Open Letter to Congress - a tactic
The Bush-Maliki Plan, now called The Surge, to deploy an additional 20,000 US troops to Iraq is a last-ditch effort to prevent a decisive US political defeat in Iraq. The principle purpose of this “surge†is to destroy the Mehdi Army of Muqtada al Sadr , who broke his alliance with the Maliki government after Maliki met with George Bush to confirm Iraqi government submission to US forces two months ago. Sadr enjoys immense local support from almost 3 million Iraqis, and is a very popular figure through most of the Southern half of Iraq. Not only will the attempt to use this “surge†to destroy the Mehdi Army inflict massive civilian casualties in the tightly-packed warrens of Sadr City, it will ignite a popular rebellion among Shia, from Baghdad to Um Qasr, that will effectively destroy what is left of the legitimacy of the Maliki “government.â€
Opposing this “surge†is not only politically smart for Democrats; it is a moral imperative because of the civilian casualties that are certain to accrue. But it is also a maneuver to dodge the larger issue of the war itself, and of the 2006 election’s implicit demand that the US withdraw from Iraq. Now is the time to put as much local pressure as possible on both parties’ Senators and Representatives in order to accelerate the inevitable US withdrawal from Iraq at the least costing lives. It is in that spirit that this Open Letter to Members of the United States Congress is offered.
Please distribute this Open Letter to Members of the United States Congress as widely as possible, with the suggestions for using it.
Suggestion 1: Sign a copy and send it by email and paper mail to your own Congressperson.
Suggestion 2: Have a group from the same Congressional district sign it and send it to your Representatives and Senators.
Suggestion 3: Circulate the letter to as many people and organizations as possible in your city, county, or state, and send copies to both Senators and all Representatives.
Suggestion 4: Set up local web sites and lists to garner signatures, and publish the letter and signatories in the local liberal entertainment weekly. Then send copies of the paper to both Senators and all Congresspersons.
Suggestion 5: Come up with more creative suggestions… and implement them, now.
***
Open Letter to Members of the United States Congress
We the undersigned are opposed to the Bush administration’s continuing war in Iraq, but we are also disappointed with much of Congress – Republican and Democrat – as well as with much of the media, for failing to explain the real situation in Iraq and refusing to take decisive steps to halt the US-led occupation.
Media and therefore Congressional representations of the situation in Iraq are not just over-simplified; they are deceptive.
(1) There is never any mention of oil in these accounts. Both the media and most members of Congress are pretending that the US government’s preoccupation with Iraq has nothing to do with fossil energy reserves; but most people in the US know that were it not for oil, the US government would have little interest in the region or its people. We do not believe that continuing the US addiction to oil (five percent of the world’s population consuming 25% of its oil) is a valid reason to bomb and invade other nations and engage in wars of aggression.
(2) Media and Congressional accounts of the war almost always suggest that the war in Iraq – however “flawed†– is part of something called the Global War on Terrorism. But there can be no such thing as a war on a tactic, so we have to ask ourselves if this is not just another one-size-fits-all pretext for future military adventures. Iraq is not now nor has it ever been a threat to the security of people in the United States.
(3) There is no such thing as an Iraqi government except inside the Green Zone. Congressional and the media accounts constantly refer to the Iraqi government as the entity that requires US military assistance to become the guarantor of Iraqi security. But the relationship of all Iraqi forces demonstrates that this is a dangerous fantasy. The Maliki government – or any other government that relies on US military protection to survive for a week – commands the loyalty of only a fraction of the armed actors in Iraq. The armed forces being trained for that “government†are themselves loyal to factions with agendas, and these forces are filled with opportunists and infiltrators. With 80% of Iraqis now asking for an end to the Anglo-American occupation, and the Iraqis themselves identified not merely as Sunni or Shia (as simplified accounts have it), but of three major armed Shia factions, two major Sunni armed factions, and a Kurdish militia of 100,000 that resides in the north itself is divided into two camps, there is no possibility of one faction gaining the acquiescence of the whole Iraqi population and the various armed expressions of populations. The Ma.liki-Bush “surge†plan is designed to eliminate Maliki’s Shia and Sunni opposition inside Baghdad.
