McCain Thinks the War is Won

This guy is scary disconnected from reality.

August has a sharp one liner summing up McCain’s deranged view of Iraq (emphasis mine):

Meanwhile, on Earth, John McCain is now claiming that we won the war in Iraq. I know, I had no idea either, right? Especially since this victory is the type of one where the soldiers keep getting killed and don’t get to come home. I guess, like Barack Obama, I just don’t understand foreign policy at all.

We have got to keep this nut out of office.  The “confused” tag McCain is often pelted with isn’t a dig at his age, its a dig at his sanity.  And it hurts because its spot on.

Witness Agains the War: An Introduction

We are two days away from the kickoff to the Witness Against the War walk.  450 Miles to protest the war in Iraq:

Witness Against War 2008 is a walk from Chicago to St. Paul to challenge and to nonviolently resist our country’s continuing war in and occupation of Iraq.

Our journey will begin in the City of Chicago, site of the 1968 Democratic Party convention in the midst of the Vietnam War. The walk will conclude on August 31 in St. Paul — in time for the start of the 2008 Republican Party convention in the midst of the Iraq war.

There’s more here.  The nonviolent protest will include civil disobedience.  It carries a simple message aimed at both parties: End the War.  The participants (including Helene!) will be taking part in a long and rich history of social activism for the best of causes:  Peace.

Good Reads

I’m starting a semi regular feature (ideally this will be once daily) listing interesting pieces of news and curiosity I come across.  Things that hit home, piss me off, or make really important arguments.  Thanks to Marco for the idea!

The anti-immigrant group the Minutemen and the racist CCC are formally working together now.  For an organization that has gone to lengths to protest accusations of racism, this is huge.  (Source: SPLC Hatewatch).

Kay clears up a lot of the smoke being blown around the Obama campaign (including noting that the abortion move I thought was a change was not).

This is heartbreaking.

Even the compliant Iraqis we put in power now want a timetable for withdrawal.

Jesse Helms remembered accurately.

McCain now having protestors who accurately compare him to Bush arrested.  Those ne’er-do-wells.

Its good to take time and remember the deaths of those brave enough to stand and fight.  In this case an activist journalist working in Mexico.

McCain’s short list for VP keeps getting crazier.

There is chess boxing.  It has a new world champion.  Sometimes the world is magical.

[Update:  You can find these posts here (rss feed here).]

Support Matthis Chiroux, Fight The War

Matthis Chiroux is a soldier in DC fighting back against the war.  His fight is attracting notice (AFP):

“I stand before you today with the strength and clarity and resolve to declare to the military, my government and the world that this soldier will not be deploying to Iraq,” Chiroux said in the sun-filled rotunda of a congressional building in Washington.

“My decision is based on my desire to no longer continue violating my core values to support an illegal and unconstitutional occupation… I refuse to participate in the Iraq occupation,” he said, as a dozen veterans of the five-year-old Iraq war looked on.

Minutes earlier, Chiroux had cried openly as he listened to former comrades-in-arms testify before members of Congress about the failings of the Iraq war.

The testimonies were the first before Congress by Iraq veterans who have turned against the five-year-old war.

Former army sergeant Kristofer Goldsmith told the landmark haering of “lawless murders, looting and the abuse of countless Iraqis.”

He spoke of the psychologically fragile men and women who return from Iraq to find little help or treatment offered from official circles.

Via his facebook group:

If everyone will give at least $1 it will let him continue his political work in Washington D.C for some time, please check out the group ans see the last post from Matthis, This is not charity money!
while we all do our regular business, Matthis is in d.C trying to stop the war with his very bare hands,
Please lend a hand and go to:
https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_home
and send money to :
chiroux@googlemail.com.
if you want his private address

This is a slightly more direct link: Support Via Paypal.  His a voice we want heard in the halls of power.  He is a man of rare character and bravery, and it is an honor to support him.

Obama: Are We Entering Lesser of Two Evils Land?

I’m an Obama supporter.  I’m no PUMA:

I just can’t figure out why if it is soooo important for the Democrats to win that the fingerpointers don’t pick the Democrat most likely to actually win.  I mean, they still have a choice.  If they are so concerned , they can petition the party to have a fair and transparent convention and let’s see who persuades the largest number of superdelegates.    So what if the signs for the fall have already been made?  It’s just stationary.  Surely it is more important to pick the right Democrat, right?

I still think a Democrat who starts out with 50% of the general electorate against her, who refused to listen to reason on the Iraq war until it was far too late and who has exhibited essential weakness on Iran warmongering, would have been a poor choice.

So what’s my deal?

