Picking up on BooMan’s excellent “How To Lose A War and Influence People,” let’s dissect Hiatt’s highly selective rundown of Democrats’ performance during this war. More critical, yet, let’s look at who’s doing the hard thinking and who’s along for the ride.
First, it’s utterly astonishing that Fred Hiatt’s editorial — and I’ve read all of it — leaves out the most important stand-up Democrat on Iraq, Rep. John Murtha (D-Pennsylvania).
Secondly, Hiatt fails to distinguish clearly between the Democrats who have used the war as campaign fodder (and there ARE some Dems who’ve done that) versus the stand-up hard-thinkers who are willing to, as my mom used to encourage us, “Tell it like it is.” Armando writes:
The great divide on the Right has begun. Those with self respect and honor. And those who do not. How they are lining up is not surprising. The Limbaugh and Liars stand together. The smarter and more honorable ones separate.
The same can be said of two other groups: Democrats and the military (retired and active). Among the “tell it like it is” heroes:
- On Thursday, Cotterperson posted John Murtha’s resolution to get us out of Iraq … “Section 1. The deployment of United States forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and the forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date …” (more below)
- Last night, I listened to Lt. Gen. William E. Odom (Ret.), as a member of a refreshingly blunt panel discussion, “Solutions for Iraq” aired on Booktv.org/C-Span2. (The Feb. 16, 2006 panel will be reaired at 6:20 am ET tomorrow.) The transcript from The Independent Institute, which sponsors such events, is not yet up, so I checked Democracy Now!’s archives because I remembered that Amy Goodman interviewed Gen. Odom last October. It was October 4, 2005, to be precise, and the title of the interview is:
Ret. Army General William Odom: U.S. Should “Cut and Run” From Iraq
If that isn’t telling it like it is — from the mouths of a Democrat and a great military leader — then, Mr. Hiatt, you’d better check the mirror for which part of you comprises your head and which is your ass.
Especially, Mr. Hiatt, when newspapers like yours refuse to print Gen. Odom’s op-ed piece last October on why we should “cut and run” from Iraq. (It’s critical to recall, and remind others, that Gen. Odom submitted his op-ed to the NYT, but the NYT editors never responded to him despite their past acceptance of at least 20 of his op-eds in the past. He finally got it printed at AntiWar.com, and discussed on Democracy Now! as well as the Feb. 16, 2006 forum.
Then Hiatt actually has the nerve to admonish Democrats to be as “responsible and fiercely critical … as Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has [acted] throughout the war.” (More of that segment below the fold.)
More below:
After telling Democrats to emulate john McCain, Hiatt goes on:
When they pull a stunt such as insisting on a secret Senate session, it could be to debate Bush’s policies on torture and detention. They could ask whether everything possible is being done to furnish the Iraqi army with protective armor. They could question whether anyone inside the administration is focusing with the same urgency on prodding Iraqi politicians toward compromise as are America’s ambassador and top generals in the field.
Individual Democratic senators have focused on individual questions such as these (for example, Michigan’s Carl Levin on torture), but for the caucus and its leader, Harry Reid (Nev.), the key questions are all about history.
Not a word about John Murtha — who famously hears the whispers of the generals! Not a word about countless other Democratic legislators like Jim McDermott and Cynthia McKinney who’ve fought this war long before it began.
And, now, from Cotterperson‘s post of John Murtha’s resolution
John Murtha has a plan to support our troops.
Why should they have to suffer and die any more for the corporatocracy’s invasion? The resolution is hung up in committee, and most Dems don’t support it. Is it too late?
Whereas more than $277 billion has been appropriated by the United States Congress to prosecute U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan;
Whereas, as of the drafting of this resolution, 2,079 U.S. troops have been killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom;
Whereas U.S. forces have become the target of the insurgency,
Whereas, according to recent polls, over 80% of the Iraqi people want U.S. forces out of Iraq;
Whereas polls also indicate that 45% of the Iraqi people feel that the attacks on U.S. forces are justified;
Whereas, due to the foregoing, Congress finds it evident that continuing U.S. military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the people of Iraq, or the Persian Gulf Region, which were cited in Public Law 107-243 as justification for undertaking such action;
Therefore be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
That:
Section 1. The deployment of United States forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and the forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date.
