“Pro Surge” Mikulski Is Paving the Way for Hillary!

William Hughes

08 May 2007 0

Copyright by the author. All rights reserved.

Want-to-be president, Sen. Hillary “War Lite” Clinton (D-NY), recently gushed over U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD). She said that “Pro-Surge” Mikulski had “paved” the way for her. Indeed, Mikulski has done a lot of paving, especially with respect to the manufacturing jobs lost on her watch. In addition, Mikulski persists in supporting funding for the Iraqi War. Now, it has been disclosed that she knew the Bush-Cheney Gang was lying about the war.

“The U.S. military announced the deaths of 11 more U.S. troops in Iraq.” - AP Report, May 7, 2007

“She has literally ‘paved’ the way for me and countless other women who now serve in the Congress,” gushed the want-to-be president, Sen. Hillary “War Lite” Clinton (D-NY). Bubba Bill’s other half was referring to Sen. Barbara “Pro Surge” Mikulski (D-MD), who had just proclaimed her support last month for Clinton’s candidacy. Mikulski has, indeed, done a lot of ‘paving,’ while pretending to serve the people of Maryland over the last three decades. For example, she has turned our once-vaunted manufacturing base, like the ex-General Motors’ plant in Baltimore, MD, into a “paved” parking lot! The Procter & Gamble facility and Bethlehem Steel’s huge steel-making and shipyard facilities, likewise, are history. The country has lost more than 3.7 million solid middle class jobs on her watch. (1) Sen. Mikulski, a globalist lapdog, has been a pallbearer for native industries that once gave working families a decent living wage, with real fringe benefits. (2)

Meanwhile, Sen. Mikulski is also regularly canonized by the Establishment media, “as a champion of women!” Yet, when the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), on March 16, 2003, ran over peace and justice activist, Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American from Olympia, WA, with a 9-ton bulldozer, she was silent. Not one word came out of her mouth! Corrie was run over, not once, but twice by the Israeli thugs. (3) This is the same Sen. Mikulski, who has made a career out of signing onto Congressional Resolutions in support of Israel’s Hard Right regimes, like that of Prime Minister’s Ehud Olmert. Even after the IOF slaughtered the Lebanese innocents, mostly women and children, at the village of Qana, on April 18, 1996, and again on July 30, 2006, Mikulski remained silent. (4) The more Mikulski fails her duty, the more faultless people die, and, ironically, the more popular she becomes. Go figure!

Part of Mikulski’s putative pit bull persona is built on a myth in my opinion. Supposedly, she took a significant part in stopping the building of a massive federal highway that would have devastated large areas of Baltimore City. One key player in that drama sharply disagrees about her role. “Mikulski didn’t write any letters, speak out, attend any [Baltimore] City Council meetings, or work on the project.” These are the words of the Hon. Thomas Ward, a retired jurist and former Baltimore City Councilman (1963-67), in referring to Mikulski’s supposed activism, during the critical ‘60s period, against the construction of a proposed federal highway system through the historic Fells Point and Federal Hill areas. Judge Ward was at the center of the effort to stop the highway. I reported his views on the U.S. Senator in an article for the Baltimore Press, entitled, “Did Sen. Mikulski Inflate her Political Resume?,” on May 22, 1999. Nevertheless, the Mikulski activist/highway myth persists. (5)

We know, too, from Sen. Mikulski’s press releases that she is against the terrible disease, Alzheimer’s, and that she wants to raise “awareness” about it. Brava for her! But, she also voted for the draconian USA Patriot Act, not once, but twice! (5)

What about the Iraqi War? Sen. Mikulski voted against it, but she has never, in any public arena--like at a Pro Peace Rally--spoken out against it! Instead, she has consistently voted to fund the war to the tune of $423.8 million. However, persistent pressure from her Pro Peace constituents, on March 14, 2007, forced her to take a stand. She said: “I will not vote to end funding.” In other words, Sen. Mikulski now wants to protect U.S. troops by placing them in the middle of a vicious, horrific Civil War in Iraq. (6) Lt. Gen. William E. Odom, USA, Retired, doesn’t buy that line at all. He said that the U.S. leaving Iraq “is neither cowardly nor imprudent. It is the ‘only way’ to recover from what is turning out to be the greatest strategic mistake in American history.” (7) As of today’s date, 3,378 brave U.S. troops have died in the Iraqi conflict, 181 were killed since Mikulski’s March 14th spiel. Of the total U.S. fatalities, 64 of those heroes called Maryland home. Over 1,300 Maryland National Guard troops are now headed for Iraq to fulfill the bizarre “Surge” strategy of the demented Bush-Cheney Gang, with Mikulski’s explicit approval. (8) As she goes along with the War Party, more Americans, and Iraqis, will continue to die. The Iraqi death toll is estimated by experts at over 655,000. (9)

Now, as a result of a recent shocking disclosure, we realize that Sen. Mikulski “knew” before the Iraqi War started on March 20, 2003, that the Bush-Cheney Gang was deliberately “lying” to the American people about some of its key reasons for wanting to go to war. (10) On April 28, 2007, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) admitted, on the floor of the Senate, that as a member of the U.S. Senate’s Select Committee on Intelligence, that he knew, five years ago, that some of the relevant data that the Bush administration was feeding to the American people to hype a war with Iraq was in “direct contradiction to the information [intel] given to this Congress.” (11) Activist Kevin Zeese revealed there were sixteen members on that Committee, “who were given the same information as Durbin.” One of those members was none other than--Sen. Mikulski! (12) Isn’t it time that she comes clean about that fact and explains to the voters of Maryland her complicity in this life and death matter? How in God’s holy name could Sen. Mikulski vote to fund a war that she personally knew was launched by the Bush-Cheney Gang based on a pack of rotten lies?

At press time, there are rumors flying around Capitol Hill, that if Sen. Clinton does win the presidency in 2008, that Sen. “Pro Surge” Mikulski will be given a high-ranking Cabinet post. Well, bully for her and her lauded paving abilities! Question: How many more innocents, however, have to die because Sen. Mikulski has failed miserably her duties as a U.S. Senator, especially in putting the public’s interest first?

Notes:

1. www.economyincrisis.org/
2. “$11.30! Can People Live on that Hourly Rate?” by Jamie Smith Hopkins, Baltimore Sun, May 6, 2007.
3. www.rachelcorrie.org/
4. www.bintjbeil.com/E/occupation/robert_fisk_qana.html
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5228554.stm
5. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Mikulski and
dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/133425/index.php
6. baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/14770/index.php 7. www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp
8. baltimore.indymedia.org/newswire/display/14834/index.php
9. www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/11/iraq.deaths/
10. www.afterdowningstreet.org/
11. democracyrising.us/content/view/899/151/
12. intelligence.senate.gov/members107thcongress.html

© William Hughes 2007.

William Hughes is the author of “Saying ‘No’ to the War Party” (IUniverse, Inc.). He can be reached at liamhughes (at) comcast.net.

A Hostage Situation: PAUL KRUGMAN - Iraq Funding

THE COMPLETE ARTICLE
THE NEW YORK TIMES
OP-ED COLUMNIST

A Hostage Situation

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: April 23, 2007

In response to a confrontation over financing for the Iraq surge, President Bush is threatening dire consequences for innocent bystanders.

There are two ways to describe the confrontation between Congress and the Bush administration over funding for the Iraq surge. You can pretend that it’s a normal political dispute. Or you can see it for what it really is: a hostage situation, in which a beleaguered President Bush, barricaded in the White House, is threatening dire consequences for innocent bystanders — the troops — if his demands aren’t met.

If this were a normal political dispute, Democrats in Congress would clearly hold the upper hand: by a huge margin, Americans say they want a timetable for withdrawal, and by a large margin they also say they trust Congress, not Mr. Bush, to do a better job handling the situation in Iraq.

But this isn’t a normal political dispute. Mr. Bush isn’t really trying to win the argument on the merits. He’s just betting that the people outside the barricade care more than he does about the fate of those innocent bystanders.

What’s at stake right now is the latest Iraq “supplemental.” Since the beginning, the administration has refused to put funding for the war in its regular budgets. Instead, it keeps saying, in effect: “Whoops! Whaddya know, we’re running out of money. Give us another $87 billion.”

At one level, this is like the behavior of an irresponsible adolescent who repeatedly runs through his allowance, each time calling his parents to tell them he’s broke and needs extra cash.

...

