Prog Blogs, Orgs & Alumni
Bank Slate
Betsy Devine
birch, finch, beech
Democracy for NH
Live Free or Die
Mike Caulfield
Miscellany Blue
Granite State Progress
Seacoast for Change
Still No Going Back
Susan the Bruce
Tomorrow's Progressives
Politicos & Punditry
The Burt Cohen Show
John Gregg
Krauss
Landrigan
Lawson
Pindell
Primary Monitor
Primary Wire
Scala
Schoenberg
Spiliotes
Welch
Campaigns, Et Alia.
Paul Hodes
Carol Shea-Porter
Ann McLane Kuster
John Lynch
Jennifer Daler
ActBlue Hampshire
NHDP
DCCC
DSCC
DNC
National
Balloon Juice
billmon
Congress Matters
DailyKos
Digby
Hold Fast
Eschaton
FiveThirtyEight
MyDD
The Next Hurrah
Open Left
Senate Guru
Swing State Project
Talking Points Memo
50 State Blog Network
Alabama
Arizona
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Each succeeeding Wikileaks docudump leaves me "meh." I think I finally know why.
We lied about why we invaded a country, ending over a hundred thousand lives before their time, wounding many more, displacing more still.
Our chief executive at the time goes on book tours. Senators like Judd Gregg leave the stage with full honors. Congresscritters like Charlie Bass get re-elected.
This is the accountability lesson we are leaving our children.
A graphic visualization of deaths caused by the Iraq war:
The orange represents civilians fatalities.
Likely over 100,000 lives ended before their time from an invasion that had nothing to do with 9/11 or WMD. More than that wounded. More than that displaced. Loved ones ripped apart. Families broken. Dreams destroyed.
Why?
And why did we put Charlie Bass, who voted for the war, supported the war, and never once expressed regret over the war, back in power?
In 2006, a majority of voters - angry, disgusted and alarmed with our country's direction under Republican control - swept Democrats to majorities in Congress. They were then lulled into accepting the Party's self-serving rhetoric that if only voters delivered Democrats a filibuster-proof Senate and the presidency in 2008, they would be able to restore sanity and the rule of law to our nation.
Unfortunately, this turned out to be an intentional and cynical lie in the spirit of Lucy's duping the ever gullible Charlie Brown into hoping that just this once she might not laughingly yank the football away at the last second, leaving him flat on his back in the dust (again).
One moment of dissent for Lamontagne came when the candidates were asked about the war in Iraq. Lamontagne, alone among the candidates, said he believed going into Iraq was a mistake.
"We went on a false premise" that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, he said.
Thank you, Mr. Lamontagne, for not sweeping the biggest foreign policy mistake of my lifetime under the rug.
Swett said much like others at the time she was misled into believing the Iraq war was justified
Yes, but: other Democrats weren't defending such support over three years later:
Swett believes Lieberman lost because of three perceived Democratic "sins": the sin of supporting the Iraq war and being tough on defense, the sin of being bipartisan and the sin of displaying religious faith. Swett said those traits might make Lieberman undesirable to many Democrats but they could be key for Democrats in winning future national elections.
As for myself, I deeply regret that once, on television in the days before the war, I foolishly - spontaneously - said that going ahead with the invasion might be the right thing to do. I was far more skeptical in print. I never wrote in favor of the war and repeatedly raised the problems that would accompany it, but mere skepticism was an insufficient reaction too. The issue then was as clear as it is now. It demanded a clarity that I failed to summon. The essential principle is immutable: we should never go to war unless we have been attacked or are under direct, immediate threat of attack. Never. And never again.
Somehow, not too long ago, we took leave of our senses and invaded a country that had not attacked us, that had no connection to 9/11, that had no WMD.
Hundreds of thousands died.
There is no Un-Do button for this. How does a nation psychically digest an error of such scale?
For most of my life I have preferred poetry to politics, ploughshares to swords. As a result I found myself markedly unprepared for the world I needed to untangle after Osama bin Laden ordered a hit on 3,000 or so innocent people.
Two of them were high school classmates of mine. Many more were Port Authority cops, firefighters, and businessmen and women from the suburban neighborhoods around New York where I grew up.
In the 90's I read with great interest Robert Byrd's history of the Roman Republic, with its many comparisons to the American system of checks and balances, particularly those on the executive.
Yet in, 2003, the most recent, greatest test of that system, I was not there for Senator Byrd when he cried out for us to listen:
I hope what I have learned from Robert Byrd will keep me from erring so badly again.
Adding: Should be fun times today for the Right Wing Wurlitzer in using Byrd's intolerant past against his current legacy.
You'd think that after participating in a vote that needlessly and prematurely ended hundreds of thousands of lives, Charlie Bass would quietly demur from any further public service.
I think one of the reasons I am most thankful John McCain didn't win the presidency is the factual recklessness (and petty vindictiveness) with which he speaks and acts.
Bob Bestani, in his quest to unseat Carol Shea-Porter, is taking her for task for not interfering with the military justice system. I am sure the other Republicans running for federal office will soon be parroting the same lines about the Navy SEALs court martial.
