Will Carl Levin and Joe Biden do anything about this?
Uh, no.
Posted by James E. Powell at November 22, 2007 10:52 PMIn the recent Biden debate vernacular: "No."
Posted by TIKI AL at November 23, 2007 01:17 AM
It's perfectly obvious to any jackass that we must subsidize the other side (i.e. pay for $90-a-barrel oil) so we'll have someone to fight.
After all, the purpose of war is war.
h
P.S.: Somebody needs to make sure the cell phone trackers are keeping up with errant Repukes.
Posted by iu at November 23, 2007 01:48 AMMaybe their districts have a lot of jobs tied to defense contractors. I mean, aren't their services always available to the highest bidder?
Posted by Kevin Hayden at November 23, 2007 01:52 AMPardon me for being so simple, but, the whole world is paying over $90 a barrel for oil from places like Nigeria, Mexico, and South America, not to mention our own wells. The Saudi's aren't our only supplier, far from it. And the China's and India's of the world get to pay the very same price. Doesn't this price force the world to curtail use and further global warming alarmist goals on reduction of CO2 emisions?
I saw an article out there about those very same alarmist attending a conference in Bali. There were so many corporate private jets down there that they had to park them outside. I read that the carbon footprint for this conference would mean that some 4 million trees would be needed to offset just this conference. Someone better get started planting those trees.
Posted by peter at November 23, 2007 04:09 AMSteve, have you heard from Dr. Hulbe, I saw a ship had sunk off Antarctica and was wondering if she was safe.
Posted by peter at November 23, 2007 04:49 AMLevin and Biden don't need to do anything. The House passes a funding bill with strings and the Senate votes it down. Therefore no funding.
Posted by JohnT at November 23, 2007 06:13 AMKeep in mind that funding bills have to originate in the House.
Posted by JohnT at November 23, 2007 06:29 AMLomar Alexander(Repug-TN) now says on global warming it's not whether we do something it's how we do it. He is for caps on power plant and vehicle emissions and other measures to limit greenhouse gases. Sounds almost like Al Gore. There might still be hope.
Posted by JohnT at November 23, 2007 08:22 AMThe "hope" would be more likely if you could lose the "Repug". Why would I want to come your way when I keep seeing this type of reference from your side of the isle.
Posted by peter at November 23, 2007 08:49 AMpants pissing peter: "The "hope" would be more likely if you could lose the "Repug". Why would I want to come your way when I keep seeing this type of reference from your side of the isle."
you can always go clutch your pearls elsewhere, cry into your hankie at another blog
Posted by Gay Veteran at November 23, 2007 08:58 AM"why should our troops have to fight and die in Iraq against Saudi-financed extremists while we pay $90 a barrel for the royal family's oil?"
"Saudi-financed extremists" are not the ones your troops are "fighting and dying against" in Iraq. So-called Al Qa`eda (which is not in fact Al Qa`eda, but a set of knock-offs who are using the name) constitute only a minuscule portion of the so-called "insurgents" (insurgent is a propagandistic misnomer - there are a lot of things going on in Iraq, but insurgency is not one of them - but that is another subject). The "enemy" in Iraq - the ones your troops are fighting and dying against - is Iraqi people who are resisting your troops' efforts to subdue the country in order to make it the crown jewel of the American neocon empire.
One of the original goals of the aggression against Iraq was and still is to establish a permanent controlling American presence there. That is the purpose of that ghastly self-contained, lavishly-appointed American-city-within-a-city-within-a-city that they cynically call "the embassy". It is also the reason any "troop withdrawal" will leave many tens of thousands of troops permanently stationed in multiple permanent military bases strategically placed throughout the country, and built to look, feel, and function like American towns with giant airstrips and ammunition depots.
This lust for empire is bipartisan, so of course the majority of Democrats, including all the top presidential candidates, are not going to take any action that will result in abandoning the goals of a permanent, controlling presence, including a permanent military presence.
Posted by Shirin at November 23, 2007 10:09 AMPassengers unhurt after Antarctic cruiseship hits ice
And happy belated Thanksgiving Everyone!
