Author: fairleft

This is an expansion of a comment I made at myleftwing on Wes Clark’s paragraph two down from the one in The Next War (hmm, that title, just a little warmongerish, maybe?) that I called the Bloodiest Paragraph of the New Century. (Here’s the headline’s subhead: “It’s always looming. But has our military learned the right lessons from this one to fight it and win?”). I’m talking about the paragraph where – whether war is the “last last” or even “last last last” option a responsible imperialist should employ – he buys into the FIVE assumptions that will surely ‘force us’ to blitzkrieg Iran. You see, several people commented that Wesley had said, in the same Washington Post Op-Ed, that “War is the last, last, last resort.” That’s three ‘lasts’, so how can he really be a warmonger? C’mon fairleft, why do you think Wesley is a puppyish, cardigan-wearing, last resort warfukingmonger? So here’s what I said, new & improved version:

I think Clark wants to have it both ways

Just like in the lead up to our Iraq invasion, if it looks successful he can say he was in early and even provided the battle plans, if it turns out a disaster he can say i told you so and that he was trying to stop it. It’s a despicable practice but soft love bloggies and the soft mainstream media help him get away with his b.s.

And I don’t see how you avoid the implications of the following Clark paragraph, as full of lies and paranoia as the one later is full of innocent blood:

Today, the most likely next conflict will be with Iran, a radical state that America has tried to isolate for almost 30 years and that now threatens to further destabilize the Middle East through its expansionist aims, backing of terrorist proxies such as the Lebanese group Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, and far-reaching support for radical Shiite militias in Iraq. As Iran seems to draw closer to acquiring nuclear weapons, almost every U.S. leader — and would-be president — has said that it simply won’t be permitted to reach that goal.

Derived from the above, here are five ‘tough love’ questions you might ask Mr. Clark:

  1. There’s no substance to this charge that Iran threatens to ‘destabilize’ the Middle East. There is plenty of evidence, documentary and directly from their military operations that the U.S. and Israel are executing a vast plan to destabilize the Middle East. How does your ‘black vs. white’ mischaracterization of Iran’s intentions advance us closer to peace? How does it hold off war with Iran?

  2. Hezbollah is a nationalist armed militia of the Shiite Arabs of Lebanon. Based on numbers of civilians killed, it is about a 20th as terrorist as Israel. How does your ‘black vs. white’ mischaracterization of Hezbollah advance the Middle East closer to peace? How does emphasizing the Iran connection hold off war with that country?

  3. Hamas was elected to govern Palestine by its citizens. It has practiced terrorism, but again not on nearly an Israeli scale. How does your ‘black vs. white’ mischaracterization of Hamas advance Israel and the Palestinian Territories closer to peace and justice? How does your stark condemnation of Iran for supporting Hamas, the legitimately elected government of the Palestinian Territories, stave off war with Iran?

  4. Radical & nationalist Shiite militias are supported by Iran, radical and collaborationist Shiite militias are supported by the U.S. How does your hypocrisy about this matter, choosing to condemn similarly ‘radical’ militias simply based on which country backs them, stave off war with Iran?

  5. Iran is attempting to develop nuclear power, as is its right under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty it has signed (Israel has never signed that treaty, of course). However, your and the warmongers’ paranoia says Iran is developing nuclear weapons. How does this ‘black vs. white’ mischaracterization of what Iran is doing advance us closer to peace?

I’m important, and everyone else is too. – G.K. Chesterton

by: fairleft @ Wed Sep 19, 2007 at 07:57:10 AM PDT

Or, as Wesley states (if you note the helpful emphasized word),

Military force against Iran is not the solution now, and if we adopt the right strategy, perhaps it need never be.

::

As I said, we’ve seen this crap from Wesley Clark before, in the Iraq invasion run-up. Way way back only five years ago, when he combined his ‘last resort’ Iraq invasion advice with wonkish military detail and with kissing Richard Perle’s murderously stupid ass:

…the option to use force must remain on the table. It should be used as the last resort after all diplomatic means have been exhausted, unless there is information that indicates that a further delay would represent an immediate risk to the assembled forces and organizations. And, I want to underscore that the United States should not categorize this action as preemptive. Preemptive-and that doctrine has nothing whatsoever to do with this problem. As Richard Perle so eloquently pointed out, this is a problem that is longstanding, it has been a decade in the making and needs to be dealt with and the clock is ticking on this.

