“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”
Senator Barack Obama, December 20, 2007.
While I have been extremely disappointed in Obama's economic policies, I have, so far, been pleased by much of his management of foreign affairs. Candidate Obama never presented himself as the most pacifist and isolationist of the Democratic field of candidates. He was much more centrist than Dennis Kucinich or Bill Richardson, yet he was very critical of the Bush administration’s foreign policy and promised a change. We have seen some real change and some superficial change and much of the same.
Some Republicans have criticized Obama’s recent making nice with Hugo Chavez. I don't. Reagan made nice with Gorbachev. Nixon made nice with Mao. FDR made nice with Joseph Stalin. There is nothing wrong with being diplomatic and friendly with your enemies. It may be beneficial to be on a first name basis with the bastards. Sometimes if is even necessary to ally ourselves with the most ruthless and despicable of people, as was the case in World War II. I am not so sure that Hitler was a lot worse than Joseph Stalin, but Germany was a threat and Russia was our ally and FDR had to make nice with Joseph Stalin. While Chavez may be irritating tin-horn dictator, he is hardly a Mao or Stalin.
Obama has also been criticized for changing our policy toward Cuba. Again, I think he is pursuing the correct policy and that our isolation of Cuba has been a mistake. I am glad to see us move toward normalization with that nation.
I am pleased that we are escalating the war in Afghanistan. I think Bush made a big mistake in going to go to war in Iraq and failing to pursue victory in Afghanistan. We cannot allow the Taliban to reestablish their rule in that country. I am pleased that we are pressuring and prevailing in persuading Pakistan to take a more aggressive role in suppressing the Taliban in that country. I am pleased that Obama has only tweaked the timetable for withdrawal from Iraq and seems committed to exiting that conflict in an orderly fashion that will preserve the peace and stability and leave behind a sizable American presence. .
In the war on terror, which we no long call the “War on Terror,” Obama is essentially continuing the Bush policies. While Obama uses less bellicose language and does not have the cowboy swagger that irritated so many, there is very little to distinguish Obama from Bush. He sounds more moderate but his policies are the same. It was Teddy Roosevelt who said “talk softly and carry a big stick.” I am not displeased with the more moderate tone. I have mixed feelings about the continuation of some of Bush policies.
When Bush was president and prominent national conservatives formed the American Freedom Agenda, I cheered. I was concerned that the Federal Government was amassing unchecked power. I did not approve of the government claiming the authority for warrantless searches of Internet communications. I do not approve of torture. I did not approve of special rendition. I thought George W. Bush was exceeding his constitutional authority.
Many of the same policies that were continued or initiated by Bush are being continued under Obama. Special rendition is a policy that started in peace time under Bill Clinton. It is the practice of kidnapping suspected enemies and turning them over to other countries where they can be tortured. We are speaking of real torture not a gray area that may or may not constitute torture. By letting a third country do the dirty work we can claim to have clean hands and not have engaged in torture ourselves. George Bush expanded the rendition policy and Obama has not ended the practice.
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One Obama proposal that should concern all civil libertarians is the Cyber-security Act of 2009, which is essentially the same as Bush’s Total Information Awareness but under a new name. It would grant the government authority to monitor and mine Internet traffic for patterns that indicate links to terrorist activity. My concern is that such authority will be misused. This seems to violate the constitutions prohibition against an unreasonalble search. The same people that were outraged about Total Awareness are very quite about Cyber Security.
Obama was very critical of the bush administration policy regarding prisoners held at Guantanamo. I do not think the issue of what to do with irregular forces captured on the field of battle is an easy riddle to solve, however I do not think that we should hold indefinitely people who may be innocent. Recently, when the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that non-Afghan detainees at the US Bagram Prison in Afghanistan, captured outside Afghanistan, had the same due process rights that the Supreme Court last year gave to prisoners at Guantánamo, the Obama administration argued they did not. Bagram is a less high profile prison than Guantanamo but the issue regarding Bagram is exactly the same as Guantanamo and the position of the Obama administration is exactly the same as the position of the Bush administration.
In a recent article in the Washington Post, columnist Charles Krathamer pointed out that on policy after policy the Obama administration is continuing the policy of the Bush administration. “The latest flip-flop,” writes Krathamer. “is the restoration of military tribunals. During the 2008 campaign, Obama denounced them repeatedly, calling them an ‘enormous failure.’ Obama suspended them upon his swearing in. Now they're back.”