(4) The various sectors of the Iraqi population share one goal: they want stability to rebuild. This goal cannot be accomplished without negotiations between the various groups. With most Iraqis now supporting armed resistance to the Anglo-American occupation, no sector that is identified with the occupation can gain legitimacy in the eyes of most Iraqis. American support for any Iraqi “government†is not preventing so-called “sectarian†violence, it is incubating it. There may be some fighting in Iraq after a US withdrawal, but the balance of forces and their geographical dispersion are more likely to produce negotiations than protracted civil war. At any rate, it is not the role of the US government to shape the future of Iraq. What our government has already done to the future of Iraqis is quite enough, thank you. Iraqis are far more qualified to figure this out than the US Departments of State and Defense.
(5) An exit is not a strategy; it is a command. Elaborate plans about how to withdraw are the responsibility of the military commanders, not Congress. Most members of Congress wouldn’t know how to run a rifle platoon for an hour, much less the en masse redeployment of 150,000 troops. Leaving is a technical and tactical exercise. What is required, and what requires the political will of Congress – by de-funding the war – is the order to withdraw. Your job is the what, not the how.
(6) Half-measures happen while people continue to die. Opposing a “surge†in troop levels, but failing to oppose the war, is a half-measure.
(7) It has been said that “cutting and running†would send the “wrong message†to the world about the US… as if being ground down in a humiliating series of daily defeats hasn’t already accomplished this. That’s what they are. Defeats. Speak plainly. Military success is not predicated on tactical outcomes; but on political outcomes. By this measure, the US has already lost the war in Iraq. We never should have gone there in the first place. If this is about preserving the “national masculinity,†then we are saying every life lost in this effort is pure sin. This machismo is the ideology of gangsters.
(8) De-funding the war will not put troops in danger. Specific conditional allocations of funds can be made available for the sole purpose of conducting a re-deployment. Much of the money being used in Iraq is paying exorbitant prices to private contractors. The war is what is putting troops in danger, not cutting funds to continue an illegal and immoral war.
In November 2006, the majority of voting Americans expressed its opposition to the war by putting Democrats back in control of Congress. You must understand that this was a “vote against,†not a “vote for.†Many of us have been disappointed and even angered by Democratic complicity in this criminal war.
Quit reading the wind, and start reading the weather. Since this horror began, support for US aggression in Iraq has gone from 90% to 30%. Ask yourself what the pattern is here. Republicans are already breaking ranks with the war. Democratic equivocation is establishing the basis for a historical reversal on the political question of the war. Those who are reading the weather will succeed in 2008. Those who are merely reading today’s winds will be caught in the storm.
We want out of Iraq. By 2008, the majority of voters will want out of Iraq, and want out immediately, as we do now. They will remember who had the courage to say this before it crossed the 50% tipping point. They will also remember those who had their eyes fixed on today’s anemometer. You have one weapon to use against this administration – the power of the purse – and you must use it.
Not one more day; not one more dime; not one more life; not one more lie.
Cut the funds for the war, and bring the troops home now.
Bob H:
One small suggestion — how about a .PDF or printer-formatted version to make this easier to print/distribute?
10 January 2007, 2:26 pmTimothy R. Anderson:
I think a little more action on the part of American civilians is overdue. In my own life, since the terrorist attacks of 9-11-01 , I have cut back on the gasoline buying , taken an occasional look at who provides the advertising money’s to the Fox News, ABC, NBC, CNN, etc. and chosen to spend my little bit o’ money elsewhere. I have made a point of walking when I could drive , speaking up to my Congressperson’s hired help when , in the past, I stayed silent. I have, through this forum and OTHERS,
typed up some reminders about goveRnments, all goveRnments, especially Saudi Arabia’s current goveRnment . One would hope that my reminders would be heeeeeded. Time alone will tell.
Timothy R. Anderson 1 / 10 / 07
10 January 2007, 3:27 pmastras:
looks like the ’surge’ has already started. 82nd airborne troops have already deployed during the last days. more are arriving in a relatively steady flow.