Posted by Sharon at November 23, 2007 10:35 AMpeter, like on virtually everything else out there, you are complete deadend denier and Head-in-the-Sander. You will be going down with the USS ConservaTard on global warming, so don't give us this "come our way" shit.
Having watched you and your poisoned brain on this subject for years now (it seems), it would make far more sense to try to convince a deaf mute on the subject---as a citizen you're a permanent dead loss, and the only way to deal with you is to send your faction to the political wilderness, where the other Repubs can decide what to do with you and the other insane, reactionary extremists infesting the Repub ranks. The failures of your movement have taken the country to the edge of the abyss.
What will happen to BushAmerica is anybody's guess---I certainly won't count your lying, deformed, delusional "movement" out yet.
Posted by euzoius at November 23, 2007 12:20 PMMan made global warming in a crock. Climate change, sure it's changing. Its always changing. Greenland was once inhabited by the Vikings until it got too cold(the mini ice age) around 12/1300 AD. They farmed there, raised crops, trees grew. You still can't do much of that now, though some of the flora has started to renew growing.
Several years ago, many on your side were using Katrina/Rita as a club saying this was going to get worse in the years to come. Where's the beef, where are the worse?
Last summer in the same month, England and Australia experienced record breaking cold.
You want to talk about the evironment, lets talk. You want to talk about man made global warming, next....
Posted by peter at November 23, 2007 01:27 PMOn the Petraeus plan I read the NYT stuff and I got some dissonance.
First of all the article and the plan says nothing at all about people committed as a brigade is a slippery thing to pin down, conventionally between 1,000 and 3.500 according to Wikipedia and the limits seem to be from 750 to 6,000. It is a noncommittal "plan". 'nuff on that.
________________________
The end of the Times article comes close to saying that Petraeus and the Pentagoners are not in agreement.
Petraeus is one of the few generals in the Army that in 2003/4 did not, in the British phrase, have his head so far up Rumsfeld's arse that only dangling feet could be seen (summarizing from Thomas Ricks' Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq). There are arguments about Petraeus though, c.f. WikiP. on Patraeus
Anyway, Petraeus and Lieutenant Colonel John Nagl recently re-wrote the Army's counter-insurgency manual which is where the dissonance comes in. The Times says CentCom's plan is to use elements of combat brigades to do training. Nagl, and presumably his old co-author, Petraeus, seem to favor other approaches, as mentioned in the Times article Steve cited,
Sounds like nation building to me. Not an altogether bad idea.
Is there a split between CentCom and Petraeus on the plan's basic approaches?
Is this something sane people can use as leverage to force bloody minded, delusional Bush and the possibly out of touch CentCom/Pentagoners into a less fatality prone course for all involved?
Hopes like that is why I am diagnosed as a naive idealist. Grin.
Posted by jaynicks at November 23, 2007 01:32 PMJaynicks,
1. Petraeus is good at one thing, and one thing only, and that is self-promotion.
2. "Nation building" is not a bad idea? What earthly right does the United States have to blast its way by force into another country, dismantle it, and build it to suit itself. That is, in fact, what nation building is.
The only people who have a right to nation build in Iraq is Iraqis, and Iraqis have a right to build their own nation, for good or for bad, as they are able and as they see fit.
What part of get out, get out now, and get out completely is not clear?
Posted by Shirin at November 23, 2007 01:56 PMHi Shirin,
"1. Petraeus is good at one thing, and one thing only, and that is self-promotion."
I'm willing to learn, and retract as needed. Please cite your evidence.
"2. "Nation building" is not a bad idea? What earthly right does the United States have to blast its way by force into another country, dismantle it, and build it to suit itself."
None, except perhaps Security Council mandate, and I'm not so sure about those. On Iraq I agree with Chomsky's statement, "Take, say, George W. Bush, since he happens to be president. If you apply the standards that we applied to Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg, he’d be hanged. Is it an even conceivable possibility? It’s not even discussable. Because we don’t apply to ourselves the principles we apply to others."
