Iraq War Year Six: Our Long Goodbye to the Cold War

Now that America's exit from Iraq is on the horizon -- we need to begin the long overdue conversation about how we got ourselves into this war. Beyond blaming the Bush administration and the neo-cons. Fingering them is the easy part. We need to talk about the civic and cultural reasons for getting into Iraq, because it will reveal a new way for Americans to understand national security. Blame the Bush administration. Fine. Blame the media. Okay. But "we the people" need to take a few hits as well.

In early March, 2003 I was working on Capitol Hill, and I sat in on a discussion with two Army academics who laid out a hypothetical situation where the US would invade and occupy Iraq... They had a sobering list of 140 responsibilities that we would have to assume -- everything from setting up a central bank to managing garbage collection. Some of the data was from the US-Allied experience in post World War II Germany and Japan... but many of the insights also came from the Army's own knowledge gained since 1991 -- the year the Cold War ended. From then onward, our military has time and again relied on the provision of public goods and services to achieve victory. Remember 1993, when we lost 18 Army Rangers in Somalia? That experience should have been a seismic "a-ha" moment for the US Congress and, by extension the American public. A humanitarian mission that switched midstream to a battle with powerful violent gangs. Our personnel (both civilian and military) had the wrong set of tools. There was no military solution. We withdrew and developed an allergic reaction to insight about our own obsolete warfighting strategy. Then came Haiti, then Bosnia, Kosovo, East Timor.... The United Nations badly needed US leadership on new, creative and much more subtle applications of force. Europe, the UK, Australia, NATO -- all evolved and adjusted to the new threat environment, accepted a much broader definition of security and implemented new policies. The US, in contrast, declared a "readiness crisis" because the Army was no longer prepared to stop the Soviets from invading Poland. The Soviet Union had disappeared 7 years prior. American vision was blurred by the ideological beer goggles of the conservative leadership on Capitol Hill. Congress stayed stuck in the past for another decade. Then came Afghanistan. Then Iraq.

The cornerstone of American democracy is the belief in civilian supremacy in government. We need to revisit this principle within a larger conversation about the lessons from Iraq. As our generals have been saying for six years now, it is the peace that is decisive, not the war. The use of overwhelming force has not only lost utility in warfighting today , it has become counterproductive. The "surge" would never have worked if the political deals hadn't been made. Counter insurgency strategy is about protecting civilians -- it is implicit that violence is never decisive. It requires peace deals to endure. We have two gaps, a lack of civilian personnel in our agencies so we over-rely on the military -- and a glaring domestic political gap in American leadership on issues of war and peace. The military knows what they are doing... but they don't necessarily know why they are doing it... that's the job of the civilian authorities... Militaries are operational and tactical creatures -- they don't set strategy. And we have lacked a guiding strategy now for nearly two decades. The ongoing defense budget debate in Congress is a great chance to wedge open this larger strategic discussion. Both the DoD and the White House want to break our addiction to entrenched and expensive weapons programs that drain the budget but don't deliver on our most urgent needs. Lacking a strategic rationale, the industry giants like Lockheed Martin say the spending is about jobs. There are other ways to get Americans working again, however, and it should not be at the expense of our safety.

So what is our new strategy? President Obama has made clear that he intends to restore American strength by keeping the military strong... but also by seeking legitimacy -- i.e. the moral authority to lead. He continually references the mutually reinforcing link between American strength and our ideals about justice, human rights and rule of law. This is a clear departure from the never-ending war claims of the Bush administration (indeed, Obama and his administration do not say GWOT anymore) But it is also an important step away from containment -- the defining strategic principle of the past century -- If there is any common thread between contagious fundamentalism, climate change catastrophe and avian flu -- it is our inability to contain them. How about this framework for seeking global security:

• Today's security challenges require political, economic, social and military tools.
• Today's security policies must address the safety of people across borders, as well as the safety of people within borders.
• These needs are equally important and simultaneous; they must not be posed as trade-offs in policy nor in budgets

Today, America's military is not only overstretched by warfighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is burdened by far too many responsibilities in carrying out US foreign policy -- a job that it never signed up for and should not have. Americans in uniform and carrying guns are not the message we want to send to the world. Yes the American military is a fine institution, but we're creating a perverse incentive when they are the ones providing public goods and services. I had a conversation once with a Member of Parliament from the Philippines -- she raved about the Special Forces soldiers stationed in her country. Of course I was proud, but also unsettled. We are doing exactly what we tell other countries to stop doing i.e. maintaining very clear boundaries and keeping the military out of work that civilians should be doing.

