Current Article

(Written under the influence of outrage. But I stand by every word, even after I have had a drink and taken a deep breath or three.)

[Note from Larry Johnson--I planned to write something on Snow's crazy comment but BGRS got there first. I share her anger and I haven't had a drink (yet).]

So get this – the Iraqi parliament is going on vacation for the month of August.

None of the political benchmarks have been met, our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines have been there for four years. Nearly 4000 have died. And these petulant fucks are going on vacation.

And what did Tony Snow have to say about it?

“You know, it’s 130 degrees in Baghdad in August,” he said, sympathetically.

Excuse me?” Did I fucking hear that right?

Yep.

Tony Snow has more sympathy for feckless Iraqi Parliamentarians than he does our G.I.’s in the field.

If it is too hot for them in the air conditioned parliament, how is it for the Americans on patrol in full battle-rattle? Does he even think about them?

I think not. If he did, he would not have opened his mouth and said something so utterly stupid and ~~unthinking~~ unfeeling and inconsiderate. What a tool. Any sympathy I felt for him personally just evaporated with that craven, infuriating comment. He is officially on my “I don’t give a fuck about you or your plight” list.

E-mother-fucking-nuff!!!

They don’t give a fuck about their own country, and we can’t want it for them.

They haven’t accomplished a god-damned thing, and they think they deserve a break? While Americans die? Fuck them.

Let me get this off my chest – I really don’t give a rat’s ass about Iraq, or their oil. I care about the Americans occupying the country on the orders of a deranged, delusional, cocaine-addled madman – who, by the way, still owes the Air Guard two years that he didn’t bother to serve after drug tests were mandated for pilots. George loves his god-damned occupation so fucking much, he needs to put his skin in the game. (And so do those idiot twit daughters of his.)

Not one more dollar, and not one more recruit. Not for a puppet government that can’t be bothered to care about their own damned country.

Contact your Senators and your Representatives. Do it right now. And here is a link to all the ways to contact the White House. Demand an end to this deadly exercise in futility.

Shirin

Excuse ME but what earthly right does the aggressor have to impose self-serving “benchmarks” on the Iraqi make-believe government in the first place? And what earthly right does the aggressor have to set as a benchmark an oil law that for all practical purposes hands Iraq’s oil over to them?

And what will be the Iraqis’ reward for meeting these “benchmarks”, and especially for handing over their oil? Why, the aggressor will stay around, of course. And what is the penalty for NOT meeting the benchmarks? Why, the aggressor will stay around. Wow! What an incentive!

And what a blood nerve! The criminal forces his way into the house, trashes the place, kills half the family, and then has the gall to make self-serving demands on the surviving victims. And now people who know enough to recognize the criminal and the crime for what they are – people who SHOULD know better – criticize the victims for not being diligent enough about meeting the self-serving demands of the criminals? WTF?!!!

r€nato

I would tend to agree with this comment. It’s rather arrogant of us to make such demands on a ‘sovereign’ nation, but I would expand on this comment that this issue shows up the inherent conflict in being a foreign invader/occupier who is determined to bring ‘democracy’ or at least ‘security’ to a nation where it is not wanted and which it does not understand.

That is:

Because our troops are fighting and dying there, because our nation is spending so much money to ostensibly ‘help’ Iraq get on its feet, it’s inevitable that we have the right – or at least, feel that we have the right – to make certain demands of them. Even Bush/war opponents like Larry J. believe this.
However, that doesn’t change the fact that we are treating the Iraqi government like our puppet with such demands/expectations. If the Iraqi parliament ‘gives in’, it makes it look like they answer to the beck and call of the US. This is not a matter of mere keeping-up-appearances; it goes straight to what little remaining credibility the government might have in the eyes of Iraqis.

This episode over the August vacation demonstrates this conflict quite clearly, where otherwise it may be hidden from our view in other areas. As for me, well I’m a Libra; obviously, I see it both ways. Or, maybe in the third way; this is inevitably what happens to all occupiers who think they are doing favors for countries which they occupy but don’t really understand.

Shirin

PS For the record, I don’t give a flying rat’s ass about the Americans who are participating in this crime against humanity, except that I want them out of there for everyone’s sake. I DO care about the Iraqis whose country and whose lives have been and continue to be utterly, and possibly irreparably devastated by those Americans who are occupying the country on the orders of a deranged, delusional, cocaine-addled madman.

Get this, Blue Girl, and I say this with all respect to you. Neither the Iraqis nor your Iraqi make-believe government owes you or your troops or your government or any American one damned thing. They don’t owe you a single one of your benchmarks. They don’t owe you a single nanosecond of their time. And they don’t owe you a single drop of their oil, or their blood. So if those they want to take a vacation good for them. They are not and were never there for Iraqis, but for Bush and his lousy regime. They couldn’t serve Iraqis if they wanted to, and if they prefer to take a vacation rather than to serve the criminal aggressors who invaded, conquered and occupied their country, I can applaud that at least.

Americans, however, owe Iraqis a great deal, and the first thing Americans owe them is to get out of their country, not in 2009, not in 2008, and not in September, but now. That is better for both the troops whom Bush is using as the tools of his imperial ambitions, and for their victims, the Iraqi people. I think that is one thing we agree on.

And after that we’ll send you the bill for the reparations you owe, and prepare the arrest warrants for the war criminals. I doubt you’ll disagree on that one either.

konopelli/wgg

Right the fuck ON, shirin…
It was the Busheviks that shit the bed.
Now they’re complainin’ that the dirty linen stinks.
The ICORP (Invasion, Conquest, Occupation, Rape & Pillage) of Iraq had absolutely ALL the malign consequences predicted by those of us who have opposed it since the outset; not least, that in the roles of invaders, conquerors, and occupiers, USer troops would regress into the modes of operation–ruthess, murderous bloody-mindedness, in particular, as the resistance to them being there grows, attacks on them increase, and insecurity as to the sympathies of ordinary Iraqis metastacizes, need for vengeance upon an enemy the invaders are told they are there to help–which characterize the behaviors of ALL invaders, conquerors, and occupiers in hostile ground…
Whatever is going on in Iraq today, it is NOT mostly the fault of the Iraqis.
It is the fault of the thugs and gunsels who willingly and enthusiaastically bought into the Bush crime family lies.
Delia

I have to agree with you, Shirin. Our propagandists bring up what we’re “doing” for the Iraqis only when it looks like the other reasons for our being there are in imminent danger of collapse. And no one in public life, not even the anti-war politicians seems willing to acknowledge that the reason Iraq is descending into chaos is because the US has systematically destroyed virtually all institutions of public order and left them essentially with a Hobbesian state of war of all against all. To blame the existing Iraqi government for not meeting imaginary benchmarks is ridiculous.

There are a couple of problems for the American public. First, virtually everyone is still caught up in the myth of American beneficence. I don’t know what it will take to ever shake that. Combine that with the events of 9/11 which created a myth of victimization and you’ve got a powerful and dangerous combination. I’ve seen it in people I know. The other thing is that most soldiers come from a social-economic background where they don’t have a lot of opportunities. It used to be the military provided a leg up. Now it just uses them as cannon fodder.

And I suspect they’re going to try to launch their war with Iran before Bush’s term is up. That’s going to be a catastrophe in the middle east and it’s going going to impoverish the US. Good luck on getting reparations out of us.

Chris Vosburg

Hm, that’s odd: Isn’t the entire month of August the chosen time in which President Bush tradtionally retires to the Lazy Dubya Ranch in Crawford for his own vacation?

Just sayin’.
Chris Vosburg

It’s probably just coincidence. Any implication that the Iraqi government is a fully owned and operated tool of the US is crazy talk, I tells ya, crazy talk.
GR3

It’s 130 degrees in Baghdad in August
So how about redeploying to the mountains in the north? Maybe our WH genius can get the 200,000 Turkish troops massed on the border to take our place in Baghdad!
Seriously, we shouldn’t make things worse than they already are. UNLIKE this administration…
Will the soundness of NATO be the next collateral calamity to happen under Bush?
Butts

Dear Blue Girl,
I believe the list of benchmarks is a phoney. What Bush wants is the Oil Law signed, and his army is staying until he gets it.
The Iraqis don’t want that law. They know what it would cost them – it would be throwing away their best hope for the future (there’s little enough hope in the present).
They are under a lot of pressure to get it signed and sealed. Their best bet? Close parliament and take a vacation.

konopelli/wgg

yep

Shirin

Good point, Butts. But the bottom line is that the criminal has no right to put conditions on his victims.
http://www.proctoringcongress.blogspot.com Blue Girl

Oh – I know they just want the Exxon enrichment act signed, and I know the Iraqi government is not (in theory) beholden to aggressor-imposed benchmarks. But that same Iraqi government is saying that they need the U.S. army to stay (so they don’t all end up dead) I just heard an Iraqi politician say it last night on the BBC overnight, iirc.

I’m just supremely offended by the “You stay here and get blown up, we’re going to the beach.”

And I’m really offended by Tony Snow’s excusing them because it’s hot and they “might get the vapors.”
Mart

The oil law makes as much difference to Bush as American law, which is to say none. It would be great public relations if the Iraqis would sign it, but either way we’re not leaving. The staggering sums built on the massive Embassy and permanent bases was not for a temporary stay – and what should concern America greatly is how they expected to keep that Embassy and those bases open if they lost the WH in 2008. Shorter version: they plan on keeping the WH by any means necessary.
Shirin

“They don’t give a fuck about their own country, and we can’t want it for them.”

Want WHAT for them, Blue Girl? Exactly what is it that you say you want for them that they are not accomplishing? I can’t wait to hear.

“They haven’t accomplished a god-damned thing, and they think they deserve a break?”

Yes, so sorry, dear, that they have not accomplished a single one of the Bush regime’s goals for them. Especially passing that oil bill that is intended to benefit them so very, very much that Bush has made it their number one priority.

“Not one more dollar, and not one more recruit. Not for a puppet government that can’t be bothered to care about their own damned country.”

Maybe after you calm down you will see how you have contradicted yourself here – a sure sign that you did not think through your rant before you posted it.

A puppet government by definition is not supposed to care about and act on behalf of their own country, are they? They are expected to care about and act on behalf of the puppet master, in this case the Bush regime. So which is it, Blue Girl? Are they a puppet government, in which case they are there to serve the Bush regime, not their “own country”, or are they supposed to care about and serve their “own country”, in which case they are not a puppet government. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t in the same breath admit that they are a puppet government and harangue them for not caring about their “own country”.

And by the way, do you REALLY believe it is for THEIR benefit that your government is spending $12 M and a hundred or so American lives per month? If so, then I have greatly overestimated your understanding of the situation.

Chief

Shirin,

It appears to me that you are completely mis-reading BGRS’s post.

Shirin

Blue Girl, I am sure the one you saw on the BBC was Hoshiar Zebari, the make-believe Foreign Minister – Kurds call him the “kitchen cat”. He, along with the corrupt Kurdish mafioso warlord, Jalal Talibani cum make-believe President, is the one who keeps begging the Americans to stay. I know those two very well, and I know their history (Talibani, among other tings, is the very personification of the word opportunist – you should have seen how he used to suck up to Saddam whenever he thought it would serve him).

Believe me, the main reason they keep going on the media to insist that the Americans must stay is to keep the Bush regime happy with them. They are the biggest puppets of all – true puppets. Maliki will also say the Americans must stay because he knows Bush will replace him if he does not keep Bush happy. (Yes, indeed, Iraq is a sovereign country with a legitimate, independent “democratically elected” government, any one or all of whom Bush can fire and replace any time he wants to.)

There is actually a lot of opposition to the occupation in the make-believe parliament.

There is actually strong opposition in the mak
Shirin

By the way, Blue Girl, just to clarify, the members of the Iraqi make-believe government who keep making public statements about how the Americans can’t leave are not members of the parliament, they are Zebari, Talibani, and Maliki, the make-believe foreign minister, president, and prime minister (lower case intentional). I do not recall hearing any member of the make-believe parliament calling on the the Americans to stay.

Nothing I say should be construed as support for or defense of the Iraqi make-believe government.
ybnormal

It often seems to me that Tony Snow was chosen for his ability to come across in the same stupid way that Bush does. What better way to test out ahead of time, via the press secretary, how the stupidity of Bush will play?