I admit I am conflicted. On the one hand, Obama’s policies seem to vindicate the policies of George W. Bush. I could conclude that George W. Bush was right all along and when faced with the enormous responsibility of keeping this country safe, that Obama came to a realization that the only prudent course to follow was that that was set by his predecessor. When one does not have the responsibility for our country’s security it is easy to snipe from the sidelines. Obama put aside partisanship and campaign promises and did the right thing.
On the other hand, I could conclude that Obama is an opportunist who did a complete flip-flop. He would say anything to get elected but he is a power hungry opportunist who cannot turn down the occasion to amass more power. I don’t know which view is correct.
What I cannot understand is how civil libertarians and pacifist of the left, who loathed George W. Bush, are letting Obama get by with continuing the same policies they professed to hate. If these policies were wrong when enacted by George W. Bush, are they still not wrong?
I am reassured by President Obama’s announced policy on Iraq and Afghanistan. I have no way of knowing weather we ought to get out or Iraq in 16 months or 19 months or 23 months. I have no way of knowing the size of the ideal residual force to leave behind. Nevertheless, based on what I think I know, I find Obama’s policy on both Iraq and Afghanistan reasonable and reassuring.
I was opposed to the invasion of Iraq from the very first. I always thought it was a rush to war that could have been avoided. The fact that there were no weapons of mass destruction seems to validate that the war was unnecessary. The attempt to tie Iraq to the 9-11 attack on America was deceptive. It certainly appears, as has been alleged, that George W. Bush was determined to invade Iraq from the time he was first elected and nothing was going to deter him from that decision. While I was opposed to going to war in Iraq, it also seemed to me that we were withdrawing from Afghanistan before the job was finished.
Despite being opposed to the initial invasion of Iraq, I did not think we could just pull out once we were in. Our invasion created chaos and instability and a withdrawal without creating a measure of stability could have led to a bloodbath, an expanded regional war involving several nations, and a strengthened Iran. Thankfully the surge, which Obama opposed, was a success and made a responsible withdrawal possible.
Obama’s current policy on Iraq is essentially a continuation of the Bush policy. Under the Status of Forces agreement Bush negotiated with the Iraqi government, all US troops will be out of Iraq by 2012. If McCain had been elected we would not have waited until the last minute to withdraw all of our troops, so a staged withdrawal under McCain would probably not look much different than what we are getting under Obama. Leaving up to 50,000 troops behind is not a complete withdrawal anyway. 50,000 troops is a still a lot of troops.
On the campaign trail, Obama repeatedly promised a withdrawal within 16 months and did not mention that that withdrawal excluded 50,000 troops. I am pleased that he is acting responsibly when it comes to national security and not honoring an irresponsible campaign promise. Despite Obama’s campaign pledge, he never was the most anti-war of the Democrats. He was much less pacifist than either Dennis Kucinich or Bill Richardson, who tried to outdo each other in their pledge to quickly exit Iraq. For those who voted for Obama, they had other choices if an immediate withdrawal form Iraq was their primary concern.
As soon as Obama had the Democratic nomination secured, he started moderating his campaign pledge of a quick withdrawal and started talking about acting in consultation with the commanders in the field and evaluating the situation in Iraq. As the candidate of the Party, he sounded more reasonable than as a candidate for the nomination. Now, as President, on national security matters he sounds not that much different from his opponent John McCain.
I fear that Afghanistan may prove a difficult war that drags on for a very long time. Nevertheless, I think we are doing the right thing. I hope we have benchmarks for achieving progress in Afghanistan and I hope we have clear objectives. I hope we have an exit strategy. I hope we have a good estimate of the cost of this war and do not have unrealistic expectation. I wish Obama would present a more detailed plan for Afghanistan and hopefully he will.
I suspect that if McCain was President and had announced he would leave a residual force of 50000 troops in Iraq and was sending more troops to Afghanistan that the anti-war crowd would be in the streets in massive numbers. Obama has such strong support among the electorate that hopefully the anti-war crowd will not gain traction and derail his announced policy on Iraq and Afghanistan. Hopefully the anti-war crowd has been marginalized and most of those who would normally be in that camp have been co-opted by Obama.
Today the cult of Obama is so strong and he has so much political capital that he can lead the American people anywhere he wants to take them. When flag-draped coffins start coming back from the war in Afghanistan however, I wonder how long the anti-war left will stay in his camp. I suspect that if things do not go well in Afghanistan that many of those who celebrated his victory will turn against him. I hope Obama has the strength of character to put America’s national security interest first even when the going gets tough and people are no longer cheering but are booing.
