So far on this blog I've limited myself to national governmental politics. I always have an opinion on social commentary, but seldom do I participate in it. Frankly I just don't care as much about it. Nine times out of ten the complaints are sparked by the media, who then fan the flames by reporting non stop 24 hour coverage of the event that they probably started to begin with. It almost makes you wonder if they aren't all working together just to spike ratings, and if they pull names out of a jar to see who will say something shocking next week just so they have something to write about.
I heard about what Don Imus said on CNN, and I had assumed it would die soon after. If we can let Ann Coulter get away with the things she says, and if Chris Rock and Ludacris can sell millions of records and sell out concert halls, surely Imus' gaffe would be talked about, and then we'd move on to the next thing. But this was not to be. The media, playing judge, jury, and executioner decided Imus was ripe for sacrifice on the national media altar. He called the women's Rutgers basketball team "nappy headed hoes." Now, that's certainly a very rude, offensive remark, but it is it something we should fire him over? No, I don't think it is, and here's why:
We have no uniformity in America on what is right and what is wrong for a person to say. Now I have to wonder, because comedians say vile, offensive things all the time, and not only do we give them a pass for it, we pay them to say it. Hip Hop stars are the obvious icons of this sort of language and behavior. They've created an entire culture around them that degrades women into sex objects, oh, and they are stupid, and hard to please, and gold diggers. Hip Hop music isn't just social commentary on a culture already in place, it is the foundational seeds and subsequent water that planted and helped make flourish the very culture they are commenting on. When you turn yourself into a pop culture icon, and then glorify certain behaviors, you'll find millions of willing applicants to emulate your behavior. So many of us throw money at these people, rewarding them for their behavior, but the rest of us just shake our heads as if to say "what are you going to do?" Debra Dickerson can get on The Colbert Report and say that Barack Obama is less of a black person than her because he wasn't descended from Western sub-Saharan black slaves. Now to me, calling someone a nappy headed ho is rude, and ignorant. But calling someone racially inferior just because of where he was born and who his parents were is above and beyond the pale. Instead of punishment, Dickerson is a national bestseller, appears on tv talkshows, and just last week wrote a small opinion piece in TIME magazine. And you don't have to look much further than Chris Rock to find out that making fun of white men is the easiest and most acceptable form of racial and gender inequality in the country. I'm not saying that others forms don't happen, they do all the time, and they are always lambasted. Making fun of a white man? Well, that's just so damned funny!
Well let's assume that those people don't really believe the things they say. They say them for shock value, to sell records, to push books, to drive those ratings up. By not punishing people who say bad things just because they said them, we're saying that words like that have no power in and of themselves. Because it doesn't matter what you are saying really, what really matters is who you are and what you believe. Chris Rock has a free pass, he's black. Margaret Cho has a free pass, she's a woman, and Asian, and overweight to boot! Ann Coulter is, well, I don't know why she gets away with what she says, we'll just label her as the Anti-Christ, no one wants to mess with that. Enter Don Imus. He's an old white man, poster child for a racially insensitive and biased past, something America wants desperately to sweep under the rug. So why are we punishing him and not them? Is it because Imus really is a racist? If so, then what we've done is established that people should be punished for what they believe, not for what they actually say. On the offensive scale, Imus rates maybe a three or four compared to things other major national figures in the media and entertainment world say. But we don't take them at face value. We're punishing Imus for appearing to think that way. I wonder when it was we decided that the best way to fight racism was remove racists from public sight. If Imus truly is a racist, firing him isn't going to make racism go away, it's just sweeping it under the rug, and it's censoring speech and it's censoring thought, and it's just plain stupid.
Pioneers of the civil rights era laid some serious groundwork for their children, and I see a lot of people today seemingly intent on screwing it up. On paper, the races are now equal. The rest of the work should be done by the passage of time. With every passing generation, people become less and less focused on race, and more focused on people for who they are, not what they look like. My own grandfather makes racially insensitive comments from time to time, and gender comments as well. My parents rarely if ever make such comments. My brother does jokingly from time to time, but I know he's one of the most accepting, open individuals I've ever known. The passage of time naturally changes social norms, and we become more accepting as time goes on.
