As I wrote a few weeks back, the war in Iraq is essentially over for the United States. It ended, in effect, when the Iraqis asked us to leave. By the way, they want a timetable to be sure we actually get out.

The Iraqis had seen the writing on the wall, with many Americans, notably Barack Obama, getting behind a fixed timetable for the withdrawal of American forces, as opposed to the open-ended "hundred years" or more occupation called for by John McCain and expected by the architects of the war.

With a threatened American withdrawal signaling the end of American protection of the Sunnis from a still revenge-seeking Shite majority, the Sunnis "awoke" and sloughed off the radical element and turned to cooperation with American troops and the Shite-dominated government. More than the so-called "surge" of American troop numbers, this "Awakening" movement by the Sunnis resulted in a drop in violence in recent months, according to American General David Petraeus. The myth of the "success of the surge", of course, has been used by John McCain and his supporters to demonstrate McCain's brilliance in all matters military, even though General Petraeas disagrees.

With the UN authorization of American occupation nearing expiration, the Bush/Cheney/McCain neocons tried to strongarm the Iraqis into allowing American forces to remain and the United States to act indefinitely as a super-government, whose troops and hired guns could attack at will would remain above Iraqi law. Originally, the Americans had demanded a completely open-ended military presence in Iraq at over 50 bases around the country.

This is the plan that was envisioned by *** Cheney and the people who started this war, including John McCain. From before day one of the war, the plan was (and remains) to "secure" stable supplies of petroleum for the global oil industry.

With many Americans, including military personnel and their families, lining up behind a fixed timetable for withdrawal, and especially the rise of Senator Obama, whose signature issue was ending American involvement in Iraq, the Iraqis realized that they would have to establish some semblance of order, or descend back into the all-out sectarian war that has balkanized their country. Hence, the Sunni Awakening.

And so, John McCain and the Republicans are crowing about "victory", while frantically negotiating with the elite of Iraq to divide up the spoils of war. Again, General Patraeus, constantly cited as a paragon of virtue and a genius of military strategy, denies that anything like "victory" has occurred and remains extremely skeptical that Al-Queda has been, or ever will be, defeated in Iraq.

Unfortunately, "conditions on the ground" do not look good. Recently, sectarian tensions seem to be on the rise again. Presumed Sunni suicide bombers are striking at Iraqi Army and police recruiting stations, in a return to an old tactic. And in response, the Shite government has begun "cracking down" on Sunni Awakening groups.

The hard-core pro-war among us, and John McCain, continue to maintain that our phony "victory" justifies the invasion/occupation and the hundreds of thousands of deaths that ensued. Some are even starting to deny that we invaded at all, but claim were called by the Iraqis to "liberate" them.

If it were not for Iraqi national pride, and their absolute insistence that we leave, we would be doing the exact same thing the Russians are doing in Georgia - settling in for a permanent occupation.

I have to admit it's pretty damn funny.

The utter ineptitude of the McCain camp that is.

I'm really starting to love John McCain - the old codger. I aspire to be a curmudgeon when I get old, and John does a pretty fair job of it.

But his campaign? Talk about the gang that couldn't shoot straight. I am reminded of the classic western scene where the cruel guy shoots at the feet of some innocent bystander yelling "Dance!" "Dance!", and the poor dude jumps around in a cloud of dust trying to avoid getting a foot blown off, much to the amusement of the heartless spectators. Except in this case, the guy doing the shooting is the same guy doing the dancing!

LOL

For months, John McCain and his ever-changing lineup of lobbyist/handlers have been trying to parlay McCain's undistinguished Navy career into some kind of foreign policy "expertise". He was constantly appearing in military settings, scowling most impressively. (Great scowl John. Way better than your grin... which is scary.)

But every time he opens his mouth he steps right into it - repeatedly mixing up those Sunnis and Shites, and repeatedly being corrected on camera by Sen. Joseph Lieberman, his personal apologist. Yesterday, McCain expressed his concerns about recent developments on the border between Pakistan and Iraq. I wonder if he knows Iran is in between.