Scott McClellan on Countdown with Keith Olberman, Part 1
I urge you to watch this clip of Scott McClellan being interviewed by Keith Olberman to discuss his new book, What Happened Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception.
Here are some quotes from the interview:“I got caught up in the Washington game in terms of spinning and obfuscation, secrecy, and stonewalling and things like that”.
“The intelligence was packaged together in such a way as to make it sound more ominous and grave and urgent than it really was.”
“What I get to in this book is so important to understand, so we can learn from this and not make these mistakes again where we are rushing into a war that now is very clearly one that was unnecessary.”
I appreciate Scott McClellan for writing this book. It is important that the truth be told. However, for McClellan to bear his soul and feel cleansed and make a handsome profit off of the book in the process is not very satisfying. Over 4000 American service men have been killed, approximately 85,000 Iraqi are dead, the war has cost of over $2 trillion, and it has left the mid-east destabilized and the world less safe. McClellan should not only tell the truth, he should apologize for his role in this unnecessary war, donate all profits from the book to a worthy cause and commit the rest of his life to the cause of good government. He should atone for his sins.
By Edwin Chen and Holly Rosenkrantz
May 28 (Bloomberg) -- Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan says in a memoir that President George W. Bush manipulated public opinion through a ``political propaganda campaign'' to justify going to war in Iraq.
If you missed the recent 60 Minutes program with a segment about former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and his revelations about the innner workings of the Bush Administration, it is worth following this link (60 Minutes) and watching.
A new book called The Price of Loyalty has just been published that draws on interviews with several high ranking officials who gave the author their personal accounts of their experience within the Bush Administration. Paul O’Neill was the most forth coming of those interviewed for the book, not only sharing his insight but giving the authors thousands on internal Bush administration documents.
O’Neill seems appalled at the way Bush conducted the business of running the country and he has some very interesting things to say. He says that in cabinet meetings the President was "like a blind man in a roomful of deaf people.” “There was no discernible connection," forcing top officials to act "on little more than hunches about what the president might think." O’Neill says that the president did not make decisions in a methodical way and there was no free-flow of ideas or open debate.
Most interesting is O’Neill report of Bush’s obsession with Iraq from the very first National Security meeting. O’Neil recalls that during the campaign, candidate Bush had criticized the Clinton-Gore Administration for being too interventionist, but that from day one Bush was planning an invasions of Iraq. “From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go,” says O’Neill. He says that going after Saddam was topic "A" 10 days after the inauguration, eight months before Sept. 11. “From the very first instance, it was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime,” "It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying ‘Go find me a way to do this,’
I don’t guess Mr. O’Neill’s revelations should surprise any of us by this point, but they offer insight in to just what a poor leader Bush really is and offer further confirmations that the decision to invade Iraq was already made before Bush ever got elected and Bush was not to be deterred. Bush was going to have his war with Iraq no matter what.
What is wrong with Nancy Pelosi? Is she trying to take away from George W. Bush the title of Century’s Biggest Foreign Policy Idiot? Are Democrats so invested in American defeat in Iraq that they want to help it alone? Why are they choosing this point in time to poke Turkey in the eye?
By a 27-21 vote last week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee adopted a resolution, which formally identifies the killings of the 1.5 million Armenians in the waning days of World War I as genocide. Turkish officials acknowledge the killings occurred but object to the designation "genocide." Maybe Turkey is a tad touchy on this issue. After all, Turkey did not exit at the time. Nevertheless, they find this resolution offensive. So offensive in fact, that when the Committee passed the resolution, Turkey recalled their ambassador for consultation. The Turks claim the events that occurred nearly 90 years ago was a result of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the resulting civil wars and anarchy, but was not genocide.
The reason this resolution is so ill timed is that Turkey and Kurdish Iraq are on the verge of war. At the end of World War I, when the victors divided up the Ottoman Empire, they forgot to give the Kurds a state. The Kurds were divided between Syria, Turkey and Iraq. For the last 90 years Turkey has been trying to assimilate the Turkish Kurds and make them more Turkish. Like many people without a country, the Turkish Kurds are not very happy. For the last 20 years, Turkey has been fighting a gorilla separatist movement in the south of Turkey. Since the Iraqi war, the guerilla movement has stepped up the war against Turkey. The Kurdistan People’s Party (PKK) has been committing terrorist acts in Turkey and then fleeing to Kurdistan and they have also been lobbing mortars into Turkey from Iraq. Turkey has had enough and the Turkish Parliament has passed a resolution authorizing their military to cross the border into Iraq to fight the PKK.