But hey, let's not let that stop us from firing Don Imus for his stupid gaffe, let's put him up for execution in the court of public opinion. Do you think we just made any progress in the fight to end racism by firing him? Well we didn't. The man has millions of regular listeners, and thus one could reasonably state that obviously someone agrees with him. Taking away the voice of Imus, and by proxy, the voice of his listeners harms the process of moving forward, it doesn't help it. In the national dialogue on acceptance and race relations, the media, CBS and hecklers around the country just silenced a voice. Any time in America we actively try to silence someone's voice, I don't think we've taken a step backwards, I think we've fallen down and failed entirely.
I should say that in the end, firing him would make sense if all his sponsors pulled their names from the show, and employing him was no longer profitable. Sponsors have a duty to their companies, they aren't there to support the media, they are there to use the media to sell their wares. So I can see how, in the face of the numerous cancellations from sponsors, firing Imus would make perfect business sense. I however am speaking of a different sense.
It's certainly convenient for us to wrap up all our mixed feelings on race relations, shove them onto Imus and then flush him down the toilet. I'll bet a lot of people felt really satisfied when Imus was fired, like they accomplished something. Sorry to say guys, you accomplished nothing. Firing Imus, in the face of what goes on in this country, is like giving a haircut to a gunshot victim. It might pretty the situation up a little bit, but there's still a festering wound sucking air.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Saturday, April 7, 2007
The Imperial Presidency & A Reality Check
Just a quick note today before I head off to work.
The 20th Century, beginning with Theodore and then drastically improved upon by Franklin Roosevelt saw the rise of the Imperial Presidency. During the 19th Century, presidents before Lincoln, and ever after for awhile, had very little power at all. When phones were first installed in the White House, it was quite common for the president to answer his own phone. But all that's changed now.
Those developments have led us to President Bush, who more than anyone in recent memory embodies the Imperial Presidency. Fights between Bush and the Congress thus far have been little more than skirmishes. Under the leadership of the Republicans, the House largely went along with any and all actions taken by Bush, and with a few exceptions, gave him pretty much everything he wanted (except big ticket items like Social Security reform (which Democrats largely derailed) and Immigration reform (which his own Republicans killed)). But now with Democrats in charge, for barely 100 days, the first Congress/President fight will be over Iraq War funding.
Bush is currently criticizing the Congress basically for not giving him what he wants, and his response to that is to dig his heels in and throw a tantrum. Since when is the Presidency an all powerful position? Since when is the Congress just there to notarize all of Bush's stationary? Congress is there for a reason, and more specifically, they were vested with the power of the purse for a reason. They are specifics checks against potential power abuses by the President. If the President can't convince them that what he wants is a good idea, and he can't pay for it by himself, then it simply doesn't happen. Clinton had to put up with the same thing several times during his administration, most notably the troop withdrawal following that mess in Mogadishu in 1993.
So who does the President think he is? We didn't elect a monarch. Someone needs to give Bush a basic civics lesson. When he asks the Congress for something, it isn't a formality, it's an actual request that they can consider and deny if they so choose. So when he sends a formal request for war funding, it really is a request, and he can't draft his own legislation without them, like he seems to think he can. Just last week he rammed home his choice for the US Ambassador to Belgium, Fox, who was basically pigeonholed by the Foreign Relations Committee, by bypassing the Congress entirely and appointing him with a loophole called 'recess appointments,' which were designed to fill critical positions during sometimes lengthy recesses the Congress can take. It's a bit of an anachronism from older days when travel was longer, as were breaks. It was never meant to be a way to slip past Congress a nominee that would never otherwise pass.
