CRONY DRAWDOWN instead of TROOP SURGE

Marine Corps General and two time Medal of Honor winner said:

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.


http://www.hackvan.com/pub/stig/anti-govt/war-is-a-rack...

so long as the Democrats and the mainstream media debate the war in the fairy tale propaganda terms of the far right, the war will not end.

If the Smedley Butler, naked reality dominates the debate, the right will have nothing left to say that will sound even remotely credible.

One way the Democrats could force this into the news, is if they don't have the courage to completely defund the war, they could cut off the profit motive.

• Freeze all contracts to American companies and give that money to the Iraqi government as block rebuilding grants.


• Ban the use of armed mercenaries and in particular their use as interrogators (an obvious gesture of goodwill to Iraqis).


• Stop the pressure on Iraq to privatize their oil and give contracts to American corporations and tell them they are under no obligation to keep such stipulations in their law and constitution once our troops pull out, and failure to choose American corporations or bend to their will will NOT result in further military action, coups, or interference in their government.

This could have a couple of benefits:

• Profit motive would be removed, so lobbyist pressure to stay would dramatically diminish
  
  
• Iraqis would see this as a step in the right direction toward respecting their sovereignty and not sucking their country dry and leaving the dessicated husk rotting in the sun.
  
  
• Bush would be forced to put his cards on the table. He would most likely veto it. But Democrats could then point to that veto and say Bush's cronies are more important to him than the lives of our troops or democracy and stability in Iraq, which is already true, but either not stated loudly or often enough or censored by the mainstream media.

Even though they didn't particularly run on it, they won on a wave of revulsion against the war. If they do not take this kind of creative, aggressive action, Americans can only assume that our democracy is as much a sham as any Third World dictatorship that has show elections, and will conclude that merely voting and hoping that their elected representative won't screw them to please a corporate donor isn't enough and that more fundamental action is required instead.

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Joint Chiefs say Bush wrong on Iraq troop surge

Remember Gen. Ripper in DR STRANGELOVE, the crazy general who wanted to start a nuclear war? There has been a persistent theme in our popular culture about the trigger happy general, and there certainly have been cases of generals giving epically bad advice particularly in dealing with Cuba that could have started World War III. Most of the time though, the military itself has been apolitical and does the bidding of the guys in suits in Washington whose cronies are itching to fill their pockets with assets stolen on the public's dime, as Marine Corps general and double Medal of Honor winner Smedley Butler famously pointed out.

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.
http://www.hackvan.com/pub/stig/anti-govt/war-is-a-racket.htm

Today we are seeing the exact opposite of the STRANGELOVIAN stereotype--the itchy trigger fingers are in the White House, and the military is the voice of reason and is actually closer to the public consensus than our supposed representative in the White House and even closer to the public than Democratic leader Harry Reid who supports the idea of sending MORE troops to Iraq. Something similar happened in South America. For decades if not longer, their military supported the interests of the business community no matter what. If an election produced a government that discomfited business, the military would simply end democracy until the people were "mature" enough to handle it. Now most prominently in Venezuela, their militaries have gotten sick of being the Pinochet-like thugs who kill their own people to benefit a very few, and when the local and international financial elite wanted to remove Hugo Chavez, who got overwhelming majorities in a couple of internationally-monitored elections, the majority of the military stayed loyal to Chavez and the democratic will of the people and reversed the coup as it was happening.

It is a measure of the corruption and weakness of our democracy that our unelected military is more in tune with voters and reality than their elected civilian bosses. We need serious, fundamental change to our system and if the Democrats don't take aggressive, concrete steps toward that in the next two years instead of simply being the business party without religious nuts, the American people will do to Washington what Washington has been doing to us so openly the last six years.


KEY EXCERPTS:

washingtonpost.com

White House, Joint Chiefs At Odds on Adding Troops

By Robin Wright and Peter Baker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, December 19, 2006; A01

The Bush administration is split over the idea of a surge in troops to Iraq, with White House officials aggressively promoting the concept over the unanimous disagreement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intense debate.

***

At regular interagency meetings and in briefing President Bush last week, the Pentagon has warned that any short-term mission may only set up the United States for bigger problems when it ends. The service chiefs have warned that a short-term mission could give an enormous edge to virtually all the armed factions in Iraq -- including al-Qaeda's foreign fighters, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias -- without giving an enduring boost to the U.S military mission or to the Iraqi army, the officials said.

