Iraq Updates

Army Recruitment Down; Iraq Updates
Lt. Gen. James Lovelace, the Army deputy chief of staff, said the Army can sustain 100,000 in Iraq for the next four years if needed without "breaking the force" but he said it would include three or four rotations for some troops. [Fox News]

Juan Cole has what I consider to be the best blogging today on the subject of Iraq.

Cole has a list of Ten Things Congress Could Demand From Bush on Iraq.

The attack on US vessels at the port of Aqaba in Jordan shows that the Iraqi war is spreading terrorism in the region.

Ledeen the Cur

Ledeen the Cur

James Wolcott rips Michael Ledeen to shreds.

Listen to: Prairie Chapel Road

Listen to: Prairie Chapel Road

Eric Folkerth has written a song about Camp Casey. You can listen to the song by clicking here.

Prairie Chapel Road
By Eric Folkerth

The grieving mother pitched her tent,
On Prairie Chapel Road...

With questions for the President
On Prairie Chapel Road...

A host of pilgrims came along
To Prairie Chapel Road...

Raised their voices, sang their songs
On Prairie Chapel Road...

You can mow down the crosses,
but you can’t mow down our hope,
‘Cause the truth will always greet
The light of day.
And we know what the cost is,
In this darkness, where we grope,
But we know that peace
Will be the better way...
On Prairie Chapel Road...

Around the nation, all eyes turned
To Prairie Chapel Road...

To mark the lessons we had learned
On Prairie Chapel Road...

People who had found their voice
On Prairie Chapel Road...

Millions more who joined their choice
On Prairie Chapel Road...

In every city, and small town,
There’s a Prairie Chapel Road

Where two sides of the road are found,
On Prairie Chapel Road...

And we may always disagree
On Prairie Chapel Road...

But the right to do keeps us free
On Prairie Chapel Road...

The grieving mother pitched her tent,
On Prairie Chapel Road...

With questions for the President
On Prairie Chapel Road...

Copyright © 2005

Why is DLC Generating Party Disunity?

Why is DLC Generating Party Disunity?

I deeply regret that the DLC is so obviously attacking members of their own Democratic party, classifying those who have serious reservations about the security disaster in Iraq right now as "unpatriotic". Actually, I am more aghast than sorry upon seeing it. Without party unity, the Democrats will not be winning elections in 2006 or beyond.

Can you imagine Ken Mehlman talking about "upscale white conservatives" who "seem torn about the meaning of patriotism"?

Can you??!?

Is any strategy devised to make your party members look strong on defense worth questioning the patriotism of people like myself, a hard-working and loyal American who has serious and realistic questions about the war in Iraq?

If anyone affiliated with the DLC sees this blogpost, I say to you: Stop this tactic immediately. It's no-win.

"Democrats need to be choosier about the political company they keep, distancing themselves from the pacifist and anti-American fringe. And they need to have faith in their fellow citizens: Americans will accept constructive criticism of their country if they know the critic's heart is in the right place."

Will Marshall is directing this message to people like Cindy Sheehan, who happens to have people like Michael Moore (an Eagle Scout) who agree with her at the moment. Will Marshall, in my humble opinion, is dead wrong when he goes into this territory and calls any concerned American citizen "anti-American". These are the tactics of hate talk-radio, and it's not honorable or respectable to buy into that line of thinking and turn it around to use on your own fellow party members.

In a recent article which I consider to be required reading for all, James J. Kroeger states:

"They [Republicans] define themselves [positively] by defining their Democratic opponents [negatively]."

The DLC are defining members of their own Democratic party negatively, and are thus campaigning as a Republican would...against their own! Losing confidence in their own convictions, they have bought into the lies which the Right has expertly and negatively employed against the Democrats - and are making it their own message, turning the tables on key members of the Democratic party.

Oh - this is very bad, DLC. Do you hear me?

Very, very bad.

Hometown Showcase: North Carolina Bloggers

Hometown Showcase: North Carolina Bloggers

Both Charlotte and Asheville featured their local bloggers in the news this week.
Anonymoses has a blogpost about Creative Loafing's feature on Charlotte bloggers, including

ace pryhill
anonymoses
converge south
charlotte capitalist
charlotte101.us
anna-banana.net
pam spaulding
tbo talks
save cms kids
dump cms
the 704
drunk-in-a-midnight-choir
charlotte mommies



Blog Asheville has the story on the Asheville feature at the Mountain XPress.