Restoring the civil-military balance is a priority at the Defense Department. Secretary Gates is the primary evangelist for revitalizing the State Department and staffing up our economic development agency (USAID). Other signs are hopeful. Howard Berman, Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee -- is dedicated to correcting this imbalance. The House Armed Services Committee shows great signs of progressive leadership on this problem as well. But they can't do it without a supportive public constituency. And it will ultimately require tradeoffs. Our defense budget doesn't come close to putting dollars where the most probable risks are. It is organized around containment, not legitimacy. The former is hardware intensive, the latter, people intensive. Secretary of State Clinton's "Smart Power" initiative, of bolstering civilian personnel must therefore be understood in strategic national security terms.

One could argue that we would not be in Iraq today if Congress had adopted a modern vision of security after 1991. Here's part of a Marine Corps Guidance Order dated August, 1997

"In the next century, we will have Marines conducting humanitarian operations, peacekeeping, and high intensity combat all in the same day and in the same operating area. This mission depth will require Marines to work side by side with other government and non government agencies. What is lacking at this point is an operational concept for comprehensive command and control that weaves the diverse capabilities of the different entities into a coherent campaign plan"

We've put off this conversation for so long, that alarms are ringing about humanitarian missions under threat because of perceived military association. This arises because of a cultural and a civic oversight on our part. As a culture, we have loved the military to death. When we're scared, we love it even more. Our elected leaders, in response, offer inadequate critical decision making about the institution, how to respect it professionally by keeping it out of politics, by keeping it out of civilian tasks and by developing alternatives now that the world has changed. The military is the consummate planning organization -- it has known for a long time that the world has changed -- but lacked the civilian leadership to fundamentally shift how we match means to ends, and tactics to strategy. Today is the sixth anniversary of the Iraq war. If we Americans truly value the lives sacrificed there -- we will require that our elected leaders -- at long last -- create and fund a security strategy that keeps us safer, costs less and restores the boundaries of a healthy civil-military relationship.

Comments

[lynettema]

At the time I wrote all my representative begging them not to fall for Bush's ploy. I barely received a response from any of them. Even my usually level headed husband fell for the ploy after Powell did his schtick.

[JohnHKennedy]

"blaming the Bush administra­tion...Fin­gering them is the easy part"

If fingering them is so easy and they violated Federal Laws, when do the prosecutions start?

Examples must be made of Bush appointee lawyers.

If we as a people hope to force our public officials to obey our laws and our Constitution,
the time is Now
and the way to do it is
to prosecute members of the Bush administration
who violated Federal Laws,
including the law against Torturing prisoners.

The reason that we continue to have unnecessary wars of choice is
that Congress makes excuses for lawbreaking officials instead of impeaching or prosecuting them.

There was no doubt that 9-11 needed to be avenged, but Bush had another agenda.

They lied about WMD, aluminum tubes, & Niger Uranium to con Congress into approving an invasion of Iraq, a country that did not have anything to do with 9-11.

In WW-II, in 4 years, FDR put 13,000,000 men in the fight, beat 3 dictatorships, their leaders dead at the end.

After 7 years of War On Terror, neither Bush nor Cheney could find Osama Bin Laden, our US reputation is in the gutter, we're still at war, over 4,200 US Soldiers are dead, over 30,000 maimed for the Bush-Cheney arrogance & lies. They ordered Torture, a violation of Federal Law.

Unless Obama's statement that “no one is above the law” is a lie,
Obama must appoint a Special Prosecutor

Sign The Petition To Prosecute

http://ANGRYVoters.org

[LuckyLeif]

Essentially you folks miss the forest for the trees. We face multiple, lethal enemies who vow to destroy us. We either stand and defend ourselves or hit our knees and bow our heads. The combined power of renewed Russian ambitions in concert with Jihadists is sufficient to warrant the attention of sober analysts. Shall we mention nuclear Iran and Pakistan, North Korea, China or even Venezuela? The trouble with your insistence we pave the road with good intentions is obvious. And now we learn American tax money used to bailout Citi and AIG is actually going to finance terrorism via Islamic financial institutions and Shariah compliant financial instruments. Wake up.

http://allanerickson.wordpress.com/2009/03/20/you-are-being-sold-down-the-road-america/

[FightingTheRight]

Increasing Irans influence in the ME was a good idea?

