Republicans afraid of being seen as inheriting Bush legacy, and are willing to Kill America in order to damage Obama's presidency

On the occasion of bringing the Troops home from Iraq, Rachel Maddow opened her show with a strong piece about the conflicted emotions and moral stances we collectively hold about the Iraq war.  It's been a long war, nearly 9 years since Americans invaded Iraq and about 20 years since the Operation Desert Storm thing.  It's a long war that has cost a certain 1% of the population a great deal, namely the Military, who has been on full combat standing for the last 10 years fighting two wars while the rest of us were told in no uncertain terms by President GW Bush to go back to shopping.

That is - we as a country have been fighting these two wars, ten thousand or more American deaths in the war, a few hundred thousand locals killed between the two countries, a huge amount of ill-will formed against the U.S. because of our presence there as invaders/occupiers - but the emotional and physical cost has been paid by a small minority.  Maddow said the military is 1% of the population which might well be true.  Do the rest of us think about the war very much?

Collectively we have moral responsibility for the war - it is our votes for politicians, our political action (or inaction) which has given support to continuing the war.  In my mind there was a period in 2004-6-7 when all hell was breaking loose there, I was aghast at what I was hearing, had proved to myself that the war was illegal (had no legal standing), that GW Bush and the whole administration should have been impeached and treated as the traitors that they were, but also realizing that the situation that had been created was so horrendously bad that Americans had to stay the course and get the situation to some kind of better resolution.  We created an ugly mess there, and it was our mess to clean up, no matter how illegally and traitorously that mess was begun.

Even those of us who aren't part of that 1% of the population who is part of the Military - we ALL share moral responsibility for this mess.

Instead there is such a great divide between that 1% and the rest of us, that the ending of the war, the troops coming home, is barely a blip in the news stream.  No ticker tape parades etc celebrating a victory.  In fact the Republican spin job on this is that Obama is taking us home in shame as a loser, when in fact Obama was given what he would call an "Unjust War" (there are Just Wars and Unjust Wars) which he had to make the best of.

Back to Maddow's report.  One issue she talked about is the current Republican Presidential candidates and how all of them (except for Ron Paul) want to continue American presence in Iraq.  They've all taken stances against ending our presence there.  And at the same time nobody in the Republican party seems willing to be seen as an inheritor to the GW Bush Legacy.  The description I just gave of the horrendous and illegal state of Bush's Iraq war is, even if the Republicans are unwilling to admit it publicly, collectively hanging over the Republican party.

To top off the piece Maddow had on Col. Lawrence Wilkerson to give us a blistering denunciation of the Republicans who want to continue the Iraq war.  He described them as suicidal, in that the Republicans are following a strategy of rejecting every single thing Obama stands for, and taking ANY stance that will hurt Obama.  They want to hurt him in every single way they can, run him through every political torture they can think of, and they do not care a bit about the damage they do to the U.S.A. in the process.  They are proving themselves willing to devastate our country in order to hurt Obama, which is how Wilkerson has the justification to call them Suicidal.

 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Libya: The Real U.S. Drone War

Earlier I asked about the drone war being fought in Libya by Western powers (http://politics.7gen.com/2011/10/will-economic-hitmen-undo-political.html) and wondering about what will be expected of the new Libyan government because of what the West did to support the rebellion.  The Libyans would not have overthrown Ghaddafi on their own, and instead the massive support with drone aircraft (and other aircraft) made a huge difference.  A Wired news article published today, in the wake of Ghaddafi's death, goes over the drone deployment against Libya.

It took three weeks for NATO's (U.S.) war machine to arrive in Libya.  There have been 145 drone strikes since then, quite a bit more than the 57 drone strikes in Pakistan this year.

It's likely that Ghaddafi himself was killed by a drone strike - though, todays reports are unclear and confused with several different versions of the events.

This is the picture of the U.S. prosecuting a war by proxy - that is, robotic proxy.  Rather than directly commit troops on the ground in real combat, we're sending robots out to kill people and fight the war for us.  I sometimes wonder if that makes us cowards.

 

Libya: The Real U.S. Drone War

Leader's Demise Is Messy, Mysterious

US drone took part in Libya strikes, hit unclear

Gaddafi's death - who pulled the trigger?

