Category Archives: War and Peace

One more giddy guess

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Turkey

… or perhaps a young woman who thinks she can pass herself off as Ataturk is the one who "giddily pickets."

OK, OK; I’ll drop this now. As the killjoys will quickly remind me, there are much more important things to be going on about.

Such as — well, such as what this woman was actually protesting:

A Turkish woman, wearing a mask of modern Turkey’s founder Kemal Ataturk, marches with a national flag during a silent protest in Istanbul, Turkey, Saturday, June 23, 2007. Thousands of people marched in a silent demonstration to protest attacks by separatist Kurdish rebels in Turkey’s southeast. The rebels from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, have escalated attacks recently on Turkish targets. The conflict with the PKK has killed tens of thousands of people since 1984, when the rebels first took up arms against the Turkish state. The United States and the European Union consider the PKK a terrorist organization. (AP Photo/Murad Sezer)

This is one of the elements that argues against the Joe Biden plan for splitting up Iraq, as intriguing as it might be. As Tom Friedman reminds us this week (and which I can’t show you on account of the NYT being so stingy with online content), the Kurds come closest to having a workable state. And the Turks won’t tolerate the Kurds having such a state, because of their own Kurdish problems. And we can hardly say they’ve got nothing to worry about, when they are bedeviled by a group that we consider to be terrorist.

How’s that for a quick segue back to serious?

Tony Blair, the man the British never understood

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Tonygoodbye

    “The reason that I supported the action in Iraq was not that I thought we simply had to support America. It’s because I thought it was right. I still think it’s right.”
— Prime Minister Tony Blair

By BRAD WARTHEN
Editorial Page Editor
AFTER TODAY, Tony Blair is available, and there’s only one thing to do about it: Let’s get busy changing the Constitution so that he can lead this country.
    The British just don’t appreciate him. He’s been their prime minister for 10 years. He’s given themTonyclose_2
New Labor, and peace in Northern Ireland. He’s shown that an intelligent, idealistic and charismatic centrist can still be elected and effectively lead a major Western country, despite all the evidence here to the contrary.
    He has done the right things, for the right reasons, and explained his actions and motivations brilliantly, and the Brits have lately responded as though their ears were filled with fried plaice and chips.
Because of “Blair’s support for the U.S. decision to go to war in Iraq,” droned a British accent on NPR Tuesday morning, the “accusation was that Blair was just the poodle of the White House, prepared to do anything that President Bush wanted, and getting nothing in return.”
Tonybook
    That, against all reason, is what passes as conventional wisdom in Britain these days, which is why Labor voters seem actually happy — for the moment — that dullard Gordon Brown is about to replace the finest P.M. since Winston Churchill.
    The foolishness went on:

    “Today, it is a mystery to many Britons how the left-of-center Baby Boomer who had seemed the ideological twin of Bill Clinton could have thrown in his lot with George W. Bush of the American right wing.”

    It is indeed a mystery — if you are so simple as to believe that everything has to fit within the dichotomy of left and right. But everything doesn’t. In fact, almost nothing real does. Certainly not Iraq.
    To understand how the British feel about Tony Blair — and this is most assuredly about feelings, not thought — see the 2003 romantic comedy “Love Actually.”
    Hugh Grant portrays a prime minister who would be popular were he not in thrall to a certain boorish,Tonytony
bullying cowboy (Billy Bob Thornton) who happens to be president of the United States.
    Mr. Grant’s pretend premier wins the people back by publicly standing up to this ugliest of American cartoons. Mr. Blair refuses to do the wrong thing simply in order to oppose the American, so he’s out. Ta-ta.
    Please, run the tape back. Look and listen. See and hear how Blair was the one who understood why we were in Iraq, and why we couldn’t leave. It was George W. Bush who couldn’t articulate it.
    Mr. Bush did not take us into Iraq because he is a conservative. He did it in spite of being a conservative. This is not what conservatives do, people. They don’t take risks like this. They decry “nation-building” in the most certain, isolationist terms — as Mr. Bush himself did in seeking the presidency. Sept. 11 rattled him, and he took actions contradictory to his nature. Perhaps the greatest reason that he has handled Iraq so badly is that deep down, this just isn’t his thing.
Tonyarnold2
    And yet everyone defines whether one supports the Iraq enterprise as a matter of “supporting Bush.” We can’t seem to realize that one pursues policies for their own sakes, not according to who else supports them.
    Poor John McCain is suddenly cast as the president’s lapdog, when he is the one who said all along that we need more troops over there and it can’t be done on the cheap a la Rumsfeld. Now that the president has moved in his direction with the “surge,” he suffers politically for “backing Bush.”
    It would seem that Americans, as a result of that failure of leadership on the part of our president, have reached the same conclusion regarding Iraq as the British. But I suspect — I have no way of demonstrating it, of course — that a man of Tony Blair’s parts could have kept resolve in the American spine. We’re different. The English have never gotten over the Somme.
    We are also alike. We are certainly as deluded when it comes to the whole left-right thing. Hypnotized by hundreds of thousands of propagandistic repetitions on 24-hour TV “news” and the blogosphere, we remain convinced that there are but two ways to be in the electoral and policy spheres: “liberal” or “conservative,” with a bit of room for prefixes and modifiers such as “ultra” or “neo.”
    These days, the informed, involved, truly knowledgeable and hip political junkie has been thoroughly indoctrinated into the argot of one cult or the other. He gets whipped up by the idiot box, then races toTonyshadow
his PC to rant fluently in a way that he deems deep and enlightened, when he is just regurgitating pre-packaged slogans. He thinks he is a thinker, when he is no more than a parrot — and an ill-tempered bird at that.
    But back to Britain.
    The broadcast segment that set me off on today’s rant ground superciliously toward its conciliatory end with the thought that maybe this man Blair, this singular creature with “his wide-eyed idealism, earnest smile and openly Christian values,” did accomplish a thing or two, despite his having been “seduced by the special relationship”:

    “Perhaps what he did most successfully was to move the debate in British politics to the center, away from the ideological divisions of the past.”