You note, "The only people who have a right to nation build in Iraq is Iraqis, and Iraqis have a right to build their own nation, for good or for bad, as they are able and as they see fit."
Well, I'm totally with you, ignoring the idea that there may be more Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites and Iraq was always a bad idea dreamed up by old men in London for colonial administrative convenience.
We, thanks to doobya, stepped in shit and splashed it all over Iraq as well as ourselves. "Iraqis have a right to build their own nation, for good or for bad, as they are able and as they see fit" But what do Iraqis want? With the whimsical idea we could have a plebiscite and a majority or Iraqis said "Out. NOW!" I'd say, send the transports. Yesterday.
If the 'Iraqis' want something else, we owe them, big time. It is not clear to me what 'Iraqis' want. It is clear to me that I, and likely you, do not speak for them.
"What part of get out, get out now, and get out completely is not clear?"
None of it is unclear.
Back on nation building. I would like to see a Peace Corps that is at least the size and budget of the Army, and have since 1962 when I was a prematurely anti-Vietnamese conflict.
I don't think, hopefully I am wrong, that we are going to lose the Army and the Mil. Ind. cabals (that Ike warned us against) in the near future. Given that view, an Army that sees itself with a role at reconstruction is marginally less worse than one that only sees itself as only a method of violent destruction.
Do you think that we Americans will be able to dissemble the Mil.Ind. complex in the near future? Change our culture to one less paranoid, powerful, ignorant and violent? If so I can reconsider in a hurry.
I admit it is a judgment call and have uncertainty which is why the tentative, "Not altogether a bad idea." Maybe it is altogether a bad idea. What say you and why? Listening....
Thanks for your reply, and be well,
J
Posted by jaynicks at November 23, 2007 02:55 PMurghh. For "dissemble" please read "disassemble" in my previous post. Sorry.
Posted by jaynicks at November 23, 2007 04:00 PMJ,
Regarding Petraeus, his failures in Iraq are legion. He supposedly had the right formula and did wonderful things in Mosul, my family's home town. Taken a look at Mosul lately?
He was responsible for training and motivating the Iraqi security forces. We all know how well that has succeeded.
Hundreds of thousands of weapons intended for the Iraqi security forces disappeared into nowhere - on his watch. And those are just the things that come to my mind at nearly 1:00 AM after a nice night out.
If you like I can provide some references with links to rundowns of his consistent failures, and the views of him on the part of people who have known him and worked with him.
Oh yes, and surprise, surprise! Petraeus has expressed presidential ambitions, perhaps as soon as 1012.
"there may be more Kurds, Sunnis and Shiites..."
Sorry, but I cannot make any sense of this. More Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites than what? More Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites who do what rather than what other thing? Could you clarify, please.
"...Iraq was always a bad idea..."
I realize that this is the "received truth" that has been passed along and repeated, and repeated, and repeated, until it has become virtually unchallengeable. Well, I hereby challenge it. True, the modern-day nation-state of Iraq was constructed by the British to suit their colonial needs (and now the United States has tried to deconstruct it and transform it to suit THEIR needs in the face of enormous opposition from - Iraqis of all kinds and stripes). But that does not mean at all that it was an inherently non-viable construct. Quite the contrary, before statehood there was already a sense of regional identity that quickly transformed into a sense of national identity that became in some ways an ideal to much of the Arab world. Iraqi society is - or perhaps rather was prior to March, 2003 - so much more than merely Sunni, Shi`a, and Kurd (and how terrible it is to so consistently ignore the rest of Iraq's amazingly rich and varied social fabric). It WAS a nation with a strong sense of national pride. The recent reaction to the Asia Cup victory was not an anomaly as it was presented in the American press, but an expression of Iraqis' true sense of national pride.
"what do Iraqis want? With the whimsical idea we could have a plebiscite and a majority or Iraqis said "Out. NOW!" I'd say, send the transports. Yesterday."
