So here’s how bad the political situation at home has become for the Bush administration at this point, less than a year into his second term: He even has to peddle the situation in Iraq as being the strongest achievement of his presidency to date…
Yes, the guy truly is in dire political straits.
Tonight, he went on national t.v. to give a major public address about Iraq for the fifth time since November 30. And Dick Cheney even left his bunker for long enough to go and visit the Baghdad Green Zone. The intensity of these guys’ present public focus on events in Iraq is completely unprecedented.
Remember, we don’t even know yet what kind of a government will emerge from Thursday’s elections.
(If the votes were gathered in a generally fair way, and fairly counted, then the new government is most likely to be very hostile to any lengthy presence of US troops in their country. What will the Bushies do then? Maybe we can get a hint of an answer from Palestine, where the US and now the EU have already said that they won’t support any elected body in which anti-imperialist, anti-US parties dominate.)
So the timing of the current Bush/Cheney attempt at a “victory lap” may well be dictated by the need to for them to strut their stuff before the potentially challenging results of the recent election come in. But it is also, I’m sure, dictated by their need to claim some kind of victory– any kind of a victory!– somewhere in the world, given the sudden new plummet in their political sway at home. They couldn’t get the Patriot Act renewed. They couldn’t (despite Cheney’s best urgings) get a strong pro-torture provision preserved in the legislation. They couldn’t stave off the prosecutors and judges– and in texas, too!– from going after Tom De Lay. They couldn’t ram Samuel Alito’s nomination to the Supreme Court through the Senate before Christmas, as they wanted. They haven’t been able to stop Patrick Fiztgerald’s investigation from getting very close indeed to Karl Rove ….
Failure, threat, and weakness, wherever they look.
Except– in Iraq! Where they have all those great pictures of Iraqis walking along showing off their ink-stained fingers!
(The Bushies ignore, of course, that the violence also escalated badly again there today.)
Well, if the January elections are anything to go by, then this time once again it’ll take the Iraqi Election Commission a long time to count the votes; then it’ll take even longer to get the elected parliament seated; then there’ll be many weeks of haggling over who gets to be President; and ditto, for Prime Minister… So we may not see any kind of government emerging from this election for another 2-3 months. Plenty of time for Amb. Khalialzad and Gen. Casey to continue all kinds of anti-democratic machinations, back up by the military, the Special Forces, and other means of violence… So it may be quite a time yet before we see any clearly presented, anti-US political movement emerging from the elections– even if there are many signs that this movement is waiting in the wings.
And in the meantime, the Prez will continue to try to strut his stuff as the hero of “democracy” and “liberation” in Iraq.
But in in the rarefied hot-house of intra-elite politics in Washington, it’s not even really about Iraq any more. (And it most likely never was.) It’s about power in Washington: who’s got it, and who’s losing it. George W. Bush has been losing it big time. In other circumstances, that would be the kind of circumstance that could prompt a president to launch some kind of a “wag the dog” military adventure. But not today. Been there, done that…
41 thoughts on “Iraq as Bush’s ‘strongest card’ (?)”
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Come now, Helena. It has never been too early for some to take a victory lap here. The modus operandi is too well established. Public relations consistently attempts to trump reality. The bluster of the blather would gloss over the deeper luster of truth if we didn’t look closer.
Unfortunately the McCain victory resonates with a hollow ring given the way the Graham Levin Kyl amendment language works against it. Still there is hope. There always is hope. Keep up the fine work.
I strongly recommend that folks check at http://www.juancole.com for election coverage utterly different than I can find at any media outlet. Even the anti-war sites aren’t getting at the important pattern Cole is reporting: Allawi and Chalabi are being whipped, the UIA is roughly holding ground, and religious parties are making upsets in Kurdish and Sunni zones. This all directly contradicts what mainstream media are “predicting” without recourse to poll data.
In the January election, the UIA seemed to be headed to an outright majority until the last few days of counting. Only later did the stories of Kurdish vote fraud emerge. Now, as in January, the US media assures us that secularists will win. Will the numbers local observers see mysteriously change over time, like Kerry’s numbers in Ohio? All we can do is read Cole’s reports now and cry foul after the vote is stolen, but it’s better than it simply being forgotten like so many other US misdeeds.
