Rumsfled False Front in Iraq

On his recent trip to Iraq, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld engaged in a creative style of reframing the Iraq war as somehow not really a US responsibility. After invading a weak country that was at peace and defeating its already broken military, the US found itself confronted by opposition from numerous groups of ordinary Iraqis that didn't appreciate being occupied and controlled by a foreign country. Since the supposed reason for the invasion (Iraq's threatening WMDs) proved to be a fanatasy, the Bush administration has struggled with one excuse after another to justify our continuing presense there. The longer we stay we more we are hated. The more we are hated the more violent opposition we receive. The more opposition we receive the more repressive and hostile is our response. The harsher our response the more violent is their retaliation. It has become painfully obvious that we cannot "win" in this situation short of killing a major portion of the Iraqi population and reducing the country to rubble (as we have in Fallujah).

Now comes our nimble worded SecDef to put a new spin on the situation; the insurgency is an Iraqi, not an American, problem":

Earlier in Fallujah, the restive city that had been the insurgents' main haven until U.S. forces overran it last month and are still rooting out holdout fighters Rumsfeld used a simple analogy to explain his view that the time is arriving for Iraqis to take responsibility for their own security.

Faced with a chore like digging a ditch, a typical American, he said, will grab a shovel and start digging. In Iraq now, however, the task is to step aside and get the Iraqis to dig their own ditches.

He warned against allowing the Iraqis to become too dependent on the U.S. military. More independence is what's needed, he said.

Note how mysteriously the "insurgents" and the "Iraqis" are spoken of as if they are different entities when in fact the insurgents are primarily ordinary Iraqis and those Rumsfeld refers to as Iraqis constitute some mythic comination of our appointed stooges and an imagined populace that wants us to be there.

As for the ditch digging analogy it is a perfect example of our bad faith in Iraq. Rumsfeld doesn't want us digging their ditches for them but never bothers to consider whether or not the ditch we think should be dug is one they desire or would be willing to commit to. If he really believes that more independence is what is needed then we should leave so they can have it. Anything else is lying, self-serving, hypocracy on our part - and ultimately self-defeating as well.

Democratic Strategy

Wise words from KOS:

The Democrats need to offer an alternative agenda over the next four years. It won't be enacted, so they can shoot for the moon. The hell with good policy, make proposals that sound great. The GOP used flag burning and gay marriage to rally their side. We can find equivalents. Don't worry about them becoming law, because they won't. Worry about branding the party and placing every bit of bad news (and there will be plenty) squarely at the feet of the party that controls all levers of government.
We need to make the GOP radioactive. Their incompetence is providing the ammunition. It is our job to wield it. Remember, they control everything. We don't need to be bipartisan. We don't need to work with them for them to pass their agenda. So we offer up clear alternatives to everything they propose. We have to be aggressive.

We have nothing to lose. Being in the minority is being in the minority. Yet we have much to gain.

Trying ANY form of cooperation with Republicans is a losing game. It's time to really fight back and mean it.

Support the Troops - Bring Them Home

Al Neuharth, founder of USA Today, has an opinion piece this week calling for an immediate withdrawal from Iraq:

Despite unhappy holidays, nearly all of us who served in WWII were proud, determined and properly armed and equipped to help defeat would-be world conquerors Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy and Hirohito in Japan.

At age 80, I'd gladly volunteer for such highly moral duty again. But if I were eligible for service in Iraq, I would do all I could to avoid it. I would have done the same during the Vietnam War, as many of the politically connected did.

"Support Our Troops" is a wonderful patriotic slogan. But the best way to support troops thrust by unwise commanders in chief into ill-advised adventures like Vietnam and Iraq is to bring them home. Sooner rather than later. That should be our New Year's resolution.

This has prompted a great deal of spirited response, much of it incoherent raving about Neuharth being a traitor, but worth reading just to see the odd level of "reality" some of our fellow citizens inhabit. Really frightening.

Does the Democratic Party Have a Death Wish?

I read in this morning's papers that the Democrats are engaged in major soul searching about whether or not to de-emphasize abortion as a core issue. As with so much about the Dims lately, this indicates they have learned nothing from the long series of humiliations they have suffered at Republican hands. It was never the Democrats that over emphasized abortion; it was the conservative Republicans who made abortion, the "murder" of the unborn - rather than a woman's control over her own body - the issue. It was a decades long process of definition that, once again, allowed the conservatives to define the terms of debate in their favor. The problem for Democrats is not that they have a losing issue, it's that they have accepted the losing side of a loaded question. No, Democrats are not "in favor of abortion." They are "in favor" of making the decision on whether or not to have an abortion a matter of personal choice. That is quite a different thing.

