-petraeus.html?hp
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/washington/08cnd-scene.html?hp

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In Case You Forgot There Is A War

Thank God for the Iraqis, if it were not for them the MSM would have allowed John McCain to put the Iraq War in his pocket and run with it. Fortunately the Iraqis have other thoughts and have reminded the American public that yes there is still a war going on in Iraq. Despite all the hype and the John McCain “Mission Accomplished” banners, any peace in Iraq has very little to do with us and the surge and is dependent on the Iraqi people. It is unfortunate that it takes bodies and bloodshed to get the MSM’s attention, but of course when St. John declares peace is at hand who in the MSM is going to argue.

Mr. McCain said at a news conference in Amman that he continued to be concerned about Iranians “taking Al Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back.” Asked about that statement, Mr. McCain said: “Well, it’s common knowledge and has been reported in the media that Al Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran. That’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.”[1]

Judging from McCain’s comments during his recent trip to the Middle East, it is pretty evident to see that he has every intention of carrying on the Bush legacy in Iraq and is sure to expand the conflict into Iran. It appears that Bush if given the opportunity will pass the gauntlet to McCain to continue the “Great Crusade” and retake the Holy Land expelling or killing any Muslims who are not willing to convert. They don’t have to convert to Christianity; these people aren’t concerned with religion although that would be a great side benefit they just have to convert to capitalism. They have to be willing to sell off their national treasures and resources to the multi-national corporations, benefiting the ruling class with little or no regard for those high minded democratic principles they espouse in their photo-ops.

It is like these people have been asleep for the past 50 years or they think we have been asleep. They have learned nothing from previous attempts to impose democracy at gun point. I am so tired of all those pundits and writers who dismiss any comparisons between Vietnam and Iraq. The only real connection that any of us have to be concerned with is the same arrogance of American Imperialism that has fueled both conflicts. Just as all the high-tech hardware could not defeat a determined insurgency in Vietnam, so it will not defeat the same in Iraq. The MSM talks about the reduction in violence, but what they fail to mention is that those reductions are contingent on payments being made to those who have at best allowed the attacks against our troops or at worst perpetrated them.

The current unrest in Iraq underscores the fact that the surge is not the explanation for the reduction in violence. The surge is a political strategy for the American public’s consumption and for the Beltway crowd. When the Iraqis are questioned about the surge their responses are markedly different than the American response. Given the choice between believing the reports of visiting politicians or those who are suffering daily from the hardships, I am going to believe those living through the reality on the ground. If the American public allows John McCain to run on the Iraq War, it will be one of the biggest travesties in American history. It will once again demonstrate to the world our disregard for facts or our insensitivity to the suffering of others. The Iraq War was bad policy 5 years ago and continues to be bad policy today. Invading another country under false pretences is wrong not because it has failed, but because it is morally wrong. How right and wrong have gotten equated to success or failure demonstrates how askew our moral compasses have become.

We must disengage from the Iraq occupation as quickly as possible whether or not the surge is working is not the issue. The issue is will we continue to support a policy that we know was based on lies or will we acknowledge our mistakes and move forward with the international community to help Iraq recover from those mistakes? The Iraq War will never be a success because it was morally wrong from the outset. Short of killing all the Iraqis and replacing them with American surrogates there will be no happy ending. Those peddling the elixir of victory are only continuing to sell a false hope like their carnival counterparts. It has been said that winning covers a multitude of stinky details, the truth is that after the incense goes out you are still left with a pile of crap. We may like to pretend that the war is over, but unfortunately the Iraqis can’t share in our world of make-believe.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/us/politics/19mccain.html?scp=2&sq=john+mccain%27s+visit+to+iraq&st=nyt

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George W. Bush is Abraham Lincoln?

I am afraid I owe President Bush an apology. All this time I thought he was Herbert Hoover and now come to find out he is really Abraham Lincoln according to Vice-President Cheney. Here is what I don’t understand, you have Dick Cheney and his ilk making preposterous claims like this unchallenged but when a black man, even a respected minister calls America on its hypocrisy they are lambasted. I am in no way condoning the statements of Pastor Wright, but I have to point out the inconsistency being displayed. The fact that Dick Cheney made this statement should enrage all men of conscious and it dishonors the memory of Abraham Lincoln as well as the men who died in one of our nations darkest hours. President Lincoln must have just rolled over in his grave at this one.