War Is a Government Program

The article claims that many "Conservatives" are claiming "Progressives" (or else those 'damn liberals') are causing political leaders to subordinate military considerations to political control. The article then dives into a long and truly excellent discussion of the appropriate role of political leaders and military leaders.

In the U.S. Constitution it is very clearly stated, that military decisions are subordinated to civilian authority. If one is to value the U.S. Constitution then one should practice what it says.

But, says the article, there is a deeper consideration: "those who make this complaint seem willfully blind to the nature of war. At its most fundamental level, war is no more a military phenomenon than it is a scientific phenomenon. True, militaries fight wars, and military tactics is a meaningful discipline. But war also requires weapons that make use of the principles of physics. Does that mean wars are fundamentally the province of scientists? No, and neither are they fundamentally the province of generals. Wars are political phenomena. You’d think the armchair generals and word-processor pilots would know that. "

Article Reference: 

War Is a Government Program

extvideo: 

Winning a war about ideology means killing the ideology

The beginning of the end for Syria ..and.. Fight a democracy, kill the people .. discusses the current Lebanon/Hezbollah/Israel war. That war is part of the broader conflict in the Middle East, and is very likely going to merge with the broader conflict to make the war cover the whole of the Middle East.

There's a very interesting point to ponder: Conventional armies can defeat guerrilla forces with broad popular support, for it is perfectly feasible to dismantle a people, destroy its morale, and if need be expel them. It has happened in history on occasions beyond count. The British did it to the Scots Highlanders after the 1745 rising, and to the Acadians of Canada after the Seven Years' War; Ataturk did it to the Greeks of Asia Minor in 1922; and the Czechs did it to the Sudeten Germans after 1945. It seems to be happening again, as half or more of Lebanon's 1.2 million Shi'ites flee their homes. To de-fang Hezbollah implies the effective dissolution of the Shi'ite community, a third of whom live within Katyusha range of Israel.

I remember reading how President Roosevelt had strategized about how to end World War II. They had an offer of surrender early on, but his strategy was to thoroughly demoralize the German People so that they would not later rise up to be a threat.

In the case of Hezbollah we have a million people in southern Lebanon who thoroughly believe in their leader. They hold a set of beliefs that are incompatible with the beliefs held by Israel. So the idea is, winning this war means killing the ideology. But ideologies tend to live on and on and on. Ideologies are carried by people in their beliefs.

Hmm... So, they're waging war because of a disagreement over beliefs?

Maybe it's that the fundamentalist mindset can only see their fundamentals as being the correct ones?

What that means is ... the U.S. is currently in the grip of Christain fundamentalism. The Middle East is seeing a rise in Islamic Fundamentalism, with whole countries like Iran and pre-invasion-Afghanistan being in the grip of Islamic Fundamentalist Law. The war can be seen as a battle between Christain and Islamic fundamentalists. They both seem to share a belief that society is corrupt and the way to decorruptize society is to return to the religious teachings. But where they differ is on the content of those teachings, the beliefs taught by those teachings.

Sigh, why can't those teachings live side by side? Don't they both teach to love thy neighbor? But, unfortunately, when you combine fundamentalist religion with political power, they tend to make the fundamentals of their religion into law. We're seeing that in the U.S. with various faith based laws being enacted or proposed, and in the Middle East it's gone even further where the countries have adopted Shariah Law in whole.

But I think trying to kill an ideology by killing the people who hold that ideology is a fools journey. It's interesting that the article mentioned the Scottish uprising and what the English did to the Scottish. I was just in Scotland, and they are a very proud people, very proud of their difference from the British, very proud of the times they successfully fought off the British, very sad over the Land Clearances that bordered on what we now call "Ethnic Cleansing", and they recently reestablished their own Parliament. What I take from that is you might be able to suppress a people and their ideology for a generation or so, but they'll eventually find their power again and rise up against you over the grievances done upon their ancestors.

We saw that with the Kosovo conflict a few years ago. That conflict was based on a battle fought several hundred years ago, which was still simmering beneath the surface of the people living in that area.

I think it's better for us to seek ways to live together in harmony, and celebrate our differences. But that would mean having laws that allow each of us to be different from the other. Laws that give equal weight to us all despite our creed.

