Five years after the Abu Ghraib revelations, we must acknowledge that our government methodically authorized torture and lied about it. But we also must contemplate the possibility that it did so not just out of a sincere, if criminally misguided, desire to "protect" us but also to promote an unnecessary and catastrophic war. Instead of saving us from "another 9/11," torture was a tool in the campaign to falsify and exploit 9/11 so that fearful Americans would be bamboozled into a mission that had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. The lying about Iraq remains the original sin from which flows much of the Bush White House's illegality.
Is it me, or does this fit a pattern with revelations about the Bush administration and Iraq? Some information leaked out, a few journalists and bloggers followed the trail, shocking revelations came to light...which the media ignored for two to four years until an authorized government report admits to what we knew all along.
Does it bother anyone else that most mainstream media outlets are passive when it comes to challenging the government?
This stuff that's coming out about the Bush administration is huge. The implications about the executive branch are enormous. But...will anything happen? Where's the pressure to right the wrongs that have been committed?
There's much buzz about Fred Kaplan's Slate piece on the Russia-Georgia war, and for good reason, especially in the context of the current cease-fire which coincided (was spurred by?) with a visit to Moscow by French President Sarkozy.
Kaplan:
Regardless of what happens next, it is worth asking what the Bush people were thinking when they egged on Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia's young, Western-educated president, to apply for NATO membership, send 2,000 of his troops to Iraq as a full-fledged U.S. ally, and receive tactical training and weapons from our military. Did they really think Putin would sit by and see another border state (and former province of the Russian empire) slip away to the West? If they thought that Putin might not, what did they plan to do about it, and how firmly did they warn Saakashvili not to get too brash or provoke an outburst?
It's heartbreaking, but even more infuriating, to read so many Georgians quoted in the New York Times-officials, soldiers, and citizens-wondering when the United States is coming to their rescue. It's infuriating because it's clear that Bush did everything to encourage them to believe that he would. When Bush (properly) pushed for Kosovo's independence from Serbia, Putin warned that he would do the same for pro-Russian secessionists elsewhere, by which he could only have meant Georgia's separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Putin had taken drastic steps in earlier disputes over those regions-for instance, embargoing all trade with Georgia-with an implicit threat that he could inflict far greater punishment. Yet Bush continued to entice Saakashvili with weapons, training, and talk of entry into NATO. Of course the Georgians believed that if they got into a firefight with Russia, the Americans would bail them out.
Now, there's some speculation that the US gave "tacit" support to a Georgian incursion into South Osesetia; for the record, Robert Farley's take seems more reasonable, that "motivated bias on the part of Saakashvili may have led him to believe that the Americans were making encouraging noises, because he wanted to believe the Americans were encouraging him."
Frankly, I don't think even the idiots in the Bush administration would green light a provocation of the irritated superpower on Georgia's border. Then again, I've been wrong about these folks before.
Okay, Berlin was more than a "little speech." It was a clear reaffirmation of Obama's intent to bring a disgraced United States back to the forefront of the international community as a leader for democratic values:
...the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another.
The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.
[snip]
But I also know how much I love America. I know that for more than two centuries, we have strived - at great cost and great sacrifice - to form a more perfect union; to seek, with other nations, a more hopeful world. Our allegiance has never been to any particular tribe or kingdom - indeed, every language is spoken in our country; every culture has left its imprint on ours; every point of view is expressed in our public squares. What has always united us - what has always driven our people; what drew my father to America's shores - is a set of ideals that speak to aspirations shared by all people: that we can live free from fear and free from want; that we can speak our minds and assemble with whomever we choose and worship as we please.
Simply put, awesome. Obviously the use of "walls" has an emotional appeal in Berlin -- they know what he's referring to...and did I ever tell you I was in Germany and Berlin for the 1989 revolution? Forget Reagan, forget consumer goods; the '89 revolution was about people, just ordinary folks, like you reading this blog, who stood up and left. They had it, and they quit the system. And that was the end.
