Sevendust - Driven

Sevendust - Driven

Galactic Cowboys - Nothing to Say

Galactic Cowboys - Nothing Left To Say.

Linkin Park - What I've Done

Linkin Park - What I've Done

Green Day - Working Class Hero

Green Day - Working Class Hero

Iraq is NOT Korea, It's Northern Ireland and we're the Brits

Today on Fox News Sunday General Patraeus yet again claimed that we should be able access the success (or lack thereof) of The Surge™ by this September.

[By then we should have a] reasonable and a realistic sense [of whether the escalation is] working or not working. I’ve said that all along. I started saying that back in January. I think we’ll have had by then our forces in the mix for a good several months.

Although he also stated that the escalation won't be "done" by then...

Wallace: [Do you believe] the job will be done by September?

Patraeus: I do not, no

Instead Patraeus went on to endorse the so-called Korea Model for Iraq, where we are likely to have forces in place for the next 50 years!

Are you fracking kidding me?

I knew that neo-con lapdogs like Patreaus had a problem with The Book Learnin' and The Science and stuff, but I really didn't really that they were completely ignorant of history too.

The nutshell of the Korean Model goes like this, as described by Dan Froomkin in the WaPo.

It’s troubling because American troops have been in South Korea for more than 50 years — while polls show the American public wants them out of Iraq within a year.

It’s flawed because in South Korea, unlike Iraq, there’s something concrete to defend (the border with North Korea); and because Iraq, unlike South Korea, happens to be in a state of violent civil war.

It’s dangerous because the specter of a permanent military presence in Iraq is widely considered to be one of the most inflammatory incitements to Iraq’s ever-growing anti-American insurgency, and may even be destabilizing to the entire region.

And it’s telling because it gives credence to persistent suspicions that establishing a long-term strategic presence in the Middle East was a primary motivation for this misbegotten war in the first place.

To his credit Patraeus did throw a pinch of salt on this Iraq is Korea nonesense.

[The Iraq conflict] is not one that’s going to be resolved in a year or even two years. In fact, typically, I think historically, counterinsurgency operations have gone at least nine or ten years.

The question is, of course, at what level, how much will we have to continue to contribute during that time, how much more can the Iraqi security forces and the Iraqi government pick up as it goes along, and I think that’s the real question. And I’m not sure what the right analogy is, whether it’s Korea or what have you. I think all that the folks in Washington were trying to indicate by that was that there’s some possibility of some form of long-term security arrangement over time, and I think in general that that’s probably a fairly realistic assessment, assuming that the Iraqi government, in fact, does want that to continue and, of course, it is very much up to them and their sovereignty is paramount in all of this.

The Korea War began as a conflict between two distinct states, the communist Democratic People's Republic of Korea in the North which was supplied and supported by China vs the capitalist People's Republic of Korea in the South which were supported by UN Forces which were largely American. Technically that War never really ended, there was a cease fire called in 1953, three years after hostilities began but either side actually surrendered and both North and South Korea have certainly not re-unified and completely reconcilled. That's why our troops are still there.

There was no insurgency in Korea.

There was no internecine warfare or religious sectarian violence.

There was no Abu Ghraib.

There was no al Qeada, or al-Sistani or al-Sadr.

We did not invade a sovereign nation without legitimate justification or provocation - we were invited to support the South under UN Security Council Resolution 62 in response to the attack by North Korea against the South.

IMO and as James Carrol of the Boston Globe has noted (h/t teacherken) A far better model than Korea for the current conflict in Iraq would be The Troubles in Northern Ireland.

There you have 30 years of intense sectarian violence between Protestant Unionist and Roman Catholic Nationalist who sought to create an independent Republic of Ireland, and an end to their occupation by the British Army.

They did have their own version of al-Qaeda and the Sunni insurgents, namely the Irish Republican Army (IRA) as well as loyalist paramilitary forces similar to the Shia Militias such as the Ulster Voluanteer Force (UVF) and Ulster Defence Association (UDA).

Like our own forces in Iraq, British forces who claimed to simply be trying to "keep the peace" were seen as working in collusion with unionist forces and were attacked frequently with bombings (IED's?) which did manage to occur even on British soil. (I guess fighting them "over there" really didn't help them all that much did it?)

