!GOP Ad to Feature Far Left Dems Waving White Flag To Terrorists (Sic 'em Repubs!)
Kurt Nicklas
Thu Dec 08 2005 18:02:44 ET
http://www.drudgereport.com/flash2.htm
The DRUDGE REPORT has learned from a top GOP operative that the Republican
National Committee will provide state parties with a web video prior to
release tomorrow afternoon that shows a white flag waving over images of
Democrat leaders making anti-war remarks.
The ad is in response to the controversial comments Democratic Party
Chairman Howard Dean and 2004 Democratic Presidential nominee John Kerry
made earlier in the week.
A Democratic strategist who had the web ad described to her said, "This is
way over the top but we have no one to blame but Dean, Kerry and others who
continue to pander to the anti-war activists within our party."
The web video advances the Republican contention that the Democrats only
have a "retreat and defeat" message on the war in Iraq.
The video highlights the effect Democrats can have on the morale of U.S.
soldiers.
One Republican strategist familiar with the ad said, "The Democrats,
especially Howard Dean have a way of trying to turn the tables and say 'that's
not what I meant' - its just those 'evil Republicans' This video will make
them crazy - it reinforces what they really believe with what they actually
said - and that is devastating for the Democratic Party."
Developing...
2129 Dead, 43 since Hunter resolution
>On Thu, 8 Dec 2005 19:46:57 -0500, "Kurt Nicklas"
><kurt_n...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>
>
>>The DRUDGE REPORT has learned from a top GOP operative that the Republican
>>National Committee will provide state parties with a web video prior to
>>release tomorrow afternoon that shows a white flag waving over images of
>>Democrat leaders making anti-war remarks.
>
>So, you're claiming that pro-war is a good trait,
>Knickkkers?
>
>What a fucking lunkhead you are.
They demagogue, thousands of more troops die.
Knickers doubtlessly thinks it's a fair exchange.
>
>(Click)
--
"'I’m not meeting with that goddamned bitch,' Bush screamed at aides
who suggested he meet with Cindy Sheehan, the war-protesting mother
whose son died in Iraq. 'She can go to hell as far as I’m concerned!'"
--Putsch, a decompensating drunk
"Grover Norquist couldn't drown the government, so he drowned New Orleans instead."
Not dead, in jail, or a slave? Thank a liberal!
Pay your taxes so the rich don't have to.
For the finest in liberal/leftist commentary,
http://www.zeppscommentaries.com
For news feed (free, 10-20 articles a day)
http://groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/zepps_news
For essays (donations accepted, 2 articles/week)
http://groups.yahoo.com/subscribe/zepps_essays
a.a. #2211 -- Bryan Zepp Jamieson
Foxtrot
>Knick...@WhattaIdiot.com wrote:
>>"Kurt Nicklas" <kurt_n...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>>The DRUDGE REPORT has learned from a top GOP operative that the Republican
>>>National Committee will provide state parties with a web video prior to
>>>release tomorrow afternoon that shows a white flag waving over images of
>>>Democrat leaders making anti-war remarks.
>>
>>So, you're claiming that pro-war is a good trait,
>>Knickkkers?
>>
>>What a fucking lunkhead you are.
>
>They demagogue, thousands of more troops die.
If the Reps are demagoging, why are the Dems the ones
who fear a backlash for what they have been saying?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/06/AR2005120601707.html
Democrats Fear Backlash at Polls for Antiwar Remarks
Wednesday, December 7, 2005
Strong antiwar comments in recent days by House Minority
Leader Nancy Pelosi and Democratic National Committee
Chairman Howard Dean have opened anew a party rift over
Iraq, with some lawmakers warning that the leaders'
rhetorical blasts could harm efforts to win control of Congress
next year.
2129 Dead, 43 since Hunter resolution
>"2129 Dead, 43 since Hunter resolution" <zepp2129#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:
>
>>Knick...@WhattaIdiot.com wrote:
>>>"Kurt Nicklas" <kurt_n...@aport2000.ru> wrote:
>>>>The DRUDGE REPORT has learned from a top GOP operative that the Republican
>>>>National Committee will provide state parties with a web video prior to
>>>>release tomorrow afternoon that shows a white flag waving over images of
>>>>Democrat leaders making anti-war remarks.
>>>
>>>So, you're claiming that pro-war is a good trait,
>>>Knickkkers?
>>>
>>>What a fucking lunkhead you are.
>>
>>They demagogue, thousands of more troops die.
>
>If the Reps are demagoging, why are the Dems the ones
>who fear a backlash for what they have been saying?
You mean the DNC is still packed with cowardly Republican wannabes?
Imagine my surprise!
Why do Republicans fear that they may lose more vote than they can
steal next year?
>
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/06/AR2005120601707.html
>
> Democrats Fear Backlash at Polls for Antiwar Remarks
> Wednesday, December 7, 2005
>
> Strong antiwar comments in recent days by House Minority
> Leader Nancy Pelosi and Democratic National Committee
> Chairman Howard Dean have opened anew a party rift over
> Iraq, with some lawmakers warning that the leaders'
> rhetorical blasts could harm efforts to win control of Congress
> next year.
Foxtrot
>Foxtrot <fox...@null.com> wrote:
>>"2129 Dead, 43 since Hunter resolution" <zepp2129#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:
>>>They demagogue, thousands of more troops die.
>>
>>If the Reps are demagoging, why are the Dems the ones
>>who fear a backlash for what they have been saying?
>
>You mean the DNC is still packed with cowardly Republican wannabes?
Screamin' Dean said that "the idea that we're going to win
the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong." IOW he
told our brave forces that they're risking their lives over
there FOR NOTHING. Those are the words of a Dem loose
cannon, not a Rep wannabe.
Reps do indeed have their problems, but compared with
Dems' self-destructive behavior, they don't look so bad.