Obama recently decided to avoid public financing.  Fine by me, although I admit, the idea of him going back on a campaign promise clearly tells me he made the promise for points, not for real.

He also seems to have increasingly bad taste in who he’s surrounding himself with:

Here are some statements by Ms. Rice in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq:

“I think he [then Secretary of State Colin Powell] has proved that Iraq has these weapons and is hiding them, and I don’t think many informed people doubted that.” (NPR, Feb. 6, 2003)

“We need to be ready for the possibility that the attack against the U.S. could come in some form against the homeland, not necessarily on the battlefield against our forces. And I think there, too, is an area where the American people need to be better prepared by our leadership. … It’s clear that Iraq poses a major threat. It’s clear that its weapons of mass destruction need to be dealt with forcefully, and that’s the path we’re on. I think the question becomes whether we can keep the diplomatic balls in the air and not drop any, even as we move forward, as we must, on the military side.” (NPR, Dec. 20, 2002)

“I think the United States government has been clear since the first Bush administration about the threat that Iraq and Saddam Hussein poses. The United States policy has been regime change for many, many years, going well back into the Clinton administration. So it’s a question of timing and tactics…We do not necessarily need a further Council resolution before we can enforce this and previous resolutions. (NPR, Nov. 11, 2002)

Of course, this sounds like Condoleezza Rice. But in fact all those quotes are from Susan Rice, Assistant Secretary of State in the Clinton administration and now part of Obama’s newly formed “Senior Working Group on National Security.” The quotes are from an examination of the Working Group done by the Institute for Public Accuracy, here.

Obama also

Which leads me to the natural question.  If what he says can’t be trusted, he’s a mushy centrist at heart, and he’s hiring people with very questionable judgment, then who will we have in office in 2010?

The stakes are depressingly high this time around.  Ours is a country that arrests people wrongfully and tortures (there always seems to be a new angle on how we torture).  A country that goes to war without cause.  Our electoral system is a badly broken mockery of the principles of representation and liberty that ought to form the backbone of our daily experience as Americans.

Think about that last one for a moment.  As an American we ought to feel empowered.  Instead, be honest, we feel helpless and watched.

The leaders of the Democratic party and the candidates, all of them (even the ones who lost long ago), are smart people.  They ought to be working together even if informally to figure out how to draw a sharp line away from the failed and costly policies of the current administration.  Instead our party has been consumed by the supporters of two problematic candidates.

If we fail in November we are fucked.

If anyone over in Obama land is listening, he needs to make with the backbone.  He needs to make a cleaner break with the old politics we are so desperate to be rid of.

The decision to skip public financing is one I support: I want to win in November.  But poor decisions never occur in isolation of each other, and enough similar mistakes will create a credibility gap and fill it with the worst sorts of insinuations about motivation.

And please, go through the ranks, and dump the staff that don’t rise up to the expectations of rationality and compassion we expect from you.  There is no shortage of intelligent and caring people to draw from in the Democratic party.  You can do better.  And as a leader, if you do, we all will.

Dear Obama: Listen!

Please listen to Jamelle!  (US of Jamerica):

Obama’s little riff here basically sums up his foreign policy approach.  I actually wish he would use this language to challenge John McCain’s national security “credentials,” since it’s a pretty effective characterization.

Barack’s language is right on, and applies neatly to foreign policy.  From the difference between talking tough and needing to act out, to the wisdom of walking away and “saving it for when you need it”.  These points, especially given the state of our military and the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran(Pending Cheney pressing a big red button while Congress just watches), hit home in an easily understandable way.

Hillary Voted for the War

She Voted For the War:

Consider; If the War in Iraq was currently popular with the American Public which side of the argument would Hillary Clinton be on?

They have an excellent point.

Petraeus’ Unscientific 45 Day Test

General Petraeus, next to a smug looking Ambassador Crocker, testifying we need to withdraw troops slowly (Guardian):

Clinton and McCain were speaking at a hearing at which the most senior US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, was giving evidence.

Petraeus lined up with McCain on the issue of troops, warning against withdrawing “too many troops too quickly”

Thirty-thousand extra US troops sent to Iraq last year are scheduled to return home by the end of July. Petraeus told the Senate committee he wanted a halt at that point to any further withdrawals for at least 45 days to assess the impact of troop reductions on security.

“At the end of that period, we will commence a process of assessment to examine the conditions on the ground and, over time, determine when we can make recommendations for further reductions,” Petraeus said.

The problem with what might otherwise be a wise suggestion from Petraeus is how do we interpret the results of the 45 day period?  Looking purely at the level of violence in the country, if it goes down or stays the same, thats one thing.  But what if that violence increases?  With Al-Sadr threatening to end the ceasefire, determining causality would prove difficult.  And without causality, drawing conclusions would be even more difficult, if not impossible.