This president thinks he can do anything, and thinks Congress is just a noisy bunch of administrators sitting at America's kid's table, but they aren't. I hope Democrats stonewall him all the way to the very last minute, and maybe even beyond. Because this isn't just about the Iraq War, and it's not just about Democrats and Bush. This is about the shape of the US government, the Imperial Presidency, and checks & balances. This battle is important, and Congress has to win it, lest presidents think they can walk all over the Congress whenever they want. They sidestepped the issue of War Powers four years ago when Bush tried taking us to war without them, but they can't sidestep this one. Oversight and power of the purse aren't just their abilities, they are their duties. And it's high time they started taking them seriously and started doing the jobs we elected them to do.
The 20th Century, beginning with Theodore and then drastically improved upon by Franklin Roosevelt saw the rise of the Imperial Presidency. During the 19th Century, presidents before Lincoln, and ever after for awhile, had very little power at all. When phones were first installed in the White House, it was quite common for the president to answer his own phone. But all that's changed now.
Those developments have led us to President Bush, who more than anyone in recent memory embodies the Imperial Presidency. Fights between Bush and the Congress thus far have been little more than skirmishes. Under the leadership of the Republicans, the House largely went along with any and all actions taken by Bush, and with a few exceptions, gave him pretty much everything he wanted (except big ticket items like Social Security reform (which Democrats largely derailed) and Immigration reform (which his own Republicans killed)). But now with Democrats in charge, for barely 100 days, the first Congress/President fight will be over Iraq War funding.
Bush is currently criticizing the Congress basically for not giving him what he wants, and his response to that is to dig his heels in and throw a tantrum. Since when is the Presidency an all powerful position? Since when is the Congress just there to notarize all of Bush's stationary? Congress is there for a reason, and more specifically, they were vested with the power of the purse for a reason. They are specifics checks against potential power abuses by the President. If the President can't convince them that what he wants is a good idea, and he can't pay for it by himself, then it simply doesn't happen. Clinton had to put up with the same thing several times during his administration, most notably the troop withdrawal following that mess in Mogadishu in 1993.
So who does the President think he is? We didn't elect a monarch. Someone needs to give Bush a basic civics lesson. When he asks the Congress for something, it isn't a formality, it's an actual request that they can consider and deny if they so choose. So when he sends a formal request for war funding, it really is a request, and he can't draft his own legislation without them, like he seems to think he can. Just last week he rammed home his choice for the US Ambassador to Belgium, Fox, who was basically pigeonholed by the Foreign Relations Committee, by bypassing the Congress entirely and appointing him with a loophole called 'recess appointments,' which were designed to fill critical positions during sometimes lengthy recesses the Congress can take. It's a bit of an anachronism from older days when travel was longer, as were breaks. It was never meant to be a way to slip past Congress a nominee that would never otherwise pass.
This president thinks he can do anything, and thinks Congress is just a noisy bunch of administrators sitting at America's kid's table, but they aren't. I hope Democrats stonewall him all the way to the very last minute, and maybe even beyond. Because this isn't just about the Iraq War, and it's not just about Democrats and Bush. This is about the shape of the US government, the Imperial Presidency, and checks & balances. This battle is important, and Congress has to win it, lest presidents think they can walk all over the Congress whenever they want. They sidestepped the issue of War Powers four years ago when Bush tried taking us to war without them, but they can't sidestep this one. Oversight and power of the purse aren't just their abilities, they are their duties. And it's high time they started taking them seriously and started doing the jobs we elected them to do.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Iraq's Double Edged Surge
With the debate heating up between Democrats and President Bush on Iraq war funding, I thought now might be a good time to take a fresh look at the situation as it stands and how we're currently trying to solve it. Things look dire, but there's cause for hope if we take the right actions now.
John McCain recently reported that Iraq has made great progress due to the surge of US troops Bush ordered last month. Mike Pence (R-IN) made the comment that moving about the Shorja market in Baghdad was like "a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime." McCain himself trumpeted his visit to the market saying Americans could move freely through some part of Baghdad. When asked later in the week about his comments, he responded, "I just came from one," he replied sharply. "Things are better and there are encouraging signs." He added, "Never have I been able to go out into the city as I was today." Pence went even further, to say "the most deeply moving thing for me was to mix and mingle unfettered."