Kevin Drum, the "Political Animal" has this to say:

I have to confess that I'm bewildered by the big abortion controvery that's apparently brewing in the Democratic party:

The fight is a central theme of the contest to head the Democratic National Committee, particularly between two leading candidates: former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who supports abortion rights, and former Indiana Rep. Tim Roemer, an abortion foe who argues that the party cannot rebound from its losses in the November election unless it shows more tolerance on one of society's most emotional conflicts.

.....If Roemer were to succeed Terry McAuliffe as Democratic chairman in the Feb. 10 vote, the party long viewed as the guardian of abortion rights would suddenly have two antiabortion advocates at its helm. [Harry] Reid, too, opposes abortion and once voted for a nonbinding resolution opposing Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion.

This genuinely doesn't make any sense to me:

What's Roemer talking about? The Democratic party is no more "intolerant" on this issue than the Republican party — just on the opposite side. There aren't any pro-choice folks in the Republican leadership, after all, and if it's lack of tolerance you're after, just look at the humiliating process Arlen Specter had to go through recently just to get a Senate committee chairmanship.


I'm usually in favor of more inclusive language, greater sensitivity, etc. etc. But obsessing about the emotional turmoil of getting an abortion just doesn't work. Since we fundamentally believe that there's nothing wrong with pre-viability abortion, shouldn't our job instead be to persuade women that they shouldn't feel emotionally whipsawed if they choose to get an abortion? It's awfully hard to take both sides.


There's no issue that doesn't hurt you with at least some voters, but of all the "moral values" issues out there, abortion is one of the few in which the Democratic position is also the majority position. If we feel the need to pander on some culture war issue, why pick this one?


The odd thing is that this is a social issue where I'm more comfortable with policy changes than I am with rhetoric changes. I can live with parental notification, for example, but mainly because I think abortion really should be treated like any other medical procedure. And I don't object to bans on late-term abortions (with appropriate safeguards, of course), but that's perfectly consistent with Roe v. Wade.

Rhetoric, on the other hand, really can't be watered down very much. You either believe in a right to choose or you don't. I don't see how you can tap dance around a core principle like that.

That's about right. Can't someone actually get the Democrats to pay attention to what is really going on?

"Clash over Christmas"? Or "Clash in Fallujah"?

What's the real story of the season? Over at Daily Kos we get to the heart of the matter: the Bushies are doing what they do best - using a PR campaign to create a false "reality" and deflect attention from the ugly truth of what their policies have brought us. No, the worsening war in Iraq is of little consequence (Rummy assures us that things are getting better), no, the real "war" is the one that secular-liberals are waging against Christmas.

CJR has more on this non-story:

When not flogging the same three stories -- two of which are essentially false -- to create the appearance of a genuine national trend, the media is busy interviewing the same outraged representatives of a few conservative family groups trying to put the Christ back in Christmas. The Alliance Defense Fund, for example, has been cited in numerous stories in the past week, as has the Rutherford Institute, another conservative group.

We're reluctant to take the role of Ebenezer Scrooge in this morality play, but in the course of digesting over four dozen of these faux stories, the words "Bah, Humbug!" just kept coming to mind.

So we have a suggestion for all the reporters and editors who are keeping this one alive: Instead of worrying so much about putting Christ back in Christmas, you might start thinking about putting news back in "news reports."

And major "news" outlets continue to treat this as a serious topic. Pathetic.

Social Security: The Crisis is Now - NOT

George Bush would have us believe that Social Security is ready to collapse unless we start funnelling money into the stock market. Paul Krugman on Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now" explains why this is all a load of horse manure. Enjoy.

Blow Up Your TV, Throw Away Your Paper

The John Prine lyric from thirty years ago has never been so apt. We live in a time when all major organs of "news" are really full of crappy and manipulative propaganda that supports the very worst of the options available to us. Left to our own devices - without the prodding and unsolicited directives we are given each day by the corporate media - we might achieve some reasonable solution to real problems. As it is, we are encouraged to respond to phony crises and agonize over non-existant or greatly exaggerated threats.

Bush Economic Summit Nonsense

In the first move of the upcoming battle of economic reality against conservative idealogical fantasy, the Bush administration has hosted an Economic "Summit." That they are dealing strictly in fantasy is made clear by calling this staged propaganda performance a summit. Since it wasn't a meeting of heads of state - or even high level experts - it can hardly be called a summit. In fact, since the very bold sign in front of the podium proclaimed "Challanges" - a mis-spelling of "Challenges" - these guys lose a lot of credibility right up front for failing to even bother with basic editing. If they don't care enough to spell their stupid slogans correctly what faith should we put in their message?

Not much. All depends on not paying close attention to what is really being said. The "summit" was divided between two themes - taxes and Social Security. When the Bushies were talking about taxes they had to pretend that everything was wonderful with the economy and that the continued reduction in tax cuts would make things even better, but when talking about Social Security they had to pretend that the economy was on the verge of collapse and that we are facing a real crisis (though far in the future). The ability to maintain two such opposite positions at the same time is a clear indication of lack of contact with reality.