McCain has also been discussing how our proposed missile shield will be received - in Czechoslovakia. That country that has not existed in fifteen years. CBS has a scorecard of the McCain gaffes here, but you get the idea.

It's hard to sound all presidential when you mix up Germany and Russia. They're so sort of... different.

SO ANYWAY, see, the McCain boys devised this great strategy to portray our boy Obama as unconcerned with foreign affairs, even dissing the troops in Iraq by not showing up at their house. They would put Obama in a trap, see? They would challenge him to go to Iraq!

He would have to admit he didn't care about the troops, or.. or... go to Iraq.

LOL

Yeah, so Obama flies into the Middle East and most of the world's media, including all three American network anchors follow right along, watching him take the place by storm - leaving grumpy old John sitting by himself. Then, before he even landed in Iraq, Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki told the German press that Obama's plan for bringing American troops home in something like 19 months was just about the timetable that the Iraqis were thinking of. Which sort of gave Obama some major credibility, and made Bush/McCain look like they were totally misreading their own ally and were left out of the loop - I don't know...intentionally?

Now, Obama is touring U.S. military bases and being treated like a rock star. The soldiers love him! The generals are completely down with him in photo ops. He listens to them respectfully, and talks to them like he were their Commander-in-Chief.

He is on the agenda of virtually every head of state in the Mid East, and the Europeans can hardly wait to fist-bump the man and gaze into his soulful eyes. (See last night's Daily Show. I'm sure it's on YouTube.)

And worst of all, the man looks SO damn good doing it. Presidential, you might say. They are saying.

He is cool, authoritative and confident and has so far not given the press the satisfaction of putting a foot wrong while waltzing all over the world stage.

McCain is actually lucky that no one is listening to his sad attempts to piece together an economic vision in public, but it has so distressed him that there is a rumor going around that he will announce his selection for a running mate this week - to take attention away from Obama's sold-out Iraq tour!

Talk about shooting off the big gun!

McCain may be ready to take a shot in the dark. Hope he doesn't hit the new Vice President.

Sorry, I know it's cruel, but...

"Dance, John, Dance!"

- UPDATE below -

[Apologies to all you Fox News types for such a long post. Some subjects actually require of a bit of thought and analysis.]

John McCain, desperate Republicans, and apparently right-wing radio think they have found an issue that works for them - Did you support "The Surge"?

Except it's not an issue.

This pseudo-argument about "The Surge" - Were you behind it or not? - like everything about this war except the lives of those destroyed by it, is phony. The question - accusation - is based on the false assumption that The Surge is responsible for the decline in violence in Iraq.

The right is positing that the military genius displayed by Bush/McCain in calling for "The Surge" demonstrates, as McCain brags, "I know how to win wars." (Do we need another "Bring 'em on!" president?)

The obvious question is: If all it took to stabilize Iraq was a few thousand more troops, why did we wait five years to send them?

Before we invaded Iraq, then U.S. Army General Eric K. Shinseki stated that a successful occupation of Iraq would require several hundred thousand American troops. This was recognized by the Bush White House as being politically unacceptable, and Shinseki was dismissed, both figuratively and literally.

Donald Rumsfeld, who fantasized himself a brilliant, next-generation military strategist, had convinced the clueless Bush and the panting *** Cheney that he could overrun the Iraqi defenses with 100,000 troops. He was right. American forces reached Baghdad with relative ease, and chaos ensued immediately.

What General Shinsheki knew, but Rummsfeld ignored, was that taking Baghdad would not be the end of the war. ("Mission Accomplished")

Shinsecki understood that protecting the Iraqi infrastructure - the electrical grid, the sanitation system, the financial and cultural institutions and the petroleum industry - even simply maintaining law and order in a hostile sectarian population - could never be accomplished with 100,000 American troops.

Many experts predicted that without a strong hand - enough troops to maintain order - Iraq would descend into civil war. Which is exactly what happened. They also predicted that unless there were enough troops to seal the country's borders that sectarian partisans would flow in from Shite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia to provide the spark. Which is exactly what happened. All the while Bush/Cheney/McCain remained defiant of the facts on the ground.