What Pence and McCain both left out was that they were wearing bullet proof vests, surrounded by 100 armed soldiers, two blackhawk helicopters, and gunships. Does that sound like a nice afternoon stroll to you? Does a company of soldiers and a couple helicopters for gunship support sound like something the average Iraqi can take advantage of to secure their safety? Local merchants were aghast when told about McCain's comments. Ali Jassim Faiyad, an electronics shop owner in Shorja said "the security procedures are abnormal!" and "they paralyzed the market when they came, this was only for the media. This will not change anything." It's a refreshingly candid appraisal to contrast against McCain's assertions of safety. Despite efforts to secure the market, including restricting car access and erecting blast walls, dozens of people have died in the market in attacks, 61 alone during a three pronged attack on February 12th. In recent weeks, snipers have taken up rooftop positions in the area to pick off people indiscriminately, and gunfights have broken out between Iraqi forces and insurgents. During McCain’s visit, he was assailed with questions by the shopkeepers over what would be done to increase their security, and to tell him how unsafe they felt. Ali Youssef, a glassmaker in the market witnessed these actions. "Everybody complained to them. We told them we were harmed,” he said. "This area here is very dangerous," continued Mr. Youssef, “They cannot secure it." Youssef lost his shop in the attack on February 12th.
After McCain left, shopkeepers expressed their discontent with his visit, saying he was only there for his own purposes, to make himself look good, and the people he visited would be left in the dust. They also feared increase risk of attack, as previous announcements from the Iraqi government of safety and progress usually just gave insurgents another item to add to their list of targets.
McCain might just be on to something though. It appears attacks and violence in general has inched lower during the month of March…in Baghdad. But what about Iraq as a whole? According to the Manilla Times, 1,869 Iraqi civilians were killed in the month of March, after the security crackdown started. To compare, the pre-crackdown death toll for the nation’s civilians, for the month of February, was 1,646. In those two months alone, Iraq has lose more citizens than the US has lost soldiers during the entire war. US military casualties for March were more than double those suffered by Iraqis, suggesting US forces were taking a much more frontline role. That tells me one important thing, that after four years of war, Iraqi forces are still not capable of launching their own missions and rooting out insurgents by themselves. So much for all those optimistic reports of Iraqi units coming online any day now.
So what exactly is going on in the rest of the country? So much of the focus for the past few months has been on Baghdad alone, as if Baghdad were the only place the war was being fought. Next week’s TIME Magazine has a four page article detailing American combat operations and the situation in Diyala Province in Iraq. In November of 2006, when US troops deployed away from Diyala, insurgents took control of the area. A line of relatively peaceful farming hamlets and religiously diverse neighborhoods became sectarian enclaves separated by violent reprisals, turning what was once a calm valley into an unraveled death knell. America struck back in Diyala in February, and at the end of March reclaimed the Qubah, a small village where insurgents lived in safety. After the attack, US troops wrote numbers on the back of men’s necks and women’s hands to track their movements after curfew. Seeing the image of them writing the numbers on their hands and necks with a Sharpie brought to mind images of number tattoos on the arms of Jews in concentration camps. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not comparing US troops to Nazis or Iraqis to Jews. Far from it in fact, I think the US troops there are often a saving grace to the locals, but the images are hard not to connect.