But then...read on...and find out how he plans to balance the budget (also gleaned from his economic plan):
-- Curb "wasteful spending"
-- Overhaul "entitlement" programs, "including Social Security," Medicare, and Medicaid
-- Make the Bush tax cuts permanent
-- Lower the corporate tax rate
-- Eliminate the AMT
-- Give $5K to each family for health care
-- Reserving "all savings from victory in...Iraq and Afghanistan" to deficit reduction
I see a lot of tax cuts for business and the wealthy and spending increases - and not much in the way of spending cuts or increasing revenue. Trickle-down economics, still!
Er, isn't this how we got into this mess in the first place?
Never mind that these budget proposals are fundamentally flawed, that they favor corporations over tax payers. We want government...but government that works and for us. Gutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid and all the other programs that actually give back in order to fund an unjust, ill-advised war we can't "win," and to put cash in the pockets of the people who've driven down our wages, poisoned our air and water, and who have us hooked on our oil infrastructure...well..it's ugly, and it's not what I want.
This is a far cry from the McCain of 2000, eh?
And read this again:
The McCain administration would reserve all savings from victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations in the fight against Islamic extremists for reducing the deficit. Since all their costs were financed with deficit spending, all their savings must go to deficit reduction.
Talk about delusional. Wasn't it McCain himself who said we should stay in Iraq for 100 more years? And to stake American's economic future on a war that never was necessary in the first place? If there's ever a more damning indictment against McCain's fitness to be president, I've yet to see it.
Andrew Bacevich has an excellent op-ed in today's Boston Globeon Bush's legacy and how that should play in this year's election.
In short, Bush has had many "substantial" accomplishments, although they're "almost entirely malignant." Bacevich is talking about, among other things, Bush's legacy of permanent war; using pre-emptive war as a viable foreign policy option; using the DoD as a means for the projection of power, not defense; setting a precedent of "imperial" power over national security, weakening our system of checks and balances; and expanding the security state.
In essence, the Bush presidency has changed the very fabric of our executive branch and federal power, and for the worse. But the worst of this legacy is that is has gone largely unexamined and unchallenged by the media or by mainstream political players.
The burden of identifying and confronting the Bush legacy necessarily falls on Obama. Although for tactical reasons McCain will distance himself from the president's record, he largely subscribes to the principles informing Bush's post-9/11 policies. McCain's determination to stay the course in Iraq expresses his commitment not simply to the ongoing conflict there, but to the ideas that gave rise to that war in the first place. While McCain may differ with the president on certain particulars, his election will affirm the main thrust of Bush's approach to national security.
The challenge facing Obama is clear: he must go beyond merely pointing out the folly of the Iraq war; he must demonstrate that Iraq represents the truest manifestation of an approach to national security that is fundamentally flawed, thereby helping Americans discern the correct lessons of that misbegotten conflict.
And that, my friends, is why Obama's seeming embrace of the current FISA rewrite causes such vociferous reaction from those of us who want to see Bush's legacy erased.
You know what I think about the revelations found in Scott McClellan's new book?
Yawn.
Is there anything revelatory in this thing? The only surprise is that someone who worked as an insider in the Bush administration would actually admit to the stuff they pulled.
The most interesting part of book from the reports so far, are the following passages excerpted in yesterday's Politico report:
McClellan repeatedly embraces the rhetoric of Bush's liberal critics and even charges: "If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.
"The collapse of the administration's rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. ... In this case, the 'liberal media' didn't live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served."
That's right; Bush's former spokesflack just called out the media for not being hard enough on the administration!
Here's a strange article from a few days ago I saw mentioned elsewhere in the blogs - a report that seems to claim...that...help me out here...this past weekend's Democrat-a-palooza was actually bad for Montana Democrats:
Could all the attention that comes with visits by Clinton and Obama hurt the state party? It's a question that lingers behind the hoopla surrounding the rare events set for this weekend in Butte and Missoula.
Montana Republicans certainly believe the high-profile visits will negatively affect state Democrats, while acknowledging it will help the opposition organize and raise money. Democrats, however, say the excitement will help far more than it hurts....
"I'm not sure that any of them running for re-election, the governor for instance, wants to have their picture taken with either (presidential) candidate," Wilson said. "On the other hand, when you get ex-presidents coming in, and the top two candidates coming in, well, I can't remember a time that has ever happened."