Even as Iraqi cities descended into utter lawlessness, Shite death squads blockading the streets and beheading Sunnis in broad daylight, Al-Queda-inspired terrorists teaming with the Sunnis to create anarchy, and millions of Iraqis abandoning or being forced to flee their homes with just the clothes on their backs, Bush balked at making the politically unpopular call to send in more troops. Bush, Cheney, and, yes, John McCain continued to assert that victory was just around the corner, that al-Queda was on the run. While they tried to score politcial points, the slaughter and mayhem continued.

This unwillingness or inability to provide for basic security for the Iraqi population, which is required of an occupying force by international conventions, is the real war crime of the Bush administration. The American people chose to close their eyes to the evidence and stand behind the invasion of Iraq. The million dead Iraqis were given no choice - their eyes were closed for them.

With the American public becoming disillusioned about the length and cost of their war, and the midterm elections coming, Bush had no choice but to abandon his asinine "Stay the Course" slogan, and change American military strategy, as experts had been calling for continuously since the invasion. "The Surge" was not born of a flash of military brilliance but of naked political desperation following four+ years of failure, death and chaos.

Military groupies and John McCain imagine "The Surge" as a singularity, like man's stepping onto the moon - a great achievement surrounded only by a vacuum.

The addition of American reinforcements was actually only one ingredient in the bubbling stew that is the history of the Iraqi people. It was not the cause of the reduction of violence in the last year.

The fact is that the Iraqi civil war burned itself out. It ran out of fuel - people who were willing and able to continue the killing.

With as many as a million dead, and 4-5 million Iraqis displaced and segregated by sect, the stresses on the sectarian fault lines have been, at least temporarily, relieved.

The ability of the foreign terrorists to create terror faded out because the Iraqi people had reached the limits of their terror. They can no longer be terrorized. It was the strength and courage of the Iraqi people that made Al-Queda irrelevant, not American military force.

The so-called "Surge" came just as the Iraqis had decided that they had had enough death, and stopped killing one another.

It was no ingenious military strategy, but a political expedient, and simply the latest chapter in the sorry record of the unprovoked invasion of Iraq by the United States.

If that's John McCain's evidence of his brilliant military mind, it is pathetic indeed. He can be predicted to follow the same path that Bush and Cheney have been taking us down for eight years, a path of unnecessary and gratuitous military conflict and destructive unilateralism.

If you liked the surge in Iraq, you'll love the surge in Iran.
 

- UPDATE -

In an interview with Katie Couric yesterday, which CBS News did not air on the evening news, John McCain demonstrated a complete misunderstanding of the so-called "surge". Or he forgot. Or he lied.

Couric cited Barack Obama's statement that besides the additional American troops, in fact before they arrived, there were other factors driving down the level of violence in Iraq. McCain, obviously flustered and angry, stated "Colonel MacFarland was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that's just a matter of history."

McCain's time-line is reversed. The rejection of foreign fighters by the sheiks, and the so-called awakening councils began before the so-called surge plan was even conceived. In fact, McCain himself, in arguing for the surge, cited the Anbar Awakening as a reason to support the surge.

McFarland's own reports show that his unit actually left Anbar before most of the surge troops arrived; his success in the region came between June 2006 and February 2007.

Either McCain has lost his memory of the events, he has reconstructed events in his mind to match his policy, or he lied, assuming that no one would call him on it. CBS decided not to air the footage.

Since this exchange, and CBS's decision not to air became known, the McCain camp issued an attack on Obama, saying that he was refusing to give credit to the generals and the troops for their hard work.

This seems like a likely line of attack, and I expect to see it echoed here.
 

I have refrained from writing about John McCain’s pastor problem.

I really resented the way so many people used Rev. Wright as an excuse to unleash their racism and guiltlessly attack Barack Obama for being black – and worse – attack the institution of the black church, which has provided hope and inspiration for African Americans during centuries of slavery and oppression.

