More straws in the wind

Well, about once a week now I see another news story that convinces me the US is trying to surrender in Iraq so they can get their military bases built in peace.
Here is this week's version -- today's AP story Report: US Secretly Met with Insurgents
This report quotes the Times of London saying that a Pentagon representative met with Anwar al-Sunnah Army, Mohammed's Army and the Islamic Army in Iraq "and declared himself ready to find ways of stopping the bloodshed on both sides and to listen to demands and grievances" . The paper goes on to say "The U.S. officials tried to gather information about the structure, leadership and operations of the insurgent groups, which irritated some members, who had been told the talks would consider their main demand, a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq . . . During the June 13 talks, the U.S. officials demanded that two other insurgent groups, the 1920 Revolution and the Majhadeen Shoura Council, cut ties with the country's most-feared insurgent group, al-Qaida in Iraq, according to the report."
That the US is negotiating with four or five insurgent groups sounds perhaps more promising than it is. In a column at the end of May, Gwynne Dyer noted some of the problems that would arise with any negotiation, like for instance that there are 75 insurgent groups in Iraq:

At the moment, the Sunni Arabs do not have a credible collective leadership with whom the government could negotiate even if it wanted to, and there's not much point in trying to negotiate with the insurgents, either: some 38 different groups have claimed attacks against US troops. Nor will sealing the frontiers help, as the great majority of the insurgents are Iraqis moved by some combination of nationalism, Islamism, and/or Baathism. (The International Institute for Strategic Studies recently estimated that there are between 20,000 and 50,000 insurgents, organised in some 75 separate units.) Another election might ease some of the strains if substantial numbers of Sunni Arabs chose to participate next time, but it is far from clear that they would, and in any case the timetable is slipping fast. Current deadlines foresee completion of the new constitution by 15 August, a referendum on it in October, and new elections in December (assuming that the referendum says 'yes'), but three months were lost in haggling between Kurds and Shias over government jobs and now that schedule is most unlikely to be met. In fact, it will be surprising if they can even agree on a new constitution by the end of the year -- and Sunni Arab views will scarcely be represented at all. So the violence will probably continue at around the current level for the next six to nine months at least, and beyond that the future is simply unforeseeable. Whether you choose to call this a civil war or not, the fact is that almost all of the insurgents are Sunni Arabs, while the new Iraqi army and police forces are overwhelmingly Shias and Kurds. So long as the insurgency continues, the Shia leadership is unlikely to demand the immediate departure of American troops -- and so far, the US still seems determined to stay.

The 400-lb gorilla is this: no matter what is negotiated and with whom and how many elections are held and what constitution is adopted, the insurgency will not end until the US army leaves. And if those 16 'enduring'bases are an indication, the US is not intending to leave.
At what point will the world step up to the plate, and tell the US and Britain that they have no right to continue to occupy Iraq?

The lost boys

The General doesn't do this very often, but yesterday he spoke out in his own voice:

When you're the father of two beautiful daughters, your house becomes a gathering place for young men. That was certainly the case when my daughters were in high school. We were lucky, most of them were good kids. I spent quite a bit of time with them and got to know them very well.
Now they're coming home from war. The all American boy with a heart of gold talks of his hate for 'hajis' and wishes we could nuke the place. The class clown sits in his room all day staring at the Cartoon Channel while self medicating with pot and booze. The nice liberal Jewish boy who melted my wife's yenta heart tells us in a dispassionate, far-away monotone that 'killing those animals was like stepping on ants.' Our 'son' screams at night. My heart breaks for these boys we adopted in their teenage years. They've lost their souls. And for what?
War does this to people. That's why it should never be entered into unless there is no other alternative. That wasn't the case for this war. As far as I can tell, we invaded Iraq because Bush and the necons wanted to be remembered as great men like Roosevelt or Lincoln, or perhaps more accurately, Augustus. It's there in the subtext of PNAC papers for all to see. The oil is just gravy. That's evil.