Asheville Blogs

Blog Asheville
Asheville Music Blog
1000 Black Lines
AshVegas
Scrutiny Hooligans
Edgy Mama
DEMbloggers
The Syntax Of Things
Modern Peasant
Easy Bake Coven
Jeremy Brett
Dirty Greek
Bird on the Moon
Tingle Alley
Evening Rose
gwendiesblog
Me & Mine...
The Avant Garden
Mister Sugar
A Sort of Notebook
Sweet Tea
Breathlessly Simple
Moon Meadow Farm
HangOver Journal
Stitch and Bitch
Unlaced Corset
Raphael Doxos
The War In Context

Iraq: The Myth of Negative Journalism

Iraq The Myth of Negative Journalism
War Supporters - Here's the Reality

I might be amused to read this paragraph from an AP article if it wasn't about such a depressing subject:

War supporters accuse journalists of undercutting the troops by highlighting problems and ignoring progress in Iraq.

Only yesterday, I had read this quote from seasoned and courageous reporter Robert Fisk (one of the few who actually gets out into the street instead of locking himself in a Green Zone hotel room taking phone calls from military PR officials for his source information on news stories) :

"It is extremely dangerous now. Most of my colleagues won't go into Iraq. And many who do just sit in their hotel rooms. I don't object to that. What I do object to is that they don't tell their readers thta they sit in their hotel rooms. They give the impression that they can check out stories on, for example, people shot by the Americans, when in fact, they can't or don't or won't. So they take the line from a telephone call from an American pfficer and that becomes the story, which is one reason why the reporting has become so skewed."

[Utne Reader, Sept/Oct 05 - longer version of interview at Progressive Mag June 2005]

How the hell can the "liberal media" be writing so may skewed horror stories when they're getting their lines directly from the American military officers?

Looking for American Gothic?

Looking for American Gothic?
For the many who've come here in search of something called American Gothic with Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore, I have no clue what it is. It sounds insulting. Don't expect to see it here anytime.

Political Advice for Democrats: Ideas Needed

Political Advice for Democrats: Ideas Needed

I defer to Laura Rozen, who sends out what I believe to be an important bit of advice to all Democratic politicians:

the Post's David Ignatius has some advice for Democrats:

...America doesn't need more of the angry, embittered shouting matches that take place on talk radio and in the blogosphere. It needs a real opposition party that will lay out new strategies: How to withdraw from Iraq without creating even more instability? How to engage a world that mistrusts and often hates America? How to rebuild global institutions and contain Islamic extremism? How to put the U.S. economy back into balance? A Democratic Party that could begin to answer these questions would deserve a chance to govern.

Bruce Jentleson proposes that the task of thinking how to get out of Iraq without leading to greater instability be a bipartisan endeavor lead by the Senate Foreign Relations committee. With Republicans such as Walter Jones, Chuck Hagel, and Democrats like Russ Feingold talking about how to get out, it seems this could be the way to go.

- Laura Rozen

Related - Gideon Rose talks about the Bush administration's initial objectives in contrast to their currently lowered expectations:

"...the realists have come in after an election to offer some adult supervision and tidy up the joint. This time it's simply happened under the nose of a victorious incumbent rather than his opponent (which may account for the failure to change the rhetoric along with the policy)." - [NYT]

At Hullabaloo, Digby is so disillusioned and angered, given the contrast of the lofty Bush-speeches and the reality of the drastically lowered expectations in Iraq, that it is driving him to become isolationist in favor of being led down garden paths about what "freedom and democracy" turn out to mean in reality, once we've "spread" it to others.

"Dead Wrong" Premieres on CNN Tonight

"Dead Wrong" Premieres on CNN Tonight

Tonight marks the premiere of CNN's "Dead Wrong - Inside an Intelligence Meltdown" which airs at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET.

From the CNN website: Former aide: Powell WMD speech 'lowest point in my life'

A former top aide to Colin Powell says his involvement in the former secretary of state's presentation to the United Nations on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was "the lowest point" in his life.

"I wish I had not been involved in it," says Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, a longtime Powell adviser who served as his chief of staff from 2002 through 2005. "I look back on it, and I still say it was the lowest point in my life."