Dear Super 390,
Oh, don’t worry, there was plenty of Kurdish vote fraud this time around too, according to my contacts in Kurdistan, some of whom are insiders.
And this from The Guardian about election fraud.
Maybe we can get a hint of an answer from Palestine, where the US and now the EU have already said that they won’t support any elected body in which anti-imperialist, anti-US parties dominate.
Interesting take. Here is the text of the House Resolution. I don’t see any reference to “anti-imperialst” or “anti-US”. Maybe someone else can find these?
Sorry, that link didn’t work. Here it is again:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c109:1:./temp/~c109i2uhj8::
JES,
Your link has expired. But anyway, this doesn’t make a big difference : you are just pinpointing, trying to deviate the real issue. Aka, that the US is trying to prevent a fairly and freely elected winning party to access to power. I’m saddened that Javier Solanar and the EU choose to make the same pressures as Bush, threatening to cut subventions to the Palestinian authorities if the Hamas was doing as well in the coming national elections as she did in the local elections.
Aka, that the US is trying to prevent a fairly and freely elected winning party to access to power.
In calling for the withdrawal or contingency of financial aid to Israel, aren’t you trying to prevent a fairly elected winning party access to power? But HAMAS’ platform is a thousand times more extreme than Likud’s. the idea that US taxpayers should subsidise a group calling for suicide bombings and nothing less than the total destruction of Israel is laugh-out-loud ridiculous.
http://www.palestinecenter.org/cpap/documents/charter.html
Allah is its goal, the Prophet its model, the Qur’an its Constitution, Jihad its path and death for the case of Allah its most sublime belief…
I indeed wish to go to war for the sake of Allah! I will assault and kill, assault and kill, assault and kill…
They inspired the establishment of the United Nations and the Security Council to replace the League of Nations, in order to rule the world by their intermediary.
If that’s “anti-imperialism” it’s repellent and you can have it. That’s a very weird kind of pacifism you have there Helena.
” The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!”
Maybe I’m missing something in the translation.
I saw the Hamas representatives in Nablus after they won the local elections there. They were all wearing masks and carrying automatic weapons at the press conference. I think it’s a grand idea to let them run for parliament. I think it would also be a good idea to let the KKK run for office in the United States. [irony alert]
vadim, you’re busking it, aren’t you?
You’re making it up!
Your link is as phoney as can be and you are not even quoting it, you are just making the stuff up!
I think that’s a banning offence.
I think JES should be grounded too for playing a double act with vadim.
There needs to be a systematic effort to rescue this blog from the trolls who want every thread to be about their own hobby-horse.
Dominic, there’s nothing phony about my link or my citations. I’ve cut and pasted them directly from HAMAS’ charter. Your accusation is libelous. If anything should be a banning offense it’s slandering other commenters. But I don’t presume to set policy for Helena’s blog.
http://www.palestinecenter.org/cpap/documents/charter.html
The domain is http://www.palestinecenter.org; it’s registered to the Jerusalem Fund in washington dc.
http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/aboutus.php
Let the winner take all. Can´t be worsde than the
Ahmadinejad that rulkes next door. Now they are saying he was misinterpreted. What is there to misinterpret in a 5 word statement. Let them weareach other out, just walk away from that cursed Gulf.
Have it your way, Vadim. Let others be the judges. But so what, anyway? This thread is about Iraq (as Bush’s “strongest card”). Why don’t you find somewhere else to work off your feelings about Hamas? Start a blog and see how many come along to the anti-Hamas party of obsession.
There’s a lot of business that needs doing here – peace business. You have had enough time with your particular concerns. Now let some other matters come to the front, please.
Here is another link to the Hamas Covenant from the Avalon Project at Yale University:
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/hamas.htm
It is quite obvious that it is Dominic is the one who is “busking it” (whatever that is), and that he has never seen or read the document. I have. I presume that Vadim has.
What’s more, it was Helena in her article who made that comment, which I take it both Vadim and myself find objectionable. I think that that makes it a topic for discussion in this thread.