Much like the split between Sunni and Shia in Iraq, the divide between Irish Catholics and Protestants goes back some centuries - all the way to 1609 and two bloody ethno-religious conflicts over plantation rights in 1641 and 1689.

Because of the weight of all this history, the conflict in Northern Ireland was thought to be insurmountable and intractable. Yet eventually solutions began to be found over the course of 3 tumultuous years in involving two cease-fires (in 1994 and 1996) and a shift from the use of arms to the use of persuasion through the political process via the IRA's political wing Sinn Fein and it's leader Gerry Adams.

But it wasn't easy.

On June 16, 1994, just before the ceasefires, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) killed two UVF members in a gun attack on the Shankill road. In revenge, three days later, the UVF killed six civilians in a shooting at a pub in Loughinisland, County Down. The IRA, in the remaining month before its ceasefire, killed four senior loyalists, three from the UDA and one from the UVF. There are various interpretations of the spike in violence before the ceasefires. One theory is that the loyalists feared the peace process represented an imminent "sellout" of the Union and ratcheted up their violence accordingly. Another explanation is that the republicans were "settling old scores" before the end of their campaigns and wanted to enter the political process from a position of military strength rather than weakness.

Eventually, in August 1994, the Provisional IRA declared a ceasefire. The loyalist paramilitaries, temporarily united in the Combined Loyalist Military Command, reciprocated six weeks later. Although these ceasefires failed in the short run, they mark an effective end to large-scale political violence in the Troubles as it paved the way for the final ceasefire.

The second cease-fire was implemented in 1996 and helped paved the way for the Belfast Agreement in 1998 between all four major parties, including Sinn Fein, establishing a "power-sharing" model for an independant and self-governing Northern Ireland.

This Model, one that focuses not on overwhelming military might but instead on persuasion and diplomacy is one that has a far better hope of ending the violence in Iraq than The Surge. As both the ISG and Harry Reid have noted we can not win Iraq militarily anymore than the British Empire was likely to crush the IRA and other nationalists in Northern Ireland.

But here's the thing, one major factor in helping lend legitimacy to Sinn Fein was the involvment of Senator George Mitchell who crafted The Mitchell Principles in 1997 which were signed both by Sinn Fein and the British Government and began to create a pathway to peace. It took the diplomatic intervention of a neutral third party to bring the various factions to the table. It should also be noted that Mitchell's efforts were helped greatly by President Bill Clinton who in placed Gerry Adam's on the world stage by inviting him to Washington in 1996 (although not to the White House - that step would take several more years).

Another model which fits far better than Korea is that of the Bosnia War, where an enormous three part US, Russian and European forces ended a brutal complex three-way conflict between Muslim, Croat and Serbs in the former Yugoslavia. (This is the model originally suggested by General Shinseki)

And look, it didn't take 50 years did it?

Again President Bill Clinton took the initiative and used diplomacy to forge a consensus among the world's nations and leaders that the ethnic cleansing taking place in that region had to be stopped. His efforts led the the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995, just 3 years after he took office.

Unfortunately, we are not a neutral third party in Iraq as we had been in Northern Ireland and in Bosnia. We have far too much skin-in-the-game to be able to negotiate cleanly and evenly with all parties, just as the Brits couldn't. They failed at it for 30 years.

We can't win this militarily and we can't just walk away without risking everything turning to complete crap. Even though there is the thin-hope that our departure might help the Iraqis refocus (as has been advanced by John Murtha), just as the the Brit leaving Northern Ireland did. But the rub is that in their case there was an agreement in place and we don't yet have even that.

Basically, we're screwed.

We've flushed our credibility completely away with the lack of WMD's, lack of Yellowcake, the Torture, the Abu Ghraib, the failure of the rebuilding process, the failure to train and equip the Iraqi Forces and now this bull-crap about Korea and keeping our forces in the region for the next half century.

What's needed are new and innovative diplomatic solutions, and they just might have to come from some very unexpected quarters such as France (who happened to have control of the mines the Yellowcake was supposedly taken from) or possibly Germany (who had custody of "Curveball" and knew he was full of it) or other countries who still have some diplomatic clout and credibility left, someone who hasn't made the wrong decision time after time after time.

Frankly, we don't need the Iraqi Parliament to decide everything - because that process is going to take years. (Look at how well our own government is doing with Immigration, eh? Does anyone think a forced deadline would help our Congress Git 'er Done? I don't.) The Iraqis are not going to simply jump up and crank out legislation and complex agreements on our timetable. Not gonna happen, even if they weren't as dysfuctional as family of crack-addicts.