10 January 2007, 6:25 pmSam:
Chris Floyd (Claiming the Prize: Bush Surge Aimed at Securing Iraqi Oil) presents a point of view that has Bush and corporate cronies as having won their war no matter what happens. See the article at Truthout or at Lewrockwell.com, where it has been updated a little:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/floyd/floyd53.html
10 January 2007, 7:01 pmpeggy:
Stan, I sent your letter out to all my friends and relatives in the states, and got one answer back:
“What a wonderful way to hear from you, except, of course, for the underlying catastrophic horror that surrounds all this. Technology, especially the cheapness of email and the ease of internet organizing, seems to have reduced the significance of many petitions, and yet individually written letters (often when sent via snail-mail especially) seem to be counted and may just a little count a bit more. I wish there were more public demonstrations, marches, and other collective expressions; but these days, despite many of the same war-hawks and imperialist-militarist exploits, are not the sixties or early seventies (and I blame ending the draft for much of the mass acceptance of this war–damn Nixon once again). Anyway, I try to do what little I can with the occasional letter to Congress and by adding my body to whoever is marching near where I am. ”
Worth considering.
11 January 2007, 1:12 amDjuha:
Very very well written and powerful! I’m sending it to all who will listen. I’m always impressed with your ability to take a leftist’s anger and communicate it in such a way that it is both intelligible and compelling to anyone.
My only suggestion is to not lead off with oil. Everything you say is true and it is a very important issue, but it’s a topic that congresscritters and their staffs of underlings are conditioned to heuristically write off without a second thought. In my opinion, given the audience, points 5 through 8 are much more powerful in producing the desired behavior in your audience(or at least getting them to think) than points 1-4 and thus should come first. If the audience throws the thing away after half of point 1, they don’t get to those later points that would soften them up for the original points 1-4.
I have struggled with this dilemma in writing my own letters to my congresspeople: my number one objection to this war is moral, but I feel compelled to place US domestic political, US geo-political(US “national interests” rather than worldwide human interests), and US economic critiques before my moral critiques because those are the critiques are much more understandable to those who are in a position of power. I don’t know if my approach is the best way though.
11 January 2007, 11:13 amSam:
See the very funny and brilliant video at:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7374585792978336967
11 January 2007, 1:36 pmRichard Manning:
I wish you guys would not harp so much on the oil. Sure, its a factor, but I think what really motivated the invasion was the pure humiliation of 911 (felt most heavily by hawks), and the belief, as Kissenger said, that “Afghanistan was not enough”.
The process of containing Iraq for nearly a decade REALLY rubbed these neo-cons the wrong way, and they longed for a decisive encounter that they “knew” they could win.
BUsh is a very emotional person, and while not dumb, he is certainly not a sophisticated thinker. He is the “decider” not the “deliberator”. He does not need lots of reasons to do somthing and is renowed for making quick - ill considered choices.
When the case to invade Iraq was presented I think he made up his mind before they got to the bullet point on the agenda listing “Oil reserves”. Anyone else wanting to invade chiefly for “oil” reasons probably never even had to make their case - they got what they wanted, so why make the point?
RM
11 January 2007, 4:46 pmLinda Jansen:
Hi, Stan. We’re hooking up with the Occupation Project http://www.vcnv.org. Kathy Kelly and folks from Voices for Creative Nonviolence have started a campaign to get congress critters to sign a pledge to quit funding the war (and bring the troops home) or else be occupied. People are pretty excited about actually taking the argument to them where they can’t ignore it.
Early Feb is when Bush will be asking for more money. WE CAN’T LET HIM HAVE IT! They have enough to bring the troops home as you point out in your letter, which would probably be a great educational tool to use in the campaign.
11 January 2007, 11:00 pmfedupwithhypocrisy:
RM,
9/11 is the one thing not behind the Iraq/Iran bullshit. It’s the bedtime story fearful Bushco supporters use to still sleep soundly.
Do your homework on the Progress for a New American Century 90s doctrine concerning Mideast domination.
House of Saud, Bush, Cheney, Haliburton, etc.–oil
12 January 2007, 1:57 pmemma:
The “surge” is not about the US going after Moqtadad al Sadr at all. Moqtadad al Sadr has returned to the green zone to rejoin his other Uranian backed US puppets called the Iraqi government.
The “surge” is about the killing of both Sunni and secular Iraqis by Moqtadad de Sadr and the other Iranian backed sectarian militias. while the cowardly US marines cover them with airpower - dropping bombs on innocent civilians. Good tactic - the Marines stay safe and use the Iranian backed militia to do the face to face mop up of the dead and dying, and finish off those that are still living. (33 male Arabs yesterday in one spot yesterday was a good haul).