Yes or no.

In the 80s the U.S. supported Saddam and Iraq in their war with Iran and the Ayatolah Khomenieh. Almost 20 yrs. later, we remove Sadamm from power and hold free elections in Iraq, the Shiites win a majority in the elections and control of Iraq. The Shiites have close ties to the new Ayatolah, who was a follower of the Ayatolah Khomenieh. So basicly , we did for the Iranians, what they couldn’t do for themselves in the 80s.

[FightingTheRight]

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Two years ago, King Abdullah of Jordan warned me of what was coming in the mideast. His prediction was dead on. He spoke of his fears and what the United States was doing in iraq, toppling one government, electing another, was creating what he called a shi'ia crescent, from Tehran through Baghdad to Beirut that threatened to dominate the Arab world, challenging modern Sunni governments in Egypt and Saudi Arabia and others with an axis of Shia power based in Iran.

When I look at the map today, that Shia crescent the King foretold has come to light. That's what happened. We converted Iraq from a country which has fought revolutionary Iran for eight years to a bloody stand still to a Shia dominated ally of Iran and created a boulevard of common religion and common regional politics.

[peterg76]

"We either stand and defend ourselves or hit our knees and bow our heads." This kind of simplistic false dichotomy is part of the problem. No amount of military strength can guarantee absolute safety and at a certain point it's counterproductve to even try. Coercion can only take you so far and then you have to purse constructive relations. Iraq is a perfect example of how escalating destruction cannot make up for a lack of positive effort.

And it certainly doesn't help to confound actual strategic threats with a case like Venezuela, which is merely an inconvenient reminder of what real democracy is.

[UKOH]

LuckyLeif it is this type of "you are either for us or against us", "the only way to treat presumed enemies is to wage war on them" thinking from your post that has made the world A FAR MORE DANGEROUS PLACE during the Bush years! I think it is YOU who is missing the forest for the trees. However much it is true that the USA was not attacked on USA soil since 9/11 (and yes, I will give Bush credit for that because I would have condemned him had there been another attack) there is clear evidence that suicide bomber recruitment has thrived BECAUSE of the Bush policies and that Americans are in clear danger away from the USA and it is only a matter of time before another 9/11 type attack occurs.

The point of the article was that it is senseless to rely on military might alone to solve these problems. By reaching out diplomatically, as Obama is doing, there is a far greater chance of reducing threats than military means can ever achieve. Bush played right into Al Quada's hands by demonstrating how evil (from an Islamic perspective) the USA is. With Obama it is far more difficult to make that case. Young people in the Middle East will learn there is more to hope and live for than to die for and so the steady stream of suicide bomber recruits will dry out.

[lynettema]

Essentially, YOU are part of the problem. It is this dysfunctional thinking that got us into this mess - making the terrorist problem worsen and bringing shame to our country. I can't help but notice that you don't want any money spent in this country to help us out of another huge mess left by BushCo. 12 billion a month to Iraq seems to be fine by you right wing thinkers.

[JDM73]

I couldn't agree more--things have got to change, and quickly. But Americans aren't comfortable talking about the military, because criticism is all too often perceived as an insult. When you're afraid of being shouted down or branded a traitor, you stop talking. A strange, fetishized, pseudo-religious attitude about the military (and the police, to a lesser extent) prevails in this country, and it doesn't do us any good.

[mommadona]

There needs to be a paradigm switch on just WHAT our "national interests" are.

For over 50 years, it's been whatever the multinational corporations wished it to be.

Right now, with the introduction of a new "African" military unit-the US is still on track to be the main 'protector of the corporate welfare queens'. They get all the benefit - we get the bill.

The Department of DEFENSE means just that.
That's the only directive needed.

Defend U.S.