Dominic, I think you are a bully. You can’t take criticism, and then you call for people who you have libeled to be banned after you have been caught red-handed spouting hot air. Shame on you. You should apologize to us!
Ag, shame, JES!
You only have one topic for discussion in all cases. How come you are on every thread with you one topic? Why don’t you notice there are other people here with other concerns? Why do you call them bullies when they want to have a conversation without your braying obsession drowning it out all the time?
Sies!
Dominic,
Bull!
Kalashnikovocracy
Under close examination, the flag of Mozambique appears to include a Kalashnikov rifle. The question is, how things like this happen? To find an explanation, we need to filter the PR operations out and look at actual situation on the ground directly.
So, what happens in Afghanistan, Iraq and WBG now is basically rule by Kalashnikov rifles. Warllords, mafiosi and their stooges get elected in local and national elections – simply because only people like this can survive and rule in regions torn by guerilla civil conflicts.
It is not surprising that Kalashnikov becomes a national symbol in this situation.
1. Parliament sworn in for Afghanistan: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9B7F3B2E-229B-4EA0-BA93-482963676B5C.htm
Members of the first Afghan parliament for more than 30 years were sworn in amid concern by rights groups about abuses and further threats by the Taliban.
Human Rights Watch says up to 60% of the deputies are former commanders or their proxies and the list of deputies reads like a Who’s Who of protagonists of the bloody past, boding ill for efforts to account for abuses and to stamp out a drugs trade.
Tens of thousands of US-led foreign troops and billions of dollars of aid is said to have ensured relative stability, and brought new prosperity to cities such as Kabul.
But violence has intensified in the past year and most beneficiaries of the urban boom have been the already rich, while the poor struggle with soaring prices.
2. Flaq of Mozambique: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/Flag_of_Mozambique.svg/744px-Flag_of_Mozambique.svg.png
Dominic, Vadim’s comments aren’t stopping you or anyone else from bringing anything forward.
The quotes he attributes to Hamas are typical of Palestinian nationalist rhetoric.
For me, one of the main relevances of the Hamas analogy is to note the extreme hypocrisy of those people who are adamant that Hamas should not be “allowed” to participate in the elections in Palestine while they blithely condone the ruling Israeli coalition’s continued use of lethal violence against “suspects”– with nothing even resembling pretense of due process in those cases– plus its continued use of extreme structural/administrative violence against palestinians… and also, people inside and outside the Bush administration who meanwhile see nothing wrong with heavy reliance on the Peshmerga and Badr brigades militias inside the political system in Iraq.
It is all extremely selective and quite transparently ideologically motivated. If there is a standard against including the “men of violence” in a political process, it should be a single standard. Personally, though, I prefer talking to them all and keeping channels of potential political inclusion open, over exclusion.
So at this point, since the critics of Hamas have had ample say here, let’s return the conversation to one of the Bush administration’s policies simpliciter.
You only have one topic for discussion in all cases… to have a conversation without your braying obsession drowning it out all the time?
More freudian projection. I don’t think either one of us has posted on Hamas before this thread. And no one is being “drowned out” here (only one of us has called for banning the other.) You seem at least as obsessed with US ‘imperialism’ as JES is with Israel. And I can’t speak for JES, but frankly I don’t see why any Israeli should take your arguments “for peace” seriously when you identify with Israel’s mortal foes & share in their reactionary plan to dismantle the Jewish state. When their call to ethnically cleanse JES and his family is “fine print” in the global fight against the yank oppressor.
I suspect others here subscribe to your simple-minded teleological/ethical scheme, with the US as the world’s sole moral agent and prime mover. Why else would we judge Iraqi elections for their impact on George Bush’s numbers (!!) instead of their transparency and fairness (see post below)? Why else would Helena define Iraqi democracy only in terms of “anti-US political movement” that she just knows is there “waiting in the wings”. “It’s not even really about Iraq any more”; that’s a rather pronounced understatement. And forgive me, but a peace movement analytically defined as “hostility to the US” isn’t such a compelling moral cause. Sounds more like a “braying obsession.”