I would recommend viewing Layla Anwar’s article in Uruknet today also view the many other articles which described Moqtadad de Sadr’s crimes. Then go and view Layla Anwar’s own site. Read her article about the left - it is spot on.
Stan, it comes to something when I see yourself, the Marxists and the Stop-the-War anti-war movement seemingly supporting such people as Moqtadad de Sadr -
In case people believe these US stooges mostly flown in from western countries and Tehran were democratically elected - forget it -thousands of ballot papers were destroyed because people had written Saddam Hussein on them. Following this Bremmer banned Iraqis displaying Hussein posters for 2 years. Doing so meant imprisonment.
This should not come as a surprise.because the US itself does not have democratic elections with the Bush regime. And the US was running the Iraq elections under Bush.
If you Americans think that it is just Sunni killing Shiite or Shiite killing Sunni - think again your Marines are killing whole families of Iraqis on a regular basis.
Also concerned Americans should not just look at Bush. Clinton has the blood of 2 million of Iraqis on his hands. Under him, the US army carried out one of the most abhorrent massacres in present day history. (Desert Storm). and Clinton still strolls around smiling. It is no wonder Bush came to power next without any qualms regarding criminality.
Your present advisor to Bush, “Surger” Robert Gates is the same man that gave the green light to Israel to supply arms to Iran./Iran-Iraq War. In turn Israel and the US were the main supplier of war weapons to Iran (this was carried out without the knowledge of the US congress.
The US through congress supplied only 1% of weapons to Iraq at the time - so much for Iraq being backed by the US.
This “surge” if it goes ahead will be in reality a mass “purge”of Arabs. One should remember, when the US got desperate in Vietnam they bombed Cambodia.
So forget about the multiple murderer Moqtadad al Sadr, and his deaths squads for the time being, the US needs him together with the rest of the Iranian backed militia to do their dirty work.
13 January 2007, 5:42 amStan:
If anyone can find a single place where I have ever “supported” any Iraqi leader, I challenge you to put it up on this blog right now. My commentary on the situation in Iraq is analytical; and it is researched.
I have been as vocal as anyone saying that the media-govt characterization of Iraq as a Sunni-Shia bipolarity is simplistic nonsense; and I will say right here that the US-puppet government just hung the last President of Iraq. That’s not an endorsement. It’s a fact.
Sadr hasw never been inside the Green Zone, by the way. The Mahdi Army has clashed with the SCIRI just as vigorously as they have with Sunni muqawama; and the SVIRI, not the Mahdi, operate from the Green Zone, in fact right out of the Interior Ministry.
It’s one thing to disagree with my positions, but you have misrepresented them, as well as over-simplified the situation.
The only simple policy I “support” is immediate and unconditional Anglo-American withdrawal from Iraq, and Afghanistan, for that matter.
13 January 2007, 1:36 pmLisa:
This isn’t exactly on topic for this post, but it is important and affects all issues. AMI has just drawn attention to a very good Youtube speech by Bill Moyers.
To quote the AMI comment: “Bill does what nearly all economists are afraid to do: he identifies that the class war (economic conflict) as presently carried on is based on property rights against human rights.”
AMI’s point of view is highly economically literate. Michael Hudson is a featured speaker at their conferences.
13 January 2007, 2:46 pmLuane:
I could have sworn the “Desert Storm” happened on H.W.’s watch. Recent information I have read suggests that the Saudi’s did not want Desert Storm to do any more than it did so Bush backed off.
13 January 2007, 4:37 pmxenia:
Thank you so much for your post and your last comment, Stan.
13 January 2007, 7:36 pmTellurian:
This was probably written before the US attack on the Iranian Embassy in Kurdish territory was made public. It appears that the Bushites are striving to widen the war as well as escalate it by bombing Iran and Syria. And Somalia and whereever else in the world.
It appears that the twenty thousand troops or so is a symbolic approach to this widening the war, and possibly escalating if further, since the troop incrrease is insignificant. There are not one hundred and fifty thousand US troops in Iraq, but TWO hundred and fifty thousnad, including a hundred thousand civilian ‘Contractors.’
The increase is therefore less than ten percent. This can only be a prelude to more increase of war forces, and it would have been useful to say so to stiffen the Dem spines.
