military

A nation built with African slaves inaugurates an African-American President.

A nation driven by culture wars born out of the Vietnam era moves into hope for more pragmatic, if still partisan, politics.

A nation fallen into the darkness of torture, of "collateral damage" of hundreds of thousands of lives, of ends justifying any means returns to an age of striving for the highest of American ideals.

A nation seduced by the fantasies popularized by Ronald Reagan, that markets are God, that government is evil, that global warming is a myth, that liberalism is out to destroy America, a nation almost paralyzed with the shock of the revealed lie of those fantasies -- a long nightmare, really -- returns to a reality-based vision of the world.

A nation coming off of one of the more ugly racist federal elections puts a black man into office.

Barack Obama is a pragmatic progressive whose intellect brings us hope that his leadership can guide the cumbersome bureaucracy and conflicting interests and influences into actions that make sense, based on reason.

It was truly audacious two years ago to believe this could happen. It took a lot of hope and the hard work of millions, and the faith of many more. But here it has happened.

Barack Obama is about to become President.

How unlikely.

How amazing.

The world is astonished. Today America returns to the light.

100 years? 1000 years? 10,000 year? Is John McCain kidding? No. None of the Republicans (nor a few Democracts either) is kidding. America, to them, is to be a colonial empire.

Never mind how America was founded, as a rebellion against colonialism.

Iraq is to be an American colony, replete with military bases, a hand-picked government, and precious little involvement of the international community.

Unlike the British Empire, though, the American Empire is supported by mercenaries. The American military is not enough for Republican ambitions, so we have private mercenaries armed with superior weapons, with little oversight, being paid four times what our youngest and bravest adults are offered for putting their lives on the line.

It's like the Roman Empire, except that now our mercenaries collect booty not from the vanquished but from our own taxes. Both concepts are horrid. Both concepts are without honor, at least the honor that we talk about when we talk about it amongst ourselves.

John McCain supports colonialism. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton at least claim they are against it.

It seems that John McCain said that MoveOn.org "ought to be thrown out of this country":

Speaking before a group in Hudson, New Hampshire last night, McCain took criticism of MoveOn’s Petraeus ad to a whole new level, saying that they should not only be ashamed, but “ought to be thrown out of this country.”

That is patently ridiculous, of course. This is America. We don't throw people out for things for saying stupid, distasteful things.

The thing is, MoveOn.org did fuck up with their Petraeus/"Betray Us" ad. It was stupid, juvenile rhetoric, and it succeeded in making the week as presented by the mainstream media to be about this stupid ad, instead of about the fucked up state of the Iraq occupation.

The Republicans were against the ropes, and MoveOn.org made them look like statesmen opposed by a bunch of snot-nosed kids.

SilentPatriot writes:

It’s almost comical to see Republicans run around condemning MoveOn for daring to attack a member of the military and calling into question their character or integrity, considering that’s the rhetorical weapon they usually wield.

Is that where we are now? Measuring our integrity and standards on a Rush Limbaugh scale?

There are plenty of rational and intelligent and cogent and clear arguments that can be made in New York Times ad buys against perpetuating President Bush's stubborn occupation. Lame-ass rhymes don't cut it.

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.