Behind the Steel Curtain: The Real Face of the Occupation
Dirty Means, Genocide and Mass Destruction
Dedicated to the UN, UNSC and the Intel Society
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/informational_posting/000337.php#more
Chomsky on Terror and Iraq
An interview by Andy Clark
Helena,
Apologies–this comment is in response to a blog entry of yours I just found from 2003! I found your blog by accident while searching for blogs “in the spirit of John Woolman.” So glad to know your blog exists and look forward to reading more (have been a fan of your work for years). Back in 2003 you asked if anyone would be willing to work with you on a blog w/r/t Woolman. I wonder if anyone did, if you’re still interested, etc., because I am. Please drop me a note off the blog when you get a chance. Thanks much, and keep up the great work. Val Phillips.
WPost. Justice for Syria
Apparently, WPost’s latest PR operation is designed according to the neoconservative induction method: since certain action X was a success, we want the next step in the same direction. This way, neocons discard any discussion of the fact that X was actually a complete failure.
WPost. Justice for Syria: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/18/AR2005121800674.html
SADDAM HUSSEIN’S challenge to international security was exceptional in part because of his flagrant defiance of resolutions by the United Nations Security Council and his equally crude actions to obstruct the work of U.N. inspectors. Now another Arab Baathist dictator, Bashar Assad, has adopted the same tactics. Not only has Mr. Assad sought to obstruct a U.N. investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, but his agents in Lebanon are continuing to murder Syria’s Lebanese critics.
Mr. Assad seems to be calculating that his acts of terrorism eventually will force Lebanon to accept Syrian dominion again and that the Security Council will shrink from an all-out confrontation with him. If so, he might be encouraged by the council’s latest resolution, approved Thursday; while it extended the term of the Mehlis investigation, it shrank from expanding it to cover the other murders and from imposing direct sanctions against Syria.
Lebanese leaders, such as Gebran Tueni, know very well that such weak measures will not stop Mr. Assad’s campaign of murder. “When will this despotic regime come to its senses?” he asked in one of his last columns. He might have answered: Not until the Security Council, led by the United States, ensures that those who murder are brought to justice
the Tibetans could learn something from Hamas’ “anti-imperialist” agenda…”Look at Palestine,” said one Tibetan exile in an in-depth report in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine. “The world pays them so much attention because of the…suicide bombing…What has nonviolence achieved for the Tibetan cause, apart from some converts to Buddhism in the West?”
Vadim, are you just a critic of other people’s ideas, or do you have some of your own to share with us?
John C. – Do you have anything substantive of your own to share, or do you restrict yourself to taking cheap shots?
John C.
We got here a Gang……
the Tibetans could learn something from Hamas’ “anti-imperialist” agenda…”Look at Palestine,” said one Tibetan exile in an in-depth report in yesterday’s New York Times Magazine. “The world pays them so much attention because of the… suicide bombing… What has nonviolence achieved for the Tibetan cause, apart from some converts to Buddhism in the West?” Posted by WmPeele
Hmmm… First, an idea of fighting a religious guerilla against the Chinese does not look smart. Second, it is hard to imagine that real Tibetan would ever link situation in Tibet with I/P. This makes no sense, looks like cheesy PR from NYTMag.
Updated based on the latest info from juancole.com…
The principle of neoconservative induction
Apparently, WPost’s latest PR operation is designed according to the principle of neoconservative induction: since certain action X is taken as a success, they want the next step in the same direction. This way, neocons discard any discussion of the fact that X was actually a complete failure.
Now the question is, will neocons get another “victory” and Syrians will outsource “liberation” of the Shaba Farms to Hizballah?
1. WPost. Justice for Syria
SADDAM HUSSEIN’S challenge to international security was exceptional in part because of his flagrant defiance of resolutions by the United Nations Security Council and his equally crude actions to obstruct the work of U.N. inspectors. Now another Arab Baathist dictator, Bashar Assad, has adopted the same tactics. Not only has Mr. Assad sought to obstruct a U.N. investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, but his agents in Lebanon are continuing to murder Syria’s Lebanese critics.