Iraq is so volatile now, that any number of factors could increase the violence during any given period, at any point during or after withdrawal.

So in this case, what seems like a rational and compromising centrist position (“Let’s try bringing home some troops and see what happens”) is in fact setting up a test with too many factors to yield clear results.  And we’ve seen what this administration does when the results are clearly against its recommendations.

Bush Planning Fake Treaty For Permanent Occupation of Iraq

Jonathan Schwarz has an important piece up on the Bush Administration’s attempt to override the wishes of our own Legislative branch and the Iraqi Parliament and set up a permanent occupation (emphasis mine):

A majority of the Iraqi parliament wants the US to leave Iraq, and for several years has been trying to prevent the mandate from being renewed unless it includes a specific timeframe for us to depart.

The executive branch of the Iraqi government (ie, Prime Minister Maliki and friends) wants the US to stay indefinitely. That’s because we want to stay, and Maliki is our puppet. Maliki therefore successfully got the UN to renew the mandate at the end of 2007, even though the Iraqi parliament opposed it and, under the Iraqi constitution, must approve all treaties. Maliki is exactly like Bush in this way; the legislative branch tries to assert its constitutional rights, and Maliki tells them: fuck you.

[…]

Thus, Bush is attempting to create a bilateral “agreement” with Iraq via Maliki. It won’t be called a treaty, because as noted that would require the Iraqi parliament to approve it; even worse, under the US constitution, it would require the two-thirds approval of the US Senate.

So what the administration tried to do was quietly institute this accord between itself and Maliki (essentially between itself and itself), and write it so it was a treaty in all but name, giving the US the right to “protect” the Iraqi government from foreign and domestic threats.

President Bush wants to make us Iraq’s army.  He wants to make McCain’s 100 years a reality.

McCain’s Credibility With the Press

Via Majikthise, Kevin Drum body slams John McCain’s credibility:

Let’s recap. Foreign policy cred lets him get away with wild howlers on foreign policy. Fiscal integrity cred lets him get away with outlandishly irresponsible economic plans. Anti-lobbyist cred lets him get away with pandering to lobbyists. Campaign finance reform cred lets him get away with gaming the campaign finance system. Straight talking cred lets him get away with brutally slandering Mitt Romney in the closing days of the Republican primary. Maverick uprightness cred allows him to get away with begging for endorsements from extremist religious leaders like John Hagee. “Man of conviction” cred allows him to get away with transparent flip-flopping so egregious it would make any other politician a laughingstock. Anti-torture cred allows him to get away with supporting torture as long as only the CIA does it.

Any one of these issues would be a major headache for a Democratic candidate, or for any “non-blessed-by-the-media” Republican candidate.  We need to pop the karma-bubble around John McCain, or face watching a man wearing a full body media narrative stroll into the White House.

When Will We Reach 5000?

We’ve lost 4,000 Americans.  Four thousand lives wasted.  When will we reach 5,000?  What are those thousand people doing right now?  Are some of them home on leave with their families, or on their third extended tour in Iraq?  Are they lying on their bunk trying to forget what happened to a friend and comrade, an unfortunate member of the 4,000 war dead?

And what happens when every single one of those next 1,000 people is killed in Iraq?  Will we be ready to stop the war then?

We Killed People, We Don’t Care

George Bush and Dick Cheney lied us into a war that killed thousands of our citizens, and murdered vast numbers of Iraqis.

Their response is essentially “Fuck Reality, Fuck the Voters and Fuck the Consequences” (Melissa (Shakespeare’s Sister)):

Five years in, Bush says, “No one would argue that this war has not come at a high cost in lives and treasure, but those costs are necessary when we consider the cost of a strategic victory for our enemies in Iraq,” and Cheney doesn’t care that two-thirds of the American public no longer supports the war: “So? …I think you cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.”

What else is there to say? The warmongers have spoken.

And they don’t care what we think.

To which I reply: “Fuck Impeachment.  When 2009 comes you’re doing hard time.”.

They lied us into a war.  They are actively working against the will of the people.  And they are risking this country’s security by misfiring our military resources and they won’t even lift the self-imposed blind-fold long enough to take a real peek at how they’re doing.

The American people, our system of government, cannot afford to let them get away with these high crimes unpunished.