>Imagine my surprise!
The big surprise was when Dems chose a party chairman
that makes them look sooo bad! We *love* having him in
charge of the party.
>Why do Republicans fear that they may lose more vote than they can
>steal next year?
LOL, you still whining about alleged stolen votes? You are
one bitter individual, Schlepp! Do you actually believe that
all your bitching and self-pity helps your cause?
aozo...@aol.com
Kurt Nicklas wrote:
> EXCLUSIVE: GOP TO LAUNCH 'WHITE FLAG' DEM ATTACK
> Thu Dec 08 2005 18:02:44 ET
>
> http://www.drudgereport.com/flash2.htm
>
>
> The DRUDGE REPORT has learned from a top GOP operative that the Republican
> National Committee will provide state parties with a web video prior to
> release tomorrow afternoon that shows a white flag waving over images of
> Democrat leaders making anti-war remarks.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=40663
headline:
Tomgram: How (Not) to Withdraw from Iraq
[Seasonal Note: In a town where the menu of any new corner diner
immediately touts "our traditional" corned beef or roast beef sandwich,
three years of tradition is no small thing. This year, then, will be
the third in which Nick Turse offers Tomdispatch readers a holiday
opportunity to feast on gift ideas from the military-corporate complex.
(Last year, hot gifts ranged from the "talking Bush in Baghdad doll"
and standard-issue women's "assault shoes" to an assortment of
missiles.) But while awaiting that priceless, mid-month dispatch, I
thought I might suggest a few holiday gift possibilities that really
were options for anyone in a bookish and generous mood.
For those of you who would like to offer a little extra support for Tom
(of Tomdispatch), you might consider picking up for friends copies of
my novel, The Last Days of Publishing, just out in paperback (check the
review!), or my history of American triumphalism in the Cold War era,
The End of Victory Culture, which -- given our President -- never seems
out of date.
The stocking-stuffer of the season is an inexpensive little paperback
by the readers of the Nation magazine and its editor Katrina vanden
Heuvel (with a small contribution from Tomdispatch). The Dictionary of
Republicanisms is guaranteed to give outsized pleasure. If you want to
crack up your friends throughout the holiday season and spur everyone,
a couple of eggnogs later, to create their own Republican
"definitions," then hand this out left and... right. (Here's one of
mine from the book: "Homeland Security Department: The new Defense
Department known for declaring bridges yellow and the Statue of Liberty
orange.") It's the perfect small gift for the holidays!
On the other hand, if you're looking for a big book to sink your
readerly teeth into, don't miss Adam Hochschild's monumental and
riveting history of the British anti-slavery movement, Bury the Chains.
The anti-slavery movement, which pioneered everything from direct mail
campaigns to iconic posters, actually succeeded after decades of effort
and vast slave uprisings in the Caribbean. His is the rare book that
offers hope -- as any holiday season should -- by showing us how
something (in this case, slavery) considered part of "human nature,"
could actually be altered.
The deepest newspaper truths are not always found, by the way, in the
news section of your daily rag. Last Tuesday, for instance, the detail
that caught my attention in the New York Times appeared in the
crossword puzzle. To the clue, "war correspondent in modern lingo," the
5-letter answer... I pause for a moment to give you a chance to
guess... was "embed." Doesn't that tell you just where the Bush era has
left us in media terms? So much more reason then, to cherish a photo
book aptly titled Unembedded and just out from Chelsea Green, an
adventurous small press in Vermont. It offers the striking (and deeply
saddening) photos of four independent photojournalists -- two
Americans, a Canadian, and the Iraqi Ghaith Abdul-Ahad (who also does
remarkable pieces for the British Guardian from time to time). The four
of them managed to make their way, on their own, into embattled,
partially destroyed Najaf in August 2004, among other places. In this
book, Iraqi casualties and sorrows are front and center. It's certainly
not upbeat, but it is a powerful reminder of the world the Bush
administration has created in Iraq and a project to support. Tom]
How (Not) to Withdraw from Iraq
By Tom Engelhardt
On the September 27th Charlie Rose Show, interviewing New Yorker editor
David Remnick, Rose brought up the question of what the United States
should do in Iraq. Should we "get out" -- or, as Remnick so delicately
put it, should we "bolt"? Here was how Remnick ended their discussion,
while talking about those who had written on Iraq for his magazine:
"There's Jon Lee Anderson and George Packer and Sy Hersh and Rick
[Hertzberg], they all look at it from different angles. But I think all
of those people would agree -- I don't know about Sy -- would agree
that an immediate American withdrawal just, you know, just pick up your
skirts and run, would not lead to a happy situation in the short term
or the long."
Pick up your skirts and run. Forget the Republicans, that more or less
sums up the state of mainstream liberal opinion on Iraq just two months
ago. Only that recently "withdrawal" was still synonymous with
cowardice, or, in a classic phrase of the Vietnam era (that like so
many others has taken an extra bow in our own moment), "cutting and
running." Withdrawal from Iraq was a subject for the margins and the
political Internet (as well as secret Pentagon planning); certainly not
something to be bandied about in Congress or taken seriously by the
mainstream media. What a difference a few weeks can make -- a few weeks
and one hawkish congressman with heart (channeling the views of a
panicky military facing an increasingly unwinnable war). When
Congressman John Murtha stood up -- and there wasn't a "skirt" in sight
(not, at least, until Republican Congresswoman Jean Schmidt accused
him, briefly, of cowardice on the floor of the House of
Representatives) -- and suggested a withdrawal of American ground
troops from Iraq on a six-month timetable, you could hear the
administration's angry heart thumping.
