Iraq: The Neverending Story 2

It's been a while, but I've just been so rivited by the Petraeus/Crocker testimony. Or as the LA Times referred to it the "Iraq is too important to lose, so we've got to keep on trying, no matter the cost, and though it's not clear when we will succeed" testimony. It seems like it can't get worse and then it does. And today is a horrible example. Maybe some of you have heard about the really stunning op-ed by seven US soldiers in Iraq published in the NY Times a few weeks ago. Here's a copy of it, and while you should really read the whole thing, here's a very short excerpt:

Viewed from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal.
...
In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, "We need security, not free food."

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are - an army of occupation - and force our withdrawal.

Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.

We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.

Really, really, please read the whole thing. If you do, not only will you read one of the best, clear thinking yet emotional analysis of the current situation, you'll find out one of the seven authors of the piece, "The War As We Saw It" was shot in the head during its writing. He is expected to live, but the past tense of the piece's title has proven all to presenent today:

The Op-Ed by seven active duty U.S. soldiers in Iraq questioning the war drew international attention just three weeks ago. Now two of the seven are dead.

Sgt. Omar Mora and Sgt. Yance T. Gray died Monday in a vehicle accident in western Baghdad, two of seven U.S. troops killed in the incident which was reported just as Gen. David Petraeus was about to report to Congress on progress in the "surge." The names have just been released.
....
Mora, 28, hailed from Texas City, Texas, and was a native of Ecuador, who had just become a U.S. citizen. He was due to leave Iraq in November and leaves behind a wife and daughter. Gray, 26, had lived in Ismay, Montana, and is also survived by a wife and infant daughter.

Bush will give a speech tomorrow and by all signs we will STILL be in Iraq with over 130,000 troops this time next year. Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Victoria Clarke, Richard Perle, Michael Gerson, David Frum, Dick Armitage, Douglas Feith, John Yoo, Richard Myers, Tommy Franks, Karen Hughes, Harriet Miers, Tony Snow, Alberto Gonzales, and Karl Rove will all probably still be alive, making millions in the private sector, and appearing on television everywhere praising the end of the Bush era and questioning the patriotism of others who argue. And Sgts. Mora and Gray will still be dead, and their children like all the children of all the dead Iraqis and other US troops and contractors will still miss them. And General Petraeus will probably continue not to want to guess if any of this makes us safer.

It's feels pointless, but I'm going to call my elected representatives today. I hope you do too.

The wonderful future of our country

It sad, funny, and ultimately kind of scary, but you have to see this Max Blumenthal video of him visiting a recent College Republican conference. Watch how Tom Delay explains how we wouldn't need illegal immigration if it wasn't for all the aborted fetuses! Hear liberals compared to Iraqi insurgents! Learn why we have to fight them over there so we don't fight them here!

Actually, you don't learn why, you just hear them say it again and again. Plus, I guess they are fighting them over here, they just are dressed up like progressives. Still, learn bitches!

Even the Wind God will bow down before the Beijing Olympics

I'm not saying anything....except to point out the People's Republic is literally claiming to have the power to control the weather.

I heard their next plan is to set the world to Beijing standard time next year: no tape delay!!!

You know who hates losers? Winners!

All you need to know about the DC area free-alt weekly's article about Late Night Shots, an invite-only DC social networking site, are the comments are awesome!

# Comment: By: possumfest Jul. 12, 2007, at 7:33 pm
The reality of your hipster lifestyle is that most of you will live poor lives in cramped basements, have unattractive wives/husbands/partners, bitch about Republicans while benefiting from the tax burden we shoulder, and in general, not be able to experience much at all because you are very unsuccessful professionally and personally. We are better athletes, smarter in business, more attractive, tougher, and, in general, winners of the genetic lottery. Angela Valdez was treated well by almost everyone she encountered until she wrote this hyper-sexualized caricature of the 20-something Georgetown set. She is a known embellisher and clearly a loser in her personal life. Everyone who supports her on this thread is intellectually dishonest and probably a loser as well. Have fun being poor and insignificant, hipsters.