Obviously, once initiated, a military operation should aim for the most respected accomplishment of its operational aims and prompt turnover to follow-on organizations and agencies.

Here is our ‘last resorter’ on the real purpose of weapons inspections:

… I am not making my case on the presumption that inspections won’t necessarily be effective. That is not the case. I think an inspection program will provide some impedance and interference with Saddam’s efforts. I think it can undercut the legitimacy and authorities of his regime at home. I think it can provide warning of further developments. I think it can establish a trigger. I think it can build legitimacy for the United States. Ultimately, it is going to be inadequate in the main.

Yes, Wesley, you made yourself perfectly clear, to anyone not too blind to see:

… I think it is not time yet to use force against Iraq, but it is certainly time to put that card on the table, to turn it face up and to wave it.

Another cure for Clark adulation might be to read the following, from January 2004:

DEMOCRACY NOW! Confronts Wesley Clark Over His Bombing Of Civilians, Use Of Cluster Bombs And Depleted Uranium And The Bombing Of Serb Television

There, by the way, you’ll read some of Clark’s early 2003 CNN commentary:

In January, Clark told CNN, “He [Hussein] does have weapons of mass destruction.” When asked, “And you could say that categorically?” Clark responded: “Absolutely.”

In February, Clark told CNN, “The credibility of the United States is on the line, and Saddam Hussein has these weapons and so, you know, we’re going to go ahead and do this and the rest of the world’s got to get with us…The U.N. has got to come in and belly up to the bar on this. But the president of the United States has put his credibility on the line, too. And so this is the time that these nations around the world, and the United Nations, are going to have to look at this evidence and decide who they line up with.”

But here’s the heart of the Democracy Now transcript, when Jeremy Scahill and Clark really start to get into it:

JEREMY SCAHILL: In Yugoslavia, you used cluster bombs and depleted uranium…

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: Sure did.

JEREMY SCAHILL: I want to know if you are president, will you vow not to use them.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I will use whatever it takes that’s legal to protect the men and women against force.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Even against civilians in the Nis marketplace? Why bomb Radio Television Serbia? Why did you bomb Radio Television Serbia? You killed 16 media workers, sir.

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: They were-[inaudible – Interview interrupted by another questioner.]

That was Clark making an exit off the stage. …

All photos are from the US war on Yugoslavia. Also at politicalfleshfeast.com

Mukasey’s the one on the far right

He’s been nominated by Bush to be the new Attorney General and Chuck Schumer and all the usual (secretly?) pro-Bush Dem fuqwads are loving him up right now. He’s the judge who ruled it okay to hold Jose Padilla indefinitely without charges, just because King Bush had declared Padilla (incorrectly as it turned out, of course) an “enemy combatant.” Exact quote from Mukasey: “There’s a never-ending terror war on; screw the Constitution for the duration” or something like that.

Here’s more (emphasis added throughout) . . .
International Herald Tribune:

Mukasey, 66 years old and now in private practice in Manhattan, has repeatedly spoken out to support the administration’s claim to broad powers in pursuing terrorist threats, especially in conducting electronic surveillance of terrorist suspects and in imprisoning them before [‘before’? howabout ‘without’] trial.

World Socialist Website (some call this a suspect site, but I’ve always found its journalism more accurate than the mainstream stuff):

Most significantly, in December 2002, in an early case involving Jose Padilla, Mukasey ruled that US citizens captured on US soil could be held as “enemy combatants.” This decision favored the Bush administration on a central question in the “war on terror” and constituted a major attack on the democratic rights of all Americans. …

In the case of US citizen Jose Padilla, originally accused of plotting to set off a radioactive “dirty bomb” in the US, Mukasey signed the original order authorizing the government to hold Padilla as a “material witness” — a category used frequently in recent years to hold people against whom the government has insufficient evidence to prosecute. Padilla’s original hearings were also before Mukasey.