And people wonder why parents won't let their boys enlist.
I disagree with the General in one respect. I don't think that it is war itself which does this to young soldiers, it is killing civilians.
And American soldiers have been killing civilians in Iraq for the last two years.
These young men are shooting up cars full of women and children at checkpoints. They're breaking into homes and manhandling screaming grandmothers. They're arresting thousands of prisoners and they have no way to tell which ones are actually enemies, because they have to think of every man they see as their enemy. Whenever they walk along a street, they have to be ready to kill. These soldiers have to develop a brutal, callous disrespect for every single person they see who isn't American. Soldiers also targeted civilians in Vietnam -- and that war brutalized soldiers to the point that ordinary American boys committed the My Lai massacre and how many others.
In a righteous war these soldiers and their families can find some solace and healing in the belief that the sacrifice of their basic humanity was worthwhile. But Iraq is not a righteous war and the soldiers know it.

Best.

Cam Cardow, The Ottawa Citizen


Patrick Corrigan, The Toronto Star


Brian Gable, The Globe & Mail


Brian Gable, The Globe & Mail


Steve Benson, United Media

Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?

Bush, Bush, bring 'em back. They're not your bitches in Iraq!

What Wolcott says:

Historical parallels have lost their spine-stiffening efficacy. We're all Churchilled out, this isn't 1939 or 1865 or 1776, the disaster is unfolding here and now and in front of our eyes and if Republican conservates want to perservere despite eroding support then they should pull all those future lobbyists and leeches out of the Heritage Foundation dorm and march them over to a recruiting station, where they can learn how to shoot off something besides their Rush-quoting mouths.
Here's what I'm wondering. Bush is making a major national address on Tuesday about Iraq. With each speech he masticated about Social Security 'reform,' approval for his non-existent program sagged. His sixty-day sales tour was a Willy Loman flop. Suppose he makes a rallying call on Tuesday and his poll numbers subsequently drop even more? I recall when LBJ would go before the nation with a televised address to shore up support on Vietnam, and it was too late, the nation had had enough. I'm not saying that will happen next week--Bush's speechwriter may whip enough eloquence for a temporary boost in the polls--but suppose it does? If Bush comes forward, and the American people recoil, I suspect a line of perspiration will begin to form even along Bill Kristol's thin upper lip.

You get the idea

This interview transcript is titled Bartlett defends Rove's comments But it doesn't sound like it to me. White House press secretary assistant Bartlett sounds more like he is parsing and dicing Rove's remarks to imply now that they didn't actually mean what Rove clearly had meant. "Well Norah I must say I'm at a loss why some of these top Democrats in the Senate have made these accusations, in fact, if you look at Senators Clinton and Schumer and others, who responded after 9/11, did so in support of President Bush's pursuit of the war on terror. What Karl Rove was pointing out -- and he was quite specific I might add -- in his speech, was that MoveOn.org, a liberal organization, that put out a petition and a statement right after 9/11 saying don't respond militarily, show restraint, that's exactly what he was talking about."
Funny, that's not the way it came across at the time.
That said, no political party should miss the meta-narrative accusation, the overall frame for a specific attack. The Democrats miss this in the US and the Conservatives miss it here.
Democrats seem to feel they have to respond to an attack with some kind of detailed, academic statistical analysis -- like when Kerry's people said "How dare you say he voted to raise taxes 600 times; it was actually only 180, maybe 200 tops!" So now Rove says the Dems were wimps after 9/11, and the Dems sputter about how they all voted for some congressional resolution. Instead they should have a reply that shows their pride in being democrats and their willingness to lead. Try something like this: "We gathered outside on the steps of the Capital on that terrible day and we led the singing of God Bless America, even though we did not know whether Washington might continue to be attacked. We've been demonstrating ever since our commitment to make Americans safer by persuading President Bush to establish the Department of Homeland Security and the 911 Commission . . . ' You get the idea.
The Conservatives here fall into the same trap. After last night's vote, instead of wallowing in their own anger, they should have recognized and dealt with the meta-narrative accusation -- that Conservatives don't know how to run a government. Dealing with that narrative would have required a response 'more in sorrow than in anger' about such unseemly shennigans, and a focus on the future "Yes, the Liberals tricked everyone tonight to sneak their budget through, but in the long run this budget will be a bad deal for Canada . . . " You get the idea.