[andycan]

PRESSING THREATS TO CIVIL LIBERTIES

Global Research, a remarkably well-informed, prescient and respected web site warns of the militarization of North America with Guantanamo-style camps being built in the USA by Irak contractor KBR for "terrorists and disgruntled employees" in the wake of the economic crisis.( Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research , March 18 2009)

There are rumblings of martial law here in North America. The army will patrol the continent according to recently enacted laws, not only the police and the National Guard. All dissent will be ruthlessly curbed. So the cold war maybe over, but on this continent civil liberties and the integrity of the person seem to be under critical threat from a new form of continental authoritarian ideology which infringes in every way, unconstitutionally on human rights.

[poeticalmath]

i hear everyone talking war, money, anniversary. How about some troop awareness, and programs to help with the transitioning of the troops returning from abroad

[Garvagh]

The US needs to end the collective insanity of the American people, in allowing the spending of as much of their tax money on munitions and weapons systems, as the rest of the world combined. Stunning idiocy! Let Russia, China and Iran deal with Afdghanistan; they understand it far better than does the US, and are in the immediate area. Get out of Iraq, entirely.

[UberReaganite]

In support of my other post I would remind all of you whippersnappers that when Khadafi was the Bin Laden of his day in the 80s and Libya was the Iraq of today we didnt deploy a single ground troop to shut him up or stop him. Ronnie Reagan sent over some jets and we bombed the crap out of him, his family and his defense network - we went RIGHT TO THE SOURCE. We tossed their crazy talking, terrorist fostering salads from 30,000 feet and then we just flew away and let em clean up the mess.

For the next 20 years you didnt hear a damn thing from Libya. We shut them down HARD and guess what.....now Khadafi is one of the more moderate and cooperative leaders in the region.

When cops go to a domestic dispute they dont move in and take over the bank accounts and social lives of the family with problems. They try to talk first then they try to arrest and then they shoot who they have to and guess what....things always quiet down afterward....

Iraq was all about making money.

We used our forces like cops, babysitters and psychiatrists and that is NOT what they are to be used for. THATis why you have less success in Iraq and Afghanistan after EIGHT years than from what you got with 8 minutes of well placed bombing over Libya. Feel free to take some notes....

[LuckyLeif]

Comparing Libya to Iraq is like comparing Rhode Island to Texas.

[UberReaganite]

Long time no see Mermaid.
As is always the case you present an enoumous amount of truth in your article. I agree with you. America needs to use military action smarter. Frankly I think we put way too many people on the ground to solve issues that we could reach the same success level with by simply strategic bombing only - when force actually is required of course.

I would say that your entire article supports the idea that we really DONT need Marines delivering babies, digging wells, directing traffic and then razing a terrorist training camp all in the same day. We have different agencies that should be handling those different missions for damn good reasons.

In addition to my aversion to turning soldiers into babysitters and traffic cops I must ONCE AGAIN ask you why is it that AMERICA needs to do all the changing? Dont we have a UNITED NATIONS and isnt it the direct responsibility of the UN to step in and resolve problems like Iraq and Afghanistan so that the U.S. doesn't have to? If the UN ACTED after 9/11, America wouldnt of had to and Bush couldnt have exploited that. How come you never speak of the UN? The UN wastes BILLIONS of dollars annually and I challenge you to present a list of actual accomplishments for that useless WORLD organization. We should make the UN PERFORM or withdraw from the UN - it is a worthless organization.

[Lorelei Kelly - Huffpost Blogger]

okay. I accept your challenge. I will compile a good list of accomplishments of the UN. I once heard an American military guy give a talk on the UN...he had been an interim administrator in the Balkans and he didn't disagree when somebody made the points you are making. Instead, he said, think of the UN like any large bureaucracies, in the "law of thirds" one third is dead wood, one third clocks in every day and just does their job, but one third are the most amazing, motivated amazing people you're ever going to work with. I am amazed at how conservative I am when it comes to use of the military. I do, however, think we need to create some new institutions to take care of this stuff we get involved in...because I'm not really a libertarian or isolationist, either.

[jackwaddington]

All wars are crazy. They are an attempt to bully some rival faction into doing it our way. Military men are professional killers, period end, but no one will dare go that far. There are no military solutions: ever. The money spent on the euphemism 'defense' is just that. We are defending nothing: rather, we are being offensive. What are we trying to prove to ourselves? We can attack anyone we don' like but they should never be allowed to attack us. Being defensive begets being more offensive such that killing others has a salutary motive and our military men are noble brave defenders of our .... fill in the blanks.