The Pentagon has cautioned that a modest surge could lead to more attacks by al-Qaeda, provide more targets for Sunni insurgents and fuel the jihadist appeal for more foreign fighters to flock to Iraq to attack U.S. troops, the officials said.

The informal but well-armed Shiite militias, the Joint Chiefs have also warned, may simply melt back into society during a U.S. surge and wait until the troops are withdrawn -- then reemerge and retake the streets of Baghdad and other cities.

Even the announcement of a time frame and mission -- such as for six months to try to secure volatile Baghdad -- could play to armed factions by allowing them to game out the new U.S. strategy, the chiefs have warned the White House.

FULL TEXT:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/18/AR2006121801477.html



troop surge
president george w bush pentagon generals iraq war smedley butler dr strangelove oil hugo chavezcoup venezuela occupation chamber of commerce neoliberalism northwoods worst president ever

LETTER: Re. Max Boot's training Iraqi troops excuse

To: Los Angeles Times

Max Boot's Oct. 18 column "Bring Iraqi Forces Up to Speed," implies Iraqis are apes who just descended from the trees, and can't figure out how to put a military and police force together. Somehow, the insurgents aren't having a problem attacking our troops, and a decade before we invaded, Iraq fought a Iran, a much larger country to a draw. The problem is not training, but motivation.

The current problem is getting troops and cops to fire on their own people who they know may have a legitimate beef with us being there. Which sounds a hell of a lot like Vietnam. Wasn't that the big plan there? Train the Vietnamese to fight for us in our absence? Altough it was never put that bluntly, that's the real problem.

When the perception and reality are we are there to screw them out of their oil wealth and kill those who protest too much with either airstrikes or death squads, it's going to be tough to find people to consistently fight for us. Those who do are unlikely to be choir boys, and will likely inspire even less love for the puppet government.

Maybe if pissants like Max Boot spent less time making up fake macho names for themselves or more time reading history, talking to Iraqis, or God forbid, actually serving in the military themselves, they wouldn't say things that get thousands of our troops and over half a million Iraqis killed.









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For opposing NUKING IRAN, Bush forced out BRITISH foreign secretary

To their credit, CBS News is covering this story, though it includes hedges that reduce to rumor what were more certain statements in the original Guardian piece.

For an action that the Bush administration claims is barely a remote possibility, nuking Iran, the Bushies are treating insider critics exactly like they did those in the run up to Iran War, just as they are doing the same diplomatic dance at the UN even though in the case of IraQ, the Downing Street Minutes of meetings with Bush before the war proved that was just a charade.

It seems likely that the Bush regime is coming to an end, and the prospect of a Bush clone succeeding him in the White House is at least as dim.

And yet Bush is not acting like a neutered lame duck. He continues to retaliate against political enemies, and threatened and browbeat friends and allies around the world, including asking Turkey to launch an invasion against Iran from there, just as they did before the Iraq War. War was a winner for both Bush and GOP in 2002 & 2004, Pentagon insiders have said the Bushies has a list of countries they would like to invade, and Iran has been on the neoconservative hit list since before Bush came into power.

How will the Bushies justify invading IraN when their 9/11 & WMD scare tactics are growing thin? Someone at the Pentagon leaked an order they got from Cheney to the American Conservative magazine last summer that had these elements:

1) terrorist attack here

2) air strikes on Iran with conventional and tactical nukes

3) air strikes will be done REGARDLESS of whether Iran is involved in the terrorist act.
http://www.amconmag.com/2005a/2005_08_01/article3.html

At the time, no one paid attention to the story because it would be insane to start a war with a bigger country when we are loser with a smaller one. It would still be insane, but the Bushies are moving toward it anyway.

It is possible that the CIA or Pentagon will throw a wrench in this scam that Pentagon wargaming indicated would spin out of control and escalate to a world war, or an even more distant possibility that used to happen back in the mists of history, Congress would exercise it's power to investigate, control the purse strings, and decide whether to declare war or NOT declare war.

Right now, it's more likely that the CIA or Pentagon will rebel, or even that the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz will take their kinsman Bush back to the Organ Grinder for retraining.

KEY EXCERPTS:





Did Bush Force British Minister Out?

