The following story from the Washington Post is a tiny indication of what happens when parties fail to take a moral stand.
Democrats could have positioned themselves to capitalize on Bush's inevitable failure in Iraq. But when a united chorus might have swept this failed presidency away in a political tsunami, Democrats find themselves neither here nor there, just "almost" morally right. Instead of demanding withdrawal, Democratic opposition seems too little, too late. Bush will have achieved his goal: a permanent presence in Iraq. Politically, he will have gotten it all on the cheap.Democrats in Box on Iraq War Legislation
By ANNE FLAHERTY, The Associated Press
Wednesday, September 12, 2007; 3:20 AM
WASHINGTON -- Democrats are in a box on the Iraq war debate, lacking the votes to pass legislation ordering troops home by spring but tied to a support base that wants nothing less.
Two days of testimony from Gen. David Petraeus, the military commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, the US ambassador there, seemed only to harden positions among lawmakers. GOP conservatives said real progress was finally being made and more time was needed, whereas Democrats said the absence of a political deal in Baghdad meant the strategy failed.
Feingold: Iraq War a "Diversion"!
When the GOP focus groups told Bush and/or Rove that the old line about fighting "terror" in Iraq was no longer working, the reasons for attacking and invading that nation changed, conveniently, to fit Bush's political needs of the moment. It became a war for freedom. Jimmy Breslin puts that lie to rest.Guantanamo Detainees Tell of Abuses
By ANDREW O. SELSKY
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Detainees flinging body waste at guards. Guards interrupting detainees at prayer. Interrogators withholding medicine. Hostility and tension between inmates and their keepers at the Guantanamo Bay prison are evident in transcripts obtained by The Associated Press.
These rare detainee accounts of life inside the razor wire at the remote US military base in Cuba emerged during Administrative Review Board hearings aimed at deciding whether prisoners suspected of links with the Taliban or al-Qaeda should continue to be held or be sent away from Guantanamo.
The Pentagon gave the AP transcripts of hearings held last year in a trailer at Guantanamo after the news agency sought the material under the Freedom of Information Act.
Amid the tensions, the transcripts also show a few relaxed encounters between detainees and their guards and interrogators.
So I got in the subway and went home. Where the torture of watching this general and his friend, Crocker, had me looking for a rope to cling to. Watching them was far more difficult than running six years later on the same legs.I wrote years ago that Bush's policies in both Afghanistan and Iraq made terrorism worse, and, in fact, they have. Bush hasn't put a glove on terrorism. Bush's ham fisted, fucked-up war crime against the people of Iraq is what it is: a heinous war crime whose perps --Bush and his henchmen --should be tried for high treason, capital crimes, and mass murder.
What I saw and heard was Crocker being asked something about how long he thought we were going to be fighting in Iraq. He said, and you could look it up, that we poor, unschooled and impatient fools ought to look to our past. We fought for this nation, he said. We won our independence by fighting for it. We didn't have any large army coming in to help us. The Iraqis now don't fight for their nation. They want us to fight for them. And that is exactly what we are doing and will do for years.
Why, then, don't we give Iraqis the same opportunity our people had here, to fight for their freedom and win it?--JIMMY BRESLIN, Running in place in Iraq
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5 comments:
All the Democrats have to do is mention oil as the reason for this debacle, and they can't simply do that.
It took the Nazis awhile after World war II, to get what they finally wanted one of which is our Country losing it's great leader status on the world stage. I believe it has been completed. In 2000, when our Country's President and Vice President were chosen for us not elected by us.But the crowning moment of all this came with the Iraq War. A war for the oil, simply greed by the oil Companies, and the Bush family which represents oil!
Yes,all these lives lost, hundreds of thousand of innocent civilians
dead, thousands of our brave men and women, dead. Now we have spent 1.86 trillion dollars, money that we don't even have.
The Bankers, are really smiling,now for they love to finance War!
liberal journal man said ...
All the Democrats have to do is mention oil as the reason for this debacle, and they can't simply do that.
Yep! The Democrats have wasted their moral "capital", the moral high ground by debating bullshit, debating the "conduct" of the war. You don't debate the conduct of an IMMORAL WAR. You don't debate the "conduct" of a war crime that is, in fact, punishable by death.
What you do is you scream bloody murder. You demand that Bush be tried for capital crimes.
The Democrats, I am afraid, are either pussies or they have never faced up to the the fact that the US states has been suberted, revolutionized and the Constitution trashed.
Just as the power of the Roman Emperors, as long as they were supported by the Praetorian guard and the legions, ruled absolutely. The Senate was kept around for show, debating the "conduct" of the various campaigns.
