Iraq

The view from seven non-commissioned officers in Iraq:

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere....

A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.

As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.

What are we still doing there? Why do we pretend we can achieve anything, let alone the mysterious "victory" that President Bush claims to be after?

Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers. The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party in the conflict — as we do now — will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run.

At the same time, the most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums.

How is any kind of victory supposed to be possible when the billions of dollars we're throwing at Halliburton and billions more thrown at other contractors are resulting in such an utter failure of accomplishing any sort of basic services?

Why is it that the Bush administration and the nutroots are so eager to stroke the gun without question? Why is it that wingnut "think" tanks continue to deny reality? This seems to have gone beyond any sort of logic. It's about irrational fear, zealotry and ego now.

Redstate notes that "Cheney Warned Of Iraq 'Quagmire'":

I don't know what to say. Maybe something like I hate it when he's right? I don't think Iraq is a quagmire. Progress is being made. So much so that even the New York Times had to acknowledged it and there is talk of some Democrats being worried about facing a voter backlash for pandering to the left wing defeatists.

I was speaking with a Marine Master Sargent last week. He was getting ready for his second deployment to Iraq. Asked what he thought of our efforts he said He has 25 years in the Corps, looking to make it 30, he expects he will have three more Iraq tours. He thought for a moment and said 'we just need more time. You have to give us more time.'

The problem with Cheney's use of the q-word is that ever since we gave up in Vietnam, quagmire equates to failure in our political lexicon. We have not failed in Iraq, not yet, regardless of what the Democrats and the main stream media say. Another problem is that we can't look at the post-9/11 world through pre-9/11 lenses. September 11th changed everything.

Did September 11th change anything but the level of fear-mongering by the right? I'm still waiting for someone to explain how 9/11 changed anything fundamental about our strategic security. Yeah it was scary, but was it "throw out the Constitution" scary? Blitzkrieg in Poland changed everything. Pearl Harbor changed everything. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand changed everything. The "shot heard 'round the world" changed everything.

But did the mass-murderous fanaticism of 19 criminal skyjackers change everything? Or did it just change us?

Karl Rove's departure announcement comes while we as a country wrestle with the utter debacle that he helped create: the violent occupation of Iraq. It was our ill-intentioned, ill-conceived and woefully ineptly executed invasion and occupation of Iraq, not 9/11, that changed everything. It was our polarization of the world by an administration hell-bent on destroying Saddam Hussein, the man who betrayed the oil men (and let's all now remember all those photos of Saddam shaking hands with American "statesmen"), that changed everything.

It is the continuing state of the State of Iraq that has changed everything. Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11. (Hello? Is anyone on the right keeping their ears unplugged?)

This isn't about party. Most of the Democrats in Washington are culpable in enabling the worst foreign policy blunder in America's history, too. This is about bringing America back to the good fight, the smart play, the leadership role in the world -- leading by example, not by sending our finest fighting men and women into neighborhoods to establish democracy at the point of a gun, not by keeping our soldiers and Marines (and as many, if not more, private "contractors") in those neighborhoods with the impossible mission of policing a civil war.

Meanwhile the guy behind the attacks that supposedly "changed everything" -- Osama bin Laden, remember him? -- where is he? "Oh, don't talk about him. Al-Qaeda is in Iraq!" the right cries a cappella. Yeah, some of them are. I wonder why.

The right seems to be obsessed with appearing strong rather than being strong. While the mission of the war on Iraq and the definition of "victory" remain terribly vague, what's becoming quite clear is that this war has become a point of pride for the fragile ego of the modern American conservative.

Conservatism once stood for small government and balanced budgets. Conservatism once opposed "nation building." Conservatism once fought for civil liberties. No longer.

The takeover of the Republican Party by the neocons and "holy rollers" (as Victor Gold calls them) -- that changed everything.

Even though President Bush, to my mind, is the worst president America has ever had -- and that we still have yet to realize just how much damage he has done to our foreign relations as well as our domestic politics -- I have to raise eyebrows at how the mainstream media have spun Bush's latest actions with regard to torture and the CIA.

The AP:

WASHINGTON - President Bush breathed new life into the CIA's terror interrogation program Friday in an executive order that would allow harsh questioning of suspects, limited in public only by a vaguely worded ban on cruel and inhuman treatment.

Reuters:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush, under fire over the treatment of CIA detainees, on Friday ordered that agency interrogators comply with the Geneva Conventions against torture.

AFP:

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush on Friday forbid the CIA to torture suspected terrorists in its once-secret detention and interrogation program but was criticized for his vague, "trust us" approach.

Bloomberg:

July 20 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush signed an executive order today barring the Central Intelligence Agency from torturing terrorism suspects or subjecting them to ``cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.''

So what is the "news that's fit to print"?

And the media moguls, pundits and workers sitting in Aeron chairs decide what is the truth, pre-chewed for the rest of us. And we're not supposed to taste their spit.

What is the truth?

The buzz today in the political blogosphere has been, of course, the Pentagon's rebuke of Hillary Clinton.

In a stinging rebuke to a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Undersecretary of Defense Eric Edelman responded to questions Clinton raised in May in which she urged the Pentagon to start planning now for the withdrawal of American forces.

A copy of Edelman's response, dated July 16, was obtained Thursday by The Associated Press.

"Premature and public discussion of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq, much as we are perceived to have done in Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia," Edelman wrote.

He added that "such talk understandably unnerves the very same Iraqi allies we are asking to assume enormous personal risks."