It may be that the Bush Administration surge in Baghdad is doing exactly what we wanted, but it’s having an opposite effect elsewhere in the nation. Displaced insurgents fleeing a US crackdown in Baghdad are heading out into the countryside to join fights already in progress against undermanned US troops in the field. They are also turning once peaceful villages and cities into dens of sectarian hate. Wherever these insurgents go, they incite sectarian violence, killing and partisanship. In many cities, couples that don’t share Shi’a or Sunni as a religion can’t even get their parents blessing to marry anymore. Small arms attacks rose on Diyala against US troops from 33 in July to 98 in February. Last July there were three suicide bombings in Diyala, this February there were five in one week. On some streets in Buhriz, one of the more violent villages in Diyala, US troops face a hailstorm of mortars and shoulder fired rockets. A Stryker battalion commander in Buhriz said he lost 20 men and women from his unit, and more than 800 civilians have died in the fighting.
To underpin the differences between then and now, the situation in Diyala wasn’t always so bad. In November, tensions between Shiites, who make up 30% of the population, and Sunnis, were kept in check by tribal leaders. Captain Mike Few was stationed just outside Baqubah (the provincial capital) at the time, he said “it was manageable in the beginning. The sheikhs were working it out.” But when the US moved forces to Baghdad, sectarian violence exploded. Last year Prime Minister al-Maliki’s largely Shiite government choked off food supplies and fuel to the region, and as the resources dwindled, tribal violence escalated. Sunnis, who had gathered in the area to support al-Zarqawi, the now dead al Qaeda leader, launched an extermination campaign against Shiites, who replied in kind. It’s no surprise that according to a recent poll, as many as 70% of Iraqis don’t want US forces to leave. The locals want to help, in fact a local sheikh tried to help Captain Few and his troops by providing detailed maps of the area, with positions of insurgents, likely ammo storage areas and arms caches. The problem isn’t a lack of willingness from locals, it’s partly a lack of troops, partly a lack of local government, and partly a lack of support from the national government. But even if all that were solved, it would still take years to root out the deep seated rivalries and enmities that now exist all over the country. Troops alone won’t solve the problem, as Colonel Sutherland, the man tasked with clearing out Diyala said, “I can kill all day long. It will do no good.”
Diyala is a poster child of the problem in Iraq. Even a 20,000 troop surge to pacify Baghdad has met with limited success and only bolstered attacks elsewhere in the nation. Finding a station wagon riddled with bullet holes and finding a dead family inside, or a burlap bag with the decapitated head of a family member on your front door step is something every Iraqi has to worry or think about every day in Iraq. Bush’s surge should still be given some time before a judgement is passed, but early signs aren’t cause for celebration. It should be noted that McCain also said in recent speeches that he can’t guarantee success in Iraq. That is some refreshing candor from a US Presidential candidate. Perhaps even enough to offset the utter spin from his previous statements.
So what are we left with? Bush and McCain are wrong, Iraq is still a giant, deadly mess. A half trillion dollars and 3,200 US troop deaths later and I don’t think we’re any closer to a peaceful, independent Iraqi nation than we were after “major combat operations” ended. Pacifying Iraq means a massive troop influx. We need to root out the entire country of insurgents and hold every inch of ground we take, not allowing them to rush back in afterwards. There needs to be nowhere in the country they can escape to and simple wait us out. Right now Cheney and Bush accuse Democrats of setting a date for surrender, that by doing so, all insurgents will have to do is mark a date on their calendars and wait us out. But how is that any different than what they are doing under Bush’s stewardship of the war? Right now, with any number of places to hide, the insurgents have no problem whatsoever waiting us out, because they don’t really have any pressure to hurry up. They are perfectly content to seed discontent all over the country, watching us chase after them like a giant international version of whack-a-mole. Ultimately I think Bush is firing blanks with that one. What we are doing now, in concert with Iraqi governmental ineptitude isn’t working. If the Democrats can be credited with anything, it’s rocking a boat that needs some rocking. Al-Maliki needs a kick in the pants, and maybe the threat of a US troop withdrawal will do just that.
The status quo isn’t going to cut it. But I’m more convinced now than I was before that we need to fix what we broke, and I think that means a massive, massive new troop commitment to Iraq. We need to send enough troops to cover every city and village in the country, to root out arms caches, to search for guns and munitions and to capture insurgents. I refuse to settle for our current efforts. If we aren’t going to commit more troops, then I fully support efforts made by the Democrats to try and force Bush and al-Maliki’s hands. If we aren’t doing anything productive, why be there at all?
