Iraq – Page 3 – Hank Kalet

Paying our war debts

This story is from the other day, but it bears mentioning. A bipartisan bill is on the table that would provide full scholarships to in-state public universities, along with housing costs, for any veteran who served at least three years in the armed forces. It also would give vets “15 years to use the benefit, instead of the current 10-year limit, and would set up a new government program that matches financial aid by more expensive private institutions, according to The Washington Post. The program is estimated to cost $51.8 billion over 10 years — not cheap,but the investment would pay significant dividends down the road.

And it’s the right thing to do, regardless of where one stands on the war.

“Meeting the needs of our veterans is a cost of war,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who described the bill as a “thank you” to the troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But there are some — Republicans “and even some members of the more fiscally conservative Democratic rank-and-file” — that are “balking at the cost,” while the military is worried that the legislation would encourage . would soldiers to walk away from the service.

The Pentagon has said that it’s open to boosting college aid, even substantially, for veterans but wants the commitment to extend to at least six years, instead of three, before the full benefit kicks in.

“The last thing we want to do is create a situation in which we are losing our men and women who we have worked so hard to train,” said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell.

But U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., one of the sponsors,

counters that his legislation would be more effective in attracting new recruits and would offset any drop in the military’s ranks.

“I can’t think of a better way to broaden (the) propensity to serve than to offer a truly meaningful educational benefit, rather than simply taking that smaller demographic” of those already enlisted “and pound on it” with repeated combat tours, he said.

More importantly, the people we are sending into war deserve more than the stop-loss program and IEDs.

“Visit Walter Reed,” said Marty Conatser, head of the American Legion, in a recent statement urging Congress to pass the bill. “War is expensive indeed and the bulk of that cost is paid for by the men and women who wear the uniform. Benefits are just a small, small cost of war.”

A cost we have a moral responsibility to pay.

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Chilling charges

There is something less than democratic about the charges being issued in this story. There were about 3,500 students participating in this march, but New Brunswick police only charged three — two being march organizers? Could this have more to do with what the march was protesting than with the breaking of laws? Just asking.

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Quotes of the day: From the readings

I’m reading a fine book by David Halberstam called “The Children” about the civil rights movement and have allowed myself to get behind on my magazine reading. Nonetheless, I’ve been able to read a few pieces here and there. Today’s quotations come from recent readings.

1. Howard Zinn, writing in the March issue of The Progressive (a piece that, as you’ll see, ties in nicely to the Halberstam book):

Historically, government, whether in the hands of Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, has failed its responsibilities, until forced to by direct action: sit-ins and Freedom Rides for the rights of black people, strikes and boycotts for the rights of workers, mutinies and desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war.

Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.

2. From “Winter Soldiers Speak,” by Laila Al-Arian, in the April 7 edition of The Nation:

“It’s criminal to put such patriotic Americans…in a situation where their morals are at odds with their survival instincts,” said Adam Kokesh, who served as a Marine sergeant in the raid on Fallujah in 2004.

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Debating by proxy

The candidates for president used yesterday’s appearance by Army Gen. David Petreaus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker to reopen the debate over Iraq and the fate of America’s soldiers.

The testimony offered by the two highest ranking Americans in Iraq was, to put it mildly, a bit optimistic — overly optimistic would still be fair — and oddly contradictory. Violence is rising again, the political situation in Iraq is a mess and the Iraqi government — the government we are allied with — is tilting toward Iran.

And yet, the administration’s front men still offer comments like this:

“Withdrawing too many forces too quickly could jeopardize the progress of the past year,” Petraeus testified. In the face of skeptical questioning, he added later: “We have the forces that we need right now, I believe. We’ve got to continue. We have our teeth into the jugular, and we need to keep it there.”

And also this, in response to Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio), who told Crocker that “the American people have had it up to here”:

“I appreciate the sense of frustration that you articulate,” Crocker said. “I share it. I kind of live it every day. I mean, the reality is, it is hard in Iraq. And there are no light switches to throw that are going to go dark to light.”