Then, Chicken Little, the sky began to fall and withdrawal proposals,
withdrawal trial balloons, withdrawal op-eds, withdrawal hints, clues,
and suggestions of every sort suddenly rained down on us like those
cats and dogs of children's books. It turns out that there was hardly a
major mainstream figure anywhere who didn't have some kind of
"withdrawal" proposal in his or her hip pocket; or put another way,
when Senators Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden come out with positions
that fit, however faintly, under the ever-widening label of
"withdrawal" and only good ol' Joe Lieberman is left twisting, twisting
in the Presidential hot air of "progress" and "victory," something is
certainly afoot.
It gives one heart, really, to think about the strange processes that
sometimes suddenly unclog the arteries of American discussion and
debate, turning the previously impermissible into a topic quite
suitable for the mainstream to take possession of. Give us another two
months and who knows, maybe Judge Alito will actually go down to a
filibuster; give us a year and maybe impeachment, just now creeping out
from the margins, will find itself a topic in Congress and on the
editorial pages of our papers. Like Charlie Rose, everybody knows what
the proper limits of conversation are... until, of course, they
unpredictably change.
Watch the Words
That said, this new withdrawal season of ours will undoubtedly prove a
difficult one to sort out. With the President's speech at Annapolis,
after a huge hint from Condoleezza Rice earlier in the week ("I do not
think that American forces need to be there in the numbers that they
are now because -- for very much longer -- because Iraqis are stepping
up"), "withdrawal" or "pullout" or "draw-down" is everybody's property.
In some ways, it was the Iraqis, meeting in Cairo, who helped get the
withdrawal ball rolling by calling for a withdrawal "timetable" --
promptly rejected by the Bush administration. Now, Bush officials and
military men are jumping on board in a thoroughly confusing way. No
surprise there, since a lot of yesterday's non-withdrawal people have a
fair amount at stake in muddying the waters today.
We've just entered a period where you won't be able tell the players
without a scorecard and, unfortunately, nobody in the know is going to
be selling scorecards. In fact, as the public withdrawal debate began,
and the administration first "lashed out" in anger at its suddenly
voluble opponents and then rushed to put forward its own "plans," the
news in our papers and on TV promptly shifted into full-frontal
anonymity mode. Even Congressman Murtha spoke with, it might be said,
more than one tongue. After all, as a key figure on the House Defense
Appropriations Subcommittee, he is known for his closeness to the
military brass; and, in laying out his proposal, he offered some
startling figures (on soaring attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and on the
50,000 soldiers who are likely to suffer from "battle fatigue") that
clearly came directly from the military. Here's how the New Yorker's
Seymour Hersh explained the Murtha proposal in a recent interview with
Democracy Now's Amy Goodman:
"He's known for his closeness to the four-stars. They come and they
bleed on him... So Murtha's message is a message... from a lot of
generals on active duty today. This is what they think, at least a
significant percentage of them, I assure you. This is, I'm not
over-dramatizing this. It's a shot across the bow. They don't think
[the Iraq war is] doable. You can't tell that to this President. He
doesn't want to hear it. But you can say it to Murtha."
So when, for instance, you read in the press about some general
officially worrying that we may "draw-down" too quickly, you have no
way of knowing whether at this point his real position is the one
Murtha articulated. Get the hell out fast!
In a typical recent front-page piece on "withdrawal," for instance (As
Calls for an Iraq Pullout Rise, 2 Political Calendars Loom Large),
David E. Sanger and Thom Shanker of the New York Times start with the
"mounting calls to set a deadline to begin a withdrawal from Iraq." By
paragraph two, however, that "withdrawal" has somehow been pluralized:
"But in private conversations American officials are beginning to
acknowledge that a judgment about when withdrawals can begin..."
("withdrawals" being, of course, something less than "withdrawal"). By
the fifth paragraph (just after the jump to an inside page), anonymous
"White House aides" are saying that the President "will begin examining
the timing of a draw-down after he sees the outcome of the Dec. 15
election in Iraq."
So in five paragraphs and a headline, you have pullout, withdrawal,
withdrawals, draw-down... and by then you've already met a plethora of
pluralized sources as well -- not just those "White House officials,"
but even vaguer "American officials," and lest even that give away too
much, "several officials." They're soon joined by a roiling mass of
other obscurely less-then-identified beings ("current and former White
House officials," "one former aide with close ties to the National
Security Council," "senior officers," plain old "officers," and "senior
Pentagon civilians and officers"). And if that isn't murky enough for
you, just throw in the "ifs" that go with any story of this sort and
tend to negate even the best proposed plan:
"[O]fficials in the Bush White House were already actively reviewing
possible plans under which 40,000 to 50,000 troops or more could be
recalled next year if 'a plausible case could be made' that a
significant number of Iraqi battalions could hold their own."
Here, for instance, are typical phrases from correspondent Rosiland
Jordan's withdrawal story on NBC national news last Sunday: "The debate
is focusing on how many and when... that depends on how quiet the
situation is... if conditions on the ground allow it... provided the
situation on the ground improves." Or consider the following quote from
a Los Angeles Times piece: "'It looks like things are headed in the
right direction to enable [a large drawdown of forces] to happen in
2006,' said the official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. But
he said those hopes could be derailed if there were setbacks." Or take
this bit from the latest report on Hillary Clinton's ponderously
shifting position: "...troops could be redeployed next year if coming
elections in Iraq go well." So our news is now filled with posses of
unidentifiable officials offering limited "withdrawal plans," which are
actually draw-down plans, which are so provisionally linked to matters
unlikely to unfold as expected that they may, in a sense, simply be
meaningless.
The Return of Vietnamization
What then are the "plans" of those in power, as best we can tell?
The realities of the moment are, in a sense, simple and strange all at
once. The grandiose preparations for planetary military and energy
domination hatched by a group of utopian (or, if you prefer, dystopian)
thinkers in Washington, aided and abetted by "native" dreamers and
schemers in exile, and meant to begin but hardly end in Iraq, have by
now run aground on the shoals of reality. A modest-sized but fierce and
well-stocked insurgency, conducting a low-level guerrilla war --
Americans are basically killed on roads on their way somewhere, seldom
in regular battles or on their bases -- fueled by our President's
hubris, by an unquenchable urge for national sovereignty, and by
religious fundamentalism as well as fanaticism, has driven this
administration from its emplacements.