If the Iraqi Pariament is on vaca for August, they must believe it’s the acceptable thing to do that they can get away with. How did a puppet government get that idea? Maybe they just followed the example of the puppetmaster.

Seriously, the weather has nothing to do with it. Non-accomplishent of a stable society really must be the goal, since every action taken has predictably led to this result.

So much is wrong with the Iraq situation it’s become a cluster-f*@k of orgy proportions. It’s as if planning conferences are being held to figure out what all the effective solutions are, and then orders are dispatched for everyone on the ground to do the exact opposite.

When will people wake up and get it, that election campaigns are not held as a public service – they’re paid advertising – buyer beware; that if you really want to know what someone will be like in office, you have to review their actual track record; that if a candidate doesn’t have a credible track record, they have to go back home and get one; that it really matters when the president is an incompetent idiot boy with no real world experience; that his incompetency is what enables corruption on steroids, because no one is held accountable, and the buck is consistently passed and never stops.

When will people wake up and get it, that U.S. foreign policy needs to be re-focused on the simple concept of, mind our own F*@King business in the world, instead of imperialistically trying to pound everyone into submission?
lidia

It is very sad. So-called “opposition” to Bush is nothing more than the same imperislism, only more “clever” one. Juan Cole is another great example. But, anyway, Iraq will be free as a result of Iraqis’ struggle, not some dems’ good intentions (or what they see as a good intentions)

And, by the way, I guess Maliki and others REALLY want occupators to stay. They must know what was the fate of other puppets after their British masters left about a half century ago.
http://www.proctoringcongress.blogspot.com Blue Girl

Shirin, you really should read a bit further on my site. I think you’ll find I “get it” if you do.
Shirin

“Non-accomplishent of a stable society really must be the goal”

Whose goal? I doubt it is the goal of the Iraqi make-believe government, and I don’t see the connection between that and their taking a vacation in August.
Shirin

Blue Girl, prior to this post of yours, I saw you clearly as getting it, so I can only conclude that this was an aberration. I have to tell you that some of your remarks in this post were pretty outrageous for someone who seems to get it as well as you do, and I was pretty disappointed by them.
wethornet

shirin, minor correction. think you meant to say that the us is spending $12 B a month. as in BILLION. not million. also, jos. stiglitz, nobel economist and linda blimes of harvard have said this war will cost at leat $ 2.2 Trillion, with a “T” dollars. (and the longer we dick around there the more the “taxi meter” will increase.) to put that in perspective that is roughly the entire federal budget for the year. and our whole economy is a $12 trillion dollar enterprise.

shirin, i find you very articulate. and a great defender of the average iraqi. (i loved riverbend’s blog.) one thing i’d encourage you and everyone here to have as a talking point is the us has killed the equivalent of about 7.2 million americans, and forced 22 million americans to flee their homes, and another 22 million americans to flee their country. i’m using the population ratio of iraqi to americans as my figures. multipy – using round #s – by 11.

bgrs, you know tony snow’s job is to perpetuate the snow job. i do love righteous anger sister. and i also believe that, as in “in vino weritas”, i also believe in anger, veritas. i do believe in calling people on their bullsh*t. in calling “foul.” in watching how language is used and abused.
~~~~~~

(warning: snark tone adopted) i think it is really rude of those eye-rackees to not control their border; after all look at the great job dubya’s doing on our mes-can border. also, it is downright rude that the eye-rackee’s parleement goes off on a month long vacation in august, when our congresscritters are disappearing for the month of august on their annual recess. the nerve. and how much days has the crawford cowboy — anybody ever seen this boy on a HORSE? jes wondering — spent clearing brush and away from the store in d.c. while the “existential struggle” was going on. (end snark tone.)

the major bitch the admin. has with this is the oil law. and some amer. oil executive already said w/i the last 4-6 wks. that whatever law is written will be rewritten once we leave/are kicked out by the new gvt. which will hate our guts. memo to amer. oil executives lusting for “our oil under their soil”: be careful whatcha pray fer.
~~~~~~~

on a seperate issue. one of the most important things is that there is a nationwide call to bug the crap out of your congresscritters starting this august 6th. due to technical difficulties i can’t post. but the organizaation is http://www.vcnv.org. called project occupation/swarming congress. org’s name is voices for creative nonviolence. used to be voices in the wilderness. ran into trouble w the us treasury dpt. went to iraq during sanctions time period many times. was there as human shields during the first days of the invasion in ’93. kathy kelly. one of the most remarkable human beings i have ever met. 3 time nobel peace prize nominee. chicago. veterans for peace. codepink. and a raft of orgs are behind it. they did this last spring. beaucoup congcritter offices were “under seige”. some people getting arrested. (you can go in support; no need to get arrested…unless you want to.) the american people are revolting. indeed, indeed, they are.

my walter mitty fantasy is that this country erupts in fury this august and really lets our public servants know how we feel. and we want change damnit. and, provided we have an election in ’08 (not a sure thing with this crowd i regret to say), we will hold them accountable.

i would encourage y’all to bookmark the congress/white house contact info bgrs gave us. they should be on speed dial imho. and also, contact your congresscritters. poss. join or start a group in your area that will be visitng said folks.

bgrs, susanunpc, and all others. i would LOVE to see this mentioned on the blogosphere. we can bitch, piss and moan on the internets……which is fine and valuable, but what i’d love to see is using the blogs as a “combat multiplier” and a few coordinated campaigns and we really turn the heat up.

as the late, great molly ivins said, “find out who’s raising hell and join ‘em.” (hint: veterans for peace and also the quakers, amer. friends service cmte. is throughout the u.s.a.)
wethornet

ybnormal, i have used operation clusterf*ck for years. flat out love your clusterf*ck of orgy proportions. ))
Shirin

PS Blue Girl, to be honest, I was deeply offended by some of your remarks in the original post.
Shirin

Wethornet (I have heard the expression “madder than a wet hen” – is a wethornet the same concept, only with a bad sting?),

Yes, thanks, I meant $12 B.

And thanks for reminding me of the population proportion argument. It is also useful when discussion Falluja to ask them to imagine someone bombing Cincinnati to rubble, since that is about the same size, though hardly the same historic significance. (By the way, the history of the whole Falluja story is worth relating because it is nothing like the way it has been presented, but that will have to take place at another time.)

And thanks for your kind words. Sincere kind words are always welcome.

For the record, as I have already stated to Blue Girl, I found some of her statements very offensive, and lacking connection to reality. So, I have to say that sometimes in vino veritas, and as often in vino B.S.
Joe1347

Saudi Arabian oil declines 8% in 2006

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2325

Spend some time on oildrum.com and the reason why we are in Iraq and will never leave seems to make sense.

If some of the recent data can be believed, the Saudi oil fields are in decline. So are the North Sea and Mexican oil fields. Iraq look like the last large relatively untapped mega-oil field. With demand (for oil) increasing and the supply starting to decline, you don’t need an MBA to understand that the price (for oil) will continue to increase along with periodic supply disruptions in the not too distant future. We’re talking much higher prices at the pump (in a few years along with periodic shortages which will translate to gas lines. Americans may grumble about $4 a gallon gas, but what do you think the publics response will be to gas lines?

Ok back to Iraq, pretty much everything out there on the surge predicted that it wouldn’t work – as in ‘stabilizing’ Iraq. Was the surge instead a not so subtle ploy to pressure the Iraqi Government to hand over the oil (to the USA) and allow mega-bases squatting on top of the oil? Or more simply, hand over the oil or we’ll keep shooting up your citizens and blowing up everything in sight. By taking an August ‘vacation’, the Iraqi Government seems like they’re just trying to wait us out. Does it all boil down to a simple question of who will give in first, the USA or the Iraqi Government.
brat

Yes, it’s long overdue that the US get out, since we should have never started this war. If I remember correctly, the UN (1940s version) hung Germans for starting WWII.

And yes, the earlier poster is right–we need to cause our congresscritters ENDLESS heartburn RIGHT NOW about the war. For those pols who support Bush or are squishy on a US pull out, point out that this is the “leave the troops to die” strategy (I wish our pols cared about the Iraqis, but nothing I’ve seen in the last 5 years indicates they give a rat’s ass–horrifying). We just need to hit our pols, and the bootlicking press corps, with this point (leave them to die in the heat) over and over and over again.
http://www.bytehead.org/blog/ Bryan Price

So Mr. Snow is showing compassion for the lawmakers. Who are going to have to deal with the heat regardless BECAUSE THEY LIVE THERE.

Of course, screw the troops. What a way to support the troops. Nothing like extending their stay another 3 months so they get to experience this same hot weather two years in a row for what? I’ve got one son who got extended four weeks before he was to return home, and another son who just got deployed to Iraq – for 15 months. Which is another thing I don’t understand. They’ve just turned all deployments to 15 months now???

Tony Snow needs his jaw broken. And his boss needs to be impeached.

And maybe I need to start a weekly email and mail compaign writing to my congress critters and the Idiot-in-Command.

PrchrLady

I understand and concur… With 3 sons still active, one home after 3 BTB tours, and getting busted in rank to prevent him from getting help and benefits, makes one wonder how any of these neocons can say they ‘support the troops,’ I know the best way… BRING THEM HOME NOW, and send the imbecile in chief to ‘fix it up just right’… maybe he should take his daughters with him, they would be good fodder for the insurgents. Let them fight them there so we don’t have to do it here…

Waiting in Texas

Hey Chris Vosburg – you might be on to something here about the timing of the Iraqi Parliment vacation and Bush’s vacation. On a side note, our troops didn’t get the month off. What else is going on during the month of August? Wonder if Bushie et al knows something we don’t about the month of August. Might be worth exploring, you know, since Michael “has a gut feeling” Chertoff thinks that the timing is right for a terrorist attack.
Depressed

Siiighh.
cheney through bush’s ineptitude and our voting public’s belief in mystical sky wizards has wrought irreparable harm to this nation and much of the middle east.
I am depressed beyond my ability to articulate any sense of the feeling of emptiness in MY gut.
mudkitty

One day, the entire press corps should just walk out on him en masse. He so insults our intelligence.
Mart

From the press conference discussing the Iraqi Parliament vacation:

“Bush said that when he asked Gen. Tommy Franks, the Central Command chief during the initial invasion in March 2003, whether he had enough troops, he told him he did. Bush said he recalled sitting in a meeting downstairs at the White House asking each commander responsible for different aspects of the operations that led to toppling Saddam Hussein.

“I said to each one of them `Do you have what it takes?’ Are you satisfied with the strategy?’ And the answer was `Yes,’ ” Bush said.

“I think Gen. Franks did a superb job,” Snow said.”

Of course each commander was satisfied with the strategy and had enough resources, because Rumsfeld had told them they were satisfied with the strategy and had enough resources. To speak up to the President and question the strategy or ask for more resources was a ticket to the Old Generals home. Just as the intelligence was fixed around the objective of invading Iraq, the plan for invasion was fixed around an ideological belief system which had no grounding in any actual combat experiences, but in theories put forth by think tank weenies.

These shameless comments by our cowardly President were overshadowed by the “Iraqis going on vacation while our troops die nonsense”, but IMHO were much more newsworthy. With the propaganda groundwork being laid for war with Iran and the recent attack on the green zone, for all we know the Iraqi representatives may be taking the month off to flee the country.
Juan Moment

The Iraqi parliament going on a holiday will make no difference to the Iraqi people, and probably has also little noticeable impact on US troops. Maybe it really is, as someone above mentioned, simply a clever way for Iraqi politicians to escape US pressure to ratify the rather unpopular oil laws.

I’d have to agree with the comments pointing out that if anyone is responsible for US troops being there, grilling in the heat, and thus should not be allowed to go on holidays till the mess is cleaned up, then it is Bush, Cheney and Rice. Speaking of Bush, he mentioned in a May statement that we should prepare for a Bloody August in Iraq.
SusanUnPC

Blue Girl, good rant.

Shirin: “Neither the Iraqis nor your Iraqi make-believe government owes you or your troops or your government or any American one damned thing. …”

Shirin: “For the record, I don’t give a flying rat’s ass about the Americans who are participating in this crime against humanity, except that I want them out of there for everyone’s sake. I DO care about the Iraqis. …”

Glad you stated all that for the record. I could have sworn you became a U.S. citizen years ago. So it’s important to know where all your sympathies lie, and that you have no sympathy for any American. It’s sad, but important.