Cheney compared the administration's task now to Abraham Lincoln's during the Civil War. ''He never would have succeeded if he hadn't had a clear objective, a vision for where he wanted to go, and he was willing to withstand the slings and arrows of the political wars in order to get there,'' Cheney said of Lincoln in an interview broadcast Wednesday on ABC's ''Good Morning America.''[1]

Having dispatched my crack research staff to review the comparison in the event I may have overlooked some hidden similarities, they returned with the following results. George Bush and Abraham Lincoln share these two common traits both are white males and Republican Presidents. So following that logic every white male Republican President could be Abraham Lincoln, this is how low the bar is to clear to be compared with who many consider to be one of our greatest Presidents. So Richard Nixon is also Abraham Lincoln. According to Dick Cheney because Lincoln presided over an unpopular war and Bush is also presiding over an unpopular war they are comparable. I personally find the comparison of the Civil War with the Iraq War a travesty. How could anyone in their right mind draw any similarities between the two, unless Mr. Cheney is finally conceding that what we have in Iraq is a civil war. In which case his acknowledgment of this fact would be the closet thing we have had to date of honesty on his behalf.

No Mr. Cheney the are a few distinctions between the war that was thrust upon Lincoln and the war created by you and Bush. Lincoln did not invade a sovereign nation on the pretense of WMD’s or support for 9/11 terrorists. Claims which were later to be proved false. To compare ousting Saddam Hussein with ending slavery is ludicrous and once again displays how far from reality Dick Cheney has gone. So, it is ok for the Vice-President of the US to make these types of statements but we are going to fall apart as a nation because of the comments of a black pastor that before this incident few people even knew? Give me a break. If we as a nation were able to survive the divisiveness of Bush and Cheney, we can certainly survive a little dose of black reality television. Of course in America war and death are easier subjects to broach than race. We don’t mind the carnage and the mortgaging of our futures for a little death and mayhem, but God forbid if we open a discussion about race. Who put the turd in the swimming pool?

''The surge ... has opened the door to a major strategic victory in the broader war on terror,'' the president said. ''We are witnessing the first large-scale Arab uprising against Osama bin Laden, his grim ideology, and his terror network. And the significance of this development cannot be overstated.''

Bush appeared to be referring to recent cooperation by local Iraqis with the U.S. military against the group known as al-Qaida in Iraq, a mostly homegrown, though foreign-led, Sunni-based insurgency. Experts question how closely -- or even whether -- the group is connected to the international al-Qaida network. As for bin Laden, he is rarely heard from and is believed to be hiding in Pakistan.[2]

And finally it is good to know that we are finally defeating an enemy that didn’t exist before we invaded Iraq. Of course what Bush, Cheney, or McCain have failed to mention is that we are having to pay these people not to attack our troops. Is democracy the best? Well, I am glad to see that while we may be unable to export democracy, we sure don’t have a problem exporting capitalism. If you can’t beat ‘em, pay ‘em. Of course this begs the eventual question of what happens when the money runs out? I would be really interested to hear John McCain answer to that question, especially since he could be the next Abraham Lincoln.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush-Iraq.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Bush-Iraq.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

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You Can Get With This Or You Can Get With That

Editorial columnist Bob Herbert of the New York Times wrote an interesting piece discussing the true cost of the Iraq War. According to a Nobel prize winning economist, Joseph Stiglitz and the vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International, Robert Hormats the Iraq War will cost at least 3 trillion dollars. This figure includes cost which are never reported by the media or discussed by politicians. The truth is that the cost of a war is more than the money spent on men and material, as if it were some business venture that can be tallied with a nice spreadsheet and budget. In today’s world, war is packaged like a corporate enterprise complete with sanitized videos and reporting to make it more palatable to the disinterested masses.

Said Mr. Stiglitz: “Because the administration actually cut taxes as we went to war, when we were already running huge deficits, this war has, effectively, been entirely financed by deficits. The national debt has increased by some $2.5 trillion since the beginning of the war, and of this, almost $1 trillion is due directly to the war itself ... By 2017, we estimate that the national debt will have increased, just because of the war, by some $2 trillion.”[1]

There should be a Constitutional Amendment that states, “no President can declare war without instituting a draft”. The problem today is that so many of us are unaffecting by the war in any personal and meaningful way. Oh sure we know people are dying, but they are strangers for the most part. Many of them who have received the least from this society are being asked to sacrifice the most. Yes, they are volunteers, but make no mistake about it for many in our society the choices are so limited that it is no longer a choice. For many of them it is a roll of the dice for maybe a better future and some better choices. Because they are brought home in secret we are never confronted by their deaths. I have never understood why we honor “our bravest” by secretly sneaking them back into the country following their greatest sacrifice. Is this how we honor our fallen heroes? This amendment would at least force the politicians who are tough on security to consider the fact that their children would be subject to the same opportunity to be heroes as those they so flagrantly send into harm’s way. It would also force us as a nation to debate the merits of any action being contemplated in our name, knowing that these decisions would affect all of us in a very personal way.