But it’s fine as it is, since the most important thing is active oppostion, not dwelling on specialized points.
14 January 2007, 2:09 pmStan:
It was a consulate, not an embassy. There was no attack, but a surprise kidnapping (called a “snatch” in the spec-ops lexicon) apparently with the main intents (1) being to provoke an overreaction from Iran to drive a wedge between them and US-allied SCIRI, and (2) to steal computers for intelligence purposes.
The Somalia thing was a political feint meant to reinforce the narative of “terrorists,” by showing the US in the GWOT after the attackers of the Embassy in Nairobi (it actually killed 27 civilians instead).
As to wider escalation, there are not enough troops available for it. Period. When LBJ escalated to half a million, he had a draft. The Bush administration will not do that.
No one has bombed Iran or Syria.
The number of contract-mercenaries is around 25,000, not 100,000. The other contractors are involved in KBR service and construction scams and whatnot. They are not combatants, and therefore not troops.
When the US kinapped the Iranians in Kurdistan, on the second attempt they were confronted by their own peshmerga allies… some escalation. It blew up in their faces.
The “surge” is not symbolic in the least. It is intended to neutralize the troublesome muqawams Sunni militias in Baghdad, but even more importantly to neutralize Muqtada al-Sadr.
These panic attacks about the imminent attack on Iran have been going on unabated for a year now, and the failure of these attacks to materialize has proven insufficient to disabuse people of this thesis. People cling to it like an old teddy bear… and I am at a complete loss to understand why.
In April 2004, the US, with approximately the same overall troop numbers in Iraq, was nearly confronted with a Saigon ‘75 scenario when a dual rebellion broke out, basically in two places: Fallujah and Najaf.
Now, Anbar, Ninevah, and Saladin are virtually liberated territory for the Sunnis; and the only testy allies the US has left in Iraq are two parties who are extremely tight with Iran - the SCIRI and the Da’wa. In their contest for political hegemony within the ineffectual “parliament” that nonethelesshad international recognition and the protection of the UA armed forces, the Da’wa was weaker than the SCIRI and so made a political alliance with the Sadrists… who part ways with both the SCIRI and the Da’wa in wanting a re-unified Iraq and an immediate Anglo-American withdrawal. But Maliki could not secure his post as the Prime Minister without the parliamentary majority that Sadr gives him in their coalition. But every time Maliki is given instructions that he can’t possible get away with from his US masters, Sadr puts him in check by making a very credible threat to slam the door on their parliametary alliance.
The security forces working with the Americans in Baghdad are largely composed of the Badr Army, a large SCIRI militia, trained in and still quite loyal to Iran. The SCIRI is run by a fella named Hakim, who along with Maliki, want to establish a Shia-dominated rump state in SE Iraq, only loosely federated with the Sunnis. The Americans do not want this (1) because it would set up a great Sunni guerrilla wall between the oil fields of Kirkuk and vicinity and the port at Um Qasr, and (2) it would leave Iran in a position to be the most influential actor in the region.
So they are stuck with Sadr — the unification advocate who wants the US out (and opposes their attempts to impose a hydrocarbon law on Iraq giving US multinationals a crack at Iraqi oil) — and SCIRI-Da’wa — Shia federationists, who would let the US TNCs run wild in Iraq’s oil economy, but would build a permanent political alliance with Iran… who, by the way, is inking bilateral aggrements with China and Russia so fast one can hardly keep up with them.
The US is attmepting to solve this dilemma with a depserate attempt to neutralize the 60-80,000 Mahdi militia members, who are strongly supported within Brooklyn-sized Sadr City, around 4 km from the Green Zone. They have convinced themselves that removing Sadr’s influence will clear a path for Maliki to behave as a good US puppet, or Hakim (they don’t care which… they courted him after the last debacle of a meeting between Maliki and Bush); and they will figureout how to cajole a wedge between the puppet and Iarn later.
Of course, what they are really about to do is ignite April 2004 (the sequel), and possibley give the civilians of Sadr City the Fallujah treatment in the process.
If the movement is going to get out in front of this vicious bullshit, we really have to familiarize ourselves with the complexity of it.