The efforts that need to be made aren’t entirely military however. We need to fix the Iraqi government and root out corruption, all things that were brought to light in the Iraq Commission Report, but have since gone ignored by the Administration. Further, we need to engage regional powers in diplomacy. I think Pelosi was right to head to Israel and Syria to open discussions over the situation with them. I find it curious, and ridiculously partisan of Bush to attack Pelosi for her Syria visit when he remained utterly silent over a Republican visit to Syria’s president the previous week. The discussion always seems to be hinged around “should we stay or should we go?” but that’s far too simple a question. We’re not asking: “What’s next?” If we stay, what’s next? If we go, what’s next? If we can’t answer the second question, then answering the first will only get us into far more trouble.
It’s time to have a serious discussion on the situation over there. Democrats would do well to poke holes in Bush’s war plan and offer their own plan for success. They need to put the discussion on equal grounds. Say what is necessary for a victory, and then we can discuss whether or not we have what it takes to win. Bush is making victory sound like something that is always just over the next hill, whereas Democrats are making it sound like victory is at the base of a rainbow. Both of them are wrong, as victory is neither that near, nor that impossible to achieve. Bush is a lame duck, he has nothing to lose by actually being honest with us. His name is political black death to his party, his legacy is currently one of blunder and error. Democrats are losing every major fight they’ve tried to pick with Republicans, who stone wall with Bush’s support, any measure they put forth. Neither of them have anything to lose by having an honest discussion. But I think neither of them realize that putting aside scoring partisan points would probably score them both a lot of points with a populace just looking for a way out of the mess over there.
Source for quotes: AOL Time Warner
John McCain recently reported that Iraq has made great progress due to the surge of US troops Bush ordered last month. Mike Pence (R-IN) made the comment that moving about the Shorja market in Baghdad was like "a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime." McCain himself trumpeted his visit to the market saying Americans could move freely through some part of Baghdad. When asked later in the week about his comments, he responded, "I just came from one," he replied sharply. "Things are better and there are encouraging signs." He added, "Never have I been able to go out into the city as I was today." Pence went even further, to say "the most deeply moving thing for me was to mix and mingle unfettered."
What Pence and McCain both left out was that they were wearing bullet proof vests, surrounded by 100 armed soldiers, two blackhawk helicopters, and gunships. Does that sound like a nice afternoon stroll to you? Does a company of soldiers and a couple helicopters for gunship support sound like something the average Iraqi can take advantage of to secure their safety? Local merchants were aghast when told about McCain's comments. Ali Jassim Faiyad, an electronics shop owner in Shorja said "the security procedures are abnormal!" and "they paralyzed the market when they came, this was only for the media. This will not change anything." It's a refreshingly candid appraisal to contrast against McCain's assertions of safety. Despite efforts to secure the market, including restricting car access and erecting blast walls, dozens of people have died in the market in attacks, 61 alone during a three pronged attack on February 12th. In recent weeks, snipers have taken up rooftop positions in the area to pick off people indiscriminately, and gunfights have broken out between Iraqi forces and insurgents. During McCain’s visit, he was assailed with questions by the shopkeepers over what would be done to increase their security, and to tell him how unsafe they felt. Ali Youssef, a glassmaker in the market witnessed these actions. "Everybody complained to them. We told them we were harmed,” he said. "This area here is very dangerous," continued Mr. Youssef, “They cannot secure it." Youssef lost his shop in the attack on February 12th.
After McCain left, shopkeepers expressed their discontent with his visit, saying he was only there for his own purposes, to make himself look good, and the people he visited would be left in the dust. They also feared increase risk of attack, as previous announcements from the Iraqi government of safety and progress usually just gave insurgents another item to add to their list of targets.
