Much That Is Hidden

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"In remembrance of the 4,000 brave men and women who sacrificed everything for us -and the two men who would continue this great tragedy, despite the cost to our soldiers, our military, and our nation. "

- Nico Pitney at Huffington Post

Senator John McCain looks to be the Republican Party's nominee for president, so in the interest of helping undecided voters who may be considering a pull for the GOP this November, let’s examine some facts* about the Senator’s record on the Iraq war. While McCain has presented himself as a maverick and a critic of the war, a close read shows that his position has consistently matched that of the Bush administration.

Before The War:

McCain said that a policy of containing Iraq to blunt its weapons of mass destruction program is “unsustainable, ineffective, unworkable and dangerous.”

“I know that as successful as I believe we will be, and I believe that the success will be fairly easy, we will still lose some American young men or women.” [CNN, 9/24/02]

McCain co-sponsored the Use of Force Authorization that gave President George W. Bush the green light - and a blank check - for going to war with Iraq. [SJ Res 46, 10/3/02]

McCain has constantly moved the goal posts of progress for the war—repeatedly saying it would be over soon. “But the point is that, one, we will win this conflict. We will win it easily.” [MSNBC, 1/22/03]

McCain argued Saddam was “a threat of the first order, and only a change of regime will make Iraq a state that does not threaten us and others, and where liberated people assume the rights and responsibilities of freedom.” [Speech to the Center for Strategic & International Studies, 2/13/03]

McCain echoed Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld’s rationale for going to war. McCain: “It’s going to send the message throughout the Middle East that democracy can take hold in the Middle East.” [Fox News, Hannity & Colmes, 2/21/03]

During The War:

McCain echoed Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld’s talking points that the U.S. would only be in Iraq for a short time. “I believe that this conflict is still going to be relatively short.” [NBC, Meet the Press, 3/30/03] “It’s clear that the end is very much in sight. ... It won’t be long...it’ll be a fairly short period of time.” [ABC News, 4/9/03]

McCain praised Bush’s leadership on the war. McCain: “I think the president has led with great clarity and I think he’s done a great job leading the country...” [MSNBC, Hardball, 4/23/03]

McCain voted against holding Bush accountable for his actions in the war. McCain opposed the creation of an independent commission to investigate the development and use of intelligence leading up to the war in Iraq. [Vote # 284, 7/16/03]

McCain defended Bush’s rationale for war. Asked if he thought the president exaggerated the case for war, McCain said, “I don’t think so.” [Fox News, 7/31/03]

McCain praised Donald Rumsfeld two weeks after the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal broke in April 2004. Asked if Rumsfeld can continue to be an effective secretary of defense, McCain: “Yes, today I do and I believe he’s done a fine job. He’s an honorable man.” [Hannity and Colmes, 5/12/04]

McCain repeatedly supported President Bush on the Iraq War - voting with him in the Senate, defending his actions and publicly praising his leadership.

At the 2004 Republican National Convention, McCain, focusing on the war in Iraq, said that while weapons of mass destruction were not found, Saddam once had them and “he would have acquired them again.” McCain said the mission in Iraq “gave hope to people long oppressed” and it was “necessary, achievable and noble.” McCain praised President Bush on the war “For his determination to undertake it, and for his unflagging resolve to see it through to a just end.”

“The terrorists know that this is a very critical time.” [CNN, 6/23/04]

“Overall, I think a year from now, we will have a fair amount of progress [in Iraq] if we stay the course.” [The Hill, 12/8/05]

“We’re either going to lose this thing or win this thing within the next several months.” [NBC, Meet the Press, 11/12/06]

McCain opposed efforts to end the overextension of the military that is having a devastating impact on our troops.

McCain voted against requiring mandatory minimum downtime between tours of duty for troops serving in Iraq. [Vote #241, 7/11/07; Vote #341, 9/19/07]

McCain was one of only 13 senators to vote against adding $430 million for inpatient and outpatient care for veterans. [Vote #98, 4/26/06]

McCain has consistently opposed any plan to withdraw troops from Iraq, repeatedly voting against a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq [Vote # 322, 11/15/05; Vote #182, 6/22/06; Vote #181, 6/22/06; Vote #182, 6/22/06; Vote #182, 6/22/06; Vote #252, 7/18/07; Vote #345, 9/21/07; Vote #346, 9/21/07; Vote # 362, 10/3/07; Vote # 437, 12/18/07; Vote #438, 12/18/07]

McCain called proponents of a congressional resolution opposing the troop surge in Iraq intellectually dishonest. [Associated Press 2/4/07]

McCain has consistently demonized Americans who want to find a responsible way to remove troops from Iraq so that we can take the fight to al Qaeda.