    That’s right. And in trying to assess what Tony Blair did and why he did it, you’d do best to remember that. It’s not about left and right. Never was.

Tonythinking

Update from Capt. Smith

1 Reply
From: James Smith
Sent:
Thursday, June 14, 2007 10:24 AM
To: Warthen, Brad – Internal
Email
Subject: RE: Checking
in

Brad:

Thanks for the email — I have several
updates in the works – they seem to come in spurts as time
permits…

… 
Its has been round 124 degrees these days —  lots happening lately — and
definitely a lot to write about…  Just saw some Portuguese commandos returning
from Helmand – they got ambushed on the road returning to KEF at a distance of
10 to 20 meters — one RPG round went through the passenger window – the tail of
the rocket glanced off the metal from the door frame redirecting the rocket
through the front window ballistic glass — shrapnel tore up the front
passenger’s face and neck and slightly wounded the driver – they will be ok… 
yesterday [an ISAF soldier] was killed by a suicide bomber in Kandahar and a bunch of
other stuff that I am not sure gets back there — we have now deployed several
teams and more are heading out soon.

I have missed being at the House —
I look forward to returning — I think it will be hard…  Hard to listen to
some of the same excuses for not doing so many of the things that need to be
done … could go through the list but you know them all…

All is well
here …

Smith

James E. Smith, Jr.

One ping only, Vasily…

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"Dirty, rotten commies!," one of my colleagues has been muttering since yesterday. "The only thing worse than a commie is one with oil!" He refers to this news:

   CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) – Venezuela is studying buying Russian submarines that would transform the South American country into the top naval force in the region, a military adviser to President Hugo Chavez said Thursday.
   Gen. Alberto Muller, responding to a Russian newspaper report that Chavez plans to sign a deal for five diesel submarines, said the government is "analyzing the possibilities" but that the money has not yet been set aside.
   Oil-rich Venezuela has already purchased some $3 billion worth of arms from Russia, including 53 military helicopters, 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 24 SU-30 Sukhoi fighter jets and other weapons.

But he misses the silver lining: Now we can crank out those nifty new Seawolf-class attack subs. We’ve got the excuse now! We’ve got Russian boats to track and kill again! Right here in River City! "Top naval force in the region?" In our hemisphere? Shades of the missiles of October…

Just let those peace-dividenders stop us now! They can take their little Virginia-class toys and shove them where … but I must restrain myself. We readers of too many Tom Clancy novels must be magnanimous in our triumph.

I wonder if we can get Bart Mancuso and Jonesy to come out of retirement for this?

How would you end an “endless war?”

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Set aside for a moment the increasing shrillness of the releases I get from antiwar groups. More and more, I find myself having trouble understanding what these folks actually want the United States to do. Take this release today, for instance:

Americans Against Escalation in Iraq
http://www.NoIraqEscalation.com

MEDIA ADVISORY FOR                             Contact:  Moira Mack
Thursday, June 14, 2007                                       202-261-2383

"IRAQ SUMMER" BEGINS TODAY

Nearly 100 Organizers Begin Work
in Key Congressional Districts

Coalition Turns Up Heat on "Endless War" Republicans

WASHINGTON, DC – “Iraq Summer” begins today as Americans Against Escalation in Iraq prepares to dispatch nearly 100 organizers to the home states and districts of Republican Senators and Representatives who have opposed setting a timeline to end the US war in Iraq.  The program is modeled on the “Freedom Summer” civil rights project.  Organizers will be in fifteen states from Nevada to Maine, a total of 40 congressional districts.

Organizers will spend ten weeks in their assigned districts working with local veterans and advocacy groups to pressure targeted lawmakers to reject President Bush’s Iraq policy and instead vote to bring a responsible end to the war. A barrage of events, letter writing campaigns, endorsement efforts, and local legislative events are planned for each targeted state or district, building to large nationwide rallies at the end of August.  The rallies come just in advance of anticipated votes on the war and the so-called “surge.” 

With no real progress expected on the ground in Iraq, AAEI aims to turn growing nation-wide opposition to the war into intense political pressure to end the war responsibly.  By mobilizing thousands of outraged citizens, AAEI will demonstrate that continued support for the war in Iraq has political consequences for those representatives seeking re-election in 2008. A recently released New York Times/CBS poll indicates that 63% of the public wants a timetable for withdrawal in 2008.

“Opposition to the war in Iraq is reaching a boiling point and this summer Republican members of Congress will be feeling the heat from their constituents,” said Moira Mack, spokeswoman for Americans Against Escalation in Iraq.  “As more and more rural and suburban voters turn against President Bush’s Iraq war policies, the President’s supporters in Congress will be facing their own political vulnerability. We will force Members of Congress to make a choice: continue to support President Bush’s wildly unpopular policy of endless war in Iraq and face the political consequences or side with the majority of Americans and vote to responsibly end the war.”

Most of the organizers in the program are local to the regions where they will be working, and are a mix of veterans, military family members, students and community organizers.  They gather this weekend in Washington, DC, for four days of training and planning.