Also, I think that mixing religion and politics is just a really bad idea.

Politicians should keep their religion to themselves. As always, Bush provides us a perfect example of how not to lead.

If, in fact, the President of the United States is a born again Christian, this means that he believes that for God’s will to be fulfilled, and for Jesus Christ to return, there needs first to be an Armageddon.

I have wondered if one the factors motivating George Bush, who claims such beliefs, and has also stated that he believes that God selected him to be president, to attack Iraq is that he believes it is his Biblical providence to lead us into the cataclysmic battle between God and Satan.

Personally, I don’t want to see a nuclear war so that the born-agains can get their reward of sitting at Jesus’ hand. Any more than I want to get blown apart by a Muslim fundamentalist so that he can get to his own version of heaven.

I think I’d rather have a clear-eyed atheist with his finger on the button, thank you.

John McCain, who has famously criticized leaders of the religious right as "agents of intolerance", nonetheless has spent the last year currying favor with these same televangelist preachers in order to pander to the religious right, a core constituency of the Republican Party since the days of Ronald Reagan.

Among those is the Pastor John Hagee, who is about as whacked out (or as prophetic) as a preacher can get.

Among his other bizarre statements, Hagee has excused Adolph Hitler for annihilating millions of Jews, claiming that Hitler was acting on God’s behalf, driving the Jews back to Israel so that Armageddon could occur and Christ could come back.

He blames the Jews for the Holocaust. And gays for Katrina. And your sins for 9-11.

John McCain has said that he is “proud” to have this sociopath as a spiritual advisor.

Today, McCain tossed Hagee under the bus. Like the four lobbyists who were his key advisors, but became a liability to his ambitions by being, well, lobbyists.

Considering the endless looping of a 5 second clip of Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s most inflammatory remarks over a period of at least a month, and the inference that Barack Obama shared those sentiments, it will be interesting to see how long the media’s attention remains focused on the anti-Semitic rantings of Pastor Hagee.

My guess: one news cycle.

 

As was predicted by Middle East experts prior to the Bush/Cheney invasion of Iraq, Iran has been the chief beneficiary of the thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars we have wasted there.

For decades Sadaam Hussein, whose ambitions had nothing to do with religion, acted as a foil and a target for Iranian nationalists and Shiite Mullahs. The bitter conflict between Iran and Iraq soaked up the arms, money and attention of both oppressive regimes, to the detriment of their citizens, but the benefit of their neighbors and the West.

By invading Iraq and effectively turning it into a failed state, we opened the door for Iran to move in.

The Sunni and Shiite sectarian extremism that Hussein so brutally suppressed is now in full eruption, and has only recently abated, sated by the gruesome deaths of tens or hundreds of thousands, and the displacement of over 4,000,000 Iraqis. (“The surge” gets the credit, which is Pentagon propaganda.)

Iran, is of course, intervening in this chaos in an attempt to gain control of Iraq’s vast oil reserves, and humiliate the Sunnis. With Iran playing an increasingly influential role in Iraq, it’s becoming clear even to the Bush administration that the genie is out of the bottle.

Their solution, of course, is more mayhem. The Pentagon is planning for war on Iran, which is the prudent thing to do, because the Republicans’ chances in the upcoming presidential elections would be improved dramatically if they had a fresh war to sell.

John McCain has famously sung his “bomb, bomb, bomb – bomb, bomb Iran” song, and has argued that it's fine with HIM if we're in Iraq for "a thousand years"  (why don’t we see those clips repeated in an endless loop on the “liberal” media?) and if Bush/Cheney don’t start this war, he certainly will.

The sad fact is, that because of the illegal war on Iraq by Bush/Cheney, and it’s “unexpected” (but predicted) empowering of the terrorists and religious fundamentalists across the border, the next president, regardless of who it is, will be in a corner with regard to Iran. Hillary Clinton, on the eve of her Pennsylvania primary victory, threatened to “obliterate” the entire nation, presumably including it’s 60-70 million inhabitants, already victims of religious tyranny.

