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Rob Lafferty ⁽³⁷⁾ United States

Rob Lafferty

Moon Valley Press

Wall Street Bailout Won't Cut the Cost of Fighting In Iraq

Posted Tuesday, December 02, 2008 (356 days 10 hours ago.) Viewed 1,348 times.

With all the talk about various financial crises and the need for the government to pump money into a struggling economy, not much is being said about the massive amounts of US dollars flowing into military operations in the desert sands of Iraq and mountain valleys of Afghanistan.

How much money? Forget about numbers, there are so many, so massive that they're almost meaningless. It's just one huge pile of cash, the equivalent of taking several thousand dollars out of the pockets of every man, woman and child in America every year during each the past five years.

Add at least three more years to that total right now, because it's likely that we'll still have at least 30,000 US troops in Iraq through 2011. From the perspective of military commanders, that number is beginning to look like the operative number for troops to be permanently stationed in Iraq.

Administration officials recently held a closed briefing for US House of Representatives members on an agreement that sets a 2011 deadline for US troops to withdraw from Iraq. It's called the Status of Forces Agreement, and it's top secret in English, anyway. The Bush administration wouldn't release any copies or discuss any details of the agreement, and still won't. You could read it in Arabic right away, however, thanks to al-Sabah, a newspaper funded by the Iraqi government, and now there are several English translations available from Arabic sources.

The second public reading in Iraq's Parliment of the SOFA dissolved into chaos when a near-riot erupted between two of the major political factions in that deeply divided government. The agreement was ratified in the end, but the vote was close. It's likely that suicide bombers and "insurgents" who fight gun battles with US troops will never respect any agreement unless it's in their own best interests, so violence will continue to be a way of life in Baghdad and Mosul and every major town in the country.

One major problem for all parties involved was the question of Iraqi legal jurisdiction over crimes committed by American soldiers. It's important to many Iraqi lawmakers who steadily insisted on that legal protection as part of any agreement. It's also been a condition that the Bush administration resisted as long as possible, but now appear to have conceded or so it would seem from reading a translation of the proposed agreement provided by Radio Free Europe.

Included in that agreement are terms stating that all US troops will get out of the towns and villages of Iraq by June of 2009, returning to quarters on seven major airbases and dozens of outposts established in the country where they presumably will hunker down and wait to called upon for special operations. They'll probably do some training of Iraqi military forces while they're waiting out their of duty. It could mean safer, more comfortable tours than our soldiers endured in the past, but the whole arrangement makes one question the need for those troops to be there at all.

That arrangement is also a direct insult to the 30 percent of the Iraqi people who openly oppose any agreement that allows American soldiers to remain on sovereign Iraq soil beyond the Dec. 31 deadline now imposed by the United Nations. At a public referendum to be held in July 2009, the Iraqi people will vote. If they reject this agreement, US troops will have just one year to withdraw completely or maybe not, according to various interpretations of the document.

It seems likely that a majority of the Iraqi people will reject the agreement, partly because the process of ratification was illegal under Iraq's Constitution. The law requires a two-thirds majority for passage of an accord of this kind; the al-Maliki administration has decided that the SOFA pact will take effect despite reaching only a bare majority of votes for approval.

The agreement also stipulates that the US will defend Iraq against any "external or internal danger" without, in the eyes of military command, stating any specific end date for that obligation. Those US commanders also plan to have troops there training and supporting the Iraqi police and military for much longer than three years.

There's also the matter of the Green Zone in the heart of Baghdad where the massive US Embassy complex is located. That entire area will need high security from frequent mortar and rocket attacks that are difficult to defend against. It's unlikely that we'll ever leave protection of the Green Zone to Iraqi security forces.

So the nightmare in the minds of a lot of folks who fear the humiliation of American troops flying home in droves during the last days of the Bush administration while most of their equipment lies stranded in the desert, looted or burned, is one that quickly fades under the harsh light of reality. There's been a steady stream of equipment flowing into the country for more than five years now; it could take almost as long to get all of it out.

So we won't be leaving quickly even if we decide tomorrow to stop risking the lives of US soldiers on patrols there. We'll keep sending troops and private contractors in for at least the next two years, pouring more money into those huge air bases and hundreds of other facilities that should never have been constructed in the first place.