Wonkette has a collection of LNS stuff if you are interested including this hilarious, possibly made up tale tale involving a broken condom, online confrontation, and offline avoidance. Be careful though, next thing you know you'll be reading this post on LNS with its nod to Lacanian psychoanalysis, Zizek, nationalism, and the Other and hours of your life will be gone with only this in exchange:

Postmodernism is often invoked as the age of fragmentation and unlimited inflation or plurality of subject positions. In this respect, postmodernism follows the logic of rampant capitalism, according to which the more production grows, the greater becomes the need to produce, without ever achieving satisfaction. Similarly, in Freudian terms, the greater the repentance stimulated by the transgression of the Law, the greater the guilt. Opposite to the logic of capitalism of superfluous overproduction and of the postmodern dispersion of subject positions, nationalism assumes excessive identification with one particular ethnic position, at the expense of all other possible subject positions. Zizek emphasizes that, "the more the logic of Capital becomes universal, the more its opposite will assume features of 'irrational fundamentalism'" (220).

In their discussion of the manifestation of national identity, both Zizek and Salecl bring up the issue of a postmodern type of racism, which Etienne Balibar has called "meta-racism." If the old type of racism was based on the idea that racial differences were biologically determined, "meta-racism," even though no longer supporting an argument based on biology, makes these differences culturally and historically contingent. In the latter case "culture itself functions as a 'natural' determinative force: it locks individuals and groups a priori into their cultural genealogy. "Meta-racism" [explains Salecl] perceives cultures as fixed entities and tries desperately to maintain 'cultural distances'" (Spoils of Freedom 12). 'Meta-racism' is identified as even more dangerous than racism, because it employs racist measures while pretending to oppose racism, thus falsely posing as its opposite.

Wait, does reading stuff about Zizek make you a "hipster loser"? I don't think so, but then again I think Ivy-league schools are in the Ivy League, not lame Coach K forever fan clubs...and I'm unattractive, so what do I know!

Moore vs. CNN

Okay, maybe everyone has seen this already, but here's the Moore on CNN clip reacting to be kept honest by the fact check squad!

Moore's site does a great job debunking the debunking of the piece. The best part is CNN's claim Sicko doesn't mention that Cuba is ranked lower than the US in quality of health care when in reality it is ON THE SCREEN WHEN THE US RANK IS GIVEN. In fact, it would have been on CNN too, but their scrolling text blocked it out. Wow.

Although the whole piece is supposed to be about Sicko, its really interesting how it all goes back to the war (aka that stupid, pointless, endless war). The war on the other...um, terror is everything, it is the beginning and the end. It is not only costing thousands of lives and trillions of dollars, it is posioning our political discourse, warping the minds of a generation of the US army, and closing down the foreign and domestic possiblities for our nation. Don't worry though, the guy in charge is sleeping easy. A lot easier than [asshole citizens] would assume!

Is it lucky to be born Mormon?

Funny...

This time, for realz

Looking at this story in the New York Times this morning I had to check the date to make sure I hadn't fallen into a wormhole or accidentaly traveled around the sun, a la Star Trek 4: The Journey Home.

White House Debate Rises on Iraq Pullback

White House officials fear that the last pillars of political support among Senate Republicans for President Bush’s Iraq strategy are collapsing around them, according to several administration officials and outsiders they are consulting. They say that inside the administration, debate is intensifying over whether Mr. Bush should try to prevent more defections by announcing his intention to begin a gradual withdrawal of American troops from the high-casualty neighborhoods of Baghdad and other cities.

This story reminded me of something....oh yeah, the same garbage they have been "said" to be debating for months now. This is so well trodden ground that even this crappy blog wrote about a similar story in the Times in May! Even though it is to another post on this blog, please check out the link and be freaked out about how little has changed these last few months despite all the rhetoric that things have/must change.
This is the best part of the article:

Officials describe the meetings as more of a running discussion than an argument. They say that no one is clinging to a stay-the-course position but that instead aides are trying to game out what might happen if the president becomes more specific about the start and the shape of what the White House is calling a “post-surge redeployment.”

Forget the (mom and dad aren't fighting, we're having a) running argument part for a second. What you have to do is run and mark you calendars with the first reference to a meaningless phrase that will come to dominate our political discourse for months to come: "post-surge redeployment". Welcome militaristic euphamisms! Take your rightful place next to "stay the course", "cut and run", "fight them there so we don't fight them here", and, of course, "surge".

Considering this story and the fact nearly 150 people died this weekend in one truck bombing in Iraq, I was pretty feeling pretty hopeless of anything positive being done in the near future. But then I read that Colin Powell tried to talk Bush out of the war for 2 1/2 hours!!! Wow, who says there aren't heroes anymore?

Happy belated July 4th!

Celebrate with a great post by Rick Perlstein from Common Sense about a very interesting sounding book by Daniel Brooks called The Trap: Selling Out to Stay Afloat in Winner-Take-All America. Should by highly relevant to many of you......LIKE FN!!!!!!!!!!!!