For example ... laws that allow homosexuals to marry. That particular issue I chose because the Christain fundamentalists in the U.S. are currently making a lot of noise about this issue. What's at issue is a conflict of ideas between what is the right or wrong way to live. The Christain fundamentalists in the U.S. see homosexual marraige as completely offensive, claiming that God said that was a sin. But, think, didn't Jesus teach to love everybody, to love thy neighbor as thyself? Doesn't that apply to homosexuals just as everybody else? How can these fundamentalists get away with their fire and brimstone, where they condemn certain kinds of people to hell and damnation? Is it loving thy neighbor to do so? Yet, that's what they're doing in the name of God under the banner of their religion.

I see that the Christian teachings, to love thy neighbor as thyself, etc, would be very compatible with, for example, allowing homosexuals to marry, and in general to living in harmony with your neighbor who believes differently from yourself.

Israel's campaign against Lebanon may constitute war crimes, by Israel, and may violate US law

There is a conflict happening between Israel and Lebanon right now. It's an extension of 50 years, or more, of previous conflict and is in the context of the larger Middle East conflict which has been with us for decades. (Also see this previous blog entry)

I want to outline several articles that have come up in my news scans. These articles provide a non-mainstream view of the conflict, one that Fox News is unlikely to air.

Attacks Qualify as War Crimes, Officials Say: This was published in the NY Times, and republished on CommonDreams.org. The contention is that because Israel is making attacks that are killing civilians, that perhaps they are targeting cibilians, and to do so is illegal conduct under International law concerning the conduct of war. For example one source in the article is quoted saying:

“International humanitarian law is clear on the supreme obligations to protect civilians during hostilities" ... “Indiscriminate shelling of cities constitutes a foreseeable and unacceptable targeting of civilians," ... “Similarly, the bombardment of sites with alleged innocent civilians is unjustifiable.”

Additionally: The Swiss-based International Red Cross, the recognized guardian of the Geneva Conventions on the conduct of war, said Wednesday that Israel had violated the principle of proportionality provided for in the Conventions and their protocols.

Thousands Flock to Hills, Parks and Schools, But No Place Safe from Bombs: Provides some "color" in terms of what life is like in Lebanon under Israel's attacks.

Civilian Toll Raises Questions: Discusses how intertwined is Hezbollahs infrastructure with the civilian society around them. It is claimed it would be very difficult for Israel to effectively attack and destroy Hezbollah without inflicting collateral damage.

"The reality is, we're fighting an organization that stores the missiles it launches against us in people's homes," ... "They do it on purpose."

"This is Going to Be A Big War": A discussion by a longtime Iraq War analyst who claims this war with Lebanon is going to escalate even further. Similarly the other day I saw an article based on a speech by Newt Gingrich where he said we are now in World War III.

A Handful of Neocons Are Instigating a Wider War: Points a finger at the Neo-Conservatives for instigating an escalation of the war. This follows along with their plan from the mid-90's to use the U.S. position as being the "world's sole superpower" to throw our weight around and reshape the world into a kind of Pax Americana where the U.S. calls all the shots, and the world will enter a golden age of peace and harmony led by the U.S. Or some kind of bullcrap like that. I think it's sheer megalomania.

In US, Not All Casualties Are Equal ..and.. Remarks by Ambassador John R. Bolton, U.S. Representative to the United Nations, on the situation in the Middle East, at the Security Council Stakeout, July 17, 2006: There is a curious logic going on which we've seen before. In Israel's attacks on Lebanon, the number of deaths is highly skewed where there are approximately 300 deaths in Lebanon to approximately 30 deaths in Israel. The same kind of ratio holds with the U.S. invasion of Iraq, where tens of thousands of Iraqi's have died compared to nearly 3000 U.S. soldiers.