In June 2002, shortly before Mukasey was to rule on the continued ability of the government to hold Padilla as a material witness, the Bush administration declared him an “enemy combatant” and transferred him to a military brig in South Carolina. In his December 2002 ruling on this move, Mukasey accepted the category of “enemy combatant” as applied to US citizens.

According to Mukasey, the president’s commander-in-chief powers include “the power to detain unlawful combatants, and it matters not that Padilla is a United States citizen captured on United States soil.” It also did not matter that the “current conflict with Al Qaeda… can have no clear end,” Mukasey wrote.

NPR:

Mukasey is no stranger to the Padilla case. As district judge, he authorized Padilla’s arrest in 2002. He backed the White House’s view that Padilla could be held as an enemy combatant, although his decision was later overturned on appeal.

In a 2004 article, also in the Wall Street Journal, Mukasey defended the Patriot Act against charges that it eroded civil liberties. In particular, he defended “sneak-and-peek” warrants that allow agents, with court authorization, to enter premises, examine what is there and then leave.

Finally, this from CNN:

In the [Padilla] case, Mukasey overruled the Justice Department, which contended that Padilla, who had been declared an “enemy combatant” by Bush, did not have the right to see an attorney.

Notice the mainstream media subterfuge of that highlighted passive clause. Who upheld Bush’s ‘right’ to designate Padilla an enemy combatant who could be held without charges? Mukasey.

Well, that wasn’t finally, there’s also this, which is also discussed in the WSWS article above. Here we see Mukasey take the reactionary approach of prioritizing the Constitution over the Bill of Rights. Again, and I’m quoting Mukasey directly, “Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom? Completely wrong, should be ‘eternal surveillance ‘ and so on.” 

A bill of rights was omitted from the original Constitution over the objections of Patrick Henry and others. It may well be that those who drafted the original Constitution understood that if you give equal prominence to the provisions creating the government and the provisions guaranteeing rights against the government–God-given rights, no less, according to the Declaration of Independence–then citizens will feel that much less inclined to sacrifice in behalf of their government, and that much more inclined simply to go where their rights and their interests seem to take them.

So, as the historian Walter Berns has argued, the built-in message–the hidden message in the structure of the Constitution–is that the government it establishes is entitled, at least in the first instance, to receive from its citizens the benefit of the doubt. If we keep that in mind, then the spirit of liberty will be the spirit which, if it is not too sure that it is right, is at least sure enough to keep itself–and us–alive.

P.S. (It’s related, and) if you read just one paragraph this year, read this one by Paul Craig Roberts — from “Why Did Senator John Kerry Stand Idly By?” — explaining why the cops and rent-a-cops are acting more and more like Hitler brown shirts nowadays:

The answer is that police, most of whom have authoritarian personalities, have seen that constitutional rights are no longer protected.  President Bush does not protect our constitutional rights. Neither does Vice President Cheney, nor the Attorney General, nor the US Congress. Just as Kerry allowed Meyer’s rights to be tasered out of him, Congress has enabled Bush to strip people, including American citizens, of constitutional protection and incarcerate them without presenting evidence.

(Also over at politicalfleshfeast.com)

Dkos pin up boy and wine and cheese warrior fave Wesley Clark has written the bloodiest paragraph of the new century (thanks for pointing it out, Miss Devore), published Sunday in the Neocon Washington Post. Here’s how he starts his assault on Iran scenario, illustrations added:

Finally, and not that I think you need a reminder:

Also at politicalfleshfeast.com

How the hell stupid does Bush think we are? He wants America to buy those numbers as a troop reduction? Even some of the mainstream media ain’t going along with bullshit this transparent. WE’RE F@#%KN TIRED OF IT! Here’s ABC, and check out the in-your-face subheading:

7,000 More Troops in Iraq By Next Summer

Bush’s plan is to withdraw five brigades by mid-July — approximately 23,000 troops, leaving about 137,000 U.S. troops in place by next summer.

While Bush portrayed the redeployment as a troop withdrawal, there will actually be 7,000 more troops in Iraq next summer than there were before Bush deployed additional forces to Iraq in January as part of a troop surge plan to quell sectarian violence.

