Things heated up this week in our serial overseas conflicts, to be sure. As of this writing, Iran is still holding some British soldiers, and there appear to be some flourishes of diplomatic activity in and amongst the public posturing. Though Bush and friends (including the ever-reliable Joe Lieberman, peace be upon him) engaged in some highly qualified pre-gloating over the “progress” being seen in Iraq as a result of the “surge”, people are still dying by the score over there. As Juan Cole points out, figures from the Iraqi government on February casualties ran somewhere around 61 deaths per day – that’s just slightly fewer than in January. Progress, Lieberman style! (What have you got for the health care crisis, Joe?) It makes you wonder if any U.S. politician really has any idea what a statistic like 60 deaths a day means in human terms.

As a consequence of this cock-brained optimism, the U.S. is alienating the few corruptible friends it has in the Arab world. One by one, Gulf states are making it known that they won’t play any role in an invasion of Iran. Even Saudi Arabia – second only to Texas in the Bush family’s desiccated heart – took the opportunity of this week’s Arab summit to call the American occupation of Iraq “Illegitimate.” Mildly put, but accurate, at least, and that was not the Saudi king’s only criticism of U.S. policy in the region. There were also a few words about that other occupation… the one that turns 40 this year. Abdullah reintroduced the Saudi plan for an Israeli-Palestinian settlement, based upon Israel’s withdrawal to its 1967 borders. Basically the same formula that’s been on the table since, well, 1967, and the basis of a longstanding international consensus on the question from which only the U.S. and Israel have consistently dissented. Bush must have seen this as a bit of a poke in the eye, particularly now that he’s staggering around, punch drunk.

Not to worry – the mainstream media, including the wildly left-radical (note: irony) NPR, have identified this solution as a non-starter, nothing new, off the table. Sure it is – because it’s the only plan that has a prayer of working. Still, it helped make for kind of a bad week for Dubya… not that he knows what a bad week really looks like. That takes being on the receiving end of his foreign policy, or being one of the poor sods tasked with carrying it out. Like most of us, Bush is pretty far removed from the experience of a National Guard member or reservist sent back on his/her third or fourth tour of duty; soldiers who’ve been wounded in Iraq, then denied proper care back home, discharged for “personality disorders” when they’ve obviously got PTSD and even serious physical injuries, some even having to pay back part of their signing bonus. Now, that’s a bad week.

All I can tell you young folks out there is – no matter how much they promise you, how bad the job market looks, how sorry your money situation is – listen to what Marvin tells you. Don’t. Sign. Up.

luv u,

jp

It’s been four years since the invasion of Iraq – four flaming candles on that bitter cake. (Make a wish!) Dubya, Cheney, and Rumsfeld’s “six days, six weeks… I doubt six months” war is now nearly old enough to attend kindergarten. How fast these little catastrophes grow up… my word! Seems like only yesterday we were stoking the furnace of martial fury, seldom very far below the surface of American life. Cheney and his “there can be no doubt” speech about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction; Bush’s yellowcake uranium scare and “mission accomplished” fan dance; Powell’s “slam-dunk” case before the U.N.; Condi Rice’s certainty about the sole utility of those bloody aluminum tubes. I can see them all scrolling by like tired old hits on a K-Tel “Sounds of the Seventies” collection. (Right up there with Billy, Don’t Be A Hero.) Now, some 48 months later, you would think by listening to our leading politicians that America’s entry into Iraq was the result of some involuntary process, like an extraordinary rendition. In the land of “the mother of all battles”, Operation Iraqi Fiefdom is surely the most motherless of all battles.

Still, these deadbeat dads and moms all seem to have their own ideas about how this little four year old should be brought up, and most of them involve having other people’s sons and daughters remain on Iraqi soil for a good long time. They are virtually all talking about some kind of “victory” and a Nixonian “peace with honor” – the peace of the grave, though invariably someone else’s grave. And as I mentioned last week, all but the most principled of congress members appear convinced that the Pentagon is incapable of withdrawing troops from a war zone in a safe and orderly fashion when so directed. If we follow this logic to its conclusion, they’re saying our troops can never leave Iraq, because to do so is just too damn dangerous. Of course, a long-term U.S. military presence doesn’t comport well with what we know of Iraqi public opinion, which overwhelmingly – something like 70 – 80% – favors our rapid departure. You’d never know it, listening to the Iraq war debate over here. I guess those Iraqis are just supposed to accept the blame for this disaster and keep their mouths shut.