OK. So which is it? Are we making progress? Should we view what is happening in Iraq as positive? But then, what of the violence and borderline anarchy?

The interesting thing about the hearings — there were two — is that they gave the three major party candidates for president a chance to make points on an issue that will only grow importance as we get closer to November.

My sense, given my own position on this disaster, is that Hillary Clinton’s comments were the strongest, and should have been made much earlier in her campaign. Clinton voted for the war, after all, and has not done much to alleviate concern among antiwar Democrats about the vote.

Here is what she said:

“I think it could be fair to say that it might well be irresponsible to continue the policy that has not produced the results that have been promised time and time again at such tremendous cost.”

Barack Obama also was critical, but he hedged some, buying into the notion of a goal-oriented policy when what is needed is a full withdrawal with the mess being turned over the United Nations (on our dime, unfortunately). Obama

asked what constitutes victory. “I’m trying to get to an endpoint,” Obama said. If the goal for Iraq is set too high, U.S. forces could be there for decades, he said. “If on the other hand,” he said, “our criteria is a messy, sloppy status quo but there’s not, you know, huge outbreaks of violence — there’s still corruption, but the country is struggling along, but it’s not a threat to its neighbors and it’s not an al-Qaeda base — that seems to me an achievable goal within a measurable time frame.”

John McCain continues to drink the Kool-Aid, however:

“Should the United States instead choose to withdraw from Iraq before adequate security is established, we will exchange for this victory a defeat that is terrible and long-lasting.”

The New York Times used this quote, which taken with the above comment, sums up what I can only call a lack of judgment by McCain:

“We’re no longer staring into the abyss of defeat, and we can now look ahead to the genuine prospect of success,” Mr. McCain said.

There definitely is a hierarchy here — Clinton’s comment being the most forceful, McCain’s being the most divorced from reality — but none of the candidates addressed the real issue and none are likely to address what should be the primary issue leading into the election.

Essentially, all three candidates accept the notion of American exceptionalism. While all three candidates make some noise about re-establishing our relationships around the world, they also reserve the right to use U.S. military might to impose our belief system on the rest of the world.

Obama has been talking about what he is calling “traditional bipartisan realistic policy” that — as I wrote last week — is really nothing more than code for what Glenn Greenwald has consistently criticized as the conventional wisdom on foreign policy. And Clinton is no better — as her votes on the original Iraq war resolution in 2002 and Iran last year show.

The entire thing is depressing because it demonstrates that, despite the rhetorical sleight-of-hand being used by all the candidates, they remain wed to the status quo. We may not get four more years of George W. Bush, but we are not likely to get the kind of substantive change we need, regardless of who wins.

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Realism and the irrationality of conventional wisdom

I was critical a week or so ago of Chris Hedges’ call for the antiwar left to consider third-party candidates who are unequivocal on the war, given that a John McCain presidency would likely result if there was a mass revolt.

But then I read stories like this — via Chris Floyd’s Empire Burlesque — and I think that maybe Hedges is right. Here are two quotations from the AP story that raise the hair on the back of my neck and make me wonder if he is pandering or lost on this:

“The truth is that my foreign policy is actually a return to the traditional bipartisan realistic policy of George Bush’s father, of John F. Kennedy, of, in some ways, Ronald Reagan, and it is George Bush that’s been naive and it’s people like John McCain and, unfortunately, some Democrats that have facilitated him acting in these naive ways that have caused us so much damage in our reputation around the world,” he said.

Foreign policy realism is code for “I’d use force, but I’d be less likely to be a cowboy.” It doesn’t mean he’d be less likely to flex his muscles than McCain or Bush, only that he’d be more careful about creating a coalition — a la, the first President Bush and the 1991 Gulf War, which Obama said relied on a large coalition and had carefully defined objectives.

He then tried to tie current Bush administration policies to Hillary Clinton.

