Category: Iraq

Rice Denied Audience with Pope

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In August, the Pope denied US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice an audience, citing that “Benedict XVI is on holiday”.

This is clearly not the case. Rather, this is a fallout of disagreements over the war in Iraq, and her previous dealings with representatives of the Pontiff:

No one will say so officially but the refusal may also have been prompted by Ms Rice’s stance in 2003, when she was Mr Bush’s national security adviser. On the eve of the Iraqi conflict, it was Ms Rice who said bluntly that she did not understand the Vatican’s anti-war stance. She treated John Paul II’s envoy, Cardinal Pio Laghi, with a coolness that bordered on disrespect when he was sent to Washington on 2 March 2003 on a desperate mission to avert military intervention. Clearly, the incident has not been forgotten.

It should come as no surprise to any person with half a brain, which apparently does not include Ms. Rice, that when you treat people with disrespect, they are disinclined to help you in the future.

Harry Reid: Defeat Of Webb Bill Proves GOP Cares More About Bush Than Troops

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I like the way that the Majority leader of the Senate puts that:

“In blocking this bipartisan bill, Republicans have once again demonstrated that they are more committed to protecting the President than protecting our troops. They have shown they will allow President Bush’s flawed war strategy to continue to strain our military rather than allow the availability of troops to dictate our operations. And they believe it is in our national security interest to push our brave troops and their families beyond their breaking point.

“Democrats disagree. We care deeply about rebuilding our badly overextended military and ensuring our troops have the time to properly train, prepare for and recover from battle. And Democrats remain committed to repaying in some small measure the sacrifices our brave troops are making every day.”

Surprise, Blackwater Mercs Fired Indiscriminantly at Civilians

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No big surprise there, though this is this is the Iraqi Government* Report.

Turns out that without their mercenaries, the State Department is on lockdown in Iraq. They have suspended all land travel.

It also appears that rules of engagement given by State to Blackwater appear to be rather close to “shoot first and ask questions later.”

*Yes, I know that “Iraqi Government is an oxymoron”.

Harry Reid Tells Republicans “My Way or the Highway”.

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Honestly, I think that Reid has spent way too much time being too accommodating to Republicans. He’s given them repeated opportunities to support phony withdrawal bills.

I don’t know why he is now saying that the negociations are off. This is without warning.

One wonders why the abrupt change in position:

Some possibilities:

  • He doies not want any phony solution to get tied up in the Democratic Presidential Primaries (Translation, he doesn’t want to put Biden and Clinton in a bad place).
  • Some Democrats have come to him and announced their intent to filibuster any spending measure that is not definitive.
  • He has gotten definitive word on an attack on Iran, and he’s trying to stop it.
  • He’s sick to death of Mitch “Got thrown out of the army after 12 days in 1967, nothing gay here” McConnel, and he’s seen his poll numbers, and he wants to prevent any half measures that might benefit him.
  • He realizes that half measures mean nothing, that they will save no lives, but that they will neutralize a majro Democratic party advantage, and he does not want to stop the Republicans from stepping on their own dicks (Cheney, that is).
  • That he realizes that the Republicans will break if he keeps up the pressure.

My guess is the last one.

Interesting Conondrum from the Other Matt

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Matthew Yglesias makes a very interesting point, that it is in fact in the Democrats best interest NOT to get out of Iraq.

Basically:

  • The Democrats already know how to win on the war, they did it in 2006.
  • Getting out automatically enables the Nazi Republican stab in the back meme.
  • Republicans who vote against the war can use it to inoculate themselves against an anti-war opponent in 2008.

As the other Matt puts it:

But given that Republicans aren’t doing what everyone expected them to do and reducing their political exposure on Iraq by winding the war down, Democrats are disinclined to go out on a limb to do it for them.

That being said, we should still get out, and we should do so today.

Republicans may not give a damn about government doing right by its citizens, but Democrats should.

One wonders though, why the Republicans are being so self destructive? Did Karl Rove get pictures of all of them in the Minneapolis airport bathroom or something?

