” This report must become the central milestone for the president to change the course of the Iraq conflict, move our troops from a combat mission toward a supporting mission and bring some semblance of stability to Iraq.
The president has argued that the ISG report will help stop political bickering. Frankly, I think the president needs to take a closer look. This report is not a tool to stop political bickering; it is a tool that will help bring an end to the U.S. troop presence in Iraq.”
Another area where we agree is on the realization of the nature of the existing violence in Iraq. Larsen says, ”… I was disappointed that the report did not recognize Iraq for what it has become: a civil war. At least two different groups of Iraqis, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias, representing two different futures for Iraq, are fighting on the streets of Baghdad. These groups have their patrons within the Iraqi government supporting and protecting them; meanwhile, the Iraqi leadership is too paralyzed to deal with them. A third group, the Kurds, wait safely and patiently in the north of Iraq for their opportunity to secede.
Concluding that Iraq is in a civil war will determine further steps, including which issues to discuss to bring stability to Iraq. That is why I applaud the report's call for a comprehensive New Diplomatic Offensive (NDO). The NDO should include Iraq's neighbors, including Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and international friends and allies. The purpose of the NDO cannot be limited to reconstruction and governance. It must bring together representatives of the civil war factions to begin hammering out steps for an Iraqi cease-fire. The NDO should address the growing humanitarian crisis in Iraq, where 100,000 Iraqis leave the country each month and the death toll continues to climb…”
Unfortunately, Rick and I are still at different ends of the spectrum on the continuing presence of American forces in Iraq. Earlier this month, I wrote about the ISG Report (and others that are being issued by various other groups), ” What we have now is a collection of groups who are attempting to “create a silk purse from a sow’s ear.” And for what purpose? Are these groups thinking about how many more Americans will die? Are they thinking about how many more innocent Iraqis are to be sacrificed? No, actually these plans seem to be centered on “just not making matters worse.” “The painful truth is this: There is no strategy that does not make matters worse for some period of time. Knowing this, what possible good can come from the further sacrifice of American blood when it is America’s presence in the region that is responsible for a large portion of the bloodshed? The time has come for the American people to stand united and demand that those who have been elected to represent us stop worrying about Bush’s legacy and start addressing the issue of saving American and Iraqi lives. The experiment has failed. It is time to bring our troops home and to end this travesty.”
While acknowledging that the role of the US in Iraq has been shifted from a previously stated effort to bring freedom and democracy to the region to a more urgent need to simply restore stability there, Congressman Larsen seems to accept the report’s suggestion of taking up to a full year to begin a draw down of up to 50% of our current troop level, leaving some 70,000 troops still in that country, ostensibly to provide contiunued training for the Iraqi security forces. He says, ” The report's recommendation that our troops move from a combat mission to a support mission, with trained military advisers embedded into Iraqi military units, lines up with my suggestion that the U.S. complete the training of Iraqi troops and embed select numbers of U.S. troops with Iraqi military forces to conduct counterinsurgency operations. These actions will decrease the number of American faces fighting insurgents, allow us to move U.S. troops to the Iraqi borders to provide needed border security, and lower the number of troops we have in Iraq. “ (Emphasis TLS)
I sincerely appreciate Congressman Larsen’s continued efforts to hold the Bush Administration accountable for the debacle in Iraq – always mindful that Rick voted against the authorization that led us into this situation. I look forward to hearing more from him when the new Democratic majority is seated in January. While I will continue to speak out for a policy that will end the needless bloodshed of our occupation of Iraq sooner rather than later, I appreciate that Rick also has the well being of our troops as well as the innocent Iraqi people at heart. I trust that he will continue to leave his door open to further discussions on areas of reasonable disagreement.
Peace,
Chad (The Left) Shue
1 comments:
Cross Posted from Whatcom Dems:
AARGH!!! Will this Congressman never learn?
He says:
> First, the ISG report rightly seeks to redefine the U.S. military's
> mission in Iraq. The report's recommendation that our troops move from a
> combat mission to a support mission, with trained military advisers
> embedded into Iraqi military units, lines up with my suggestion that the
> U.S. complete the training of Iraqi troops and embed select numbers of
> U.S. troops with Iraqi military forces to conduct counterinsurgency
> operations.
By his own admission after his summer visit to Iraq, this training of
Iraqi troops is a FAILED program! He told a group of us at that time,
just a few days after his return, that the president of Iraq (Talibani)
had told him that the Iraqis themselves are against this training
program, partly because the training is coming from the U.S. and partly
for historical reasons (the police were the people who came to the door
in the middle of the night under Saddam's regime). The Iraqi president
said that some other solution needed to be developed rather than this
one imposed by the US administration and Congress with a poor
understanding of Iraqi culture. This information came from Rick.
By the way, note that the language has been changed--instead of training
Iraqi police, Rick now says we're training Iraqi troops.
And US troops are having very poor luck conducting counterinsurgency
operations on their own. How will it be any better if they are embedded
with the essentially non-existent Iraqi military forces? In logic class,
this was called the fallacy of "magical thinking".