Diane B said...
It took the Nazis awhile after World war II, to get what they finally wanted one of which is our Country losing it's great leader status on the world stage.
Yep! What few people know or understand is that WWII was fought for energy resources. Hitler very nearly won WWII and had he done so, he would have had absolute control over the world's supply of oil. Coa --the production of synthetic fuels --was obviously on his mind when he invaded Poland. He might have supplied Rommel and taken the middle east. He erred by going after Russia --which is most certainly unconquerable by conventional means.
And you are right...Bush IS a Nazi, so was Sr and so, too, was Prescott et al.
Bush hasn't put a glove on terrorism.
You are dead right, Len. In fact, as Sibel Edmonds points out, all the "middle men" of al Qaeda -- the financiers, visa suppliers and political fixers in the Middle East -- have been left completely untouched by this administration. Bush called off several investigations into Saudi financing of terrorism after 9/11.
The Iraq war is a bait and switch war.
Absolutely. And the deception continues full bore with the Petraeus propaganda about the "surge". According to an August 2007 survey reported by the BBC, between 67% and 70% of Iraqis believe the surge has hampered conditions for political dialogue, reconstruction and economic development. More than six in 10 now call the US-led invasion of their country wrong. 57% find violence against US forces to be acceptable, up six points over a year ago. And 47% now favor the immediate withdrawal of US forces from Iraq -- a 12-point rise. This survey of more than 2,000 people across Iraq found that nearly 60% see attacks on Coalition forces as justified. This rises to 93% among Sunni Muslims compared to 50% for Shia. Our presence is making sectarian violence worse. No occupation can be sustained under these circumstances. We are the problem. Only a concerted diplomatic effort and a firm commitment for complete and early US withdrawal can bring any progress.
But that withdrawal is never going to happen. Even the ballyhooed plan to pull out 30,000 troops includes the fine print: "..as the situation stabilises." Bush had to tell Congress something, so he gave them a PR trick. He has no intention of leaving, or even cutting troops. The US is building a new camp near the Iranian border and other military building programs are continuing. General James Jones, Chairman of the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq, was interviewed on NBC's Meet the Press recently and had this to say: "The notion that we're not going to be there forever flies in the face of what we see on the ground." The US is staying in Iraq forever.
Justin Raimondo makes an excellent effort to try to answer the question of why we are trying to "buy time" with the "surge". He rightly concludes that it's all part of a prelude to an attack upon Iran:
In answer to questions from the senators, Petraeus gave away the show when he bluntly stated, "We cannot win Iraq solely in Iraq." Oh no, we have to conquer most of the rest of the Middle East, including Iran, Syria, and who-knows-where-else before we can even begin to talk about winning in Iraq. I have emphasized, in this space, that nothing short of complete and immediate withdrawal from Iraq is going to avert a regional war in the Middle East, because that's exactly what's on the administration's agenda. That's what Bush and Petraeus are buying time for – what Norman Podhoretz calls "World War IV."
The public has yet to register on the fact that the US has switched sides in Iraq. It really needs a detailed expose, but the US is supporting Saudi and Israeli interests, funding Sunni insurgents against the Shia Iraqi government (they've given up on al Maliki - he won't pass the oil laws) -- which means they'll attack Iran. Coming soon.
damien said...
I can't prove it but it would seem that the Bush family, being oil partners with the Saudis royals and henchmen, have worked out a complicated scheme in which oil revenues are funneled into "al Qaeda".
I've always urged folk who really wanted to wage a war on terrorism to STOP supporting the big oil companies. Oil revenues are the life blood of terrorism. How very handy for a party that has never made an honest "living" but instead exploits and encourages our fears.
It really needs a detailed expose, but the US is supporting Saudi and Israeli interests, funding Sunni insurgents against the Shia Iraqi government (they've given up on al Maliki - he won't pass the oil laws) -- which means they'll attack Iran. Coming soon.
That seemed to have been what the "natural" alliance would have been all along. But, in the first few years of Bush in Iraq, Bush found himself allied with Shia in Iraq.
BTW --I am sick to death of the stupid propaganda phrase du jour "al Qaeda in Iraq".
From now on, anything that doesn't belong in in Iraq (like Bush in Iraq) will be followed with the phrase "...in Iraq" to indicate that, like al Qaeda, they have no business there. Examples:
"Bush in Iraq"
"US in Iraq" (the US being the world's largest terrorist organization)
"GOP in Iraq"
"Neocons in Iraq"
"Blackwater in Iraq"
"Halliburton in Iraq"
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