...Mr. Bush’s refusal to face up to the failure of his Iraq adventure, his apparent determination to spend the rest of his term in denial, has become a clear and present danger to national security.

--MORE--

Surge, new strategy will not win the war: Robert Novak

Week of April 11, 2007

by Robert Novak

Posted: 04/11/2007

Excerpt

Iraq

The troop surge in Iraq is getting mixed results, but so far most of the feedback is negative.

1. The heightened U.S. troop presence, according to the top commanders, appears to be pushing the violence out of certain areas, but it has increased in others. Meanwhile, U.S. troop deaths are skyrocketing, with very little attention being paid to this fact at home. The first quarter of 2007 saw 244 deaths, far more than the same period last year. On April 10, the Pentagon reported 35 troop deaths in the first 10 days of this month. The grand total is approaching 3,300.
   
   
2. Sen. John McCain's (R-Ariz.) recent ordeal in Iraq illustrates the political problem the war is posing for Republicans. McCain suffered an embarrassing political moment when he declared Baghdad safe before his trip there, only to tour a Baghdad neighborhood days later, escorted by a large military security contingent (including two helicopters) and wearing a bulletproof vest. Part of the precaution surely stems from his status as a presidential candidate, but the message was clear: Iraq is not safe.
   
   
3. McCain's attempt after a weak fundraising quarter to use the war as a positive political issue is perhaps the greatest sign of the desperation the war causes. One might call it "the last refuge" for Republicans. One must be hurting badly in order to try to make support for the Iraq War an asset.
   
   
4. McCain was forced to admit Sunday night that he had gone too far in declaring Baghdad "safe." But all of the top Republican contenders are supportive of President Bush on the Iraq War. The issue now divides even Republicans, with levels of support only in the 60 percent range among the party faithful. But by next year, the Republican presidential nominee will have to answer whether he believes, in retrospect, that the war was a good idea. If he cannot summon up a "no," or at least a "maybe not," then his general election chances will diminish significantly.

Sadr City: Tripwire to the Iraq Inferno

Related

Sadr lambasts US for Iraq woes
Sadr calls for massive anti-US demonstrations in Najaf on April 9(arabic).

Sadr City: Tripwire to the Iraq Inferno

New America Media , News Analysis, Amir Soltani Sheikholeslami, Posted: Mar 31, 2007

Editor’s Note: In an effort to bring the Iraq war to a close, Iranian writer Amir Soltani Sheikholeslami argues that President Bush has set a tripwire for a much larger one.

President Bush’s security plan for Baghdad can triggera dormant Shia insurgency that will expand the war in Iraq into Iran. Although the plan is barely a fewweeks old, there are eerie, desperate echoes of thepremature gloating of “mission accomplished” days.Once again, the administration is compensating for itsstrategic myopia with military blunders.

Forget the Iraq fiasco. Prepare for the Iraq inferno.

The troop surge has swept into Sadr city, a suburb ofBaghdad ruled by Muqtada Sadr’s Shia Mahdi army. Recently the chief U.S. military spokesman, Maj. Gen.William Caldwell, announced that Muqtada Sadr has fledIraq. Linking the war in Iraq to tensions with Iran he declared - without offering proof - that “all indications are, in fact, that he is in Iran.” With a Shia population larger than that of Lebanon, the surgethreatens to trigger a Shia insurgency in Sadr city. This means that Sadr city is now the eastern front of the war on terror. Any abduction, assault or massacre of American troops there could serve as the trigger for launching the “Iran plan”, pre-emptive orretaliatory military strikes designed to decapitate the Islamic Republic and prevent the rising power of what the U.S. government calls “the Shia crescent.”

Simultaneous concerns make Sadr city a tripwire. TheU.S. and Iran are locked in a diplomatic impasse overIran’s nuclear program, the Arab-Israeli peaceprocess, Iran’s support for Hezbullah and Hamas, and more recently, allegations that Iran is supplying theIraqi insurgency with sophisticated roadside bombs that kill American troops. As a result, any shift, real or imagined, in regional tectonics can triggerthe Sadr city tripwire. With perception shaping facts and fear driving policy, the slightest spark in Sadrcity can get magnified into a firestorm that will burn much more than Baghdad.

Although Iranian officials have vehemently denied it, the legal justification for a military strike against Iran will be the allegation that Iranian leaders are providing a terrorist base for Muqtada Sadr and the Mahdi Army. Providing a terrorist base for Bin Ladenand al-Qaeda was the argument used to justify the invasion of Afghanistan.

Single-handedly, President Bush has converted Muqtada Sadr into a giant. A political neophyte dismissed by Iraqis as a zatut (an ignoramous), lacking religious standing or academic credentials, condemned for issuing fatwas sanctifying looting in Baghdad and suspected of the murder of Ayatollah Khoei’s son, Muqtada Sadr would not have a tongue or a leg to stand on were it not for his ability to conceal his own crimes under a vast pool of blood. After every military confrontation-- even those where the Mahdi’s army incurred heavy losses in Najaf and Karbala in 2004--he has been able to capitalize on the corpse of the dead to boost his power, popularity and prestige. Poor political and military decisions have provided Sadr and the insurgency with the arguments and ammunition—the martyrs--to undermine the legitimacy of the much cooler, albeit Iranian, Grand Ayatollah Sistani.

Frankly, it is not American troops but Ayatollah Sistani, who has kept the peace in Iraq by preventing its descent into a full-scale civil and religious war. He rejected Mr. Bremer’s plan to rule Iraq by fiat with a fatwa drawing on his religious authority to convert the price of Islamic ideals of innocence and justice into constitutional principles investing the state with a fig leaf of political legitimacy. He has stood between the US military and Iraq’s Shia majority by drawing on his immense following to put a lid on Muqtada Sadr’s extremism.

The Ayatollah ejected Sadr and his turbulent army out of Najaf with a local “security plan” that flooded the city with peaceful demonstrations. He risked his religious legitimacy and standing to sanctify a tenuous democracy and peace by facing down aggression and stupidity from all sides. Without his calls for restraint and reconciliation, everyone in Iraq—Sunni and Shia, Arab and Kurd, American and British--would be drowning under a sea of blood. He is Iraq's Gandhi, capable of transcending sectarian hatred with his spiritual authority. Yet, despite the presence of a religious figure, a Gandalf who has held not only Iraq, but life itself intact, with nothing more than the authority invested in his religious staff, President Bush appears intent on pushing the Ayatollah, Iraq and the region into a deeper abyss with his plan to have American soldiers leap into a hornet’s nest—Sadr city.

By risking a confrontation with Muqtada Sadr and Iran, the Bush administration is making Sadr city the focal point for a full scale Shia insurgency. He will trigger a civil, regional and ideological war which Ayatollah Sistani and conservative clerics in Najaf have been able to prevent. A massacre in Sadr city would permit Muqtada Sadr and his death squads to undermine the religious authority of Ayatollah Sistani and shatter the political authority of Prime Minister Al-Maliki. As the political and military base of the Mahdi’s army, Sadr city will become the seat of resistance against US military occupation. Baghdad and Basra, and quite possibly Najaf and Karbala would get drawn into an insurgency that would draw Iran and the U.S. closer to war. Without barriers separating extremists from the majority of Iraq’s Shia, the U.S.’s military and political position in Iraq would crumble. Everyone would lose.

A sudden U.S. panic attack in the heart of Baghdad is a poor substitute for a diplomatic and political transition based on a dignified and deliberate withdrawal plan that has local, regional and international support. A setback in Sadr city would present Bush with two choices: a precipitous withdrawal that would draw regional powers into open confrontation in Iraq, or a rapid regional escalation that would do to the U.S. what the invasion of Afghanistan did to the Soviet empire. Either way, Bush is leading America into another dangerous trap—a tripwire that can make faith in the dollar and democracy plummet faster than the ruble and communism.

Unravelling The US Political-Military Paradox

March 29, 2007

By Jim Kirwan

What got us into this nightmare was a lengthy string of mega-lies that originated within the twisted plans of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, back in the 1970’s. The U.S. presidents that have come and gone since then, have each played their part, in bringing us kicking and screaming to this decision point. There are several major parallax-views that have led the public to misunderstand and misinterpret the political events and military actions in the Middle-East: Actions that have kept our invasions going, and that now threaten to up-end the world—if these lies are allowed to serve, yet again; for another cover-story that can only end in chaos!