It is not easy to sort out the facts of the case. The gist of it is that three Navy SEALs are being court martialed for allegedly brutalizing an insurgent named Ahmed Hashim Abed on September 1, 2009. Abed is (interestingly) believed to be the mastermind behind the gruesome execution of 4 Blackwater contractors in September 2004, back when Bush & Cheney were in charge of the war. (If we were fighting an opponent our own size, those 4 non-uniformed combatants would have been sent to our enemy's Gitmo instead.)
Alan Khazei gets credit for bringing this idea to the Senate race, though I didn't see it on his website.
City Year co-founder Alan Khazei kicked off the primary campaign's final televised debate by saying he would support a special levy to fund the 30,000-troop buildup outlined by President Barack Obama.
Attorney General Martha Coakley also said she would consider it, but Rep. Michael Capuano and Boston Celtics co-owner Stephen Pagliuca said they would not.
(snip)
"I would vote for a tax for a moral war, if I thought it was right," said Capuano. "I will not vote, not only for taxes, I will not vote for funding for this surge, either, as I have not voted for the funding in Iraq, either."
I like this idea. Here's why.
1. Capuano's point about a moral war is taken, but we haven't had a war everyone agreed was moral in my lifetime. We still have wars, though, and we still have to pay for them.
2. I like to say "We should have a draft" to remind people of the real costs of war, and theoretically make us less casual in the use of our military. However, I find this idea goes over like a lead balloon with people who are draft-eligible, and I can sputter all I want about "18 to 50" but really, the old school 18 to 26 version is much more likely if we get one at all. A war tax accomplishes much of the goal: Obama's numbers seem pretty abstract in the context of the federal budget, but $30 billion (the cost of the new boost in troops numbers) divided by 300 million people is $100 per person.
3. But wait, we can't stop there: By the president's own estimate, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost well over a trillion dollars. So we're up to about $3,330 per person. And since the cost must be borne by those paying the taxes, roughly 50% of the population, you're looking at $6,670 per person: $20,000 for my family. That is real money for a middle class family.
4. There is one easily identifiable risk: There would be a push to itemize other items on people's tax bills, notably Social Security, interest on the deficit, military spending in general, the cost of operating Congress, etc. That's risky because of the endless Pandora's box of debates about it, but I'm not entirely convinced that that is a bad thing. It happens anyway, just not in so literal a fashion.
6. If I ran the world, people who served in the military would be exempt from paying this.
But the biggest advantage?
7. Republican heads would explode. It would a be a lot harder to puff your chest about patriotism and talk about cutting taxes at the same time.
Seven years ago today, former US House Rep. Charlie Bass issued the following press release in support of the resolution to use force against a country that hadn't attacked us, and on the basis of weapons that never existed. In this support for George W. Bush's and Dick Cheney's war he was joined by nearly all Republicans and some Democrats in both chambers of Congress.
News from Charlie Bass ยท New Hampshire's Second District
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 10, 2002
Bass Votes For Iraq Resolution
Washington, D.C. - U.S. Representative Charles Bass (R-NH02) today voted in support of the bipartisan resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iraq if they fail to comply with United Nations Resolutions to disarm. The resolution, H.J.Res 114, passed the House 374 - 37.
"The passage of this bipartisan resolution demonstrates the unity and resolve of our Country in support of President Bush's mission to eliminate the global threat posed by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein," said Bass. "I am confident that the President will be successful in his efforts to build support from the United Nations and our allies for any effort on the part of the United States to deal with the current and ongoing threats posed by Iraq. Nevertheless, if the President decides he needs to act to protect Americans he has the authority under this resolution, in consultation with Congress, to do so."
Since then, thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives have ended prematurely in that country.
President of the United States (and Nobel peace prize recipient) Barack Obama was opposed to this war from the beginning.
Now Charles Bass wants to represent me and everyone else in the second district of New Hampshire again. To the best of my knowledge he has not been asked recently if he regrets his vote for this resolution.
...other than to remind myself that thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died before their time for a war that never needed to be:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: PRESS SECRETARY
March 17, 2003 (202) 225-5206
Bass Supports President on Iraq
Washington, D.C. - U.S. Representative Charles Bass (R-NH02) released the following statement today regarding President Bush's televised address.
"Tonight, President Bush has given Saddam Hussein a final opportunity to avoid war," said Bass. "Now it is up to Saddam to decide whether to put the best interest of the Iraqi people ahead of his own greed for power and wealth or to reject this offer, as he has all other reasonable attempts to find a peaceful resolution to the current impasse.
"No one wants to go to war," said Bass. "I commend President Bush for making every effort to avoid a military conflict. One way or another we must rid the world of a brutal dictator who rapes, tortures, and murders his own subjects and threatens peace and stability around the globe. We must do so before his weapons of mass destruction and biological weapons are used to kill Americans in a major attack on the United States."
A few weeks ago on www.BlueHampshire.com, I expressed my continuing concerns about the buildup of American troop commitment in Afghanistan. My position on that war isn't very popular on this Blog, but since I lived through the years of Vietnam and opposed that war too, it's a point of view that I'm firm on. I believed Vietnam was wrong. I believe Afghanistan is wrong.