John Bolton, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., has a curious statement to this effect:

Reporter: Over the weekend, a Canadian family was killed on vacation in southern Lebanon by the Israeli air campaign. I’m wondering how concerned you are about the civilian deaths? Ambassador Bolton: Well, it is a matter of great concern to us, to the President in particular, that these civilian deaths are occurring and it’s a tragedy. There’s simply no other way to describe it. But I think it would be a mistake to ascribe a moral equivalence to civilians who die as the direct result of malicious terrorist acts, the very purpose of which terrorist acts are to kill civilians, and the tragic and unfortunate consequence of civilian deaths as a result of military action taken in self-defense. Our moral and legal systems make all the difference in the world between acts based on what their intention is and it’s simply not the same thing to say that it’s the same act to deliberately target innocent civilians, to desire their death, to fire rockets and use explosive devices and examples like kidnapping versus the sad and highly unfortunate consequences of self-defense. But there’s no doubt that all of these civilian deaths are tragic and that’s why if Hezbollah would release the two soldiers it’s kidnapped, then I think we’d have a quick way to get back to a peaceful situation.

To the people who died, do you think they care whether it was a tragic and unfortunate consequence, or whether it was a terrorist act? They died either way. And, as noted above, there is the question of whether Israel is purposely targeting civilians.

The U.S. and Israeli authorities probably feel they have to deny any purposeful targeting of civilians. Since it is a violation of International war conventions to do so, if they want to avoid being brought to trial for war crimes violations they have to spin their actions their way, and hope nobody catches on.

Here's the breakdown: More than 250 Lebanese, most of them civilians, including women and children ... To date, 25 Israelis have been killed, half of them uniformed soldiers in combat with Hezbollah fighters.

Now, if we look at what Bolton said, he claims it is Hezbollah who is deliberately targeting civilians. But if that's what Hezbollah is doing, then why are the casualties from their actions heavily skewed to the military? Why are the casualties due to Israeli actions heavily skewed to civilians? Just who is targeting civilians?

On the other hand Hezbollah has been hiding their weapons in peoples homes, and all their infrastructure is located among the civilian population. What's Israel to do?

The final question I want to raise is the issue that Israel's attacks in Lebanon violates U.S. law.

Their attacks are being carried out using weapons provided by the U.S. Under U.S., weapons sold to another country can only be used for defensive purposes. Israel is claiming this is self defense, but at the same time their form of self defense is to invade and occupy Lebanon. Are they waging an act of aggression, or are they committing self defense?

Marine general: "It's fun to shoot people"

Marine general: It's 'fun to shoot people'
Thursday, February 3, 2005 Posted: 4:16 PM EST (2116 GMT) CNN.COM

This CNN article has to do with Lt. Gen. James Mattis (Marines) who said:

"Actually it's quite fun to fight them, you know. It's a hell of a hoot," Mattis said, prompting laughter from some military members in the audience. "It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up there with you. I like brawling.

"You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil," Mattis said. "You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

***Sigh***

The rest of the article is harumphing denials by other military such as "one of this country's bravest and most experienced military leaders." and "agrees he should have chosen his words more carefully."

Okay, I've never been in a war situation so I don't really know what it's like. I did see Saving Private Ryan and the opening 20 minutes showing in graphic detail the D-Day landing at Normandy has really caused me to think a lot. So did the comment in Gladiator about "Unleash hell". I'm sure that when fighting in a battle, your very humanity is stretched and tested very much.

But, I don't care if he were to choose his words carefully or not. The words he spoke says a lot about his character, and lack of humane treatment of the people he meets. If he were to hold the same feelings, but choose his words carefully, then his inhumanity would be hidden. At least this way his inhumanity is out in the open for us to see.

This stinks no matter which way you look at it.

Report: 100,000-plus Iraqi civilians dead

Last night I was chatting with my fiancee about Iraq and the number of deaths. While we knew very well that over 1000 U.S. soldiers have died there since the invasion (a number that's been widely reported) I didn't know how many Iraqi's had died. This number hasn't been reported, yet every day there are news reports describing scores of Iraqi deaths, every day.

Report: 100,000-plus Iraqi civilians dead
Baghdad, Iraq, Oct. 29 (UPI) (Washington Times)

I'm saddened now to learn the number. It's only slightly comforting that this is a survey, the number is an estimate, and that there are conflicting estimates from other scientists.

Iraq deaths claim 'to be studied' (BBC)
The UK Government will "examine with very great care" claims 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the US-led invasion, Jack Straw has said.

