Bush's Disastrous Troop Plan In Iraq there are no good options, but President Bush's plan to expand the armed forces appears inclined to the worst.
By Christopher Dickey Newsweek Dec. 21, 2006 - Not so very many years ago, Baghdad thrived with intellectuals and artists, a few of whom survived even during the decades of Saddam Hussein's single-minded tyranny. The poets considered T.S. Eliot something of a god, and his iconic work, "The Waste Land" a kind of scripture. They found hope in the notion that love and sacrifice might triumph over the despair and sterile devastation of their own "cracked earth." Today, those I knew in Baghdad who remembered Eliot and wrote about him have died or, long since, abandoned a city that has become the epicenter of a widening civil war. But as I watched President George W. Bush give his press conference yesterday, I couldn't help thinking of another Eliot poem. In "The Hollow Men," there is that line about "paralysed force, gestures without motion," and the famous conclusion about the world ending "not with a bang but a whimper." And there was Bush: trying desperately to contrive some way to claim a triumph in a country he has turned into death's dream kingdom, pretending to have strategies where none exist, ignoring realities and taking refuge in willful ignorance even as he claimed to feel the pain of the dying. What Bush appears to be talking about now is essentially an incremental change masquerading as a bid to turn the tide of the conflict. He wants to increase the size of the American armed forces, he said. But when he was asked if he supported a proposed "surge" of 20,000 or more American soldiers on the ground in Baghdad, he equivocated: "I haven't made up my mind yet about more troops." He is listening to advice, he claimed, and he doesn't want to give away the big announcements he's got planned for January: "I'm not going to speculate out loud about what I'm going to tell the nation, when I'm prepared to do so, about the way forward." Apparently The Decider has decided not to explain to the public what he's decided until he decides he's good and ready. Decidedly, we've heard this kind of spin before. Four years ago, when Bush knew damn well he was going to invade Iraq, he kept telling the public he hadn't made any final determination. That's just his way. But I hope I'm wrong. I hope the president really does listen to his generals and to the Iraq Study Group and to others who are explaining to him ever so patiently that the surge would be a bad idea. Maybe a sports metaphor would work: this is like calling a quarterback sneak for a final desperate push into the end zone -- when you're still back at the 50-yard line. "Operation Forward Together" in August and September, the last grand plan to secure Baghdad by pouring in more troops (and cruelly extending their tours at the last minute was a dismal failure. Insurgent attacks increased 22 percent by October. A few thousand more Americans on the streets aren't going to change such savage arithmetic. And, as the skeptical generals keep asking, what function are those boots on the ground supposed to serve? If their job is to separate Iraqi Shiite and Sunni neighbors who've learned to fear and loathe each other since the U.S. invasion, who now nourish ferocious vendettas, and who thoroughly disrespect American grunts who share nothing of their language, faith, culture or long-term concerns -- well, that's just not going to work. We will have made our big push, our last-ditch drive, and come up short. The surge is a surefire formula, in fact, for turning what still could be called a retreat with honor into an outright defeat with humiliation. That is just what America's enemies around the world would like to see -- and it is just what the wise men and the sage woman on the Iraq Study Group wanted to avoid. Their plan as of two weeks ago (it seems so long already) was for "our" Iraqis to win the war, of course, if such a thing were possible, but much more importantly for the Iraqis to bear responsibility for losing it if they fail to get their act together. It was a cynical strategy for shifting blame, and far from ideal, but at least it wasn't built on a cheerleader's delusion that more American muscle is what it takes to set the Iraqis straight. Meanwhile, the chances to pursue diplomacy that could stabilize the region are fast disappearing. Flynt Leverett, formerly a senior CIA analyst and a National Security Council staffer in Bush's first term, presented a powerfully argued paper at a Century Foundation conference in Washington earlier this month advocating a "grand bargain" with Iran. To help defuse the conflict in Iraq, stabilize Lebanon and persuade Tehran to curtail its nuclear ambitions, the United States would offer Iran solid security guarantees as well as economic and technological cooperation. Why does Leverett think this would be effective? Because he and his wife, diplomat Hillary Mann, were involved with the secret negotiations the Bush administration conducted with Tehran for a year and a half. His paper traces those talks -- and the way the administration fumbled them, then sabotaged them -- step by step. Now, Leverett warns that the window for any such agreement is closing as Iran sees American power and prestige waning quickly, its own strength growing and its nuclear centrifuges spinning. The White House reaction to Leverett's ideas? He sought official clearance to publish essentially the same material on The New York Times op-ed page last week (as a former CIA man, Leverett has to do this, and he already had gotten approval for the academic paper). He was told the op-ed piece couldn't be published. It touched on material that was too sensitive. And so we go on: led by the hollow men toward a waste land of their own making. (c) 2006 MSNBC.com *** Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2006 12:56:49 -0500 (EST) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [NYTr] 1917: Amid War, Women Picket White House for Votes To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (NY Transfer List) Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Womens eNews - Dec 22, 2006 http://www.womensenews.org Women Picket White House for Votes, Against Backdrop of War Jan. 10, 1917: Spectacles begin outside the gates of the White House. By Louise Bernikow WeNews historian (WOMENSENEWS)--There were 12 women on the first day, a chilly Jan. 10, 1917. They stood silently outside the gates of Woodrow Wilson's White House wearing overcoats, scarves and gloves, holding large banners in purple, white and gold that said: "Mr. President, What will you do for woman suffrage?" This bold move, which made headlines across the country, had been dreamed up by Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, both