AAEI will be holding a press conference call to officially kick off the program.
               ###

I had to write back to Moira Mack to ask:

    Moira, reading your release, I have a question.
    Saying you oppose "endless war" suggests that you propose to end that war somehow.
    What is your plan? Since you don’t think the surge or anything like it will bring the fighting to an end, what action do you propose to keep the various factions in Iraq from killing people?

I’ve been wondering about that for years, but the question is taking on a new urgency as more and more people say things like that, things which make no sense.

The "endlessness" of this war is not a policy; it’s a fact. The issue is, what do we do in the face of that fact?

And no, having a "timeline" is not a plan, unless the plan is to get the jihadist insurgents and Sunni and Shi’a combatants to agree to the timeline, which would be a neat trick.

Sunni-al-Qaida rift gets more interesting

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You had probably heard about the increasing tension between Sunnis and foreign terrorists, but this piece that just moved is one of the more interesting, and promising, developments I’ve heard about lately:

Sunnis Revolt Against al-Qaida in Iraq

BAGHDAD (AP) – U.S. troops battled al-Qaida in west Baghdad on Thursday after Sunni Arab residents challenged the militants and called for American help to end furious gunfire that kept students from final exams and forced people in the neighborhood to huddle indoors.

Backed by helicopter gunships, U.S. troops joined the two-day battle in the Amariyah district, according to a councilman and other residents of the Sunni district.

The fight reflects a trend that U.S. and Iraqi officials have been trumpeting recently to the west in Anbar province, once considered the heartland of the Sunni insurgency. Many Sunni tribes in the province have banded together to fight al-Qaida, claiming the terrorist group is more dangerous than American forces.

Three more U.S. soldiers were reported killed in combat, raising the number of American deaths to at least 122 for May, making it the third deadliest month for Americans in the conflict. The military said two soldiers died Wednesday from a roadside bomb in Baghdad and one died of wounds inflicted by a bomb attack northwest of the capital Tuesday.

Lt. Col. Dale C. Kuehl, commander of 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, who is responsible for the Amariyah area of the capital, confirmed the U.S. military’s role in the fighting in the Sunni district. He said the battles raged Wednesday and Thursday but died off at night.

Although al-Qaida is a Sunni organization opposed to the Shiite Muslim-dominated government, its ruthlessness and reliance on foreign fighters have alienated many Sunnis in Iraq.

The U.S. military congratulated Amariyah residents for standing up to al-Qaida.

"The events of the past two days are promising developments. Sunni citizens of Amariyah that have been previously terrorized by al-Qaida are now resisting and want them gone. They’re tired of the intimidation that included the murder of women," Kuehl said.

A U.S. military officer, who agreed to discuss the fight only if not quoted by name because the information was not for release, said the Army was checking reports of a big al-Qaida enclave in Amariyah housing foreign fighters, including Afghans, doing temporary duty in Iraq.

U.S.-funded Alhurra television reported that non-Iraqi Arabs and Afghans were among the fighters over the past two days. Kuehl said he could not confirm those reports.

First days on the Kandahar front

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Smithwrite

Capt. James Smith of Columbia, with whom I spoke yesterday, is spending his off-hours in the hooch at Kandahar Airfield sending pictures and notes to family and friends back home, and is kind enough to include me on the list.

I will continue to share them with you,Truckride
as a way of helping us all remember what these guys are going over there for us. Chuck Crumbo is there covering the main body of the 218th at Camp Phoenix. I can’t hope to match that kind of immediacy from my desk in Columbia. But as long as Capt. Smith keeps sending them, I think his dispatches will provide a very different view of a very different mission.

Capt. Smith is a member of a small team that will be embedded with an Afghan Army unit near Kandahar — the place from which the Taliban conquered the country back in the 1990s, and a place the Taliban would like to have back. As I was writing this, the AP reported from Kandahar Airfield that a NATO helicopter had gone down, and the Taliban claims "credit." I wrote to Capt. Smith to see what was going on, and am still waiting to hear back. Keep him and all the men in Team Swamp Fox in your prayers.

Here are his most recent reports. As you can tell by the sheer frequency of them, he is very pumped to be there:

I’ll keep posting them as I get them.

Smithzeroed

Afghanistan calling

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The lower level of the Carolina Coliseum is not the best place to receive a phone call from Afghanistan.

I was sitting near the door of a seminar room in the Journalism school there, waiting for Jack Bass to finish his presentation before I spoke to Charles Bierbauer‘s class, looking at my Treo trying to remember what I was supposed to be there to talk about, when the thing started buzzing.

I lunged out into the hall to answer it, and got nothing but an occasional blip of sound. One of the blips said "Smith," so I got out of the building as quickly as I can. With Assembly Street traffic in the background, I stuck a finger in my other ear and talked for about 15 minutes with Capt. James Smith, who was calling on his satellite phone from Kandahar Airfield. (What, if anything, is going through the brains of people who deliberately gun their motorcycles to max volume on city streets?)

I had nothing to write on — I lost connection with him a couple more times as it was, and didn’t want to lose the contact completely, so I was loathe to run back down and get something from my coat pocket. But the gist is that he’s finally in place at the base where he and a handful of others will be embedded with Afghan Army units opposing the Taliban in that region. They were supposed to do this in two-man teams (he would work with the noncom who underwent the special training with him at Fort Riley, Kansas), but that mission profile has been expanded to eight-man teams, which seems like a smart move to me.

Of course, he said, every time he turns around there, he is reminded that Afghanistan is not the "main event" in terms of U.S. military priorities right now, so he and his immediate comrades don’t always get what they need right away. For instance, the C-130 that was supposed to take him from Camp Phoenix, where the main body of the 218th is, to Kandahar was taken away for another mission several days back, delaying his arrival.

