[Peace-discuss] Bush wins again, with MoveOn's help

[C. G. Estabrook]

With the appearance of Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker in Washington 
today, the Bush administration scored another victory in its campaign of 
support for its criminal war in the Middle East -- as it has done 
consistently since last autumn's election -- in part because their only 
formal opposition is a mendacious pretense by the Democratic party. 
(It's true that there was some real opposition at today's hearings -- 
from Code Pink and Cindy Sheehan, who was arrested; but, lacking support 
from the Democrats, they have been successfully marginalized.)

Of course, the Democratic party doesn't oppose the general policy of 
which the war in Iraq is a part -- they promote it when they are in 
office, as they did in the Clinton administration -- but they now have 
to pretend that they do, because the American public does.  They think 
they can gain some factional advantage -- a presidency and more seats in 
Congress -- by using against the Republicans the general the dismay with 
the war, but their hypocrisy couldn't be more apparent.  (It's 
recognized by the public, who give an abysmally low rating to the 
Democratic Congress, while the President's is rising).

Both parties are substantially to the right of the populace, on this as 
on other issues, because the real constituency of both is not the 
majority of the American people but that small segment that controls 
wealth and power, whose interests are at war with those of the majority.

So in fact it's the Democrats who have the more difficult problem in 
public relations, and they're not solving it.  Their principal 
opposition today to the administration's seduction of the public came in 
the form of an (expensive) full-page as in the New York Times -- which 
begins and ends with a childish pun on Petraeus' name.  (The text of the 
ad is appended.)

The ad's argument is about what is happening now in the war in Iraq -- 
not the fact that the war is an example of supreme international crime, 
much less that it is part of general criminal policy.  The ad makes four 
points:
	[1] "The surge strategy has failed." (The ad implies that if it 
succeeded -- apparently by establishing a peaceful, biddable Iraqi 
government -- that would be OK.  In fact the surge strategy is a classic 
counterinsurgency campaign, on the Vietnam model, Petraeus' topic for 
his Princeton degree; it has succeeded at preventing the only real 
threat to the US position, a unified opposition capable of demanding 
that the US leave, which is of course what the majority of Iraqis want 
-- and what the surge was meant to prevent.)
	[2] "A reduction in violence" has not occurred.  (The violence is the 
result of the US invasion and occupation, which killed hundreds of 
thousands of Iraqis and set the Iraqi communities at one another's 
throats, when they resisted the US attempt to oppose an unelected 
government that would follow American orders.  In fact the non-violent 
resistance of the Shia communities, even more than the armed resistance 
of the Sunnis, forced the US to hold elections, the outcome of which the 
US has struggled to control.)
	[3] "Iraq is mired in an unwinnable religious civil war."  (The ad 
implies that if the war were winnable, then that too would be OK. 
Insofar as it's true that the war is religious, it's a result of 
American policy, which for many years in the Middle East has been to 
destroy secular political liberation movements by promoting 
religiously-identified ones, such as Hamas.)
	[4] Americans want "a timetable for withdrawing all our troops." 
(That's true, and it's the source of the Democrats' PR problem.  But, as 
the Democratic presidential candidates make clear, it is the party's 
view that such "redeployment" must take place so as to secure the 
overall goal of US policy in the Middle East -- that the US continue 
effectively to control the region's energy resources as a way to 
manipulate America's economic and geopolitical rivals.)

This ad is specifically not designed to unite an anti-war constituency 
across the artificial divide of American politics, but in fact to 
maintain that divide by rallying Democrats with a partisan and 
unprincipled attack.  Instead of promoting an anti-war movement beyond 
the party divisions, it wants to promote the party by the use of antiwar 
sentiments, so long as the discussion is kept within the limits of 
allowable debate.  The Democratic party front groups like MoveOn are a 
Fifth Column for the American ruling class, and they may once again 
manage to co-opt and destroy an anti-war movement -- and elect a pro-war 
president in 2008.  --CGE

===================

GENERAL PETRAEUS OR GENERAL BETRAY US?

Cooking the Books for he White House
'
General Petraeus is a military man constantly at war with the facts. In 
2004, just before the election, he said there was “tangible progress” in 
Iraq and that “Iraqi leaders are stepping forward.” And last week 
Petraeus, the architect of the escalation of troops in Iraq, said, “We 
say we have achieved progress, and we are obviously going to do 
everything we can to build on that progress.”

Every independent report on the ground situation in Iraq shows that the 
surge strategy has failed. Yet the General claims a reduction in 
violence. That’s because, according to the New York Times, the Pentagon 
has adopted a bizarre formula for keeping tabs on violence. For example, 
deaths by car bombs don’t count. The Washington Post reported that 
assassinations only count if you’re shot in the back of the head — not 
the front. According to the Associated Press, there have been more 
civilian deaths and more American soldier deaths in the past three 
months than in any other summer we’ve been there. We’ll hear of 
neighborhoods where violence has decreased. But we won’t hear that those 
neighborhoods have been ethnically cleansed.

Most importantly, General Petraeus will not admit what everyone knows: 
Iraq is mired in an unwinnable religious civil war. We may hear of a 
plan to withdraw a few thousand American troops. But we won’t hear what 
Americans are desperate to hear: a timetable for withdrawing all our 
troops. General Petraeus has actually said American troops will need to 
stay in Iraq for as long as ten years.

Today, before Congress and before the American people, General Petraeus 
is likely to become General Betray Us.

--MoveOn.org Political Action

===================