We've already spent deep pools of money and fossil fuels to ship all our Occupation stuff over there. Now we'll spend more to keep it all there a year or two longer before we start bringing some of it home, where we'll declare it surplus and sell it off cheap.

All of that could change, but it won't be the Obama administration that changes conditions in Iraq. It seems unlikely, but the Iraqi people might yet unify beyond expectations and insist that we leave them to their own devices. If they get serious, then leave we will and we'll leave a lot of our stuff behind.

Which might well be the best thing to do right now, given current circumstances. If we start turning over the facilities we've built to the Iraqi government and give our non-weaponry equipment to the Iraqi people, then our soldiers can leave a little bit sooner, we'll earn some much-needed good will and save a ton of money at the same time.

Because we'll be needing those soldiers and that money for the planned escalation of military operations inside Afghanistan and across the border into Pakistan. That buildup was an Obama campaign promise and is almost certain to happen despite the recent words of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

"This war has gone on for seven years," Karzai said. "The Afghans don't understand anymore how come a little force like the Taliban can continue to exist, can continue to flourish, can continue to launch attacks with 40 countries in Afghanistan, with entire NATO force in Afghanistan, with the entire international community behind them. Still we are not able to defeat the Taliban."

Karzai is ready to open negotiations and tone down the military approach. US bombs and rockets have killed a lot of innocent Afghani people over the years, and the frequency of civilian deaths is increasing. Karzai faces re-election next year, so he's making a political message when he complains about the loss of innocent lives. He knows that outside the capital of Kabul, US involvement in Afghan affairs is deeply resented by most of the people in this ancient, independent land.

So the reality on the ground won't be driving our military policy in Iraq or Afghanistan during the next few years. The will of the majority in either country won't be respected. US troops will continue to sacrifice their lives for an undetermined and questionable cause. And we'll keeping poring money into those combined Middle East operations despite our desperate need to invest that money right here at home.

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Partisan Politricks

Posted Wednesday, September 24, 2008 (1 year 60 days ago.) Viewed 620 times.

"Political language – and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists – is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." – George Orwell

You're a loyal Democrat or a loyal Republican. You vote in every presidential election and you vote for your party's candidate each time. You're a true believer, a partisan – and you're part of the problem in what passes for democracy in our modern American Republic.

You're in there with the people who vote from an irrational fear that terrorists will kill them unless we elect a Strong Leader to keep us safe so that we can die some other day from some other cause. Fear is the oldest of the many politricks that candidates use, because it still works. It was a key factor in 2004; a lot of people overlooked the fact that George Bush was actually the man in charge when the 9/11 attacks happened because Bush somehow made them feel safer than John (Scary) Kerry.

You're also in there with those voters who choose a president based solely on who has the best speaking skills, which is often the most visible form of politricks. At least you're not alone ? most of us are quick to praise anyone who tells us what we want to hear, and we'll reward them with our vote if they say it with a little style and flair. If Al (Bore) Gore had shown just a bit more charisma in 2000, the American social landscape would be noticeably different today.

You're in the problem pool with all those well-intentioned folks who somehow became enablers of the politricks that rule our modern version of democracy ? but at least you vote, and doing your civic duty tends to balance your political karma. In November comes another chance to exercise your right and fulfill your obligation to vote in elections. It's also a chance for your redemption as a voter.

The path to voter redemption is a path that leads away from partisan loyalties, away from emotional responses to oratory, away from the politricks of Fear in its many forms. It's a path that starts an honest assessment of what the federal government should be doing for the American people, and ends with a vote for the best person to manage our government's responsibility to serve the American people. It's also a path seldom taken...

The Democratic Party offers Barack Obama as their candidate for the 2008 popularity contest. The similarity of his surname and Osama bin Laden's first name may be a portent of doom, but Obama can probably overcome that kind of politricks because he's an engaging public speaker who can inspire a crowd. That doesn't prove he would make a good president, but we made a similar choice in 1960 when we elected a young John Kennedy over the experienced Richard Nixon by a narrow margin.

The Republican Party decided many months ago that John McCain would be their candidate to succeed the Worst President Ever, who is also a Republican. They may be able to overcome recent history by admitting that they let the party get hijacked by a neo-conservative fringe group who led everyone into strange and undesirable territory. That admission won't come until next year for most GOP partisans, however, and the election will probably have been lost by then.