September 15, 1935 was when the German flag was changed to the Nazis’ swastika. Remember that day and maybe fly the flag below when you get your asses in the streets (yeah, block some f@%#kin traffic on a Saturday) in Washington D.C. tomorrow:

In other words . . .

You must first see the matrix before you have any chance of defeating it.

But are you willing to see it, populist leftists, labor leftists, fairleftists? There’s a test for you below. Some of you will be found unwilling, and you’ll be of (at the very best) limited use to the true left.

The U.S. Power Matrix© is the mainstream media, giant corporations and the wealthy, and their Wall Street Party with its Republican and Democratic wings. The Republican wing plays the religious right chumps into voting for Wall Street Republicans or staying home. The Democrats play populist & labor leftists into ‘no alternative’ voting for Wall Street Democrats or staying home. The Wall Street Party also brings ‘inside’ and compensates the elites of the two biggest minority groups, for playing their constituencies into voting for the Wall Street Democrats or staying home. The mainstream media hysterically enforces political correctness, trivial pursuits and if necessary TINA fatalism. The giant corporations fund the political system, own the media, and even make it tough for anyone to get a middle-class job who doesn’t parrot DemoRepublism or TINA fatalism.

This is full-spectrum dominance, it is a fucking Beast. But it is also exactly what the authentic left must face and fight in any real mass movement for a humane, peaceful, social democratic society and world, or even to successfully resist our world’s forced march in the opposite direction.

A first preliminary victory is simply to know the U.S. Power Matrix© and get others to recognize it too.

A second prelim win is to understand the implications the power matrix for resistance strategies, and for understanding the fake ‘resistance’ that is in fact a support movement for a subset of the power matrix.

And that leads to the immigration test.

Okay, here’s the immigration test, inspired by this little piece of d3n4l1’s latest:

How about something like Immigration. I actually have a feeling that most of us really aren’t sure what to do about our greatest humanitarian issue in the US. It’s an extremely complex issue, and I just haven’t gotten my mind around any truly likeable solution.

No, immigration is not an extremely complex issue, that’s a typical ‘good liberal’ avoidance strategy for taking a position on an issue where the politically incorrect but left position is obvious. Here ya go: the income levels of the working poor are going down, in part because they compete unsuccessfully with very large numbers of immigrants for semi-skilled and non-skill jobs. Greatly reducing legal and illegal immigration will help our working poor brothers and sisters, and some of us a little better of than them too.

As, of course, Cesar Chavez recognized long ago. But those were different days, when private-sector unions were politically powerful in their own right and an important part of a real Democratic Party. Yes, private-sector unions were once at least powerful enough to restrict immigration competition against their members and potential members.

So immigration is not tough to figure out, it’s just tough to openly state the leftist position. We all know it is politically taboo within the larger ‘Democratic Party’ (wing of the Wall Street Party) that most of us still kind of need to ‘officially’ belong to. Especially when we are not anonymous (like me?) on the web.

So, are you with the authentic left or against us? Do you stand with your working poor fellow citizens (but with humanity toward illegal immigrants as well)? I’ll understand if you’re a ‘fraidy cat, and we can still hang out together here and have a few laughs watching our values and country go down the toilet bowl.

You must first see the matrix before you have any chance of defeating it.

The following little comment on the Hillary ‘lobbyist’ ‘defense’ led to this post on who’s giving what $$$ to whom:

WTF are you getting on about? (none / 0)

Obama, Clinton, Edwards, Dodd, Richardson and Biden all receive a great deal of money more or less from ‘corporations’, from the upper-class professions, and from the wealthy elite generally.

But the real problem is not that legalized bribery, but ‘Washington lobbyists’? That molehill inspires Booman’s “Do we really hate ourselves this much?”

They’re ALL money whores, and there’s no such thing as a good money whore. And, my sympathies, Arthur G, but you need to take a good look at Hillary campaign donations. They are directly below. And the Obama lovers need to look at his $$$ too. Edwards, well, his whore $$$ aren’t quite as bad, he doesn’t play with all comers (or they don’t wanna play with him), so maybe he’s not as much of a whore as those other two. And as for “I’m for public financing” Chris Dodd, well, check out the money numbers!