Whe we spend a year warning of an attack on Iran that would result in a quick and decisive tactical defeat of the US in Iraq; and the administration never fulfills our dark prophecies; it makes us look…. ahem, uninformed.
Don’t get me wrong. The neocons have demonstrated remarkable foolishness and self-delusion; but they can’t do just any damn thing, because what they CAN do is circumscribed by very real conditions and capacities. Maybe they will eventually fall on the idea of attacking Iran… when they do, it will mark the real beginning of the real end of the Iraq war.
The Army and the Marine Corps are experiencing what Generals themselves are calling a “readiness crisis.” What happens when relatively acquiescent SE Iraq becomes “the swarm”?
14 January 2007, 3:08 pmStan:
Good link on issues raised above:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IA13Ak05.html
14 January 2007, 3:25 pmCharles:
By a Detroit Leader:
We have just completed the celebration of the birth of the Prince of Peace, and now we honor one of his loyal disciples of peace, Dr. Martin Luther King. So, We are duty bound to speak out in this time against the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and especially the fascistic conduct of President Bush in daring to announce an escalation of the criminal war on Iraq in the face of national elections and opinion polls in which the American People sent a clear message to the federal government that they want the war on Iraq to be ended.
Dr. King made a profound and courageous speech on April of 1967 breaking the silence of dissent against the war in Viet Nam. I recall it now because the import of such historic moments today is how we apply their moral and political lessons to our own situation. Really, we are practicing elementary principles of Martin Luther King’s philosophy in resurrecting his voice for peace in 2007. Wouldn’t that be what he would want us to do ? Oppose these wars in his name .
In that speech King said
“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing-oriented’ society to a ‘person-oriented’ society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered…. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. …. We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation”
Sadly, these words are stil pertinent to U.S. policy today !
King also said:
MLK quote: Since I am a preacher by trade, I suppose it is not surprising that I have seven major reasons for bringing Vietnam into the field of my moral vision. There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poorÑ both black and whiteÑthrough the Poverty Program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a so- ciety gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.
Today: The Federal government has no urban policy anymore and boldly declares so. Billions of dollars now being sent to destroy lives in Iraq would do a lot in our cities today.
MLK quote: Perhaps the more tragic recognition of reality took place when it became clear to me that the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was sending their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and to die in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the rest of the population. We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in Southwest Georgia and East Harlem. So we have been repeatedly faced with the cruel irony of watching Negro and white boys on TV screens as they kill and die together for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools. So we watch them in brutal solidarity burning the huts of a poor village, but we realize that they would never live on the same block in Detroit. I could not be silent in the face of such cruel manipulation of the poor
Today: our youth are dying for oil profits
14 January 2007, 8:59 pmemma:
Apologies for my incorrect assumption Stan - I think this came from my dialogue with you some time ago when we discussed the issue of Sadr. You would have a record of this on your files I presume.
Also still cannot understand why people believe Bush on the bombing of Iran.I still do not go along with this.. I have said this before some time ago on your site Stan. An yet the plethora of articles on how the US is going to Bomb Iraq just keep flowing and flowing, while the blood of Iraqis keep flowing and flowing. This is right up Bush’s ally of course.
Nor do I understand why one would believe Bush when he said he is going after el Sadr.
Sadr bloc decides to return to government…”
8th Jan, 2007 Bagdad. Google Uruknet ( Sadr. has 30 seats in the Iraqi US Puppet government.)
And while Bush’s is speaking in very broad generalities of how the Iraqis are fighting each other he is not telling you what your US forces are doing. And while Bush is telling you he is taking on Iran he is licking their boots, as he needs them badly.
Even today, US forces raided dormitories in Tikrit universities - smashed up everything in site as well as students - and took away 4 students and one professor.
see article by Ghazwan al-Juburi Voices of Iraq.
Tikrit is a Sunni area. Yet Bush tells us that it is only el Sadr that is killing Sunni’s and secular Shiite
Iraqis.
The first question to ask oneself is why would Bush bomb Iran when these Persian/Iranian backed mulllahs in the US’s puppet Iraqi government in cohorts with
the US forces are co-jointly decreasing the Arab population in Iraq.
Does one think Bush’s brother Jed or Jeb or whatever. is going to take the Iranians place in Iraq?
And if Bush did attack Iran then he would have no friends left in Iraq to do the dirty work for him.
