Am I dreaming, or did Joe Biden just blow another presidential bid with that big yap of his? I feel like I’ve been transported back to 1987, when the old media knockout machine first kicked into high gear. First it was Gary Hart, presumptive front-runner, derailed because of what — some kind of heterosexual liaison with an adult woman? God, no! He was out of there, his morals not up to the high standard set by the ersatz Hollywood cowboy then ensconced in the White House — a man who had cavorted with the likes of Errol Flynn back in the day, for chrissake. Then Biden got caught cribbing British Labor party leader Neil Kinnock, and he was out. Would that work today? Not as well as Biden’s clumsily phrased comment that seemed to suggest Obama is cleaner and more palatable to, well, white people. The insufferable NPR Morning Edition team brought up Obama’s comment that he did not take the remark personally, about which one of them commented, well, why should he? It wasn’t about him. Ummm… well, yeah, it was about him, if the comment was a reference to “blackness” in general.

Anyway, that’s Joe Biden. Less newsworthy, apparently, is his contention (which he shares with nearly all of his fellow Democratic presidential contenders) that the Iraqis need to, in essence, get their shit together. This is positioning for our eventual exit from Iraq. It’s the same exit strategy we applied to the Vietnam War — blame the victims, as though what we did to them was something we did for them. That’s the Vilsack line, as well, and of course Hillary is all about “benchmarks” for the Iraqi government, etc. Meanwhile on the other side of the aisle, the “hang tough” Republicans (all safely beyond fighting age, one might notice) have added “benchmarks” to their resolution of support for Bush’s escalation, though the rhetoric is still designed to set their opponents up for blame when (not if) this “strategy” doesn’t work. And when it doesn’t work, you can bet it will be because people just slightly to the left of them doubted it, and not because it is an utterly bankrupt policy.

Yes indeed, you can see the outlines of a “knife in the back” explanation for our failure in Iraq when the war is finally over. Again, this is Vietnam redux. Those antiwar protesters, press critics, and wishy-washy liberals emboldened the enemy, undermined our troops, compromised the mission, stabbed the president in the back, etc. Hey, it worked great for Nixon… and for Hitler, come to think of it. Mark my words — this catastrophe will be blamed upon the very people who counseled most strongly against it in the first place. We will be lumped together with everyone from Osama and the crew to those French “surrender monkeys,” whose Gaullist president Jacques Chirac recently had the temerity to suggest that an Iranian nuclear weapon would not be the disaster the U.S. makes it out to be, since its use would result in Teheran’s utter and immediate annihilation by the enormous Israeli and U.S. nuclear arsenals. (The Morning Edition crew seemed utterly flabbergasted at this remark, as if they’d never heard anything so outlandish as the concept of nuclear deterrence that we’ve lived by since the start of the Cold War.)

So by all means, oppose this stupid war. But don’t for one minute suppose that you’ll be thanked for it later. As my mom always told me, no good deed goes unpunished.

Watch the state of the union address? Nah, neither did I. At this stage, I won’t give Bush the satisfaction of irritating me for the better part of an hour. (I understand the word “strong” was employed more than once. How novel.) This has become such a highly ritualized tradition that I feel as though I watched it anyway. I mean, since Reagan (the cardboard commander-in-chief), the state of our union has always been “strong,” regardless of what horrible hell-disaster the president had propelled us into during the previous year. There is seemingly always some anecdotal tidbit about a soldier or a mother or a small business owner or a virtuous immigrant who just happens to be seated next to the first lady. No real new information is imparted, since the previous week is choked with trial balloons sent off from the White House to preview all new policy proposals. So aside from bad television, there is no meaningful content… though that doesn’t stop the various news organizations from yammering about it for days afterward (when they’re not talking about who is and is not running for president next year).

Not that any of them care what I think, but I think they should be concentrating more on the impending war against Iran, which is seeming more inevitable all the time. I mean, a carrier battle group added to the Gulf fleet, an admiral in charge of middle east operations, attacks against Iranian diplomats and other personnel in Iraq? Sounds like provocation mode to me. Have the major media taken note of the catastrophe in Iraq they report on each day with clinical detachment? I mean, don’t they feel as though they should give us a head’s up when a very similar danger is fast approaching? I presume they would fight to be the first to tell us that another Katrina-scale hurricane was bearing down on us. Well, what the hell — here comes hurricane Iran: another ill-defined, open-ended conflict in the Persian Gulf, only this time it will be against a relatively functional society with a long record of repulsing well-armed invaders. Where is Anderson Cooper on that one?