I know that many of us who supported Barack Obama in last year's Presidential election endorsed his position that Iraq was "the wrong war," and that we should withdraw as soon as possible from Iraq, and focus our efforts on the Taliban in Afghanistan. I was one of those who was excited about Obama's candidacy, but wanted out of BOTH wars. Committing more terrorism isn't how we fight terrorism.
During the weeks leading up to Barack Obama's inaugural, he seemed to approve of the requests of military advisors and the Pentagon to double American troop numbers in Afghanistan. Currently, we have about 33,000 American soldiers there, along with NATO forces. Earlier this week President Obama ordered that 17,000 new troops be sent to Afghanistan.
I don't pretend to be an expert in foreign affairs -- or foreign entanglements, for that matter. But I also realize that many "experts" got us embroiled in Vietnam, and couldn't get us out. There always seems a reason for our military establishment -- and "establishment" IS what our military upper layer is -- to rationalize aggressive action -- and "aggressive" IS exactly what we're are in Afghanistan. We're killing people there, in THEIR country. Call them "Taliban," call them "insurgents," call them "the enemy," we're killing them. And we're killing lots of others who we call "innocents."
No wonder America and Americans are the focus of hate and distrust in parts of the world.
Just two questions for any of my fellow Democrats who in one way or another might continue to support increased troop commitment in Afghanistan.
So you're a fledgling government and you need a prison. Do you tear down one, if you have it handy, because of its shameful name? In my opinion, Iraq did the right thing here. It's a tough but responsible choice.
USA Today:
BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraq will reopen the notorious Abu Ghraib prison next month, but it's getting a facelift and a new name, a senior justice official said.
The heavily fortified compound of gray, stonewalled buildings and watchtowers has come to symbolize American abuse of some prisoners captured in Iraq after photos were released showing U.S. soldiers sexually humiliating inmates at the facility.
The scandal stoked support for the insurgency and was one of the biggest setbacks to the U.S. military effort to win the peace in Iraq.
Echoes of Long Kesh:
The renovated facility will be called Baghdad's Central Prison because the name Abu Ghraib has left a "bitter feeling inside Iraqis' hearts," deputy Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim said Saturday.
Abu Ghraib, which was a torture center under Saddam Hussein, has been closed since 2006.
That last line bugs me. We used one of Saddam's torture chambers? I'm so glad things are changing.
When George Herbert Walker Bush famously announced the New World Order, I naively thought he meant that from then on, January 1991, the nations of the globe would purchase and pay for what they wanted from others, rather than attempt to take them by force. The Saddam Husseins of the world were to be taught that lesson and no more would the invasion of another country be countenanced.
Much later, when Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense for Bush the Younger, addressed Congress, it became clear that what was meant was that from now on instead of Old Europe, the New World, and, specifically, the behemoth sitting astride the North American continent, would be giving the orders and the nations of the world would have to do what they were told.
So what, exactly, is wrong with journalism in America today? Iraqi insurgents try to kill NPR journalists, and the mainstream press barely mentions it?
http://www.npr.org/templates/s...
At the end of the meal, the NPR team was headed back to its vehicles but stopped for a moment when kebab shop owner Athir Abdul El Mawjood began showing the bullet holes that still pockmark the front of his business.
Suddenly, Iraqi soldiers ran up screaming "bomb" in Arabic and pointing at the parked BMW. They blocked oncoming traffic, and an Iraqi officer named Lt. Mohamed Jabbour physically pulled one of our drivers away from the parked car.
Seconds later, the BMW exploded and burst into flames some 15 feet from us.
Not dramatic enough?
The bomb appeared to have been one of the so-called sticky bombs that insurgents have increasingly used to lethal effect in Baghdad over the past year. The bombers use magnets to attach the explosives to the underside of parked vehicles.
The device was placed underneath the driver's side of the vehicle. The force of the blast blew out the vehicle's armored floor plates. There was no sign of the steering wheel. Looking at the twisted wreckage of the interior, it is hard to imagine how any passengers seated inside could have survived the attack.
Lovely, just lovely.
An Iraqi army officer said an informant had called in with a tip that the bomb had been attached to the BMW while the NPR journalists were inside the restaurant.
"I received a call just three minutes before it exploded," said Iraqi national army Capt. Heider Fawzi. He said he immediately issued orders to stop traffic on Rabiye Street and to prevent anyone from approaching the vehicle. Fawzi said the bomb may have been triggered by remote control.
I can appreciate NPR's serious treatment and relative restraint here. But this is a big deal, and their colleagues throughout the profession should be up in arms, and saying so.
What's missing today is not money. It's news judgment, and increasingly, esprit de corps. An attack on a journalist anywhere is an attack on journalists everywhere.
Disclosure: I am not, at the moment, a paid journalist. But I will always consider myself a member of the profession, like a lawyer who doesn't practice.
You'll recall that Scooter Libby was very taken with the Aspens who are all connected at the root. McCain seems to appreciate the connections, as well.