We’re like a nuclear Rome, except somewhat less subtle. I heard a report on NPR about the U.S. takeover of a key bridge in Diyala province, where Sunni insurgents have held sway. There were the usual horror stories – probably true – about Al Qaeda types committing public execution and intimidating the locals. Of course, when the U.S. troops arrived, they took over a group of houses near the bridge, displacing the owners with a promise of compensation. Much of the report is taken up with an Army lieutenant telling Iraqis that, no, he didn’t have their money and that “we don’t come into town with a trunk of money to hand people cash for the things that have happened.” He was later heard impatiently turning away Iraqi soldiers who hadn’t been paid in god knows how long and who were complaining about 12 hour duty shifts with no salary, directing them to their dysfunctional government. I’ve seen similar stories over the past week or two – Iraqis being sent out into some very uncertain streets. This is how we made friends in Fallujah… and in the Mekong Delta, come to think of it. There it took us more than ten years to leave. So far, in Iraq, it’s four.

Rachel. Another grim anniversary. Four years since young Rachel Corrie was killed while doing what we all should be doing – stopping an out-of-control Israeli government from bulldozing Palestinian neighborhoods in the occupied territories (while collecting billions from us each year). Not forgotten.

luv u,

jp

We’re just a few months into the new congress, and it’s becoming clear that the Democratic leadership doesn’t have the stomach for stopping the war in Iraq. This week the Senate failed to pass a pretty flimsy measure calling for a full withdrawal (on good news) by sometime in 2008 – not exactly good news for those shipping out to Iraq for a third or fourth tour of duty. There are many reasons for this continuing failure, but prominent among them is the Democratic leadership’s fear of appearing as though they don’t fully “support the troops.” For chrissake – how much effort does it take to knock that straw man over? Voting for funds to send soldiers into a bloody catastrophe is not “supporting the troops”; it’s killing and maiming the troops. If congress defunds this policy, the Pentagon will have plenty of money to get everyone home safe, of fucking course. And yet they remain unwilling to do what needs to be done… what they were elected to do.

What congress has been making a lot of noise about is the administration’s apparently politically motivated firing of a number of U.S. attorneys last year. At a time when Bush is sending badly wounded soldiers back into battle, some of whom cannot even wear body armor because of their injuries, Dems are expressing outrage over some wrongfully dismissed lawyers. Sure – the Bush White House is run out of its political office… so what’s new? How does that compete with the hell disaster of this war? Jeebus – this reminds me of the Watergate days. Richard Nixon presided over some of the most obscene abuses of law enforcement powers in U.S. history, namely the COINTELPRO program of domestic spying, political intimidation, and worse. That went virtually unchallenged. But when Nixon’s boys broke into Democratic party headquarters, that was a different kettle of fish entirely. The lesson is clear – ordinary people can be attacked with impunity, but not the powerful.

It is hard to overstate the magnitude of the crisis we have ignited in the middle east. Something like 2 million Iraqis have fled that country in fear for their lives; as many as 1 million now live as refugees in Syria, with up to 50,000 more crossing the border every month. Syria is not a wealthy nation like the United States or France – this influx is putting enormous pressure on that society. And yet the United States will only accept 7,000 Iraqi refugees this year, even though our unprovoked attack is the cause of this mass exodus. Even more appalling, our government will not accept anyone who has paid ransom to kidnappers because it considers such sums paid in desperation to be tantamount to supporting terrorism! Families driven out by terrorism (ignited by us) being accused of terrorism – an irony worthy of Joseph Heller.

So listen up, Dems. If Bush is the man with two brains (one named Cheney, one named Rove), best to concentrate more on the brain that’s killing people than the one that’s firing people. Get off your sorry asses and stop this ridiculous war now.

luv u,

jp