Instead, based on the Northern Ireland and Bosnia Models what I think is needed is to get together the major faction leaders - some Sunni, some Shi'a, some Kurd - including people like Sustani and al-Sadr and have them hammer out the details of some type of basic roadmap to peace and conditions for a cease-fire by the insurgents and militias in a Summit. It doesn't have to happen in Iraq, the Dayton Accords didn't take place in Bosnia - they were in Ohio. But it does have to happen, and once it does the Iraqi Parliament can simply vote on it and begin to flesh out the details.

It won't happen overnight. It won't be pretty. Northern Ireland is still going through the birth-pains of becoming a brand new democracy.

Iraq hasn't even begun conception yet but sadly, it's going to take someone else - someone neutral who hasn't shredded their own credibilty like paper-mache - to get this party started.

Exactly who that might be (Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Germany, France, Italy?) is the 640,000 live question.

Vyan

Do Neo-Con/Artists really believe their own B.S.?

Do the wingnuts really believe their own bull-crap our are they just trying to convince the rest of us by convincing themselves?

Case in point: Poor Little Timmeh Griffin, in the midst of crying his eyes out because It's Hard out there for a Political Pimp, says he's been so misunderstood, and the Internets are so mean...

Obviously, I’ve seen the Internet stuff about caging. First of all, the allegations that are on the Internet and have spread through the tabloids are completely and absolutely false, number one. And ridiculous. Caging, as you may know, I had it looked up, is a direct-mail term for basically organizing returned mail. ... And I’ll just say that it’s so untrue. ... This is all made up and faux pas. I didn’t cage votes, I didn’t cage mail, I didn’t cage animals, I’m not a zookeeper.

Pardon me, but did he just call African American Soldiers in Iraq - Animals?

First of all, the entire "Caging" stuff didn't come from "The Internets" or from "Tabloids" - it came from the BBC and Greg Palast's New York Times Best Seller "Armed Madhouse."

Via Truthout...

A confidential campaign directed by GOP party chiefs in October 2004 sought to challenge the ballots of tens of thousands of voters in the last presidential election, virtually all of them cast by residents of Black-majority precincts.

Files from the secret vote-blocking campaign were obtained by BBC Television Newsnight, London. They were attached to emails accidentally sent by Republican operatives to a non-party website.

One group of voters wrongly identified by the Republicans as registering to vote from false addresses: servicemen and women sent overseas.

...

Here's how the scheme worked: The RNC mailed these voters letters in envelopes marked, "Do not forward", to be returned to the sender. These letters were mailed to servicemen and women, some stationed overseas, to their US home addresses. The letters then returned to the Bush-Cheney campaign as "undeliverable."

The lists of soldiers of "undeliverable" letters were transmitted from state headquarters, in this case Florida, to the RNC in Washington. The party could then challenge the voters' registration and thereby prevent their absentee ballot being counted.

According to these emails, Tim Griffin was intimately involved in these attempts to block black servicemen - who were very likely to be Democrats - from their right to vote.

"Caging" is not just a "direct mail term" - it's a violation of the Voting Rights Act and oh by the way - it's unconstitutional.

Amendment XV

Section. 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Section. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Tim didn't have to "have it looked up" - he was the one who told Monica Goodling about it as he bragged that the U.S. Press hadn't yet picked up the BBC story.

Palast first reported on the caging list operation for BBC Television’s premier current affairs show, Newsnight, in 2004. In a February 7, 2007 email obtained by subpoena from Rove’s office, Griffin boasted that, "No [US] national media picked up" the BBC story. Griffin attached an excerpt of Armed Madhouse.

Griffin sent his remarks to Monica Goodling

It should also be noted, for the few of us who've been hiding under a rock for the past couple weeks, that Griffin's tearful depature as the Non-Senate Confirmed Interim U.S. Attorney for Arkansas ended abruptly after Greg Palast shared all of his documentation on that little "direct mailing scheme" of his with Judiciary Chairman John Conyers.

Tim Griffin, formerly right hand man to Karl Rove, resigned Thursday as US Attorney for Arkansas hours after BBC Television ‘Newsnight’ reported that Congressman John Conyers requested the network’s evidence on Griffin’s involvement in ‘caging voters.’