People like me who vociferously opposed this war long before it began — because it was excruciatingly obvious 1) that the Bush administration was hell-bent on the war regardless of evidence, the U.N., etc. and 2) it would cause catastrophe, which many astute Americans predicted — hate that Americans are over there. But we don’t hate them, and are deeply concerned about their welfare.

And every anti-war person I know is horrified by the huge numbers of Iraqi civilians dead and wounded, as well as the millions who’ve fled Iraq or are displaced.

When it comes to sympathies for the individuals caught up in this war, there are no sides.

You missed your chance to bash U.S. troops, Shirin. That happened in the late 1960s/early 1970s. I witnessed it firsthand when I took my cousin, in his military uniform, around a campus where he got nasty stares and remarks. I felt so badly for him, and very protective of him even though I hated the Vietnam war. It wasn’t his war. We all learned from that.
http://www.proctoringcongress.blogspot.com Blue Girl

Calmer now…Shirin, I am sorry I offended you when I went into my patented and trademarked redheaded rage©.

I was one of the people in 2002 saying that this was wrong, the administration was lying, that the intel was bad, and the consequences were going to be epically fucked up, beyond the scope of anyones imagination. I was dumbfounded by the jingoism and ethnocentric hubris, lack of cultural awareness, and flat-out, home-grown stupidity, coupled with willful ignorance.

I pretty much predicted, to a “t”, exactly what was going to happen. For having the temerity to know the score, I was threatened and harassed at work (I’m a retired GSA) and heckled by a few young-punk butter bar officers on base who seemed to think that Starship Troopers was an ops manual. One night in March 2003, on my way in to work (night shift) a jackass with a bumpersticker that read “This Time Anti War is Anti American” (that I saw as he sped away rammed my) rammed my truck from behind three times and tried to force me into a guardrail. Because I had a “Peace is Patriotic” sticker on MY truck.

I am a realist. I wish we could unring that bell, but we can’t. To that end, I look at the situation as it exists today, and I see nothing being done by anyone to end this clusterfuck that should never have happened. The hubris of thinking that the entire fucking world wants to be just like us is offensive beyond belief to me; so the rest of the world has to really hate us. Heckuva job, George.

Again – sorry my outburst offended you. I am frustrated beyond belief, watching the military broken and run into the ground. I am not in general Anti War. But from 2002 I have been anti this war.
Mart

Agreed Susan, this is a humanitarian disaster of grand proportion, just as Vietnam was. One of the exceedingly difficult problems to grapple with here, and perhaps this is the crux of the disagreement between Blue Girl and Shirin, is how to support and care for troops who are generally 19 year old and idealistic, while understanding they are part of a military machine controlled by neocon madmen. The military has generally escaped blame, with the oft repeated analogy of being the attack dog released from the cage by the Executive – therefore accountability lies with the Executive. However, those lines are now blurred to say the least. When the VP is formerly CEO of one of the primary “no-bid” contractors, and Congressman are accepting bribes to allow in military contractors with a poor track record (or no track record)to supply the troops, or when arms dealers like Richard Perle are given prominence in deciding foreign policy, or when Generals like Boykin make comments like “Our God is bigger than their God”, they have all become part of the same hypocrisy. And for Americans who believe this has nothing to do with them, that it involves Iraqis and American troops on the other side of the world with no consequences here, think again. While the Aristocrats celebrate another new high in the Dow, most Americans suffer paycheck to paycheck from $3 gas and skyrocketing food prices. Our reputation around the world is shattered, and when faced with buying American goods and services or an alternative, the alternative is becoming very attractive. We are all going to answer for this debacle, one way or the other.
ybnormal

stated: “Non-accomplishent of a stable society really must be the goal”

Q by Shirin: “Whose goal?”

A: My perception is it’s the neocon goal. This is more than a few mistakes along the way. When most if not all decisions on action appear to be the opposite of what should have been decided, it logically leads to the idea that the resulting disaster was on purpose.

Q: “I doubt it is the goal of the Iraqi make-believe government, and I don’t see the connection between that and their taking a vacation in August.”

A: I doubt it’s the goal of Iraq’s government either. I also doubt that they’re vacationing simply due to weather conditions. It’s probably SOP. I read where in Iraq they’re taking one month instead of two. By comparison, the U.S. Congress also takes vacations, in spite of failing to meet what should be a benchmark of reigning in the president, which is a large part of their appoval ratings being even lower than the president’s.

I can’t help wondering if Snow said this to get people riled up, since it usually riles people up when the U.S. Congress takes a vacation. I’m sure it provides great cover from the White House’s own failings. While it’s not the best idea for Iraq parliament to go on vacation in the middle of civil chaos, in terms of the confidence level of their own constituents; the reality is that in terms of meeting U.S. imposed benchmarks, if or when to vacation doesn’t matter, since the benchmarks will never be met as long as Iraqis are playing on the losing side of a fixed game.

It seems to me that at a minimum, the U.S. military should be taken off the front lines. This would be more effective if it was made clear that leaving the front lines was the first step in leaving altogether. If this had already happened, there would likely be less factional violence, the Iraqi government could then accomplish more, and as a result, vacation would be less of an issue.
kerryinalaska

From here in Alaska I have to say it looks like the Iraqi quasi-parliment has found the *ushit methods works well. Stall. *ushit puts pressure on the sorta-parliment, sorta-parliment takes a vacation. Benchmark still undone. Good stuff, using *ushits style against himself, and shows this administration for the fools they are.
I’m a vet, twice enlisted, and I really feel sorry for the pawns in uniform, whatever country they might be from, who have to run around being targets in a very hot place. However, they are not there because the Iraqis can’t accomplish anything, though it seems they can’t, but because of a criminal military action instigated by *ushit and a complicit congress.
I must agree with Shirin above; it is not the Iraqi part to comply with *ushits orders or meet american (and the lower case is intentional, my way of hanging the flag upside down so to speak), expectations, it is our part to get the fuck out, yesterday, as we are operating in criminal action. We have destroyed what at least was an operating country, if not a happy one. In our name was this ugly evil deed done and I for one am one pissed off american, but also one american who holds no sway on events.
Greed and self aggrandizement have always been a force for destruction of human beings and environments but I am sure angry and sad that my once great government has been brought so low as to be a tool for evil fools.
It is a sad time to be alive.
Mart

Blue Girl,
regarding the moron who rammed your car, I have an interesting story which might you some vicarious relief: right wingers tend to believe anyone who disagrees with Bush or his debacle is somehow weak and effeminate – uh, no. I generally ignore stupid bumper stickers or ignorant comments, but I was in a Home Depot parking lot in 2004 and lost my cool: A pickup, parked in a handicap zone, sported bumper stickers “John Kerry for President of France” and “Conserve Water, Piss On a Liberal”. I walked by, stopped, and about that time here came the owner with another guy. Now, with their aforementioned mentality that anyone who disagrees with them is weak, I’m sure when he saw a 6’1″, 255lb powerlifter approaching, he thought it was for a slap on the back and hardy handshake – I said: “Excuse me, got a second?” he said: “Sure”. I said, “I like John Kerry, and I am probably a hippy, so you need to apologize for driving around town with that garbage on your bumper, and for parking in a handicap spot”. He was speechless as the blood drained from his face – his pal jumped in the truck and shut the door. So, he looks downward and says “sorry” in a real soft voice. I walked away laughing derisively. I know when he got a safe distance away he told his pal how close I came to getting killed.
Montag

Oh WOW, colored tabs!
Blue Girl,
The best revenge is that HIS bumpersticker probably isn’t there any more and yours IS. We just “celebrated” our FIFTH Independence Day in Iraq, and Gen. Petraeus tells us reassuringly that there’ll be many, many more.

As President Grover Cleveland so charmingly put it in 1887: “The lesson should be enforced that though the people support the government, the government should not support the people.”

On the Iraqi Parliament’s vacation, it doesn’t make much difference because so many of them remain out of the country for safety anyway that it’s difficult to make a quorum anyway. And the U.S. Congress is taking August off, too–a holdover from when AIR CONDITIONING was just a crazy dream in D.C. That may be partly behind Tony Snow’s remark.
http://www.proctoringcongress.blogspot.com Blue Girl

Mart: Thanks for that! I’m laughing here and loving that visual!

Montag: The Ranger is gone…now it’s successor is on a hybrid.:)
Shirin

“So Mr. Snow is showing compassion for the lawmakers. Who are going to have to deal with the heat regardless BECAUSE THEY LIVE THERE.”

The so-called “lawmakers” do not need Mr. Snow’s compassion. They work and live in the Green Zone where the electricity and therefore the air conditioning never stops running. If they have to step outside for a few minutes to get from their air conditioned building to their air conditioned SUV to their air conditioned home, oh well. If they have been living in Iraq all their lives, they are used to it, if they are part of the American-imported group, let them go back to where they Americans found them in the first place. They don’t belong in Iraq anymore anyway. I have less sympathy for them than I do for the troops.

My lack of sympathy for the troops, and the fact that at least they get some relief from the heat when not out making Iraqis’ lives even more miserable, I can at least recognize on an intellectual level that Tony Snow certainly owes THEM some compassion (and the regime Snow lies for owes them so very much more). They have been sent to risk their lives and blood on a vicious fool’s errand, and we all know who the fool-in-chief is. However, their discomfort from the heat is not something I can care about, even intellectually.

Tony Snow owes no compassion to the Iraqi make-believe parliament. He owes some compassion (and by his association with the regime as Bush’s official public liar, a whole lot more). But the people who are REALLY deserving of Tony’s Snow’s compassion are the Iraqi people BECAUSE THEY LIVE THERE IN A COUNTRY THAT HIS BOSS HAS DESTROYED WILLFULLY AND VIRTUALLY COMPLETELY. Unlike the make-believ parliament, they do not live and work and travel in air conditioned comfort. Unlike the troops, who can get SOME relief from the heat each day, they get NO relief from the heat, EVER. And unlike the troops, the vast majority of whom will get out of the hell they (the troops) have created, return home to the USA and resume their lives, the Iraqis cannot escape the hell created for them by Bush via the American troops, BECAUSE THEY LIVE THERE. THEY ARE HOME.

So, to recap, Tony Snow owes

- no compassion to the make-believe “lawmakers”.

- Some compassion (and at the end of the day, a lot more) to the troops.

- Limitless compassion to the Iraqis whose lives and country have been irreversibly ruined by the regime he lies for.
mudkitty

The Bushies sold you with a cakewalk, and now they’re baiting and switching with the whole “it’s going to be a long haul” crap. As if the American people EVER wanted to be in Iraq for a long haul.
Shirin

“the entire press corps should just walk out on him en masse.”

Bill Moyers (PBS) had a great discussion last night on the issue of impeachment (I commented on it at some length in the “Bush’s Finger” thread) in which the subject of the WH press corps came up. What if, Bill’s guests asked, every day the press corps pressed Tony Snow on the issue of the unconstitutional nature of so many of the Bush regime’s actions. What if, they asked, the press corps did their job of monitoring and confronting the centers of power, which is, as the great Israeli journalist, Amira Hass*, insists is the REAL job of journalists. The guests asserted that if the press actually did their job, Congress would be forced to stop playing partisan politics, and do THEIR jobs.

* Amira Hass is an Israeli-born Jewish journalist who reports on the now 40-year-long Israeli occupation and colonization of Palestine, who lived in Ghaza during the first Intifada, and who has lived in Ramallah in the West Bank for the last ten or fifteen years.
Shirin

Susan:

I could have sworn you became a U.S. citizen years ago.

So what? Why does whether or not I am a U.S. citizen, and more tellingly whether I “became” one or was, like you and most people here, born one make a difference?

So it’s important to know…that you have no sympathy for any American.

Susan, please respond to what I actually say. Please do not put words into my mouth that are not mine, in order to make your position more “righteous”.

I did not say I have no sympathy for any American.

“People like me who vociferously opposed this war long before it began…don’t hate [Americans who are "over there"], and are deeply concerned about their welfare.”

