NOTE: cross-posted at John Edwards website to make his staffers actually consider bringing it to his attention. Consider doing the same to other candidates.
If Democrats were serious about ending the war, they would make the GOP lies about the war all the more obvious by giving up on vague platitudes and state the facts about Iraq plainly and often.
Some of the facts I have in mind have been covered in the press on page A13 or further back, but have only been acknowledged by a handful of Democrats, not the leadership, and NO republicans.
The main ones: the war is about oil, the Iraqis want us to leave, the insurgency is NOT al Qaeda, and the Iraqi government is only "sovereign" as long as they agree with Bush.
If a member of your family was killed, and the cop assigned to the case never got more detailed in his updates on the case than saying, "Well, he was in a dangerous neighborhood, and we all know what happens there," you would rightly be worried about whether he was actually working the case.
Unfortunately, that is the case with most Democrats and Iraq. While they did an admirable job of exposing the lies about why we went into Iraq, they never dropped the other shoe and loudly explained the truth.
I could almost buy that they are trying to avoid kicking the dragons and quietly back out of the war except for a couple of nagging details--many back the Hydrocarbon Law that Iraqis rightly see as theft of their oil income, and many Democratic withdrawal proposals have massive loopholes about leaving some troops for counter-terrorism, force protection, and training Iraqis
Some of the facts I have in mind have been covered in the press on page A13 or further back, but have only been acknowledged by a handful of Democrats, not the leadership, and NO republicans.
I'm willing to listen to any proposals provided they squarely and upfront acknowledge the FACTs. Conversely, the less I hear about these things, the more I suspect the person talking is lying.
OILThere is a more grown up, intellectual lie about why we invaded Iraq than the terrorist boogey man that says we went in to ensure access to a cheap source of oil to run our economy. Right wingers Pat Robertson and Tom Friedman said this plainly. Friedman said if the war went well, the price could drop to as little as $6 a barrel.
An additional reason this may have seemed strategically urgent is the world's oil supply has either peaked or is about to, and as it declines, the Middle East will be the last region sucked dry.
I could see why this would make sense to someone and even make some in the Pentagon see a need to play along with the lies because it was in our best interest. Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff falls into this camp.
The only problem is, the behavior of the oil companies, the loyalties of the Bushies, and as BBC journalist Greg Palast found, the CIA's top oil analyst all undercut this argument.
And why exactly would oil men want to lower the price of their product, so they have to pay more and work harder to make the same or lower profits?
In fact, they wanted to make sure Saddam didn't pump too much and drive prices down, as even the Oil & Gas Journal said before the war. So we went to war to keep the price at the pump HIGH.
Recent price gouging and record profits by oil companies shows how much they care about the rest of us.
Timeline of oil company machinations regarding Iraq
Detailed study on how Bush's plan for Iraq's oil compares to Gulf neighbors
Restructuring Iraq's oil during a military occupation to favor our oil companies is probably a war crime.
The mechanism for giving the bulk of the profits from the oil, up to 80%, to major oil corporations is the Hydrocarbon Law that Democrats included in the benchmarks Iraqis must meet. Iraqi oil workers, scholars, and bureaucrats from the Saddam era strongly oppose this law, and sent a letter to Congress saying so. The vice president of Iraq even said the Hydrocarbon law screws Iraqis. Screwing Iraqis out of their oil income is so important to the Bushies that they fired Gen. Garner, the first colonial governor of Iraq, when he correctly said delaying elections and privatizing oil would inflame resistance to the occupation.
Watch interview with Jay Garner
IRAQIS WANT US TO LEAVE
80% or more of Iraqis want us to leave according to a British intel commissioned poll. That Brit poll found that only 1% of Iraqis feel safer because we are there.
This is pretty consistent with the spring 2004 polls by Gallup and the Bush appointed CPA. To Jack Murtha's credit, he actually acknowledged these polls in his floor statement.
The Gallup poll in Spring 2004 found that 57% of Iraqis wanted us to leave immediately, and 71% viewed us as occupiers not liberators.
The Bush appointed CPA poll spring 2004 had similar results. 86% wanted us to leave after the January 2005 election and 82% viewed us as occupier not liberators.
Even Iyad Allawi, the thug who used to be an enforcer for Saddam that Bush appointed prime minister of the provisional government recently said the human rights situation in Iraq is at least as bad now as it was under Saddam.
At the Cairo Conference on Iraq, the Iraqi participants from all factions agreed that while insurgent attacks on civilians were wrong, those on occupation forces are not.
The war in Iraq has had an even worse effect on opinion of us in the Arab world. While some Americans may still believe the crap and platitudes about fighting terrorism and spreading democracy, few in the Arab world did, and the number is approaching absolute zero. It is not that they oppose democracy or "aren't ready" for it (one of the most racist bipartisan talking points ever) but that they know Bush cares about as much about democracy in the Arab world as he did about black people in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
THE INSURGENCY IS NOT AL QAEDA
Israelis and Saudis separately studied our interrogations of foreign fighters captured in Iraq and found that most had no prior connection to al Qaeda and were motivated by our invasion, not religious fundamentalism.
The military admits they inflated al Qaeda and Zarqawi's role in the insurgency for propaganda purposes in both Iraq and the US The military admits they inflated Zarqawi's role in the insurgency for propaganda purposes in both Iraq and the US.
The Iraqis don't like al Qaeda. The Bushies use this to make the leap to say that they don't like all the insurgency. The reality is Iraqis recognize al Qaeda is responsible for attacks on civilians and are trying to inflame sectarian violence, and sectarian violence is one of our excuses for staying.
IRAQI GOVERNMENT IS FAILING BECAUSE THEY ARE ONLY SOVEREIGN WHEN THEY AGREE WITH BUSH
The Iraqis are not apes who just descended from the trees, and can't figure out how to put a military and police force together. You might recall that they successfully invaded Kuwait, fought the much bigger Iran to a draw in the 80s, and Bush convinced us they were going to invade the US even without a navy or being able to put a plane in the air without our permission.
Bush fired all the qualified people as soon as we invaded. And 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? Although 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 natural resources 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 likely inspire even less love for the puppet government.
When the Iraqi government does show signs of independence, Bush pulls on their choke chain HARD. Bush told them to fire their first elected prime minister Jafari, the guy who wanted to meet Noam Chomsky, and he wasn't.
The current prime minister, Maliki has said Bush will FIRE him if he doesn't get the Hydrocarbon Law passed.
The Iraqi parliament has asked to please have a say in whether the occupation continues. Bush and even Congress are very careful about never asking Iraqis what they would prefer, but the Iraqi parliament understands that their legitimacy with their own people depends on asking the US to leave.
I don't expect Republicans to be honest on these issues. Like NASCAR racers, they wear their corporate sponsorship on their sleeve and read the talking points their owners fax them.
I do expect Democrats who want progressives to vote for them to be honest about these issues because too many have divided loyalties with one foot in the corporate camp, and one foot with the American people. Getting them to tell the truth about Iraq is one way to find out if the foot on our side isn't going to be on our neck if they get elected.
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