The cost of the War

I wept when I saw this. See the rest of the slideshow.

The policies pursued by the Government have a human impact. Lives are lost, and back home, lives are destroyed. A mother, a widow, a little 6-year-old girl have all had their lives destroyed. Could Bush look those people in the eyes and tell them that they died doing something good?

Are our goals in Iraq and Afganistan worth the lives of the child, the husband and the father? Our goals in Afganistan are clear, and our purpose just, but the Republicans don't seem to care about Afganistan any more. And I will live the rest of my life without understanding what we are doing in Iraq, and why.

Neither the American nor the Iraqi peoples want our army in Iraq, and Bush's leadership has destroyed any chance of ever winning. In Afganistan, Bush's obsession with Iraq has seriously hurt our chances of winning. The Republicans cannot stay in power, for they will never question the War in Iraq, and they will never question the conduct of the War in Afganistan.

The Administration would ban these pictures. They think only what is good for their Republican party. They don't want to confront people with the brutality of their policies, their lack of compassion for the consequences of their actions. They just wish that the crying brothers, fathers, sisters, mothers, and children would just go away.

The Administration did ban photos of the flag-draped caskets. Why? What is the message of those photos? The War in Iraq is a disgrace: it wasn't provoked, justified, or even intelligently fought. Even so, if the president asks a soldier to die for his honorless war, that the honor of the individual soldier remains intact.

It would be a wonderful world if these Wars never got back to those families, but we don't live in that world. We do live in the world where one man's ego and lust for power can bring a nation to War, where one man's obsession with Iraq has led to a failing effort in Afganistan, and where one man's idiocy has destroyed Iraq.

The only thing that can stand up to this one man is the people of this country, but inthis country, the Press and the People of America are afraid to question this one man.

This is not George Bush's America, it is not the Republican's America, it is our America, and we do get to send Bush a message next Tuesday.

Civil War in Iraq

Has civil war started in Iraq? Yes and no. I believe that all-out civil war is imminent, and the presence of U.S. and U.K. forces is only just preventing all-out war. The events of the last few weeks—especially the violence touched off by the bombing of the Askariya mosque, and the retaliatory bombings of Sunni mosques around Iraq—seems to confirm that. It seemed, from within the borders of America, that the state of affairs in Iraq was calming down—the worst-case scenario would be a loose confederacy that never found itself quite capable of dealing with a low-level insurgency—but now that perception seems to be flawed. It now seems apparent that, much like the buildup of energy in the bedrock before an earthquake, the tensions in Iraq had been building up, waiting for a trigger.

Events seem very much to have moved beyond the capabilities of the U.S. and U.K. forces in the region to make much of a difference; indeed, the U.S. and U.K. forces do not seem to have made any sort of overt act aimed at quelling the violence, only at maintaining the status quo. Truly, there does not seem to be any obvious act that they could take, but there has been disappointingly little done. The most visible action made by U.S. forces seems to be the start of a new air raid campaign—in this, and all other actions, the U.S. and U.K. forces seem unwilling to abandon their perception of the War as a struggle against foreign fighters. I ought to be clear here: the decision to start an air campaign, or to make a change in strategy is not done at the company, division, brigade, or even branch level—it is done at the cabinet level. It was naive to expect an administration that did not anticipate sectarian and ethnic violence, not to mention the insurgency itself, to react quickly to one more bombing in a country where dozens of bombs go off every day?

I think it is undeniable to anyone who looks at Iraq with a critical eye that there is a real possibility of civil war. Historically, of course, the Sunnis dominated the country under Saddam, and while the Kurds did get a great deal of independence after the Gulf War, the Shiites suffered greatly in that time. Now, it would be foolish to assert that, in this context, these two parties could not possibly unite, along with the Kurds, and form a unified post-Saddam Iraq. Indeed, immediately after the fall of Saddam, it seemed likely, almost inevitable, that a unified Iraq would be formed. Still, even critics of the War—like myself—were forced to admit that, even though there were no WMDs, there was no al Qaeda the War could produce the positive outcome: the people of Iraq coming together to form a unified country simply to keep the peace.

That hardly seems to be the case. Of course, I am in no way whatsoever implying or claiming that the Iraqi people want this violence. That is absurd and elitist. What I do think is that the leaders, contrary to the wishes or interests of the people they represent, are putting their country on a path to Civil War. Witness the use of the Interior Ministry, and paramilitary militias as a political police force by the Shiites, along with the perennial use of guerrilla tactics by the Sunnis. Further, each action only inflames the opposing party, making a peaceful resolution retreat further away.

Conservatives often assert that liberals simply complain, without offering any ideas of there own. We have been in Iraq for three years now, and it is not absurd to posit that the situation is unavoidably going to devolve into civil war. If Bush had a better Secretary of Defense, if Bush really cared about what the Generals and Joint Chiefs had to say, if Bush were a more competent Commander in Chief—hell, I'll say it—if Bush were a better man, then 2003, 2004, and 2005 would have been very different years, and things would almost certainly have gone better. We cannot change history, but it almost seems as though we are at a point wherein the only way out of the mess we created in Iraq, short of civil war, is to get into the Wayback Machine and get Gore elected in 2000. In a later post, I will outline some real ideas for victory; I know that that is a quixotic^* endeavor, since none of my ideas would ever be enacted by our President, but I would hate for my hypothetical conservative critic to be right.

In the meantime, we wait with baited breath to see whether the Iraqis overcome their deep intransigencies and convene Parliament, and quickly, but deliberately, come to a nonviolent solution to the problems stemming from their deep, long-held hatreds, rather than let their country descend into civil war. Perhaps we will not have to wait long.