And that obligates me, as someone who “became a citizen years ago” to feel the same as “people like you”? At what point, then, Susan, am I allowed to have and express my own, independent views and feelings as an American citizen?

And once again, Susan, please either point out where I have EVER said I hated anyone or any group of people, let alone Americans who are “over there”?

“every anti-war person I know is horrified by the huge numbers of Iraqi civilians dead and wounded, as well as the millions who’ve fled Iraq or are displaced.”

So, then, how would you suggest I interpret, and react to, this statement from Blue Girl: “I really don’t give a rat’s ass about Iraq…“?

“When it comes to sympathies for the individuals caught up in this war, there are no sides.”

And of course, I am not entitled to feel or view the matter differently.

“You missed your chance to bash U.S. troops, Shirin.”

Susan, you are too intelligent and thoughtful and aware to mistake anything I have said for “bashing” of troops. The only ones I have bashed here are the Iraqi make-believe government, and the Bush regime and its allies.
http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

Mart wrote: … how to support and care for troops who are generally 19 year old and idealistic, while understanding they are part of a military machine controlled by neocon madmen. The military has generally escaped blame, with the oft repeated analogy of being the attack dog released from the cage by the Executive – therefore accountability lies with the Executive. However, those lines are now blurred to say the least. …

Excellent expansion of the discussion, Mart.

“We are all going to answer for this debacle, one way or the other.”

We are. And it seems to me that this isn’t going to end for years and years, for a host of reasons. The financial pressures from major corporations, the fear within politicians of being labeled a quitter or loser, the blowback from the surely inevitable chaos in Iraq post-U.S.-withdrawal, and on and on.
Depressed

kerryinalaska: “We have destroyed what at least was an operating country, if not a happy one”.

Uh,until Sadam was baited by elder bush into invading Kuwait,Iraq was indeed a relatively happy country by mid east standards.
Shirin

Susan, just so it is clear:

To qualify as bashing someone or something a comment must be ABOUT the person or thing, and it must be excessively, and/or unreasonably harsh, accusatory, and/or threatening. A statement about one’s own feelings does not qualify as bashing because it is a comment about oneself, and not the person or thing being referred to. A factual statement about the person or thing or their behaviour or state is not bashing even if if it is harsh, as long as it is factual and not exaggerated. Such a factual statement is also not bashing even if it is uttered in anger.

Now, Susan, since it is you who have made the excessively, unreasonably harsh accusation that I have engaged in “troop bashing” (which, if untrue, constitutes bashing me), kindly either back up your accusation by providing direct quotes of mine on this page that qualify as troop bashing, or retract your accusation.

Centrocitta

….A statement about one’s own feelings does not qualify as bashing because it is a comment about oneself, and not the person or thing being referred to….

Agreed, Shirin. Feelings are never right or wrong. They’re just feelings. Furthermore, when a person uses “I” statements to express feelings, he is NEVER laying blame (or bashing). He is just using a very effective, learned technique called Assertive Skills. We would all be better served if we knew how to communicate in this manner.

konopelli/wgg

With all the new bells and whistles, this got put into the discourse way at the top of the thread…but i wanna repeat it here:
Right the fuck ON, shirin…
It was the Busheviks that shit the bed.
Now they’re complainin’ that the dirty linen stinks.
The ICORP (Invasion, Conquest, Occupation, Rape & Pillage) of Iraq had absolutely ALL the malign consequences predicted by those of us who have opposed it since the outset; not least, that in the roles of invaders, conquerors, and occupiers, USer troops would regress into the modes of operation–ruthess, murderous bloody-mindedness, in particular, as the resistance to them being there grows, attacks on them increase, and insecurity as to the sympathies of ordinary Iraqis metastacizes, need for vengeance upon an enemy the invaders are told they are there to help–which characterize the behaviors of ALL invaders, conquerors, and occupiers in hostile ground…
Whatever is going on in Iraq today, it is NOT mostly the fault of the Iraqis.
It is the fault of the thugs and gunsels who willingly and enthusiaastically bought into the Bush crime family lies…
Mart

I think, besides the obvious reasons, part of the rage bleeding all of our emotions is the reality we now have a majority of Americans agreeing with us, yet nothing changes. If anything, the boy king is even more defiant and mocking. Our Democratic leaders spend a lot of time talking about what needs to happen, how things need to be, instead of walking the walk. Goodling lies to Congress, Miers doesn’t even show: file contempt charges and have them arrested. Just do it. Bush urged Miers to defy the subpoena, which is a felony: file the charge and issue a warrant for the SAA to arrest him. The act, even if unenforceable, forces Bush and Cheney into full dictator mode for all the Nation to see. Many Americans may not understand the danger of warrantless wiretapping and defying Congressional subpoenas – but troops surrounding the WH to protect the frat boy would scare the shit out of them.
Besides actually jailing law breakers, another powerful weapon is language. Since most of us probably agree the fate of the Republic is at stake, perhaps Reid and Pelosi should hold pressers and use words like “war criminals”, “treason”, “dictator”, etc. The press simply cannot ignore this, it would set the whole world abuzz, and give that huge majority some confidence that Bush and Cheney are actually being opposed. Most importantly, it would be the truth.

Unfortunately, it may be that our Democratic leaders may not rival the Delay/Abramhoff/RNC corruption machine, but they still have the tentacles of big oil and big military and the religious right grasping at them. Bush and Cheney have made their supporters a lot of money. Vast sums of money. Some may now want them gone, but not in some icky bad for business way like impeachment (but the Dow would drop!). I hope there are some in Congress with a little Founding Father spirit in them who can overcome it.
konopelli/wgg

What will rid us of the Busheviks–and probably the only thing–is to surround the ShiteHouse with a million or more citizens waving pitchforks and brandishing torches…day and fucking night…until the Busheviks are (or feel themselves) compelled to open fire…or flee, which ever comes first…
it’s win-win: if they cut-and-run, then all the better; if they shoot first then run, there’ll be a couple new (deceased) American heroes to honor.
.
Shirin

“until Sadam was baited by elder bush into invading Kuwait,Iraq was indeed a relatively happy country by mid east standards.”

During the period between the termination (by Iraq) of diplomatic relations with the U.S. in 1967, and their resumption (at the very aggressive instigation of the Reagan regime) in the early ’80′s, Iraq was a prosperous, socially progressive (if politically repressive, as is any dictatorship) country with modern, well-designed, well-built, well-maintained infrastructure. It had economic and social programs that most American progressives would drool over, and in the ’70′s and ’80′s it rose to the status of an emerging first world country.

- It was recognized as having the best system of distribution to the population of national wealth of any oil producing country.

- State education was free to all citizens through post graduate, including medical and dental school. (That was not new, but had been the case for most of Iraq’s history as an independent state.)

- Iraq had an excellent – and free – education abroad program (that has been the case for most of Iraq’s history, and was not something new).

- It had one of the best higher education systems in the region. Students came from all over the world to study at Iraq’s colleges and universities.

- Its medical system was state-of-the art, and considered the best in the region.

- Women in Iraq had full and equal rights, freedoms, and respect under the law. Iraq had the highest number of women with advanced degrees of any country in the region, one of the highest female literacy rates, and one of the lowest male-to-female literacy rate differentials. Women freely pursued and succeeded in professions (e.g. science, engineering, technology, medicine, dentistry) in which American women were still struggling to be taken seriously. (This was nothing new really. Iraq has always been one of the best, if not THE best, places in Asia to be a woman.)

I do not think it is a coincidence that the beginning of Iraq’s slide downhill coincided with the Reagan regimes aggressive and determined courting of Saddam and the resumption of diplomatic and – significantly – economic relations, and military assistance.

But let’s not paint Saddam as an innocent victim here. HE, not Reagan, made the decision and took the action of invading Iran. HE, not Bush I, made the decision and took the action of invading Kuwait. That he was “baited” and “encouraged” by his U.S. supporters to take those actions, and that he was assisted and encouraged to prolong the ruinous war with Iran, and that the oh, so, morally superior U.S. gave him a wink and a nod to – and sometimes assisted encouraged him in – the commission of his worst crimes and atrocities does not absolve him. It simply makes them his co-criminals.
Mart

Blue Girl, I always try to give a wide berth when someone is RUTIR (Ranting Under the Influence of Rage), since I so frequently do it myself

This caught my attention:

“They don’t give a fuck about their own country, and we can’t want it for them.”

I don’t think Iraqi’s view Iraq the way, for example, you and I view America. Iraqi borders are a result of Western imperialism, and the abstraction called Iraq was more a collection of tribes held together by shared religious values and kept from killing each other by a strongman. Not to say they don’t have ANY national identity, just that when push come to shove the Iraqi policeman might privately tell you he obeys his warlord, not Maliki.

Which, of course, brings us back to the supreme idiocy of invading Iraq.
jerry

Shirin
My guess is you must be a Kurdish American because with the exception of my Irish breathren no people in the world have the skill
Kurds possess for fighting with their friends while the enemy of both watches and waits. I’m sure it wasn’t a Kurd who said”the perfect is the enemy of the good”
Shirin

Mart, your last comment could not be more wrong. You have SO much to learn about Iraq, historically, socially, culturally, demographically, functionally. Iraq is not an “abstraction”, nor is it a “collection of tribes” who are “kept from killing each other by a strongman”. And historically since statehood Iraqis of all tribes, religions, and ethno-linguistic groups have identified as Iraqis first and foremost. Those are facts.

Yes, the modern-day nation state of Iraq was created by the imperialist powers. However, that does not negate the fact that the people of the region (which was known as Iraq long before the modern-day nation state was created) had a sense of regional identity for centuries prior to statehood. It is also a fact that Iraq’s population has always been one of the most religiously, ethnically, and linguistically diverse places on earth. Both before and after statehood Iraq’s very diverse peoples lived together, worked together, cooperated, intermixed, intermingled, and frequently intermarried at a high rate with no more conflict than any other diverse population, and far less than most.

The fact that the modern-day nation state known as Iraq was created by western imperialism does not negate the fact that Iraqis’ sense of regional identity, and their centuries’-long habit of cooperation and comingling quickly evolved into a strong nationalism that has been recognized and admired throughout the Arab world.

This notion of Iraq as “a collection of tribes” completely ignores Iraq’s many centuries of strongly urban-centered tradition (do not forget that the concept and reality of the city-state arose in Mesopotamia/Iraq). A major portion of Iraq’s population has NO TRACEABLE TRIBAL CONNECTION AT ALL (my very, very large family is one example of many). Another large part of the population has only the most distant and vague affiliation to its tribal past. Many of Iraq’s ethno-linguistic groups have no tribal history at all, even in rural/agrarian areas. For a good part of the 20th century Iraq has had a majority urban population, in which tribal affiliations have weakened or disappeared altogether.

Contrary to the “received truth” propagated so widely by know-nothing pundits, self-appointed “experts”, credulous wishful thinkers, and Google jockies, it is a fact that Iraq, both before and after statehood HAS NO HISTORY OF SERIOUS, WIDESPREAD, OR PROTRACTED SECTARIAN OR CIVIL CONFLICT. Prior to March, 2003, that is.

It is not difficult to determine what has caused this terrible breakdown in relations between Iraqis, but that will have to wait for the future. This will do for now.
Shirin

Jerry, please excuse me if I am misreading your comment, and if I am, please clarify.

Are you suggesting that in the interest of “keeping peace with my American friends”, I should just keep silent when I disagree with what they say, that I should not correct their misconceptions and mistaken ideas, and that I should not express my objections when they make false and/or offensive statements, or when they unjustly accuse and attack me? Are you suggesting that I should try to avoid offending them in any way?

That sounds horribly condescending, just for starters – not too different from the person here who so “kindly” instructed me of my “place” by advising me that I should talk only about the misery and suffering of the Iraqi people – in other words, my function should be to play the victim. And then there are those who repeatedly remind me of how they unconsciously view the status and rights to independent thought and expression of those who “become” American citizens.

I am not going to play the part of the weak, supplicant victim come here to suck sympathy from kind hearted Americans. Either I am here as an equal, or I am not here at all. I am not in such desperate need of American “friends” that I feel a need to submissively allow them to say and do anything at all just because they are supposedly “on my side”. And if I were such a desperate and submissive person, I would have no useful function here, outside perhaps of helping them to feel good about themselves.
jerry

No I think you don’t quite realize the political argument for immediate pullout is aided by the puppet governments excellent vacation. A little Iraq government bashing makes our coming total defeat taste a little better for the average guy and sadly this dumbed down approach is the only one that will work. You don’t really think the truth will work better (we as a nation are complicit in war crimes and should pay reparations)
Pale Rider

“I think Gen. Franks did a superb job,” Snow said.”