Just another pit bull EA

Over at The Blogging of the President, Glenn Smith, the founder of the Texas organization DriveDemocracy, puts Karl Rove in perspective:

Karl Rove's un-American attacks on those who disagree with him deserve the condemnation they're receiving. I've known him for 20 years, and I'm not surprised he said them. He's a socially inept but patient thug whose willingness to haunt the nation's dark political alleys for years, waiting for the right time and the right victims, is too often taken for unparalleled political intelligence. Being attacked by Rove is a little like being criticized by the Boston Strangler. At least you know you're alive . . . Rove's a hack. His strength comes from his immorality. . . . I've been on the road in America for much of the last two years. I'm asked all the time about the need for Democrats to find their own Karl Rove. If we ever find such a monster in our midst, we should exile him. . . . it troubles me that so many people believe he really is a political genius. He's just pathological. For years I've suspected that Rove is stuck in an adolescent rage, taking revenge upon the Civil Rights marchers (whose courage he couldn't match), the anti-war organizers (who beat him), and those who believe in and struggle for democracy (who drove off Nixon). I don't recommend therapy for Bin Laden. But Rove might give Dr. Laura a call.

I have worked in lots of offices over the years, and its a common phenomenon -- the bitchy executive assistant, constantly "on guard" to protect the boss, manipulative, fiercely partisan, who thinks that promoting the interests of the boss is an acceptable excuse to trample over everyone in their path.
I wonder why some people are like this. The only other place I have seen this type of person is when I was a zone commissioner for children's softball. Some of the parents acted like cheering for their own child gave them a license to be rude, offensive and abusive to the children on the opposing team.
So maybe these are both just examples of how some people will indulge their inner pit bull as long as they can justify their abysmal behaviour with the excuse that they aren't doing it for themselves, oh no -- its all for my boss, or my child - or my dear leader.

Bring out the faba beans

The Globe and Mail: Liberals win surprise budget amendment vote
Well, I can't quite understand how the Liberals did it, but apparently they held a quickie budget vote at midnight, and forced through the NDP-Liberal budget amendments. And the Bloc supported them. And it was all in aid of getting the gay marriage vote done next week.
So the Bloc is on the side of the angels as far as I am concerned on this issue -- I'm still a tad pissed at the Liberals for their hesitancy last week.
Anyway, back to our story -- just this morning, it looked like we were heading for another one of those death-of-a-thousand-cuts budget showdown votes like last month's squeaker.
But wiser heads prevailed, I guess, proving that the ONLY people in the WHOLE COUNTRY who wanted a summer election were the 99 Conservative MPs.
For some reason, the Tories were just a tad pissed to lose this vote: The Globe says they "reacted with unfiltered rage."
First, they started in with the sexual metaphors "Conservative deputy leader Peter MacKay described his foes as a menage a trois between separatists, socialists and power-hungry Liberals." Of course, I'm shocked, SHOCKED, that the Conservatives even know what a menage-a-trois IS.
Then they brought out the big guns -- they used the dreaded fictional serial killer comparison.
The Globe quoted MacKay as saying "We have to start thinking that Hannibal Lecter is running the government and they'll do anything they have to do to win."
Needless to say, "Liberals could barely contain their glee in response. 'Its not surprising that Hannibal Lecter should spring to mind for Mr. MacKay given the growing number of Conservatives who believe the party should soon eat its own leader,' said Scott Reid, the Prime Minister's spokesman."
With faba beans and a nice Chalbis.

The Paranoid View

Lots of posts today at Daily Kos and across the blogosphere about the Karl Rove's declaration of the White House's Great War on Liberals (catchy acronym GWOL). Particularly good was this one by Hunter -Daily Kos :: Karl Rove, Traitor - reminding us how happy Rove was when he or one of his boys traitorously outed a CIA agent.
Anyway, the speculation is that the White House is just attempting to distract everyone from what is going wrong in Iraq and Gitmo.
As Oliver Willis says:

What do you do if you’re the political group in charge of a nation during its worst terror attack ever, and still haven’t brought the main perpetrators to justice 4 years past? What do you do if you’re the party that has deceived a nation into war, causing the deaths of over 1700 men and women soldiers, and now have the opinion polls turning against you? What do you do? If you’re the Republican party in America, you attack your political opponents for being insufficiently patriotic. You appeal to the worst McCarthyite instincts that form the bedrock of your support in order to demonize the opposition and distract from your utter failure to provide even the most basic defense and protection of the people you represent.

And this may well explain it, of course.
But I wonder if the GWOL campaign is a little more forward-thinking than that.
Here's the Paranoid View --
Suppose America wakes up, round about July 4, say, to find out that Bush and Blair have launched an air attack on Syria, supposedly to stop their covert help to the Iraq insurgency. Or maybe the attack will be on Iran, to take out their nuclear facilities?
Having just been smeared as "cowards" all over the media, will Democrats object? And if they do object, will anyone listen?