Now, a second force has joined the fray, turning this into one of the
stranger two-front "wars" in memory. Unlike in the Vietnam era, the
second front at home remains something of a specter. Perhaps it's not
so surprising though that a President ever in fantasy-land and his
utopian followers (many now set out to pasture) are being driven by
publics that, at the moment, exist largely as sets of poll-driven
numbers. The streets are seldom filled with demonstrators; the
universities are not up in arms; and yet it's quite clear that some
ghostly form of popular pressure is indeed at work -- in combination
with growing pressures from Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald (think
Watergate) and a military command that, as in the Vietnam era, fears,
if something doesn't happen soon, the wheels might truly start coming
off the American military machine. Still, it is fascinating that,
without a significant political opposition yet in sight, we're
witnessing what looks ever more like an administration and Republican
meltdown. (For those of you who believe that the Republicans have put
all election victories beyond anyone's grasp, rising Republican fears
about the 2006 congressional elections should indicate that this is not
yet so.)
In the eye of its own strange storm, the administration is finally
starting to put policy back into the hands of those who pass for
"realists," as journalist Jim Lobe of Inter Press Service has been
pointing out recently. For instance, the astute and Machiavellian
neocon Zalmay Khalilzad, our former ambassador to Afghanistan and
present-day ambassador to the Green Zone of Iraq, has just been given
permission to negotiate with the Iranians for help in Iraq and is,
according to Newsweek, beginning to put American funds where they might
actually matter -- into bribes to Sunni officials. In the meantime --
just a little straw in the gale -- Secretary of State Rice recently met
for the first time in who knows how long for a chat with her former
mentor, the elder Bush's National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft. (If
Daddy's men are ever actually called back in, then you'll know for sure
that the White House is in humiliating "withdrawal" mode.)
In the meantime, we are once again seeing the return of the repressed
(that is, the Vietnam era) to American consciousness. It's not just the
language of that moment -- White House aides "circling the wagons" and
going into "bunker mode," or Democratic Senator Jack Reed insisting
that the President has a growing "credibility gap" -- but the way the
White House is digging itself ever deeper into the Big Muddy of that
era's playbook.
As if on cue this month -- in fact, it's hard to believe it could have
been happenstance -- Nixon's Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, the man
who claims he invented the term "Vietnamization," has returned as if
from the dead (in an article in Foreign Affairs magazine) to argue that
his policy actually worked, and so would "Iraqification." Maybe Laird
was simply called back into existence when Dick Cheney denounced those
intent on "rewriting history," but now we know from the horse's mouth
that we coulda, woulda, shoulda won -- except for a pusillanimous
Congress! ("The truth about Vietnam that revisionist historians
conveniently forget is that the United States had not lost when we
withdrew in 1973... I believed then and still believe today that given
enough outside resources, South Vietnam was capable of defending
itself, just as I believe Iraq can do the same now.")
The essence of Laird's Vietnamization policy was a realization that, on
the draft-era home front, the Vietnam War was being driven by American
casualties and that the Army itself was in a state of incipient revolt
and disintegration. So Nixon abolished the draft, began the
all-volunteer military, put an emphasis on building up the South
Vietnamese army, and withdrew 500,000 American ground troops over a
three-year period. What he replaced them with was a fiercely
intensified air war over South Vietnam (and neighboring countries). And
this policy was indeed successful in tamping down protest at home,
though (despite Laird's claims) it created insuperable problems in
South Vietnam (as Iraqification will in Iraq). These led, after much
further bloodshed, to the collapse of our allies in the south.
The Bush administration's new "plan," such as it is, to draw-down our
troops (while pressing our shrinking set of allies not to do the same)
is clearly modeled on Laird's Vietnamization experience -- a failed
strategy being re-imagined as a successful one. By a shift of tactical
priorities, it is meant to create the look of withdrawal before the
2006 congressional elections, and it, too, will emphasize the mayhem of
air power. On the ground, American forces are to be slowly withdrawn
from Iraq's cities to their bases, cutting down on both casualties and,
for Iraqis, that oppressive sense of being occupied by foreigners.
In draw-down terms, the plan seems to go something like this: While
withdrawal was making onto the public agenda, our actual force in Iraq
has risen in recent months from approximately 138,000 to about 160,000.
So the first "withdrawals" (plural) the administration will be able to
announce after the December 15 election -- about 20,000 troops -- will
simply get us back to the levels that Donald Rumsfeld and his planners
always meant us to be at.
General George Casey, U.S. commander in Iraq, and others have been
letting the news ooze out for a while (despite rumors of presidential
slap-downs for doing so) that, if all goes half-well, we will perhaps
withdraw another 40,000 troops (the figures vary depending upon the
leak) in 2006, leaving us with just under 100,000 troops there. In
2007... well, who knows, but the process, it's clear, is meant to be
more or less unending, and, mind you, that's according to the
Pentagon's "moderately optimistic" scenario. (Seymour Hersh claims that
the administration's "most ambitious" plans call for all troops
designated "combat," which is not all troops, to be withdrawn by the
summer of 2008.)
