(written with Ilan Goldenberg)
Here's a wrap up of the entire day of hearings. Only 14 hours til tomorrow...
1. Petraeus and Crocker refuse to tell us what our long term strategy is in Iraq, holding to the weak excuse that they can't make predictions into the future. But they have no problem making scary predictions into the future about what will happen if we withdraw. Contradiction? We think so.
2. Senator Biden made Crocker admit that the threat from Al Qaeda central along the Afghan-Pakistan border is a higher priority than Al Qaeada in Iraq.
3. John McCain still seems to be confusing his Shi'a and his Sunnis. He seems to have this recurring problem and if he becomes President and does this in some international forum it will be REALLY REALLY bad.
4. Iran is the new Al Qaeda. A large portion of the questioning from Martinez, Lieberman, Graham was based on trying blame Iran from what happened in Basra. But as Senator Jack Reed pointed out the Iranians are actually supporting all of the various Shi'a groups in Iraq, including those in league with the central government.
5. Petraeus and Crocker repeatedly quoted Osama Bin Laden and his deputies that Iraq was the central fron in the war on terror. But as Senators Bayh and Feingold pointed out we shouldn't take our marching orders from Al Qaeda, as their strategy is to bleed and bankrupt the United States in Iraq.
6. Ryan Crocker continues to present a rosy picture of what happened in Basra last week, saying that it has strengthened Maliki's hand. But news on the ground today seems to undermine this claim with Sadr actually picking up support from various religious leaders.
7. When asked by Senator John Warner whether Iraq was making us safer Petraeus kept hedging and stated that it would ultimately be up to history. Not very comforting. And for those who argue that it's not his job to answer that question. The President has made it his job, but ignoring the advice of other more senior military leaders and going straight to Petraeus.
8. Crocker claims that there has been a "diplomatic surge" by the United States. But as Chuck Hagel pointed out these claims are "thin." A real diplomatic surge would entail Rice, Gates, or a special envoy - people from the highest levels of the government - reaching out to Iraq's neighbors and being able to talk not just about Iraq but all regional issues.
9. Petraeus and Crocker can't tell us if political reconciliation, the whole point of the surge, is actually happening.
Is there a database that details the tribes & factions in Iraq, their contact information, leadership profiles, and their grievances with each other?
And with such information gathered, do the diplomats and officers on the ground in Iraq have easy access to it?
Is there a truly safe forum for these factions and tribes to peacefully discuss and arbitrate their grievances and conflicts? What's the plan to channel and goad factions which have conflicts with guns and bullets into a conflict with words?
In the mean time we'll continue slaughtering them.
Plain and simple.
You had to feel sorry for them, the only two people holding up the whole reputation of the war and the only two explaining it.
Their droning, mind-numbing reports -- were they designed to hypnotize, so that it would be hard to focus on the meaning of what they were saying? Or was it just a coincidence?
How many in Congress were hypnotized? How many in the House will be tomorrow -- Wednesday? I didn't notice any heated confrontations. Was this due to their being in a trance? [I noticed with horror that when Roberts was up for Supreme Court Chief Justice he did a good job of hypnotizing Congresspeople, but he used the 'Confusion Technique' (see Milton Erickson, MD, on this approach to getting people to agree with your goals; Sen. Leahy seemed especially susceptible to this: he began by confronting him but ended by smiling and complimenting him. At least one other succumbed in exactly the same way.)]
Another thing done to disarm was Petraeus' repeated use of emotional flag-waving (irrelevantly; we are talking about people fighting in an ill-gotten, purposeless war, 11 of whom got killed dead the very day before) by 'appreciating' and 'honoring' and 'standing beside' his troops. This always seems to bring Congresspersons to their very knees in supplication -- one said he was speaking 'in deference' to Petraeus. [See Oxford American on 'deference': Including: dutifulness; submissiveness, submission, obedience, surrender, capitulation, acquiescence, obeisance.] Is this Congress's role?
Does anyone know, as well, if Secretary Rice has gone there, even once, to negotiate any kind of peace with -- anybody? The heads of militias, Sadre, Maliki, anybody?
Are these two individuals, Crocker and Petraeus, the only ones running the show?
And why is that?
Can we really afford another befuddled brain in the White House, even if it is "his turn"?!!
"A confidential draft agreement covering the future of US forces in Iraq, passed to the Guardian, shows that provision is being made for an open-ended military presence in the country."
Here is the link:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/08/iraq.usa
Yes, it means 100 years of the occupation of IRAQ.
But everyone makes the same mistake with Iraq - and this goes back to the entire nation giving legitimacy to the treasonous war crinimals who stole two elections, and yet still have a platform from which to launch more illegal wars, and to lie us into supporting them.
This war has nothing to do with liberation, freedom, democracy - how can treasonous war criminal be expected to produce social gains in anything they do? At home they steal elections and votes from minorities and the poor, destroy our rights and ruin our economy and society. Can you tell me the difference between Baghdad and New Orleans? All these neoCons produce is more dead people.
"Mission Accomplished" - Haliburton has a good profit margin; the price of oil is way up and Exxon-Mobil is having a wonderful year. Blackwater can shoot anyone Cheney does not like. And Condoleeza keeps her high profile job without ever achieving success in anything. How is the Hamas coup going?
General Odom had more substance and sanity in his interview than these two politically appointed stooges ever will. But since facts are anathema to these people, don't hold your breath looking for accurate answers, or for that matter demonstrable results.
The sole agenda is to elect McCain and keep the money machine rolling. Oh, and to pardon Rove and Cheney.......
Forget all that for a second.
Ask the lying General and that Commander-in-Chief in the White House why after five years, with the mightiest military ever at their disposal, with all the funding they ever wanted and then some, why they still cannot defeat people with nothing more than Improvised Explosive Devices and road-side bombs?
As they brag about "progress", just last weak they had missiles hitting inside the Green Zone, the safest place in Iraq.
What a humiliation! What have we shown to the world and those murdering thugs of al Qaeda if not the utter impotence of our power.
What this General and the Commander-in-Chief have brought to our country if not shame and humiliation?
You would've thought that we learned our lesson in Vietnam trying to be the world's police... Both of these debacles were based on lies, incompetence, and greed. Yet, this one, the one Mr. Bush will carry with him forever, will cost us far more than we could possibly imagine right now.