The November elections set the stage for this final confrontation between the desires of the public and the needs of the Outlaws: when it comes to funding and perpetuating our illegal and unilateral military responses to circumstances and to the control of those powers and resources that have become the global stance which has always underpinned the players in their intrigues in the Middle-East. Many nations now are involved to the point of self-extermination in the literal outcomes of how our continued presence there is handled.

It has taken almost forty years to get to the point where the United States government could be reduced from a single government consisting of three branches—to a cabal that has absolute power and that speaks for not only the other two branches, but who is totally opposed to the preferences and the well-being of the people of the United States as well!

One indication of this paradox is the recent behavior of Nancy Pelosi, in her capacity as the Speaker of the US House of Representatives. If George W. Bush launches a pre-emptive war on Iran, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will bear full moral responsibility for that war; and her hands will always have the bloodstains of millions of lives upon them – so long as she lives!

“For it was Pelosi who quietly agreed to strip out of the $100 billion funding bill for Iraq a provision that would have required President Bush to seek congressional approval before launching any new war on Iran. "'It would take away perhaps the most important tool the U.S. has when it comes to Iran,' she said of the now-abandoned provision.

"'I don't think it was a very wise idea to take things off the table if you're trying to get people to modify their behavior and normalize in a civilized way,' said Gary Ackerman of New York." According to John Nichols of The Nation, Pelosi's decision to strip the provision barring Bush from attacking Iran without Congress' approval "sends the worst possible signal to the White House."

"The speaker has erred dangerously and dramatically," writes Nichols. Her "disastrous misstep could haunt her and the Congress for years to come." Nichols does not exaggerate.

If Bush now launches war on Iran, he can credibly say Congress and the Democrats gave him a green light. For Pelosi, by removing a provision saying Bush does not have the authority, de facto concedes he does have the authority. Bush and Cheney need now not worry about Congress. They have been flashed the go-sign for war on Iran.

Nothing in the provision would have prevented Bush, as commander in chief, from responding to an Iranian attack or engaging in hot pursuit of an enemy found in Iraq. Nor would the provision have prevented Bush from threatening Iran. It would simply have required him to come to Congress -- before launching all-out war. Now Pelosi has, in effect, ceded Bush carte blanche to take out Iran's nuclear facilities. It's all up to him and Cheney.” (1)

The Second Indication that something is dangerously amiss – are the numbers in the surge. The original demand was for 21,000. That number has since been added to, twice; and now it looks more like 40,000 total. There was never any attempt to comply with the wishes of the electorate or the congress, because the Decider acted immediately upon the announcement of his stated decision – as though no approval was required, from either the people or the congress: This, despite the fact that the public, the congress, and the world had all registered strong disapproval for his plans from the moment he announced them. If The Decider is determined to ‘act as a president and not a Dictator—he has a direct obligation to respond to obvious opposition, with something besides contempt!

But that’s only a sideshow: The real point is how these ‘surged’ troops will now be used. The Decider says they will be assigned to Baghdad. But it’s far more likely that these are the same troops that a Russian Satellite has just spotted, massing along the Iran border with Iraq—troops that will now be used to pre-emptively invade Iran. (2) Bush is lying to the world one more time, to create yet another WAR-Without-Reason: except of course to keep him, his friends, and his supporters out of jail and still in office—until he can disappear into Paraguay, without a backward glance. He’s lied to the world so many times before, what’s one-more-LIE, when the world has apparently swallowed so many of his lies already?

The Third Indication is the immediate reactions by those in the area, to what is obviously about to be. There were supposed to be US war games taking place yesterday and today in the Gulf: last night the media had “film at eleven” of two US aircraft carriers conducting war-games just beyond the territorial limits of Iran, in the Gulf. An Iranian Admiral has just denied that any such actions ever happened. (3) The Brits are also making warlike noises over the detention of 15 British Sailors and Marines, captured by Iran, in what Iran claims were Iranian waters. Tony Blair says otherwise and is demanding their release. So now there are two clay pigeons sitting outside or inside Iran either or both of which can be used as the next “Tonkin Gulf incident” for Iran.

The Fourth Paradox is perhaps the most complex and dangerous element: yet in an ironic twist of potentials, this one may just offer a possible way out, if it doesn’t become the actual reason to launch this operation—for in the twisted minds of the rabid American and Israeli war-mongers they absolutely want these new wars to happen!

“DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: The president of the United Arab Emirates forbade the U.S. military from using bases in his country to attack or spy on Iran as mammoth U.S. Navy maneuvers in the Gulf entered their second day. Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who leads this key U.S. ally, said Tuesday that the Emirates had assured Iran that it was not siding with Washington in its dispute over Tehran's nuclear program.

Leaders of Arab nations around the Gulf have grown increasingly uneasy with the tough U.S. stance toward Iran, believing any outbreak of war would bring Iranian retaliation on their own soil, which lies in easy reach of Iranian missiles. On Wednesday, the U.S. Navy continued its largest show of force in the Gulf since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, with 15 ships, 125 aircraft and 13,000 sailors taking part in an exercise that veered within a few dozen miles of Iran's coast.” (4) However it should be noted that Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey, along with a host of other states would also be drawn, one way or another, into any new war on Iran.

“The Russians and the Chinese for their part are also concerned, beyond their strictly commercial interests in that nation. “Russia's Foreign Ministry has sharply criticized the United States for what it called over-reliance on force and warned Washington against military action against Iran, The Associated Press reported. Russia criticized what it called "the creeping American strategy of dragging the global community into a large-scale crisis around Iran," saying that Tehran helps maintain stability in Afghanistan and Central Asia.” In an already scrubbed report, Russian and China had also warned the US that Washington must sit down at the table with Iran and solve this dilemma diplomatically. Simultaneously they also told Iran that they needed to back down from their hard line position on developing nuclear facilities. It would appear that these two major nuclear powers want this stand-off defanged, so that the world can return to that time before the USA began to behave like the Hulk-of-all-Superpowers that has become overly enchanted with their own purely-macho approach to international affairs.

This is the totality of what’s on the table now, and thanks to Nancy Pelosi, there is no congressional way to stop the Bushwhackers from shattering the Middle-East—like the proverbial Piñata that floats above the banquet-table of the war-mongers—drooling over the ‘possibilities’ that await their next and perhaps final move to empower Israel, and to capture the entire Middle-East, for the Corporatocracy and the Oil, in a bold and savage move.

The only final Paradox that remains, is that in all of this American Military planners have failed to account for what they may actually face with this new attack—exactly as they did when Rummy ran his dog & pony show into Baghdad in 2003. No matter how many times the lies of this administration are repeated—it does not make them true! As the intensity of the bloodlust in their greed does not insure success; so too the half-hearted assessments of the defense of Iran, will not change the outcomes of the trajectories of Iranian missiles one iota. If this misguided and criminal attack gets underway—at any time—the world will suffer for this crime: for decades to come if any of us survive at all. Congress is now irrelevant—again—but the rest of the planet is apparently awakening to the reality that now threatened people everywhere. Why not add your voice to those of the other peoples that oppose this Nightmare NOW! (6)

kirwanstudios@sbcglobal.net

1) The AIPAC Girl, Nancy Pelosi Leaves Iran War in Bush/Cheney Hands

http://www.postchronicle.com:80/commentary/article_21270952.shtml

2) Russian intelligence sees U.S. military buildup on Iran border

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20070327/62697703.html

3) Iran Admiral – US War Games Claims – False

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=4137&sectionid=3510101

4) Gulf Arabs distance themselves from U.S. Treats against Iran

http://www.iht.com:80/articles/ap/2007/03/28/africa/ME-GEN-Arabs-US-Iran.php

5) Easter Surprise Attack on Iran, new 9/11. . . Or Worse

http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com:80/node/1052

6) Accept Peace or Face War, Israel told

http://mparent7777.blogspot.com/2007/03/accept-peace-plan-or-face-war-israel.html

War with Iran will destroy U.S. and the world

The Herald-Dispatch
OPINION

Peter Chamberlin

March 29, 2007

The neocon plan for world domination goes on. Even without former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and all the other key players, the violent plan to remake the Middle East in our image is now shifting into a higher gear. If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of a clock counting down. Bush is running out of time.

The majority of the American people think that the war in Iraq has been a series of "mistakes" that have destabilized the region and have given Iran a big boost. People such as Dick Cheney insist that all is going swimmingly. They deny that anyone can stop them from doing whatever they please; the will of the American people does not matter. The war will expand into Iran, regardless of the will of the people.