Some responses are here :

Senator Hillary Clinton, twice-elected representative of the people New York, has been told to STFU by Bush's Pentagon. Bush said it's his government, and I think we know by now that he was dead serious.

and here:

Edelman seems not to know that the Pentagon is not the commanding officer of the Senate. His response is disrespectful, outrageous and he should be immediately fired for his unacceptable behavior. And you can have no doubt that Edelman is not a uniform wearing member of the military, but rather a BushCo hack...

and here:

Edelman apparently got his diplomatic skills from the Dick Cheney school of governance. Since he's a former aide to Cheney, that seems likely.

That some lackey apparatchik in the Pentagon would dare to accuse a United States Senator of "boosting enemy propaganda" is an outrage. Not to mention a really stupid way to respond to one of the people who gets to decide your department's budget.

and here :

Edelman is directly contradicted by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who testified that debate over Iraq redeployment has been “helpful in bringing pressure to bear on the Maliki government.” Additionally, these “very same Iraqi allies” aren’t unnerved by talk of redeployment, but overwhelmingly favor it — 71 percent of Iraqis want the U.S. troops to withdraw within a year.

and here:

Stifling debate and zero transparency at all times. Welcome to the Land of the Free. No questions, please. They’ll just embolden The Enemies of The Homeland.

and here :

And speaking about emboldening the enemy, how's that hunt for Osama going?

What strikes me is that the Pentagon is acknowledging that it determines strategy in reaction to whatever the "enemy propaganda" is. I suppose if al-Sadr told the US military to not jump off a cliff, the Pentagon would immediately order troops to jump off a cliff.

--You know, so as to not let the enemy propagandists "win."

Is it any wonder things are so messed up in Iraq?

On this day, the Democrats in Congress seem very very small, while Al Gore is like a giant.

I wish he would run. Then I would get really interested. I want to be inspired by the frontrunners. They hit the right notes, mostly, but really I feel like I'm watching a bunch of children fighting for the spotlight in the school musical.

And they have been almost inspiring so far because the Republican candidates are just so much more pathetic and stupid.

Help!

Via Shakesville, we learn that Hearst Newspapers did a little reading between the Pentagon lines:

The Bush administration is quietly on track to nearly double the number of combat troops in Iraq this year, an analysis of Pentagon deployment orders showed Monday.

The little-noticed second surge, designed to reinforce U.S. troops in Iraq, is being executed by sending more combat brigades and extending tours of duty for troops already there.

The actions could boost the number of combat soldiers from 52,500 in early January to as many as 98,000 by the end of this year if the Pentagon overlaps arriving and departing combat brigades.

Separately, when additional support troops are included in this second troop increase, the total number of U.S. troops in Iraq could increase from 162,000 now to more than 200,000 -- a record-high number -- by the end of the year.

I'm speechless.

"It doesn't surprise me that they're not talking about it," said retired Army Maj. Gen. William Nash, a former U.S. commander of NATO troops in Bosnia, referring to the Bush administration. "I think they would be very happy not to have any more attention paid to this."

I really really hope this analysis is wrong. What is definitely not reassuring is that we now have a military surge industry that is making very very big bucks on the war, and stand to lose out on mega cash flows when we withdraw. Dina Rasor writes in The Huffington Post:

He's having "fun" doing it.

“Of course I’m gonna misspeak,” McCain said. “I’ve done it on numerous occasions. And I probably will in the future. I regret that when I divert attention to something that I’ve said from my message. But that’s just life. And I’m happy, frankly, with the way I operate. Otherwise it’d be a lot less fun.”

Oo-la-la!

When the surge doesn't work, what does the Bush Administration do? Surge some more!

New orders awaiting the signature of Defense Secretary Robert Gates will put 12,000 National Guard troops on alert to prepare to deploy to Iraq, the report said.

I think we've reached Benjamin Franklin's definition of instanity.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

Can we wait 21 more months? Back to the AP:

More than four years into the U.S.-led war in Iraq, the U.S. military shows increasing signs of strain.

On Monday, the Pentagon said it would send another 9,000 U.S. troops to Iraq, with about half of them returning to combat ahead of schedule.

Two of the affected Army units, totaling about 4,500 troops, will return to combat short of their promised year at home, reflecting the strain placed on U.S. forces by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So sad.

What would happen if we really need the Army for something else?

Jon Stewart called it "Iranian Hostage Crisis: The Next Generation" (with the requisite cool cable-news-like graphics), but now Iranian dissidents are saying it really is like old times: The Iranian government planned to take British soldiers hostage.

Abedini told a London press conference that an Iranian Revolutionary
Guard naval garrison had been on alert from the night before the
kidnapping, to prepare for the operation.

Mohammad Mohaddessin, who handles foreign affairs for the council,
said in a statement that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
had ordered the detention of the Britons in the hope of pressuring the
British government over a threat to toughen U.N. sanctions.

"You can see that the clerical regime had in a premeditated act
arrested British sailors in order to win concessions from the
international community and divert attention from its nuclear project,"
Abedini said. "Claims that the sailors were arrested in Iranian
territorial waters are baseless."

They just hate to be left out of all the war-making fun.

The Pentagon is stretched to the limit.

Faced with a military buildup in Iraq that could drag into next year, Pentagon officials are trying to identify enough units to keep up to 20 brigade combat teams in Iraq. A brigade usually has about 3,500 troops.

The likely result will be extending the deployments of brigades scheduled to come home at the end of the summer, and sending others earlier than scheduled....

...The complex scheduling must identify which units would have been home for 12 months and be trained and ready to go, plus whether the needed equipment would be available and what impact a schedule change has on other plans for the equipment or troops months down the road.

Combat troops, meanwhile, are coming to realize that the Pentagon can't fulfill its commitment to give soldiers two years at home for every year they spend deployed.

This is what happens when a war has no popular support and its biggest supporters are chickenhawks.