Instead of pouring 2 trillion dollars down the black hole that is Iraq, here are a few things we could have done right here in the good ole USA. We could have put an end to the partisan debacle that is Social Security for 50 years or more. And based on the Senate committee’s own spending calculations we could have enrolled 58,000 more kids into Head Start for a year with just what we are spending on one day of the war. We could also have enrolled an additional 160,000 low income students into college through Pell Grant funding for a year. Not in the calculations is how many of our fellow citizens we could have provided with healthcare insurance using this money.

Here is what I don’t understand we fight and we argue over providing support for those among us who are less fortunate and yet we spend this ungodly amount of money without batting an eye. What does it say about a country that spends trillions of dollars to kill people, but won’t spend any money to insure the healing of its own people. And to make matters worse one of the nominees for the next President considers the money well spent and wants to spend more. I don’t even blame Bush, McCain, or any of the other warmongers they are only doing what they do. I blame the American public for putting up with this crap. We have an economy that is in recession because we have allowed Bush to fight a war by mortgaging the future of our kids. We have allowed the politics of fear and false patriotism to trump democracy. In modern America war is good. Universal healthcare is bad. Free education is bad. Laying the groundwork for the neediest Americans with pre-school funding, tax credits and college grants, or employment training all bad.

Why is war good? It is good because it fuels the transfer of wealth from the middle-class to the wealthiest. It fuels the military-industrial complex and the war profiteers who in turn feed the lobbyists, who in turn purchase the politicians. You can’t spend all that money on war material and preparation and not use it. We must begin to cut our defense budget. We have spent all of this money on defense and it could not nor can it prevent 9/11 or any other terrorist type of attack regardless of the lies being spread to the contrary. This isn’t about look at all the wrong that America has done, it is about look at all the good America could do with a change in focus.

Of course there is also the toll that war takes on people’s lives through absences, injuries, and deaths. How can one calculate those costs? The loss of a parent, a brother, or son does not fit tidily into a balance sheet. The loss of a limb, a mind, or the trust in one’s government cannot be found in the defense budgetary process. How long will we continue to justify these types and sizes of expenditures for death and ignore the suffering going on right next door with our neighbors. You can get with the war or you can get with life, the choice belongs to all of us.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/04/opinion/04herbert.html?em&ex=1204779600&en=c44ca333e64258c9&ei=5087%0A

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Republican Strategy 2008

As soon as the Republicans can get Mike Huckabee out of the race the sooner they can begin to institute the new/old strategies for 2008. The Republican strategies will rely on two main points for the general election. The first will be the nation at war narrative that will require a national hero and security hawk to navigate this dangerous world we now find ourselves in. The country will need his experience and understanding of war to succeed in the global struggle against the Islamo-fascist terrorists that hate us for our freedoms. The second will be a large cash give-away in an effort to buy the election. I am not talking about the tax rebate or stimulus package, no I am referring to the recently unveiled budget of George W. Let’s look at both of these strategies and their appeal to voters in November.

The first is the same strategy George W. used to beat John Kerry in 2004. The narrative was that a real war hero was not qualified to lead the country as well as a National Guard deserter and a chicken-hawk, only George W. could lead the country during these dangerous times. Well, now they have their own war hero to continue the disastrous war in Iraq. I guess because an ex-POW says we should stay in Iraq then that concludes anymore discussion on the subject. The Rovian model of the Republican majority is based in this nation at war scenario, as long as the Republicans can continue to use the scare and fear tactics that they have refined in the two past elections they can maintain a majority. As the election approaches the threat level is already being elevated in the MSM and the Defense Department. During the summer and into the fall there will be report after report of the growing capabilities of al Qaeda and their ongoing plans to attack America. Of course these reports will be attributed to unnamed administration and defense spokespeople so they can never be checked out. The MSM will report and give them the weight of confirmed intelligence. I would not be surprised if the threat level is not elevated to its highest state in say four years.

Beginning with Mitt Romney, who withdrew from the race on Thursday, warning that he would not abet “the surrender to terror,” Republicans, including Mr. McCain and Vice President Dick Cheney, have warned darkly that the Democrats were ill-suited and ill-equipped to protect the nation, the same theme that Mr. Bush struck in his successful 2004 re-election campaign.

