Clinging to their precious terror war, the Bush administration now cannot stop talking about al Qaeda, as if Bin Laden were running a kind of Wal*Mart of terror as opposed to serving as inspiration to hundreds and perhaps thousands of self-directed extremist organizations. It’s the last rhetorical refuge for a president who has lost the support of the vast majority of his countrymen and is now hunkering down to ride out the last 18 months of a particularly septic tenure. If we leave Iraq, Bush cautions us, we will be hit again. What he doesn’t tell us is, if we stay, we are just as likely to be hit again, if not more so, thanks to his war in Iraq, which has spawned a new generation of terrorists and significantly destabilized a region already boiling with hatred and injustice. Alas, there is no “undo” button on this war, which is why so many of us opposed it most strenuously before its start. We have set into motion a catastrophe the repercussions of which will be with us for decades to come. If Bush is in search of a legacy, there it is.

Consider the realities of the situation. Prior to the invasion of Iraq, the U.S. had been directly responsible for the deaths of many, many thousands of Iraqis, indirectly responsible for many more deaths, and a primary bankroller and military guarantor of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem (now celebrating 40 years). America also funded (as it does now) some of the region’s most repressive and unpopular regimes, including that of Saddam Hussein for a good few years. After the Gulf War, its bloody aftermath, a dozen years of deadly sanctions, and nearly constant bombardment by U.S. and British aircraft from 1998 forward, Dubya smashed the country open and set up this seemingly endless war – the first long-term U.S. military occupation of an Arab country. Aside from the death and displacement this has caused, it has made us the subject of ever deepening resentment as foreign occupiers – never the best way to make friends, particularly in countries that have a colonial history.

Now, the Iraq war has generated at least 2 million external refugees, with probably 700,000 in Jordan and more than 1 million in Syria, plus another 2 million internally displaced within Iraq. These are enormous populations of desperate people who will probably not be returning home anytime soon, and I have to think that the vast majority of them blame us for their plight (assuming some level of rationality). Meanwhile, the U.S. is all but ignoring this growing catastrophe, even though it threatens to metastasize the horror of an imploding Iraq throughout the entire region, putting added pressure on societies already under stress. (The U.S. quota for accepting Iraqi refugees this year is about 7,000 – so far, we’ve taken less than 100.) If I were to guess, I’d say the next major attack on the U.S. will include some of these folks in Jordan and Syria – people who have lost everything – family, home, future, hope. What’s your guess?

Seems to me, the best way to prevent terrorism is to 1) pull our troops out of this stupid war, and 2) help Iraqis rebuild their society (from a discreet distance). No matter what the punk tells us.

luv u,

jp

Question: how long does it take for the Democratic Party leadership to cave in on issues of life and death? Answer: less time than it takes to ask the question. Yep, old “Give ’em hell” Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and kin have signed away the farm to mister 28% himself, Dubya Bush, who is now bound by no restrictions – fiscal or legal – in his prosecution of the disastrous war he started more than four years ago. This in the wake of yet another 9 U.S. service members killed and god knows how many Iraqis – scores over the past few days. I know I’m not the only one saying W.T.F., though it’s not so much out of surprise as it is just pure exasperation. I mean, a watery timeline for withdrawal with a plethora of caveats – that hardly constituted a radical departure from Rumsfeldian warmaking (precisely what we need). And yet that has morphed into a no-strings-attached allocation of billions for the continued occupation of Iraq. Is that what people voted for last November? Was that the theme called out from the podium as party leaders implored us to turn the G.O.P. out? Not hardly.

There are many who will argue that this is the only avenue open to opponents of the war; that this supplemental spending plan is a strategic move and a prelude to a more meaningful confrontation down the road. Perhaps we can be forgiven for a certain amount of skepticism in this regard. Many of those supporting this bill also voted with the Republicans to start this war in the first place. Their strategy now as well as then is to make their re-election battles a bit easier – that is to say, they want to pre-empt those 30-second RNC-sponsored attack ads slamming them for cutting funding for “our troops” in the middle of a war. They counsel patience, like the G.O.P. leadership, which is becoming a bit nervous about the war themselves… but which now can point to their opponents as partly responsible for the mess. Of course, patience only means more deaths, more amputees, more head cases, and more Fallujah-like mass killings. Waiting until September to re-evaluate the “surge” strategy could cost hundreds more American deaths, followed by some equally bone-headed tactic.