There are now so many lit fuses leading into Iran that an explosive confrontation in the very near future is almost certain. The crisis of the British sailors held -- in retaliation for the U.S. grabbing an Iranian general and arresting diplomats -- will be resolved in days, according to Tony Blair. American/Israeli-sponsored Sunni terrorist groups, operating out of Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan (Kurdish PPK, Saddam's MEK and Pakistani Balochs) have been staging bomb attacks in Iranian cities with significant civilian casualties.

UN sanctions against Iran might carry military penalties. Israeli reports dwell on the need to destroy Iranian reactors before they are fueled. Congress caved to the Israeli-American lobby and dropped efforts to block new unauthorized wars.

While Congress and the American people are distracted by the sleight of hand that the mainstream media calls "the surge," the real surge is set to take place in the Persian Gulf.

European sources report high-level governmental leaks that the war with Iran is set to commence in April. Middle Eastern sources report the same. Whenever it begins, the entire world will fall apart when it does, as the Middle East goes up in flames and the global economy is destroyed by $100-per-barrel oil.

Supporters of immediate military action to disarm Iran and to overthrow the mullahs have fully bought into the incendiary propaganda onslaught from the mainstream media.

They believe that Iran (like Iraq before it) really represents a credible threat to the U.S. They accept the idea of America fighting Israel's wars for it. Their blind loyalty causes them to strike out at anyone who dares to challenge the president's bloody losing strategy in the war. They want us to follow Bush, no matter what, even if he leads us over a cliff. They equate loyalty to a counterfeit hero, to patriotism.

Patriots would not allow any leader to destroy our democratic constitutional republic.

If the lost president cannot be reeled in by the American people or by his own dad, he will destroy everything that he has claimed to champion.

If either Israel or the United States is allowed to bomb Iran, then the little war that we call Iraq will be seen as the long-running "firefight" that it really is (not a real war between two military powers).

At that time, the political divisions that keep us Americans at each others' throats today will fall away as democracy falls to martial law, and freedom dies at our own hand.

Click here to add your view to this story

Copyright © 2005 The Herald-Dispatch

Betrayed!

March 24, 2007

By Cindy Sheehan

THE DEMOCRATS ARE FUNDING IRAQ ESCALATION: The Democratic leadership has proposed $100 billion of supplemental funding for an increased troop presence in Iraq. The leadership opted for the "slow bleed" policy over a month ago. This extends the occupation for at least another 18 months, and allows permanent placement of troops thereafter for “training” or “combating terrorism”. It also will permit the Bush Administration to initiate a war with Iran without Congressional oversight. The surge of 20,000 troops recently increased to 30,000 and will likely increase to 100,000 by year-end. Will the hapless Democrats then claim, “If only I knew then what I know now” as they have for the past year?

The “slow bleed” policy has some toothless requirements for presidential assertions of progress like those we’ve heard for the past four years from the Administration; these reporting requirements allow “slow bleed” proponents to make the preposterous claim they are “ending the war” by funding it. Amendments that would require withdrawal of US forces this year, the policy overwhelming favored by Americans, and the troops themselves, are not even being allowed for a vote by the leadership! The shameless short-term purpose of the Democratic policy is to embarrass Republicans with a Senate filibuster of the supplemental, or a presidential veto, and the longer-term aim is to help Democrats in the 2008 election by saddling the Republicans with intervention in an untenable civil war.

In 2002 the Democrats authorized Bush to invade Iraq (or any other country he deemed to support terrorism, for example Iran) in hope he would become involved in an unpopular war which would produce a Democratic White House. The Democrats 2007 policy is equally political, and may have the paradoxical effect of producing Republican victories in 2008. The prolongation of the occupation is now opposed by two-thirds of all Americans; we want our troops safely home by this Christmas, not political chicanery. As a consequence Americans now think even more poorly of Congress than ever; the failure to withdraw from Iraq dropped Democratic support of Congress from 44% to 33% according to the latest Gallup poll. The Democrats failure to stem what has become a Democrats war will be a factor in the 2008 elections.

A year ago 72% of the troops in Iraq said all troops should come home in 2006 but politicians did not heed their message. How much better we would be if our support included listening to them. Not another drop of blood should be spilled to protect cowardice by both political parties.

AMERICANS WANT TROOP WITHDRAWAL: The Democratic leadership has disregarded national polls showing that 60% of all Americans and 80% of Democratic voters oppose the increase troop levels in Iraq. Grassroots progressive organizations overwhelmingly oppose the occupation of Iraq and the recent escalation. One group closely allied to the Democratic leadership, MoveOn, has used antiwar sentiment to triple both its membership and fundraising, but has been AWOL from antiwar activity; its members are prohibited from demonstrations, and only vigils for the war dead are posted as events on their website. A month ago I wrote that MoveOn began efforts to support "slow bleed" while antiwar forces actively opposed it. Recently MoveOn fabricated a biased push-poll in which “85%” of respondents supported “slow bleed”; however, the 96% of the MoveOn members who favor withdrawal, and who were not offered a vote on that option, refused to participate in a sham. Congressional sources report that the spurious MoveOn poll, together with intensive bullying and bribing, was used to erode the principled opposition of congressional progressives.

A reliable poll conducted by True Majority, another group with progressive membership, found that only 24% favored the “slow bleed” policy while 76% favored immediate or near-term withdrawal. A Zogby poll sponsored by CODEPINK found that 90% of progressives/liberals favored near-term withdrawal. 96% of progressives question the push-poll used by MoveOn that gave such contrary results. Antiwar groups that fought for withdrawal (United for Peace and Justice, Progressive Democrats of America, US Labor Against the War, After Downing Street, Democrats.com, Peace Action, Code Pink, Democracy Rising, True Majority, Gold Star Families for Peace, Military Families Speak Out, Backbone Campaign, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Voters for Peace, Veterans for Peace, the Green Party) are irate at the MoveOn duplicity.

MoveOn is now raising funds from antiwar supporters to attack Senate opposition to the supplemental., but the activist community is now aware that MoveOn is not the cathartic needed to address Democratic Party constipation. There is at least one Democratic senator, Russ Feingold, who could oppose the funding farce. eli@moveon.org, Namrita.Chaudhary@gmail.com , tom@moveon.org, and you can unsubscribe! You also can refuse to lend them your name (their petitions are mainly for fund-raising), your efforts, and your money, and instead join with one of the many active progressive and antiwar organizations (check out United for Peace and Justice- UFPJ for a detailed listing of local and national groups, which incidentally does not include MoveOn). None of the MoveOn leadership has served their country in the armed forces; like Dick Cheney and 95% of Congress they had more important things to do, which did not and do not include supporting the troops that are in harms way. MoveOn is an autocratic organization run by a small group of elitist wannabe power-brokers; it cannot be reformed, but you can let their politburo know your feelings

The “slow bleed” strategy favored by the Democratic leadership and MoveOn is an immoral political calculation that will cause more heartache and disaster in Iraq. That leadership should understand that being perceived as “weak on principle” is much worse politically than being “weak on defense”. Democratic politicians need to vote their conscience on the supplemental. On November 7^th we voted for an antiwar, anti-Bush policy; make that vote count for peace.

Please tell the Democratic leadership: Bring Our Troops Home Now!

Please visit the Gold Star Families for Peace Website

"The Surge of Baghdad Should Become the Surge on Washington" - Fmr. UN Iraq Mission Chief

Friday, March 23rd, 2007
"The Surge of Baghdad Should Become the Surge on Washington" - Fmr. UN Iraq Mission Chief Hans Von Sponeck

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Hans Von Sponeck - the former coordinator of the United Nations Humanitarian Mission in Iraq - joins us in our firehouse studio to talk about the troop surge in Baghdad, House and Senate bills on war funding, the 13-year sanction regime in Iraq and more. Von Sponeck is author of "A Different Kind of War: The UN Sanctions Regime in Iraq." [includes rush transcript]

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On Capitol Hill, a Senate committee has approved a one hundred twenty two billion-dollar war spending bill that calls for President Bush to pull combat troops out of Iraq by next spring. The House plans to vote on a similar bill later today. Bush has threatened to veto both bills if they contain a deadline for withdrawal. The legislation comes as the United States enters its fifth year of the occupation of Iraq.

Yesterday, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon made a surprise visit to Baghdad. During a joint news conference with Iraq's Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, the UN chief said he might boost the United Nations" presence in Iraq because of improved security. Moments later the news conference was interrupted by a rocket that exploded just fifty yards away from the meeting. The blast shook the building and sent Ban Ki Moon ducking for cover behind a podium. The UN chief had earlier arrived on his first visit to Baghdad since he took office in January this year.