That BBC report goes over the issue in more detail, showing how the study was conducted.

Household Survey Sees 100,000 Iraqi Deaths (Washington Post)


By EMMA ROSS

The Associated Press

Friday, October 29, 2004; 3:03 AM

This article also goes into more detail. For example describing that they picked a survey area, randomly selected some houses, and questioned the occupants of the houses. The methodology is just like other poll-taking activity, like TV ratings, except this time they're trying to measure the death rate. Then from the death rate they're projecting the number of deaths.

Finally, we also have the journal articles themselves:

Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: cluster sample survey

[Full Text]
Les Roberts, Riyadh Lafta, Richard Garfield, Jamal Khudhairi, Gilbert Burnham

The war in Iraq: civilian casualties, political responsibilities

[Full Text]
Richard Horton

I haven't read either one, both require registration before doing so.

Weapon Proliferation: MANPAD

Obviously when someone goes to war, they need weapons. Humans are tool-creating and tool-using animals, and so when we go to war we think of the tools required to perform the war. Hence, weapons are the tools we use in war.

One type of weapon, man-portable air defense systems (MANPADS), is of particular interest. They are relatively portable, relatively easy to train soldiers in their use, and very successful in bringing down aircraft. They are often called "shoulder-launched missiles".

In Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror Richard Clarke details how the U.S. coordinated shipping Stinger Missiles to the Mujahadeen fighting in Afghanistan against the Russian invasion. The U.S. could not put its own soldiers into Afghanistan, likely Russia would have taken that as a direct agression which would have turned their invasion in Afghanistan into a direct world-wide confrontation between the worlds super-powers. Instead the U.S. was supporting the Mujahadeen, and arranged for weapons shipments and training. The transfer point for this activity was Pakistan, and U.S. forces were working in Pakistan, fully in cooperation with the Pakistan Intelligence services, to safeguard the training and arming of the Mujahadeen.

It turns out that the leader of the Mujahadeen, chosen from the elite of the Saudi families, was one Osama bin Laden, who has since become infamous for other activities. The result of this activity by the U.S. to arm and train the Mujahadeen was to demonstrate to those fighters that they can fight, attack, and repulse a world super-power. The turning point in the Afghanistan invasion was the mid-1980's. As Clarke said, the Russians were winning and consolidating their control over Afghanistan, which alarmed the U.S. planners. This is what caused the U.S. to take the step of arming the Mujahadeen with Stinger missiles. Over the next few years the Mujahadeen were successful in routing the Russians, causing their withdrawal from Afghanistan, and shortly afterward the U.S.S.R. collapsed.

Obviously these are potent weapons indeed.

Fast forward to 2004, and we (the U.S.) finds MANPAD style weapons being used in Iraq against American forces. It just so happens that the Mujahadeen the U.S. had armed and trained morphed in the intervening years into the Taliban and al Qaeda. While the Taliban and al Qaeda had no contact or cooperation with the former Iraq government, they are active in Iraq today for exactly the same reason they were active in Afghanistan in the 1980's. Namely, the Arab/Islamic homeland has been invaded by outsiders (then it was Russia, today it is the U.S.) and they are fighting off that invasion. In addition the toppling of the former Iraqi government by the U.S. created a power vacuum, which al Qaeda no doubt wants to fill.

This is rich in Irony. The people we trained with those weapons, fight off our then enemy, contributing to the then enemy's collapse, and now those same people are using the same type of weapons to fight us off.

On June 3, 2004 the GAO released a report giving recommendations on the "proliferation" of these MANPAD weapons.

The U.S. has been selling the Stinger missiles to foreign governments, and then failing to adequately control what happens to them afterward. Legally the U.S. is to monitor the weapons, inventorying them every year, presumably to prevent those weapons from being resold. Just as obviously the forces in Iraq fighting the U.S. have these weapons, and are getting them from somewhere. The report talks of a black market.

Of concern also is their use against commercial aircraft. In 2002 a MANPAD was fired at a commercial jet leaving Kenya for Israel, but it missed.

MSNBC report, June 4, 2004: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5137264/

GAO Report: Nonproliferation: Improvements Needed in Countering Threat for Man-Portable Air Defense Systems. GAO-04-519, May 13. Highlights