“I believe to set a date for withdrawal is to set a date for surrender.” [Charlotte Observer, 9/16/07]

McCain continues to maintain that the occupation of Iraq is a good idea. “The war, the invasion was not a mistake.” [Meet the Press, 1/6/08]

McCain has been President Bush’s most ardent Senate supporter on Iraq. According to Michael Shank of the Foreign Policy in Focus think tank, John McCain was at times Bush’s “most solid support in the Senate” on Iraq. [Foreign Policy in Focus, 1/15/08]

Asked if the war was a good idea worth the price in blood and treasure McCain said, “It was worth getting rid of Saddam Hussein. He had used weapons of mass destruction, and it’s clear that he was hell-bent on acquiring them.” [Republican Debate, 1/24/08]

The Future:

McCain now says he sees no end to the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq.

“Make it a hundred” years in Iraq and “that would be fine with me.” [Derry, New Hampshire Town Hall meeting, 1/3/08]

“A thousand years. A million years. Ten million years. It depends on the arrangement we have with the Iraqi government.” [Associated Press, 1/04/08]

So please, fence-sitters, don't be responsible for bringing four more years of this nightmare to bear. A hat tip to Archer for the link to the mosaic.

* source: VoteVets.org

Labels: analysis, Bush, dead bodies, John McCain, Lies and Lying Liars, terms of enragement, violence inherent in the system, war

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Regarding my last post on a reaction to Islamic culture in America, I concede up front that radical Islam is currently head and shoulders above any other violent, zealous terrorist sect of any other religion. But we’ve the U.S. has got this “War on Terror” all backasswards. I forthwith strike “we” from my discussions of this as I’m tired of inferring that average citizens share responsibility for this debacle. And while it’s unfortunate that sometimes all we average citizens seem to have left is Monday morning quarterbacking, still I gotta say it takes an idiot of a leader to request that the enemy “bring it on.” Seems to me you should keep your damn mouth shut and bring it to them. If we had wise leaders who didn’t play act success and revel in “shock and awe” but instead rallied the free nations to form an effective coalition of the seriously pissed off, we’d be mopping up the very last of things here in year five.

In 2005 my dropped jaw was lonely among the nodding heads in a room where a certain U.S. senator compared Iraq to the struggle of the American colonists rebelling against Britain in the late 18th century. Yet even leaving that one to wallow in its absurdity, others who have gulped the neocon’s Kool-Aid® in mass quantities have claimed the struggle is on par with our role to liberate Europe and the Pacific from Axis tyranny. Equally absurd (still, it must be mighty tasty, OH YEAH!), but since we just had the luxury of a historical fast forward of 165 years or so, let’s do the run down from there to now.

One big difference between 1941 and 2001 is that the latter came upon us a just a bit more quickly. World War II was raging hard for a couple of years before the U.S. had no choice left but to commit troops. But in watching Ken Burns’ The War I was astounded by the much closer look at the motivation and sacrifice of Americans back then. Not only did the U.S. emerge from the greatest modern economic catastrophe to defeat major industrialized enemy nations on two huge fronts (and contributed vast amounts of materiel to help the Soviets on a third), it produced the most fearful weapon of mass destruction ever imagined, and then paid handsomely to rebuild the countries that it vanquished. Franklin D. Roosevelt didn’t execute the political end of things flawlessly, but he knew the Axis powers were on a tear, and when the hour came at Pearl Harbor he knew it was go and that go was nothing less than balls to the wall. Add to that his leadership qualities that got the essentially complete cooperation and motivation of the nation behind the cause, combined with the luck of developing the A-bomb first, and it was just a matter of time (and bodies) for an Allied victory.

One fact I learned from Burns’ documentary demonstrates the radical shift the country went through in record time: in 1941 U.S. automakers manufactured well over one million cars, while in the three years following only a few hundred new cars were made. The Ford plant in Ypsilanti, Michigan took just a few months to retool for building B-24 bombers, which had more than 10 times the number of parts of a car. At its peak the plant ended up cranking each one out in just over an hour. All I can think to say of that is Fuck. Ing. A.

But within five years of that great and terrible victory America plunged into another conflict that cost it 130,000+ casualties and achieved a mere stalemate that firmed up the roots of the Cold War to drag on for decades. Before two of those decades passed there would be yet another conflict in eastern Asia with American combat casualties in excess of 360,000 and millions of civilians killed or wounded. What happened? Perhaps it was that these conflicts presented a nebulous concept of a cause to fight for, and that American capitalism, in its zeal for wartime profit bolstered by jingoist propaganda to fight communist expansion, got outfoxed by the more nuanced approach of the Soviet Union (who never committed combat troops to either Korea or Vietnam). But O’Tim, Ronald Reagan defeated communism in the end. Um, right... that’s for another post, now run along sonny.