Iraqis have consistently made clear what they want. They have made it clear in the numerous polls that have been taken, all of which have since 2003 until now shown an increasing desire on the part of all Iraqis for the United States to get the hell out of their country and their business. Iraqis have made clear what they want in the form of active and passive, non-violent, and violent resistance to the American occupation. They have made their desire clear in their support of nationalist anti-occupation figures such as Muqtada As Sadr. And millions have made it clear by voting with their feet.
"If the 'Iraqis' want something else, we owe them, big time."
You owe the Iraqis big time no matter what, for having utterly destroyed their country, their state, society, their culture. You have destroyed a dozen Iraqi towns and cities, rendering most of the inhabitants - millions of human beings - homeless. Falluja, a city formerly of 350,000 being the best known of these.
"It is not clear to me what 'Iraqis' want."
What message are you trying to convey by enclosing the word Iraqis in scare quotes? Are you trying to imply with this that there is really no such thing as an Iraqi? If so, may I recommend that it would be in your best interest not to suggest such a thing in the physical presence of an Iraqi? Iraqis are generally very polite and open-hearted people, but under the current situation any given Iraqi might be momentarily too overcome by emotion to remember his obligation to be polite.
"It is clear to me that I, and likely you, do not speak for them."
Iraqis have already spoken very clearly for themselves. Unfortunately, not many Americans are listening.
"Back on nation building. I would like to see a Peace Corps that is at least the size and budget of the Army, and have since 1962 when I was a prematurely anti-Vietnamese conflict."
Is the Peace Corps about nation building? If so, then I am opposed to it. If it is about assisting human beings in providing themselves with the means to a better life, then indeed it should have ten times the size and budget of the Army.
"an Army that sees itself with a role at reconstruction is marginally less worse than one that only sees itself as only a method of violent destruction."
How am army sees itself is irrelevant. All that is relevant is its actual function. Armies by their very nature are instruments of death and destruction. That should be clear to anyone who has been through military training.
Pertaining to Iraq specifically, you might do some research to discover whether the U.S. military has engaged in destruction or reconstruction. It might also be enlightening to ask yourself why reconstruction should even be required unless it has been preceded by significant destruction, and considering that question, how virtuous it is to first destroy something and then - at great profit to oneself - reconstruct it.
"Do you think that we Americans will be able to dissemble the Mil.Ind. complex in the near future?"
It is up to you collectively.
"Change our culture to one less paranoid, powerful, ignorant and violent?"
Depends how important it is to you collectively. Unfortunately, it appears to be not at all important at the moment.
"Maybe it is altogether a bad idea. What say you and why? Listening...."
"Nation building" is something that is done by the powerful in their own interest to the weak, and disregarding the interest of the weak. It is the justification traditionally used by empires for their conquests. It always comes back to bite the empire (aka "nation") builder in the end, even though it sometimes takes centuries to do so. Is that a sufficient explanation of why it is always a bad idea?
Posted by Shirin at November 24, 2007 01:53 AMHey Shirin, I think the Iraqi's are worth it, every cent, every drop of sweat, every breathe. They're worthy of this endeavor. Sure we made mistakes, Petraeus made mistakes, but I think we've finally got things in the right direction. The people are warming up to the ideas of freedom. Many are returning, putting back together their homes, their lives and gradually their being.
Isn't it nice we can have this discussion without fear of retribution? Iraqi's can now have this discussion too.
Enjoy your day!
Peter, if you had the remotest clue what you are ranting on about, you would be worth conversing with, but you don't, and therefore you aren't.
Oh, and by the way, thanks to your ilk, Iraqis do not have freedom of speech at all. They don't even have the freedoms they had under Saddam Hussein. They do not have the freedom to leave their houses safely, and they are not even free inside their houses. They never know when the United States military is going to blast open their doors and rampage through their houses, maybe killing one or more of them, probably dragging the men off to some unknown location from which they may or may not return alive, very probably after being tortured. They don't know when some - very likely U.S. trained and funded - death squad is going to grab them and drag them off to be tortured and killed. And they don't know when the U.S. might decide to drop a few bombs on their neighborhood and demolish their houses, burying them and their children in the rubble.