Swift Boat Tactics May Backfire As Iraq War Rages

Swift Boat Tactics May Backfire As Iraq War Rages

In Frank Rich's column The Swift Boating of Cindy Sheehan [NYTimes], he explains how Casey Sheehan's death in Iraq could not be more representative of the Iraq war's mismanagement and failure. I'd imagine that he'll strike a familiar chord with many average Joes when he says that, when Mr. Bush's motorcade in Crawford "left a grieving mother in the dust to speed on to a fund-raiser, that was one fat-cat party too far."

Swift-boating may have been effective 30 years after the war in question, when a Presidential candidate was the target, but this war is failing right before our eyes - here and now. The news of each new American death in Iraq stings more than ever before, and this time it's a fallen soldier's mother that has had 'open season' declared upon her.

Tar Heel Tavern #26

Tar Heel Tavern #26

William has put this week's edition of the Tar Heel Tavern up at Pirate's Cove.

Because this past week has been filled with stories about parents who have lost children in Iraq, I hope Erin Monahan won't mind me posting a poem she has written at her lovely website titled "Poetic Acceptance for Grieving Parents".

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Shadow of Grief

on her fourth birthday
This solitude passes
like the first breeze of spring
through crocus blooms
tender, silent
and undeniable.

It is the ghost of grief that haunts me -
a whisper in the garden of my dreams.

No longer is it the honeysuckle nightmare
that cloys at the fence with sickly sweetness
or the suffocating kudzu cloak
in the hot August sun.

It has become the scent of wisteria
charming and gentle
in the shade of the hollow water oak.


© Erin Monahan 2005

George Will is Wrong About Who Will Pay a Political Price for Iraq

George Will is Wrong About Who Will Pay a Political Price for Iraq

On ABC This Week, George Will threatened the Democratic party, telling them they'll pay for any support of Cindy Sheehan because of the nature of some of her political statements.

Paul Krugman,a guest on the panel, reminded him of the realities behind the narrative about Iraq, which runs parallel with that of the Right.

The clash of narratives has reached a tipping point because of Cindy Sheehan. The Bush administration's slogans are now being categorized as only one narrative out of two possible narratives - - and Mrs. Sheehan will not allow him to forget that more and more Americans are currently deciding, with full consciousness, which of the two they find most credible.

If anyone should pay any political price, I would think it would be the party who enjoys majority status in all branches of American government, for it is their political investment which has been spent on the Iraq war, hand-over-fist, at the time when these two narratives meet with a sickening sound.

George Allen Flip Flops on ABC This Week

George Allen Flip Flops
on ABC This Week

After recommending that George W. Bush should meet with Cindy Sheehan two weeks ago on CNN's Sunday talk show with Wolf Blitzer, Senator George Allen now calls Cindy Sheehan's statements "outrageous."

Flip flop. Flip flop.

Allen also compared the thugs of Iraqi's armed mobs to the militia units during our own Revolution. (I'm certain my Revolutionary ancestors are spinning like chicken rotisserie in their graves). I find the comparison even more amusing when I think about how our colonists were fighting England's influence, and today, most of these Iraqi militias want America OUT.

Allen also insisted that the proper term for Iraq, today, is the "central front for the war on terror". This is a dramatic shift of focus from March 17, 2003 - the eve of the pre-emptive attack upon Iraq when President Bush told America, flat-out, that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD and posed an imminent threat to the U.S.

If the goal was to make Iraq the central front for suicide bombers, I remind you of the observation I'd made years ago - which was that any deliberate intent to bring terror to the people of Iraq was one of the most immoral decisions we ever could have made.

I wonder if Senator Allen is proud when he uses that phrase, "Iraq is the central front for the war on terror"?

The Kurds

The Kurds

Billmon summarizes a recent blogpost with what I find to be an astute observation:

You would think that after Kosovo -- where the liberated Albanian population promptly unleashed on the Serbian minority the same ethnic cleansing previously directed at them by the Serbs -- our humanitarian interventionists would have learned something about tribal warfare, or human nature, or both. The Kurds are only playing by the same golden rule as everybody else in the Middle East: Do unto others before they do unto you. But it does pose a problem for those who want to divide the world into the children of light and the children of darkness, and place the United States military firmly on the side of the former against the latter. There's always the risk they'll find out they've simply sided with the Crips against the Bloods, or vice versa.