He’s eager and pumped about getting started, but sober about the challenges. As for his initial impressions of his surroundings, my memory is at least good enough to quote him as calling Afghanistan "a beautiful country… a tragically beautiful country." He’s very aware of the hundreds — he corrects me and says "thousands" — of years of suffering by the Afghan people, and he’s committed to doing what he can to improve their lot.

Greetings from Afghanistan

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Capt. James Smith, a.k.a. Rep. James Smith, D-Richland, sends this PDF file to friends back home.

And so I share it with you:

Download 21_may_2007_camp_phoenix_reunions.pdf

Needless to say, as an American, a South Carolinian, and a friend, I’m very proud of that guy, and deeply appreciative. I’m very proud of the whole 218th Brigade, it’s just that I know James.

If I were so honored as to be embedded with them like Chuck Crumbo, I would know a lot more of these fine soldiers, and it would be a tremendous privilege.

In lieu of that, I will from time to time share correspondence from Capt. Smith.

Puttin’ on the heat

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We’re hearing a lot from groups that are using the wide-open presidential race to try to twistRamsburgh_2 candidates’ arms (gently, but insistently) to talk seriously about the issues that have been most assiduously avoided in this
country: health care, education, and the like.

Today, it was a group pushing the issue dearest to our hearts here at Energy Party
HQ.

Visiting more or less under the auspices of Conservation Voters of South Carolina were the following:

Their message about the need for a rational, comprehensive energy policy is a most timely one, in three ways:

  1. Voters across the spectrum are ready to demand real answers from candidates.
  2. You can’t win the War on Terror without it.
  3. It’s necessary to save the planet.

Read more about their movement here.

NayakParticularly with Democrats Obama and Dodd starting to say some things that make sense (although Dodd’s "Corporate Carbon Tax" is a ideological copout — everybody needs to pay more for wasting energy, or you accomplish nothing), while Biden
long has done so, and McCain has been trying to do something for some time in the Senate, and even Bush (who’s he) getting on board, I’ll be listening with some anxiety to hear what some of these other folks who actually could be president have to say tonight.Timberlake

The conservation groups are not putting their collective imprimatur on anybody’s plan, much less endorsing candidates. They’re just insisting that candidates have a plan so we can have a real discussion for once, extending beyond ideological platitudes.

Here’s what I think: We’ll have to do every practical thing that any of theseChamblee candidates are talking about, and then a whole lot more, just to begin to get real and have the necessary effect to win the war, save the planet and other important stuff.

And yes, we should start with the plan Tom Friedman and other pundits keep pushing: A big ol’ honking tax to bring the price of oil up permanently. Most of the rest of a get-real energy plan would flow from, or at least be encouraged by, that essential move. Here’s a taste of his latest on that subject:

Everyone has an energy plan for 2020. But we need one for 2007 that will start to have an impact by 2008 — and there is only one way to do that: get the price of oil right. Either tax gasoline by another 50 cents to $1 a gallon at the pump, or set a $50 floor price per barrel of oil sold in America. Once energy entrepreneurs know they will never again be undercut by cheap oil, you’ll see an explosion of innovation in alternatives.

For the rest of the column, you’ll have to read the paper tomorrow.

Veto it

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Veto it, Mr. President. Veto it, and then, if you are so inclined, say "Mission Accomplished," for you will have done your duty as commander in chief.

Bushtoday Once you’re done, take a long, hard look in the mirror, to see the guy who lost the support of the American people — support that is essential to eventual success in this war.

Over the past four years, you have only gotten one thing right: You have understood that our troops will have to be in Iraq for the rest of your presidency, and most likely through the administration of the next president — and quite likely longer than that. But through your lack of political and diplomatic leadership, you have gotten more of them killed than had to be.

Sure, much of the world would have been against you anyway — it was in the interests of the French, Germans and Russians to oppose you on this and other things. Ironically, though, the Germans have since then elected a more friendly administration, and the French appear poised to do so. But your policies have alienated even our friends in Britain, and undermined our best friend of all, Tony Blair. If only he could have led this coalition.

Worse, you have lost the faith of Americans — through your long refusal to throw out the bankrupt Rumsfeld approach, for the atmosphere you and A.G. Gonzales created that encouraged the abuses of Abu Ghraib, you have allowed the insurgency to flourish, and made enemies where we might have had friends, or at least neutrals.

You only got one thing right. You knew that we could not desert Iraq once we had toppled Saddam.

But anybody can get one thing right. Even Mike Gravel. He really nailed it when he challenged the other candidates on the stage last week in Orangeburg, asking them if they thought you were kidding about staying in Iraq? If they didn’t believe that, they were fooling themselves and their supporters. If they did believe that, then their cheering Congress on as it sends you this unconscionably cynical spending bill is beyond appalling.

You’ll do your duty, the only way you can do it at this point. And those who sent you that bill, knowing you would veto it, will share a full measure of culpability for this detestable slap at the troops who depend on our material support — though we give them so little of any other kind. Yes, they are the ones who keep sending encouragement to the terrorists, offering timetables to let them know how long they have to hold out, how many more suicide bombers they have to recruit, how many more IEDs to plant, before we get out of their way so they can REALLY rip into each other.

But don’t forget to blame everyone who deserves it. Don’t you dare let yourself off the hook.