Kurdistan has been our one success in Iraq. It is relatively prosperous, peaceful and democratic. The mess in Iraq is threatening to spin out of control and engulf the whole region in conflict. We do not want an Al Qaeda strong hold, a client state of Iran, and genocide in Iraq. The result of failure in Iraq could be horrendous. We do not need our ally Turkey going to war with the one part of Iraq that represents success. We need stability.
We need to be a moderating influence and try to get the Kurds and Turks to avoid war. Turkey is our friend; they are part of NATO and seek membership in the European Union. Turkey is a modern, secular, democratic, state with an Islamic population. As Bush said recently, “Congress has more important work to do than antagonizing a democratic ally in the Muslim world, especially one that's providing vital support for our military every day." And, he said "... one thing Congress should not be doing is sorting out the historical record of the Ottoman Empire."
A hand full of reasonable Democrats including Tennessee’s own Representatives John Tanner and Steve Cohen urged House Democratic leadership to stop the resolution. "We believe that this resolution at this time takes away or impedes our ability to bring the most swift rapid resolution of this situation in Iraq to a conclusion that is beneficial to our country," Tanner said. In a letter from Tanner and others to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, they said, the resolutions would "threaten our operations and our troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan."
Also, eight former U.S. secretaries of state, Democrat and Republican, also opposed the resolution: Alexander M. Haig, Jr.; Henry A. Kissinger; George P. Shultz; James A. Baker III; Lawrence S. Eagleburger; Warren Christopher; Madeleine K. Albright; and Colin L. Powell. "Passage of the resolution would harm our foreign policy objectives to promote reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia," said the letter signed by former Secretaries of State. “It would also strain our relations with Turkey, and would endanger our national security interests in the region, including the safety of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan."
It looks like saner heads will prevail and that the resolution will not come to a vote. With George Bush as President and Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House, God help us.
Above quotes from CNN (Speaker Pelosi Hedges)
General David Petraeus, the U. S. Forces Commander in Iraq, is a man who has served his country faithfully for 35 years with honor and distinction. He is a 1974 graduate of West Point, graduating in the top 5% of his class. He was the General George C. Marshall Award winner as the top graduate of the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College Class of 1983. He earned a PH. D in International Relations from Princeton University in 1987.
His awards and decorations include the Defense Distinguished Service Medal, the Distinguished Service Medal, two awards of the Defense Superior Service Medal, four awards of the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star Medal for valor, the State Department Superior Honor Award, and the NATO Meritorious Service Medal. In 2005, U.S. News and World Report recognized General Petraeus as one of America’s 25 Best Leaders. In January 2007 he was confirmed unanimously by the U. S. Senate to become the U. S. forces commander in Iraq.
Last Thursday, the anti-war far-left organization MoveOn.org called him a traitor. The full-page ad sold to Moveon by the New York Times at a discounted rate, cleverly playing on the Generals name, and in large print asked, “General Petraeus or “General Betray Us”? They accused him of lying in his progress report to Congress.
Calling General Petraeus, the man who is leading our troops in time of war, a traitor is disgusting and beyond contempt. As one who was serving in Vietnam at a time when anti-war protestors carried Viet Cong flags and Jane Fonda visited our enemy and posed for pictures on an anti-aircraft gun, I can imagine how the troops in the field must feel when their Commander is called a traitor and politician vote to endorce that view.
Following the ad, the Senate voted 72 to 25 to condemn Moveon.org for the attack. Some Democrats joined Republicans in this vote including high-profile liberals such as Diane Feingold, Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer, and John Kerry. Other Democrats, many of whom had voted to confirm him as Commander back in January, refused to condemn the attack on Petraeus. The Democratic Senators who are seeking their party’s nomination for President, Hillary Clinton and Christopher Dodd, were among those siding with Moveon. Barak Omaba was present but choose not to vote and Senator Joseph Biden was absent, campaigning in Iowa.
Ads like this are polarizing and I guess that is the point. It motivates the base of the party and forces people to choose sides. The Presidential candidates can no longer waffle. They must decide if they will serve as puppets of Moveon and show their contempt for America's military leadership or if they will vote for decency and condemn those calling our top General in Iraq a traitor.
I don’t know how this will play out in the polls, but Democrats, while pleasing the fringe, may loose support in the middle. Also, nastiness like this may push moderate Republican who question the wisdom of our policy in Iraq, back into the Republican fold. Not all Democrats and Independents share the contempt for our military shown by the Moveon Democrats. As one who has been critical of the Bush Administrations decision to go to war and the conduct of the war, and who also has developed other dissatisfaction with the Republican Party, my loyalty to the Republican Party has been slipping. Events like this remind me why I am still a Republican.