Mr. Assad seems to be calculating that his acts of terrorism eventually will force Lebanon to accept Syrian dominion again and that the Security Council will shrink from an all-out confrontation with him. If so, he might be encouraged by the council’s latest resolution, approved Thursday; while it extended the term of the Mehlis investigation, it shrank from expanding it to cover the other murders and from imposing direct sanctions against Syria.
Lebanese leaders, such as Gebran Tueni, know very well that such weak measures will not stop Mr. Assad’s campaign of murder. “When will this despotic regime come to its senses?” he asked in one of his last columns. He might have answered: Not until the Security Council, led by the United States, ensures that those who murder are brought to justice.
2. Haaretz. Aluf Benn. Syria considering ceding Shaba Farms to Lebanon
Syria is considering a proposal to give Lebanon sovereignty over the Shaba Farms, on the slopes of Mount Hermon, by signing a new border deal with Lebanon, according to information that has reached Israel from several sources in the last few days.
Hezbollah and the Lebanese government say the farms are Lebanese territory occupied by Israel, and use this to justify the deployment of Hezbollah forces along the Israeli border and the militant group’s continued violent activity.
The UN has accepted the Israeli position that the Shaba Farms constitute Syrian, not Lebanese, territory, and has decided that Israel has fully withdrawn from Lebanon. If the territory belongs to Syria, its future must be determined in future negotiations on the Golan Heights, and has no connection to the pullout from Lebanon.
3. ANews on Israel’s security
When I recently offered my hope that the US was returning to normality (and not “declining”) I got mobbed by the WarrenWs and JESs and Vadims et cetera who don’t want any discussion about the US and peace. I’m sorry but I have some difficulty telling one from the other, since they all pursue the same line of attack.
So, Vadim, it is completely false to say that I believe that the US is or should be “the world’s sole moral agent and prime mover”. That’s something you made up about me. That’s what I call busking it. You make a false statement and hope it will pass by default. If you are challenged you just make a different false statement, and on ad infinitum. It’s a bore. It’s basically childish.
You are right about one thing though. I am for peace and against Imperialism.
JES Wrote,
“saw the Hamas representatives in Nablus after they won the local elections there. They were all wearing masks and carrying automatic weapons at the press conference.”
I see something not right here? Does any one see it with me?
JEC, Vadim, “But HAMAS’ platform is a thousand times more extreme than Likud'”
I wondered why this Hamas Representative did not fire his weapons on you and kill you because you are JEW!!!! Did you tell him your are a Jew, JES? Or you told him that you are Syrians or Egyptians?
This story I heard from one from West Bank during Second Gulf War 1991, when Saddam fire missiles on Israel some Israelis hided in the streets at nights where the Arabs lives there because they think that Saddam will not fire on them because these are Arabs residential areas!
This story I heard from one from West Bank during Second Gulf War 1991, when Saddam fire missiles on Israel some Israelis hided in the streets at nights where the Arabs lives there because they think that Saddam will not fire on them because these are Arabs residential areas!
Sorry Salah, but from what I know, your source had a good imagination.
I went through the war on the receiving end of Saddam’s missiles. I never heard of anything remotely resembling what you state. What I did hear about – and saw film of on the news – were Palestinians in the West Bank standing on rooftops while the Scuds were falling on Tel Aviv and its surroundings chanting: “Ya Saddam, ya habib, udrub, udrub Tal Abib!” That changed very dramatically when one of the missiles fell short and landed near a Palestinian village.
Salah, do you know what “don’t feed the trolls” means? Ask a friend to explain it to you.
Dominic, Thanks your advice taken…
BTW, New headache for GWB, the recent freely election not staged as in Baghdad, this one in Bolivia
“The United States provides $150 million a year in aid to Bolivia, South America’s poorest country.”
Yah where are the oil and gas fields, so do Iraq so poor country need more US aids.
Evo Morales is an Aymara Indian who hopes to become the country’s first indigenous president. Addressing his supporters, Morales says he will change the country’s neo-liberal, pro-Washington policies.