Coincidence? I think not.

This is not made up. This is not a faux pas.

Tim now says that "Public Service isn't worth it" as he goes from one public service job as a U.S. Attorney with no practical prosecutorial experience to a public service job working in the presidential campaign of a guy who hasn't yet announced he's running for president.

A regular Mr. Private Sector that Griffin is.

Maybe the fact that he couldn't find a job for a reputable law firm has something to do with it.

"His timing is just bad," says a Washington recruiter at a national search firm. "He’s a politico, not a litigator, which people just don’t care about. If you’re a U.S. attorney with no experience someone is not going to bring you on board to create or enhance a practice."

Now it's fairly unlikely that Justice will ever be served in Tim's case since his ole pal Monica and Brad Scholzman have already purged and politicized the DOJ's Civil Rights Division of practically anyone who might actually try to prosecute Mr. Griffin for his crimes by filling it with "Good (white male christian right-wing) Americans."

I admit I might be reading between the lines here but I wonder - why should they care if a few "black animals" lost their right to vote, eh?

Or even worse - if some of those Damn-dirty Democrats had their civil rights violated?

So Griffin can cry his crocodile tears about how he's been treated so unfairly and is now a pariah in the legal profession he's worked "so hard" to master, but he's still going to get off scott free instead of serving the five years in federal prison he deserves for voter suppression.

Who'se he trying to kid? The rest of us or himself?

Vyan

DOJ Inspector General looking into Obstruction by Gonzo

From Thinkprogress.

The Senate Judiciary Committee revealed today that the Justice Department’s Inspector General Glenn Fine is investigating whether Attorney General Alberto Gonzales may have acted unethically or illegally by attempting to "coach" Monica Goodling’s testimony.

As we all should know AG Gonzales set a new land-speed record for "I don't recall" during his own Congressional testimony on the Attorney firings matter. He justified this lack of recollection by claiming that...

I haven't talked to any of the witnesses

...which would have been his own staff, regarding the matter. However as was revealed during Monica Goodling's testimony to the House - he did speak with her. And even a crack justice expert like Monica didn't think it...

was appropriate for us to talk at that point.

Apparently neither does the DOJ's Inspector General.

Responding to a letter from Sen. Leahy regarding this matter, Fine responded.

In your letter, you referred to Monica Goodling’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on May 23, 2007, in which she stated that she had a meeting with the Attorney General in which the process leading to the removal of certain U.S. Attorneys was discussed. You asked whether our investigation includes this matter.

This is to confirm that the scope of our investigation does include this matter.

Let me just say that this just might mean that Alberto Gonzales may be in early stage Libby mode, because Obstruction of Justice happens to be one of the charges that will be putting him behind bars for 30 months.

If carried through to it's full conclusion, this investigation could very easily lead to a Grand Jury and indictment of Gonzales, but before we get too optimistic that this little barnicle might be removed from the Halls of Justice we have to remember what an outstanding job the DOJ has done at investigating itself so far.

Pat Leahy certainly has his doubts.

The last time an internal investigation at the Department of Justice got too close for comfort the White House shut it down. I hope this investigation will not suffer the same fate as the OPR inquiry into the warrantlesss wiretapping program. This internal investigation is an important step in getting to the truth behind this matter, and they should be allowed to do their jobs without interference from this Administration.

That OPR investigation which was intended to determine if the information which had been gathered via the NSA's domestic spying program had been misused was derailed by a lack of security access. Access which had been denied - according to Testimony by Alberto Gonzales - under the discretion and direction of the President.

But despite this I happen to feel that there are reasons for optimism that some measure of justice just might be implemented. Unlike the NSA case, security clearances are not at issue in the DOJ Attorney firing situation - so that avenue of blockages is closed. Secondly the FBI's own internal investigation - which parralleled the OPR's attempted audit - looked into the use and abuse of national security letters and discovered that the agency had potentially violated the law and it's own rules more than 1000 times.

And this was from only a sample of just ten percent of their domestic spying cases.

Just as the FBI wasn't able to block this audit, I think it's unlikely that DOJ will be able to block the efforts of it's own Inspector General as Leahy suggests.

But then again, with the Administration, practically anything seems possible and highly probable particular when it involves covering up for the President's misdeeds.

Vyan

P.S.