veterans of the campaign for suffrage in England, where women chained themselves to fences and went to jail to win the vote. Until then, the U.S. movement had largely concentrated on persuading male voters and legislators to pass suffrage in each individual state of the union. Paul and her supporters took the fight to the streets and set their eyes on rousing national public opinion to force Congress and the president to amend the U.S. Constitution and guarantee women the right to vote. Widespread publicity attracted many critics who called the women "unpatriotic" or "traitors" for persisting in the face of war in Europe, which the U.S. was to enter soon. They also attracted supporters, who joined the picketers or brought them coffee or hot bricks to stand on as winter whipped around them. Over the next 18 months, thousands came to the capital to participate in this piece of political street theater, among them the Catholic activist Dorothy Day, poet Louise Bryant, members of Daughters of the American Revolution, relatives of prominent politicians and workers from the garment trades. As circumstances changed, so did the tactics of the demonstrators. When Wilson went from greeting his critics with amusement and cordiality to intractability, the protestors redoubled their efforts. They marked the day of his second inauguration--March 4, 1917--as hundreds of women with banners encircled the White House while a band played. On April 2, as the president and Congress voted to enter the war in Europe "to make the world safe for democracy," the banners began to echo the rhetoric and challenged, "How long must women wait for liberty?" As war fever swept the nation, the picketers kept pace: "How long must women be denied a voice in a government that is conscripting their sons?" Throughout the war, the escalation continued. Beaten by street mobs and jailed in large numbers, the protestors declared themselves political prisoners. Their banners, even as peace talks drew near in 1918, audaciously called the president "Kaiser Wilson," mocked his words at the White House gates by burning pages of his speeches on democracy and eventually set fire to an effigy of the president himself. On May 19, 1919, after the war ended, a special session of Congress was convened to begin passage of the 19th Amendment and the curtain came down on the White House pickets. The federal amendment would make its way through Congress and be ratified by 36 states until it was quietly signed into law on Aug. 26, 1920. [Louise Bernikow is the author of seven books and numerous magazine articles. She travels to campuses and community groups with a lecture and slide show about activism called "The Shoulders We Stand On: Women as Agents of Change." She can be reached at [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more information: Alice Paul Institute: http://www.alicepaul.org/ Sewall-Belmont House: http://www.sewallbelmont.org/ *** Please forward widely! Dear friends of United for Peace & Justice, Momentum is beginning to build for the politically urgent mobilization on Saturday, Jan. 27th. There are already more than 500 endorsements for the demonstration and we are hearing from groups around the country that they are organizing to get people to Washington, DC. In order to send the strongest, clearest message to the new Congress we are working hard to have the largest turnout possible. And we have set another important goal for this mobilization: We want to have at least one person from each of the 435 Congressional districts marching on Jan. 27th to help represent the truly nationwide peace majority. We are inviting you to sign up to be a local coordinator for people coming from your area to Washington, DC. Being a local coordinator means doing the things we hope you are already doing -- spreading the word and encouraging people to come to DC, helping to arrange buses, car caravans or rideshares, hosting a sign-making party -- but it also will mean following up with people in your area who will find you through the coordinator's listing on our website. Many of you are already working on some or all of these activities -- and more! Now we've set up this system to help people in your area connect with your efforts. By signing up as a local coordinator, you will be putting your congressional district on our map that will show that folks are coming from all around the country to stand up for peace! a.. Sign up and/or find out more information about being a local coordinator b.. Ideas and resources for local coordinators c.. Once you sign up, your location and info will show up on this map and people will be able to "RSVP" for whatever you are organizing (car caravan, sign-making party, etc.). You will then be able to log in and change or update your listing as needed, and also contact the people who have RSVP'd for your listing. This is a great way to reach new people in your area, to build your group's membership if you have one, or even to start a new one. If you want to know more about the role of the coordinators before signing up, please get in touch with either Susan Chenelle (susan at unitedforpeace.org) or Leslie Kauffman (lak at unitedforpeace.org); both can be reached by phone at 212-868-5545. If you have other creative ideas for organizing people to come to DC that we haven't listed here or in our materials on the website, please let Susan or Leslie know and we'll share them in future bulletins to member groups. LOGISTICAL INFORMATION Many of the details of the January mobilization are still being worked out, so please keep checking the UFPJ website for updates. Here is the information so far: a.. We have applied for permits to assemble on the east end of the National Mall, the end closest to the Capitol, and for a march route that will allow us to literally march around the Capitol. b.. Tentative times: assemble - 11am to 1pm; march step-off - 1pm; end of march - 4pm c.. Lobby Day: On Monday, January 29th, we will meet with members of Congress and/or their aides; a training for the lobby day will be held on Sunday, Jan. 28th. If you are organizing buses or can offer any kind of transportation to DC, please post the details on our ride board ASAP. (Click here for tips on organizing buses.) We also have a housing board and info on affordable lodging in the DC area. And, of course, we hope everyone will make whatever financial contribution you can to help make this an historic mobilization. Visit www.unitedforpeace.org for further resources and updates on the January 27-29 mobilization. Together we can end this war! -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help us continue to do this critical work: Make a donation to UFPJ today. 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