What a strange and pleasant feeling it is to be proud of one's senator. Jim Webb actually seems to be trying to do what he was elected to do.

What is wrong with WaPo? How can more of what's not working be "least bad?" And why are other news organizations respecting WaPo for its bad judgment?

thosethingswesay.blogspot.com

"It is difficult for most of us to imagine what it's like for a country to be invaded and occupied...the terrible incongruity of it all, the violation of what seemed like the natural order, the sinister sense of foreboding, of a world turned upside down without any of the familiar certainties to hang onto." The Nation, 9/24/07.

(Invading and occupying South Vietnam, we failed to understand that the Vietnamese, south and north, wanted their occupiers out - Americans, French, British, Canadian, Australian, Chinese...And so it has been throughout history that a peoples subjected to foreign occupation have fought their occupiers.)

The Iraqi people want their occupiers out - AlQaeda, Iranians, Americans...They live almost daily with hovering helicopters, road checkpoints, soldiers in battle gear entering a busy square bringing an immediate sense of menace, shouting, screaming, the sound of doors kicked in, confusing orders given (in a foreign language), weapons cocked, shooting and explosions.

The Iraqi people will expel AlQaeda and the Iranians once we leave. Were they able to, they would expel us.

~

Ahem...

. . . strategy as “the least bad plan” and one that would be “less risky than the alternatives.”

I agree. Any compromise is just an affirmation that this war is going to continue and it validates its purpose. A moderate, centrist, blue dog war is still the same war.

And not a combat death. Suicide rates are very high for the soldiers.

That the deployment is so constantly terrifying tells you there's something wrong. Real wars have quiet periods between combat. There, it's the same is "Indian Country" Vietnam-style. This constant stress leads to irrational outbursts, as in Vietnam village-burning, or the Haditha massacre.

What's wrong is that we have no standing to be there---we share essentially nothing with the culture, and have no real mission.

Absolutely. Bush talks about an “enduring presence” (read endless occupation) as in Korea, but soldiers are not being killed everyday in Korea. The Dems don’t even mention the permanent bases anymore. None of the compromise proposals that have a chance end the occupation, they just draw down to some smaller force. If we only hunker down in a few permanent bases there is no pretext for our staying. If we reduce the number of troops still charged with trying to keep the peace, it only maintains the status quo at a lower level. The civil war will probably explode and American deaths will only be drawn out over a longer period. How congress can be cowed by the lowest rated president in modern history with absolutely no popular support is beyond me. The title of this post could have been shortened to Bending Over.

During the endless questions and answers on Monday and Tuesday (and surprisingly little pontificating) peppered throughout was the 'there is no military solution.' And then the bulk of the question/answer exchange was concentrated on devising a workable 'military solution', i.e. troop numbers - up, down, where, when... So why was all that time spent on what, as stated, was NOT the solution? Extremely odd given that absolutely everyone agrees that the problem is that the Iraqi government is between disfunctional and non-functioning and that's the problem.

I read that Obama advocated calling another Iraqi constitutional convention, with UN oversight. Great idea, and it fell like a lead balloon. Of course, I've also read that DC is a town that pays more attention to loyalty and discretion than it ever does to vision or success.

The Haditha killings (also called the Haditha incident or the Haditha massacre) refers to the incident where 24 Iraqis, including women and infants, were killed on November 19, 2005 in Haditha, a city in the western Iraq province of Al Anbar.

Haditha is quite instructive of the complexity and insanity of war. Actually, Iraq now isn't a war but a resisted occupation, with occupation resisters melting into and out of the general population. This puts the general population at severe risk because soldiers, to stay alive, have to shoot or throw a grenade without thinking. This naturally leads to general antipathy against the occupiers. Fifty-seven per cent of Iraqis now favor attacks on US forces.

from Blackfive:
One of the legal questions was whether Lcpl Tatum had an obligation to identify specific threats before firing into the room, and the answer is no. First of all in a hostile building he already had authority to throw a grenade in a room prior to entering. I am unaware of any grenades able to distinguish between hostiles and civilians in a room, so there was no requirement to identify targets. In addition since SSG Wuterich was already engaging the room, he can reasonably assume that there was cause to fire on the room.

While running through this scenario take into account they had just been ambushed and had one dead, then once the first round is fired there is smoke and noise and chaos, then start throwing grenades and you cannot expect anyone to be able to identify targets with any degree of certainty. That is why you designate a building as hostile. You recognize that it is a threat, and you use appropriate tactics to clear it. This is done to minimize the danger to your own troops. Sadly this means that being in that building is a very unlucky thing.
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2007/08/haditha-marines.html

The investigating officer's finding is here. The Haditha Marines have been exonerated.

You'd also, if you were in the infantry, stand a good chance of coming back with PTSD which would include nightmares, instability and broken relationships or worse--and that's if you survived. In my layman's terms, these guys have been trained and conditioned to do things that their consciences often can't accept. So it is a good thing you're not there. Nobody should be, under the circumstances.