“I guarantee you this: If we had announced a date for withdrawal from Iraq and withdrawn troops the way that Senator Obama and Senator Clinton want to do, Al Qaeda would be celebrating that they had defeated the United States of America and that we surrendered,” Mr. McCain said at a rally in Wichita. “I will never surrender.”[1]

The war supporters are all lining up to chime in with their predictions of an all-out al Qaeda invasion if we do not stay the course and elect John McCain. Flush from their victory in Iraq we will have embolden them to once again attack America sending in waves of terrorist from across the Mexican border. They may look like Mexicans, but don’t be fooled they are terrorists in disguise. This will also help to sell the much needed security fence along the Mexican border. Brilliant

The second leg of their strategy will be the government give-a-ways that are stuffed into the 3.1 trillion dollar budget submitted by Bush. The President, a staunch critic of Congressional earmarks has sent a budget to Capitol Hill that is teeming with them. However in Bush speak an earmark is not an earmark if the President submits them. In many cases expenditures that Bush once called earmarks have turned up in his budget. Bush is once again showing us that budget constraints mean nothing to him and his fellow “fiscal conservatives”, they will continue to spend money in spite of any recession or depression the economy may be experiencing. The Republicans can now promote McCain as a true fiscal conservative who will put an end to the waste in Washington, of course they will fail to mention that much of that waste occurred during a two-term Republican administration.

Thus, for example, the president requested $330 million to deal with plant pests like the emerald ash borer, the light brown apple moth and the sirex woodwasp. He sought $800,000 for the Neosho National Fish Hatchery in Missouri and $1.5 million for a waterway named in honor of former Senator J. Bennett Johnston, a Louisiana Democrat.

At the same time, Mr. Bush requested $894,000 for an air traffic control tower in Kalamazoo, Mich.; $12 million for a parachute repair shop at the American air base in Aviano, Italy; and $6.5 million for research in Wyoming on the “fundamental properties of asphalt.”

He sought $3 million for a forest conservation project in Minnesota, $2.1 million for a neutrino detector at the South Pole and $28 million for General Electric and Siemens to do research on hydrogen-fuel turbines.[2]

Along with the built-in earmarks, the budget also includes 500 billion for defense along with an additional 200 billion to continue the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. This translates to a 62% increase in defense spending under Bush. With this increased defense spending is America any safer Are our military forces stronger? According to the Pentagon they are just the opposite, our forces are over-spent and in terrible need of repair. But this will not stop the war mongers from pressing the case for more war and more spending. Who says a nation has to sacrifice during war times? Obviously not anyone familiar with the today’s Republicans.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/09/us/politics/09bush.html?hp
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/washington/10earmark.html?scp=1&sq=bush+earmarks&st=nyt

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Extreme Makeover: John McCain Edition 2008?

With his nomination all but inevitable, the Republican machine is ready to begin the process of selling John McCain as a maverick and a different kind of Republican. He will be presented as someone who appeals to Democrats and Independents, a unity candidate of the first order. The problem is that John McCain is not a mainstream candidate, he is a war-mongerer and has no intention of letting the American people decide what to do about Iraq. He will be another “decider” who knows better than the American public what is best for us. The MSM has already begun the John McCain make-over, the same folks who had pronounced his campaign all but dead in December are now trumpeting his “straight talk”, independent candidacy as right for America.

It has always amazed me how John McCain has been given this independent moniker by the MSM. To be sure John McCain has split with the Republican Party on some issues, but a look at his record reveals the true nature of McCain. A review of his voting record shows a troubling trend, Mr. McCain in a number of controversial votes has chosen to not vote. He has missed 56.6% of the votes during this Congress alone. How Senator McCain can be labeled an independent and a maverick while still voting with the Republicans 87.8% of the time is a mystery to me. I guess it is the same logic used to proclaim Senator Lieberman an independent, I guess that is why they have been inseparable during the later stages of this campaign; birds of a feather.

The same strategy that was used to get George W. Bush into the White House will be deployed again. Remember in 2000, Bush was going to be the great uniter, an independent Republican. How did that work out? For anyone who thought the Republican brand was DOA, I have news for you with McCain there will be the talk of change without any change. His nomination will allow the Republicans to spin his candidacy as a new direction for the country when in reality it will be the same old story. The Republicans will go for the best of both worlds, they have already begun to have George W. try to coalesces the Party faithful but I guarantee you once the primaries are over McCain’s campaign will dissociate itself from George W so fast heads will spin. The only policy that they will cling to is the most dangerous one, the Iraq War. With the Bush administration already laying the groundwork for freezing current troop levels and backing away from troop reductions promised at the last General Petraeus meet and greet, McCain will argue to stay the course.

If staying the course was bad policy last year, what has occurred since then to make it a good strategy this year? Oh yeah, the surge is working. This has to be the biggest crock of BS ever sold to the American public. And as the general election approaches make no mistake the chorus will become louder singing the praises of this false narrative. The problem is simply this, even if we keep troops there for a hundred years and the violence is reduced if the Iraqi’s do not make the tough decisions to reconcile their country we will still be in no better position than we were at the beginning of this fiasco. What these conservative clowns don’t understand is that this will never be resolved militarily and as long as we provide cover for the Iraqi government to drag their feet and solidify their gains we are only prolonging the inevitable and keeping our troops in harm’s way.