Iraqis Order Blackwater out of Iraq

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Here is where we get to fish or cut bait time. The Iraqi Government* has told Blackwater to get out, and has suspended their license to operate.

This is not surprising. They are a bunch of trigger happy goons who have immunity from Iraqi law and the military’s UCMJ.

The interesting thing here is that Blackwater, nor (IIRC) any of of the other mercenaries employed by the US, are operating under an Iraqi license.

On the other hand, Blackwater is operating under a State Department contract, and while this may give them a measure of diplomatic immunity, it also allows them to be declared personae non grata, and forced to leave the country.

My guess is that Malaki will be told to pound sand, and thus the government will be revealed to be a puppet of the US formed primarily to allocate oil resources to American oil companies.

*Yes, I know that “Iraqi Government” is currently an oxymoron.

Petraeus Is Eddie Haskell

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For those of you who are not American, or are too young to remember him, Eddie Haskell is a character from an almost year old comedy, “Leave it to Beaver*“. He was the friend of the title character’s older brother, and a repulsive troublemaker who never failed to suck up to the adults when they were around†.

Well, it appears that Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), and the good general’s boss feels much the same way about Petraeus as the audience was supposed to about Eddie Haskell. It has been reported that the admiral told the general that he thought he was:

“an ass-kissing little chickens*it” and added, “I hate people like that”, the sources say. That remark reportedly came after Petraeus began the meeting by making remarks that Fallon interpreted as trying to ingratiate himself with a superior.

Of note, Fallon appears to be a stand up guy, who is doing major pushback against the politicization of the military, and he has been steadfast, in opposing an attack on Iran.

Fallon acquired a reputation for a willingness to stand up to powerful figures during his tenure as commander in chief of the Pacific Command from February 2005 to March 2007. He pushed hard for a conciliatory line toward and China, which put him in conflict with senior military and civilian officials with a vested interest in pointing to China as a future rival and threat.

He demonstrated his independence from the White House when he refused in February to go along with a proposal to send a third naval carrier task force to the Persian Gulf, as reported by IPS in May. Fallon questioned the military necessity for the move, which would have signaled to Iran a readiness to go to war. Fallon also privately vowed that there would be no war against Iran on his watch, implying that he would quit rather than accept such a policy.

It should also be noted that the General’s duties in Iraq had been securing arms Saddam’s military, the ones that are used against us, and training the Iraqi police force, the one that is a Shia militia actively engaging in ethnic cleansing.

Let us pray that there are more Fallons than Petraeus in the Pentagon.

Sorry if this is old news, but Rosh Hashana has gotten me a bit behind.

*This show had what had to be the most unintentionally sexual line on TV of the day, at least until Batman’s gay innuendo, “Gee Ward, weren’t you a bit hard on the Beaver last night?”

†It should be noted that the actor who played him, went on to become a police officer, and was shot in the line of duty, forcing his retirement from the force, so he was nothing like Eddie.

The Dollar Auction: Why We Are Still in Iraq

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The artical is an excellent description of the dynamic that leads people to see a “light at the end of the tunnel” in Viet Nam Iraq.

Lessons on the surge from economics 101

By OLIVER R. GOODENOUGH

Economics professors have a standard game they use to demonstrate how apparently rational decisions can create a disastrous result. They call it a “dollar auction.” The rules are simple. The professor offers a dollar for sale to the highest bidder, with only one wrinkle: the second-highest bidder has to pay up on their losing bid as well. Several students almost always get sucked in. The first bids a penny, looking to make 99 cents. The second bids 2 cents, the third 3 cents, and so on, each feeling they have a chance at something good on the cheap. The early stages are fun, and the bidders wonder what possessed the professor to be willing to lose some money.

The problem surfaces when the bidders get up close to a dollar. After 99 cents the last vestige of profitability disappears, but the bidding continues between the two highest players. They now realize that they stand to lose no matter what, but that they can still buffer their losses by winning the dollar. They just have to outlast the other player. Following this strategy, the two hapless students usually run the bid up several dollars, turning the apparent shot at easy money into a ghastly battle of spiraling disaster.