“I do think that Sen. Clinton would understand that George Bush’s policies have failed, but in many ways she has been captive to the same politics that led her to vote for authorizing the war in Iraq,” he said. “Since 9/11 the conventional wisdom has been that you’ve got to look tough on foreign policy by voting and acting like the Republicans, and I disagree with that.”

Instead, he appears to endorse a different kind of conventional wisdom, one still tied to the notion of American exceptionalism and leadership, that still relies on the idea that we have a right and responsibility to reshape the world to our needs — so long as we can cobble together a decent-sized international coalition.

Floyd deconstructs the comments this way:

Obama is also signaling to the real masters of the United States, the military-corporate complex, that he is a “safe pair of hands” — a competent technocrat who won’t upset the imperial applecart but will faithfully follow the 60-year post-war paradigm of leaving “all options on the table” and doing “whatever it takes” to keep the great game of geopolitical dominance going strong.

What other conclusion can you draw from Obama’s reference to these avatars, and his very pointed identification with them? He is saying, quite clearly, that he will practice foreign policy just as they did. And what they do? Committed, instigated, abetted and countenanced a relentless flood of crimes, murders, atrocities, deceptions, corruptions, mass destruction and state terrorism.

This is a difficult pill to swallow, if you’re in anyway looking for a candidate to redirect the United States away from its long-standing imperial ambitions.

This brings me to a piece that ran last week in The Guardian (U.K.) — Tuesday on Alternet — by a couple of journalists from The Nation. In it, Naomi Klein and Jeremy Scahill say antiwar voters who uncritically back a Democrat are making a “serious strategic mistake.”

There is no question that the Bush administration has proven impervious to public pressure. That’s why it’s time for the anti-war movement to change tactics. We should direct our energy where it can still have an impact: the leading Democratic contenders.

Many argue otherwise. They say that if we want to end the war, we should simply pick a candidate who is not John McCain and help them win: We’ll sort out the details after the Republicans are evicted from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Some of the most prominent anti-war voices–from MoveOn.org to the magazine we write for, The Nation–have gone this route, throwing their weight behind the Obama campaign.

This is a serious strategic mistake. It is during a hotly contested campaign that anti-war forces have the power to actually sway U. S. policy. As soon as we pick sides, we relegate ourselves to mere cheerleaders.

And when it comes to Iraq, there is little to cheer. Look past the rhetoric and it becomes clear that neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton has a real plan to end the occupation. They could, however, be forced to change their positions–thanks to the unique dynamics of the prolonged primary battle.

Despite the calls for Clinton to withdraw in the name of “unity,” it is the very fact that Clinton and Obama are still fighting it out, fiercely vying for votes, that presents the anti-war movement with its best pressure point. And our pressure is badly needed.

Klein and Scahill point out that the Democrats have been receiving significant cash from the military-industrial complex with a bottom-line tied to the prolonging the war.

In sharp contrast to this downsized occupation is the unequivocal message coming from hundreds of soldiers who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraq Veterans Against the War, who held the historic “Winter Soldier” hearings in Silver Spring, Md. earlier this month, are not supporting any candidate or party. Instead they are calling for immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all U.S. soldiers and contractors. Coming from peace activists, the “out now” position has been dismissed as naive. It is distinctly harder to ignore coming from hundreds who have served–and continue to serve–on the frontlines.

The candidates know that much of the passion fueling their campaigns flows from the desire among so many rank-and-file Democrats to end this disastrous war. It is this desire for change that has filled stadiums and campaign coffers.

Crucially, the candidates have already shown that they are vulnerable to pressure from the peace camp: When The Nation revealed that neither candidate was supporting legislation that would ban the use of Blackwater and other private security companies in Iraq, Clinton abruptly changed course. She became the most important U. S. political leader to endorse the ban, scoring a point on Obama, who opposed the invasion from the start.

This is exactly where we want the candidates: outdoing each other to prove how serious they are about ending the war. That kind of issue-based battle has the power to energize voters and break the cynicism that is threatening both campaigns.

Obama’s comments last week, however, along with Clinton’s “pragmatic” vote on the war in 2002, offer me little hope.

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