[LuckyLeif]

War is hell. Sometimes war is necessary. I guess you never read the 2002 Authorization to Use Force, passed by majorities in both houses of Congress. Interesting how the Democrats voted for the authorization resolution, and then became anti-war activists a mere three months later.

The American solider is a professional humanitarian. Anyone who says otherwise is a professional a**hole.

Read and learn.

http://allanerickson.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/thoughts-on-the-6th-anniversary-of-iraq-invasion/

[jackwaddington]

War is never necessary except only to bullies. The only real difference between me LuckyLeif is that I know I am an a**hole, whereas you are busy to trying to prove that you are not. Punishment of bullies is called PTSD: go figure.

[Lorelei Kelly - Huffpost Blogger]

wow. that's kinda harsh. would you believe that some of the most idealistic people I know are in the military? probably not. but it is true. I think you would bes urprised at how many people in uniform would like nothing better than to have us do prevention and peacebuilding so well that we never had to use them...

[davidly]

You guys are arguing apples and oranges, or rather vegetable and mineral. Frankly, I think jackwaddington makes a valid point and it certainly doesn't preclude prevention and peace building. The notion that those two things have anything to do with a military is part of humankind's problem with aggression.

[davidly]

Uncanny. Inspired by this article, I just wrote in my diary, though a few hours after you: There is no military solution. None. Nada. Zip. Period.

Of course this is just our opinion, one could say, but I am with you all the way.

[davidly]

If we intend to seriously talk about how we got into this war, we should also redefine war in less convenient terms and change the date we seem to think the war began. Suggestions?

[LuckyLeif]

My son bled over there. His friends died. I don't have much patience for you arm chair pundits and Monday morning quarterbacks.

"The Democratic attacks on the war described America’s commander-in-chief as a liar who misled his country and sent American soldiers to die in a conflict that was unnecessary, illegal and unjust. This made prosecution of the war incalculably harder while strengthening the resolve of our enemies to defeat us. It is time to re-evaluate the words and actions of the war’s opponents in the stark light of a history that proved them wrong." DAVID HOROWITZ today

More truth for those with the guts to embrace it, here:

http://allanerickson.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/thoughts-on-the-6th-anniversary-of-iraq-invasion/

And here:

http://allanerickson.wordpress.com/2009/02/28/democracy-in-iraq-what-happened-to-fiasco/

Ask the average Iraqi what he thinks about the American soldier. Then go away, please.

[liberalchick]

I thank you for your sacrifice. But I would think you, more than most, would be interested in what this article has to say. We went into the war with no exit strategy, no plan for peace and we and the world are paying for that every day. The problem was not with the military execution but with the civilian oversight.

[FightingTheRight]

I have several family members and friends who have served multiply tours also.

Our own military's 1999 wargames scenario found that with 400,000 troops on the ground, we might not be able to secure Iraq and that the insurgecy was a very probable outcome!

[Moonlighter]

The U.S. simply cannot afford to continue on this road of ever increasing military spending. Lawmakers should eye the Pentagon budget and abolish the foolhardiest of the programs contained within. Diplomatically, we can manage China's rise as a world power and let them assume some of the security responsibilities in the world. Otherwise we will probably destroy ourselves as has every other world power in history that developed an over reliance on its military.

But if you want to contribute to this country creatively, check out The Human Levee Music Project at www.humanlevee.com.

[LuckyLeif]

Military spending as a % of GDP is lower today than in 1962. Here is the proof.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Features/BudgetChartBook/fed-rev-spend-2008-boc-S7-Despite-War-Costs-Defense.html

We are destroying ourselves thanks to people like you who don't know the facts, and rely on the goodwill of the Chinese. Geez. We are destroying ourselves thanks to people like Obama who think you can spend your way out of a recession by saddling future generations with insurmountable debt. We are destroying our nation thanks to Leftists and Democrats who haven't the common sense God gave a goose about what it takes to have a strong economy, a strong national defense and a virtuous citizenry, all required if liberty is to be preserved.

[liberalchick]

Hard to believe we were in such good shape just a mere 2 months ago when we had the Righties and Republicans in charge.