Democratic Debate Column

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Debate

Orangeburg debate just
a start, but a good one

By Brad Warthen
Editorial Page Editor
AS BOB COBLE walked out of a breakfast meeting Friday, the bearlike New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson placed him in a loose, amiable headlock and asked what he would have to do to get him to support his bid for the presidency.
    “You’ll have to squeeze harder than that,” I thought. As the governor knew, the Columbia mayor is a John Edwards man.
    But for those who had not made up their minds, the “debate” in Orangeburg Thursday night was a better-than-expected opportunity to begin the winnowing process.
    Eight candidates in 90 minutes is patently ridiculous. But those who planned and executed it, from South Carolina State University to MSNBC, can take pride in making the most of the situation.
National media, as expected, focus on which of the “two candidates,” Hillary or Obama (like Madonna, they no longer need titles or full names), came out on top. Some stretch themselves and mention ex-Sen. Edwards.
    OK, let’s dispense with that: Sen. Clinton presented no surprises, rock star Obama came across as pretty stiff playing in this orchestra — nothing of his usual, charismatic rolling thunder. Ex-Sen. Edwards did his usual shtick.
    But some of us tuned in to learn something new. I did. And I didn’t care which of the overexposed, anointed titans of fund-raising would be a more ideologically pure party standard-bearer. Those of us who spurn both parties — in other words, those of us who actually decide national elections — were looking for someone we might vote for (if such a person survives the partisan gantlet far enough to give us the chance). We’ll be looking for the same when the Republicans meet at the Koger Center May 15.
    I don’t think any of us got any conclusive answers. But the questions posed were good enough to provide some impressions, however scattered, that at least made the event worth the time invested:

Best new impression: I had heard good things about Gov. Richardson, but not met him before. The debate, plus his call-in to a radio show I was on Friday morning, made me want to find out more. I liked the fact that he was real, honest and unscripted, perhaps the result of being a governor and actually dealing with real problems instead of living in Washington’s 24-hour partisan echo chamber.

Best old impression: Could Sen. Joe Biden contain his gift of gab well enough to play well with others on such a crowded stage without his head exploding? “Yes.” Since I’ve heard him speak in our own board room for two hours almost without pause, this was a pleasant surprise. I’ve always liked the guy, but this is one Irishman who didn’t just kiss the Blarney Stone; he took it home with him.

Commander in chief? I expected the candidates to compete to see who was most against our involvement in Iraq and for the longest time. But if it’s fairly judged, Dennis Kucinich wins that pointless contest hands-down. It’s also a barrier to me, since I consider giving up in Iraq to be anathema. So I looked to see who was leaving themselves any room to present a more credible position in the general election, when it’s no longer necessary to court moveon.org. The winners of that contest: Sen. Biden, followed by Sen. Obama.

Second funniest moment: The look in John Edwards’ eyes when he acknowledged being filthy rich, just before going into his nostalgic boilerplate about having been poor once upon a time. This is a much-rehearsed look for him, intended to look like wide-eyed candor. But it struck me like, You bet I’m rich, and lovin’ it, too. Probably an anomaly in the camera angle.

Making Kucinich sound reasonable: A writer on Slate.com summed it up better than I can, as follows: “When the candidates were asked who owned a gun, (Ex-Sen. Mike) Gravel was one of those who raised his hand. ‘I was worried that he meant he had one with him at the moment,’ said a senior adviser to a top candidate.” I hadn’t gotten around to including a link to this particular candidate on my blog. After Thursday night, I don’t think I’ll bother.

Common sense: You could tell who really wanted to be president. They raised their hands to say they believed there’s such a thing as a global War on Terror, and didn’t raise their hands to support Dennis the Menace’s move to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. Outside of partisan blogs there’s something we call the real world; everyone except Rep. Kucinich showed that they live in it at least part-time.

The most enduring litmus test: Even after all the times I’ve seen and heard this, the grip of the abortion lobby on the Democratic Party still strikes me as astounding. Is there any greater demonstration of the power of party uber alles than hearing a Roman Catholic such as Sen. Biden emphatically saying, “I strongly support Roe v. Wade,” and asserting complete faith in the existence of a right to privacy in the Constitution?

South Carolina’s shame: Only one thing was mentioned all night that let you know this took place in South Carolina — the Confederate flag at our State House. So much for our wish to build a new image based on hydrogen research and the like.

    The event helped me begin to focus on this process, which has been easy to ignore with everything going on in South Carolina. There will be many debates, interviews and other opportunities before the winnowing is done. Whether this newspaper will support, or whether I personally will vote for, any of these candidates is a question that it is far too soon to answer.
    But this was a start.

Joe Wilson gets his minute on Iraq

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The Democratic leadership gave Joe Wilson one minute on the floor this morning, which he used to criticize their fecklessness on funding for our troops in Iraq:

Mr. Speaker, for weeks the House has debated our strategy in Iraq and continued funding for the war. In the midst of this debate the democratic leadership adjourned for a two-week spring break. Even today we appear no closer to a solution that will support our mission and troops and sustain an effective foreign policy. The democrat leadership of both chambers has indicated their desire to move their message of defeat. Fortunately President Bush is standing by his commitment to veto the bill and promote our mission for victory in Iraq to protect American families. Al Qaeda has stated Iraq is the central front in the war on terrorism. Osama bin laden has characterized Iraq as the third world war. Withdrawing from Iraq will not end the global war on terrorism. I have confidence in our military leaders who should not be micromanaged by congress. Yesterday Admiral William Fallen testified effectively that the new reinforcement course in Baghdad is producing results. We’ll face the terrorists overseas or again in the streets of America. In conclusion God bless our troops and we will never forget September 11.

I got that text, and the video file, in a press release generated by the office of Rep. Kay Granger, vice chair of the House Republican Conference. It was headlined, "Best One Minute of the Day."