Today we are joined by a former UN official who lived in Iraq before the US invasion. Hans Von Sponeck has been a fierce critic of the war. In the late 1990s, he was the coordinator of the United Nations Humanitarian Mission in Iraq. He resigned in protest over the UN sanctions regime. He is also a former Assistant Secretary General of the UN. Hans Von Sponeck has new book is out titled "A Different Kind of War: The UN Sanctions Regime in Iraq."

• Hans Von Sponeck, a former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations. In the late 1990s, he was the coordinator of the United Nations Humanitarian Mission in Iraq. His new book is titled "A Different Kind of War: The UN Sanctions Regime in Iraq."

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RUSH TRANSCRIPT

AMY GOODMAN: Today we’re joined by a former U.N. Official who lived in Iraq before the U.S. invasion. Hans Von Sponeck has been a fierce critic of the war. In the late 1990's he was the coordinator of the United Nations humanitarian mission in Iraq. He resigned in protest over the U.N. Sanctions Regime. He’s also Former Assistant Secretary General of the U.N. and has written a new book, it is called A Different Kind of War: The U.N. Sanctions Regime in Iraq. Welcome to Democracy Now!

HANS VON SPONECK: Good morning Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. First, the situation. You just saw--heard the explosion as the new U.N. Secretary General was announcing there seems to be increased stability, and maybe that a larger U.N. mission may come into Iraq.

HANS VON SPONECK: It gave him a first hand opportunity to understand how volatile the situation is in Iraq, and I hope it leads him to the conviction that less violence and more peace initiatives on the part of the United Nations might be the answer, rather than a surge in troop levels. I very strongly feel there should be a surge in the willingness in the U.S. Congress to insist that the United Nations, the role of the international community should be strengthened and the troops should come home with respect and honor, if that is still possible, as soon as possible.

JUAN GONZALEZ: What is the role of the U.N. right now in Iraq. Given, obviously it has to be very limited, anything can do, but what are U.N. personnel doing, if anything there?

HANS VON SPONECK: The United Nations staff, 55 of them, that’s all, are confined to the Green Zone and to Amman. From a distance they look at an Iraq that is crumbling. They can do very little. They do human-rights reporting. They have a small number of projects, but essentially they are confined to that limited space for reasons of security. In fact, most of the staff that Ban Ki-moon has allowed to be in Iraq is security-related staff. So it’s a holding operation. The U.N. Flag can fly, but it flies very timidly.

AMY GOODMAN: Of course the U.N. mission there was blown up. What was the effect of that?

HANS VON SPONECK: It was a massive demoralization for the United Nations, and Mr. Kofi Annan was right in taking the staff out, as painful as this is.

AMY GOODMAN: Sergio De Millo, the head of the mission killed.

HANS VON SPONECK: He was killed in my office. This is the office I occupied from the time I served in Baghdad. So I know the environment very well. It didn’t come as a surprise. It was the weak, the soft underbelly of the United Nations building area in Baghdad. And it’s a tragedy it happened, but out of that should be a United Nations that is more and more determined to encourage dialogue, rather than support an ill-fated attempt to solve problems in Iraq with military muscle.

JUAN GONZALEZ: In your book, A Different Kind of War, you actually get into the entire period of the sanctions in Iraq, and you document quite a bit of information, that I don’t think--certainly most Americans are not aware of. But I was especially interested -- we were talking before the show about the United Nations Compensation Committee, a commission that was set up to--after the Persian Gulf War. And you had quite a few examples there of what appear at least on the surface to be of questionable awards that were given out, plus it was a huge amount of money that was involved. Can you talk about that whole Compensation Commission?

HANS VON SPONECK: Well you know I don’t want to come across here as a vindictive person. The intention of this book was to shed light on a very dark chapter of United Nations by honestly identifying facts. And among these dramatic facts is one which is hardly known, certainly very little known in the U.S., and that is at a time when an increasing number of people were dying, particularly children, the United Nations agreed to pay out $18 billion U.S. dollars. That’s a lot of money. The total value of what came into Iraq during the entire Oil For Food Program, in terms of supplies, $28 billion. So, if you withhold $18 billion, that is a lot, that could have saved a lot of lives. That is bad enough.

What is worse is that many of these compensation claims were fraudulent. The U.N. discovered some, others were overlooked and paid out. There was a claim from the government of Jordan for having helped transiting guest workers to go home for $8.2 billion U.S. dollars, 8.2. The U.N. in the end awarded $79 million, less than a percent of what was asked for. The Iraqi money was like a cow that one could milk eternally in order to please governments that need the money while Iraqis back home were dying in large numbers. There are others examples, but maybe this would go to far on this occasion.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s very relevant to look at the Sanctions Regime against Iraq, given what is being proposed for Iran right now. Major powers have readied a draft resolution, to slap new punitive sanctions on Iran with the U.N. Security Council vote expected on Saturday, as Tehran remains defiant over its nuclear program. According to Agence France-Presse, a western diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity said the draft was expected to receive overwhelming support. Talk about the Regime of Sanctions and what it meant. I mean, people see what is happening in Iraq right now as horrific. You describe a very bad situation before the bombing of George Bush of 2003.

HANS VON SPONECK: You know, the sanction cheese in Iraq had many holes. The sanction cheese for Iran has bigger holes. It may look interesting on paper, but in terms of the reality for implementation, we are living today in a totally different situation. The world is more polarized than it ever was in the days of the sanctions against Iraq, but let me just pause here and say -- the comprehensive economic sanctions that Iraq endured isn’t what is proposed for Iran. It’s more a political—a political threat to the Iranians rather than a direct punishment of the people, as it was the case in Iraq.

Moreover, we must remember, the world of 2007 is not the world of the Iraq sanction time. There are new constellations, new organizations are springing up in protest over what I would call, as a friend of the U.S., I would call it the “Western One-way Street”, while in fact it is mainly an American highway on which we have traveled that the world is no longer to accept.

So the sanction package against Iran -- it may be a small -- I don’t think it is -- political victory for the U.S. to get a sanction resolution through the Security Council, but in terms of the implications for Iran as a whole, it will have limited, limited value.

AMY GOODMAN: You, in talking about Iraq today, are clearly saying that the U.N. is involved in supporting violent solutions. What exactly are you saying?

HANS VON SPONECK: The United Nations is painful for me as a person who believes in the U.N., who has served 32 years in that organization, was indeed an ally of bilateral policies that initially meant containing the country, and later in the last years of the Clinton Administration and very much since then, was a policy of punishment; punishing a people for enduring a dictator. A very strange logic here, but we could have in Baghdad, done whenever we wanted to do.

The government could have cooperated with the Security Council. It would have made no difference because the key word in this equation was regime change. So, as long as Saddam Hussein and his government were in power, no chance to do something else--Mr. Negroponte in a hearing in the U.S. Congress some time ago said, our first concern were weapons of mass destruction. We were interested with the peoples’ of welfare, but that was clearly a second priority.

That was the approach and the U.N. went along with this. And why am I mentioning it? Because I think it is very relevant in the debate about the kind of United Nations that we want to have, that we need, that the U.S. needs, as much as my country, Germany, or anyone else around the world, in these 192 member countries.

We need to take into account what happened in Iraq in debating the U.N. reform needs of today and tomorrow. And if we do this, then we do justice to the demand of political accountability. This is not looking to the future. Yes, we must look to the future. That’s demand from European politicians and American politicians is important, but not without looking back to understand what happened and to hold those on both sides of the fence. You have, I don’t want to talk too long here, but I want to say you have in Iraq a very strange reality. You have two perpetrators. You have Saddam Hussein, who has committed crimes against his people, but you also have, tragically enough, you have a United Nations that has equally become the perpetrator in harming, punishing, because of a faulty, I am afraid to say, U.S.-led, British-led, Spanish, Italian-led policy in the Security Council.

JUAN GONZALEZ: I am curious, in the period before you stepped down from your post, what kind of conversations you may have had with other leaders of the United Nations, or Kofi Annan directly about the concerns about the U.N.'s role and what their response was. Obviously they were aware that--of the negative role that the United States and Great Britain and some of the other great powers are playing. What kind of conversations did you have?