In terms of how they will govern if given the chance, it just doesn't matter what Obama or McCain or Joe Biden or Sarah Palin say during the next six weeks, because the motive behind their scripted comments will be purely to draw votes. They may let an interesting thing or two slip out that reveals a fundamental part of themselves to the public, but any connection their speeches may have to our common reality will be purely circumstantial.

McCain showed that disconnection between politricks and the real world in his acceptance speech at the Republican convention. The crowd fed on his words like a hungry beast, drowning out the voices of protesters with chants of "USA, USA" and cheering loudly whenever McCain spoke those magic phrases that define core Republican values. He called for Change in the politics of Washington D.C. and promised to lead us all into an Era of Change.

The reality of the past three decades had nothing to do with McCain's speech. A Republican president has been in the White House for 20 of the last 28 years; "Reaganomics" has been the primary policy of this country since 1980; and from 2000 through 2006 the Republican Party controlled the Presidency, the Senate and the House of Representatives at the same time. The folks in Minnesota who cheered McCain's call for government reform are the same folks who put the current government into office; that reality won't change no matter how the pundits try to spin it.

McCain has been a Senator from Arizona for 26 of those 28 years of Republican domination. He has a long record that can be examined, as does Joe Biden with his 33 years as a Delaware Senator. Both McCain and Biden are decent men who have done good things over the years, but after all those years in office neither one has much credibility as a political Agent of Change. We have a long history of looking to the fringes of the system for our Reformers, not to someone deeply embedded within it.

Despite all their talk of Change, both McCain and Obama chose their vice-president from the ranks of the strong Party faithful. Instead of trying to "balance the ticket" with someone who would appeal to independent voters, each man sought to unify his political base of loyal partisans. Each decision seems to have worked – so far – but it leaves us with another campaign between two antagonistic groups who are ready, in McCain's words, to "stand up and fight" for whatever they believe is worth fighting for.

And as it turns out, those two governing philosophies are actually more alike than they are different. Neither candidate will be able to deliver on any ambitious campaign promise because the country is too deep in debt to afford anything beyond the continued military and defense spending that both candidates propose. McCain wants to keep a lot of US troops in Iraq. Obama wants to take a lot of them out of Iraq and send them to Afghanistan. Those are two different approaches strategically, but they're not as different as, say, ending the occupation of Iraq and bringing all US troops home from Afghanistan. Especially from a soldier's perspective...

With only two narrowly opposed philosophies of government to choose from in a presidential election, it's not surprising that most folks don't bother to vote at all – especially poor folks, who know from history that their lives won't get any better no matter who wins. There are also a huge number of potential voters who are so disgusted by the politricks of partisanship that they refuse to participate in a spectacle where they're expected to play the role of a happy warrior being led into battle.

Presidents don't always need to be the smartest person in the room, but they should have enough honor to show some respect for the intelligence of the citizens who elected them. McCain speaks critically of Obama's lack of foreign policy experience and praises Palin for her judgment. He knows Obama has shown solid judgment as a Senator while Palin has never even met a foreign head of state, so instead of the "straight talk" he claims to be famous for, McCain uses the language of politricks to obscure both issues.

In the end, another ancient politrick will decide the 2008 winner-take-all election. It will come when the Electoral College meets to count their votes on January 6, 2009. Because when you mark your ballot on Nov. 4, you won't actually be voting in a national election. Oh, they'll count your vote and announce the national total, but it's the winner in each state that matters.

An American presidential election is actually 50 state elections. The candidate who wins a state – even by only one vote – wins all that state's votes in the Electoral College count. Or maybe not; Hawai‘i is one of only 26 states (plus the District of Columbia) that require Electors to vote for the candidate who won their state. In the 24 states that allow Electors to disregard the November results, voters can't be sure if their ballot matters because they can't be sure how their Electors will vote in January. So when you cast your ballot, don't harbor the illusion that it's being done in a one-person, one-vote process where all votes are equal.

Whatever that final result turns out to be, Americans should not expect to be represented by the next President. We will, instead, be Led by a Leader who will take us all someplace we don't really want to go. That's the ultimate politrick, and it works every time.

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