All he would have is enemies from a broad political spectrum.
I assume this is what you mean by the ‘real end of the war” Stan. I hope I am right this time.
The issue of the bombing of Iran has been the main
talking point of the Iraq invasion for the past nearly 2 years. And it still is keeping everyone diverted
from the truth, and acting as a cover for what the US is really doing in Iraq. .
Also in my previous comments above, “Desert Storm” should have read “Desert Fox” in regard to Clintons criminality. This was when the US forces under Clinton bombed an Iraqi maternity hospital, a teaching hospital, an outpatients clinic and the Health Ministry, then the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, then for good measure they knocked out the water-supply for 300,000 Iraqis.
In addition under Clinton, the US implemented no-fly zones of two-thirds of Iraq in which they carried out more than 330,OOO sorties. At the same time the US US and Britain entered Iraq’s air space on military missions 21,000 times killing hundreds of Iraqis. Kurt Nimmo correctly states on his site “Despite nearly 4 yrs of punishing attacks Saddam Hussein neither threatened to use or used any weapons of mass destruction.
But then most people in the US believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction then because Clinton had told them so, before Bush told them so. So that makes both Clinton and Bush liars.
No doubt the bombing of Iran will be a continuing
saga- and I wonder what excuse the progressives will have when it does not happen.
Sadly they will not be able to excuse the death-toll of the Iraqi people. And no doubt they will have the audacity to try.
15 January 2007, 7:17 amTellurian:
I DON’T understand the complexity of Iraq and I AM uninformed. What’s the distinction, for example, between the twenty five combat Contractors and the others. Aren’t most of the military in non-combat roles?
And you don’t understand, Stan, the fear that the US is going to bomb Iran and Syria? When Nixon was withdrawing from Vietnam he bombed Cambodia and Laos, causing as many casualties as the Pol Pot movement in this Secret war.
The thing is that Bush is not merely delusional and contemptuous of the US and world population, he appears to be bloodthirsty. When he was a kid his friend reported that he used to torture animals, and he supervised the excecution of an enormous number of Texans, baiting some of them. He exulted in the lynching of Hussain and they just excecuted his relatives.
I know that the primary historical forces involved are systemic, but the personal does sometimes play a part. Bush stated to Seymour Hirsh that great presidents won WARS, and his relish for the position of a War President, lacking all military experience, appears to be partly driving by his vindictiveness.
Bush may lack men but he has plenty of bombs and I think it is a good guess, for a number of reasons, that he will bomb Iran, which has a large trade with Russia and China.
15 January 2007, 1:00 pmTellurian:
I just finished your book FULL SPECTRUM DISORDER and don’t know what to think about it. It is full of rich detail that apparently cannot be given except in an original idiom that seems to create its own genre. But it’s hard to connect to customary progressive truth. I suppose I’ll have to read it again.
Gramsci made the distinction between traditional intellectuals and organic intellecutals that rise out of their work lives. Apparently not only the content will change, but the style as well.
16 January 2007, 2:25 pmStan:
Don’t work too hard in vain.
I’m not a progressive, and I don’t believe those who lay claim to that term have any hotline to The Truth.
On content and style, FSD is written and is unlikely to change. Since then, I have written volumes, and I would be surprised and disappointed with myself if the style AND content didn’t change. I’m putting up more recent things at Insurgent American, if you’re interested.
We “organics” ought to be nothing if not a little protean, eh?
(-:
Thanks for reading my book, by the way.
16 January 2007, 2:56 pmCharles:
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2007/01/15/grumbling-in-the-ranks/trackback/
January 15, 2007, 1:30 pm
Grumbling in the Ranks
Vocal opposition to President’s Bush’s strategy of sending more than 20,000
additional troops to help secure Iraq has grown to include some of the
troops themselves.
A group of more than 50 active-duty military officers will deliver a
petition to Congress on Tuesday signed by about 1,000 troops calling for an
end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. “Any troop increase over here will just
produce more sitting ducks, more targets,” said Sergeant Ronn Cantu, who is
serving in Iraq.
Under the 1988 Military Whistleblower Protection Act, active duty military,
National Guard, and Reservists may communicate with any member of Congress
without fear of reprisal, even if copies of the communication are sent to
others.
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16 January 2007, 4:38 pm