The Iraqis do not deserve what you have done to them and to their country and to their future and to their children's future.
YOU have a good day you smug, self-satisfied ignoramus.
Posted by Shirin at November 24, 2007 09:52 AMHello Shirin,
Well, a lot of telling points. Thanks.
Taking it from the top. If your family is from Mosul you speak with more authority than I on Iraq so I say "Good luck to the Iraqis!"
I did find Iraqi Polls which I had not known about. I'm learning.
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If so, then I am opposed to it. If it is about assisting human beings in providing themselves with the means to a better life, . . .
I meant the latter. Wikipedia says my semantics are out of date. It says at the end of the segment on nation-building
Which explains to me your hostile reaction to the term and that my use of the term was unwise. Right you are.
I particularly choke on "to construct or install the institutions of a national government, according to a model that may be more familiar to the foreign power", patronizing and parochial.
What term would refer to the investment of people and resources to build schools, communications, renewable energy sources and libraries in another nation (if invited) without intending to and with the avoidance of otherwise influencing the culture? If one believes in one's system, those should be sufficient.
I think it was Heinlein who wrote something like, "Power is used to enforce bad decisions. Good decisions can be explained."
As for ten times the budget for the Peace Corps, it would be nice. I'd be real happy with a little 50% increase per year in the Peace Corps' budget.
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At the moment America has no agreed charter and pursues national interests with the armed forces which translates into the whims and interests of plutocrats, not to mention needless or counter-productive expense and destruction.
Had the Army a charter reading something like:
US Armed Forces will only:
sure there would be a lot of argument over definitions. At least it would be, to borrow from Chomsky, discussable.
The US might have avoided the Vietnamese tragedy and debacle, among others, with such discussions.
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It is up to you collectively.
That seems a tautology and leads to no useful action plan. I could apply your phrase to aspects of the situation in Iraq and you might object.
The answer to the rhetorical question is that neither Americans nor all the world, collectively, will be able to disassemble Military Industrial complexes in the near future. My personal abhorrence is irrelevant without action.
"What can we do in the situation that actually is?" is the implied question.
Ok, I'll start with an objective. Americans could work for a constitutional amendment that is an armed forces charter. Even a debate on the topic might be immediately beneficial.
I'm sure there are better ideas that are feasible and actionable. Got one?
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As for immediate withdrawal I'm going back to reading more polls.
Shirin, thanks for your time.
J
Posted by jaynicks at November 24, 2007 10:29 AMJ, a word or two further in response to your comment that "Iraq was always a bad idea dreamed up by old men in London for colonial administrative convenience."
I find it interesting that while Americans seem to understand that Iraq was "dreamed up for colonial administrative convenience", and to have bought whole heartedly the notion that Iraq was "always a bad idea", very few seem to consider the fact that ALL the countries created by the western powers out of the remains of the Ottoman empire were "dreamed up for colonial administrative convenience", and none seem to think that any of the other countries - especially Israel, which was created by European colonists who ethnically cleansed the area to create their state, and is the primary instigator of instability in the region - was a particularly bad idea. So, only Iraq is singled out for the distinction of being both created by "old men in London", and "always a bad idea". I invite you to consider this when you are examining your assumptions about Iraq.
I invite you to also consider that if you look back in time before those "old men in London" (and in Paris) got their hands on the remnants of the Ottoman empire, you will find out that the three wilayat (i.e. governates) from which Iraq was created were in fact dreamed up by old men in Istanbul for imperial administrative convenience. Those old men in Istanbul actually divided the larger geographical region that for centuries had been known by the name "Iraq" into three wilayat, just as they divided all of their empire into wilayat (governates) for - you guessed it - imperial administrative convenience. Was that a worse idea than the idea dreamed up by the old men in London some centuries later to recombine those same three wilayat to form a modern-day nation-state known as Iraq?
In other words, J, this dreaming up by old men in imperial capitals is nothing new. Every empire that has at some time or another taken over the region known as the Middle East has created geographical divisions for administrative convenience.