BDB states the obvious over at talkleft (emphasis added):

… all of the frontrunners take money from corporate interests.  I honestly doubt that the Wall Street executives who back Obama or the trial lawyers who back Edwards have vastly different policy preferences on the issues facing their businesses than the lobbyists those same folks hire. You either go with publicly financed campaigns (which all of the leading candidates seem to support) or you don’t.

Opensecrets.org (that’s right, it’s an open secret people!), tells us all we need to know, in its Contributions from Selected Industries (as of July 15, 2007) charts.

Interested in health care reform? Check out who the Pharmo-Medico Lobby contributes to:

Insurance Industry:
Christopher J. Dodd: $592,950
Hillary Clinton: $341,240
Barack Obama: $258,172
Bill Richardson: $91,183
John Edwards: $83,737
Joseph R. Biden: $61,325
Dennis J. Kucinich: $500

Pharmaceuticals/Health Products:
Hillary Clinton: $172,150
Barack Obama: $160,572
Christopher J. Dodd: $56,700
Joseph R. Biden Jr.: $10,500
Bill Richardson: $7,150
John Edwards: $6,758
Dennis J. Kucinich: $800

Health Professionals:
Hillary Clinton: $998,851
Barack Obama: $701,993
John Edwards: $254,297
Bill Richardson: $131,225
Joseph R. Biden: $74,050
Christopher J. Dodd: $66,250
Dennis J. Kucinich: $7,900
Mike Gravel: $1,000

Want a candidate who’ll fight for workers and middle class folks instead of for the banks and Wall Street? Check out these campaign donation figures:

Hedge Funds:
Christopher J. Dodd: $726,950
Hillary Clinton: $703,600
Barack Obama: $652,105
John Edwards: $218,290
Bill Richardson: $85,900
Joseph R. Biden: $28,300

Securities & Investment:
Hillary Clinton: $3,330,325
Barack Obama: $3,156,174
Christopher J. Dodd: $2,200,916
John Edwards: $668,590
Bill Richardson: $351,000
Joseph R. Biden: $250,900
Dennis J. Kucinich: $750
Mike Gravel: $250

Commercial Banks:
Barack Obama: $607,259
Hillary Clinton: $492,725
Christopher J. Dodd: $352,500
John Edwards: $131,876
Joseph R. Biden: $102,250
Bill Richardson: $83,000
Dennis J. Kucinich: $225

Real Estate:
Hillary Clinton: $2,746,039
Barack Obama: $1,337,529
Christopher J. Dodd: $582,783
John Edwards: $500,870
Bill Richardson: $418,775
Joseph R. Biden: $328,784
Dennis J. Kucinich: $6,800
Mike Gravel: $300

In Democratic Doublespeak on Iraq, Tom Engelhardt and Ira Chernus dig up this nugget:

A senior Pentagon officer who has briefed Clinton told NPR commentator Ted Koppel that Clinton expects U.S. troops to be in Iraq when she ends her second term in 2017.

The key portion of Koppel’s NPR commentary (and check out the title: A Duty to Mislead?!?) is the following:

A Duty to Mislead: Politics and the Iraq War

“… I ran into an old source who held a senior position at the Pentagon until his retirement. He occasionally briefs Clinton on the situation in the Gulf. She told him that if she were elected President, and then re-elected four years, she would still expect U.S. troops to be in Iraq at the end of her second term. We’re talking about a shade less than 10 years from now.

I happen to think she’s absolutely right, and what’s more I’m sure there are several other Democratic Presidential candidates who agree with that assessment, that U.S. troops will be in Iraq for another decade, at least, even if every candidate is sounding as though the pullout would be immediate and total. When, oh when is that deadly serious issue ever going to become the topic of an equally serious and candid discussion? When, in other words, will we get the brutal truth, in place of vapid and misleading campaign applause lines?”

All progressives need to read the words of big-time insider Koppel, such revelations are rare! And, I highlighted the text above to emphasize that this diary isn’t about Hillary alone, it’s about the entire Democratic Party establishment. ‘It’ doesn’t want you to know, but it plans to stay in Iraq long-term, despite the fact that 87% (87%!) of Democrats want us out.

