I’ve been meaning to recommend this Nation article by Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian on the stories being told by Iraq war vets. I almost forgot to pass it along — that is, until I saw this on Truthdig — an interview with Hedges about the piece (there is both a transcript and audio available). Check out both pieces and then tell me that the war in Iraq has not been a disaster.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
E-mail me by clicking here.
More bad news from Iraq. From The New York Times:
Three bomb attacks in Baghdad today killed more than 65 people, as sectarian and militant violence continued to rage in Iraq.
The Shiite-led government that is trying to cope with the violence, meanwhile, suffered a political setback today, when the largest Sunni Arab political bloc in the parliament followed through on a threat to walk out of the coalition cabinet that is trying to unify the country.
The details in the story are harrowing — images of brutality and violence that we cannot conceive of here, nor should anyone, for that matter.
But things are going well over there, right?
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
E-mail me by clicking here.
Glenn Greenwald, on his Salon blog, reminds us that the much-anticipated September report by Gen. David Petreaus is likely to be nothing more than warmed-over Bush talking points. His evidence? An interview with conservative sycophant Hugh Hewitt.
Greenwald writes:
Despite the Mandate Orthodoxy that Gen. Petraeus be treated as the Objective, Unassailably Credible Oracle for how we are doing in Iraq and whether we are winning, his track record of quite dubious claims over the last several years about the war strongly negates that view. It ought to go without saying that no military commander — particularly in the midst of a disastrous four-year war — is entitled to blind faith and to be placed above being questioned. It is not only proper, but critically necessary, to subject happy war claims from the military to great scrutiny.
In general, military commanders do not typically pronounce their own strategies to have failed; quite the opposite. The need for skepticism here is particularly acute given that there are plenty of Generals with equally impressive military pedigrees who disagree vigorously with Petraeus. War supporters — who are attempting now to make criticisms of Petraeus off-limits — long disputed the claims and views of Generals Casey and Abaziad, often quite vigorously, even insultingly. The statements about war from military commanders ought to be subjected to every bit as much scrutiny and skepticism as anyone else’s.
But Petraeus in particular has demonstrated that his statements merit particularly potent scrutiny. So many of the misleading government claims over the past several years about The Great Victory we are Achieving in Iraq have been based upon optimistic claims from Petraeus that turned out to be highly questionable, to put it generously.
It seems pretty obvious that expecting objectivity in September is just foolishness.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
E-mail me by clicking here.
Think the month of September will actually bring a denouement on Iraq? Think again.
Buried in today’s story on the GOP filibuster in The Washington Post (a word the paper avoids, as did nearly every other mainstream outlet), is this little nugget, the out that the president is likely to use to keep the war going:
Samir Sumaidaie, Iraq’s ambassador to the United States, said yesterday that the Baghdad government believes the Petraeus-Crocker report will be too premature in judging the impact of the U.S. military buildup.
“We want the surge continued. September is frankly too soon to really show anything more than an inkling of its potential. But we want that to continue until we see real fruit,” Sumaidaie told reporters.
It’s only a matter of time before the president, GOP senators and the conservative media (FOX, Bill O’Reilly, etc.) start framing the debate in this way.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
E-mail me by clicking here
It’s unlikely that the promised fillibuster — Democrats setting up a scenario by which the Republicans will either have to fillibuster the war or give in and allow a straight vote — will result in any meaningful change in Iraq. But it is heartening to see that the Democrats have finally come to read the tea leaves correctly and are ready to make it clear that this is a Republican war and that it is the GOP that is standing in the way of bringing the troops home.
John Nichols in his blog on The Nation’s Web site offers this take:
With a quarter of the term of the current Congress now done, it is clear that the cooperative approach adopted by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, and Senate Majority Leader Reid, D-Nevada, hasn’t worked. It is not just that approval ratings for Congress are now below those of a failed president that Democrats were elected to challenge and constrain. It is that the disastrous war in Iraq, the central crisis of this American moment, continues to claim the lives of US troops and Iraqi civilians at an alarming rate.
The circumstance requires that Congressional Democrats change course. And their new priority should be to clarify rather than muddy the debate over Iraq.
That is what Reid is doing, at least tentatively, with his decision to, as he puts it, “highlight Republican obstruction” of Democratic efforts to bring the troops home.
Reid plans to do that Tuesday by refusing to allow Republicans to quietly make procedural moves to block voting on an amendment sponsored by Michigan Senator Carl Levin and Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed that would establish a withdrawal timeline. Instead, he plans to force the President’s Senate allies to filibuster–at least for one night–in favor of continuing a war that even Republicans do not want to be associated with anymore.
“I would like to inform the Republican leadership and all my colleagues that we have no intention of backing down,” Reid declared Monday afternoon. “If Republicans do not allow a vote on Levin/Reed today or tomorrow, we will work straight through the night on Tuesday. The American people deserve an open and honest debate on this war, and they deserve an up or down vote on this amendment to end it.”
Unless Republicans agree to a simple-majority vote on Levin-Reed, Reid has indicated that he will keep the Senate in continuous session through Tuesday night and into Wednesday. The point is to make it absolutely clear that Republican senators–even those who say they want to start bringing the troops home–are doing everything in their power to prevent a Senate vote that might embarrass of challenge Bush.
It is not likely that one night of filibustering complete the process of exposing the Republican shenanigans for what they are.
But Reid’s move is a step in the right direction.
It’s about time.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick
E-mail me by clicking here
Hank Kalet 