Category: Politics

Better Late Than Never

This article from the Washington Post is almost a week old but it’s well worth a read, especially if you read it alongside the excellent work Back to Iraq is doing.

The long and the short of it? It’s not just the radical anti-war Left or Iraqi extremists that think our invasion of Iraq has been a miserable failure.

The American occupation of Iraq will formally end this month having failed to fulfill many of its goals and stated promises intended to transform the country into a stable democracy, according to a detailed examination drawing upon interviews with senior U.S. and Iraqi officials and internal documents of the occupation authority

There’s blame aplenty to go around. Paul Bremer’s Coalition Provisional Authority blames the military. The military blames the CPA. The Iraqis blame us. We blame them. And around it goes. Then, another interesting fact.

Attacks on U.S.-led forces and foreign civilians now average more than 40 a day, a threefold increase since January.

Small wonder so-called “Green Zone,” where the CPA and related US personnel live, is a fortress that few set foot beyond unless they’re surrounded by security forces. And what are we getting for that attack rate, and for the 800+ American soldiers dead?

In an interview last week, Bremer maintained that “Iraq has been fundamentally changed for the better” by the occupation. The CPA, he said, has put Iraq on a path toward a democratic government and an open economy after more than three decades of a brutal socialist dictatorship. Among his biggest accomplishments, he said, were the lowering of Iraq’s tax rate, the liberalization of foreign-investment laws and the reduction of import duties.

Emphasis added.

Let me get this right. We invaded a country 3,000 miles away from us, one that posed no clear threat to America. The country is a mess – the Post article goes into great detail on that point. Just one of many examples is that even in Baghdad itself, electrical power is available only 9 hours out of 24. It seems likely that the new Iraqi government will impose martial law after the June 30 handover. To name just one potential keg of worms, nobody seems to have any idea how the Kurds and the Shiites are going to resolve their differences. And Paul Bremer thinks it’s an accomplishment that Iraqi taxes have been lowered.

Small wonder they hate us.

Tip of the hat to Fuzzy Puppy for the Post link.

Fahrenheit 9/11

I caught a midday showing of Fahrenheit 9/11 down at the Metreon today. I walked in knowing Moore’s trying to get you to walk out feeling a certain way, and in that regard, the movie was pretty much what I expected it to be.

The first section deals with 9/11 and the Bush / Saudi / Bin Laden connection. I could definitely have done without the footage of 9/11 itself. As I’ve said before 9/11 is a very painful topic for me so I prefer to not be reminded of exactly how painful that day was. I suppose Moore wanted to get some emotional punch in before drawing all the lines between the Bushes, the Bin Ladens, and the Saudis, but it felt a little too much like I was being manipulated to feel bad.

After that, Moore deals with the various responses to 9/11 -Afghanistan and the Patriot Act mostly. And here’s what I didn’t expect. I laughed. Several parts of the middle section – particularly when two Marine recruiters in full dress uniforms are walking around a parking lot in Flint, MI looking to sign up new recruits – are quite funny in a snarky sort of way.

Moore also sidetracks into one of his bete noires – how African Americans get screwed in America. It’s a valid point that most of the kids in the armed forces are from poor backgrounds, but I think he’s stretching a point by implying that they’re all black. The issue is class not skin color. Even Moore’s own footage of Iraq shows more white faces in uniform than anything else.

And speaking of the Iraq footage – I have no idea how he got the stuff but it’s very raw and powerful. In a way I felt that this section of the movie was the most original, in that it’s something that nobody is actually showing to us here right now. It’s not easy to watch soldiers crying out in pain right after being attacked, burned bodies being dragged through streets, or soldiers putting hoods on prisoners’ heads and cracking jokes about erections. These are images that show us what is really going on in our name, though, and we need to understand exactly what price we’re paying.

It’s been widely reported that the story of Lila Lipscombe and how she loses her son in Iraq is the emotional heart of the film. It is sad, but somehow it didn’t affect me as deeply. What did make me cry? A little earlier in the film, Moore overlaid the theme song from notable 80s TV flop “The Greatest American Hero” on top of footage of Bush’s trip to an aircraft carrier to declare combat operations “over”. It’s a cheesy song but for whatever reason I have always liked it. The juxtaposition of a song I like over pictures of President Bush surrounded by happy troops was a somewhat surreal combination. And then at the line in the song that goes “Should have been somebody else” I started to cry, thinking we should have had Gore as president instead of this loser.