I bet it was for Joe. He likes being on camera, however briefly.

Respondent addresses Graham op-ed

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A new "regular" on the blog, Michael Gass, sent me an "open letter" he wrote to Lindsey Graham in response to his op-ed today. As I explained in reply, we don’t run open letters to third parties in the paper. In weeding the vast number of letters down to a publishable number, that’s one of the first things we ditch, along with "original poetry."

But there’s no such rule (or guideline, really) on the blog. I would have just urged him to post it as a comment, but there was no post on the subject yet. So here ya go, Michael:

Dear Senator,
   On April 19, 2007, your letter, `Progress and losses in Iraq,’ has reinforced what many of us already knew; that Iraq is a failure.
   You stated that "For the first time, our delegation drove from the airport to the Green Zone."  Senator Graham it has been 4 years; there are over 150,000 of our troops in Iraq; we have spent over $400 billion dollars; we have surged more troops specifically into Baghdad; and you are telling us that our "progress" is that we were able to secure 6 miles of road for the first time?
    You acknowledge that for the past 3 years, violence in Iraq was "out-of-control", yet, President Bush, who you wrote to me in a letter describing as an "honorable man", has repeatedly claimed that America was making progress in Iraq.  Vice President Cheney claimed, not once, but on two separate occassions (in 2005 and again in 2006) that the insurgency was in its "last throes".  You are now telling us, Senator, that in fact, there was no progress in Iraq for 3 years; that in fact, the insurgency was growing.  So, you are telling us, Senator, that the President of the United States and the Vice President of the United States has been lying to us for 3 years.
    Senator Graham, I’ve been to Iraq.  I returned in November, 2006, and unlike you, I didn’t have 100 soldiers and helicopter gunships.  I traveled from Al-Faw to Tikrit.  I talked to local Iraqi’s who weren’t screened for their views prior to talking to me.  I can tell you that many had high hopes after Saddam Hussein was ousted from power.  I can tell you that many now view our occupation, our destruction of their country, our imprisoning of the "irreconcilables" as you call them, as an autrocity on the magnitude of Saddam Hussein.  I can tell you, Senator, that Iraqi’s are starving and they are taking any job they can get to feed their families – even joining the police force. 
     You are right about one thing – the majority of Iraqi’s do want to live in peace.  But, you portray it as if they will only have peace if we stay and kill, or imprison, more Iraqi’s.  That isn’t true and you know it.  In 1979, Senator, muslim men flocked to Afghanistan to fight the Russians.  We called them "freedom fighters" and al-qaeda was born out of that fight.  In 2003, Senator, muslim men flocked to Iraq to fight Americans.  We called these fighters terrorists.  Today, Senator, the vast majority of the insurgency is comprised of Iraqi citizens, not foreign fighters, who simply want to live their lives in peace without American occupation of their country; without their fathers and sons being imprisoned in places like Abu Ghraib by American forces.
     You again make the bold claim, just as every other Republican who has nothing left to argue, no other talking point to push, that if we leave Iraq the Islamic extremist’s will destroy our way of life.  Fear, Senator, is the only tool you have left.  It is not the Islamic extremist’s who wrote the Military Commission’s Act, denying anyone deemed an unlawful enemy combatant, which includes American citizens, the right to habeas corpus.  It is not the Islamic extremist’s who wrote the Patriot Act that the FBI has been abusing to spy on little old Quaker ladies who oppose the war in Iraq.  It is not the Islamic extremist’s who has worked to undermine the liberties we used to have in America – it is our own politicians, Senator; politicians like yourself who spout the "rule of law" as you legislate away our freedoms. 
    You say that we cannot let the Iraqi’s dictate our foreign policy – because that is who the "terrorists" and "suicide bombers" are, Senator; Iraqi’s.  They are a people who had their country invaded, destroyed, and their loved ones killed or imprisoned by our troops.  They are a people who live without power and scrape for food, yet see their only natural resource, oil, being legislated away by a government we helped into power.  That is the "benchmark" that means the most to President Bush; the Iraqi Hydrocarbon Law.  But why don’t you tell Americans what it truly is; a giveaway of Iraqi oil to companies like Exxon-Mobile and British Petroleum.  And here you are, telling the Iraqi’s that they have no right to "dictate" to us what we do to them.  They have every right, Senator, just as Americans have the right to determine the fate of our country, of our resources.
     Our military is broken, Senator.  Gen. McCaffrey has told us that it is broken.  He, and others, have warned us that continuing down this road you and other Republicans have set is, and has been, a disaster.  You tout progress in Iraq, Senator Graham, and, by your own statements, I give you 6 miles of road, $400 billion dollars, countless Iraqi’s dead, secure compounds that American soldiers cannot leave without dying, and the blood of near 3,300 of our own soldiers to show for it – all after 4 years.
Sincerely,
Michael Gass

Oh, and as I said to Michael earlier when he asserted that the military was "broken:" Yeah, that’s why we need a draft.

As to Sen. Graham’s piece in the paper, which I just got to read this morning after being out of the office the last couple of days — it made complete sense to me. It did not, to say the least, "reinforce" the idea that "Iraq is a failure." People who have long opposed the war — and particularly those for whom this is caught up in their own partisan tendencies — find reinforcement for their idea that all effort is useless in anything and everything. It is their constant filter for filtering information bearing on Iraq.

It will be interesting to see whether, in the comments this engenders, anyone says anything that is different from what they’ve always said, whatever their original position. If so, those will be the comments I read with interest.