We're told we're in a situation where American troops are fighting for "Iraq", but at the same time any educated person can see that we've favored the Kurds and we know that the Kurds are anxious for independence -- so anxious that they refuse to make a promise that they won't cede from Iraq altogether. They are pressing for language to be included in the new Iraq charter allowing them the right to self-determination, which would effectively allow them to secede from Iraq at some point in the future. They are determined to have an autonomous Kurdistan, and have demanded that the oil-rich region of Kirkuk should be part of it.

It isn't difficult to see where this is going. It's moving toward instability in the region.

The Kurds want us to stay for their protection. If US troops were to withdraw anytime soon, the insecurity would be difficult to contain. Most of Iraq remains a rubbleland of violence filled with armed Islamic fundamentalists. If we pulled out, insurgents who have been targeting US troops would likely turn to the Kurds.

I don't think it will be politically feasible for President Bush to continue to prosecute this war successfully without the American public's support - and more international support.

American public opinion is rapidly fading for this war, and the Kurds do not want us to leave them. At the same time, they are itchy for their own revolution of independence and we know it. Plenty of Iraqi blood will flow before any of this is over. How long will American blood continue to flow?

Soon, it will become apparent to American citizens that what the Kurds want is more important to President Bush than what his own American people want.

In a democracy which is "by the people, of the people, for the people," the perception that the President's administration is kowtowing to an unstable foreign power at the direct objection of the people of the US -- that's a recipe for political disaster.

Don't read this as anti-Kurd. It is too serious of a business to be called anything BUT "concerned about the cause in which our nation is engaged" - the cause for which American parents are asked to risk their own flesh and blood.

al Qaida's Alleged Longterm Plan Revealed

al Qaida's Alleged Longterm Plan Revealed

At Spiegel Online, there is an article called What al-Qaida Really Wants by Yassin Musharbash, which outlines Jordanian journalist Fouad Hussein's view of what al Qaida plans to do within the next 15 years or so.

There is no solid guarantee of truth or accuracy for any of this seven-phase plan, which is little more than the author second guessing how al-Qaida terrorists think.

Spy Ring Case Was About Iran

AIPAC Spy Ring Case Was About Iran

Last March, I reported that Israel had drawn up secret plans for a combined air and ground attack on targets in Iran if diplomacy failed to halt the Iranian nuclear program. [TimesUK]

It just so happens to turn out that this has been what the AIPAC espionage case was all about.

At the time Feith's deputy Franklin (and, today's indictments say, two other as yet unidentified Pentagon officials) were passing the classified documents on Iran to AIPAC for transmission to Israel, the White House had not yet given the green light to Sharon -- indeed, the Iran attack was in a holding pattern pending the outcome of negotiations over Teheran's nuke capacity being led by the European powers which, unlike the U.S., have diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran...Even so, U.S. fingerprints were all over the Israelis' Iran attack, which had long been envisioned by U.S. policy-makers.

This Village Voice blog by Ward Harkavy reveals Douglas Feith to likely be a larger supporter of Israel than a supporter of the U.S.

...you can't lump all Zionists with Feith's wing, which is off the scale as a radical group.

It's almost impossible for me to believe someone like Feith was #3 at the US Department of Defense.

_______________

Here is my prediction:

After this week's pullout from the Gaza strip, a bold move that will surely give Israel the upper hand when it comes to public opinion, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said:

"To an outstretche dhand of peace, we will respond with an olive branch, but fire will be met with fire more intense than ever."

I am anticipating trouble with Iran. Naturally, I cannot predict how it will start or when, but I have a feeling that Israel will soon become entangled with Iran, and the US will be close behind Israel, wiping up each fingerprint. Knowing what we know about the aspirations and heavy hands in US foreign policy of neconservatives like Douglas Feith, Michael Ledeen, and the rest of the PNAC members, nothing would surprise me.

If this is noble, how come everyone feels manipulated?

If this is noble, how come everyone feels manipulated?

"We understand the Americans have sided with the Shi'ites. It's shocking. It doesn't fit American values. They have spent so much blood and money here, only to back the creation of an Islamist state ... I can't believe that's what the Americans really want or what the American people want....Perhaps the Americans are negotiating to get a deal at any cost, but we will not accept a constitution at any cost."

A Kurdish negotiator in Iraq, upon hearing that US diplomats have conceded ground to Islamists on the role of religion in Iraq, providing accord on a bigger role for Islamic law than Iraq had before.