(Here's another post from Veterans for America's Bobby Muller; it's cross-posted on the Daily Kos. - promoted by Jay Stevens)
Next week, General David Petraeus will travel to Capitol Hill and make his report to Congress on the war in Iraq. If, as expected, he announces a pause in the withdrawal in troops from Iraq, our Congress must say "no" for the sake of our military and of our servicemembers.
We can not pause the withdrawal of our troops because we are seeing, everyday, the absolute devastation our wars, with frequent, long, often extended deployments, are having on our men and women in uniform.
How can we constantly churn our troops like this? How can we consciously compound the wounds of war? We are sending men and women back for fourth and fifth tours of duty when the Department of Defense, by its own estimation, says that with each additional tour, troops are 60% more likely to develop severe post-combat mental health issues.
I say "excellent," because Iraq is going to play a major role in the upcoming election, and will be used as a political cudgel for years to come, even if we withdraw in 2009, not a safe assumption. And I say "excellent" because the definition of victory is as elusive today as the cause of the war was in 2003.
Kaplan:
Originally, victory was conceived in grandiose terms. The defeat of Saddam Hussein's army and the toppling of his regime would spawn a new democratic Iraq, the example of which would ignite the flames of freedom across the Middle East.
Bush scaled back the standard in a November 2005 speech at the U.S. Naval Academy titled "A Strategy for Victory." This victory will come, he said, "when the terrorists and Saddamists can no longer threaten Iraq's democracy, when the Iraqi security forces can provide for the safety of their own citizens, and when Iraq is not a safe-haven for terrorists to plot new attacks on our nation."
Neither victory goal seems realistic, especially now that al-Sadr's cease fire shows signs of ending and the "Sunni Awakening" unravels, threatening to reverse the recent and relative quiet in Iraq, which never did provide the political compromises and coalitions needed to ensure a stable and democratic Iraq. Oh, and if you believe the "surge" was responsible for the quiet - though most evidence suggests otherwise - well, that's coming to an end, too.
If we can trust the Bush administration - and there's no reason to think we can - and take their avowed victory goals at face value, we've already lost. There's little or no chance we'll achieve especially the audacious and ignorant goals of administration pre-war rhetoric. There'll be no "Velvet Revolution" across the Middle East; our invasion has only inflamed tensions and pushed more people towards the region's radicals. The longer we stay, the worse it will become.
But I don't buy the administration's rhetoric. The causus belli and the definition of victory, like the term, "the war on terror," has always been vague and plastic. It gives the war's architects the power to indefinitely perpetuate conflict - which, if the war is about oil, fits in nicely with an endless occupation, the "100 years in Iraq" John McCain recently promised us.
This ambiguity also serves partisan political goals. The Republican party can claim that, in the event of a Democratic-led withdrawal, the left "lost" the war. Setting unattainable terms of victory, as Bush has done, only serves to foster that message. Even if Republicans want to end the war, they can shift the burden of withdrawal onto Democrats, hitting them politically for it, while simultaneously enjoying the economic, diplomatic, security advantages that would accompany the end of the war.
Unless it's about the oil. In that case we'll never leave no matter who's in charge.
Here's the thing. It's not a "war." The war was won long ago. We're involved in an "occupation." You don't win occupations, you endure them, then end them.
The Iraq Winter Soldier hearings took place this week. Independent media were crucial to its occurrence and its viewership. (www.veteransforcommonsense.org)
The Billings Gazette discusses the very successful overhaul of the Montana National Guard's PTSD program. (www.billingsgazette.com)
Sen. Barack Obama spoke in West Virginia on Thursday about the toll the war in Iraq has taken on the economy. With the economy having replaced the war as the voters' chief concern, Obama made a case that a continuation of the war amounts to a continuation of our economic problems. (nytimes.com)
Last, a The New York Times explored the problems widows and parents of fallen servicemen face balancing grief and windfall when they receive $500,000 in survivor benefits.
Veterans of America is proud to sponsor the Our Troops Newsladder, a new tool to find the top news and articles in the progressive community by, about and for our troops.
Today's Missoulian urges us not to forget the Iraq War. I heartily second that suggestion (while reminding the newspaper that it's the media that has the crucial role), and would add that it's just as important to remember that we still owe a debt to those that served there, whether we agree with the war or not.
