Embedded, or in bed with?

This reporter from Newsweek Magazine tells of a new US military practice: screening reporters who are allowed to accompany troops into the field. Seems that now, in order to be an embedded reporter, you must not have written articles that the Pentagon doesn't approve of.

Well, Whaddaya know

I do believe I made it onto their lists. (I attended at least one of the protests in front of the Santa Barbara courthouse--see last line of the article.)

Ramadi

Here's a NYT account of the status of our forces in Ramadi, Iraq. It makes me want to scream.

How the Brits see us

I suppose we deserve this. No, I don't suppose. I know.

One sector of the Iraq economy is humming

but it's not all good.

I'm suspicious

Cheney's medical status is in the news from time to time--announcements that he's fine, but of course reminding us that he's got a troubled ticker.

I still think (I predicted this before Bush's re-election, but was wrong) that he'll develop a weakness before the end of Bush's tenure and will be replaced with someone that Rove would hope to install as Bush's successor nominee of the Republican Party.

Am I crazy? No. I know Rove has thought about it, don't you?

Tasteless?

Yes. Outrageous, too.

Keep on fighting

Okay, so a majority--none of them Bush appointees, and one of his appointees disqualified--put the kabosh on Bush's patently illegal Gitmo operation; and the Senate, by one vote--the slimmest margin on such a vote in history--refused to launch a flag-burning constitutional amendment into the state legislatures, where it was certain to gain the requisite 34 approvals. Two wins for the good guys.

These are significant victories, but when viewed against the entirety of current events, tiny. These decisions should enflame Bush's adversaries, embolden them, not satisfy them, not at all.

What can I say?

Here's a summary of Rassmussen Reports' polls (usually a bit skewed toward the conservatives, but it's a fine bellwether) on various issues as responded to in several selected states. I'm chagrined to admit that I lived for five decades in Arizona--apparently to no effect, because its numbers show an astounding adherence to stupidity, as bad in some categories as Texas and Nebraska.

It's not the only reason I moved to California--the beach is the main reason--but it sure solidifies my staying away from that horde of rednecks.

Now understand: I have many friends and family who are liberal, clear-thinking Americans and who live in Tucson. But the Phoenix area--it's a pit of reactionary evil, and it dominates the politics of the state. With Senators like Kyle and McCain, what can I say?

Pyongyang, Paris, Baghdad

Some of us old farts remember the years--at least two--of negotiations between the U.S. and North Korea in Pyongyang that led to the eventual standoff in the Korean "conflict"; and the interminable period of meetings between the U.S. and North Vietnamese in Paris that led nowhere and resulted in our troops finally bolting Saigon. Thousands of civilians and soldiers on all sides of the wars died while these talks were being held, with endless wrangling (there was a weeks-long negotiation over the shape of the conference table in Paris, recall) and posturing by diplomats and politicians. As fruitless and meaningless as these negotiations were, however, at least the U.S. was, to a greater or lesser degree, involved in them, presumably striving to advance U.S. interests.

Well, it looks like we're now entering a similar phase in Iraq, with al-Maliki and others on behalf of the government trying to end the strife with the multifaceted opposition to the present state of Iraq. The difference, of course, is that we're pretending that Iraq is a sovereign nation, empowered (ha ha) to strike its own bargains to that end, and so we must control the negotiations secretly, even if it keeps the conflict going. For an obvious example, we've made al-Maliki change his tune on amnesty for insurgents who've killed American troops, the effect of which has been to so weaken the reconciliation plan that it's unlikely to have any impact.

So--now we've created a war the end of which is beyond our control except through indirect, secretive string-pulling; and which we're willing to continue to save face. If I were a parent of a kid killed in Iraq, I'd be outraged. In fact, simply as an American, I'm outraged.

Why don't we have public media, or any media, like this?

This BBC analysis of the Bush administration's "reconciliation" posture in Iraq is succinct and incisive. No quotes from "administration sources," no "critics say" quotes, either. Just plain insight and straightforward presentation of the Republicans' hope that through the smoke and mirrors, conflicting messages, assuaging assurances, they can hornswoggle the Americans for one more election cycle.

Well, duh

was my first reaction to this US general Chiarelli's observation that when our troops kill Iraqi civilians, it fuels the insurgency. But I do indeed like his phrasing.

``We have people who were on the fence or supported us who in the last two years or three years have in fact decided to strike out against us. And you have to ask: Why is that? And I would argue in many instances we are our own worst enemy,'' Chiarelli said.