I find it almost comical that the McCain camp has stolen the “Day One” slogan from the Clinton campaign, he will be “commander and chief from day one” and will be able to escalate our involvement in both wars and if we are lucky will be able to start another one. As long as these fools can continue the nation at war scenario in need of a strong military President, this nation will be ill prepared for the reality that the rest of the world has no problem seeing. As we are seeing with the cracks in our NATO alliances, the rest of the world is not buying the Islamo-fascist war of our generation mind-f**k the warmongers are perpetrating. The closer the empire is to decay the harder the colonial task masters fight to cling to the myth. The decay begins long before the rust appears on the armor, it begins when the Empire forgets the principles that made it great in the first place. Is there any doubt that we no longer stand for those principles?

The social conservatives are already lining up to sell their principles to the highest bidder. There are a few of the rank and file who are clinging to their skewed principles and still supporting Mike Huckabee, but the leadership has already surrendered. We will now witness the transformation of John McCain into a social conservative standard bearer, “ a true conservative” if you will. We will watch as his record is whitewashed and purged of any votes that are not in keeping with a true conservative. Bush says McCain has some convincing to do, I can only interpret this to mean that he has some flip-flopping to do. The question then becomes does McCain lose his independent image in his effort to woo his social conservative base which without he can not win in November? The tight-rope act begins for McCain and I am not so sure he is nimble enough to pull it off, but with the MSM holding the net anything is possible.

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When Is A Treaty Not A Treaty?

When is a treaty not a treaty? When the Bush administration says it isn’t. In an effort to once again prevent debate on Iraq and our ultimate objectives there the Bush administration has begun negotiations with the “Iraqi government” on replacing the soon to expire UN mandate with another agreement setting the terms for US involvement in Iraq. This agreement being negotiated is referred to as a military to military relationship agreement. This agreement will set the ground-rules and the parameters by which the US military can operate in Iraq. While there are many reasons that this agreement should be brought before the American people for debate I would like to discuss three.

This emerging American negotiating position faces a potential buzz saw of opposition from Iraq, with its fragmented Parliament, weak central government and deep sensitivities about being seen as a dependent state, according to these officials.

American officials are keenly aware that any agreement must be approved by Iraq’s fractured Council of Representatives, where Sunni and Shiite factions feud and even Shiite blocs loyal to competing leaders cannot agree.[1]

The first reason is the state of the Iraqi government. The Iraqi government is in disarray which makes any negotiations tricky at best. How can we expect a government that is unable to resolve its own internal struggles through compromise to be able to negotiate in good faith? The current government does not have the standing or the mandate to negotiate with anyone concerning anything. Hoping to seize on this vulnerable state the Bush administration is trying to lock not only the US, but also the Iraqis into an agreement that is one-sided and heavily tilted towards the US. The administration says they don’t want a permanent presence in Iraq, but based on the spending for the new embassy and bases which is over 1.5 billion dollars, it is hard to accept that line. It is precisely this type of heavy-handed negotiations that have endeared the US presence around the world. How many embassies must be attacked and countries overthrown before we get a clue? These negotiations only underscore the lack of sovereignty of the Iraqi government and further humiliate the Iraqi people.

However, the American quest for protections for civilian contractors is expected to be particularly vexing, because in no other country are contractors working with the American military granted protection from local laws. Some American officials want contractors to have full immunity from Iraqi law, while others envision less sweeping protections. These officials said the negotiations with the Iraqis, expected to begin next month, would also determine whether the American authority to conduct combat operations in the future would be unilateral, as it is now, or whether it would require consultation with the Iraqis or even Iraqi approval.[2]

The second reason is the immunity clause being forced upon the Iraqis. The US is trying to include in the agreement full immunity for civilian contractors in Iraq, which would be unprecedented in these types of agreements. This immunity would give the private security forces a license to kill in the literal sense, not only would they be shielded from Iraqi justice but as we are learning with the Blackwater case US justice as well. This would give the US government a private army that could be used for missions that would not be desirable for the regular military to undertake, all the while providing cover for US officials for any mission that went badly. It was a rouge band of private contractors that committed those atrocities. Sound familiar?

Representative Bill Delahunt, Democrat of Massachusetts, said that what the administration was negotiating amounted to a treaty and should be subjected to Congressional oversight and ultimately ratification.