If you still don’t get it, read fake befuddled Harry Reid on Iraq troop numbers, and understand what that ‘befuddlement’ means about the Democratic establishment. Or read “the military decides how many” Ike Skelton, and understand what that giveaway of your political power to the military means:

But some Democrats, who won control of Congress in last November’s elections largely on a pledge to bring U.S. troops out of Iraq, admit they assume a sizable number would stay.

“The fact is I don’t know how many troops will be there. I’ve heard anywhere from 20,000 — and now I’ve got, this is the highest number I’ve heard — to 70,000,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, when asked about troop strength if a Senate withdrawal plan was enacted.

On Wednesday, House of Representatives Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, a Missouri Democrat, was asked how many troops would be left behind if his legislation to bring combat troops out of Iraq by April 1 was enacted.

“I think it would be wrong for me to spell out the exact number of troops,” Skelton told reporters. “I leave that as a military decision … because I am not a general, nor am I the secretary of defense.”

So, if the Democratic establishment sounds to you like it bows and scrapes to the military, if its Presidential candidates sound like they want to patrol the world rooting out `evil’ wherever they find it, in other words if it smells neoconservative that’s because it is.

It’s just WRONG to think the Democrats — when and if they win the presidency — will reject (of their own free will, without us pushing them) neo-conservatism. Nope, instead they’ll continue and advance the neo-conservative Middle East chaos crusade.

Reason: because that’s where the money is, baby! Two of America’s super-heavyweight and richest lobbies are all out in favor of neo-conservative Middle East crusading. Actually, I had a comment on this ‘why’ a couple days ago:

Obviously the people don’t have power to do this:

As we select a new face to govern America, we must also choose a leader who is able to reevaluate America’s approach to foreign affairs and establish a new doctrine of policies which can carry us forward, repairing the damage from our mistakes and building a strong foundation for our relationships with nations around the globe.

The reason: our foreign policy is under the vice-grip control of the military-industrial complex and the Israel Lobby.

So, the questions that need to be asked are:

How do we escape from that control?

How do we nominate a candidate whose foreign policy represents the interests of the American people and not the interests of those two entities?

When will political analysts speak truth about the power those two entities have over our political system and its main Presidential candidates?

Now, why have the military-industrial complex and the Israel Lobby embraced neoconservatism? Hell, I don’t know, but I’d guess a huge military, when the `natural’ need for its services has declined (since the Cold War), needs to go out and create the chaos and instability that appears to call for a huge military. And I would guess the Israel Lobby is similarly influenced by Israel’s own military-industrial complex. But who knows why, really, the job for the people of the United States is to cut if not destroy the influence of these two massively wealthy lobbies on our two political parties.

To sum up, as of right now the 2008 Dem-Repub face off looks like it will be a bust as far as the issues that matter most to most of us, especially our death-dealing approach to Iraq and the Middle East. As I (more or less) commented a couple days ago:

Here’s the way it looks right now [should the Democrats take power in 2008]:

 
There is not enough support for ending the occupation in Iraq to matter.

There is not enough support for universal health care to matter.

There is not enough support for leashing an out of control President to matter.

There is not enough support for restoring habeas corpus to matter.

There is more than enough support for a massive military attack on Iran to matter. [for another example of Democrats’ craven neoconservatism, see their recent support for Sen. Lieberman’s 97-0 ‘acts of war’ resolution on Iran]

I hope things change among [the ‘Beltway Democrats’ and] the Democratic Party’s presidential nominees in the next half year before the primaries. But they won’t change if all of us supposed progressives keep chanting, “I’ll vote for whoever the Dems nominate no matter what.” That’s what got us pro-occupation John Kerry in 2004.

What ‘no matter what’ support for the 2008 Democratic Presidential candidate may get us is a President who favors world super-cop neoconservative imperialism, which includes long-term Iraq occupation, cold or hot war with Iran, and the military running the U.S. treasury dry so that cut backs for the rest of us become ‘necessary’.

So, for a start, how about we refuse to support any Democratic Presidential candidate who won’t say the following:

We must remove ALL of our troops. There should be no residual US forces left in Iraq.