The Bush/Cheney(McCain) marshal mentality will almost certainly lead to an attack on Iran, probably prior to the election. After Iran, we can expect to see the war spread to its Sunni neighbors, which will require yet a further escalation of U.S. military involvement. (Not to mention the potential collapse of the oil-based world economic structure.)

If you have children in the Middle School, I am afraid they will be drafted to fight and die in the deserts of the Middle East unless we take a more enlightened direction in our foreign policy.

 

More good news follows closely on the encouraging signs that the Iraqi government is now fully willing and (somewhat) able to use deadly force against its own citizens!

As you may remember from last week (if you’re still paying attention) the civil war in Iraq got a big shot in the arm when (apparently at *** Cheney’s urging), the Iraqi Prime Minister (“Yes sir, Mr. Vice President! Sir!) Nuri al-Maliki launched a disastrous attack on the Madhi Army of al-Sadr down there in Basra, which quickly spread across Iraq.

One of the hotspots in this intra-Shia conflict is Sadr City  - affectionately referred to as a “massive Shia slum” - on the outskirts of Baghdad. Apparently this home to hundreds of thousands of desperately poor Shiites is within mortar and rocket range of the “massively fortified” Green Zone, from which somebody (evildoers!) rained said projectiles for several days, pinning American residents down and killing several people.

As a gentle reminder of who now runs Iraq, American pilots launched numerous missiles into the residential neighborhoods of Sadr City, regardless of the fact that uninvolved citizens were bound to be killed and maimed. On each of these occasions the military reported, as is their custom, that “X number of insurgents were eliminated” as though everyone killed is, by definition, an insurgent. (It’s the same logic that leads to the conclusion that every one of the tens of thousands of prisoners of the United States in Iraq, Cuba, Afghanistan and elsewhere (only God knows where) around the world is an “unlawful combatant” who has the information that could lead to the saving of thousands of American lives if only we can find just… the… right… interrogation technique to make them spill their guts.) (“Do you have a daughter?”)

Anyway - if you remember, the militia of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq – sorry – the Iraqi Army - rolled into Basra fully confident that their five years of training by the United States would stand them in good stead against the “dead-enders” of the al-Sadr militia, obviously in “the last throes” of resistance. (“They might even throw us flowers!”)

Turns out – not so much.

President Bush, as only he can do, looked at the sunny side of this bloodbath.

"Normalcy," President Bush announced, "is returning back to Iraq." (From where? Hell?)

In praise of al-Maliki, the President said, “His bold decision -- and it was a bold decision – (I love his BOLDness!) to go after the evildoers in Basra shows his leadership."

OK, then. As it went, the Iraqi government, one of our strongest allies in the “war on terror”, had to send emissaries to Tehran (Yes, THAT Tehran) to ask Iran (Yes, THAT Iran - were they in that “Axis of Terror” thing?) to pull their butts out of the fire. Please.

President Bush may or may not have thought that this development was good news. He didn’t say, but we can assume so.

But I am sure that he will be delighted by today’s good news!

Apparently, those Iraqi soldiers and national policeman - (What’s the difference between a soldier and a national policeman?) – the ones who ran away? – And those other ones that took off their uniforms and switched sides in the heat of battle? Well, they got fired today!

That’s right, in yet another sign of the strength and determination of our guys running the so-called Iraqi government; those guys all lost their jobs. “If you’re going fight for THEM, then you don’t get the uniforms! So give ’em back! Right now! (Keep your weapons... it's dangerous out there.")

Oh, and the really, really good news? General Petraeus came to Washington last week, and he and Commander-in-Chief Bush agreed; as of next January, “Bush’s War in Iraq” will have a new name!

We can’t tell you what it is yet, but it will be the very first American war named after a woman or a black man!

 

PS. The Associated Press reports that at least 19 American soldiers died in Iraq last week, the highest weekly death toll of this year. A figure for Iraqi deaths was not available.