“Where have we ever had an agreement to defend a foreign country from external attack and internal attack that was not a treaty?” he said Wednesday at a hearing of a foreign affairs subcommittee held to review the matter. “This could very well implicate our military forces in a full-blown civil war in Iraq. If a commitment of this magnitude does not rise to the level of a treaty, then it is difficult to imagine what could.”[3]

Finally, there is the small matter of oversight and debate. George Bush has succeeded in preventing any real debate on Iraq for almost 5 years. By using fear, hate, and false patriotism he has quashed any meaningful debate concerning not only the run-up to the war, but his policies since the invasion. Because we first had a Republican controlled and now a weak-kneed Democratic controlled Congress, the American public has been left out of the debate concerning Iraq. At one point the mid-term elections were supposed to have registered the American people’s concern and disenchantment with the war. Those concerns and that disenchantment have been brushed aside not only by the Bush administration, the MSM, but also the Democratic Congress. Many of those Congresspersons campaigned and won on ending the war platforms.

The Bush administration should not be allowed to commit this country to an open ended security agreement with Iraq. It is bad enough he got us there with lies and secrecy and now he wants to use the same tactics to keep us there for who knows how long. If it quacks like a duck?

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/world/middleeast/25military.html?pagewanted=2&hp
[2] Ibid.
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/25/world/middleeast/25military.html?pagewanted=2&hp

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The One Trick Pony

According to the MSM, the American voter has an attention deficit problem. In recent reporting they are saying that the war in Iraq is no longer an issue and that the economic insecurity of the American people is what will drive the primaries and the general election. Every election the talking heads, pundits, and pollsters try to boil the election down to one issue, one issue that will be central to the election of a Party, a candidate, or a movement. It appears in their eyes that the American electorate is incapable of focusing on more than one issue. In the early stages of this perpetual primary season it was the war. Each candidate was going to be judged on their positions concerning the war, troop levels, and experience. Now, the election is going to turn on the economic instability being felt by millions of Americans.

DES MOINES — The Democratic and Republican presidential candidates are navigating a far different set of issues as they approach the Iowa caucuses on Thursday than when they first started campaigning here a year ago, and that is likely to change even more as the campaigns move to New Hampshire and across the country.

Even though polls show that Iowa Democrats still consider the war in Iraq the top issue facing the country, the war is becoming a less defining issue among Democrats nationally, and it has moved to the back of the stage in the rush of campaign rallies, town hall meetings and speeches that are bringing the caucus competition to an end. Instead, candidates are being asked about, and are increasingly talking about, the mortgage crisis, rising gas costs, health care, immigration, the environment and taxes.[1]

Isn’t it great to be told what’s important and what isn’t? If I wasn’t so cynical I would view this as a coup for the Republicans, everyone knows they didn’t want to run on the war and if the media has anything to do with it they won’t. I feel extremely gifted that I am able to walk and chew bubble gum at the time. Despite their best efforts to deflect the presence of 140,000 US troops in Iraq, I for one still view Iraq as a major issue. It’s funny though that there are still two Republicans who want to keep the war front and center. The first is John McCain, Mr. McCain somehow feels vindicated for his unwavering support of the war by the “success” of the surge. The second is Rudy Giuliani; Mr. Giuliani has nothing else to run on except 9/11.

While stating the obvious that economic issues, immigration, and health care are important issues these in no way make Iraq any less important. Are we to understand that the American electorate is so one-dimensional that they can only focus on one issue at a time? When going into the booth their focus will only be on just the economy, the war, or some other issue. I beg to differ with the media, there are a number of voters that will weigh a number of different issues at the same time. While they may prioritize those issues they will be conscious of all of them.

No candidate can embody the complete views of any one voter, so many voters look for the candidate that best articulates their views on the most issues that matter to them. I hardly think that most anti-war voters will vote for a candidate that advocates advancing the war, even if he or she does agree with them on tax policy. Just as I am sure most fiscal conservatives would have a hard time supporting a candidate that advocated large deficits even if they did agree with his or her war policy. Oh wait a minute, bad example! We have seen that the war and large deficits don’t seem to prevent the fiscal conservatives from supporting their man.

The caucuses in Iowa while only a small percentage of the American electorate have made one thing extremely clear, that Americans want change. The change they are seeking is not just about Iraq, the economy, or any other single issue. The change they are seeking is a fundamental change in the direction of America. There has been a growing frustration with many voters and non-voters alike concerning the direction of the country in not just the last eight years, but the last few decades. This frustration has caused many Americans to opt out of the electoral process, thus leaving many pundits to believe that there was harmony. This year that view is about to be shattered in a big way. The strength of Barack Obama is that he is able to energize those frustrated voters and bring them back into the process.

This is an untapped resource that everyone knew was there, but many thought could never be reached. The election this year is not about any one issue or maybe even about any issues at all. This election is about altering the current state of America. The silent majority of inactive voters are tired of the system as it stands today. They are tired of the gridlock in Washington and the poisonous political tone that has characterized our political debates. They are tired of the only legislation being passed is what benefits the wealthy while their concerns are ignored. These people have embraced the call for change being offered by Obama and they don’t care about his experience, his race, or his background.