That was Bill Richardson. You could also lend your support to Dennis Kucinich or Mike Gravel.

Oh no, here we go again, Dkos’s Markos and mainstream internet guy Dems have the hots for a ‘man in a uniform’. This time it’s fatigues-wearing Texas State Senator and Border Patrol (and former Afghanistan) Lieutenant Colonel Rick Noriega, who kos manages to describe as a “people-powered” candidate for John Cornyn’s Senate seat.

Don’t you love a lieutenant colonel defending America’s puppet government in Afghanistan?

In 2006 it was man’s man former Republican and Secretary of the Navy Jim Webb. …
Who has turned out, surprise surprise, pretty damn Republican-ite on many things, including human rights like habeas corpus.** The other man’s man kos l-o-v-e-d last year was Jon Tester, the equal to Jim Webb in disregard for basic human rights.

Anyway, as a Democrat who wants _all_ (that doesn’t mean leaving 70-80,000 behind) our troops _home_ (not redeployed in Kuwait and Afghanistan) _now_ (not in 9 months or 12 months or 4 more f%#king years), I’m not excited by either Watts or Noriega. Because their positions on Iraq seem to suck.

Here’s what little we know of Noriega’s position on Iraq (emphasis added):

Noriega said he would like the United States to follow the December recommendations of the Iraq Study Group on getting troops out of Iraq. “The war is the critical issue,” he said, adding in Spanish: “We have to stop the war.”

But the Iraq Study Group wouldn’t stop the occupation (or ‘war’):

Despite the breathless hype, the Baker-Hamilton Iraq Study Group report did not include any dramatic new ideas for ending the war in Iraq. In fact, it did not include a call to end the war at all. Rather, the report’s recommendations focus on transforming the U.S. occupation of Iraq into a long-term, sustainable, off-the-front-page occupation with a lower rate of U.S. casualties.

And the Iraq Study Group misunderstands the key fact of the occupation, that the Iraqis don’t want us in Iraq:

…its authors … share one great misconception with Mr Bush and Mr Blair. This is about the acceptability of any foreign troops in Iraq. Supposedly US combat troops will be withdrawn and redeployed as a stiffening or reinforcement to Iraqi military units.

Mikal Watts, Noriega’s main Democratic opponent for Cornyn’s seat, is also minimalist and hard to pin down on Iraq. But his position is not much different from Noriega’s, as far as anyone can tell:

Watts took aim at Mr. Cornyn as a Bush loyalist in “an ill-conceived and mismanaged war in Iraq,” saying American troops should be withdrawn. But later, on his plane, he was ambivalent about setting a timetable.

Here’s more of our man in uniform (no we’re not under martial law, he’s swearing in to the Texas House). Kos really thinks this one will turn you on:

Hey guys, let’s ask more from Democratic candidates than that they be he-men, as ‘proved’ by their combat duds.

** The Senate bill that Tester and Webb have not signed onto, sponsored by Senators Leahy and Specter, would axe the following provision of the Military Commissions Act:

No court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination.

Also at http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=17877

After its Iraq war funding standdown and its Cindy Sheehan burning at the stake, DailyKos is a lost cause for leftist politics, but some progressives struggle on there. And now there’s a new poster I’ve never heard of, bbr, who’s written The Missing. What a profound essay it is (not counting an ill-advised ‘anecdote about my kid’), on the human tragedy of that place central to U.S. imperial policy and Middle East conflict, Israel & Palestine.

bbr begins (emphasis added):

At any point in time, it’s important not just to know that peace is missing, but why it’s missing. And that changes over time, and is always somewhat different depending on whether you are talking about political/governmental peace or person-to-person/societal peace. Although the former type is what we spend far too much time talking about, it is the latter that really counts, in my mind.

And that peace, the peace between people, is missing because, when you are in Israel, the Palestinians are missing. Almost entirely.

And when you’re in Palestine (Eastern Palestine, anyway), although Israel is everywhere – in the form of Jewish-only settlements, Jewish-only roads, the Army, the Air Force and the Wall — and although Israeli soldiers and settlers are all around, the Israeli people with whom the Palestinians must make peace are also missing.