"I can't identify with 'home' any more. You drift from place to place, searching to find the one place you do feel comfortable that you can stick around, you can stay. It's like you're looking for that one place that gives you peace of mind....
"When I look at the picture, I don't see much of nothing. Make of it what you want, what you will. I was just doing what the hell I was told at the time. I didn't ask for it, never did want nothing to do with it."
Watch it.
To me, the useless and unnecessary war George W Bush started makes the lives shattered by the conflict all the more unjust. And while administration and neocon mendacity were ultimately responsible for this clusterf*ck, we all share the blame - citizens, opposition, Democrats, media - for not doing enough to stop it before it started. We all share the burden to care for those we sent. You may disagree with me about the war and think it worth the price we pay. But I suspect you share my sentiments towards those that served.
I've written before on the criminally negligent attitude from the government towards our returning vets here in Montana. Montana has a growing population of homeless veterans and a crisis in health care for those that need help.
One of the ways we can help returning veterans is give them the means to realize personal aspiration. We can educate them:
As the Iraq war marks its fifth anniversary this week, the ongoing problem with paying for veteran's education has led Democratic Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia and a number of co-sponsors to introduce the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act. It's also being called the "G.I. Bill for the 21st century," because it brings benefits for all service members (including National Guard soldiers) up to the level of those enjoyed by veterans returning from World War II.
Among the bill's cosponsors are our state's Senators, Jon Tester and Max Baucus. Give our state's Representative, Dennis Rehberg, a call, and ask him to support the House version of the bill.
Supporting our returning veterans shouldn't be a partisan issue.
Well, I have to admit I like this -- within 24 hours of its release, Retired Lt. Col. Jim Hunt has signed on with the responsible plan to get out of Iraq. His website features a link that a reader tipped me off to this morning. I don't see a statement yet, but hopefully one will come out sometime soon.
There's a deep, deep frustration around the war in Iraq that is utterly palpable. Honestly, right now, it is the intractable problem -- how do you build the coalition to actually bring an end to the on-going occupation of Iraq, an occupation costing thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, with no long-term benefit?
Luckily, some folks have a plan -- and they're not just nobodies like me. They're smart folks who could be decisive in the process next year.
There's really fascinating coalition work being done around this plan -- including that popular support could send its architects into the halls of popular, as its leading champions are currently candidates from around the country.
(I meant to promote this earlier, but what with all the furor over the superdelegates, etc & co... - promoted by Jay Stevens)
What happens when you deploy troops who have seen high intensity combat time and time again with inadequate dwell time between tours? You see skyrocketing mental health issues.
After months of investigative work, talking to our troops and veterans, we released a report on the situation at Fort Drum in Watertown, New York. Since 9/11, the 2nd Brigade Combat Team has been deployed for more than forty months, more than any other brigade in the Army, and we are seeing what is nothing short of a cry for help from the men and women on the base; a cry we will answer for troops in Montana as well.
A cry for help that is also coming from the leadership on the base. In a New York Times article today about our report, Major General Michael Oates, commander of the 10th Mountain Division, says: "We recognize that there is stress on our force and their families from this conflict, but until recently, we have not fully appreciated the extent of some of the mental stresses and injuries or how to best identify them." Please read the rest of the article here.
What is happening at Fort Drum -- with Soldiers still on active duty suffering from PTSD, with Soldiers and their families in need of counseling, with Soldiers literally dying while still on duty -- is going to happen all around America unless we begin to address some of the basic issues of this war. As our report explains, DoD itself has stated that the likelihood of troops having mental health problems increases by 60% with every tour of duty. So, in short, through ourdeployment policies, we are consciously compounding the wounds of war.
This is unacceptable to us. Veterans for America's Wounded Warrior Outreach Program will continue to address these problems from the bottom up.
We are going to go to as many bases as we can afford to go to, see what is happening on those bases and see how we can help. If you can help us, we would greatly appreciate it.
We are going to continue our Wounded Warrior Registry Outreach -- if you or someone you know needs help getting help with PTSD or TBI, please click here.