HANS VON SPONECK: Mr. Kofi Annan at all times has the heart in the right place, but he didn’t have enough muscle to succeed in convincing the Security Council that the rhetoric in the council that was always pro-people, that always recognized the plight of the Iraqi people, should translate and be provided equipped with the political will to bring about changes that would be more focused on the perpetrators, in this case the government of Iraq, rather than on innocent civilians. He knew that. Mr. Kofi Annan at no time forgot that. But, a multi-lateral diplomat is impotent vis-à-vis the powers of the day, if they have a different design. And the tragedy is that it is a 15-country security council that was overwhelmingly dominated by the United Kingdom and the United States, and the international community allowed this to happen.

AMY GOODMAN: You are here in United States. You return to Germany tomorrow. You have been here at a genocide conference at Columbia University in New York. As you watch the coverage of what happened—what is happening today, there is going to be a vote in congress for supplemental money, more than $100 billion, to--for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Your thoughts?

HANS VON SPONECK: I want to tell you that we are very carefully watching in Europe what is being debated in Washington. And we cannot fully comprehend why this courageous woman, Nancy Pelosi, isn’t making more progress among her colleagues on both sides of the fence. Why there are still republicans who can argue that it is a betrayal of the U.S. troops. I sympathize with these poor male and female G.I.s that have to serve in Iraq, but it is incomprehensible to me that there are still voices that insist that the way to go forward is to increase the troop levels, to maintain a policy that will leave in Afghanistan and in Iraq, to total disaster. This is not winnable. You cannot do what is intended to be done. Democracy and human rights and progress and development cannot be parachuted over Kabul or Iraq. And why is it? I don’t have an answer. Why is it that so many members of the U.S. Congress still maintain that the old policies can remain intact and should be implemented?

AMY GOODMAN: If the U.S. troops pulled out today?

HANS VON SPONECK: Can there be more chaos in Iraq than there is already? I am—I have links to people who have links to the resistance. The resistance says the Americans should talk to us. But if Ambassador Khalilzad in Baghdad talks to resistance people, the real resistance leaders start laughing. Because they say you are not talking to the right people. So, Condoleezza Rice should have her way. Mr. Cheney should not have his way. She should succeed in convincing her cabinet colleagues that the moment is to talk to each other. The moment is to talk to the resistance.

The moment is -- you mentioned the PKK sometime, a moment ago. And Hezbollah, Fatah, Hamas. They all belong around the table. You can no longer discuss an element of the Middle East crisis in isolation. It has to be -- I call it a strategy of a whole. Everybody belongs around the table and needs to be taken into account. We don’t recognize this, we will continue to waste money -- your money, our money, our good will, your people's lives, and I think that is a tragedy. And I hope that Nancy Pelosi and her colleagues will make headway in convincing republicans also to finally give up an un-winnable approach in dealing with the middle east.

JUAN GONZALEZ: You mentioned how in Europe people are watching very carefully what is happening here in the U.S. Congress. Obviously European governments -- several of them have gone through major changes since the start of the Iraq war. To what degree are the European nations doing what they should be doing in terms of standing up sufficiently? Clearly in Italy and Spain the climate has changed dramatically, but what can Europe do in terms of having an impact on American policy?

HANS VON SPONECK: The first order of priority in the European Union, of 27 countries, is to get our own act together, because we are very fragmented. There are many shades of opinion with regard to the Middle East situation, and there is no integrated foreign policy. And that plays into the very hands in the U.S. that should keep the hands off the political debate. The neoconservatives are trying hard to maintain this level of division in Europe, and the sooner our leaders in Europe recognize that, that they will play no role, that they will have a marginal impact at best, is--until they get their act together.

My own country in Germany, Mrs. Merkel, our chancellor is trying to repair the transatlantic damage. She tries very hard. But the fear that some of us have is that she tries at the expense of doing what needs to be done now and tell the friend across the Atlantic, tell Washington, as a friend, that the track, the road on which the U.S. Administration is traveling is leading to further disaster.

AMY GOODMAN: Hans Von Sponeck, I want to thank you very much for being with us. Former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, was the Chief of the U.N. Humanitarian Mission in Iraq, quit over the Sanctions Regime. And has now written a book now translated into English, A Different Kind of War: The U.S. Sanctions Regime in Iraq.

Iraq Surge Will Not Help, Say Americans

Angus Reid Global Monitor : Polls & Research

March 23, 2007

(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Many adults in the United States believe their government’s new strategy for the coalition effort will not be effective, according to a poll by Harris Interactive. 54 per cent of respondents think sending 20,000 troops to Iraq to fight the insurgents will not improve security, and 49 per cent think the policy is wrong.

The coalition effort against Saddam Hussein’s regime was launched in March 2003. At least 3,229 American soldiers have died during the military operation, and more than 24,100 troops have been wounded in action.

In December 2005, Iraqi voters renewed their National Assembly. In May 2006, Shiite United Iraqi Alliance member Nouri al-Maliki officially took over as prime minister.

On Jan. 10, U.S. president George W. Bush introduced his new course of action for the coalition effort, which includes an increase in U.S. troop levels. On Feb. 16, the House of Representatives voted 246-182 in favour of a non-binding resolution condemning Bush’s proposed strategy.

On Mar. 19, Bush discussed the current state of affairs, saying, "I want to stress that this operation is still in the early stages, it’s still in the beginning stages. Fewer than half of the troop reinforcements we are sending have arrived in Baghdad. The new strategy will need more time to take effect. And there will be good days, and there will be bad days ahead as the security plan unfolds."

Polling Data

The United States is sending about 20,000 troops to Iraq to fight the insurgents there. Do you think…?

This will improve security and reduce killings	26%
This will not improve security and reduce killings	54%
Not sure	19%

Still thinking about the 20,000 additional troops, do you believe this is the right thing or the wrong thing for the United States to do?

Right thing	29%
Wrong thing	49%
Not sure	21%

Source: Harris Interactive
Methodology: Online interviews with 2,223 American adults, conducted from Mar. 6 to Mar. 14, 2007. Margin of error is 2 per cent.

Troop surge on the sly

Article published Thursday, March 22, 2007

PERHAPS by releasing it in the middle of his five-nation tour of Latin America, President Bush hoped to downplay his revised request for more troops and money in Iraq. After all, it is customary White House strategy to fly under the news radar in hopes of minimizing press coverage of controversial developments.

The move worked to a degree when the President announced a higher "surge" in troops than what he called for in January. But his surprising statements did not go totally unnoticed - nor should they.

Apparently coming straight with the American people two months ago about what he was actually planning in terms of war funding and troop escalations in Iraq was too much to expect from Mr. Bush.

Instead of the 21,500 troops he asked for on Jan. 10, the President put the new "surge" number for both Iraq and Afghanistan at closer to 30,000. His latest plan is to send an additional 4,700 troops to Iraq, plus 3,500 to Afghanistan to counter an anticipated Taliban offensive this spring.

Where exactly the Bush Administration hopes to pull 8,200 more troops from a ridiculously stretched military is a big question. So is how Congress will react to a price tag of $3.2 billion, on top of the original $5.6 billion bill submitted in January.

The President's full request for money just to cover the rest of this year's fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan is nearly $100 billion. But already the White House spin has begun by urging lawmakers to prove their support for U.S. troops and the war on terror by approving the administration's latest proposals on demand.

"Anyone can say they support the troops and we should take them at their word," preached the vice president, "but proof will come when it's time to provide the money." And lest anyone think the President was being less than candid when he declared his original "surge" amount, Mr. Bush explained he was referring to only combat troops - not the thousands more needed in supporting roles.

The administration's shell game with the troop buildup is an outrage Congress should not tolerate any longer.

The alternative is to continue sacrificing American troops in futile missions without achievable goals and to continue sacrificing domestic needs to pay for them. Interestingly, even as the White House pushes for more troops, more funding, over perhaps more time in Iraq, U.S. military planners are reportedly working on a fallback strategy in case the President's policy yields poor results - again.

Do they know something Congress should learn before it begins debate on financing expanded, open-ended military action in Iraq?

When it comes to thousands of U.S. soldiers and billions of U.S. tax dollars, Americans deserve the whole story from their President.

Flim-flam

Monday, March 19, 2007

When Andrew Krepinevich briefed senior congressional staff on the government/military thinking behind the current "surge" at the end of February, what he left with them by way of "materials" was only a bullet-point outline. Colin Kahl tried to flesh out the presentation in his listserve essay that Juan Cole excerpted. The whole available package, such as it is, (bullet-point outline and Kahl essay) is available at smallwarsjournal.com. See also the two prior posts here.