It’s happening again. Forget all the lofty mea culpas about the press’s failures during the run-up to the Iraq war. They’re once again performing that vital function of amplifying the administration’s bogus claims about the perils we face from a third-rate power — a nation surrounded by hostile armies (and navies!); a nation under existential threat from both the U.S. and Israel (both of which have the capacity to make good on that threat); a nation that shares a long border with the chaotic clusterfuck we’ve created in Iraq. Our major news organizations should put a freaking laugh track under any administration official that accuses Iran of destabilizing Iraq or of having undue influence in a country that invaded them (with our help). Instead, such claims are treated with seriousness and are seldom subjected to the kind of scrutiny that elevates journalism above public relations. One such failure in a single decade is inexcusable; two is simply criminal.

Peace Machine. With a major peace rally in Washington under way this weekend, I wanted to give a call out to Dennis Kyne, veteran, activist, and member of the band Peace Machine, whose song Ain’t Goin’ Back Again has risen to #28 on Neil Young’s Living With War chart. Dennis is a friend and supporter of Lt. Ehren Watada, on trial for refusing to deploy to Iraq. (Learn more about him at www.thankyoult.org ) Incidentally, Big Green’s The President’s Brain is Missing is now up to #154 on that little list.

luv u,

jp

I’m not an enormously cynical person, actually — let’s just say that I have very low expectations when it comes to politics. That stems from my formative years, when my favorite political figures were either murdered by assassins’ bullets or the electorate’s ballots. The first political campaign I ever worked for was George McGovern’s in 1972 — I was 13 — and I didn’t work directly for another candidate until just last fall. Voted for a lot of losers in-between, I might add. So no, I don’t expect miracles when I pull the little levers every November, and I’m seldom disappointed in that expectation. But I will tell you that it gave me tremendous pleasure to watch Condi Rice and Alberto Gonzales sit so uncomfortably before a relatively hostile group of congresspeople, especially after the free ride they’ve gotten over the past six years. You can see reflected in their dour expressions the petulance of their boss, now so obviously irked at the prospect of having to share a portion of the government’s vast power with people who at least mildly disagree with him. There is also that telltale grimace of accountability… something very unfamiliar indeed. Perhaps it’s finally dawning on them that every dog may well have its day.

Is it enough? Not nearly. People are still dying in hideous numbers, and by the noises the administration’s various flaks are making, it’s almost certain to get much worse once they start attacking the Sadrists (probably the largest mass-based organization in Iraq’s majority Shi’a community). We cannot afford a waffling, half-assed, non-binding response to this idiot-based strategy of escalation. Congress needs to exercise its authority over the allocation of public funds to pull the rug out from under this war any way and every way it can. Let’s be clear — the Pentagon has plenty of cash in the pipeline to bring our troops home. I’m sure if the Bush administration something like the McGovern proposal (as if!) Congress would provide the requisite funds to implement not only redeployment but reconstruction and reparations. The danger to our people is in having them stay, not making them leave, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. Democrats should be saying that clearly and unequivocally… but they’re not, and that’s a shame.

All right — it’s more than a shame. It’s compounding the crime. We’ve got to save our own people, and there’s only one way to do it: Get out now. But we’ve also got to help the Iraqis overcome the clusterfuck catastrophe we’ve brought upon them. First step is to get our troops off their streets. We are not wanted there, and the longer we stay, the worse it will get. We do need, however, to provide the Iraqis with assistance — a portion of the cash we were going to spend on blowing the place up for the fifth time — so that they can piece their country back together. Yes, there will be continued violence, but that will happen no matter what we do. And sure, Bush and Cheney keep telling us that failure is not an option, but frankly, their credibility is about zero right now, maybe less. Besides, it’s not a question of failure. The Iraq mess was fairly predictable from the beginning. What we’re seeing now is the successful outcome of a lunatic policy, not the failure of some noble effort that never was. Bush, Cheney, and the rest need to be told what to do in Iraq because they’ve thoroughly demonstrated that they can’t find their ample asses with both hands.

Of course, they can’t be told until we tell our congress people to do the telling. That’s where we come in.

luv u,

jp

The Bush has spoken and — surprise! — we’re sending more troops into the hell-hole of Iraq. Where have I heard this before? Hmmm… sending more troops… sounds vaguely familiar. Much has been made of Bush’s admission that, yes, there have been mistakes, and to the extent that mistakes have been made, yes, the responsibility falls to him. My hometown newspaper actually put that striking news into its headline. Okay, someone explain to me why it’s news that Bush is acknowledging what the rest of the nation has known for several years now — that his Iraq adventure has been one massive fuck-up after another, and that it’s obviously his fucking fault, thank you very much. And what is it worth for him to backhandedly admit errors at the same time as announcing yet another massive one, the “surge” tactic? I mean, one would assume that if he regretted the errors, he might make at least a feeble attempt not to repeat them. But that’s not the Dubya way. What the hell does he have to lose now?