This is criminal behavior, pure and simple. Bush wants to keep this sucker going so that it won’t be “lost” on his watch (or “watch”, as many might put it). The Democratic leadership, for its part, refuses to draw a firm line in front of the president even when his popularity is at a historic low, largely due to the war in Iraq (even in my moderate-to-conservative district, Bush polled about 28% in a recent Web survey by the local daily paper – that’s almost unprecedented for a Republican). It’s obvious that neither of the major political power centers in this country is going to put a stop to this slaughter. And judging by the news coming out of Iraq – Parliament supporting a timetable for withdrawal, Muqtada al-Sadr re-emerging, Iraqi youth in Basra (!) cheering over a burning security contractor vehicle – it may in fact take the Iraqis to send our military home. Until we can get ourselves politically beyond the idea that “supporting the troops” means extending their service in a hell hole, I see no other way out.

Unless, of course, we all just stand in the street until they end it. There’s that, too.

luv u,

jp

I expect some of you saw the Republican debate this past week – ten-strong G.O.P. hopefuls in a fiddling contest as Rome burns around them, sparked by an ember first coddled by the sainted Ronald Reagan, whose administration launched the resurgent America now being destroyed by his veep’s mutant spawn. Yes, it was a proud moment indeed when applause could be heard at the mere mention of torture (or “enhanced interrogation techniques”, as some put it). McCain, of course, gave his standard speech about torture – inspiring, until you recall that the “anti-torture” legislation he ultimately signed onto last year has holes big enough to pass a dozen waterboards through. To be certain, he was the only one there who’d ever experienced torture, and I imagine he and his fellow P.O.W.’s may have believed during their captivity, as McCain suggested, that America would never abuse prisoners in such a way. Just a ways south of the “Hanoi Hilton”, however, the C.I.A. and local allies were applying grisly and often lethal techniques on their captives with sickening regularity, particularly in connection with the Phoenix program, which left probably 20,000 dead (many of whom, like so many current detainees, may as well have been picked at random). Of course, how that is any worse than just dropping cluster bombs or jellied gasoline on people kind of escapes me.

So, yes… the FoxNews-sponsored event (hosted by correspondent Shit Fume… I mean, Brit Hume) turned into a pissing match over who was the bigger troglodyte on prisoner abuse. In all, I think Mitt Romney deserves a special prize for saying that Guantanamo should be “doubled.” Reasoning? We don’t want those terrorists to have access to our laws and equitable (ahem) justice system – to do so would only contribute to the collapse of western civilization and the universal values it represents. So… we can’t allow our western standard of human rights to apply to them because that would undermine our western standard of human rights. Well done, Mitt. Beautiful circularity. And that sort of sotto voce delivery (a la Reagan) is getting better every time I hear it. (Of course, Tom Tancredo gets a special prize for exclaiming, “We need Jack Bauer!” to deal with Shit Fume’s 24-esque straw man torture scenario.)

We were also treated this week to some of the actual real-world reasoning behind keeping terror suspects out of the courtroom. As with the Phoenix program, I’m certain many of these detainees were captured on the basis of an informant accusation – perhaps a disgruntled neighbor or the like – or some other questionable evidence that might not stand up in open court. At Jose Padilla’s trial, for instance, the prosecution presented a kind of Al Qaeda recruitment document that purportedly had Padilla’s fingerprints on it. Of course, the guy was held in an extra judicial hole for years and had his wits tortured out of him to the point where he cannot even aid in his own defense, so it’s just possible that during that long process he may have been presented with this document during “enhanced” interrogation. Fact is, it seems the real reason they don’t want to try terror suspects in open court is that they often don’t have much of a case against them.

Note to Mitt and colleagues (both Republican and Democrat): if you don’t have a case, you shouldn’t be holding people. That’s supposed to be one of our founding principles. Why are you all so afraid of that?

luv u,

jp