What first jumps out at you is what Krepinevich very delicately called the "Roman option" (aka, on his p 21, the "Roman and Halliburton options"), which he glosses on page 4 as "massive retaliation", with the proviso that this is not likely to be implemented by the US "except in the most dire of circumstances". In expanding on the idea in his listserv essay, Kahl doesn't make the obvious point you would expect to hear, namely that this would involve war crimes and crimes against humanity, rather he says only that it is "incompatible with norms against targeting civilians embraced by the U.S. military and political leadership". You don't have to think back very far to remind yourself of the big difference between crimes against humanity and "norms...embraced by the US military and political leadership". Just think of the discussion about torture. In any event, this "massive retaliation" option is something that comes up in the Krepinevich briefing on counterinsurgency, and in the widely-circulated discussion that followed it. Widely-circulated, but of course we do not know who attended the briefing, or who is on the listserv that Kahl posted to, or who else has been in on the discussion.

That's point one: There has been a widely-circulated discussion of counterinsurgency doctrine and practices, and it included discussion of the "massive retaliation" option, tagging in only as something currently "incompatible with norms...", and not tagging it as a crime against humanity. Point two is that some of the same people are trying to promote another discussion, this one that the general public is being invited to participate in, and that has to do, importantly, not with counterinsurgency doctrine and practice, but rather with "civil war" doctrine and practice.

Here's where the flim-flam comes in. In the counterinsurgency discussions, the "massive retaliation" option is left hanging, something currently "not compatible with norms", or as the Krepinevich outline puts it: not likely to be implemented "except in the most dire of circumstances." The alternatives in this discussion are either (1) success of the current "COIN best practices" approach, or (2) what to do in the (very likely) event of failure. The discussion comes down to how to respond to a likely failure, and the last of Krepinevich's bullet-points on page 21, having discussed the decline in numbers and quality in the official US armed forces, reads: "Hired Guns: The Roman and Halliburton options" (where "Roman", as noted above, is Krepinevich's euphemism for massive retaliation against civilians).

The "civil war" discussion being proposed for public discussion in the vibrant American democracy, is a little different, in a big way. Kahl himself has published a version of this on the Foreign Policy magazine website, and it is quite interesting how this differs from the "counterinsurgency" discussion. The "civil war" options, Kahl says, are essentially two: (1) Stay, and take sides, by which he means side with the Shiite majority fighting Sunnis; or (2) withdraw, and provide only humanitarian or palliative assistance in things like ethnic relocation. (In other versions, there is also a third option, which is to withdraw to mega-bases and carry out the odd bombing raid here and there, as necessary, in order to maintain some degree of leverage in the outcome).

So the problem being proposed for urgent public discussion in the vibrant American democracy is a completely different problem from that being discussed in private by the policy elite. The policy elite is discussing what to do if America can't quell the resistance to its occupation using "best practices", and the options are to withdraw, or kick back and try the last-resort "Roman option", perhaps with the help of some "hired guns". The vibrant democracy is discussing what do do if the civil war continues, and the options are to withdraw, or stay and take sides. And curiously enough, what happens is that staying and taking sides (fighting Sunnis, in other words) is presented as something that is more in keeping with America's "moral obligations in Iraq", because having American soldiers along side Shiite forces "might be the only way to minimize atrocities". So when you boil it down, the policy-elite is discussing non-withdrawal in the interest of a last-resort scorched-earth policy by America, but at the same time presenting this as non-withdrawal in the interest of fulfilling America's moral obligation to help minimize atrocities.

That's the flim-flam. If you say "civil war" enough times, you create the illusion that America doesn't have a dog in the fight, and staying would be the only morally-right thing to do.

Who can we expect to beat the drum for this? That's what Krepinevich wanted to know. As he said on page 18 of his presentation: "The administration has lost control of the narrative, and lost popular confidence--who can/should explain the war to the American people?" That's easy, really: start with political scientists.

The road to 'freedom' is paved with blood

Patrick Cockburn: The road to freedom is paved with blood

In Arbil, the streets have been cleared of burned-out tanks and Saddam's troops. But they are more dangerous than ever

Published: 18 March 2007

Four years ago, in the middle of the US invasion, I drove safely from Arbil in northern Iraq to Baghdad. There were heaps of discarded weapons beside the road, and long lines of former Iraqi soldiers walking home. Signs of battle were few, aside from the hulks of burned-out tanks, but they all seemed to have been hit by US aircraft after their crews had fled.

If I tried to make the same journey today, I would be killed or kidnapped long before I reached Baghdad. Kurdish ministers in the Iraqi government dare not travel by road between the capital and their homeland. Three bodyguards of the Foreign Minister, Hoshyar Zebari, were ambushed and killed when they tried to do so a month ago.

Tony Blair and George Bush still occasionally imply that the picture of Iraq as a war-torn hell is an exaggeration by the media. They suggest, though not as forcibly as they did a couple of years ago, that parts of the country are relatively peaceful. Nothing could be more untrue.

In reality, the violence is grossly understated. The Baker-Hamilton report by senior Republicans and Democrats, led by James Baker, took a single day last summer, when the US army reported 93 acts of violence in Iraq, and asked American intelligence to re-examine the evidence. They found the real figure was 1,100 - the US military had deliberately understated the violence by factor of over 10.

Getting rid of Saddam Hussein was not going to be the main problem when the US and Britain invaded four years ago. His army would fall apart, as it had done in 1991 when he was expelled from Kuwait, because Iraqis simply would not fight for him. But the outcome of the invasion of 2003 was predictably different from the war in 1991, and not just because there is now a large American army in the heart of the Middle East, destabilising the whole region. US forces had not pressed on to Baghdad 16 years ago, partly because Washington did not want to see Saddam replaced by Shia religious parties with possible links to Iran. That is exactly what has happened now, because 60 per cent of the Iraqi population is Shia.

Less predictable was the disaster facing ordinary Iraqis. Most wanted rid of Saddam Hussein because they expected a better life after his fall. Since they had oil reserves comparable to Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Iraqis felt, why could they not have an equivalent standard of living to Saudis and Kuwaitis?

In fact almost every aspect of Iraqi day-to-day life has got worse over the last four years. In May 2003, people in Baghdad were getting 16 to 24 hours of electricity a day. Today the official figure is just six hours a day - and even that is on the optimistic side. In a city with one of the hottest climates in the world, it is catastrophic when fridges, freezers or air conditioners cannot be used.

There are 4.8 million Iraqi children under the age of five, who have lived most of their lives since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Unicef figures show that 20 per cent of them are so severely malnourished that their growth is stunted.

Under Saddam Hussein most Iraqis worked for the state. This worked well while he had oil revenues to pay them, but after 1990, UN sanctions meant that millions of people who had enjoyed a middle-class standard of living became totally impoverished, and four years ago more than half of Iraqis were unemployed. One of the worst scandals of the occupation is that they still are - although billions of dollars have been spent, billions were stolen.

For all the money supposedly being spent on developing the economy, there were no cranes to be seen in Baghdad except a cluster in the Green Zone, at work on a vast new American embassy.

But whatever the material failings of life, over the last four years it is the lack of security that has dominated everything else for Iraqis. By the end of 2003 I could already see mothers becoming hysterical at a school near my Baghdad hotel, because if they could not find their children they immediately feared that they had been kidnapped.

Since 2003, Iraqi life has become drenched by violence. Many Iraqis now carry two sets of papers, to pass through Sunni and Shia areas, but often it is not enough. The UN, using figures from Baghdad morgue and the Health Ministry, says 3,462 civilians were killed in Iraq in November and 2,914 in December. Many died at the hands of death squads, picked up on the street or caught at checkpoints.

The US troop reinforcements in Baghdad, the famous "surge", should make some difference to the casualty figures. But it is essentially a change in tactics masquerading as a change in strategy. Baghdad has fewer and fewer mixed Sunni and Shia districts. The Shia militias and Sunni insurgents have not disappeared, but are awaiting their moment to return.

People in Baghdad used to say that under Saddam Hussein, life was fairly safe if you kept out of politics. This was true of crime: during the war of 1991 I was once stranded in the semi-desert between Baghdad and Mosul when my car broke down, because the petrol in the tank had been watered down. I travelled on to Mosul, hitching lifts from farmers without any threat to my safety.

If I did that today, I would be stopped and probably murdered at one of the official or unofficial checkpoints on the road.