McCain might just be on to something though. It appears attacks and violence in general has inched lower during the month of March…in Baghdad. But what about Iraq as a whole? According to the Manilla Times, 1,869 Iraqi civilians were killed in the month of March, after the security crackdown started. To compare, the pre-crackdown death toll for the nation’s civilians, for the month of February, was 1,646. In those two months alone, Iraq has lose more citizens than the US has lost soldiers during the entire war. US military casualties for March were more than double those suffered by Iraqis, suggesting US forces were taking a much more frontline role. That tells me one important thing, that after four years of war, Iraqi forces are still not capable of launching their own missions and rooting out insurgents by themselves. So much for all those optimistic reports of Iraqi units coming online any day now.
So what exactly is going on in the rest of the country? So much of the focus for the past few months has been on Baghdad alone, as if Baghdad were the only place the war was being fought. Next week’s TIME Magazine has a four page article detailing American combat operations and the situation in Diyala Province in Iraq. In November of 2006, when US troops deployed away from Diyala, insurgents took control of the area. A line of relatively peaceful farming hamlets and religiously diverse neighborhoods became sectarian enclaves separated by violent reprisals, turning what was once a calm valley into an unraveled death knell. America struck back in Diyala in February, and at the end of March reclaimed the Qubah, a small village where insurgents lived in safety. After the attack, US troops wrote numbers on the back of men’s necks and women’s hands to track their movements after curfew. Seeing the image of them writing the numbers on their hands and necks with a Sharpie brought to mind images of number tattoos on the arms of Jews in concentration camps. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not comparing US troops to Nazis or Iraqis to Jews. Far from it in fact, I think the US troops there are often a saving grace to the locals, but the images are hard not to connect.
It may be that the Bush Administration surge in Baghdad is doing exactly what we wanted, but it’s having an opposite effect elsewhere in the nation. Displaced insurgents fleeing a US crackdown in Baghdad are heading out into the countryside to join fights already in progress against undermanned US troops in the field. They are also turning once peaceful villages and cities into dens of sectarian hate. Wherever these insurgents go, they incite sectarian violence, killing and partisanship. In many cities, couples that don’t share Shi’a or Sunni as a religion can’t even get their parents blessing to marry anymore. Small arms attacks rose on Diyala against US troops from 33 in July to 98 in February. Last July there were three suicide bombings in Diyala, this February there were five in one week. On some streets in Buhriz, one of the more violent villages in Diyala, US troops face a hailstorm of mortars and shoulder fired rockets. A Stryker battalion commander in Buhriz said he lost 20 men and women from his unit, and more than 800 civilians have died in the fighting.
To underpin the differences between then and now, the situation in Diyala wasn’t always so bad. In November, tensions between Shiites, who make up 30% of the population, and Sunnis, were kept in check by tribal leaders. Captain Mike Few was stationed just outside Baqubah (the provincial capital) at the time, he said “it was manageable in the beginning. The sheikhs were working it out.” But when the US moved forces to Baghdad, sectarian violence exploded. Last year Prime Minister al-Maliki’s largely Shiite government choked off food supplies and fuel to the region, and as the resources dwindled, tribal violence escalated. Sunnis, who had gathered in the area to support al-Zarqawi, the now dead al Qaeda leader, launched an extermination campaign against Shiites, who replied in kind. It’s no surprise that according to a recent poll, as many as 70% of Iraqis don’t want US forces to leave. The locals want to help, in fact a local sheikh tried to help Captain Few and his troops by providing detailed maps of the area, with positions of insurgents, likely ammo storage areas and arms caches. The problem isn’t a lack of willingness from locals, it’s partly a lack of troops, partly a lack of local government, and partly a lack of support from the national government. But even if all that were solved, it would still take years to root out the deep seated rivalries and enmities that now exist all over the country. Troops alone won’t solve the problem, as Colonel Sutherland, the man tasked with clearing out Diyala said, “I can kill all day long. It will do no good.”
