Dave Zirin’s Edge of Sports column this week points to a Super Bowl ad only available in the DC area — but one we all should have seen, featuring Iraq War vets calling for the troops to come home.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.) explains why the compromise resolution on Iraq may seem to be opposing the president’s surge plan while actually serving to endorse it.
Unfortunately, the new Warner-Levin resolution that many Democrats are pushing is flawed and unacceptable. It rejects the surge, but it also misunderstands the situation in Iraq and endorses the President’s underlying approach. It’s basically a back-door authorization of the President’s misguided policies, and passing it would be a big mistake. Under the guise of constructive criticism, the Warner-Levin resolution signs off on the President continuing indefinite military operations in Iraq that will not address the fundamental political challenges in Iraq, and that continue to distract us from developing a comprehensive and global approach to the threats that face our nation.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The Bush administration has released a summary of its most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq called “Prospects for Iraq’s Stability: A Challenging Road Ahead” and the news is pretty bleak.
While some are saying the report is another nail in the coffin for the Bush surge — Spencer Ackerman at TPM Muckraker points to this paragraph to support its contention that the NIE is anti-surge:
even if violence is diminished, given the current winner-take-all attitude and sectarian animosities infecting the political scene, Iraqi leaders will be hard pressed to achieve sustained political reconciliation in the time frame of this Estimate.
I wish I could read it this way, but the overall tenor of the summary continues along a delusional path. It is very clear that its authors think that removing troops will lead to greater chaos — though the report makes it clear, as well, that greater chaos is coming regardless.
Basically, the NIE summary is a product of the muddled thinking at the national level, the kind of flaccid false pragmatism that allowed the ideologues to drive this car over the cliff in the first place.
Anti-surgers like myself would do well to be careful to avoid the kind of cherrypicking of the NIE that has characterized the administration’s approach to intelligence.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
The Washington Post is reporting that the most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq will essentially confirm what everyone knows: That the country is aflame with sectarian strife and that those flames are only likely to grow hotter.
In a discussion of whether Iraq has reached a state of civil war, the 90-page classified NIE comes to no conclusion and holds out prospects of improvement. But it couches glimmers of optimism in deep uncertainty about whether the Iraqi leaders will be able to transcend sectarian interests and fight against extremists, establish effective national institutions and end rampant corruption.
The document emphasizes that although al-Qaeda activities in Iraq remain a problem, they have been surpassed by Iraqi-on-Iraqi violence as the primary source of conflict and the most immediate threat to U.S. goals. Iran, which the administration has charged with supplying and directing Iraqi extremists, is mentioned but is not a focus.
Expect both sides to point to the estimate as evidence that their position — getting out or sending in more troops — is the best course. )As anyone who has read this blog or any of my columns knows, I believe we need to leave.)
The estimate, however, offers nothing of the sort. Rather, it is just more evidence of how bad a blunder the invasion was in the first place.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
Senate Democrats — along with Republican Chuck Hagel of Nebraska — took the first step toward disentangling the nation from one of the greatest foreign policy mistakes in our history. It was a baby step, to be sure, a purely symbolic move with no teeth, but it stands as the most strenuous objection raised by the legislative branch since 2002.
According to The Washington Post,
The measure declares that increasing U.S. troop strength is not in America’s national interest. It calls an open-ended commitment in Iraq “unsustainable” and says Iraqi leaders and the United States should use political and diplomatic channels to end sectarian conflict and reduce regional interference in Iraqi affairs.
Sen. Richard Lugar, a Republican from Indiana who voted against the resolution, called it the equivalent of a soundbite and warned his colleagues that it
would be “the legislative equivalent of a sound bite,” would allow Congress to wash its hands of responsibility for the war and would weaken America’s standing in the eyes of foreign observers.
“We don’t need a resolution to confirm that there is broad discomfort” with the war, Lugar said. “If Congress is going to provide constructive oversight, they must get involved in the weeds” of the policy.
He’s partially right. Symbolic actions provide an important avenue by which we can frame the debate. But they must be accompanied by real action — in this case, a willingness to use the purse strings to force a phased withdrawal.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
Hank Kalet 