So now we are in the midst of the vaguest war imaginable. Monty Python stalwart Terry Jones put the neo-conceit of the “War on Terror” in humorous perspective. “How is ‘terrorism’ going to surrender?” he wrote in his 2005 book Terry Jones’s War on the War on Terror. “It’s very hard for abstract nouns to do anything at all of their own volition.” On the political side, if George W. Bush had as much acumen for command as FDR had in his fingernail things would be a whole lot different. Ulterior motives have also been the order of the fight against terror, making it far from a just or even credible war and therefore subject to a great probability of failure at worst or readjustments that will take many decades at best. What with war being hell and all, the fight needs unequivocating SOBs like George Smith Patton Jr. and, if you’ll permit a brief throwback to the 1860s, William Tecumseh Sherman running the show, not ambitious executive branch lapdogs like Petraeus and Tommy Franks. Let’s pause here for a couple of juicy quotes from the aforementioned battle-hardened dudes:

“You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out...You might as well appeal against the thunderstorm as against (the) terrible hardships of war.” - Gen. Sherman, to the city fathers of Atlanta prior to evacuating the populace and burning the city down.

“If everybody is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking.” - Gen. Patton, probably to some subordinate whom he smacked and made cry.

Another part of the puzzle is the media and its lack of curiosity about the neoconservative thinking on how the U.S. should step up its presence in the Middle East. One of the most glaring examples is in a report that neocon think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC) released in 2000 called Rebuilding America’s Defenses (the complete report is at http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf). PNAC, which deems itself “a nonprofit, educational organization whose goal is to promote American global leadership,” put forth in this report some startlingly prescient analysis, stating, “While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein,” and “The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor.”

Holy full circles, Batman! That’s some frightening shit. Jones explained how this and other salient facts get the media gloss-over. “The problem with the media is they are primarily owned by corporations, and corporations are pro-establishment. Newspapers and television start using the vocabulary of politicians, and that’s the way bias creeps in.”

PNAC fellow Director Gary Schmitt acknowledged that they were up front about regime change, but maintained that Saddam’s removal was U.S. policy predating the Bush II administration, and that the left had cherry-picked such quotes from the report since its release. “I see it all the time,” he said. What I’m pretty sure was a less common sight for Schmitt and certainly for the mainstream media was any candor about cherry-picked evidence used in the run up to Iraq part deux.

The final piece is us, and I have to strike my previous statement about striking “we” from this discourse, for in the end we are all to blame, not just Bush and his Republican cronies. We’re well aware of this administration’s shortcomings and goings, and so is Congress, who is still taking every opportunity to avoid taking any opportunity to get something done to correct our erroneous course. Can the 2008 national elections bring about any sensible results? Despite my doubts, I’ll be voting, if only to claim my right to 1,400-word rants.

So then enough of that, and on to more important things. In honor of our “War Is Hell” edition, try some XTC and “Sgt. Rock” (complete with that Top of the Pops lip-synching that would give anyone stage fright!):


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Labels: Bush, dead bodies, politix, rants, terms of enragement, turrists, war

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There's been a bit of talk around Blogovia of late about protest songs (here fr'instance). Not being one to pass up the opportunity for some righteous indignation, here's one of my favorites from a quintessential American folk hero. About three minutes into this video John Prine explains his take on the current relevance of this decades-old classic. I saw him this same year (2004) and when he played it for us his comment was a bit less tongue-in-cheek. "I wish George Bush would quit making all these old anti-war songs of mine make sense again," Prine said.

There's no bouncing ball to follow but I've posted the lyrics below (courtesy of JPShrine.org) if'n yer in the mood fer a sing-along.



Your Flag Decal Won't Get You Into Heaven Anymore
© John Prine

While digesting Reader's Digest
In the back of a dirty book store
A plastic flag with gum on the back
Fell out on the floor
Well I picked it up and I ran outside
Slapped it on my window shield
And if I could see old Betsy Ross
I'd tell her how good I feel

Chorus:
But your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more
They're already overcrowded
From your dirty little war
Now Jesus don't like killin'
No matter what the reason's for
And your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more

Well I went to the bank this morning
And the cashier he said to me
"If you join the Christmas club
We'll give you ten of them flags for free"
Well I didn't mess around a bit
I took him up on what he said
And I stuck them stickers all over my car
And one on my wife's forehead

(Repeat Chorus)

Well I got my window shield so filled
With flags I couldn't see
So I ran the car upside a curb
And right into a tree
By the time they got a doctor down
I was already dead
And I'll never understand why the man
Standing in the Pearly Gates said...

"But your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more
We're already overcrowded
From your dirty little war
Now Jesus don't like killin'
No matter what the reason's for
And your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more."
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Labels: dead bodies, music, protest, religion, war

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Too funny to pass up (as seen on What Is Hip?):

$4275.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth

Actually, it's a bit depressing because I filled out the questions about as liberally as a 1040, hoping to up my carcass value. Alas, I don't even crack the median.
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Labels: dead bodies, depression