May 7, 2006

(CBS/AP) The Independent suggests that a phone call from the U.S. president to British Prime Minister Tony Blair led to the removal of Foreign Secretary Jack Straw Friday. [ A UK Guardian story is a little stronger than "suggests" http://www.guardian.co.uk/guardianpolitics/story/0,,1768840,00.html ]

The newspaper reports that friends of Straw believe Mr. Bush was extremely upset when Straw pronounced any use of nuclear weapons against Iran "nuts." [the parallel case of the previous foreign secretary has more evidence than a "belief," neocons complained about Robin Cook even before the election because of his criticism of US foreign policy http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1769722,00.html]

*****

The foreign secretary's reservations about invading Iraq featured prominently in the Downing Street memos, written in 2002 and leaked last year.

Straw wrote in a memo to Blair that he would have a tough time convincing the Labour Party that a pre-emptive strike against Iraq was legal under international law.

"We have also to answer the big question: what will this action achieve?" he wrote. "There seems to be a larger hole in this than on anything."


FULL TEXT:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/05/07/politics/printable1596108.shtml

nuke iran iraq war wmd terrorism oil 9/11 president george w bush tony blair jack straw foreign secretary colonialism white mans burden professor smartass peak oil propaganda dick+cheneyterrorist attack american conservative political opinion agent provocateur war on terror islamofascist public opinion opinion false flag cointelpro northwoods worst president ever failure war criminal idiot retard closet gay smartass comments resistance censored news rebel

Gen. Odom on why we should pull out of Iraq fast

Lately, only retired generals are willing to speak honestly about Iraq in stark contrast to the blind cheerleading of most republicans and the evasion, equivocation, and me-tooism of most Democrats.

He also offers a more realistic and fact-based assessment of Iran compared to drumbeat for war of the administration.

I would only add a couple of things where he didn't go quite far enough:

Our presence in Iraq incites terrorism and gives recruiters for terrorists a recruiting tool. Israel and Saudi studied debriefings of captured foreign fighters in Iraq and found that most were motivated not by radical Islam but outrage at seeing what has been done to the Iraqi people. LINK

His point on the Iraqi troops likewise doesn't go quite far enough. We pretend they aren't standing up because of them being too dense or cowardly to absorb our training, as if Iraqis are apes who just descended from the trees. But the reality is they are hesitant because they are fighting for us against their own people. Many if not most showed up for the paycheck so they can feed their families, but there are limits to what people will do for money.

The biggest element he left out though is that the Iraqis do not believe we are there to look out for their interests or spread democracy however much Americans think or wish that's what we are doing. The Bush administration went in with a plan to privatize and sell off everything possible, and even pumped oil unmetered after we first invaded. Most Americans don't know that, but it's harder to miss when it's right in front of your face.

This war has nothing to do with preventing terrorism--it is creating it by pursuing private gain for oil, defense, and rebuilding corporations on our tax dime (or rather 10 trillion dimes) and with our troops and Iraqis lives.

KEY EXCERPTS:

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/odom/odom.html

Cut and Run? You Bet.

By Lt. Gen. William E. Odom

Withdrawal will encourage the terrorists. True, but that is the price we are doomed to pay. Our continued occupation of Iraq also encourages the killers—precisely because our invasion made Iraq safe for them. Our occupation also left the surviving Baathists with one choice: Surrender, or ally with al Qaeda. They chose the latter. Staying the course will not change this fact. Pulling out will most likely result in Sunni groups’ turning against al Qaeda and its sympathizers, driving them out of Iraq entirely.

Before U.S. forces stand down, Iraqi security forces must stand up. The problem in Iraq is not military competency; it is political consolidation. Iraq has a large officer corps with plenty of combat experience from the Iran-Iraq war. Moktada al-Sadr’s Shiite militia fights well today without U.S. advisors, as do Kurdish pesh merga units. The problem is loyalty. To whom can officers and troops afford to give their loyalty? The political camps in Iraq are still shifting. So every Iraqi soldier and officer today risks choosing the wrong side. As a result, most choose to retain as much latitude as possible to switch allegiances. All the U.S. military trainers in the world cannot remove that reality. But political consolidation will. It should by now be clear that political power can only be established via Iraqi guns and civil war, not through elections or U.S. colonialism by ventriloquism.