Diyala is a poster child of the problem in Iraq. Even a 20,000 troop surge to pacify Baghdad has met with limited success and only bolstered attacks elsewhere in the nation. Finding a station wagon riddled with bullet holes and finding a dead family inside, or a burlap bag with the decapitated head of a family member on your front door step is something every Iraqi has to worry or think about every day in Iraq. Bush’s surge should still be given some time before a judgement is passed, but early signs aren’t cause for celebration. It should be noted that McCain also said in recent speeches that he can’t guarantee success in Iraq. That is some refreshing candor from a US Presidential candidate. Perhaps even enough to offset the utter spin from his previous statements.
So what are we left with? Bush and McCain are wrong, Iraq is still a giant, deadly mess. A half trillion dollars and 3,200 US troop deaths later and I don’t think we’re any closer to a peaceful, independent Iraqi nation than we were after “major combat operations” ended. Pacifying Iraq means a massive troop influx. We need to root out the entire country of insurgents and hold every inch of ground we take, not allowing them to rush back in afterwards. There needs to be nowhere in the country they can escape to and simple wait us out. Right now Cheney and Bush accuse Democrats of setting a date for surrender, that by doing so, all insurgents will have to do is mark a date on their calendars and wait us out. But how is that any different than what they are doing under Bush’s stewardship of the war? Right now, with any number of places to hide, the insurgents have no problem whatsoever waiting us out, because they don’t really have any pressure to hurry up. They are perfectly content to seed discontent all over the country, watching us chase after them like a giant international version of whack-a-mole. Ultimately I think Bush is firing blanks with that one. What we are doing now, in concert with Iraqi governmental ineptitude isn’t working. If the Democrats can be credited with anything, it’s rocking a boat that needs some rocking. Al-Maliki needs a kick in the pants, and maybe the threat of a US troop withdrawal will do just that.
The status quo isn’t going to cut it. But I’m more convinced now than I was before that we need to fix what we broke, and I think that means a massive, massive new troop commitment to Iraq. We need to send enough troops to cover every city and village in the country, to root out arms caches, to search for guns and munitions and to capture insurgents. I refuse to settle for our current efforts. If we aren’t going to commit more troops, then I fully support efforts made by the Democrats to try and force Bush and al-Maliki’s hands. If we aren’t doing anything productive, why be there at all?
The efforts that need to be made aren’t entirely military however. We need to fix the Iraqi government and root out corruption, all things that were brought to light in the Iraq Commission Report, but have since gone ignored by the Administration. Further, we need to engage regional powers in diplomacy. I think Pelosi was right to head to Israel and Syria to open discussions over the situation with them. I find it curious, and ridiculously partisan of Bush to attack Pelosi for her Syria visit when he remained utterly silent over a Republican visit to Syria’s president the previous week. The discussion always seems to be hinged around “should we stay or should we go?” but that’s far too simple a question. We’re not asking: “What’s next?” If we stay, what’s next? If we go, what’s next? If we can’t answer the second question, then answering the first will only get us into far more trouble.
It’s time to have a serious discussion on the situation over there. Democrats would do well to poke holes in Bush’s war plan and offer their own plan for success. They need to put the discussion on equal grounds. Say what is necessary for a victory, and then we can discuss whether or not we have what it takes to win. Bush is making victory sound like something that is always just over the next hill, whereas Democrats are making it sound like victory is at the base of a rainbow. Both of them are wrong, as victory is neither that near, nor that impossible to achieve. Bush is a lame duck, he has nothing to lose by actually being honest with us. His name is political black death to his party, his legacy is currently one of blunder and error. Democrats are losing every major fight they’ve tried to pick with Republicans, who stone wall with Bush’s support, any measure they put forth. Neither of them have anything to lose by having an honest discussion. But I think neither of them realize that putting aside scoring partisan points would probably score them both a lot of points with a populace just looking for a way out of the mess over there.
Source for quotes: AOL Time Warner
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