Skip the cute kid anecdote and then read on as bbr describes a visit to Hebron:

The Old City of Hebron, the area of the once vibrant souq/casbah, is, quite simply, gone. Military orders, settler violence, settler expansionism, soldiers changing policies from day to day, decimation of the Palestinian economy. Put them all together and you have what I saw in Hebron – shops welded shut, houses empty, streets barren, markets looted, bushes and vines growing in the middle of once-busy streets.

Then things get even heavier, as bbr writes of the graffiti — probably from the local and ever-expanding and encroaching Jewish-only settlements — sprayed on half of Hebron’s shuttered Arab shops. This is about all the Palestinians see of their settler neighbors:

“There are Arabs, there are rats.” (Makes more sense as graffiti in the Hebrew, as it’s a bit of a play on words: “Yesh Aravim, yesh achbarim”)

“Arabs to the gas chambers.”

“Arabs are sand n—-ers.” (the one I saw of this is signed by the extremist group the JDL, or Jewish Defense League)

Finally and most moving, as bbr walks the streets of Old Hebron he undergoes an experience that shakes his sense of identity as a Jew. It begins as follows:

I still have chills from hearing the muezzin’s call to prayer from the Machpelah/Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs, which is now divided into a Jewish holy site and the Ibrahimi mosque.  What does it mean to hear the call to prayer when there is almost no one who can get there? After all, on one of the main streets that a Muslim could theoretically walk to in order to get to the mosque, I was stopped by an Israeli border policeman. And he asked me but one simple question.

“Are you Jewish?”

I hesitated. First because I hadn’t quite understood, or expected, the question. Then I realized what he was asking. …

Read on, and if you can’t stomach going over to dailykos for the post, you can also find it at www.semitism.net.

And as penance for my crack about ‘my cute kid’ anecdotes, here’s a pic of a cute little Israeli girl (from the website of a wonderful movie, First Lesson in Peace):

… and a cute little Palestinian boy (from the global exchange website):

I don’t wanna be depressing, but two things need to be said. The Democrats support the occupation of Iraq. The Democrats plan for the U.S. to stay there if they win in 2008. Here it is, deal with it:

Since their push began early this year to withdraw combat troops from Iraq, U.S. congressional Democrats mostly have avoided estimating the size of the force that would remain at the end of the redeployment they envision.

But some Democrats, who won control of Congress in last November’s elections largely on a pledge to bring U.S. troops out of Iraq, admit they assume a sizable number would stay.

“The fact is I don’t know how many troops will be there. I’ve heard anywhere from 20,000 — and now I’ve got, this is the highest number I’ve heard — to 70,000,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, when asked about troop strength if a Senate withdrawal plan was enacted.

(Brief rant within rant: Harry, you’re the g-damn leader of the Senate, stop speaking in the PASSIVE VOICE! “I don’t know?” “You’ve heard?” What the hell is that, you’re a decider, dude!)

This Reidian mealy-mouthing is everywhere, among the Presidential Candidates, Beltway Democratic ‘leaders’, and mainstream ‘liberal’ pundits. The phrase of the day is “_COMBAT_ TROOPS.” Stick it in your news search engine and watch the Democrats ooze up.

For example, look how Barack Obama takes a direct question today on “troops” and turns it into an answer on “combat troops” (emphasis added):

Q: I will jump right into this: Are you willing to be the man who finally and officially pulls U.S. troops out of Iraq?

Obama: [Cautionary bloviating …] But if we begin a phased, responsible redeployment, I see no reason why we should not have our combat troops out by certainly early summer of next year.

Get it, there’re these ‘bad’ troops called combat troops that the Dems will definitely withdraw, but there’s these good ‘non-combat’ troops…

Why does anyone with a gram of common sense stand for this? Troops = soldiers = ‘kill people’ = combat. Do I got that right? What the f… are these inside-baseball Dems trying to pull on us?

This is where the real battle is now, this is what ‘combat troops’ means, whether our troops will stay in Iraq indefinitely, as all the leading Democratic and Republican candidates desire. Or whether at least the left will find itself a viable alternative.