Setting a withdrawal deadline will damage the morale of U.S. troops. Hiding behind the argument of troop morale shows no willingness to accept the responsibilities of command. The truth is, most wars would stop early if soldiers had the choice of whether or not to continue. This is certainly true in Iraq, where a withdrawal is likely to raise morale among U.S. forces. A recent Zogby poll suggests that most U.S. troops would welcome an early withdrawal deadline But the strategic question of how to extract the United States from the Iraq disaster is not a matter to be decided by soldiers. Carl von Clausewitz spoke of two kinds of courage: first, bravery in the face of mortal danger; second, the willingness to accept personal responsibility for command decisions. The former is expected of the troops. The latter must be demanded of high-level commanders, including the president.

Two facts, however painful, must be recognized, or we will remain perilously confused in Iraq. First, invading Iraq was not in the interests of the United States. It was in the interests of Iran and al Qaeda. For Iran, it avenged a grudge against Saddam for his invasion of the country in 1980. For al Qaeda, it made it easier to kill Americans. Second, the war has paralyzed the United States in the world diplomatically and strategically. Although relations with Europe show signs of marginal improvement, the trans-Atlantic alliance still may not survive the war. Only with a rapid withdrawal from Iraq will Washington regain diplomatic and military mobility. Tied down like Gulliver in the sands of Mesopotamia, we simply cannot attract the diplomatic and military cooperation necessary to win the real battle against terror. Getting out of Iraq is the precondition for any improvement.

In fact, getting out now may be our only chance to set things right in Iraq. For starters, if we withdraw, European politicians would be more likely to cooperate with us in a strategy for stabilizing the greater Middle East. Following a withdrawal, all the countries bordering Iraq would likely respond favorably to an offer to help stabilize the situation. The most important of these would be Iran. It dislikes al Qaeda as much as we do. It wants regional stability as much as we do. It wants to produce more oil and gas and sell it. If its leaders really want nuclear weapons, we cannot stop them. But we can engage them.

Lt. Gen. William E. Odom (Ret.) is senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and professor at Yale University. He was director of the National Security Agency from 1985 to 1988.

FULL TEXT:
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/odom/odom.html

[tagname]

Gen. William E. Odom withdraw iraq war cut and run terrorism oil iran president george w bush support the troops morale privatizationunmetered oil greg palast al qaeda republican GOP conservative corruption occupation halliburton colonialism white mans burden professor smartass iraq democratpeak oil propaganda corporation war on terror muslim public opinion opinion public relations foreign policy al qaeda false flag northwoods terrorist worst president ever failure war criminal idiot retard smartass comments resistance censored news rebel

POLL: 72% of troops say leave Iraq in a year

Maybe we should support the troops the same way we should support Iraqi democracy--by actually listening to them.

• 72% think we should leave within a year.


• 29% of those say leave IMMEDIATELY.


• 23% support Bush's position of staying as long as necessary (until last drop of oil is pumped)


• Additionally, most troops said they are fighting disgruntled Sunnis not the mythical al Qaeda or jihadis, and only 26% think keeping foreign fighters out will end the war.

The public doesn't support the war. Our troops don't support the war. Iraqis themselves have said in poll after poll they want us to leave. The rest of the world didn't even want us to go in the first place.

How is ignoring the majority opinions of so many people teaching anyone democracy?

This is a good one to forward to newspapers.


KEY EXCERPTS:

http://rawstory.com/admin/dbscripts/printstory.php?stor...

Poll: 72 percent of troops want out of Iraq in a year

02/28/2006 @ 9:38 am
Filed by RAW STORY

The poll is the first of U.S. troops currently serving in Iraq, according to John Zogby, the pollster. Conducted by Zogby International and LeMoyne College, it asked 944 service members, "How long should U.S. troops stay in Iraq?"

Only 23 percent backed Bush's position that they should stay as long as necessary. In contrast, 72 percent said that U.S. troops should be pulled out within one year. Of those, 29 percent said they should withdraw "immediately..."

While the White House emphasizes the threat from non-Iraqi terrorists, only 26 percent of the U.S. troops say that the insurgency would end if those foreign fighters could be kept out. A plurality believes that the insurgency is made up overwhelmingly of discontented Iraqi Sunnis...

By a 2-1 ratio, the troops said that "to control the insurgency we need to double the level of ground troops and bombing missions." And since there is zero chance of that happening, a majority of troops seemed to be saying that they believe this war to be unwinnable.

The full Zogby poll is available here:
http://zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1075

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