[Malco]

Dream on. The US defense budget is MASSIVE:

The United States is [also] projected to spend more on defense in FY 2009 than the next 45 highest spending countries combined, including 5.8 times more than China (second highest), 10.2 times more than Russia (third highest), and 98.6 times more than Iran (22d highest). Indeed, the United States is expected to account for 48 percent of the world’s total military spending in FY 2009.

http://crooksandliars.com/node/24205

[KillTheMessenger]

You cherry picked 1962 because it is a minimum and you fail to mention that we spent far less in 1975 and 1997:

http://restoringsanity.org/military/spending.gif

Honesty does not come easy to a war-monger, does it?

[Lorelei Kelly - Huffpost Blogger]

I honestly can't believe that you and lots of others keep saying this when our present economic disaster is clearly the result of conservative (non)leade­rship....a­s my best friend the psychologist would say, that's quite a defense against insight....

[jhamm1]

"Blame the Bush administration. Fine. Blame the media. Okay. But "we the people" need to take a few hits as well."

Don't even think about pinning that endeavor on those of us who, not only protested in the streets during our run-up to the inevitble conflict, but who long since had voiced concerns about an overreliance on military solutions to humanitarian crises and the military industrial complex.

Contrary to what you might believe, many of us in liberal circles have long since acknowledged that borad-based ideological pursuits require more than just impulsively employing the military to "stop genocide" or other methods of enforcement which are only destined to backfire in the event of failing to win support of the population in the general vicinity. This is the well-intentioned but misguided incentive which fueled Hillary Clinton's foolhardy impulse to intervene in Kosovo by ostensibly "scaring" Milosevic out of his country via an aerial demonstration of "shock and awe".

And furthermore, you're absolutely wrong to suggest that the mentality that served as the precursor to our invasion of Iraq had been ingrained in a perpetual Cold War mentality, as the concept of attempting to "enlighten" other cultures and nations into our way of thinking, via military invasion or other ethnocentric forms of manipulation, bears more of a resemblance to appeals to "manifest destiny" or incentives to "take up the white man's burden", which dominated the Western mindset between the 16th and 19th centuries.

[Lorelei Kelly - Huffpost Blogger]

I'm not pinning the blame on the anti-war movement. I went to those protests, too. However, as far as the Left is concerned, what I have noticed is that, somehow, all of our attempts at re-framing the national security debate have failed. Repeatedly. Part of this, i believe, is our inattention to the ongoing conversation about the military..and that our needs and desires for it must be addressed along with domestic priorities....not as a tradeoff for them. The Viet Nam hangover contributed to this, no doubt...where awkward silence replaced constructive dialogue in our culture. This bears out in my experience on Capitol Hill, where the Left has been far better at opposition than providing governing solutions.­..especial­ly on national security. That is our challenge today. The terrain is wide open, will we take it?

[jhamm1]

I believe the rest of my post dealt with these issues, in which case I elect to reinforce my original statement that I do not appreciate being branded as "part of the problem", whether its concerning the Iraqi War or the misguided ideology that has governed our approach to national security and military procurements.

I suppose it needs to be reinforced that even the actions undertaken of many democratic politicians do not necessarily reflect the base they represent, as exemplified by many foolhardy arguments about justifying frivlolous military expenditures

But, don't fault "we the people", as "we the people" pertains to more than just die-hard Bush fanatics and Democratic politicians who, perhaps retaining some degree of cowardice over their original fear of being branded soft on national security, refuse to re-examine our existing reliance on military force and thus fail to seek refinements that would guarantee better results

Furthermore, I believe that your article implies that the prevaliing ideology of the preceding decades somehow contributed to the Iraqi invasion, which is completely untrue AS I've previously pointed out, the "Cold War mentality" issued no precedence whatsoever for the invasion of Iraq, which, as I've already pointed out, bears more of a resemblance to obsolescent national policies that have been outdated since the outset of the 20th century.

[KillTheMessenger]

How many of you protested in the streets? Was that 15 or 20?

Never mind.

[Wozzeck]

If you consume corporate "news", you never saw the demonstrations. The neocon sympathizers controlling the media conveniently downplayed any protests and never gave antiwar voices venues. Only rent-a-generals and neocon chickenhawk pundits were allowed on the air and on the opinion pages.

[lynettema]

Since BushCo left office, I have seen clips of these demonstrations. It looked to be thousands. The media never reported it. Just like they never reported the demonstrations on the streets when GW was "reelected." He couldn't get out of the car to walk down Pennsylvania Av. Often demonstrators we delegated to pens far from the area where GW would be.