I wish we could dispel this myth that Franks–the CENTCOM commander–had anything to do with one of the best rapid-movement actions in the history of warfare.

LTG David McKiernan was the man who led the troops in the Iraq war. He smashed the Iraqi forces into kindling and swept into Baghdad faster and better than anyone had ever done it before. He did it with too few troops and little or no recognition.

Fifty years from now, I wish the name “franks” would be associated with sycophancy and piss poor planning and the name “mcKiernan” could be associated with the kind of men who make the best with what they have.
Shirin

Blue Girl, believe me, I do understand your outrage and frustration, even if what makes you outraged and frustrated is different from what makes me so.

Tony Snow’s comment was completely idiotic, but to me it was less offensive than merely buffoonish. I can understand why an American who has some connection, past or present, to the military in general, and to troops who are in Iraq in particular would be outraged and angered by it, even though the Iraqis, including the make-believe parliament, do not owe the American troops and the American government a single consideration other than a safe route to the border (they don’t really OWE them that, but that would be preferable to the American military’s mass slaughter of Iraqi troops retreating from Kuwait), a strong boot out the door, and a reminder to stay out of Iraq’s business from now on (Americans, even former military, are welcome who would like to visit Iraq as individuals, or to come as individual fellow human beings to take part in the work needed for Iraq to recover from what their government and its military have done, as long as they recognize that Iraqis, and not they, are in charge of every aspect of the recovery).

Realistically, Blue Girl, whether the Iraqi make-believe parliament takes a vacation or passes the Bush regime’s benchmarks has nothing to do with the troops continuing to endure the discomfort of the summer heat – except, of course, in the minds of those Americans influenced by the Bush regime’s extensive P.R. machine. This invasion, conquest, occupation, rape and pillage (did I get all the elements, Koponelli?) has nothing to do with Iraqis, or the make-believe government. It is all about Bush and his neocon-driven dreams of world conquest.

What offends ME the most about that whole episode is the outlandish claim that the “surge” is all about helping the Iraqi make-believe government to meet the U.S. government’s self-serving “benchmarks” (success OR failure in which will have exactly WHAT result for either Iraqis OR the troops?), and that the Iraqi make-believe parliament be held responsible for making sure that 1) Bush meets his domestic P.R. goals, 2) the neocons meet their political, and economic goals, 3) etc., etc., etc. Once again, we have the outrage of the criminal insisting that his victim is responsible for helping him succeed at his crime.

And I am offended by the outrageous condescension of it all toward Iraqis.
http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

In sympathy with Shirin’s focus on the suffering of the Iraqis, it occurred to me as I read John Burn’s account of the terrible death of his professional NYT colleague, Khalid W. Hassan, that no American, on American soil, has had this occur in such a setting:

By sunset on Friday, Mr. Hassan was buried alongside hundreds of other victims of Iraq’s recent violence in a makeshift cemetery in the Adhamiya district, miles from his home, that was a children’s soccer field until last year.

If any children’s soccer field in any American city or town had had to be turned into a “makeshift cemetery” where “hundreds” of victims from just that one vicinity had been killed, it would change utterly the level of anguish and anger among Americans towards the administration and this insane war.
Shirin

Jerry, were you addressing me with that last? If so, I don’t really see the connection. Would you kindly fill in the blanks for me?
jerry

Hi Shirin, my poorly made point is many people will use the “ungrateful Iraqi leaders” August Vacation as an excuse to get out of Iraq fast.I think the poster you corrected uses this method.I know in Southeastern Arizona where opposing the war was unhealthy career wise and even physically now people are ready to end it.This helps in that process.
Mart

Shirin, I will concede I’m not an expert on Iraqi history, so perhaps as an apparent expert, you can enlighten me regarding a couple of points:

it is a fact that Iraq, both before and after statehood HAS NO HISTORY OF SERIOUS, WIDESPREAD, OR PROTRACTED SECTARIAN OR CIVIL CONFLICT. Prior to March, 2003, that is.

My understanding is that many Shia were deported during the Iraq/Iran war. It is also my understanding Sadaam had a serious problem with the Kurds, reportedly gassing an entire village (I’m cautious about what to believe from our media). This seems to me, if true,to constitute serious civil conflict. The current “sectarian” violence has, reportedly, seen victims tortured, shot, beheaded etc. because they were either Shia or Sunni. This type of rage did not evolve since 2003. I understand your points about intermarriage and a society that functioned quite well before 2003 (hell, it probably worked better than ours)- I don’t dispute that. My point was that Iraqis don’t SEEM to have the same sense of national identity as other nationalities, since when an imperialist power invaded they began killing each other along with Americans, and killing each other in very brutal ways.

Now, having said that, I’m not sure why I have to point out the root problem we ALL share, Iraqi and Americans alike, is a rogue and criminal administration which lied us into a war against a virtually powerless and poor nation, and proceeded to place combat troops among civilians, which has gone predictably well. You disagree with Blue Girl, fine – make your point – but try to remember she despises this administration and this war as well, and maybe appreciate her passion even if you don’t agree with the details. You proven to be a knowledgeable and articulate commenter, but saying you don’t give a rat’s ass about Americans in Iraq is going to make people defensive – as is referring to anyone who disagrees with you as a “google monkey” or “self-appointed expert”. I suspect you probably understand Iraq better than all of us combined, but no need to head-butt your allies.
konopelli/wgg

If any children’s soccer field in any American city or town had had to be turned into a “makeshift cemetery” where “hundreds” of victims from just that one vicinity had been killed, it would change utterly the level of anguish and anger among Americans towards the administration and this insane war.

soccer fields, helll…nobody’s give a rats’ ass if all those sissified pretty boys’ fields were filled to saturation with bodies…

but talk about tearin’ up a FOOTBALL field for corpses, and you’d have a fuukin revolution…
Shirin

Susan,

That is a great comment. Good job.

Falluja was a city of a population around 300-350,000 – as I understand that is about the size of Cincinatti. You could say that it is in many ways something like the Iraqi equivalent of a medium sized “Middle American” city, such as Cincinatti. Imagine if someone did to Cincinatti what the Americans did not once, but twice, to Falluja, and to its hundreds of thousands of inhabitants. Imagine if Cincinatti’s baseball or football field looked like this:

Throughout March and April
Shirin

Ohh – I tried to upload a few photos, but it did not work. Please look at these photos of the Falluja soccer field that was renamed the Graveyard of the Martyrs. TWO soccer fields were filled with victims of the Americans’ April, 2004 attack on Falluja, which was a clear crime against humanity, but far, far milder than the later demolition of most of the city (in which, among other atrocities, the Americans have admitted using white phosphorus as a weapon – its use in populated areas is forbidden).

Many more dead were buried in the gardens of homes because the Americans were blowing away everything that moved, including ambulances, and people could not leave their homes. Sometimes residents of homes would retrieve the bodies of neighbors or strangers who had been killed in front of their houses and bury them in their own gardens not knowing who they were.

On many of the gravestones in the soccer field are written only some information about the body – male, female, some description, perhaps where and when killed, and sometimes a scrap of cloth from clothing or an item the person was carrying might be put on the grave to help families identify.

This city is a real place to me, and these people real people. When I see a destroyed building or district, there is a chance I may have seen that building or district when it was whole, I may have touched that building, or been inside it. This is not an imaginary place to me filled with imaginary people.

This is the result of American aggression.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/umrayya/sets/72157600822917456/
schwifty

Shirin, I would like to see you expound upon and clarify your lack of sympathy for American troops operating in Iraq. I am both German and American, and have always been keenly aware of the effect that different perspectives can have upon an established narrative. The way Germans feel about their military and the way the German military perceives itself is obviously very different than the way Americans tend to view such things.

In both countries there is a tendency to exculpate the rank and file for the inevitable atrocities of war, because wars are never started by the rank and file. This “noble savage” narrative of the reluctant warrior who was simultaneously compelled into service by, perhaps, economic constraints/higher education goals/etc and drawn into service by noble, patriotic ideals has taken great purchase in America. To depart from this narrative is to break a cultural cease-fire and therefore a taboo, which may explain some of the reactions you received here on this issue.

I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that your own personal narrative regarding “the troops” is influenced ultimately by your visceral identification with Iraqis and their suffering, and penultimately by the measure of culpability you assign to the individual sets of boots responsible for creating or compounding that suffering. Thoughts on that?
Shirin

Mart,

I don’t have the energy right now to go into any detail, but let me just point out that you are making the very common and understandable error of conflating government oppression of opposition groups with sectarian or ethnic oppression. It is easy to do in the case of Iraq, and this mistake is aided and abetted by the aforementioned know-nothing pundits (i.e. Thomas Friedman, dean of the know-nothing pundits), self-appointed experts (Friedman fits in here too), credulous wishful thinkers, and agenda-driven Google Jockeys, not to mention, of course, the propagandists and P.R. agents.

You are also making the other common error of confusing government oppression of groups with civil strife between and among groups. Not even remotely the same, although governments can and do certainly drive wedges between different groups, whether as a strategy of divide and rule, or simply as a bi-product of their oppression.

Saddam was not a sectarian. He did not care about sect or ethnicity and did not discriminate or oppress on that basis. He cared about who opposed him, and who supported him, and discriminated and oppressed on that basis. The lines did become blurred somewhat because some of the most prominent and open opposition was from sectarian groups such as the Iranian-affiliated Shi`i Islamist groups and Kurdish separatists (The Kurdish separatists have historically been a problem for the government of every country with a significant Kurdish population, Turkey, not Iraq, being the country in which Kurds are the most egregiously oppressed). The lines became even more blurred after the 1991 revolt because most of the rebels were either Shi`as, let by the Iranian-affiliated Islamists, or Kurds. The propagandists have of course also helped a great deal with the blurring of the lines.

You might be surprised to know about the very large number of Sunni victims of Saddam, and the fact that Falluja was among the predominantly Sunni areas that were subjected to periodic purges and other punishments for its refusal of Saddam’s cult of personality, and its defiance, sometimes open, sometimes covert, of his rule. You also might be surprised to know that the majority of Ba`th party members were Shi`as, and many Shi`as held high positions in Saddam’s regime and in his military, and were responsible for or participated in many of his atrocities against Shi`as, as well as Kurds and Sunnis.

And are you aware that one of his eight co-defendants in that American-designed, American-run kangaroo trial was a Kurd?

Things are not always as they seem.
Shirin

PS For the record, and for those who do not know, the Ba`th party is NOT a Sunni Arab party – anything but. It is a secular, socialist pan-Arab party with an extremely broad and inclusive definition of who qualifies as an Arab (essentially anyone who speaks Arabic, has a connection to Arab culture, and says they are an Arab is an Arab by the Ba`thist definition. If you were born or have ancestry in the Arab world, you, too, could be an Arab.). Sectarianism is anathema to Ba`thist philosophy.

The Ba`th party was co-founded by a Christian, and an `Allawite Muslim. The `Allawites are Shi`as, not Sunnis. The Syrian Ba`th regime are `Allawites, and therefore Shi`as.
Shirin

Thanks for the inquiry, Schwifty.

I would like to respond, but I need to defer the response for now.

I will say that your guess is in the right ball park.
Mart

Thanks for your thoughts Shirin. I hope the family you mentioned in Iraq manages to find their way safely through this mess.
Shirin

“they are not there because the Iraqis can’t accomplish anything”

Exactly right.

“though it seems they can’t”

And why do you suppose that is, when even the great prime minister Maliki, between bouts of quaking in fear that Bush will take his job away from him, admits openly that he cannot even send a group of policemen out on patrol without the full approval, signed in triplicate, of his American masters. This make believe prime minister of a supposedly sovereign state has to endure a weekly video conference meeting with his boss, George Bush, for god’s sake! And you expect them to ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING?! (Please do not interpret this as sympathy for Maliki. I am just being realistic.)