Alternate alternate history

Here's the setup -- in an alternate history world, Al Gore won the 2000 election - so in this world the WTC attack was stopped, there was no war in Afghanistan, no war in Iraq, etc etc.
So now, Will Shetterly's It's All One Thing blog, which is also located in this alternate reality universe, speculates about an alternate alternate history What if George W. Bush had been elected president?
Get it? Well, anyway, read it and laugh or weep, your choice.

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight . . .

Lions rescue beaten Ethiopian girl
Oh, sure.
You know, if one of the searchers who found the Utah boy scout today had announced that he found the boy living in a cave with some friendly bears, people might think that perhaps the rescuer was stretching the truth just a little.
But maybe because its Africa -- deep, dark, mysterious, etc etc -- news services all over are carrying this story today.
Did you hear the one about the choking doberman? Well, there was this guy, see . . .

Breaking News

"Just days after they both inked big-money publishing deals for their memoirs, "Runaway Bride" Jennifer Wilbanks and "Deep Throat" W. Mark Felt announced today that they are engaged to be married . . . The marriage between the two headline-grabbing memoirists could create a perfect storm of publicity for their soon-to-be-published books, publishing insiders said "
Read all about it -- The Borowitz Report .com:

A day in the life of Baghdad, with decades to come

I didn't have such a great day, really -- my husband left today for a three-day roadtrip and I hate it when he is out of town. Then I forgot about the road construction on my way to work and so had to backtrack and take a detour which made me late. Then at the presentation I went to this morning they didn't call a coffee break. Getting back to the office after lunch, I got a phone call asking why the heck I hadn't yet finished revising a web page (answer: I'm DOING IT NOW! I had to STOP doing it to answer the phone! Oh, well...) -- and then, of course, I couldn't get it finished before I had to leave for a co-worker's retirement party. Just one of those ho hum days.
Then tonight I read Riverbend's description of the daily grind in Baghdad these days, and I didn't feel so bad anymore at all --

The electrical situation differs from area to area. On some days, the electricity schedule is two hours of electricity, and then four hours of no electricity. On other days, it’s four hours of electricity to four or six hours of no electricity. The problem is that the last couple of weeks, we don’t have electricity in the mornings for some reason. . . . Detentions and assassinations, along with intermittent electricity, have also been contributing to sleepless nights. We’re hearing about raids in many areas in the Karkh half of Baghdad in particular. On the television the talk about ‘terrorists’ being arrested, but there are dozens of people being rounded up for no particular reason. Almost every Iraqi family can give the name of a friend or relative who is in one of the many American prisons for no particular reason. They aren’t allowed to see lawyers or have visitors and stories of torture have become commonplace. Both Sunni and Shia clerics who are in opposition to the occupation are particularly prone to attacks by “Liwa il Theeb” or the special Iraqi forces Wolf Brigade. They are often tortured during interrogation and some of them are found dead. There were also several explosions and road blocks today. It took the cousin an hour to get to work . . . he has to navigate between closed streets, check points, and those delightful concrete barriers rising up everywhere . . . The least pleasant situation is to be caught in mid-day traffic, on a crowded road, in the heat- waiting for the next bomb to go off. What people find particularly frustrating is the fact that while Baghdad seems to be falling apart in so many ways with roads broken and pitted, buildings blasted and burnt out and residential areas often swimming in sewage, the Green Zone is flourishing. The walls surrounding restricted areas housing Americans and Puppets have gotten higher- as if vying with the tallest of date palms for height. The concrete reinforcements and road blocks designed to slow and impede traffic are now a part of everyday scenery- the road, the trees, the shops, the earth, the sky… and the ugly concrete slabs sometimes wound insidiously with barbed wire.

Riverbend continues to describe what is now happening in the Green Zone and what Iraqis think about it:

A friend who recently got involved working with an Iraqi subcontractor . . . inside of the Green Zone explained that [the Green Zone] is a city in itself. He came back awed, and more than a little bit upset. He talked of designs and plans being made for everything from the future US Embassy and the housing complex that will surround it, to restaurants, shops, fitness centers, gasoline stations, constant electricity and water- a virtual country inside of a country with its own rules, regulations and government . . . welcome to the Republic of the Green Zone . . . if you could see the bases they are planning to build- if you could see what already has been built- you’d know that [the Americans] are going to be here for quite a while. The Green Zone is a source of consternation and aggravation for the typical Iraqi. It makes us anxious because it symbolises the heart of the occupation and if fortifications and barricades are any indicator- the occupation is going to be here for a long time. It is a provocation because no matter how anyone tries to explain or justify it, it is like a slap in the face. It tells us that while we are citizens in our own country, our comings and goings are restricted because portions of the country no longer belong to its people. They belong to the people living in the Green Republic.