Thanks for the correction. Having lived through six American wars, Iraq being the sixth, who's the enemy, who's the friend, who stood with us, who didn't have become part of a 'who-cares-just-another-pointless-war' in my memory.

Remind me, who's the 'enemy' coming up? Oh yes, Iran. If there's one thing America is consistently devoted to honoring, it's the glorification of war as part of the 'good life'.

Don Key,

Gates: "I think what they may perceive is that they think a corner has been turned there"

They may perceive is that they think? I respectfully disagree. I'm afraid Gatesy is being as noncommittal as he can possibly be. I think that Ray McGovern called it correctly last November: "It is always possible that Gates really will bring, in the president’s words, 'a fresh perspective and new ideas on how America can achieve our goals in Iraq,' but to those of us who have watched Gates parrot and implement White House policies—not create new ones—this seems a long shot."

So why was all that time spent on what, as stated, was NOT the solution?

Kind of makes you think that the empire wants endless war, doesn't it. Probably has something to do with high oil prices bringing more profits to the Saudis and Big Oil, and fat sole source contracts for the well-connected. Bush could have ended it at Mission Accomplished, but, lesson learned, daddy ended his war too soon and lost the next election as his popularity tumbled. Junior wouldn't make that mistake. Now they got this thing going and it's like a perpetual motion machine--it can't be stopped by any normal force. And the money--it just keeps rolling in. Two billion a day from Uncle Sugar, thanks to endless war.

All that talk about "victory"? Baloney. They don't want victory. There's no profit in it. Besides, what would victory look like? It would be an Islamic state under sharia allied with Iran. They surely don't want that.

So they go through the Iraq Kabuki, as Larry Johnson called it, with stylized drama over troop strength, which most people can understand, while they avoid the tough questions like why is half the Iraqi cabinet boycotting the government, why can't the legislature get a quorum to pass a few needed laws and why is the US military attacking the second-most represented party in the Iraqi government.

Actually, Iraq troop strength now is pretty much what it was a couple of years ago--the "surge" has basically replaced the coalition troops which have dropped out. Meanwhile there's been no letup in violence. The US is more hated now then ever so any future force decreases which are dependent upon conditions "on the ground" can easily be canceled for cause. So the train continues on down the track under the steady hands of the engineer and conductor, and nobody need worry, or do anything. Since the US government is sort of like the Iraqi government, between dysfunctional and non-functioning, that's a blessing.

It's not just infantry. Many different branches, such as military police, have been put into situations, such as that of Raven 42, where they have to act as infantry. In this case, there was heroism by all, but one of the soldiers will never walk again. For what it's worth, the incident is one more that says that women can do anything that other soldiers can do.

A friend of mine, who had a tour there (her husband had two, but they were never there together), is in a specialty that one would not usually think would go outside the Green Zone -- except they do. Her unit made a point of not being rear-echelon people, and volunteered both for meeting medevac helicopters and for manning checkpoints.

She's an eloquent writer, and talked about the apprehension every time she went to take the casualties and dead out of a helicopter, not knowing if she'd find a friend there. After the bodies were removed, she and other soldiers would wash out the blood, bandages, etc. For them, it was a matter of honor that the helicopter, which might be the last thing that a comrade saw, be as clean as possible.

Perhaps her most stressful time was on a checkpoint, where she was the gunner on an M240 machine gun. On the road approaching the checkpoint, there were several points at which a vehicle would be told to stop. There was do-not-cross line at a point outside where a car bomb could damage the outpost, and the orders were to fire on the vehicle, to kill the engine and the driver, if it crossed that point. Apparently, the rules of engagement were such that it was an option to start firing farther out, especially if the vehicle speeded up.

A car, driving at high speed, passed the first warning points, and she would have been authorized to fire since it was accelerating. Something about it made her hold fire, although her finger was tightening on the trigger. Just in time, it screeched to a stop and a confused family got out.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" [George Santayana]

Other than being its usually intransigent self when it comes to opening their eyes to reality, WAPO is grooming itself in preparation for a possible takeover bid by everyone's darling MSM mogul, Rupert Murdoch.

"War is Terrorism with a bigger budget"

~

I honestly believe that the GOP folks are willing to go into the toilet over the Iraq War.

Willing to go? The sycophants of that party have been floating in the cesspool for the last 6 years. They're way beyond the toilet.

~OGD~

Have you noticed the new Democratic mantra "change of mission"? Now, isn't that just inspirational? Gee, I just really want to work my behind off for that "change of mission" especially since it's totally devoid of content. "Change" must have focused group well. We've been in the "change" meme since "change of course" but now "mission", now there's a value laden word, almost religious in nature, a litte bit military too. Says absolutely nothing but I trust it also focus groups well. At least Bush had the temerity to go for "mission ACCOMPLISHED". The poor Dems can't even set a benchmark for themselves. We aren't going to accomplish a mission, just change it. And that is supposed to be enough.