EXCLUSIVE Joe Biden op-ed

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Bidensc2

We decided this piece wasn’t worth bumping some local writer or one of our syndicated columnists for, our op-ed space in the paper being so limited these days. Besides, we keep the bar pretty high for candidates wanting to use our space for free media. (Calling it "exclusive" didn’t do it. We appreciate it, but we pretty much expect that; why use precious space for something people can read anywhere?)

Fortunately, the threshold is considerably lower here on Brad Warthen’s Blog. So you can read it here.

Dear Brad and editorial team:
    Please see below the following op-ed penned below by Sen. Joe Biden.  As you probably know, Sen. Biden will be in South Carolina tomorrow.  With the many military bases and training facilities in SC, we believe this op-ed on the new MRAP vehicle would be very pertinent to your readers and hope you will consider its publication.
    We are offering this op-ed as an EXCLUSIVE to the State Newspaper and look forward to hearing from you on whether you choose to publish. 

Elizabeth Alexander
Press Secretary for U.S. Senator Joe Biden
elizabeth_alexander@biden.senate.gov
###

No Price Tag on Protecting our Troops
By Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
    Road side bombs are by far the most lethal weapons used against Americans in Iraq.  They account for seventy percent of our casualties.  So if we had the technology to cut these casualties by two-thirds, it is safe to assume that the Bush Administration would spend whatever is necessary, as quickly as it could, to get that technology into the field, right?
    Wrong. 
    The President’s emergency spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan significantly short-changed the budget for new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP) vehicles.  They have a v-shaped hull that offers four to five times the protection of the armored Humvee. 
    Right now, only a few hundred MRAPs are in service in Iraq.  The Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force need 7,774 vehicles, costing a total of $8.4 billion. The Administration’s plan was to spend $2.3 billion this year and $6.1 billion next year.  However, the military believed they could accelerate production at the eight manufacturers (one of which is right here in South Carolina) if we gave them adequate funding.
    As Army Chief of Staff General Schoomaker told the Senate Appropriations Committee earlier this month: "We can build what we can get the funds to build.  It’s strictly an issue of money."
    The President’s emergency budget under-funded MRAPS by $1.5 billion. So I introduced an amendment to the emergency budget to add the necessary funds and it passed the Senate unanimously. If the House agrees and the President signs the budget into law, we now can manufacture and deploy 2,500 more vehicles by December 2007, six months earlier than we would have under the President’s plan. 
    $1.5 billion is a lot of money, but it is money we were going to spend next year anyway.  The pay-off for spending it now is literally priceless.   Each vehicle means four to twelve Americans in the field get four to five times more protection than they have now.   That means 10,000 to 30,000 more soldiers and marines will be protected sooner than later.
     So, the question is, do you want to spend the $1.5 billion now and save lives, or go with the current schedule and spend it next year?  Do you want 10,000 to 30,000 more soldiers and marines to be protected in December? 
    For me, the bottom line is simple:  get as many of these vehicles as possible into the field as quickly as possible to protect our troops. 
    Their safety is our first responsibility.
________________________________________________________________________

The author, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., is the senior Senator from Delaware and Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
                    ####

The "tomorrow" in the intro was a reference to Saturday. This was sent on Friday; we only rejected it today.

Bidensc1

Want to talk about the war in Iraq?

125 Replies

Kneel

Here’s a place to do so…

A couple of readers brought it to my attention yesterday that the war began its Iraq phase four years ago today. They want to have a discussion about that. OK, even though personally I am increasing taking to heart messages such as the one from our own sometime contributor Reed Swearingen, who wrote yesterday to tell my colleague Cindi Scoppe:

Good Morning Cindi,
    Have you an interest in running a blog?  If so, I wish to encourage you
to do so.
    I enjoy reading and occasionally commenting on Brad’s blog, but would
love to participate in a blog that focuses on public policy at the state
level, which appears to be your domain.

Sincerely,

Reed Swearingen

Columbia, SC

Well that’s sort of what I started MY blog for. Consequently, I’ve recently resolved, in my own oblique way, to concentrate more on Energy (as a critical part of the War on Terror) or on primarily South Carolina issues.

I’m edging in that direction. Now I have to edge back a bit.

But just a bit. Here are my thoughts on the Iraq War four years after the invasion:

By and large, needing only a few updates here and there, it’s the same as what I had to say on the third anniversary of that campaign, upon which I elaborated a few days later.

My thoughts on the current situation — the surge and such — have conveniently also been provided on this blog.

As the surge is just now being implemented, so it is certainly far too early to assess whether it will be successful. The only decisions that really need to be made now are on the tactical, political (Iraqi politics, not American) and diplomatic fronts. A great deal of improvement is needed on all three.

Anything you or I might have to say should have little influence on the situation, as the people on the ground who know what they’re facing need to and can call shots at this level.

So for me, the whole matter of war in iraq is a fascinating one to talk about later, when there’s something new to discuss. But if you have something new to say at this point — if you find this date on the calendar sufficiently meaningful to inspire you — go for it.

Peace

The UNembargoed news

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Guardharrell

Here’s the plan the Speaker unveiled today for helping our troops stranded in Mississippi. I provide it both as a Word file, for neat freaks, and in messy cut-and-paste text — for Cindi, who doesn’t believe in links:

Office of the Speaker
SOUTH CAROLINA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                            Contact: Greg Foster
March 8, 2007                                                    (803) 734-3125
       fosterg@scstatehouse.net

Businesses to bring troops home to visit family
Speaker Harrell, S.C. Chamber and many others vow to make this possible

(Columbia, S.C.) – Today the Speaker of the House Bobby Harrell along with members of the House Republican Caucus, South Carolina Chamber of Commerce and business leaders stood together at state’s Veterans Monument to pledge their support to bring our troops home to visit their families before being deployed to Afghanistan.