Am I missing something?

Isn't there something so wrong with this graph--forget about the other outrageous indexes of economic inequality in the U.S.--that it defies any explanation except contempt for those who are economically or politically powerful?

I've been waiting

for the Sunday talk shows' reaction to al-Maliki's "reconciliation plan"--which in repeated statements by the Iraq government (which I've followed on this blog) proferred amnesty to Iraqi insurgents who'd killed American troops. But now it appears that as finally submitted to Parliament, the plan so softens the amnesty provisions as to make them ineffective. Juan Cole says that Bush pressured al-Maliki to delete the amnesty provision--the only place on the web that I could find that so suggested. In any event, the talk shows were, as always, silly and redundant.

Update: The NYT noted the absence of the amnesty plan, but finessed the issue of its deletion from earlier descriptions of its effect. Note that it's our ambassador, not an Iraqi official, who's quoted about the absence of amnesty for Iraqis who killed Americans. If such a provision, which may indeed have helped quell the violence in Iraq, was deleted because of pressure from the US administration, then the word "puppet government" could not be more apt.

More discussions of amnesty are here, here and here.

Keeping track of permanent bases

So--both the House and Senate included a "no permanent bases in Iraq" provision in their military appropriations bills, as I reported earlier, only to have those provisions deleted by the Republican-dominated Conference Committee. Well, now the House has re-instated the no-bases language in its version of the bill upon passage after the converence committee action, so let's see what happens next.

You think it will actually become law? You think Bush, if he signs such a law--as he must in order to keep the appropriations money flowing to Iraq--will append to it a "signing statement" essentially nullifying its effect? You think, in the lifetimes of any readers of this post, we'll see a withdrawal of all US forces from Iraq? In your dreams.

I might watch the Sunday "talk shows" this Sunday

To see the reaction of various interviewees to the announcement on Sunday--Iraq time, which is ten hours earlier than our morning TV shows--of this broadscale reconciliation plan by the Iraqi government. It includes both a withdrawal timetable for "all foreign troops" and an amnesty for Iraqis insurgents who've killed occupation forces.

Yeah, it'll be fun to watch the neocons twist in the wind over this.

Letter to the editor

I happened to buy a copy of the Santa Barbara News-Press yesterday--I rarely buy one, other than Sunday's issue for its TV Guide, and I only read the paper occasionally, when I'm browsing in a coffee house or something--and there was my letter to the editor that I sent a couple of weeks ago. I don't know why the delay in publishing it (it's brilliant!) but what the hell. It may be found here.

Meanwhile, back in Afghanistan

US troops are dying (four yesterday), and even our puppet president, Karzai, is complaining about the conduct of the foreign troops in his land. Sound like any place else you've heard of lately?

Here's a more detailed dispatch to the same effect. I do admire Karzai for urging nonmilitary means for dealing with the insurgents in Afghanistan--and for protesting the killing of Taliban members, because "they too are sons of this land."

Let's face it (as no lawmakers have done): The solution to the planet's strife--from the Middle East to the Far East, from Africa to South and Central America, "terrorism" to state-sanctioned war--isn't now and has never been military. It's been political, economic, social. It's been that there's a fundamental unfairness in the distribution of means and wealth and freedom and opportunity on Earth. How can any nation--the US, the UK, even Denmark, France, Sweden--justify the vast differences between its citizens' material wealth, and that of citizens of the third world? How can such nations--especially the US--justify the ongoing and growing inequality of material wealth and opportunity among its own citizens? Any answers?

What next?

Now it turns out that our troops in Iraq are being killed--intentionally shot--by members Iraq's civil defense forces. I wonder, really I do, how it is that Bush/Cheney are still in office, as are Rummie and Condi . They're wrecking this nation, every facet of it, with such haste and abandon that it will take decades to repair.

I apologize to you younger folks. These monsters matured and took power on my watch.

Well, whaddya think?

Finally, a political football that even Karl Rove can't handle. The Iraq-amnesty plan has found its way to the US Senate, where a nonbinding resolution passed by a wide margin, condemning Iraq's plan to grant amnesty to insurgents who killed "only" US occupation troops. Nineteen senators voted against the resolution, all Republicans. So--Republicans don't support our troops after all. Indeed, they won't grant amnesty to Mexicans who entered our nation without papers, but support amnesty for Iraqis who kill our troops.

I love it.