^*The word "quixotic" in today's post is dedicated to Lindsay.

The Sale of P&O to Dubai

The current outcry over the sale of P&O to Dubai illustrates much about the administration. Bush's insistence that this is some straightforward transaction—the kind of thing that goes on every day in the business world and hardly merits Presidential attention—is absurd: the idea that the government ought not interfere in the takeover of a major infrastructure company by any party, much less a foreign government, without serious government involvement is an idea that most of us have rejected since the end of the gilded age. The claim that UAE has been an great partner in the "War on Terror" is equally absurd, but here I don't think Bush is technically lying so much as he is using doublespeak: if he means that the UAE has produced "terrorists" that he can boast about capturing, then he is right, but if he means that the UAE stands for what America stands for and supports our broad efforts against terror, then he is wrong.

Beyond the duplicity, the doublespeak, the incompetence and the cronyism, though, what is really troubling is the disregard for security. The rank hypocrisy of the President turning a critical element of our security to an entity like Dubai after that President won reelection on his supposed prowess at fighting terror is disturbing. It's so disturbing that an understandable reaction to this news would be to give the President the benefit of the doubt, and assume that the deal will not leave us more vulnerable, and that the administration has taken steps to ensure our security. Indeed, this is what the President is saying. But this President does not deserve such generosity. At no time during his stay in office has he demonstrated a commitment to governance, America, or any of our principles. What he has shown is self-interest and a commitment to his political allies. Here again, we see his character revealed: he puts his principle of rewarding friends and cronies ahead of the oath of office.

His actions in this matter make more sense if we assume that he thinks the office of the President is a monarch's seat. The UAE is a political ally of the President's, and they may cooperate with the United States on some things, but they are absolutely not in the same category as an ally like the United Kingdom. However, a monarch is the state, so we could assume that Bush makes no distinction between his personal allies and our Nation's allies.

We've had five years of this administration—in that time the country has backslid in almost every way, we've had an almost continuous stream of scandals, our political leadership has lost a war—in short, we should be completely desensitized to this administration's awfulness. Yet we cannot ever turn away in disgust because the only check right now on the administration's actions is the threat of public backlash. If we turn away from their actions—succuming to "outrage fatigue," as it were—we give them free reign to be even worse.

Many others have focused on the politics of this situation: the refrain seems to be that Bush is going "tone deaf." Others have have focused on the question as to whether we can trust Dubai. The most recent revalation is that Bush didn't even know about the transaction until it was (nearly) public. All of those things are noteworthly, but the heart of the matter is that Bush has betrayed the trust placed in him. He is richly deserving of the most intrusive scrutiny in this and all of his actions.

Treason and the Valerie Plame Affair

I just read Juan Cole's post Plame Wilson Had worked on Iran Anti-Proliferation. Briefly, Juan discusses the Neocon goal of war with Iran as a motivation for outing Valerie Plame.

I think the measure of how much this country has changed is evident here. Forget Harding or Nixon—Bush's is the worst presidency. We have this gang of Neocons who have taken over: Cheney, Libby, Hadley—I dither on whether to include Bush in this list. In any other administration, there would be little question but that these people would be prosecuted, incarcerated, and quite probably executed. Yet, because these people are part of Bush's political machine, none of them are under any serious threat of punishment.

I think that it is critical for Scooter Libby to be prosecuted and incarcerated, but remember what he is being charged with: obstruction of justice (among other things). This is a very serious charge, but I believe that we can infer that his actions have stymied the prosecutor's investigation into possible treason. I'm not saying that smearing Joe Wilson was some red herring; I do think the Scooter et al thought that they could kill two birds with one stone. As the prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald famously said, Libby "threw sand in the umpire's eyes." What the umpire failed to see, apparently, was treason by Libby, Rove, Cheney, and quite probably others. I don't include Bush in this list, not because he isn't culpable, but because the prosecutor can't indict a President; he can, however, indict the Vice President, to the best of my knowledge.

But how do these actions earn this Administration the title of "Worst?" After all, administrations have screwed up pretty badly in the past. But this administration does not believe in our system of government. More fundamental than our institutions, our constitution—more fundamental even than the idea of democracy—is the rule of law. The idea that the executive is bound by law goes back to the Magna Carta. The Bush administration has demonstrated that it does not believe in the rule of law. Citizens are being spied upon, the writ of habeas corpus has been suspended, congress is prevented from performing oversight, and a CIA officer's identity is illegally leaked.

In this last act, our intelligence operations inside Iran would certainly seem to have been damaged. This could lead to war with Iran. Regardless of the motives of Libby and his "superiors," his acts seem treasonous. We can only speculate as to what Libby's motives were, or who in the White House knew; with the current Congress, it doesn't seem we'll ever know much more.

I didn't really mean to start a blog, but no one was saying what I felt needed to be said. I doubt I'll post too often: I want to be careful to say what I mean to say, and I don't feel compelled to comment on every little news item. I'll try to keep my comments as objective and as fair as I can. I hope that what I write is worthwhile or interesting, even for someone who disagrees with me. I am not a reporter, but a commentator. I view blogging as the modern day equivalent of pamphleteering, so I take my words very seriously. I had never really considered writing a blog, but I finally couldn't take it. I voted against Bush both times, but I never imagined he'd take this country in this awful a direction. This latest news was the final straw; the War in Iraq is bad enough, but the thought that they might do it again is too much.