Anti-War Protests and Working in DC

This morning in my “General” folder in Outlook (that’s where all the company-wide email goes by default), I found this email from our “Office Manager” noting there will be protests, and concluding with:

Building management plans to operate the building on a normal business throughout the day on Wednesday, March 19, 2008. They will, however, be prepared to lock the building on a moment’s notice should events warrant. Please be advised that you will not receive notice immediately if they make a decision to lock the building based on activity outside the building. They will secure the building first and notify us after securing the property.

Of course nothing happened. But the attitude around the office prior to the protests was one of anxiety (“will they get in our way?”) to disdain (“what do they think they are accomplishing?”). The folks I work with tend to be a mix of liberal to conservative, with those who oppose the war strongly and those who support it.

During the protests there was a mix of interest “The police were there arresting protestors!” and disinterest, which by far ruled the day. In corporate America, the protests were a curiosity. Something to keep an eye on, but otherwise of no consequence. Later today at class (which was full of generally very well informed folks), only one fellow knew the protests even happened, and what they were for.

In my mind, a protest serves several purposes. It is a PR action, it can bolster morale within a movement (and be quite empowering), and it can effect direct action. With the media being the way it is, massive numbers and effective cleverness are necessary for a protest to make waves. It needs to be something new!

That said, I wonder what an anti-war rally with the express purpose of empowering people (to go back to their communities and take action, etc) might look like.

I wonder if anyone has the strength or sees the point of engaging in direct action. The folks at the IRS today were unable to block people from entering. Was it a symbolic victory to have people briefly block the front entrance, and have other protesters hauled off to prison?

What do you think?

McCain’s Dismal Foreign Policy Expertise

John McCain is going to run as an expert on foreign policy, an experienced heavyweight with security his centerpiece strength.

Which makes this pretty fucking alarming (via Greg Saunders at TMW, emphasis mine):

The foolishness of this John McCain “gaffe”, to use the media’s favorite understatement, should terrify anyone who actually thinks the commander-in-chief should have a basic understanding of the wars we’re fighting :

Sen. John McCain, traveling in the Middle East to promote his foreign policy expertise, misidentified in remarks Tuesday which broad category of Iraqi extremists are allegedly receiving support from Iran.He said several times that Iran, a predominately Shiite country, was supplying the mostly Sunni militant group, al-Qaeda. In fact, officials have said they believe Iran is helping Shiite extremists in Iraq.

Speaking to reporters in Amman, the Jordanian capital, McCain said he and two Senate colleagues traveling with him continue to be concerned about Iranian operatives “taking al-Qaeda into Iran, training them and sending them back.”

Pressed to elaborate, McCain said it was “common knowledge and has been reported in the media that al-Qaeda is going back into Iran and receiving training and are coming back into Iraq from Iran, that’s well known. And it’s unfortunate.” A few moments later, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, standing just behind McCain, stepped forward and whispered in the presidential candidate’s ear. McCain then said: “I’m sorry, the Iranians are training extremists, not al-Qaeda.”

Wow. If foreign policy is supposed to be the area in which McCain is an expert, I’m terrified of what he might do to the economy.

McCain’s being transparent.  He wants to yell “boo, Al-Qaeda!” when pressed with a foreign policy question, even when it makes less than zero sense to do so.  If McCain’s experience amounts to staring at a wall while people whisper the answers in his ear he’d better come up with another angle to market his presidency.

Iraq: Seeing the Violence

War for many of us is an abstract.  It is the suffering of others, happening outside our daily worries and triumphs.

I was googling for a completely unrelated purpose for “I saw”, and came across an old article on the war, I saw the head of my two children come off:

An Iraqi mother in a van fired on by US soldiers says she saw her two young daughters decapitated in the incident that also killed her son and eight other members of her family.

The children’s father, who was also in the van, said US soldiers fired on them as they fled towards a checkpoint because they thought a leaflet dropped by US helicopters told them to “be safe”, and they believed that meant getting out of their village to Karbala.

Bakhat Hassan – who lost his daughters, aged two and five, his three-year-old son, his parents, two older brothers, their wives and two nieces aged 12 and 15, in the incident – said US soldiers at an earlier checkpoint had waved them through.

As they approached another checkpoint 40km south of Karbala, they waved again at the American soldiers.

“We were thinking these Americans want us to be safe,” Hassan said through an Army translator at a Mobile Army Surgical Hospital set up at a vast Army support camp near Najaf.

The soldiers didn’t wave back. They fired.

“I saw the heads of my two little girls come off,” Hassan’s heavily pregnant wife, Lamea, 36, said numbly.

She repeated herself in a flat, even voice: “My girls – I watched their heads come off their bodies. My son is dead.”

This war is filled with stories of those who lost, in so many piercing ways.  Its long past time we restore sanity and compassion to our foreign policy, and end this damned war.