Recently, I read a comment by someone that said, democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to have for dinner. A popularly elected government does not necessarily create the ultimate in good government. We should not forget that Hitler was popularly elected.
Also, we should be mindful that it can be difficult to impose freedom on a country that does not have the basic building blocks to support it. As much as we may wish it was so, not everyone everywhere is ready for democracy. We must realize that some nations are only nations because people who have little in common are held together by brute force and suppression as was the case in Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and Ethiopia.
In the following article Thomas Sowell explains why “nation-building” can be folly. It is too late to apply this lesson to Iraq, but hopefully we will learn this lesson before we are tempted to “liberate” the next country. Below are excerpts from the article.
Mugged By Reality: Part III
By Thomas Sowell
Thursday, September 20, 2007
If nothing else comes out of the Iraq war, it should banish the concept of "nation-building" from our language and our minds.
You cannot turn a territory and its population into a functioning nation with the stroke of a pen or the drawing of lines on a map.
Real nations evolve over time out of the mutual accommodations of peoples, not by imposing the bright ideas of theorists from the top down. No small part of African nations' problems comes from the fact that most became nations only in the sense that conquerors carved up African territories among themselves to suit their own convenience.
Democracy means voting. It does not mean freedom. When we lump the two ideas together, we confuse ourselves and others.
To read the full article: Mugged by Reality
In last night’s Presidential address on Iraq, I think the President proposed the right course of action and established a correct and cautious policy. He promised a reduction to pre-surge troop levels by next summer and promised further reductions as the situation improves.
It appears he has turned a corner. No more bravado about “staying the course” and “leaving when the job is done”. He appears to be listening to General Petreaus and accepting reality.
I watched hours of the General Petraeus congressional hearings. I was impressed by his honest, sober, realistic, and clear reports. He was guardedly optimistic but did not sugar coat things. He impressed me as someone who will not “spin” the facts but will tell the truth and give an honest assessment no matter where it leads.
While many Democrats are going to oppose Bush and try to push for an immediate pullout, it looks like Bush will prevail. As Pat Buchanan said in a recent article, "Bush is winning today because he has jettisoned the jabber about global democracy, and argues that a U.S. withdrawal risks a strategic disaster, national humiliation, massacre of our friends, and triumph for Al-Qaeda."
It seems obvious to all but the most extreme anti-Bush war critics that the surge produced positive results. The surge achieved a reduction in violence and a weakening of Al Qaeda. Not only is General Petraeus reporting this but so also are many independent observers including scholars from the liberal Brookings Institute.
The military successes however, are not achieving the objective the surge was supposed to achieve. The surge was supposed to give the Iraqi politicians breathing room in which they could achieve political reconciliation and make progress on building a nation. Of the eighteen benchmarks established to measure Iraqi progress, the Iraqis achieved only one. Iraq seems to have a lot of petty politician who lust after power but few statesmen. General Petraeus has said we cannot win a military victory without a political settlement.
We can’t defeat the enemy militarily, because the when we talk about fighting “the enemy” in Iraq the terminology does not fit the reality. The enemy is not a single military force or ideology or movement, but numerous factions vying for power. In the South of Iraq alone there are three separate Shiite factions fighting each other for control of the region. We may be able to keep events from spinning out of control but we cannot forever police the country. If the Iraqis do not want a nation, it will be hard to impose it.
I am disgusted about the lies and deceit that put us in Iraq, but we must now deal with the reality we are facing. How we got in Iraq is now less important than how we get out. As reckless as it was to go into Iraq, and as badly as the post invasion administration of Iraq was handled, to just pull out now would be more reckless than the initiation of this war in the first place.
Unfortunately, we broke it; we own it. We must figure a way out of Iraq that does not lead to a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, a Kurdish-Turkish war, genocide, ethnic cleansing and a destabilization of the entire Mid East.
If by March, when the next report is to be made to congress, if the situation is not better then than it is now, it may be time to move toward a partitioning of the country as advocated by Joe Biden or another alternative strategy. Just leaving is not a strategy. For now, I think the Bush policy is the best course of action and the only cautious and responsible thing to do.
By Patrick J. Buchanan
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Those who hoped that -- with the victory of the antiwar party in 2006, the departure of Rumsfeld and the neocons from the Pentagon, the rise of Condi and the eclipse of Cheney -- America was headed out of Iraq got a rude awakening. They are about to get another.