Theoretically, there is no stable outcome once the dynamic gets going. The only clear limit is the exhaustion of one of the player’s total funds. In the classroom, the auction generally ends with the grudging decision of one player to “irrationally” accept the larger loss and get out of the terrible spiral. Economists call the dollar auction pattern an irrational escalation of commitment. We might also call it the war in Iraq.

….

Emphasis mine.

POentagon Working Group Says That Petraeus is Full of It

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There’s not a hole bunch of love for Petraeus in the halls of the Pentagon.

Maybe they know that he’s destroying hte Army and Marines by sucking up to Bush:

But it’s questionable whether even the smoothest-talking salesman could appease public opinion—or Petraeus’s Pentagon detractors—at this point. NEWSWEEK has learned that a separate internal report being prepared by a Pentagon working group will “differ substantially” from Petraeus’s recommendations, according to an official who is privy to the ongoing discussions but would speak about them only on condition of anonymity. An early version of the report, which is currently being drafted and is expected to be completed by the beginning of next year, will “recommend a very rapid reduction in American forces: as much as two-thirds of the existing force very quickly, while keeping the remainder there.” The strategy will involve unwinding the still large U.S. presence in big forward operation bases and putting smaller teams in outposts. “There is interest at senior levels [of the Pentagon] in getting alternative views” to Petraeus, the official said. Among others, Centcom commander Admiral William Fallon is known to want to draw down faster than Petraeus.

Republican Chooses Reelection Over “Dear Leader” Bush

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Well, Rep. James Walsh (R-Onondaga, NY) is finally taking a stand against Bush on the war.

FWIW, this is his district:

This is upstate New York, Syracuse used to be a manufacturing center, and New York Republicans outside of Long Island are in the mold of Tom Dewey, not Alphonse “Da Woim” D’Amato.

He’s covering his ass. A number of Republicans lost their seats in New York in 2006. Every Republican in New England except for Chris Shays lost his seat in 2006.

The Republican party, and the war are an albatross around his neck, and he’s running scared.

This is Called Listening to Your Generals, I guess

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The UK delayed their withdrawal from Basra because of American political pressure.

“In April we could have come out and done the transition completely and that would have been the right thing to do but politics prevented that,” Bashall, 44, told the paper.

“The Americans asked us to stay for longer,” he said, adding the decision to stay in the city was a result of “political strategy being played out at highest level.”

What Cheney wants, Cheney gets.

Petraeus US surge has ‘not worked out’, Just Not to Congress

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Well, here is no surprise, Bush’s hand picked stalking hours on Iraq, David Petraeus is saying that the surge has not worked out in a letter to troops in his command.

General David Petraeus, the commander of United States forces in Iraq, admitted on Friday that sending 30 000 more troops into the war zone in January had failed to yield the desired results. “It has not worked out as we had hoped,” the general said.

The acknowledgement by Petraeus that the situation in Iraq is “exceedingly complex” and that progress had been “uneven” came on the eve of his testimony to Congress on the state of the war. He offered the assessment in a letter to US forces serving in Iraq that was obtained by the Washington Post.

Not quite what he said before congress, huh.

Where I Call Out Oliver Willis on the Blue Dogs

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Willis suggests that the campaigns against the Bush Dogs Dems is a waste of resources, and we should focus on places like Donna Edward’s challenge to Al Wynne.

He is completely wrong.

The “Bush Dog” Challenge is almost entirely about the war. There are other issues in the mix, but the war is the 800 pound gorilla in the room, and getting out of Iraq is a winner for Democrats, as the overwhelming majority of Americans, including Republicans want us out now.

They are pushing this position out of cowardice and stupidity, and getting them back on track serves to strengthen, not weaken the Democratic hold on their seats.

In addition, letting them be stupid and craven without consequence serves to destroy what is already pathetically weak Democratic party discipline.