The Kurds are ready to blow. To date, the Kurds have not dropped their insistence on language that would allow them to secede from Iraq under "certain circumstances." The Sunni Arabs are going to be furious about being sidelined. Some reports have indicated that Shi'ite cleric al Sistani has formally come out against the incorporation of Kirkuk into Kurdistan, maintaining that the northern oil city is for all Iraqis. Shiite politician Muwaffaq Rubai warned that if the constitution did not enshrine the principle of federalism, a civil war might ensue. Sadrists (Shi'ite) are demonstrating against federalism.

The majority of American people don't want our soldiers hanging around waiting for full blown civil war to happen.

Steve Gilliard says:

"We're asking men to die for the Islamic Republic of Iraq, and I for one do not think they should die for that."

Billmon has a blogpost discussing this new information, and he ties in the disappointment that he's wagering will be felt in Iraq by women who've been seeking genuine protection and advancement for their rights in Iraq.

It's not even clear the Cheney administration ever had any serious intention of promoting those values except as a smokescreen for the exercise of American power. When the historians finally write their histories, democracy in Iraq may end up as just another item on the list of bullshit bureaucratic excuses for this war -- behind weapons of mass destruction, but ahead of creating a "flytrap" for terrorists.

It is increasingly clear, though, that whatever the original face value of Bush's promises of liberation, the American public is no longer willing to pay the price to redeem them.

Swopa at Needlenose has updates from the AP and the NY Times. As I predicted a few days ago, Sunni Arabs are complaining that they are being left out of negotiations. One of four main Sunni negotiators named Saleh al-Mutlaq says that they'd finally convinced the Sunnis to take part in the political process through mosque preachers, who used to condemn such participation, and when they learn they've been sidelined, the 'street' is going to be be angry.

Politics Over Prayer

Politics Over Prayer

The fact that the President refused Mrs. Sheehan and refused to join Gold Star families in interfath prayer when he had the invitation shows me that he chooses his brand of politics over Jesus (his alleged favorite philosopher).



For all Christians, Jesus was with the prayerful that day in Crawford - just outside Bush's gates.



Bush wasn't. Laura wasn't.

Do the math.



Photo credit: NCCUSA and Faithful America

Point Blank - London Suspect Not Running Away When Shot

POINT BLANK
London Suspect Not Running Away When Shot


Matozinho Otoni da Silva, the father of the slain 27-year-old Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes, shows a photograph of the handsome son he lost.

- Point Blank

"...Police in London were under pressure after leaked documents revealed that a Brazilian killed on suspicion of being a suicide bomber was not trying to evade police and was already being restrained when he was shot at point-blank range." - LINK

Bush is no Roosevelt. NeoCon vision is no WWII

Bush is no Roosevelt. NeoCon vision is no WWII

There is a political column at Blogcritics.org which discusses a USA Today op-ed by Peter Schweizer entitled, "Strategies Or Diversions?," which draws a parallel between Roosevelt's refusal to chase after Japan immediately following the attack on Pearl Harbor and GW's refusal to focus all of his energy in taking down the Taliban and chasing after Osama bin Laden.

In the USA Today column, Schweizer states:

"There have been numerous tactical mistakes made in the war on terrorism, just as there were under Roosevelt 60 years ago. Nonetheless, we cannot let tragic, tactical setbacks, like the recent deaths of 20 Marines from one unit, lead us to abandon the grand strategy. Allied errors at the Battle of the Bulge didn't mean the sweep across Europe was wrong."

In essence, Schweizer is comparing the unspeakably huge blunder of making pre-emptive attack upon Iraq (where none of the rationales for war have met the reality of facts on the ground) with The Battle of the Bulge.

Making pre-emptive attack upon Iraq was too large a part of the "grand strategy", (ie: the PNAC/neocon plan for America's foreign policy), to surmise that the errors made there could ever rally the nation to continue the path upon which the noeconservative Utopians are leading us.

It's not a sound vision. It's over. Our strategy should be to find the tough-but-intelligent way to lessen the influence of what is culturally ingrained in nearly every Muslim's mind and political sensibility in the Middle East today, where a certain interpretation of Islam and Divine law trumps civil law; where Divine ordinance trumps parliamentary democracy. Our strategy must be refocused. Spilling blood in Iraq isn't working.

Ask Henry Kissinger. He's been there. Done that.