Comes now evidence congressional Democrats have not only lost the pro-victory vote, but forfeited the peace vote, as well.
Incredibly, only 3 percent of the nation gives Congress a positive rating on its handling of the war. Congress has lost the hawks, and the owls, and the doves. No one trusts its leadership on the war.
What is to prevent Bush from attacking Iran and widening the war, at a time and place of his choosing, and sooner than we think?
Nothing and no one.
(To continue reading: Phase III of Bush's War)
My Comment:
If President Bush represents the idealistic, Nation-building, Neocon wing of the Republican Party, Mr Buchanan represents the protectionist, isolationist, paleoconservative wing of the party. I am not so sure I would be any less disgruntled with a Buchanan version of the Republican Party than I am with the Bush version. Nevertheless, I am glad that we have a Buchanan to provide some balance to the Bush version. Above are excerpts from an article by Mr. Buchanan that I find informative and insightful.
It is amazing that as unpopular and as weakened as Bush has become, that the Congress is even less popular and weaker still. Was not divided government supposed to bring a return to Congressional scrutiny? Was not the Congressional election claimed by Democrats and mainstream pundits to be a referendum on the war? I did not expect the Democratic Congress to be so irresponsible as to cut off funding for troops in the field or immediately reverse policy. But, I expected more vigorous oversight and questioning of the administration and a little backbone.
Bush may be preparing to expand the war into Iran and Congress seems to be prepared to roll over and play dead.
Cases show fraud exposers have been vilified, fired, or detained for weeks
The Associated Press
Updated: 1:57 p.m. CT Aug 25, 2007
One after another, the men and women who have stepped forward to report corruption in the massive effort to rebuild Iraq have been vilified, fired and demoted.
Or worse.
For daring to report illegal arms sales, Navy veteran Donald Vance says he was imprisoned by the American military in a security compound outside Baghdad and subjected to harsh interrogation methods.
There were times, huddled on the floor in solitary confinement with that head-banging music blaring dawn to dusk and interrogators yelling the same questions over and over, that Vance began to wish he had just kept his mouth shut.
He had thought he was doing a good and noble thing when he started telling the FBI about the guns and the land mines and the rocket-launchers — all of them being sold for cash, no receipts necessary, he said. He told a federal agent the buyers were Iraqi insurgents, American soldiers, State Department workers, and Iraqi embassy and ministry employees. (To continue: Iraq fraud
This is an outrage!
This is shameful. Why is the Congress not investigating? Why is this not more widely reported? Why are the editorialist not editoralizing? This is not some obscure left-wing rag making these claims, but The Associated Press. These are not vague accusations, but name names of the victims. Why is no Presidential contender making this an issue? It is unbelievable: An American Navy man is imprisoned for reporting illegal arm sales! Are those arms arming the insurgents? Are we selling the insurgents arms to kill American soldiers? I would like answers. I would think everyone in Congress should want answers. It should not matter whether one is Democrat or Republican, supported or opposed the going to war, supported or opposed the surge, this is something everyone should be outraged about. Where is the outrage! Rod
Watching the ABC News Iowa Democratic debate this morning and the Republican debate last week, I was most interested in what the candidates had to say about Iraq and foreign policy. While I am deeply concerned about the other issues of the day, to me, all other issues are a distant second in comparison. For the first time in my life, I could be persuaded to vote for a Democrat if I thought that person had the wisdom to disentangle our country from the mess that is Iraq and leave the world a saver place. While I am sure I would disagree with a Democratic candidate on tax policy, health care policy, Supreme Court nominees and most other domestic issue, if someone can show the wisdom to get us out of Iraq, then they could win my support.
I was not impressed by what I saw this morning or last week. Most of the candidates played it safe and where short on specifics. I guess that is the way to stay in the game. Bearers of bad news don’t inspire a lot of enthusiasm. So candidates sell their “experience”, or “leadership” or they position themselves as the “candidate of change”, but they avoid letting the people have specifics by which to critique them.
Of all the candidates, there were four that convinced me they would screw up getting us out of Iraq worse than Bush did in getting us into Iraq. These four candidates, who by comparison, would make Bush look like a genius, are Democrats Make Gavel, Bill Richardson, and Dennis Kucinich and Republican Ron Paul. The solution of these four candidates appears to be to pull out as quickly as possible and to hell with the consequences. They would race each other to the border.