Section 2. A quick-reaction U.S. force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S Marines shall be deployed in the region.
Section 3 The United States of America shall pursue security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy. Murtha’s Resolution
Latest Major Action: 11/17/2005 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the Committee on International Relations, and in addition to the Committee on Armed Services, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned. Thomas
Note: The last line is Cotterperson’s signature, with a link to yet more.
……………………………….
This was part of Amy’s introduction of Gen. Odom on October 4, 2005:
What’s Wrong with Cutting and Running? That’s the question asked by retired Army general William Odom about the continued US military presence in Iraq.
Odom served as director of the National Security Agency under President Reagan. Prior to that, he served as Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, the Army’s senior intelligence officer. He is now a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington.
He recently said, “The invasion of Iraq I believe will turn out to be the greatest strategic disaster in U.S. history.”
In his article [printed at antiwar.com — elsewhere?], Odom writes, “The wisest course for journalists might be to begin sustained investigations of why leading Democrats have failed so miserably to challenge the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The first step, of course, is to establish as conventional wisdom the fact that the war was never in the U.S.” interests and has not become so.”
Lt. Gen. William Odom, served as director of the National Security Agency under President Reagan from 1985 to 1988. From 1981 to 1985, he served as Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, the Army’s senior intelligence officer. He is now a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington.
Last October, Mr. Hiatt, Gen. Odom told Amy Goodman:
So partisan — this is not a partisan politics issue. Congressman Walter Jones, who can hardly be called a conservative is a very – I mean, a liberal, is a very conservative Republican from North Carolina, who invented the term “freedom fries” to replace the “French fries” label, has now enrolled a resolution to Congress, calling for a withdrawal.
And I was surprised to get calls from him, asking me to come over and attend a small press conference that he had, where he has a small group of Republicans and an equal number of Democrats behind this.
And the point I made – the only reason I went and joined them was that I would rather see people on Bush’s side and responsible mainline Democrats carry this issue than let it go out to the fringes. And that’s where it’s headed.
That’s where it is headed, Mr. Hiatt.
I think the problem is that unlike Vietnam our withdrawal from Iraq will not end our problems. And no one wants to deal with that fact. But unless people begin to discuss the problems that will remain after we withdrawal we cannot get the momentum to pull out.
The Dems should begin talking about failure as a fait accompli and start articulating a damage miminization strategy.
Since we are not ready as a nation to renounce empire, nor are we willing to vote for exorbinant energy prices, nor are we inclined to be willingly eclispsed for influence by Europe, Russia, or China, the logical people to articulate the minimization strategy would be centrists.
The left will argue the strategy doesn’t go far enough and doesn’t get to the root issues. That’s okay. The left is correct. But there is not much point in asking the Centrists to compound a traumatic situation by asking the really hard questions. At least, not in an election year.
That’s an entirely other subject.
I’m trying to point out that editors like Hiatt are purposely lying by omission .. and by refusing to print op-eds by the likes of Gen. Odom.
Yeah, and it bears repeating…over and over. The WP and the NYT are basically state organs when it comes to large foreign policy issues.
Totally off topic here but what did you think of Mrs. Harris?
I would very much like to see that particular subject aired on this and other blogs. It was obvious to many of us from the beginning (fall 2002 at the latest) that any invasion/occupation of Iraq was fraught with exceptionally horrible risks, of which the crucial one was that there is no palatable exit strategy, and never was. Unlike in Vietnam, where we had no direct economic interest, and where the spillover effects of defeat were modest (and vastly overstated), Iraq is truly lose-lose. When the Iraqi civil war breaks out in earnest (as it surely will) the United States will have the option of supporting the Baathists whom it went into that country to unseat, or political formations backed by Iran. It’s hard to conceive a bigger screw-up (with the exception of Hitler’s ill-conceived invasion of the Soviet Union). It’s also hard to conceive a least worst-case scenario.
I fear that there is no exit short of the moral equivalent of a United States unconditional surrender. The political fall-out over here will be lethal. But the first step is clearly to recognize it, and to try to see if there is a way of limiting what must inevitably be almost incalculable damage to the security of the United States. Just saying … a topic for another, hopefully not too distant, time.