Nothing in the last two-and-a-half-plus years, of course, should lead
anyone to be "moderately optimistic." If you want a little dose of
realism, just consider the latest report on the new Iraqi army from the
Atlantic Monthly's James Fallows; or visit the rare Iraqi unit that has
been more or less "stood up" with Knight Ridder's Tom Lasseter and
consider what it's been stood up for (a Shiite revenge war in Sunni
neighborhoods); or check in with "two senior Army analysts who in 2003
accurately foretold the turmoil that would be unleashed by the U.S.
invasion of Iraq" and now claim it is "no longer clear that the United
States will be able to create (Iraqi) military and police forces that
can secure the entire country no matter how long U.S. forces remain";
or visit with "the only non-American author on the U.S. Army's list of
required reading for officers," Hebrew University military historian
Martin Van Cleveld, who recently called George Bush's little Iraqi
adventure "the most foolish war since Emperor Augustus in 9 BC sent his
legions into Germany and lost them."
In perhaps the most important piece of reportage of the year, Up in the
Air, the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh dissects the sinews of the
administration's Iraqification strategy. Unsurprisingly, while
drawing-down troops (in hopes of lessening American casualties), the
Pentagon is to intensify the air war, which means, of course, loosing
the U.S. Air Force on Iraq's urban areas where the insurgency thrives
and undoubtedly increasing Iraqi casualties. Or as Hersh puts it:
"A key element of the drawdown plans, not mentioned in the President's
public statements, is that the departing American troops will be
replaced by American airpower. Quick, deadly strikes by U.S. warplanes
are seen as a way to improve dramatically the combat capability of even
the weakest Iraqi combat units. The danger, military experts have told
me, is that, while the number of American casualties would decrease as
ground troops are withdrawn, the over-all level of violence and the
number of Iraqi fatalities would increase unless there are stringent
controls over who bombs what."
As Hersh essentially points out, what this is likely to mean in
practice -- if combat is significantly turned over to the new Iraqi
Army -- is sending our Air Force against targets of that army's
choosing; that is, putting American air power in service to a Shiite
and Kurdish revenge war against the Sunnis -- not exactly a recipe for
a pacified Iraq.
The thinking behind such strategies is, in fact, as recognizable to
those of us who lived through the Vietnam era as "Vietnamization."
Here's what I wrote about such "withdrawal" plans during the Vietnam
era in my book, The End of Victory Culture, published a distant decade
ago. See if it doesn't have a familiar ring to it:
"The idea of 'withdrawing' from Vietnam was there from the beginning,
though never as an actual plan. All real options for ending the war
were invariably linked to 'cutting and running,' or 'dishonor,' or
'surrender,' or 'humiliation,' and so dismissed within the councils
of government more or less before being raised. The attempt to
prosecute the war and to withdraw from it were never separable, no less
opposites. If anything, withdrawal became a way to maintain or
intensify the war, while pacifying the American public.
"'Withdrawal' involved not departure but all sorts of departure-like
maneuvers - from bombing pauses that led to fiercer bombing campaigns
to negotiation offers never meant to be taken up to a
'Vietnamization' plan in which ground troops would be pulled out as
the air war was intensified. Each gesture of withdrawal allowed the war
planners to fight a little longer; but if withdrawal did not withdraw
the country from the war, the war's prosecution never brought it close
to a victorious conclusion."
Clash of Languages
So now, having passed through much of the Vietnam era's strategy and
language in a mere couple of years, we find ourselves in the
Vietnamization/Iraqification period. Forgetting for a minute that,
among other differences with Vietnam, this seems increasingly to be a
war not for national unification but for national disunification, we
seem finally, as in those distant years, to be on the downhill slope of
language and imagery.
To give but one example: Proud neocon neocolonials like Paul Wolfowitz,
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and the President himself, regularly
talked about bringing "democracy" to Iraq in patronizingly parental
terms. They liked to say that they were trying to figure out the moment
to take the "training wheels" off the Iraqi bike and let the toddler
wheel around the nearest corner on his own. Now we find one of our many
anonymous generals quoted in a Washington Post piece using that very
image no less patronizingly but far more fearfully in military terms.
"Another senior general likened an accelerated withdrawal to 'taking
the training wheels off of a bike too early.'"
Or here's another example: American "senior officials" in the glory
days of our Iraq adventure spoke regularly and without shame about the
need to "put an Iraqi face" on Iraq. This was a wonderfully grim phrase
which, in a strange way, expressed their deeper meaning exactly; they
wanted to put a comforting Iraqi mask over the American face of the
occupation. Now, we find a military version of the same, whose
bluntness makes a certain sense of our moment, as quoted in a
mid-November piece from Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor of the
British Telegraph:
"Senior US military commanders have long argued that the way to defeat
the insurgency is to reduce substantially the number of foreign troops
in order to 'reduce the perception of occupation' and draw Sunnis
into the political process."
To "reduce the perception of occupation," that's a phrase to savor for
its truth-telling essence. It catches something of the administration's
policy now that it's actually on the run at home.
In the meantime, our President, in the first of several speeches he is
to give on Iraq before the December 15th elections, took a
roller-coaster ride through Iraqi Disneyland. As Dan Froomkin of the
Washington Post commented, "President Bush's safety zone these days
doesn't appear to extend very far beyond military bases, other federal
installations and Republican fundraisers."
Not exactly surprising, then, that his speech should have been so
la-la-(out)landish. For instance, as Paul Woodward of the War in
Context website pointed out, he promoted his "strategy for victory in
Iraq" by referring to "progress" a mere 28 times before the assembled
cadets of the Naval Academy. And then there was "victory," once quite
hard to find in administration documents that emphasized how we were in
an endless multi-generational struggle against terrorism. Yet, at this
desperate moment, the President managed to mention "victory" 15 times
(and add another for the title of the speech) -- and not just victory
but the fact that we would not "accept anything less than complete
victory."
That had a ring not heard since Americans called for total victory and
unconditional surrender in World War II, but then the President remains
in a World War II dream world, that thrilling place he experienced in
the movies of his childhood where the Marines always advance; our
grinning native sidekicks are friendly and remarkably willing to die in
our place; the enemy is destined to fall by their hundreds before our
fire; and total victory is an American birthright. In fact, the
President, who mentioned no post-1945 war (except the Cold one) -- and
there were so many to chose from -- spoke of World War II twice. You
know, that war so like the present one in which "free nations came
together to fight the ideology of fascism, and freedom prevailed."
