Why Iraq Could Blow up
in John McCain’s Face

By Patrick Cockburn,
CounterPunch

March 8, 2008,

http://www.alternet.org/story/79037/

In Baghdad the Iraqi government is eager to give the impression that peace is returning. “Not a single sectarian murder or displacement was reported in over a month,” claimed Brigadier Qasim Ata, the spokesman for the security plan for the capital. In the US, the Surge, the dispatch of 30,000 extra American troops in the first half of 2007, is portrayed as having turned the tide in Iraq. Democrats in Congress no longer call aggressively for a withdrawal of American troops. The supposed military success in Iraq has been brandished by Senator John McCain as vindication of his prowar stance. (more…)

After Super Tuesday,
Time for Peace Movement
to Get Off the Sidelines

By Tom Hayden

With Iraq a key issue and the Democratic primaries unresolved, isn’t it time for the peace movement to get off the sidelines and become more engaged? Shouldn’t we be doing everything possible to make the candidates compete for the peace vote? Think of the battlegrounds ahead where the peace vote is up for grabs: Washington on February 9, Maryland and the District of Columbia February 12, Wisconsin February 19, Rhode Island, Vermont and Ohio on March 4, and other states like Oregon and Pennsylvania through May.

On one side it appears that the pro-Democratic groups with millions of dollars are sitting out the primaries, saving their energy for the coming battle with John McCain. That plan just got delayed for many weeks as the primaries go on. On the other side are the grass-roots peace coalitions that generally forsake political engagement and busy themselves with plans for civil disobedience while 13 more states are voting. (more…)

Right-Wingers Can’t
Cover Up Iraq’s
Death Toll Catastrophe

By John Tirman,
AlterNet.org

January 21, 2008

Now I know what Hillary Clinton meant, first hand, by that “vast right-wing conspiracy.” When the Wall Street Journal editorial page and the Sunday Times in London are going after you — along with about 100 right-wing bloggers — rest assured you’ve hit a nerve.

Or is it just Soros Derangement Syndrome at work?

More than two years ago, I commissioned a household survey of Iraq to learn how many people had died in the war. This topic had been virtually ignored by the news media and the U.S. government. It was important to know for at least three reasons. The first was to try to understand the nature of the violence there, which was steadily growing and creating a humanitarian crisis, possibly a regional conflagration. Second, it might tell us something about how and when to exit. Third, we needed to know for the sake of our national soul. What had we wrought? (more…)

The ‘Terrific News’ In Iraq

By Joseph A. Palermo

The Huffington Post
January 16

I really hate to break it to Michael Barone, William Kristol, Kenneth Pollack, Michael O’Hanlon, and other triumphalists, but the United States is not “winning” in Iraq (whatever that means) and George W. Bush’s “surge strategy” is a failure and a fraud.

I don’t know if Kristol, Barone, Pollack, and O’Hanlon think it is “good” news that the Iraqi Defense Minister, Abdul Qadir, while making the usual rounds in Washington power circles announced recently that he wants American troops to stay in Iraq at least until the year 2018. Or that he has given the Pentagon a “shopping list” for huge amounts of American military equipment including helicopters, warplanes, reconnaissance vehicles, tanks, artillery, and armored personnel carriers. Maybe these commentators think Mr. Qadir’s request of the American taxpayers (who have already spent over $700 billion on his country) is a sign of “progress.” (more…)

Campaign Promises
Are Empty Until
the War Ends

By Bill Boyarsky,
Truthdig, via Alternet.org

January 13, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/story/73158/

MANCHESTER, N.H. — When Hillary Clinton, seriously set back by the Iowa caucuses, landed in New Hampshire to resuscitate her presidential campaign, the first question from the audience was unsparingly blunt: “When will the troops come home?”

She replied, as she has done before, that she hopes to begin bringing them home a brigade or two a month, but will leave enough troops in Iraq to protect themselves, American civilians and Iraqis who have helped the United States. That’s not too much different from what has been proposed by Barack Obama and John Edwards.

In other words, no matter who wins, Democrat or Republican, get ready for an extended war, a nagging pain that won’t go away. That simple, infuriating thought has been lost in the deluge of analysis, vote figures, handicapping and moments of drama that accompanied the Iowa caucuses and are carrying over into the New Hampshire’s primary. (more…)

The Surge: Illusion & Reality

By Conn Hallinan
Portside.org

“Where the dead are ghosts on the fragile abacus used to calculate loss, to estimate tragedy”

–from Body Count by poet Persis Karim

The narrative in the media these days is the success of the U.S. “surge,” which has poured an additional 30,000 U.S. troops into Iraq.

Last month, war critic and close ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa), said, “I think the surge is working.” Polls indicate that concern over the economy has replaced the war as the major issue for voters, and, that while a majority of Americans want the troops out, those saying that things are going better jumped from
33 percent to just under 50 percent. Are they going better? Car bombings, sectarian violence and attacks on U.S. troops are down, although 2007 has been the deadliest year of the war for the Americans. But does the reduced violence have anything to do with the surge?

As Patrick Cockburn of The Independent (UK) points out, Americans and the U.S. media tend to “exaggerate the extent to which the U.S. is making the political weather and is in control of events there.” (more…)

A Challenge to Obama:
‘Tom Hayden Democrats’
and Stopping the War

“The Democrats have been stuck in the arguments of Vietnam, which means that either you’re a Scoop Jackson Democrat or you’re a Tom Hayden Democrat and you’re suspicious of any military action. And that’s just not my framework.”

- Sen. Barack Obama, New York Times Magazine, Nov. 4, 2007

By Tom Hayden
The Huffington Post

Barack, I thought Hillary Clinton was known as the Great Triangulator, but you are learning well. The problem with setting up false polarities to position yourself in the “center,” however, is that it’s unproductive both politically and intellectually.

Politically, it is a mistake because there last time I looked there were a whole lot more “Tom Hayden Democrats” voting in the California primary and, I suspect, around the country, than “‘Scoop’ Jackson Democrats.” In fact, they are your greatest potential base, aside from African-American voters, in a multi-candidate primary.

More disturbing is what happens to the mind by setting up these polarities. To take a “centrist” position, one calculates the equal distance between two “extremes.” It doesn’t matter if one “extreme” is closer to the truth. All that matters is achieving the equidistance. This means the presumably “extreme” view is prevented from having a fair hearing, which would require abandoning the imaginary center. And it invites the “extreme” to become more “extreme” in order to pull the candidate’s thinking in a more progressive direction. The process of substantive thinking is corroded by the priority of political positioning. (more…)