Now just consider the implications of this description.
Ever since the Downing Street Memos were leaked, people around the progressive blogosphere have been asking why the Bush administration wanted so badly to go to war in Iraq that they "fixed" the intelligence and the facts to promote the war.
Well, I think I may have figured it out, and no wonder there is no exit strategy.
They're not leaving. They never intended to leave.
Even the original Iraq War resolution quoted by Digby in the above link says as much in its final Whereas paragraph: "Whereas it is in the national security interests of the United States to restore international peace and security to the Persian Gulf region . . . " And maybe this is what Condi was referring to this weekend when she said that the Bush administration had told everyone long ago that America had made a "generational commitment" in Iraq.
I think the Bush administration wants the American military to stay in Iraq for decades, like they have stayed in Germany for the last 60 years, in permanent, fortified military bases in Iraq and in the region. Secure in these bases, with their air superiority and weapons superiority and easy access to America's own weapons of mass destruction, the American military could make damned sure that no anti-American government could ever again take root anywhere in the Middle East, so that never again would such a government threaten the stability of US oil supplies, bully Israel, or destabilize the region.
It won't work, of course -- none of the Bush administration schemes work because they are ideological rather than realistic, poorly planned, and incompetently executed. The bases will, in themselves, destabilize the region, just as resentment of the US bases in Saudi Arabia was the motivation for 9/11. A permanent American military presence in the Persian Gulf would bankrupt the US, undermine any local government which cooperated with the US, and ensure that America and all things American would continue to be hated and despised by millions of people throughout half the world. Not to mention how questionable it is that China and Russia would be willing to put up with such a nearby threat either. But this won't stop the Bush administration from trying.

Rigging the mid-term vote

What's Their Real Problem With Gay Marriage? answers my question from a few days ago, about where the next anti-gay marrage votes will be held to make sure that Republicans win the midterm congressional elections in 2006 -- : "There are grass-roots battles going on now in Pennsylvania, Maryland, California, Alabama, Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, South Dakota, Arizona, Washington, Indiana, Iowa and Minnesota. In May, conservative groups in California and Arizona announced petition drives that would force a referendum in those states."
If the Democrats expect to take control again of the Senate or the House in 2006, they had better get busy -- there will be lots and lots of Christian Right voters turning out -- they love Bush now and they will love him then, too.

The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation

RossK made a comment in Comments about some cross-border minutemaidman group being trained with powerpoints.
And that reminded me of this -- The Gettysburg Powerpoint Presentation.

And now please welcome President Abraham Lincoln. Good morning. Just a second while I get this connection to work. Do I press this button here? Function-F7? No, that's not right. Hmmm. Maybe I'll have to reboot. Hold on a minute. Um, my name is Abe Lincoln and I'm your president. While we're waiting, I want to thank Judge David Wills, chairman of the committee supervising the dedication of the Gettysburg cemetery. It's great to be here, Dave, and you and the committee are doing a great job. Gee, sometimes this new technology does have glitches, but we couldn't live without it, could we? Oh - is it ready? OK, here we go:

Speaker Notes [Transcribed from voice recording by A. Lincoln, 11/18/63] These are some notes on the Gettysburg meeting. I'll whip them into better shape when I can get on to my computer: Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

Everything that is wrong with powerpoints is shown in this presentation -- its author Peter Norvig writes in a related essay: "Imagine a world with almost no pronouns or punctuation. A world where any complex thought must be broken into seven- word chunks, with colorful blobs between them . . . "

Best.

In the United States, the "liberal" media is still alive, hiding on the editorial cartoon page. Here's a sample from Slate for this week:

Clay JonesThe Freelance-Star, Fredericksburg, Virginia


Steve Greenberg The Ventura County Star, CA


Don Wright, The Palm Beach Post, FL


Steve Benson, United Media

Jimmy Margulies, New Jersey -- The Record