(Just in case you've forgotten, that was the war in which the other
side had the Guantánamos...)
Perhaps there's poetic justice in seeing a President trapped in his
fantasy world being driven from pillar to post by a fantasy public,
while his generals and top officials do their best to ignore him as
they search desperately for ways out, and his advisers (and political
supporters) hire lawyers.
How to Tell Withdrawal from Its Doppelgangers
If you pay attention not to the war of words or the storm of confusing
withdrawal proposals, but to four bedrock matters, you'll have a far
better sense of where we're really heading. These are air power,
permanent bases, an "American" Kurdistan, and oil; and, not
surprisingly, they coincide with the great uncovered, or barely
covered, stories of the war. In the present flurry of withdrawal
discussions, only air power, thanks to Hersh, is getting any attention.
The others have so far gone largely or totally unmentioned -- and yet,
without them, none of this makes any sense at all.
Air Power: It remains amazing to me that Hersh's report is the first
serious mainstream piece since the invasion of Iraq to take up the uses
of air power in that country. It's a subject I've written about for the
last two years. After all, we've loosed our Air Force on heavily
populated urban Iraq, regularly bombing (and sometimes destroying
significant sections of) Sunni cities and towns (and in 2004 Shiite
ones as well). There have been hundreds and hundreds of reporters in
Iraq, many embedded with the military -- and yet it's as if they simply
never look up. Figures on the use of air power are almost impossible to
come by, though Hersh tells us in his Democracy Now interview that the
bombing has "gone up exponentially, certainly in the last four or five
months in the Sunni Triangle." He adds, however, that "we don't have
reporters at the air bases. We don't know what's going on with the air
war." Here's just one passage that gives a modest sense of some of what
the Bush administration has been doing from the air: "Naval efforts in
Iraq include not only the Marine Corps but also virtually every type of
deployable Naval asset in our inventory. Navy and Marine carrier-based
aircraft flew over 21,000 hours, dropped over 54,000 pounds of ordnance
and played a vital role in the fight for Fallujah."
Add in another reality of America's Iraq: L. Paul Bremer's Coalition
Provisional Authority, in a burst of blind pride in 2003, disbanded the
Iraqi military. For well over a year or more, Pentagon plans for
rebuilding it called for a future Iraqi military force (lite) of only
40,000 men with minimal armaments and essentially no air force at all!
This is the Middle East, mind you. What that meant, simply enough, was
that the Bush administration intended the American Army and Air Force
to be the Iraqi military for eons to come. Under the pressure of the
insurgency, the army part of that plan was thrown out the window. But
"standing up" the Iraqi military has meant just that. Standing on the
ground. There is still no real Iraqi air force. Iraq was never to
"fly," but to stay on that "bike" and under the tutelage of Washington.
The actual use of American air power will undoubtedly prove tricky
indeed (without many American ground troops around) and probably no
more successful in the long run than it was in Vietnam -- except, of
course, in terms of devastating the country. But watch the Iraqi skies
as best you can. They will tell you something.
Permanent Bases: We were to control military-less Iraq and perhaps the
region from a small series of permanent bases, already imagined and on
the drawing boards as the invasion began. At the height of our
base-building mania, we had about 106 bases there, ranging from
multibillion-dollar Vietnam-era-sized mega-structures like Camp Victory
North (renamed Camp Liberty) just outside of Baghdad to tiny base camps
in outlying parts of the country. We now claim to be turning these over
to the Iraqis. Part of our draw-down plan, according to Hersh, includes
"heavily scripted change-of-command ceremonies, complete with the
lowering of American flags at bases and the raising of Iraqi ones" --
one of these occurred, conveniently enough, near the Syrian border the
day the President spoke.
We have so many of these bases that we can hand them back one by one
with appropriate special ceremonies almost in perpetuity without ever
getting to the small core of 4-5 bases that the Pentagon planned on
permanently garrisoning as American troops first crossed the Iraqi
border. So here's what to watch for: If any of these key bases are
handed back, with flags lowered and troops removed, then you can begin
to believe that an actual withdrawal may be in the offing.
Kurdistan: You would largely not know that the Kurdish parts of Iraq
existed from most daily news reports on the war. But one major change
from the Vietnam era is that we have potential "sanctuaries" in the
area to withdraw to. Murtha suggested one of them, Kuwait, and it is
the focus of attention at the moment. But Kurdistan, at present the
quietest part of Iraq (despite fierce tensions between the two main
Kurdish political parties and non-Kurdish residents of the as-yet
somewhat undefined area), is also likely to be the most welcoming to
American forces "withdrawing" from "Iraq." Present-day Kurdistan was
created under the American and British no-fly zones in the 1990s and
its future autonomy, no less independence, would be at least
temporarily guaranteed by the presence of American troops there. Even
the Turks might prefer American forces in Kurdistan, if they restrained
local forces from any kind of cross-border shenanigans in Kurdish
regions of Turkey. The sole reference I've seen to this possibility was
in a recent piece by veteran reporter Martin Walker who wrote: "There
are other ideas circulating in the Pentagon, including the
establishment of a major and possibly permanent base in the Kurdish
region of northern Iraq, where U.S. troops are less controversial, and
would be welcomed by the neighboring Turks, always worried at the
prospect of an independent Kurdistan becoming a magnet for their own
disaffected Kurdish minority."
Were the rest of Iraq to fall completely out of our hands, it's easy to
imagine an "American" Kurdistan (conveniently near the Iranian border),
possibly expanded to include the oil lands around the tinderbox city of
Kirkuk, with its own set of bases. Interestingly, the Los Angeles Times
has just revealed that one of the Kurdish political parties signed a
private oil exploration deal with a Norwegian company. Of course, the
Kurdish areas would have their own set of explosive problems, but over
the next year watch for Kurdistan to surface as part of any American
draw-down which isn't actually a withdrawal.