Actually, the story that didn’t get a lot of play was the one about the U.S. attack on the Iranian consulate in Irbil, deep in the relatively quiet Kurdish area. It apparently took place around when Bush was making his comments about Iran having some kind of undue influence over the chaotic nation just across their long western frontier (the country that invaded them just two decades ago, now occupied by an openly hostile superpower). Anyway, our boys reportedly busted up the place and detained six Iranians without even telling the Kurds. This seems particularly odd since Irbil is a long way away from the principal conflict zones, and the Kurds have been the group most amenable to the U.S. occupation. (There was a standoff in Irbil between U.S. and Kurdish forces that almost came to shots fired). What is the objective here — to piss off the last remaining group of people in Iraq that doesn’t utterly despise us? Or, as Juan Cole suggests, to provoke a reaction from Iran?

One thing is clear — our leaders are totally unscrewed. They have opened a disastrous “third front” in their war on terror by encouraging and supporting the Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, handing that sorry nation (another long-term recipient of U.S., um, assistance) back the same warlords that mis-ran it before. They are actively positioning themselves for an attack on Iran that will make the “catastro-fuck” of Operation Iraqi Freedom seem mild by comparison. And now they are planning to send another 21,000+ American troops to Baghdad and al-Anbar, a fool’s errand heartily endorsed by “straight talk express” conductor and presidential hopeful John McCain, who in fact wants to send even more troops. (My guess is that, if sent to the White House, McCain would want to re-invade South Vietnam in the belief that that war is still winnable.) Buyer beware.

So yes, Bush may be the stupidest man ever to occupy the oval office. But don’t make the mistake of thinking he’s the only one likely to drive us into endless, pointless warfare. Plenty of options for that distinction.

luv u,

jp

Don’t know how they managed it, but the Bush administration appears to have found a way to evoke sympathy for one of the biggest mass murderers in modern Middle East history (in the same league as Bush himself, in fact). The ugly spectacle of Saddam’s hanging was somewhat reminiscent of the Abu Ghraib images — dim, shabby, shameful. As regular readers of this sorry blog know, I am no fan of the death penalty, even when it comes to war criminals like Saddam and, well, George Bush. This goes beyond the question of basic humanity, though. If you’re going to execute someone, that should be punishment enough without making a circus of it. As it was, they (i.e. the American idiots who decided on this policy) made Hussein seem dignified by comparison and, in so doing, further inflamed the Sunni community in Iraq and throughout the Middle East by allowing the deed to be performed on the day Sunnis celebrate Eid. I can’t entirely blame the Shi’a execution squad for behaving as they did — that’s to be expected. But don’t tell me no one in the Green Zone knew that particular detail wouldn’t be shot through with militia people.

There’s an even more critical issue here. The execution of Saddam Hussein closes off a rich source of critical testimony regarding crimes committed during his rule and the accountability of those associated with him during those years. That includes whatever light he could shed on American and European complicity in the war against Iran, the use of chemical weapons against Persians, Shi’a Arabs, and Kurds, and so on. As Richard Falk pointed out on Democracy Now!, Hussein was put to death for an act of collective punishment that had nothing to do with the U.S. If he had been prosecuted for his serial chemical attacks from 1983 forward, we might have learned more about our role in facilitating those attacks, apologizing for them, covering them up, etc. Not that any of those details would make it into the mainstream American press, which has essentially expunged the U.S. role in supporting Hussein from their various retrospectives and timelines.

Such are the fortunes of those who benefit from U.S. covert operations — some retire to Florida (Orlando Bosch); others dangle from the end of a rope. The CIA apparently fostered Saddam’s early career as a torturer and assassin, quietly supporting his participation in 1959 in a notorious attempt on the life of the Iraqi president (who was a communist). After he became Iraq’s leader (something like Lee Harvey Oswald becoming president), he received crucial support from the U.S., particularly during the Reagan / Bush I administrations, who unfailingly portrayed him as a “moderating influence” in Middle Eastern affairs right up until his invasion of Kuwait. While they turned against Saddam at that point, it was in such a way as to allow him to carry out one of the greatest atrocities of his career — putting down the Kurdish and Shi’a uprisings George Bush Sr. had actively encouraged, as the army of “Stormin’ Norman” Schwartzkopf looked on just a few miles away. Aside from resulting in probably half a million deaths, the Clinton era sanctions only strengthened Saddam’s grip on his nation, forcing ordinary Iraqis to rely on the central government for subsistence. Now, of course, we are busily compounding the heinous errors of past administrations with even more heinous errors, including a Bush surge strategy that will focus on targeting the denizens of Baghdad’s poorest neighborhoods and the most vulnerable portions of Iraq’s majority Shi’a community.

If nothing else, we are demonstrating that you can kill hope if you try hard enough… but stupidity is a lot more resilient.

luv u,

jp