I wonder how many Americans are aware that each Iraqi ministry – especially the ones that are critical to the imperial agenda – is to this day literally crawling with hundreds of American “advisers”, without whom no Iraqi can make a decision, let alone take any real action.

I wonder how many Americans are aware that the “Iraqi” intelligence service is commanded by – and on the payroll of – the CIA.

I wonder how many Americans have thought about the fact that the members of the Iraqi make-believe government do not even have authority over their own space in the Green Zone, which they can barely leave, except to get to the airport to fly to their real homes in London, or Beirut, or Cairo.

And you expect them to ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING?!!!!
Shirin

PS Regarding the soccer field/graveyard-of-hundreds in Falluja, in this photo http://www.flickr.com/photos/umrayya/811120357/in/set-72157600822917456/ you can see that they are placing articles of clothing on top of the grave in the hopes that this, and the information on the gravestone will help this person’s family to identify their loved one. The gravestone describes the types of clothing the person was wearing and other information that might help in identification of this nameless human being who was permanently removed from life by some American soldier as a result of George Bush’s imperial ambition.
Shirin

Thanks Mart. Most of my close family members have died or left the country, but I just heard briefly from one wonderful young man I met online AFTER the invasion that he is in Baghdad working for an NGO that he was working for when we first met.

He is a dentist and also a national swimming champion. At the beginning of the occupation the occupying forces took over the only “Olympic size” swimming pool – the one the swimming team had to train – for the recreation of the troops. The swimmers were forced to use the river, which was not safe at all due to pollution and currents, or not train at all, and the kids who were learning to swim at the pool, were deprived of that too. When I first learned of that – in the European press, never in the American press – I was totally outraged. Later on I met Hasan online through an odd chain of events, and he confirmed the story, and told me more about it.

I am really worried that he is back in Baghdad, especially now. It is not a healthy place for young men to be what with nice directives like “kill every military age male”.

Juan Moment

Many of the troops caught up in the Iraq quagmire are probably really nice people, citizens who joined the US, Polish, British or Australian Armed Forces for all the right motives, as in protecting their countries and people etc. However, they find themselves being used by their respective leaders to occupy foreign countries instead, fighting a civilian population. I understand that in many a soldier’s case Iraq is not their war of choice, just people doing a job to feed their families back home or trying to earn a college education.

What are they guilty of? Lets ask a person with a bit of authority on the subject of war and guilt, Robert H Jackson, Chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials 1945:

“We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. And we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war, for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy.”

“If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.” – Nuremberg Tribunal

Right on, according to the rules back then, they are part of a group of people who are committing what can certainly be described as a war crime, the army conducting an aggressive war. The argument that the soldiers are simply following orders is in my eyes only mildly mitigating, they are still the ones committing the crime, the executioners. If you don’t want to be part of it, don’t be!! At least the soldier has a choice and a protective jacket, the many thousands of now dead Iraqis who died at their hands did have neither.

I am not meaning to offend any current or former soldiers, but imho with their decision to sign up with the military, in other words their expressed willingness to learn how to kill fellow humans as effectively as possible, their implied readiness to leave brains and hearts at the barracks gate, soldiers forfeit the entitlement to sympathy when KIA on foreign soil for no other reason than a decent pay cheque, owing it to the squad and/or family honour. They were dumb enough to let themselves be made lackeys of people with as little scruples as they can possibly get away with.

So, despite the harshness of it all, soldiers on the aggressor side are fair game. The laws established and applied in Nuremberg made sense then and do so today. Justice Jackson’s definition of war crimes does include what’s going on in Iraq and by inference legitimises the country’s armed resistance, at least in as much as it targets only occupation forces. The US and allied troops are guilty of instigating an armed conflict, causing the death of thousands of innocent people and wounding many thousands more, which by established measures can be classed as a war crime punishable with, depending on the degree of involvement, possibly even death (see Nuremburg). Should a US or allied soldier die in Iraq, he or she had it coming.

As such, I am sorry to say, but if a US Trooper is at best sweating in the Baghdad heat or at worst getting killed, then that doesn’t bother me a fraction of what it upsets me when the same US Troopers kill Iraqi civilians. Moon of Alabama has a current thread discussing the dirty deeds of US Soldiers, based on quotes from a recent Nation article in which Iraq vets were interviewed. Here is a small selection:

“I guess while I was there, the general attitude was, A dead Iraqi is just another dead Iraqi”

“.. they had a family dog. And it was barking ferociously, ’cause it’s doing its job. And my squad leader, just out of nowhere, just shoots it. And he didn’t–motherfucker–he shot it and it went in the jaw and exited out.”

One photo, among dozens turned over to The Nation during the investigation, shows an American soldier acting as if he is about to eat the spilled brains of a dead Iraqi man with his brown plastic Army-issue spoon.

“It was just soldiers being soldiers …”

“Well, one of the bullets happened to just pierce the windshield and went straight into the face of this woman in the car.”

While many veterans said the killing of civilians deeply disturbed them, they also said there was no other way to safely operate a patrol.

The killing of unarmed Iraqis was so common many of the troops said it became an accepted part of the daily landscape.

“I mean, I guess I have a moral obligation to say something, but I would have been kicked out of the unit in a heartbeat. I would’ve been a traitor.”

“It killed the mother, a father and two kids. The boy was aged 4 and the daughter was aged 3.”

“And this colonel turns around to this full division staff and says, ‘If these fucking hajis learned to drive, this shit wouldn’t happen.’”

“I even specifically remember being told that it was better to kill them than to have somebody wounded and still alive.”

“The only thing that wound up mattering is myself and the guys that I was with. And everybody else be damned.”

Well then, no sympathy from me, no sireee.

Juan Moment

Many of the troops caught up in the Iraq quagmire are probably really nice people, citizens who joined the US, Polish, British or Australian Armed Forces for all the right motives, as in protecting their countries and people etc. However, they find themselves being used by their respective leaders to occupy foreign countries instead, fighting a civilian population. I understand that in many a soldier’s case Iraq is not their war of choice, just people doing a job to feed their families back home.

What are they guilty of? Lets ask a person with a bit of authority on the subject of war and guilt, Robert H Jackson, Chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials 1945:

“We must make clear to the Germans that the wrong for which their fallen leaders are on trial is not that they lost the war, but that they started it. And we must not allow ourselves to be drawn into a trial of the causes of the war, for our position is that no grievances or policies will justify resort to aggressive war. It is utterly renounced and condemned as an instrument of policy.”

“If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.” – Nuremberg Tribunal

Aha, according to the rules back then, they are part of a group of people who are committing what can be described as a war crime, the army conducting an aggressive war. The argument that the soldiers are simply following orders is in my eyes only mildly mitigating, they are still the ones committing the crime, the executioners. If you don’t want to be part of it, don’t be!! At least the soldier has a choice and a protective jacket, the many thousands of now dead Iraqis who died at their hands did have neither.

With their decision to sign up with the military, in other words their expressed willingness to learn how to kill fellow humans as effectively as possible, their implied readiness to leave brains and hearts at the barracks gate, soldiers forfeit the entitlement to sympathy when KIA on foreign soil for no other reason than a decent pay cheque, owing it to the squad and/or family honour. They were dumb enough to let themselves be made lackeys of people with as little scruples as they can possibly get away with.

So, despite the harshness of it all, soldiers on the aggressor side are fair game. The laws established and applied in Nuremberg made sense then and do so today. Justice Jackson’s definition of war crimes does include what’s going on in Iraq and by inference legitimises the country’s armed resistance, at least in as much as it targets only occupation forces. The US and allied troops are guilty of instigating an armed conflict, causing the death of thousands of innocent people and wounding many thousands more, which by established measures can be classed as a war crime punishable with, depending on the degree of involvement, possibly even death (see Nuremburg). Should a US or allied soldier die in Iraq, he or she had it coming.

As such, I am sorry to say, but if a US Trooper is at best sweating in the Baghdad heat or at worst getting killed, then that doesn’t bother me a fraction of what it upsets me when the same US Troopers kill Iraqi civilians. Moon of Alabama has a current thread discussing the dirty deeds of US Soldiers, based on quotes from a recent Nation article in which Iraq vets were interviewed. Here is a small selection:

“I guess while I was there, the general attitude was, A dead Iraqi is just another dead Iraqi”

“.. they had a family dog. And it was barking ferociously, ’cause it’s doing its job. And my squad leader, just out of nowhere, just shoots it. And he didn’t–motherfucker–he shot it and it went in the jaw and exited out.”

One photo, among dozens turned over to The Nation during the investigation, shows an American soldier acting as if he is about to eat the spilled brains of a dead Iraqi man with his brown plastic Army-issue spoon.

“It was just soldiers being soldiers …”

“Well, one of the bullets happened to just pierce the windshield and went straight into the face of this woman in the car.”

While many veterans said the killing of civilians deeply disturbed them, they also said there was no other way to safely operate a patrol.

The killing of unarmed Iraqis was so common many of the troops said it became an accepted part of the daily landscape.

“I mean, I guess I have a moral obligation to say something, but I would have been kicked out of the unit in a heartbeat. I would’ve been a traitor.”

“It killed the mother, a father and two kids. The boy was aged 4 and the daughter was aged 3.”

“And this colonel turns around to this full division staff and says, ‘If these fucking hajis learned to drive, this shit wouldn’t happen.’”

“I even specifically remember being told that it was better to kill them than to have somebody wounded and still alive.”

“The only thing that wound up mattering is myself and the guys that I was with. And everybody else be damned.”

Well then, no sympathy from me, no sireee.
The Oracle

Why do I get the feeling (some might even call it a “gut feeling”) that there will be a major insurgent attack on or an attack inside the Green Zone while the Iraqi legislators’ are on vacation during August?

Which strangely enough is the same month during which George W. Bush usually takes a month-long vacation at his compound in Crawford, like he did in August 2001 during the entire month preceding the 9/11 attacks.

Hmmm, and Michael Chertoff just stated that he had a “gut feeling” that the right-wing religious fundamentalist al Qaeda were going to attack somewhere inside America sometime this summer. Hmmm. Maybe in August while Bush is away from Washington vacationing in Crawford? Hmmm.

Or maybe Bush and Cheney are planning on bombing Iran in August, which will definitely and dramatically increase afterward the risk of a terrorist attack inside the United States. Which might explain Chertoff’s deliberately vague “gut feeling” comment the other day? Possibly laying the rhetorical groundwork (i.e. spin) for what Bush and Cheney are about to do, with completely predictable consequences?

Remember, March 2003 was chosen as the “right” time for the invasion of Iraq specifically for political reasons. That is, Bush was going to be up for reelection in November 2004, so they had to start the war far enough in advance for the neo-con Republican strategy (and timetable) to be implemented and completed.

Thus, all the grandiose claims by the neo-con Republicans that Iraq would be a cakewalk, our invading troops would be greeted with flowers and candy, setting up a democratic, representative government would be a snap, our troop levels in Iraq would be drawn down dramatically by the end of 2003, and that post-invasion, increased Iraqi oil revenues would pay for all of this.

In other words, the neo-cons thought that why should they bother even thinking about anything other than what they had planned for post-invasion Iraq. In their warped minds, by the time summer 2004 rolled around (and just prior to the November presidential elections), the new, Saddam-less, Baathist-less Iraq would be a shining example of the neo-cons’ brilliant war and nation-building strategy…which could be used in their Bush-reelection campaign propaganda.

Which brings us to 2007, the year before another presidential election that is scheduled next year for November 2008. If anything, the neo-con Republicans are consistent in their insanity. Which means that they are probably following the same game-plan for Iran that they followed prior to starting the Iraq War in 2003.

Troop deployments threatening Iran (carrier groups in the Persian Gulf, for example). Increased rhetoric about how dangerous Iran is to America, and American interests. Downplaying and dissing diplomacy as a way to resolve any disagreements. Ramping up the rhetoric (and fear factor) about how vulnerable the United States (and our “shopping malls”) are to a terrorist attack. And all for purely partisan political reasons.

And then add in the comment by a neo-con Israeli the other day about how Israel is prepared on a moment’s notice to bomb the crap out of Iran’s suspected nuclear facilities.