Our Guardsmen have been granted a 10-day leave to visit their families before their deployment in late April, but have not been provided with any transportation home.

Speaker Harrell said, “Our troops are leaving to go overseas to fight and protect the freedom all South Carolinians enjoy.  Our state needs to come together and thank them for their service by helping them come home to see their families before they leave on their mission.”  Speaker Harrell continued, “I want to thank Rep. Mick Mulvaney for advocating this just cause, and the South Carolina Chamber and our business community for pledging their support to make this happen.”

The South Carolina Chamber of Commerce is helping to raise money among our business community to go towards the Defenders of Freedom Fund.  Speaker Harrell also opened the fund to personal donations by donating $500 to the fund.  The fund will help provide bus transportation for any soldier wishing to return home during their leave. 

“Members of the South Carolina National Guard and others who serve in the military are the heart and soul of our state.  They are here for businesses and communities when disasters strike.  And they are risking their lives to fight in the war on terror for the future of our nation. The South Carolina Chamber is asking other businesses and community organizations to join us in bringing our troops home to visit their families before their deployment overseas,” said S. Hunter Howard, Jr., president and chief executive officer of the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber has been instrumental in getting organizations like the S.C. Realtors, S.C. Trucking Association, S.C. Manufacturing Alliance, S.C. Farm Bureau, S.C. Home Builders Association, Association of General Contractors and the Greenville, Spartanburg and Greer Chamber of Commerce to step up and join this cause.  We hope many other organizations and businesses around our state will also take this initiative to assist our troops.

Please make all checks payable to the Defenders of Freedom Fund c/o Bobby Harrell, 8316 Rivers Avenue   Charleston, SC 29406. 

# # #

And this time, I’m not even breaking the rules.

Pols to weigh in to help troops

4 Replies

More good news for the troops in Mississippi. I just got this advisory:

Office of the Speaker
SOUTH CAROLINA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

EMBARGOED UNTIL: March 8, 2007                     
Contact: Greg Foster
March 7, 2007                           
(803) 734-3125
fosterg@scstatehouse.net

Media Advisory
Speaker Harrell, Rep. Mulvaney, S.C. Chamber of Commerce and others pledge to give S.C. Guard transportation home

(Columbia, S.C.) – Recently 1,600 S.C. National Guard troops in Camp Shelby, Mississippi were granted a 10-day leave in early April before their deployment to Afghanistan.  They were granted leave to visit their families one last time before being deployed, but were not given access to transportation.  Speaker Harrell and others will announce in a press conference their intentions to aid our troops in their efforts to come home. 

    Who:  Speaker Harrell, Rep. Mick Mulvaney, other members of the House Republican Caucus, South Carolina Chamber of Commerce and business leaders from across our  state

    When:  March 8, 2007 at 12:40

    Where:  Veterans Monument on State House Grounds.  West side of State House on Assembly Street.

    What:  Speaker Harrell and the business community pledge to help to bring our troops home to visit their family before being deployed for Afghanistan.

This follows on the good news that Rusty shared with us the other day:

Brad–I checked with the Guard and they have about 800 coming home.
Some opted not to do so having already gone through that wrenching
good-by more than a month ago. According to information I received from
HQ, for those few who might have some difficulty paying for the trip
home, "the National Guard Assn. of SC in conjuction with the 218th
Family Readiness Group has established a program to assist in the
funding of family and soldier relief programs for the 218th. This will
include assisting soldiers who have chosen to return to SC with their
travel. This program and funding will also be used to help soldiers’
families at home as needed during the deployment. The S.C. National
Guard has assisted the National Guard Assn. of S. C. with arranging
round trip charter bus transportation from Camp Shelby to S. C. at a
cost of $110 per soldier. Anyone wishing to donate funds to the
National Guard Association of S. C. Family Readiness program can send
checks payable to the ‘SCNG Family Program’ to: National Guard Assn. of
S. C.
1 National Guard Road
Stop # 36
Columbia, SC 29201
Attn: Cindy Watson (803-254-8456)

Rusty’s going to send them a check for future help. I will, too. Others who had offered earlier might want to consider channeling their generosity to this route.

Blackhawk Author Down

87 Replies

Our anti-war friends are always wanting folks who advocated the Iraq invasion to say they’re sorry. Well, leave poor Hillary alone. Mark Bowden will say it for you.

Here’s a link to a piece in The Philadelphia Inquirer by the former staff writer who wrote Blackhawk Down. An excerpt:

   Plenty of people got it right. Give George Herbert Walker Bush credit for having the good sense not to topple Saddam in 1991, foreseeing the unmanageable chaos that would follow. My Philadelphia Inquirer colleague Trudy Rubin saw it, as did my Atlantic colleague James Fallows. Another notable example was Scott Ritter, the former Marine and U.N. weapons inspector who campaigned vigorously with the news that Saddam did not have such weapons. He spent months being kicked around on television talk shows, weathering a mounting tide of scorn, trying to halt the war machine.
   I remember being on one of those shows with him. I wondered why, in the face of so much supposedly informed contradiction, he persisted.
   Scott, I see it now.

The difference between his position and mine?

My reason for supporting the invasion was that I believed the Iraqi tyrant had weapons of mass destruction, and that he would, without hesitating, pass such weapons along to Islamist terrorists who would use them…. It turns out Saddam was bluffing.

I believed we should invade whether the WMD were there or not. I thought they were there, of course, but that was not the determining factor for me.