Category: War

I’m Sorry Senator Edwards, but You are Wrong!

No Comments

In the debate last night, Edwards said the following about troops in Iraq:

I cannot make that commitment. But I — well, I can tell you what i would do as president. When I’m sworn into office, come January of 2009, if there are, in fact, as General Petraeus suggests, 100,000 American troops on the ground in Iraq, I will immediately draw down 40,000 to 50,000 troops; and over the course of the next several months, continue to bring our combat out of Iraq until all of our combat are, in fact, out of Iraq.

I think the problem is — and it’s what you just heard discussed — is we will maintain an embassy in Baghdad. That embassy has to be protected. We will probably have humanitarian workers in Iraq. Those humanitarian workers have to be protected.

I think somewhere in the neighborhood of a brigade of troops will be necessary to accomplish that, 3,500 to 5,000 troops.

I like John Edwards, but he is wrong.

We do not need the forced labor built monstrosity of an diplomatic compound that we currently have in Iraq. It’s not an embassy, it’s an imperial outpost.

It can be moved to a more secure location, and it should be, and if there is none, then it should be closed, like the US Embassy in Somalia.

The Senate’s Sense About Iran

No Comments

It got approved with 76-22-2, with John McCain and (once again) Barack Obama not voting, but it was modified significantly.

Original Language:

“It is the sense of the Senate . . . (3) that it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies; [and] (4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments, in support of the policy described in paragraph (3) with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies” (my emphases).

According to Andrew Kent (linked above), this was dropped, though I am not clear if the bolded sections, which are in the original, or the whole paragraphs were dropped.

As it stands, it calls the Iranians bad people, though it does call the Republican Guard a terrorist organization.

US Once Again Pisses off Kurds

No Comments

The Kurds are as close as we come to having an ally in the region, and we seem to be determined to piss them off.

We just arrested an Iranian from a trade delegation.

But the Kurdistan Regional Government in a statement called the arrest “illegitimate,” said the man was a member of a trade delegation that had been invited to Sulaimaniyah by the local government and demanded that he be released.

This sort of stuff keeps going on. There is no learning curve.

Blackwater Broke a Guy Out of Prison?

No Comments

Well, it turns out that theIraqi government has had repeated problems with Blackwater’s actions, with a number of incidents, including breaking Iraqi Electricity Minister Ahyam al Samarrai out of a Green Zone jail in December. Samarrai had been awaiting sentencing on charges that he had embezzled $2.5 billion that was intended to rebuild Iraq’s decrepit electricity grid.

This is getting out of hand.

Why Do Bill Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, et al. Hate Israel?

No Comments

It appears that “Israeli officials warned the George W. Bush administration that an invasion of Iraq would be destabilising to the region and urged the United States to instead target Iran as the primary enemy, according to former administration official Lawrence Wilkerson.”

No surprise there. I’ve always said that some of Israel’s biggest fans are more dangerous to it than its worst enemies.

Rice Denied Audience with Pope

No Comments

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

No Comments

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.”

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

No Comments

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

No Comments

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

No Comments

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.