“With our government the discrimination, xenophobia, and hate we have gone through in history will end. We want to live together in what we call the unity of diversity. We’ll change the neo-liberalist model, ending the colonial state.”
Morales plans to exert more state control over South America’s second-largest natural gas reserves and end the US-backed campaign to eradicate the coca plant. The plant is used to make cocaine for export and consumption in richer nations.
MAS’ people across the country, despite their denunciations of possible fraud, have begun to celebrate…
Iraqi election it freely and democratically and perfect under occupation…
Bolivia’s election could end strife, but could also mean more cocaine ingredient
Yah like Afghanistan after US war in Afghanistan return to be number one exporting all types of drags all around the world
This is what the lier got
“Ahmad Chalabi, the former Pentagon favorite, won less than a half of 1 percent of the vote in Baghdad, possibly denying him a seat in the Council of Representatives.”
Hamas 1.
Dominic, go read the Hamas charter. The Avalon link should work.
Hamas 2.
Helena’s comments about “Due process” in the Arab-Israeli war are just snarky distractions. Nobody gives “Due process” in wartime. Nobody.
The fundamental method for supporting terrorism is to get the victims to respond in “Police” style rather than in “Military” style, to spread the idea that terrorism is a series of crimes, rather than a means of warfare. Helena is up there with the most enthusiastic of terrorisms supporters in doing just that.
Hamas is an anti-Semitic pro-Imperialist movement for the suppression of human rights. Nevertheless Ariel Sharon has said that Israel can’t interfere in the Palestinian elections. We’ll see.
Taking the Gaza pullout as context, I’m wondering if Sharon’s plan wasn’t a “Three-state solution” all along. Hamas in Gaza and the PA in the West Bank. If so, it’s a very dangerous plan that just might work. I think a Hamas victory in Gaza might work out well for Israel in that Hamas aggressiveness could provide the excuse for plenty of Israeli military action.
Bush/Iraq
The Iraq situation isn’t over and by the time the next President rolls in there won’t be a lot of policy choices left. The biggest threat to the Bush Presidency is the “Snoopgate” scandal which, in my estimation, may have the power to generate an impeachment. The story is still unfolding, however.
What do you call “snoopgate” ? The outing of Valerie Plame ?
May be this which common in US POLITICS?
“Infiltration of files seen as extensive
Senate panel’s GOP staff pried on Democrats”
By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff, 1/22/2004
WASHINGTON — Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/01/22/infiltration_of_files_seen_as_extensive/
Warren W:
Helena’s comments about “Due process” in the Arab-Israeli war are just snarky distractions. Nobody gives “Due process” in wartime. Nobody.
It is not a situation of active warfare, but of occupation. Even in active warfare, concepts like “due process” and respect for the laws of war come into play. And in the real world they are even sometimes obeyed. This is naivete posing as worldly wisdom.
The fundamental method for supporting terrorism is to get the victims to respond in “Police” style rather than in “Military” style, to spread the idea that terrorism is a series of crimes, rather than a means of warfare. Helena is up there with the most enthusiastic of terrorisms supporters in doing just that.
This is so fantastic that it almost excuses the slur on Helena; you clearly have no idea of what you are talking about. The invariable response of governments is that terrorists are criminals, hence the usual and frequently appropriate and successful “police” response. By this comical standard, governments successfully fighting terrorism e.g. the Oklahoma bombing – are enthusiastic terrorism supporters! It is always “the terrorists” who want to be considered fighters in a war – you have it exactly backward. “Military” responses, as with Bush in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Israel in the occupied territories, can be notably unsuccessful and irrational for pursuit of legitimate security ends
“JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel said on Wednesday it would ban East Jerusalem Arabs from voting in a Palestinian election next month if militant Islamic group Hamas takes part — a move Palestinian officials said could delay the vote.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2005-12-21T195116Z_01_EIC159988_RTRUKOC_0_US-MIDEAST-PALESTINIANS-ELECTION.xml
To those who shouting Israel The Only Democracy In Middle East read and see the Israeli democracy as we so it the native US democracy in Iraq..
So Israeli acts talking now not your wards spreads here and there guys “PEACE LOVING PEOPLE”