Things are bad now, but they could get much worse. Events could spin rapidly out of control: A proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia in Iraq, massive genocide, an Al Qaeda stronghold, a Turkish invasion of Kurdistan are not only realistic possibilities, but appear likely to occur unless a solution that brings stability is found. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict continues to need a solution. How to deal with an Iran that may be close to joining the ranks of the nuclear-armed states is an enormous challenge.
With a resurgent Al Qaeda in Pakistan and with Pakistan facing elections, which very well may be suspended, the Al Qaeda allies in Pakistan could come to power in a military coup. A nuclear-armed Jihadist Pakistan could become a reality. If that occurs, what will be the future of the shaky peace between nuclear-armed India and nuclear-armed Pakistan?
"Stay the course" is not acceptable to the American people, and it should not be, but “cut and run” could be worse. I wish we had a pragmatic realist such as Ronald Reagan running for president, but I don’t see one. At this point anyone who had a plan for getting us out of Iraq without worsening the situation is worthy of consideration, but few of the candidates seem to want to even admit that the situation is dire.
Of all the candidates, the only one who even seems willing to discuss the consequences of a mismanaged withdrawal is Joseph Biden. In my estimation, he is the only candidate willing to reveal that he has even given serious thought to the problems of the Middle East. It is unfortunate that his campaign is not gaining traction and that he is not in the top tier of contenders.
I do not pretend to have the knowledge or the wisdom to know what strategy we should pursue to get out of Iraq. But, I can only hope we use more care in getting out than we did in getting in. Somewhere between “cut and run” and “stay the course” there must be a solution that will avoid disaster.
While watching C-span this weekend, I was impressed by the presentation of Lawrence J. Korb testifying before a House Committee on Iraq troop deployment. Mr Korb is the Director of National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, and a Senior Adviser to the Center for Defence Information. He served as Assistant Secretary of Defense from 1981 to 1985 under Ronald Reagan. For his service he was awarded the Department of Defense’s medal for Distinguished Public Service.
Mr. Korb has solid credentials as a supporter of national security and the American military and he also has been a consistent critic of the Bush Administrations decisions that led us to war in Iraq and of the conduct of the war. He says the surge strategy is not working and cannot work and Iraq’s squabbling leaders are not making progress in reaching a political accord. “The US needs a new strategy,” says Mr. Korb, “that will prevent Iraq from becoming a launching pad for international terrorist groups and a source of even greater instability in the middle east.”
He calls for withdrawing American forces from Iraq by the fall of 2008, and positioning them in neighboring countries where they could prevent Iraq sectarian violence from spreading beyond its borders. He also calls for a major diplomatic initiative to encourage Middle Eastern leaders and the UN to continue working with Iraq to peacefully settle their differences.
The recommendation of the Iraq Study Group, while valid at the time, are not a guide for the future, he says. The recommendations of the Iraq Study Group have been overtaken by events and no longer apply. He calls for an immediately halt to the training and supplying of the Iraq military forces. By arming and training the Iraqi military, we are in effect arming different side in the Iraq civil wars and we may also be arming forces that will turn their weapons on us as we began to disengage.
We need to make immediate and sweeping changes, says Mr. Korb, not further experiments and tinkering.
To read an article by Mr. Korb expressing these views, see the following link. http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070713/OPINION03/707130338/1110/OPINION03
For more on Korb and his analysis or Iraq, the following link, links to more articles he has written on the issue. http://www.americanprogress.org/experts/KorbLawrence.html
Bush loyalist continue to insist that despite not finding any nuclear weapons in Iraq, that absolutely everyone who had adequate knowledge to have an informed opinion had concluded that Iraq had nuclear weapons. The argument is that we can’t blame Bush for being wrong; everyone else was wrong also.
“Why did Clinton three times cite the nuclear danger of Iraq in his December 1998 speech?” a fellow group member on a discussion site to which I belong asked in a recent exchange. “The Clinton and Bush Administration had exactly the same basic intelligence estimate regarding Iraq.” Statements from Al Gore, Sandy Berger, Hillary Clinton, Madeline Albright, John Kerry, and numerous others will be quoted to justify Bush’s decision to go to war with Iraq.
But what the Bush loyalists choose to ignore is the time factor. At one point in time, the Clinton Administration did conclude Saddam probably was reconstituting his weapons program. They did believe he was a threat. And, I think Bush was correct to apply pressure on Saddam, forcing him to allow the IAEC inspectors back in the country. But then, Bush ignored what they found. But by the time Bush led us to war, the inspectors had been back in the country and the IAEC testified they could find no trace of nuclear weapons.