When the Iraqi civil war breaks out in earnest (as it surely will) the United States will have the option of supporting the Baathists whom it went into that country to unseat, or political formations backed by Iran.
IF this situation wasn’t so dire, one could keep fingers crossed and hope Bush was right this one time when last summer he said this: “They failed to incite an Iraqi civil war”? ‘for the sake of our nation’s security, this will not happen on my watch.”t
via C&L, Media Matters alerts us to Fox’s Neil Cavuto looking for the upside “All-Out Civil War in Iraq: Could It Good Thing?”
Wars or natural disasters, doesn’t matter the lives lost; for the GOPers there’s always an upside. Positive Thinking focused on $$?
But there is not much point in asking the Centrists to compound a traumatic situation by asking the really hard questions. At least, not in an election year.
If not now, then when? As you correctly pointed out the other day, the port fiasco is the product of globalization come home to roost. Internal domestic politics are totally unprepared to deal with the new realities facing us, no matter how “reality based” some communities might like to think of themselves.
Frankly, we have a better ‘teaching moment’ with BushCo still in power than we would ever have had if Mr. Kerry were carrying out the occupation in his ‘better, more realistic’ fashion.
Frankly, the dems will never be electable if they talk about failure as “ours,” no matter how ineluctably true that little factoid might be. Americans simply do not fail.
Failure to ask the tough questions & continually push them to the forefront condemns both us & the rest of the world to the consequences of our failures — further violence & firtheranceof the conditions that reate it. What’s the point inthat? The one & only advantage I can think of is the status of the Supreme Court.
As far as the tough questions & issues are concerned, Charlie Parker had it right:
Now’s The time!
I agree. But while you and I can use this as a teachable moment, we should delude ourselves that the Dems are going run on a platform of questioning the broader issues of our empire and its effects.
They will quibble here and there, but the Dems, particularly the Senators, are not ready to draw the correct conclusions, and they certainly are not going to complicate a winning electoral strategy by asking Americans for too much introspection.
Only time will tell if it’s a “winning electoral strategy.” The Democrats are — and, more importantly from an electoral perspective, seem to be — entirely muddled on Iraq. It may well be that Bush’s foreign policy (including Iraq) is in such bad shape that people will embrace that muddle. But that’s hardly clear at this point. Despite all the disasters and despite the public’s solidly turning against the Iraq War over half a year ago, last week was the first time the Democrats have polled (narrowly) better than the GOP on national security issues. And we all know that the GOP campaign this year will focus like a laser on exposing the lack of a clear Democratic position on Iraq.
Those of us who feel we need a fundamental rethinking of our foreign policy need to understand that the Democrats’ refusal to do so is not based on (presumably transitory) electoral advantage, but rather the party’s deep commitment to militarism. Arcturus is, of course, entirely correctthat the Democrats will always tell progressives that now is not the right time to raise these issues. When Dems are out of power, we are supposed to get behind ABB-style strategies of electing anyone with a “D” after his or her name. But once the Dems are in power, we’re told to circle the wagons and defend the team.
Only progressive can change this dynamic. And the first step in doing so is to join The Nation in absolutely refusing to support pro-war candidates of any party.
Heh! Well, no one will ever accuse me of expecting much but grief from the dems. Thus my usual stance of voting for ’em in close elections, for other parties in run-away races, and opposing much of what they have to “offer” once they are in office.
I’ve kept out of the work within/start anew debates here, because fundamnetally both are needed. As are activists working on sole issues, writers outside the party structures, etc. Cultural change is hard, long tiresome work, and it ain’t gonna happen in lockstep. Nor do I believe many if any of us here would desire such a thing.
It would be an abdication of responsibility to expect the politicians to be doing the teaching. And to repeat, this really is an incredibly rich ‘teaching moment’ in time.
Least that sounds better to me than banging my head against the wall ’til I’m prepared to sit upright in my chair aligned in a perfect row with everyone else’s, ready to take dictation.
There aren’t many and they don’t get any backing from the jellyfish anyway.
And the DC Dipshits screw around with Hackett who could have led the charge.
Sorry, Boo, but I’d like see see some SPINE and I just don’t see any spine or any goddamn brains either.
LL