Yes, I’m probably weird for crying at that point instead of when Lila Lipscombe’s son dies. But that’s how it happened.

I’m glad I saw the film. I don’t think it’s going to change many – if any – minds, mostly because the people who most need to see it (hello Dad, are you reading this?) won’t bother going. And honestly, I don’t see why it got the Palme d’Or at Cannes except as a way of expressing support for the political views in the film. Unlike previous winners with a war theme, like “The Pianist” or “Apocalypse Now”, I don’t see people watching Fahrenheit 9/11 10 years from now. It’s a move for 2004, not for the ages.

All that said, it says a lot about America that despite all the problems our nation has, a film like this can be made and distributed and people can go see it without fear of reprisal. And it’s a film worth seeing.

Chilling Speech

I have never liked Howard Stern. I thought his show was full of sexist crap and fart jokes, and so I chose not to listen to him. That doesn’t mean I think he should be legislated off the air though.

Well, shame on me for not doing anything about it, but it might actually happen with the new indecency legislation that has now passed the House and Senate. Up to $3 million in fines a day can be levied if the FCC decides something said on the air is “indecent”.

How did the Senate pass it? They attached it to a defense appropriations bill so that if you voted against it, you could be smeared as ‘not supporting the troops’. Pretty nasty. Kudos to Sen. John Breaux, D-LA for having the balls to be the one vote against it. (And once the President signs this into law, you won’t be able to say “having the balls” on the air anymore). Where was John Kerry?

Tip of the hat to Buzz Machine for the link.

Bad Judgement Call

I voted for Camejo in the CA recall last fall, but if Nader’s people think getting Camejo to agree to be his VP is going to get me to vote Nader, they have another think coming.

I thought about voting for Nader in 2000 but opted to vote for Gore. After what happened in 2000, there is no way in hell that I would vote for Nader. Camejo or not.

If anything, this lowers my opinion of Camejo and the Greens, that they would consider attaching their party to Nader’s self-serving blather.

Downright Orwellian

I find myself using the term ‘Orwellian’ more and more lately when it comes to the Bush administration. The latest spluttering over the 9/11 Commission is another good example of this. And over at the Whiskey Bar, Billmon has a great rundown of it. Here’s one of the high points:

The panel has become “a tool for partisan politics,” Rep. Eric I. Cantor (Va.), a member of the House Republican leadership, charged in an interview last week. “With the latest commission finding coming out that there were allegedly no ties between Hussein and al Qaeda, I think they are totally off their mission, and I think that’s indicative of the political partisanship.”

The RNC talking points on this must have gone out earlier last week, because Porter Goss, the intelligence committee chairman in our Chamber of People’s Deputies, and Dennis Miller, the anti-intelligence chairman of late night television, have both been yammering about that same basic theme. But Cantor’s quote is such a gem of non-logic, I’d like to look at it again more closely.

The 9/11 commission, Cantor argues, is partisan. Why? Because it went “off mission” by questioning the alleged relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda.

Now since the 9/11 commission was specifically instructed by Congress to “make a full and complete accounting of the circumstances surrounding the [9/11] attacks,” and to “investigate relevant facts and circumstances … including intelligence agencies … diplomacy … the flow of assets to terrorist organizations … and other areas of the public and private sectors determined relevant by the commission,” it’s fairly ridiculous to argue the commission exceeded its mandate by reviewing the evidence regarding Bin Ladin’s alleged contacts with Iraq. What Cantor is really arguing is that the commission went “off mission” by arriving at conclusions that were extremely embarrassing to the administration, and possibly damaging to the Bush-Cheney campaign.

Emphasis added. And let us remember that the 9/11 Commission was created with an even split of Democrats and Republicans and is chaired by a Republican former governor picked by the White House. Not exactly a raving bunch of left-leaning wing nuts. But they came up with a conclusion that Bush/Cheney doesn’t like, so they ipso facto must be partisan, and on the wrong side too.