From Shock & Awe to the 'surge' without end

Four years ago this Tuesday, George Bush began his ill-fated Iraq campaign. Today's news that the US is sending an extra battalion to Baghdad will push troop levels to 160,000 - 10,000 more than at the time of the invasion

By Raymond Whitaker

Published: 18 March 2007

US troop levels in Iraq are set to rise higher than at any time since the war began four years ago, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

This summer, troop levels will top 160,000 - compared with the 150,000 there were at the time of the invasion.

As Britain prepares to pull 1,600 troops out of southern Iraq, the Pentagon has just obtained the agreement of the US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, to deploy an additional combat aviation brigade of 2,600, consisting of ground forces and a full complement of helicopters.

The brigade was due to go to Iraq in the summer as part of a regular rotation of troops, but is being sent in early to support the "surge" of American forces approved by President George Bush in January.

At that point the plan, aimed at bringing the insurgency in Baghdad and neighbouring Anbar province under control, called for an additional 21,500 combat troops to be sent to Iraq. But the figure has since crept up to nearly 30,000, with 2,200 military police being added to handle the higher number of people being detained in security sweeps, plus a further 2,400 combat and service-support personnel. Pentagon figures released on Friday show a total of 7,200 troops have been added to the "surge", taking the overall increase to 28,700.

According to the US military thinktank GlobalSecurity.org, there were 132,000 American ground troops in Iraq at the beginning of this year. When the reinforcements finish arriving by the end of June, the total will rise above 160,000, more than at any point in the past four years. Tuesday is the fourth anniversary of the start of the conflict with the "shock and awe" bombing of Baghdad.

In 2003, when the American-led coalition smashed its way to Baghdad in three weeks, there were never more than 150,000 US troops in the country. By March 2004, when Saddam Hussein was in custody and Mr Gates's over-confident predecessor, Donald Rumsfeld, was anticipating an early exit, the total slipped as low as 117,500. The only months the US deployment approached 160,000 were November and December 2005, when extra forces were in place during the national elections. Their numbers were reduced immediately afterwards, but the formation of a government has done nothing to quell the violence.

Last week the Pentagon admitted for the first time that there was civil war in parts of Iraq. Its assessment of the final quarter of 2006 was its bleakest ever, with record levels of violence. Attacks increased to more than 1,000 a week and average daily casualties rose above 140 - and those figures, the report admitted, are based purely on "violence observed by or reported to the US-led military coalition". The real extent of violence is likely to be much greater.

Describing worsening sectarian divisions, the report said: "Illegally armed groups are engaged in a self-sustaining cycle of politically motivated violence, using tactics that include indiscriminate bombing, murder, and indirect fire to intimidate people and stoke sectarian conflict."

Up to 9,000 civilians are fleeing the country each month as a result, according to the Pentagon. The UNHCR says that if internally displaced people are included, the figure rises to something like 50,000 a month.

This is the background to the "surge" operation, which began a month ago. American and Iraqi forces are attempting to "clear and hold" Baghdad, neighbourhood by neighbourhood.

"Once security forces have locked down an area," an official told the IoS, "we are applying a tailored combination of social, governance, economic and political measures. The aim is to take advantage of the temporary absence of insurgents, and render that absence permanent by 'hard-wiring them out' of the environment that they used to dominate.

"Then they may not be able to return, or if they do they will find greatly increased resistance and will stand out better against the background of the population, and it will be harder [for them] to operate."

Commanders claim there have been positive early results, with a decline in sectarian killings in Baghdad, although February saw a record number of bombings. They also admit that to some extent violence has simply been displaced outside the capital - on Friday, in Anbar province, two suicide truck bombers driving tankers filled with chlorine killed at least eight people south of Fallujah. About 350 civilians and six US troops were treated for chlorine gas exposure.

"Moving security forces into an insurgent area to 'shut it down' is like stamping on a puddle - the large pool of water disappears, but little splashes and spots radiate out from it," said the official.

"So if security operations are all you are doing, they will have local and temporary effects. Violence will decrease, but only where you are operating, and when you leave it will come back."

Major General William Caldwell, the most senior US military spokesman in Baghdad, said it would make "an incredible difference ... if the high-profile car bombs can be stopped or brought down to a much lower level". But the official warned that the bombers would remain difficult to stop until the mood of the population changed, and that would come, if at all, at the end of the operation.

While those conducting the operation stress the need for patience, the risk is that US troop losses will rise, strengthening the campaign in Washington for a pullout date to be set. So far this month 44 American soldiers have been killed, on course to match the 80 deaths in February and 83 in January. The belief in Baghdad, said the official, was that the US public would tolerate the losses, as long as there was a perception of progress being made: "What they hate are not lives lost, but lives wasted."

But the political side of the "surge" plan is going badly, according to the Pentagon and others. The Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is showing little enthusiasm for American attempts to reverse one of their own worst mistakes: the "de-Baathification" of the old regime, which removed thousands of Sunni military commanders and pushed them into the insurgency.

"In one sentence," the official concluded, "my take on the current situation is: 'Right strategy, great team, possibly too late.'"

A nation in ruins

2,000,000 Iraqis now live outside Iraq, according to UNHCR

12,000 doctors have fled Iraq since the war began. Another 2,000 are said to have been killed, and at least 250 kidnapped

50% Average inflation in 2006, according to the World Bank

6.3 hours of electricity daily in Baghdad in December 2006. In May 2003 there were 16-24 hours

32 percentage of people in Iraq with drinkable water

3,700,000 Iraqis now receive food aid from the UN World Food Programme

16% Proportion of Iraqis who said in January that their income meets their basic needs

The State of Iraq, an Update

Related













In this photo taken with a video camera, protesters of the Iraq war march near the Pentagon on Saturday, March 17, 2007, in Arlington, Va. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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March 18, 2007
Op-Ed Contributors
Op-Chart
By JASON CAMPBELL, MICHAEL O’HANLON and AMY UNIKEWICZ

Excerpt [Double click on image to enlarge]


There is a real glimmer of hope, but no proof of progress, from the surge so far.

Jason Campbell is a senior research assistant at the Brookings Institution in Washington. Michael O’Hanlon is a senior fellow at Brookings and the co-author of “Hard Power.” Amy Unikewicz is a graphic designer in South Norwalk, Conn.

Baghdad poll numbers show low confidence in security, government

Politics

Rowan Scarborough, The Examiner
Mar 14, 2007 3:00 AM (2 days ago)
Current rank: # 93 of 19,878

WASHINGTON - A confidential poll for the Iraq government shows Baghdad citizens harbor a bleak outlook for future security, while Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki suffers low job-approval ratings.

The door-to-door survey of more than 4,000 residents in Baghdad Province in mid-February showed only 3 percent of respondents said security had improved in their neighborhoods in the past three months. Just 10 percent said it will improve in the next three months.

Baghdad is the central focus of President Bush’s Jan. 10 reinforcement plan of more than 25,000 troops to quell sectarian and terrorist violence.

“These numbers are bad,” said a U.S. Army source, who read the poll results to The Examiner on condition of anonymity. “They are all in the tank.”

The Independent Institute for Administration and Civil Society Studies, an Iraqi firm, conducted the poll for the al-Maliki government. Al-Maliki uses the numbers to assess public support for his policies.

There is a caveat, the Army source said. Surveyors went door to door at a time when the new counterinsurgency plan had just begun. The military reports that attacks declined in March, a trend that could bring higher numbers in the next government-sponsored poll.

“We changed strategy in part to address these issues in the poll,” the Army source said.

The United States worries that a lack of public confidence in security measures could mean residents are less likely to cooperate in providing tips on insurgent activity.

But Brookings Institution military analyst Michael O’Hanlon said poor polls numbers do not always translate that way.

“Even if people are somewhat pessimistic, it doesn’t mean they will refuse to help or actively oppose the effort,” he said. “It’s just as likely that they will hope to be proven wrong in their sentiments and give Maliki and the surge another chance.”

The survey addressed issues such as security, government approval and Shiite militias.

Al-Maliki’s job approval stood at 34 percent, down from 45 percent last September before waves of Sunni-Shiite violence rocked the capital. The number, however, was an uptick from the prime minister’s 25 percent rating in December.

On security, 32 percent of citizens considered their neighborhoods secure, compared with 43 percent in September.

In a bright spot for al-Maliki, who says he has tried to curtail militias and associated death squads, only 23 percent of residents believe those paramilitaries make Baghdad safer, as opposed to 32 percent in September.

rscarborough@dcexaminer.com

Examiner