Oil: So here we are at another of the great, hardly covered stories of
the Iraq war. As Mark LeVine has recently made so clear, the Bush
administration, with its former energy industry execs and consultants,
was thinking oil -- and Iraqi oil in particular -- from literally the
first moments of its existence. "[T]he few documents that have been
made public from [Vice President Cheney's] Energy Task Force... reveal
not only that industry executives met with Cheney's staff [in February
2001] but that a map of Iraq and an accompanying list of 'Iraq oil
foreign suitors' were the center of discussion." Hmmm... These were
people who already had "peak oil" on their minds. They entered Iraq, a
nation sitting on untold amounts of oil, thinking about the global
control of future energy resources. They sent soldiers to guard the Oil
Ministry and the oil fields, while allowing pretty much everything else
to be looted as the country fell to them. They have no desire to
abandon either their permanent bases or that reservoir of "black gold"
to others. But beyond pious statements about preserving the Iraqi
"patrimony" (i.e. oil) in the early days of the war, they never
broached the subject publicly and the media followed their lead. It's
rare today -- though a perfectly obvious point to make -- for someone
to say, as Ambassador Khalilzad did recently, "You could have a
regional war that could go on for a very long time, and affect the
security of oil supplies." Keep your eyes on this issue. It's what
separates Vietnam, which itself contained nothing special for a foreign
power, from Iraq.
In the end, ignore (if you can) the whirlwind of withdrawal language
that will turn all sorts of non- or semi-withdrawal schemes into
something other than what they are, and try to keep your eyes on those
shoals of reality. This is not Vietnam, which happened in slow-time.
This war, as the historian Marilyn Young claimed in its first weeks so
few years ago, is "Vietnam on crack cocaine" and, whatever anyone is
saying now, it's a fair bet that events will outpace all administration
plans and fantasies in the explosive year to come.
Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute's Tomdispatch.com ("a
regular antidote to the mainstream media"), is the co-founder of the
American Empire Project and the author of The End of Victory Culture, a
history of American triumphalism in the Cold War. His novel, The Last
Days of Publishing, has just come out in paperback.
Copyright 2005 Tom Engelhardt
2135 Dead, 49 since Hunter resolution
>"2129 Dead, 43 since Hunter resolution" <zepp2129#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:
>
>>Foxtrot <fox...@null.com> wrote:
>>>"2129 Dead, 43 since Hunter resolution" <zepp2129#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:
>>>>They demagogue, thousands of more troops die.
>>>
>>>If the Reps are demagoging, why are the Dems the ones
>>>who fear a backlash for what they have been saying?
>>
>>You mean the DNC is still packed with cowardly Republican wannabes?
>
>Screamin' Dean said that "the idea that we're going to win
>the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong." IOW he
>told our brave forces that they're risking their lives over
>there FOR NOTHING. Those are the words of a Dem loose
>cannon, not a Rep wannabe.
>
>Reps do indeed have their problems, but compared with
>Dems' self-destructive behavior, they don't look so bad.
Iraq is lost, and you are throwing away good lifes to no purpose other
than to make your coward, weak, brittle president less of a liability
for the next election. Your contempt and hatred for America is noted.
>
>>Imagine my surprise!
>
>The big surprise was when Dems chose a party chairman
>that makes them look sooo bad! We *love* having him in
>charge of the party.
If I had to choose between Howard Dean or Bill O'Reilly or Ann Coulter
or Sean Hannity, Dean would win.
>
>>Why do Republicans fear that they may lose more vote than they can
>>steal next year?
>
>LOL, you still whining about alleged stolen votes? You are
>one bitter individual, Schlepp! Do you actually believe that
>all your bitching and self-pity helps your cause?
Hmm. Got you scared again, did I? You always start prattling about
what's good for the Democrats when you are scared.
I would love to get you in a poker game.
>
>>>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/06/AR2005120601707.html
>>>
>>> Democrats Fear Backlash at Polls for Antiwar Remarks
>>> Wednesday, December 7, 2005
>>>
>>> Strong antiwar comments in recent days by House Minority
>>> Leader Nancy Pelosi and Democratic National Committee
>>> Chairman Howard Dean have opened anew a party rift over
>>> Iraq, with some lawmakers warning that the leaders'
>>> rhetorical blasts could harm efforts to win control of Congress
>>> next year.
nevermore
resolution" <zepp2135#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:
>On Thu, 08 Dec 2005 21:39:47 -0800, Foxtrot <fox...@null.com> wrote:
>
>>"2129 Dead, 43 since Hunter resolution" <zepp2129#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:
>>
>>>Foxtrot <fox...@null.com> wrote:
>>>>"2129 Dead, 43 since Hunter resolution" <zepp2129#2211finestplanet.com@> wrote:
>>>>>They demagogue, thousands of more troops die.
>>>>
>>>>If the Reps are demagoging, why are the Dems the ones
>>>>who fear a backlash for what they have been saying?
>>>
>>>You mean the DNC is still packed with cowardly Republican wannabes?
>>
>>Screamin' Dean said that "the idea that we're going to win
>>the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong." IOW he
>>told our brave forces that they're risking their lives over
>>there FOR NOTHING. Those are the words of a Dem loose
>>cannon, not a Rep wannabe.
>>
>>Reps do indeed have their problems, but compared with
>>Dems' self-destructive behavior, they don't look so bad.
>
>Iraq is lost,
<LOL> ...and yet even Dean is backpeddling on that claim.....
I think some of the other Democrats have slapped him around on that a
bit...
>and you are throwing away good lifes to no purpose other
>than to make your coward, weak, brittle president less of a liability
>for the next election. Your contempt and hatred for America is noted.