And above all, we are going to continue to serve and help those that serve and have served us with the same level of dedication and courage they have shown. Click here to learn more about what we are doing.
As ]Steve Benen said, it's "not exactly a new concept," but it's still worthwhile because "it quantifies the administration's mendacity in a way that hasn't been done before," it "points to the media's failings," and "establishes a searchable historical record that serves as a rather devastating indictment."
The massive database at the heart of this project juxtaposes what President Bush and these seven top officials were saying for public consumption against what was known, or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis. This fully searchable database includes the public statements, drawn from both primary sources (such as official transcripts) and secondary sources (chiefly major news organizations) over the two years beginning on September 11, 2001 . It also interlaces relevant information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches, and interviews.
Naturally righties are apoplectic and tie the study to George Soros. (Sort of ironic, given that most of conservative claims about history and economy stem from think tanks - like the Heritage Foundation - whose self-admitted goals are to create a conservative spin on reality. "Liberal Fascism," anyone?) But here we see the facts at work, those stubborn little nuggets of non-partisan information that depict the Bush administration in all its glory, and from which history will be written.
Yes, I know, it's a b*tch: reality has a known left-wing bias.
A Billings Gazette poll released today shows that a large majority of Montanans disapprove of the Iraq war, some 58 percent of those polled, as opposed to 37 percent who still support it. The catch is, a small plurality -- 46 to 45 percent -- favor setting timetables for withdrawal.
And you wonder why our delegation -- at least the sane ones -- waffle on bold legislative action to extract us from Iraq. (The representative supporting Bush's incoherent policy wants us to stay a generation or two.)
And you wonder, what with all these contradictions tugging them this way and that, why Montanans drink so much?
So, the Senate yesterday both approved funding for the Iraq War, and failed to pass the AMT patch with revenue offsets in the form of tax increases on hedge fund managers (who pay half the tax rate of a grade-school teacher).
Again, no surprises.
Here are thoughts and miscellaneous bits of information:
WaPo's Kane and Weisman had this to say about the votes on the AMT patch with offsets:
Republicans and some Democrats held firm against any tax increase, though, and the proposal, with a vote of 48 to 46 in favor, fell far short of the 60 votes needed to pass. The House now appears ready to pass the AMT measure without any offset.
Oops! Actually a bill needs only 51 votes to pass in the Senate, and 60 votes to end a filibuster. Lazy reporting? You bet!
Of course, because Senate Republicans are filibustering every bill -- at a rate unprecedented in American history - they've in effect changed the requirements for passing a bill in Congress. Dubious constitutionality? You bet!
Mitch McConnell introduced a revised appropriations bill that added the missing money for Iraq . Max Baucus and Jon Tester both voted for McConnell's amendment.
The House is expected to pass the Senate version of the appropriations bill.
Two U.S. soldiers who died in Iraq in February were killed by friendly fire, according to a military investigation that said improper training and mission preparation were to blame.
Matthew Zeimer, 18, of Glendive, Mont., and Spc. Alan E. McPeek, 20, of Tucson, Ariz., were killed at an outpost in Ramadi, in western Iraq, on Feb. 2. The families of the two soldiers were initially told they were killed by enemy fire.
[...]
The report said the two men were killed by tank fire from a second U.S. Army outpost after insurgents engaged both outposts from numerous locations. The tank gunner and commander thought they were engaging the enemy position, the investigation concluded.
This war is an endless series of small tragedies.
Meanwhile, Iraqis continue to agree: our presence is the driving force in furthering division within their country.
The fight for Iraqi funding is on. The US House of Representatives approved of a domestic spending bill, and Afghanistan war funding bill, but not a dime to the Iraq war. The bill will move to the Senate, and here's the Washington Post's prognostication for what will follow:
Today, the Senate is likely to take up resolutions tying Iraq war funding to the withdrawal of U.S. combat troops. If those fall victim to Republican filibusters, as expected, senators are likely to vote to increase the House's war funding to $70 billion and make it available for Iraq fighting as well. Without such war funds, the president will veto the entire spending bill, the White House said yesterday.
Sounds about right.
As for our own delegation, Dennis Rehberg supports everything having to do with the war, and Jon Tester and Max Baucus oppose cutting funding as a means to end the war.