Yep, I have a distinctive “gut feeling” that Bush, Cheney and (some Israelis) are getting mighty anxious, apparently watching a window of warmongering opporturnity close. With Bush and Cheney (and Karl Rove) “strategerizing” that by attacking Iran this year, by next year’s November presidential election the “mission” will have been “accomplished” in Iran, and Republicans will have a flowers and candy, cakewalk of an election. Yeah, right.
Shirin

Mart,

I think I addressed most of your issues regarding Iraq per se (there is one left that needs to be addressed, but maybe not until tomorrow), but there were a couple of unrelated ones I wanted to say something about:

“saying you don’t give a rat’s ass about Americans in Iraq is going to make people defensive”

How interesting that you are moved to take me to task for saying I don’t give a rat’s ass about the American troops in Iraq while leaving completely alone Blue Girl’s strong declaration that she doesn’t give a rat’s ass about Iraq.

So, if my saying I don’t give a rat’s ass about the American troops whose job it is to enforce the Bush regime’s plans by killing Iraqis and destroying its cities makes people defensive, am I expected to smile kindly, nod my head in understanding, and touch their shoulder kindly when others announce that they don’t give a rat’s ass about the country their troops are charged with destroying – a country that is filled with people and places that are well known and dear to me, and did not ask for, and did nothing to deserve this horror? It seems that IS the case, and it certainly bespeaks a double standard, doesn’t it? Of course, that is nothing new here. I have experienced a double standard here consistently, and often from other generally very thoughtful and aware people.

“referring to anyone who disagrees with you as a “google monkey” or “self-appointed expert”.”

It’s Google jockey, not Google monkey (I think I actually thought that up myself – I don’t remember ever hearing it before it popped into my head one day). Google monkey is good too, though it brings to mind a different mental picture, and has a very different connotation. }

First, I think if you will reread my remarks in this regard you will realize that I was not referring to anyone who disagrees with me. I was very specifically referring to the media types who consistently turn myths, lies, and contra factual information into “received truth” by repeating them over and over and over. It then is repeated even more widely by people who have bought it because it came from someone who is supposed to be an expert, mainly because they claim to be an expert and enough people believe them (like that pompous, self-important over-inflated bag of hot gaseous substance, Thomas Friedman, for example).

A Google jockey, as I define it, is someone who starts with a pre conceived idea of reality (which more often than not they have gotten from one of the Thomas Friedman types – or perhaps another Google jockey who got it from a Thomas Friedman type), and uses Google to ferret out sources they can use – or abuse – to support their arguments, which are based on their preconceived idea. They will, of course, either discard, discount, distort, or take out of context whatever they find that does NOT serve their argument in order to make their case. Most of these people are sincere in and passionately attached to their beliefs, and sooner or later consider themselves experts on the subject. They are important purveyers of false “received truth” after it has been turned into “received truth” by the Thomas Friedman types.

And I am certainly NOT slamming everyone who uses Google or the internet to obtain knowledge and information. These are extremely valuable sources. It’s just that, like any source, they need to be used with some discretion and intelligence.
Shirin

“a foreign invader/occupier who is determined to bring ‘democracy’ or at least ’security’ to a nation where it is not wanted and which it does not understand.”

Renato, setting aside for a moment your apparent good intentions, unless you expressed yourself very poorly, this is quite possibly the most offensively condescendingly ignorant kind of well-meaning white-man’s-burden bullshit available on the Iraq issue today.

Please, I beg you, examine this statement, think about how YOU would react were it applied by a citizen of the invading power to yourself as a member of the “nation where ‘democracy or at least security’ is not wanted and which it does not understand”.

Do you REALLY believe that what the United States has delivered to Iraqis is democracy, or even security? Are you THAT out of touch with reality? Please tell me that you misspoke. We all do it from time to time.
Shirin

PS Renato, even IF you believe that Iraqis are too primitive or exotic – or whatever – to understand democracy, do you REALLY believe they are incapable of understanding, and do not want security?! And do you honestly believe that the United States’ “shock an awe” bombing campaign was an introduction to the concept of security?

I really, REALLY hope that what you stated is not what you believe, and that you will be able to clarify what you really meant to say.
bmaz

Shirin – You have an extremely annoying and grating habit of letting loose with all kinds of pricky diatribe to other commenters, yet take offense and demand apologies for even the slightest perceived slight against you. Here is what I have to say: Fuck the Iraqi government; and if you don’t have any sympathy in your pitiful angry little soul for the American troops stranded in Iraq, FUCK YOU.
Shirin

bmaz, that is verifiable bullshit. You can count on zero fingers the number of times I have demanded, or even asked for an apology from anyone here.

And by the way, you seem not to have paid an iota of attention to anything I have said. If you had you would have known that not only would your “fuck the Iraq government” not bother me a bit, I do not even acknowledge the “Iraqi government” as a government.

As for your ending comment to me, only in your dreams, buddy. Only in your dreams.
bmaz

“PS Blue Girl, to be honest, I was deeply offended by some of your remarks in the original post.” There you go bozo. I can pull out more quotes to correspond to more “fingers” to use the analogy you chose; but I will stick with this one. Consider it attached to the middle finger. Moron.
Shirin

bmazz, you are not making any sense. Time to stop drinking and go to sleep now. We can talk in the morning when you may be more coherent.
mudkitty

I see Shirin has graduated from concern troll, to just plain troll; constantly misinterpreting, and/or misrepresenting what everybody else is writing. Deliberately so.
Shirin

Test
Shirin

Jerry,

OK, now I understand your point. I don’t think that was the point of Blue Girl’s rant, though. I think she was just venting her rage and frustration at Tony Snow’s buffoonish and insensitive remark. I can understand how she took it as insensitive to the troops, and I can understand why that infuriated her.

To me it looked more like ol’ Tony was just having one his “Crap, what do I do now?! I don’t dare answer that honestly, I don’t have a handy, pre-fabricated lie prepared, and I am not smart or good at thinking on my feet” moments. So, he said the first thing that came into his head, which was that clownishly lame – and insensitive – comment. That is pretty typical of him – and Bush – when they get caught – how is that expression? – with their pants around their ankles? Only difference is that Bush would have followed his stupid remark with one of his trademark smirks followed by his trademark “hehehe” (which I think is a sign he knows he is lying or bullshitting – I think it’s reflexive). Ari Fleischer was MUCH smoother at lying and bullshitting spontaneously than Tony is.

What is primarily stupid about that remark is that, as I pointed out earlier, the only time members of the Iraqi make-believe government have to experience the heat is when walking from an air conditioned building to their air conditioned (chauffeur-driven) SUV, and from their air conditioned SUV into another air conditioned building.

Anyway, yesterday good ol’ Iraqi make-believe prime minister, Mr Maliki announced that the Americans can leave any time they want. So – ummmmm – what are they waiting for? Why not head for the border now?
PrchrLady

the only time members of the Iraqi make-believe government have to experience the heat is when walking from an air conditioned building to their air conditioned (chauffeur-driven) SUV, and from their air conditioned SUV into another air conditioned building.— Shirin

I agree. And Leslie just posated on other thread that we are paying $22,000 a month to house the make believe ambustatdor in NYC… what a crock!
Shirin

Yeah, I saw that, Marlene. I have been trying to come up with a snappy comeback for it, but so far snappy comebacks have failed me.

In the meantime, I just saw this from AP:

BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq (AP) – Away from the headlines and debate over the “surge” in U.S. ground troops, the Air Force has quietly built up its hardware inside Iraq, sharply stepped up bombing and laid a foundation for a sustained air campaign in support of American and Iraqi forces.

This is as anticipated. We expect to see ground troops reduced while air attacks multiply. So, there will be great cheering by people here because it means fewer American troops in jeopardy.

What it also means is many times more dead and maimed Iraqi children, and increased destruction of homes, businesses, infrastructure, and lives.

I feel sick.
Leslie

To the Shirin detractors,
I value Shirin’s input a lot. She irritates me too sometimes and I don’t always agree with her. But, her viewpoint is valuable. If only because she’s the only Iraqi American to frequent here and offer her perspective. I think that takes a certain amount of courage given the reactions her comments often elicit.

Also, I quite understand her lack of sympathy for the American troops–even though I don’t agree with that sentiment. Actually, I’m torn feeling sorry for the predicament of the troops and my abhorence of this war. Because I try to imagine how I’d feel if were living in Europe during WWII, with German troops beating down my door. Doubt I’d feel too much sympathy for the average German trooper in that situation. If someone asked me to feel for their plight, I’d probably be very angry if I’d already seen them kill my family and friends. Empathy would probably be impossible.

Ditto if I were an Iraqi American watching US troops invade and destroy the country of my birth, kill, maim, render homeless those I loved–for no good reason. My pain and anger would be huge, and I’d find it very hard to empathize with the troops, even if they were ordered to do all those things, even if the troops didn’t want to be there and objected to the war.
Fred C. Dobbs

Is the central issue of this thread the occupation itself, the fact that the Iraqi parliament wants to take the month off, or that Tony Snow is a fatuous douchebag who pisses on his own feet?
Leslie

Sorry Shirin,
Didn’t mean to talk about you as if you weren’t in the room so to speak. Your comments don’t irritate me anymore than some others do, by the way. We probably all get on each other’s nerves sometimes.

Also, something you never talk about, I can only recall you once alluding to it: What’s it like for you being an Iraqi American while the Bushies are engaging in domestic spying, having detained an unknown number of Middle Eastern immigrants, etc.? If I were from the Middle East or Muslim or Arab, everything the Bushies are doing would have me more worried than even most Americans are. [Recalling the Japanese internment camps and calls from Michelle Malkin and others for something similar today.]
PrchrLady

Excellent cooments above Leslie, and Shirin, I am glad you are here with us too. Maybe we are all just growing stronger in our communication skills, but I think our discourse here at no quarter is high and above anything available on most other places/forums anywhere…
Shirin

Fred Dobbs,

Ummmmm – all of the above?

Did I get it right? Did I? Did I?
Shirin

Thanks, Leslie and Marlene, for your supportive comments.

Leslie, you brought up a good question.

On a day to day basis, just going about my daily life, I do not have the problems others do because I live in a very open-minded, cosmopolitan area of the country with a significant, and well-educated, prosperous, well-integrated, active Arab and Muslim community. It also helps that there is a lot of interest here in Middle Eastern culture. And it makes a difference that I do not “appear different” in any way. (It DOES put me in a position to hear hurtful comments that people might hesitate to make around someone they took to be Middle Eastern or Muslim.) Others, even around here, do not always have it so easy, and some in other parts of the country have very serious problems. Recently in Florida the home of a Bosnian Muslim family was spray painted with hate speech and torched. That is pretty extreme, but harassment and discrimination are rising, not declining.

I DO feel deeply concerned about the spying, the eagerness to throw away the rights of certain classes of people for little or no good reason. The jingoistic, bigoted barkings of Michelle Malkin and so many other crazies used to worry me more than they do. Now it just makes me sad and angry that this kind of thing is so blithely tolerated in this country in the 21st century.

I DID just read this http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2766040.ece however, which just makes me shake my head in despair. You don’t need to read the whole thing to get the flavour of it. Maybe if I let myself seriously contemplate the fact that so many “respectable” and prominent people are actually thinking like this I would be frightened, but right now I am just bewildered.

I don’t worry so much for myself, though, as I do for others, including some of my friends and activist colleagues. I also discourage any of my Iraqi friends and family, for whom it is getting harder and harder to find any country to accept them (even though we are talking about highly educated, experienced professional people with good resources), from trying to come here for fear of what they might face.

We have seen terrible abuses of power and unbelievable miscarriages of justice since even before 9/11, and it all has gotten steadily worse since then. I think this affects everyone here, citizen or not, immigrant or not, but it certainly is an even more frightening time for people who are Middle Eastern, Muslim, or “Middle Eastern/Muslin appearing”.

Knowing me, it probably would not surprise you to know that after 9/11 I seriously contemplated starting to wear a head scarf for the first time in my life. I decided against it because it felt hypocritical.
Shirin

Leslie,

Booman has a nice summary of the article I linked to in my last comment. It is much shorter than the article, and sums it up very well. Check it out http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2007/7/15/112410/361

What is disturbing about what the article reveals is that these are the creme de la creme of that type of thinker, and if THEY are thinking that way, then the crowd at LGF, Jihad Watch, and all the other hate sites are truly frightening people.
mudkitty

“She?”
Leslie

Shirin,
I read that Independent article earlier. It’s scary! Yes, they’re truly frightening! What I find most troubling about it is that the National Review set, these imperialist bigots, are presented as America’s mainstream by the media.
Shirin

Leslie,

Yep! And not just the mainstream, but a kind of elite “mainstream”. Just look at some of the names in that article!