The winds of change are blowing and it is scaring the hell out of the status quo. People are not buying the, I can change it from the inside argument any longer, they have heard their options of experience versus change and they have chosen change. Now comes the time when the talking heads and pundits who don’t understand the phenomenon to try and explain it. They will try to boil it down to one incident, one issue and in the process they will expose their lack of understanding of what is taking place. There is a growing storm and the longer it blows, the stronger it will get. America is ready for a change, the question is now what will the powers that be do to stop it?

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/03/us/politics/03elect.html?hp

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John Edwards Big Gamble

In an interview on Sunday, John Edwards dropped a bombshell and took an enormous gamble. My first thought was why would he make such statements on the eve of the Iowa caucuses? My second thought was to consider the viability of his proposal. I wondered if this was some last second ploy to pander to the anti-war voters in Iowa based on some last-minute polling data. The thing about the Edwards campaign is that he has never shied away from providing details to accompany his policy statements and Sunday appears to be no different. While others have continued to throw out generalities and vague statements concerning Iraq and ending our involvement, Mr. Edwards has taken the bold step of actually outlining steps he would take to do so.

“To me, that is a continuation of the occupation of Iraq,” he said in a 40-minute interview on Sunday aboard his campaign bus as it rumbled through western Iowa.

In one of his most detailed discussions to date about how he would handle Iraq as president, Mr. Edwards staked out a position that would lead to a more rapid and complete troop withdrawal than his principal rivals, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, who have indicated they are open to keeping American trainers and counterterrorism units in Iraq.[1]

According to the interview Mr. Edwards would call for the immediate withdrawal of 40,000 to 50,000 US troops, followed by the withdrawal of the remaining troops within 9 or 10 months. Mr. Edwards’ plan would leave a force of 4,000 to 5,000 troops for embassy duty and protection of aid workers. This plan of course is the most accelerated withdrawal of any of the other major candidates; it also flies in the face of the military, the State Department, and conventional wisdom. There are many who predict a complete collapse in Iraq if we withdraw.

While many will view this as a desperate effort to garner last minute votes in Iowa, I see it as a long-term strategic move to tap into the larger anti-war vote in America. In the last mid-term Congressional elections the voters of America elected the Democrats to end the war. In what has been the best example of spinelessness in the history of our country, they have failed to do so. In fact they have provided Mr. Bush with every piece of legislation and funding he has sent to them. Despite the “surge” is working rhetoric and the “good news” from Iraq, there is still a large number of voters, especially Democratic voters who are very disappointed with the efforts of the current Congress and their jellyfish imitation.

The anti-war movement in this country has been minimized and under-reported from the beginning by the MSM. Make no mistake about it, just as Mr. Edwards has declared war on the corporate elite and their disproportionate share of wealth in this country, part of his wide-ranging agenda is to also end the occupation of Iraq. Mr. Edwards recognizes that part of the historically high profits being made is a direct result of our involvement in Iraq. There is the war-profiteers being supplied at taxpayer expense, there is the high cost of gas being fueled by the instability in Iraq, and there is the corruption of Iraqi politicians that continue to allow them to drag their feet on reconciliation. We must begin to show some resolve not just against the terrorist, but also against those who are stealing us blind under the guise of terrorism. We need to think about all the costs we have paid since 9/11, I would venture that the cost of each one of those 2,900 plus lives has been to the tune of over 2 billion dollars each. Think about that for a moment. If we were to include all costs associated with homeland security, the two wars, and the war profiteering and corruption since 9/11, what has it been for each life lost.

I believe that what Mr. Edwards is saying is we must begin to put this all in perspective and the way to do this is by dialing down our involvement in Iraq and allowing the Iraqis and the rest of the world to take a part in this reconstruction. Since 9/11, we have not had a national conversation about what sensible and responsible responses we should be pursuing. We all just jumped on the Neo-con bandwagon and went off half-cocked around the world to extract our revenge. We must move away from the temple of 9/11 where too many have been worshipping and begin to look realistically at the world and our place in it.

“That is a very important question for the president of the United States because it is very much a judgment call,” Mr. Edwards said. “Do I believe that we have had a moral responsibility? I do. The question is, How long does that moral responsibility continue and at what juncture is it the right decision to end what we have been doing and shift that responsibility to them?”