He also says:
> Second, I was disappointed that the report did not recognize Iraq for
> what it has become: a civil war. At least two different groups of
> Iraqis, Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias, representing two different
> futures for Iraq, are fighting on the streets of Baghdad. These groups
> have their patrons within the Iraqi government supporting and protecting
> them; meanwhile, the Iraqi leadership is too paralyzed to deal with
> them. A third group, the Kurds, wait safely and patiently in the north
> of Iraq for their opportunity to secede.
I would have reworded the first sentence to say "...did not recognize
Iraq for what WE HAVE MADE IT: a civil war." The US brought the Kurds
into Fallujah, a place where they had not previously been involved, to
take over the edges of the city after we barreled through the center in
what was essentially a massacre. Why did we create a new ethnic conflict
where one did not previously exist? Rick also neglected to mention that
the "paralyzed" Iraqi government has already been making strong efforts
to reconcile the ethnic factions--and guess what one of the major
obstacles is? The US Congress, and their unwillingness to allow terms
which would pardon insurgents who have attacked US forces. Again, Rick
told us last summer that this would be the most intransigent obstacle to
reconciliation.
Perhaps the Iraqi government would not be so "paralyzed" if the US
president and Congress weren't having to sign off on everything they try
to do, and giving them impossible criteria to meet.
Then he says: "That is
> why I applaud the report's call for a comprehensive New Diplomatic
> Offensive (NDO)."
Diplomatic Offensive is a contradiction in terms. For diplomacy to be
successful, it cannot be an offensive. "NDO" is more meaningless newspeak.
And then: "Finally, the NDO should be used to fulfill pledges for Iraqi
> reconstruction dollars."
Now we expect Iraq's neighbors to foot the bill for the damage we have
caused? Let's not forget that NO TRUTHFUL REASON has ever been given for
this war. Ever. This is on George Bush's head and everyone in the
Congress and Senate who abrogated their Constitutional responsibilities
and voted to let him do it. I am thankful every day that Larsen at
least was not in that crowd.
Yes, please, Rick, please allow diplomats (any good ones who haven't
quit in recent years) negotiate a cease-fire. Yes, PLEASE give the Iraqi
government free rein to tell us what they want US troops to do from now on.
I agree with this statement: "> The ISG report is important because it
begins to cast the U.S. role in
> Iraq as one focused on stability, not on freedom or democracy." Most
Iraqis, even under Saddam's excesses, had a lot more freedom and were a
lot closer to democracy before the US attacked than they are now.
And I think a SOFA is a good idea, if the Iraqi government is allowed to
freely negotiate.
"The U.S. has 140,000 military personnel in
> Iraq that deserve a direction that reflects the current
circumstances." What on earth does that mean? Those personnel deserve
one direction, and that's homeward bound. The rest of the world knows
and can freely discuss the fact that George Bush abused his position as
Commander in Chief, lied to the world, and sent young Americans into
harms way for some personal reason he has as yet refused to divulge.
That is criminal, and our military personnel deserve to see him and
those who advised him brought to justice for that crime.
"> Finally, and most importantly, the United States is in the middle of a
> fight against terrorists that we need to confront with all elements of
> national powerñdiplomacy, intelligence, military and economic strength."
All right, I'll say it: that is just bullshit and always has been. Watch
the extensive BBC documentary about Al Qaeda, for example. They go clear
back to the 1940s and 1950s looking at the history of how Al Qaeda came
to be. Their conclusion? Al Qaeda is about half a dozen extremists with
no organization and no terrorist forces and no serious weaponry. Al
Qaeda basically exists only in US political rhetoric because mass fear
served a political purpose. I honestly believe that there are no more
terrorists than there have ever been, except those created by US
behavior overseas in recent years. I feel no safer with ridiculous
airport inspections, ICE raids by armed goon squads, a Whatcom County
Sheriff's office armored tank (or whatever it is), more police, Homeland
Security, colored alert levels, nuclear bunker busters, and electronics
on the borders. In fact, I feel a lot less safe, especially with
government leaders who violate fundamental privacy laws by using
surveillance and other illegal techniques to watch US citizens, racists
packing guns in an organized way, and criminals at the helm of the
administration.
The War on Terror is something we have invented. Yes, there are crazy
people out there. Read history. There always have been. Technology has
simply made it easier for a small handful of people to carry out
horrible schemes on a grander scale. If the US would quit training them
(see School of the Americas, for example, or read about how the US
trained Bin Laden and his forces--and armed them, and armed Saddam
Hussein, and many other of the world's most horrible characters in
history. George Bush would know about them, because his family has been
involved in arms sales to vicious dictators (grandfather sold arms to
Nazis).
If there are foreign terrorists, and I'll grant you there are a few, and
they are targeting the US, this is karma, folks. It's retribution for
all the terrorism we ourselves have inflicted on many, many other
countries for many, many years.
George Bush is the worst terrorist I know of--Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rove,
etc. That's who a reality-based War on Terror would be dealing with.
If Rick and any one else in the government wants to really put our
government on the right track, we need to quit pretending to be so pure.
We need to honestly own up to what we have done and how we have done it
and the extent to which we have done it, and truly begin to make amends
via some other means than more violence. It is so simple at its most
fundamental level: violence begets violence. People when attacked will
fight back. I see nothing in Larsen's remarks that indicates he
understands any of that on a practical level.
N G
Post a Comment