Of course, Dinesh D’Souza is just the kind of crackpot hypocrite that the media and the National Review types simply adore – a prominent and uncompromisingly jingoistic anti-brown-skinned-immigrant voice, who just happens to be himself a brown-skinned immigrant. That, of course makes him ultra-credible. (OK, maybe he was born in the USA, I’m not sure, but you can bet he is not more than one generation away from immigrant status.) He makes media whore Fu’ad `Ajami look like a decent, intellectually honest human being.

What I don’t get is why, in this country of all places, those people are not completely marginalized.
Shirin

By the way, Leslie, in answering your earlier question, I should also have mentioned some of the positive things that have happened in the wake of 9/11.

Right away some – not a huge number, but some – Americans came rushing out of the woodwork to stand beside their Arab and Muslim fellows, and even in some communities took shifts standing guard at mosques and Islamic centers and Islamic schools. Others escorted particularly vulnerable members of the Muslim community on shopping and errands, and to and from school, and protected them from harassment. Groups of American women wore head scarves in solidarity, and also to find out how their treatment and interactions changed when they did.

The Muslim community strongly stepped up their community and interfaith outreach programs, and many temples, synagogues, churches, schools, and individuals responded. Mosques invited people to their Friday prayer services, and explained the prayers and the rituals. Churches and synagogues invited Muslims to speak to their congregations. My sense is that there has been a real increase in interfaith prayer services, and interfaith meetings, activities, lectures, exchanges, etc.

More Americans became interested in the Arab world, Arab culture, and Islam as a religion. For some of them I suppose it was a “know your enemy” kind of thing, and a certain percentage were no doubt looking for the “bad stuff”, but I would like to think that not all had that motivation, and that even some who were originally motivated by a negative impulse may have changed their outlook as they learned more.

The net change after 9/11 has certainly be negative for Arabs and Muslims, but not everything has been bad.
Leslie

Shirin writes: “What I don’t get is why, in this country of all places, those people are not completely marginalized.”

These people claim this is a fight between the left and right. They hide their true intentions in political babble-speak. They have money, power and the DC political elite in their corner–predominately on the right. They have an entire machine that they’ve built up over the last 30 years or so. Add to that an unquestioning media that wants a place at the dinner table.
http://politickybitch.blogspot.com/ nunya

Jeebus Larry, I used to love to read the comments.

I don’t anymore thanks to Shirin.
Shirin

Mart, there is still one question you raised that I have not addressed, and I think it is important to do so:

“The current “sectarian” violence has, reportedly, seen victims tortured, shot, beheaded etc. because they were either Shia or Sunni. This type of rage did not evolve since 2003.”

Your observation is correct, Mart. Although it DID evolve since 2003, it did not arise out of nowhere. The seeds were there, and they actually began germinating (if you will forgive the metaphor) around 2000-2001, and perhaps a little earlier. In 2003, with the application of large doses of Miracle Gro and growth hormones from the occupying power and other sources, it grew into what we have today. (OK, metaphor worn out now, I think.)

I don’t know how to explain this adequately without going into a lot more detail than you may want. So, rather than bore you with excessive detail, I will say that in Iraq there has been an imbalance in political and economic power favoring the Sunni Arab minority starting with the Ottoman empire, and maintained by the British. It improved with statehood, still more after independence, and the Ba`th party spread the power even more widely (the Iraqi Communist party actually had the most diversity, but thanks mainly to the U.S., they did not stay in power very long). Of course, there are historic resentments related to all this, but they were never strong or widespread enough to result in serious conflict, and stayed mainly in the political realm, and did not really affect day to day relations within the population.

The oppression of the Shi`a population under Saddam Hussein is directly related to certain Shi`a Islamist opposition to the secular nature of the State (SCIRI is the main actor here). My sense is that in the beginning it was less a matter of Shi`a vs Sunni than of Islamic vs secular state, but I would need more study to be sure about that, and it probably depends on whom you talk to.

It is important to understand that until the U.S. occupiers imposed a political system based on sectarian and ethnic identity, Iraqis’ political affiliations have been based almost entirely not on identity, but not ideology, and that includes the Shi`a parties now in power today, whose original goal was less “Shi`a power” than an Islamic as opposed to secular state. Still, there WERE some tensions based on the imbalance that favoured a minority group.

Contrary to the “received truth” that it was only the iron fist of Saddam that kept Iraq from splitting into the three parts some U.S. authorities want to split it into now, Saddam did more than any other Iraqi dictator to divide Iraqis.

I don’t know how coherent this will be to anyone who does not already know quite a bit about the history, but I have tried to present in a nutshell what really needs a stadium to explain completely. Let me say in closing this that for a long time since 2003 the general population of Iraq was bewildered and alarmed by this sectarian conflict, which was mainly between those seeking political power and their militias. It is only within the last one or two years that I have seen this conflict gradually take over the population as the violence affected them more and more. This fracturing of a once cohesive society is perhaps the greatest and most irreparable aspect of the catastrophe that the Bush regime has visited upon Iraq.
Shirin

I did an inadequate job of proofreading in my rush to get this posted:

“Iraqis’ political affiliations have been based almost entirely not on identity, but not ideology” should be “ON ideology”
schwifty

I have not seen anyone who seems offended by Shirin’s comments actually reply to them in a substantive way. I have also not seen Shirin substantively address her disregard for the rank and file soldiers in Iraq, which as far as I can tell must be the main cause of the ruffled feathers.

The simple truth is that both “sides” here are succumbing to the temptation of us vs. them attitudes rather than taking a cold hard look in the mirror, and accepting that intellectual positions don’t always jive with visceral impulses, particularly when discussing such weighty issues as moral culpability. This is precisely why the discussion has veered away from the substantive in places, perhaps helped along by the OPs original tone.

If you want to move forward, you’re going to have to reconcile your gut feelings with your intellectual positions. I suspect that Shirin would have at least as much difficulty with that as people posting such nonsense as bewilderment at her gender, her citizenship, her loyalty, or even the fact that there may exist a diversity of opinion out there that expresses itself in these comments.
Mart

“It is important to understand that until the U.S. occupiers imposed a political system based on sectarian and ethnic identity, Iraqis’ political affiliations have been based almost entirely not on identity, but on ideology”

Very interesting observation. I’m going to have to give this more thought, but I would guess a proponent of the parliamentary system would argue yes, initially representation is based on geographic sectarian criteria, but ultimately the representation would reflect the ideology of the constituents. Now, why the Kristol Krowd believes this is going to happen in a vacuum without accounting for Iraqi traditions or for the incredible violence the aggression has bought, is baffling. I think a powerful argument could be made for Iraqis rejecting ANY government set up by America, simply because it was set up by America – which brings us full circle to the idea of the U.S. simply getting out – but which ignores the reality of the Kristol Krowd objectives, of which the least important is setting up a representative government in Iraq. More important are the permanent bases which allow staging for future wars (and the ability to remove troops from Saudi), the oil reserves, and the perceived defense of Israel.

All over the place on this and need to organize my thoughts – again highlights the complexity and difficulty of this debacle.
http://politickybitch.blogspot.com/ nunya

schwifty says:

“I have not seen anyone who seems offended by Shirin’s comments actually reply to them in a substantive way.”

Who in God’s name has the time or the energy for that?

There are too many of her comments on this one post to even count.
Shirin

Schwifty,

In response to your request to me:

I really do not think it should be necessary for me to spell out why I do not feel a lot of sympathy for the troops who invaded and now occupy Iraq. It seems to me that should be as intuitively obvious as it is intuitively obvious why the primary concern of so many here is for the American troops – and oh, yeah – Iraqis are suffering too.

My first awareness of my inability to sympathize with the invaders came when one day in March or April, 2003 I changed channels from Al Jazeera, which was actually REPORTING on the situation, and tuned into CNNBCBSABC to hear a report about how the poor, poor, poooooor American invaders were having sooooooo much trouble coping in the desert what with the constant sand in their shorts and dry lips all the time (I am not kidding you, it was all about stuff like that).

Not a bloody WORD about the elderly man who was the sole survivor of an American aerial attack in which his entire – ENTIRE! – immediate family was wiped out, buried in the rubble of their home. Not a blood WORD about the eight year old girl who ventured out onto the balcony of her house only to have an American sniper carefully take aim and shoot her dead (film at 11), or the half blind old granpa, tapping with his cane, who got confused and, not knowing in which direction to move, took the wrong choice and was cut down by an American sniper, who also took careful aim at him before firing (also film at 11). These things I had seen with my own eyes, and yet I was supposed to feel sorry for the people who were committing deeds like this because they had sandy shorts and dry lips.

I can understand very well why so many people here have the American troops as their primary concern. Is it so hard to understand why I do not?
Shirin

Mart:

“I would guess a proponent of the parliamentary system would argue yes, initially representation is based on geographic sectarian criteria…”

First, as tempting as it is given the “received truth” about Iraq, to conflate geography and sect/ethnicity, that does not coincide with reality. There is no such thing as “geographic sectarian”. Iraq’s demography is far more complex than that, which is one of many reasons the whole partition notion is bulls*** (another, VERY important reason is that the overwhelming majority of Iraqis do not and have never wanted it).

It might be useful to be aware of the fact that the first political system set up by the Americans – the hand-picked-by-Bremer so-called “governing council” – was organized strictly along sectarian/ethnic lines. That set the tone very clearly for what was to come.

“…but ultimately the representation would reflect the ideology of the constituents.”

If that had been the thinking, it was not even a little bit realistic (but then look whom we are dealing with here), but I doubt very much that they were thinking about the constituents or their ideology at all.

“I think a powerful argument could be made for Iraqis rejecting ANY government set up by America, simply because it was set up by America…”

Bingo!

“…the reality of the Kristol Krowd objectives, of which the least important is setting up a representative government in Iraq.”

I would bet that a representative government was never even on the agenda.

“More important are the permanent bases which allow staging for future wars (and the ability to remove troops from Saudi), the oil reserves, and the perceived defense of Israel.”

Yep!
schwifty

Shirin: I’m sure you can do better than falling back on intuition to explain why you believe that sympathy for the rank and file and sympathy for the common Iraqi are mutually exclusive. How they are respectively covered in the American or Arab media is not really germane, is it?

Furthermore, talking about different primary concerns is not the same as talking about a dearth of “secondary concerns.” There are gaping inconsistencies here that should have been “intuitively obvious” to you before you went down this rabbit hole. Ignore them, and you lend credence to the other comments here that dismiss you as merely a troll. I’m sure that is not your objective.
Shirin

Schwifty,

Where did I say that sympathy for the troops (I guess that is what you mean by “rank and file”) and sympathy for the Iraqi people are mutually exclusive? I said no such thing, I have never said such a thing, and I do not believe such a thing (hope I made that emphatic enough :0}) ).

How things are covered in the American or Arab or European media are certainly germane in that they influence what people hear and see, how they hear and see it, and therefore how they view the issues, and therefore how they feel about them.

More pertinently, they are germane to me. I saw an American sniper take careful aim at an 8 year old little girl standing on the balcony of her home, and shoot her dead. I saw another American sniper take careful aim at a clearly bewildered very elderly man hobbling slowly with a cane and shoot him dead. That was in the first weeks after the invasion.

I have seen video and photos and heard and read accounts of so much, much more. My friends and family members have described to me things that they witnessed or experienced in their own encounters with the “rank and file”. I knew Falluja when it was a real city. Some people I know – including an American journalist (unembedded) and relief workers – were in Falluja before, during, and after the devastating American attacks on that former city. I have heard their stories and seen some of their photographs. I know what the “rank and file” did to that former city, and to the people who lived there. You think that is not germane to my views and feelings about the people who executed these acts?

Schwifty, I could be mistaken, but I am getting the distinct impression that you are trying to get at something specific here, but I really do not know what that is. Perhaps if you could clarify it for me I could focus my response better.