Getting back to those old men in London (and Paris), if Iraq was always a mistake, J, why was Syria not always a mistake? And Lebanon? And Kuwait? And Jordan? And, for that matter, modern-day Turkey, whose borders were also drawn by those old men in London?
All those modern-day nation-states that were dreamed up by old men in London (and Paris) were created by combining and dividing the wilayat dreamed up centuries before by the old men in Istanbul. So, why was only this one state dreamed up by old men in London for colonial administrative convenience by recombining three divisions created by old men in Instabul for imperial administrative convenience the only one of these that was "always a mistake"?
Posted by Shirin at November 24, 2007 11:09 AMpants pissing peter: "Sure we made mistakes, Petraeus made mistakes, but I think we've finally got things in the right direction."
"we"? you finally posting from Iraq?
no?
then STFU
Thanks for your response, J. Lots of things I can respond to, but not enough time right now.
This much I will respond to now, and hopefully more later.
"Had the Army a charter reading something like:
US Armed Forces will only:
-------------------------------
Defend the borders? Absolutely. This is one of the very few legitimate uses of a military. But defend the borders against what? This needs to be more specific or it will lead to misuse of the military.
Deliver succor in response to natural disasters in the US? Definitely, and given that there is almost no need to defend the country against foreign attack, that would probably turn out to be the most common task of the military. However, there need to be strict limits built into this part to prevent the military from being misused.
...and when invited abroad and then without disturbing politics or culture? Yes, and, and even more strict and specific limits need to be written in.
Aid people clearly struggling against...? This piece of your proposal is extremely, extremely dangerous. I absolutely could not endorse it. These are precisely the pretexts that have been and continue to be used to justify some of the United States' most egregious acts of aggression, not the least of which is their imperialist project in Iraq.
In the past, and at the present moment the United States military has committed and is committing the following crimes - crimes that you would have the very same military protect others from:
Iraq. Afghanistan. Enough said about that?
For a particularly egregious case of imprisonment of a journalist google Sami Al Haj. The United States military has imprisoned, tortured, and killed numerous journalists in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the world. Just in the past few years the United States military has clearly intentionally bombed several news organizations' headquarters in Afghanistan, Baghdad, and Basra.
For a particularly egregious case involving imprisonment and persecution of dissenters, google Sami Al Arian. The L.A. 8 case is also revelatory. This is a case of a twenty year persecution in the guise of prosecution recently resolved in favour of the defendant. And don't suggest that this means that "the system works". If the system worked these people and their families would not have spent twenty years of their lives in legal hell.
Bagram. Guantanamo. Abu Ghraib and other prisons and detention centers in Iraq. An unknown number of "black sites" all over the world. Use of psychologists to design "enhanced interrogation techniques". Defense of waterboarding. Extraordinary rendition. Do I need to go on?
Direct and indirect supression of free speech in Afghanistan, and Iraq. Direct and indirect suppression of dissenting views in the press both domestically and in Afghanistan and Iraq. Increased monitoring of ordinary citizens' communications in all media. History of support of foreign regimes that suppress debate (including Saddam Hussein's regime). See the cases of Sami Al Arian and the L.A. 8 for two examples of suppression of debate domestically on the subject of Israel, a foreign country. I can come up with plenty more if you need them.
Iraq. Afghanistan. Viet Nam. Panama. Colombia. Iran. Serbia. I don't need to go on, do I?
Afghanistan. Iraq from 1991 to present. Palestine. Support of Israel and other countries that regularly intentionally deprive human beings of access to food, water, shelter, energy, information, medicine, and other necessities of life.
With this kind of very lengthy tradition, I would under no circumstances allow the United States military to enter or become in any way involved in another country's business except by the explicit invitation of that country and only with very strict and enforceable limits.
Last summer in the same month, England and Australia experienced record breaking cold.
That's a neat trick, since those two countries have completely opposite seasons, and are on opposite ends of the world, dumbass.
Posted by Kyle at November 25, 2007 04:44 PM