>>
>>>Imagine my surprise!
>>
>>The big surprise was when Dems chose a party chairman
>>that makes them look sooo bad! We *love* having him in
>>charge of the party.
>
>If I had to choose between Howard Dean or Bill O'Reilly or Ann Coulter
>or Sean Hannity, Dean would win.
<LOL> But then, you don't get that choice, do you?
>>
>>>Why do Republicans fear that they may lose more vote than they can
>>>steal next year?
>>
>>LOL, you still whining about alleged stolen votes? You are
>>one bitter individual, Schlepp! Do you actually believe that
>>all your bitching and self-pity helps your cause?
>
>Hmm. Got you scared again, did I? You always start prattling about
>what's good for the Democrats when you are scared.
>
>I would love to get you in a poker game.
You couldn't afford it, trailer-park loon....
--
If Nevermore tries paying cap gains with a 1040, he'll
be in jail soon enough.
--Zepp Jamieson, Dec 3, 2005
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/30fdaff423e2029b?hl=en&
Jamieson, obviously never had any cap gains to report, because
<LOL> line 13 on the 1040 form, under income, as shown below, is clearly where
you report your capital gains.
Foxtrot
>>>>>> Foxtrot writes:
> Foxtrot> Screamin' Dean said that "the idea that we're going to win
> Foxtrot> the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong." IOW he
> Foxtrot> told our brave forces that they're risking their lives over
> Foxtrot> there FOR NOTHING. Those are the words of a Dem loose
> Foxtrot> cannon, not a Rep wannabe.
>
>But they are true words. The idiot Bush put those fine
>young men and women in harms way, and all it did is make
>the world more dangerous for Americans.
Then why are Dems so afraid of backlash?
>He is a complete fool. And you are complaining about Dean.
>
>What does that make you?
Don't you understand that defeatist rhetoric like Dean's is
bad for the morale of our troops? And don't you care that
low morale endangers our troops? No?!?!? What does that
make you?
2132 Dead, 46 since Hunter resolution
><ah...@no-spam-panix.com> wrote:
>
>>>>>>> Foxtrot writes:
>> Foxtrot> Screamin' Dean said that "the idea that we're going to win
>> Foxtrot> the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong." IOW he
>> Foxtrot> told our brave forces that they're risking their lives over
>> Foxtrot> there FOR NOTHING. Those are the words of a Dem loose
>> Foxtrot> cannon, not a Rep wannabe.
>>
>>But they are true words. The idiot Bush put those fine
>>young men and women in harms way, and all it did is make
>>the world more dangerous for Americans.
>
>Then why are Dems so afraid of backlash?
Why are the Republicans so afraid of backlash. They are reportedly
dumping Condi and Rummy, two of the chief architects of the war,
because they've become so radioactive, and even as the smarmy little
hypocrites slap at the Dems for wanting to "cut and run" they are
tellign the White House they need a really substantial troop reduction
by next October.
Foxtrot
>>>>>> Foxtrot writes:
> Foxtrot> Don't you understand that defeatist rhetoric like Dean's is
> Foxtrot> bad for the morale of our troops? And don't you care that
> Foxtrot> low morale endangers our troops? No?!?!? What does that
> Foxtrot> make you?
>
>Personally I think sending them to Iraq in the first place
>was what counter-productively endangered our troops.
>
>Sticking to an utterly failed policy is just making it worse.
>
>We should quickly facilitate a partition of Iraq into 3 countries,
>help the Sunnis build their own army (the Kurds and Shia already
>have their own), tell them we will bomb the hell out of any military
>that violates the territory of one of the other countries, and
>withdraw.
>
>This stupid attempt to build one nation out of three is guaranteed
>to fail.
You can't control the land strictly from the air. You can't bomb
your way to peace.
At first glance it makes sense to let Iraq fall into three nations
based on its ethnic composition. In theory I agree with the
proposal. Do you know why the idea isn't being circulated?
Probably because it would shut the Sunnis out of most of the
oil revenue. So they'd slaughter millions of Kurds and Shia to
get it. Islamofascism would probably take control. Is that what
you want? I doubt it.
IMO the sensible pragmatic solution is to install a puppet
government that's secular and somewhat west-friendly (kind
of like Hussein used to be). We could keep it propped up
by giving it our older inferior weapons systems and air
support (so that it could repress local uprisings, and yet we
could easily crush them if they turned against us). Of course
we'd also maintain the oil infrastructure for our benefit and
to keep the new government self-sufficient.
It wouldn't be pretty, but don't you think it would be better than
sitting on the sidelines while a genocide (far bigger than the
one we saw in Rwanda during the 1990s) takes place? Or
how'd you like to see al Zarqawi gain control of Iraq?
chris.holt
> Foxtrot> At first glance it makes sense to let Iraq fall into three nations
> Foxtrot> based on its ethnic composition. In theory I agree with the
> Foxtrot> proposal. Do you know why the idea isn't being circulated?
> Foxtrot> Probably because it would shut the Sunnis out of most of the
> Foxtrot> oil revenue. So they'd slaughter millions of Kurds and Shia to
> Foxtrot> get it. Islamofascism would probably take control. Is that what
> Foxtrot> you want? I doubt it.
> There would need to be a revenue sharing agreement of some sore.
It's not even as though this is a new idea. At a small level,
families redistribute wealth all the time. At a larger level,
states like California and Massachusetts give money to places
like Mississippi; and the EU shifts money all over the place.
The idea of the rich subsidizing the poor has been around for
millennia, as a mechanism for making up for inequities imposed
by the financial structures and accounting systems we have.
So it's not the principle; it's the price 'we' are haggling
over. What's it worth the (northern) Kurds and the (southern)
Shi'ites not to have people in the middle shooting at them
and blowing them up?
--