“Let’s assume for a minute that come January 2009 we still have a significant troop presence in Iraq, which I think is likely,” Mr. Edwards added. “If that is the case, then I think another 9 to 10 months of American troop involvement and expenditure of taxpayer money with an intense effort to resolve the political conflict and intense diplomacy, then at that point America has done what it can do.”[2]

The time has come to end the crusade. We must begin to refocus on America and all that ails us. Many will say that this is the beginning of isolationism, they would be wrong. What it is, is the beginning of cleaning up our own house before we begin to clean up the world. We have a major struggle before us here at home, the struggle of corporatism and wealth strangulation from the top. The war on terror has been a distraction and it has allowed us to watch the biggest disparity of wealth accumulation in our nation’s history. It is time we focused on this struggle or it won’t matter what happens in Iraq or anywhere else in the world.

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/us/politics/02edwards.html?hp
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/us/politics/02edwards.html?hp=&adxnnl=1&pagewanted=2&adxnnlx=1199297375-nTvB2yKgo93g2bIG+4mpqg

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Peace Begins With Me

I recently began to wonder if so many Americans are against the war, why a larger peace movement isn’t sweeping this nation. I guess after the Vietnam experience I am somewhat spoiled by what the power of the people can do. I began thinking about the differences between then and now and I was able to come up with a few. The first is that during Vietnam there was never a direct assault against America. There was that whole Tonkin Gulf incident, but that again was over there. The times were different; there was more of an activist spirit then. There was so much that seemed wrong with America and the government. But in the end I finally settled on something that has been troubling me for a long time.

I believe there will be no peace in Iraq, Iran, or anyplace else in the world from us or for us. The problem is not the terrorist threat, the Bush administrations false justifications for war, or our fascists’ tendencies. No, the answer is much deeper and therefore much more difficult to express. The answer in my opinion is that we (Americans) are not at peace with ourselves. We do not understand peace and in some ways I think it frightens us. The peace that I am speaking of is the internal peace that allows one to sit quietly and be ok being who the person is. Too many of us despise peace; we mistake it for boredom and try to quench it with activity or mindless entertainment. We constantly bombard it with noise and images, anything to make it go away. We are not a peaceful nation right now.

We are at war with ourselves. We are at war with our children, our neighbors, and each other. For months I have watched the blogosphere explode into a war zone of competing ideas, philosophies, and belief systems. These conflicts in and of themselves are a normal part of give and take in a democracy, but what is transpiring is a viciousness that is not. Simple misunderstandings are elevated to the level of personal vendettas. There has developed a gang mentality where groups descend down on anyone who has the gall to question their interpretation of the facts.

How can we expect to have peace in the world, in our homes, or anywhere else if we do not have peace within ourselves? Peace is not some ideal that we are able to give and take like so much merchandise, it is an internal calm that permeates one’s life and becomes that life. I heard that the Dalai Lama was visiting and when asked what he wanted most it was peace. Many believed it to mean in Tibet or in the world in general, but what he really means is this.

We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.[1]

I think the attacks on 9/11 opened a fissure within our nation and within ourselves. For many it was the first time they had been confronted in such a catastrophic way with those who don’t like America much. For many we were torn between trying to understand why and wanting to extract revenge. I think to this day we are still conflicted by the attack and our response to it. Would it have been more palpable had the war and occupation of Iraq gone better? Yes, but would that have removed the illegitimacy of it? The evidence of this is the relative ease that this country was led into war. Oh yeah, we complain now of how we were tricked, but what I know about being tricked is that no one can trick me if I don’t want to be tricked.

The thing I remember about the Vietnam era was that despite our many differences, there was an unnatural peace that permeated the movement. It’s hard to describe to anyone who was not there or a part of it, but inside we knew that our cause was just and it gave us a peace. Even though there was smoke and tear gas all around and cops with clubs and guns, there was peace. It was also in our civil rights movement. Our purpose gave us peace.

In today’s hurry up, got to do more world, it seems strange to hear these things I’m sure, but it was there and today it is not there. I shouldn’t say it is not there, it isn’t there in sufficient enough strength to overcome the forces of conflict that afflict us all. I suggest we all take a moment to search inside ourselves and see what conflicts we are fighting. You will find them in the silence of your mind and in the quiet of your heart, begin to resolve and make peace with them. We must begin to turn down the noise within us and choose peace.

I know for me I had a very difficult time coming back to peace. It was difficult learning how to once again accept peace. For some reason my nature preferred conflict to peace, activity to rest. I believe as more and more of us find our own peace we will be able to bring peace to the world. It is impossible for someone in conflict with themselves to give out peace. Let us begin to find peace and then allow that peace to flow out from us to the world. Remember hearing and believing all these things about peace, where did they go? We allowed them to be taken from us by the world. The world of commerce, the world of busyness, the world of conflict has stolen these things from us and it is time we took them back.

Peace, yes it begins with me and with you. If you want a peaceful world, learn to live in peace with yourself.

[1] http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/dalai_lama.html

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