By the time Bush decided to go to war, there was ample reason to believe Iraq did not have nuclear weapons. The important issue facing us now, is how to get out of Iraq, not how we got in. Nevertheless, the truth should be told, from time to time, simply so it is not forgotten. And maybe, by acknowledging our mistakes we will be less likely to repeat them. If told that an event occurred a certain way often enough, then overtime it is easy to forget what really happened.
In the March 7, 2003 presentation to the U.N. Security Council on the progress of the inspection effort in Iraq, Agency Director General Mohamed of The International Atomic Energy Commission stated that the IAEA had conducted a total of 218 nuclear inspections at 141 sites, including 21 that have not been inspected before. These inspections were not only visual inspections but analysis of sediment and air and soil samples. In addition to the sites, 75 facilities such as military bases and storage facilities had been inspected. They also interviewed scientist and technicians with knowledge of nuclear development. The IAEA director stated that Iraq had been forthcoming in its cooperation.
He said that as of that date “there is no indication of resumed nuclear activities” and that “ there is no indication that Iraq has attempted to import uranium since 1990”. Also. “no indication that Iraq has attempted to import aluminum tubes for use in centrifuge enrichment.”
And finally, “no indication to date that Iraq imported magnets for use in centrifuge enrichment program.”
Don’t accept it when a Bush apologist says, “Everyone thought Saddam had Nuclear Weapons”. For the full transcript of the March 7th IAEC report, see the following link:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/07/sprj.irq.un.transcript.elbaradei/
Part of the way forward and out of Iraq is to recognize that Iraq is a "problem for the whole world". A humanitarian crisis in Iraq and a regional war should be of concern to all the world. If we fail, while we will be responsible for causing the crisis, it will not be our problem alone. If the UN can help us get out of the mess we created, we should grab it. It is encouraging that our UN Ambassador is welcoming the help being offered by the UN. I hope Bush has the wisdom to listen to his UN Ambassador and pursue UN help in solving the Iraqi crisis. In this New York Times editorial, United States UN Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, the former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, explains why the UN needs to intervene. Rod
July 20, 2007
By ZALMAY KHALILZAD
AFTER meeting with President Bush on Tuesday, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that the Iraqi situation is “a problem of the whole world” and that the United Nations is prepared to contribute to the “Iraqi government and people to help them overcome this difficulty.”
To continue reading: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/opinion/20khalilzad.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
I am very proud of my own Senator Lamar Alexander for breaking with the President on Iraq and advocating a responsible way to get out of the mess we created. He has co-sponsored legislation with Senator Ken Salazar (D-Colorado) that would make the Baker-Hamilton report law. Alexander has been consistent supporter of the Iraq Study Group recommendations since it was issued late last year. The legislation he is sponsoring would not set a timetable for withdrawal but it would, said Alexander, get the US military “out of the combat business in Iraq and into the support, equipping and training business in a prompt and responsible way.”
The handwriting is on the wall. The US is not going to continue our current combat level of commitment to Iraq indefinitely. With many troops on their third tour of duty in Iraq, we cannot continue the current commitment with our worn-out all volunteer military and no one is going to support a draft.
However, an immediate withdrawal, which many Democrats desire, could be a disaster. It is not inconceivable to see genocide on the scale of Darfur. Al qaida could gain a foothold in the country, and an expanded war with Iran supporting Shai and Saudi Arabia supporting Sunni factions is a realistic possibility. Also, Turkey is not happy with a Kurdish state on their border and the incursion of Kurdish gorillas into their country. The tension between Turkey and Kurdistan could lead to war.
I hope we use much more care getting out of Iraq than we did getting in. An immediate withdrawal would be the heights of irresponsibility, equal to the irresponsibility that got us in Iraq.
While most Republicans want to wait until September when General Petraeus gives his report on the result of the surge before taking any action, Alexander has said there is no reason to wait. Lamar says we need a strategy for getting out of Iraq and said the surge is “a tactic, not a strategy” and that, “The surge makes much more sense when it’s considered in the context of the Baker-Hamilton recommendations because it’s part of a long term plan.”
Senator Alexander said, “President Bush is right that we can’t afford to fail in Iraq. That is why I support the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group,” “It is important for the president, the Congress, our country and our troops if we speak with one voice on Iraq. The Iraq Study Group report is a way to build that bi-partisan consensus.”
We need more Senators like Lamar Alexander who do not blindly following the President but neither do they advocate an irresponsible policy of “cut an run”.
For more on this topic: http://alexander.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=Home.Home
http://host1.bondware.com/~citypaper/news.php?viewStory=56955&cache_id=4159
http://www.usip.org/isg/index.html
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