As some of us might not recall, one of the suggested articles for the Impeachment of Bill Clinton supplied by Kenneth Starr to the House judiciary commitee was the allegation that Clinton had attempted to Witness Tamper and Obstuct Justice with his secretary Betty Currie by questioning her regarding the other Monica immediately after his own deposition in the Jones case - even though Betty Currie was not a witness in that case and at that time Starr did not have authority to investigate Lewinsky (even though he already was). With this precedent in place, the House juduciary committee already has plenty of evidence to Impeach Gonzales for Contempt of Congress, Obstruction and attempted Witness Tampering with This Monica.

How ironic would that be?

It's a Progresive Nation After All

A new report from the Campaign for America's Future and Media Matters covering several years has finally revealed The Progressive Majority: Why a Conservative America Is a Myth!

Rather than being simply a set of unsubstantiated and unverified claims, as we have long grown accustomed to from the corporate media, this report takes a serious in depth look at what the majority of the country truly believes, and exactly what type of policies they really do support.

Can you hear the steam coming out of Brit Hume's ears from here?

Perception Vs Reality.

The report first goes a long way to give examples of how various media figures have a the drop of any number of hats proclaimed with great fanfare that "America is a Conservative Nation."

Guess what - No, It's Not.

But that hasn't slowed the proclaimers down much.

Brit Hume on Election Night 2006 as Democrats gave the GOP "A thumping" in Congress.

...from what we can see, from all the polling and everything else, it remains a conserative country.

It's not like Brit bothered to mention what polling he was referring too.

Glenn Beck on the same evening.

The Majority of Americans seem in favor of classically republican points of view

But it hasn't been just Conservatives who repeated this lie over and over again.

CNN's Candy Crowley.

(Democrats have been) on the wrong side of the values debate, the defense debate and oh yes, the gun debate

But here's the thing, what do people really believe? Should we have a strong and effective government or weak ineffective one? Should we trust industry more to handle our needs fairly? Is greater globalization good for the American economy? Do people favor a minimum wage increase? Are Taxes too High? Should we spur the economy with investment or more tax cuts?

This report provides a few answers for those questions which some of the above "journalists" might have a difficult time reconciling.

The report itself contains a lot of detail, but here are just some of the cliff notes in high resolution for the fact-challenged among us. (Click Image to View Fullsize)

Do Americans Want More Government?

In 2004, respondants to an NES study wanted more government services even if it meant more spending compared to those who wanted to cut spending by a margin of 43 to 23 percent.


Should Women have a Fair Share in the Workplace?



A 2004 NPR/Kaiser/Harvard University Poll found that Americans preferred comprehensive sex education (which included accurate information about contraception) to "abstinence only" programs by a margin of 67 to 30%.

Moral Values?



Abortion?



Taxes?



Trust in Business?



In 2007, 58% felt doubt in the trustworthiness of business to strike a "fair balance" for the public compared to 38% who didn't. (PEW Research)

Is the Minimum Wage current sufficient?



...[A Los Angeles Times Poll in the aftermath of the 2006] election found that 77% of Americans thought "Congress should pass legislation to increase the minimum wage."

Income Disparity?



According to the Wall Street Journal (Oct 2005), 53% of respondent felt that the Bush Tax Cuts were not worth it, while 38% felt that they were.

Gays?



AP/IPSOS only 3% of Americans ranked "Gays" as being the "most important" issue in January of 2007.

Crime and Punishment?



Should Government Spend more on The People who need it?



The PEW Research Center found that over the last 20 years more than two-thirds of Americans (69%) felt that "Government should take care of those who can not take care of themselves."

What's intesting about many of these studies is that they haven't been hidden all this time, they come from major sources such as PEW, the Washington Post and L.A. Times.

This all should be very old news - but intestingly, it isn't?

And that's the real story here, that despite the fact that for decades the majority - and in some cases the vast majority - of the nation has been leaning more and more to the left on specific policy issues than we've all been led to believe.

Why?

Because the increasing minority of conservatives have managed to remain the squeakiest wheels in the car for all that time.

I think it's about time some of us Progressives learned to Squeak - Loudly.

In the meanwhile, a few of these facts, figures and charts just might come in handy the next time your sitting across the table from your wing-nut neighbor/father-in-law/sister/cousin/boss and they start spouting off about how "Conservative" America really is.

Vyan