[Peace] News notes for the AWARE meeting 2007-08-26

[C. G. Estabrook]

SUNDAY 26 AUGUST 2007 (On this day in 1920 the 19th Amendment  --
women's suffrage -- is ratified; in 1968, the National Students
Association reports that 221 major college protests against Vietnam War
had occurred in the year to date.)

[1] The Financial Times wrote this week, "George W. Bush on Wednesday
said the consequences of a US withdrawal from Iraq could echo the
'killing fields' genocide that destroyed Cambodia after the US pulled
out from Vietnam in the mid-1970s."
	Bush's speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars seems to show that the 
restraints on the administration's war party -- apparently exercised for 
prudential reasons by the departing Karl Rove -- have come off.  Bush 
placed the war in Iraq squarely into the mythology of a century-long 
fight for freedom by the US against a largely undifferentiated enemy -- 
fascism, communism and terrorism.  The administration had until now 
strenuously resisted any comparison between Vietnam and Iraq, for the 
obvious reason that three out of four Americans came to recognize that 
the war in Vietnam was "fundamentally wrong and immoral," not just "a 
mistake," according to the longitudinal surveys of the Chicago Council 
on Foreign Relations.
	Now, however, in a direct reversal of his previous rhetorical stance, 
Bush argued that Iraq was like Vietnam, where "the price of America’s 
withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens." That was the 
specious argument the Nixon administration used against withdrawing from 
Vietnam, that it would result in a "bloodbath."  Contrary to what the 
USG often says, no bloodbath occurred when the US withdrew from Vietnam.
	The killing in Cambodia, on the other hand, was not a result of US 
withdrawal -- the US never occupied Cambodia -- but rather a result of 
the massive destruction of that country by the US from the air.  In
fact, it was the Vietnamese army that invaded Cambodia to bring the
"killing fields" there to an end, after the defeat of the our proxy
government in South Vietnam.
	Ominously, while insisting through a could of lies that the US has no 
intention ever to leave Iraq (the one true thing he said), Bush did not 
mention Iran.  Previously, in the midst of much bluster about Iranian 
nuclear plans and interference in Iraq, the US has not attacked that 
country openly, although often threatening to.  Now that they're silent 
about it, they may do it: if this week's speech does represent, as it 
seems to, the unleashing of the Cheneyites, then an attack on Iran
becomes more likely.

[2] Ex-Senator Mike Gravel writes, "In an attempt to please an audience
of veterans Monday, Hillary Clinton said the surge was "working" and
gave a helping-hand to the Bush spin machine, Pentagon dead-enders and
right-wing pundits who have already begun to quote her ... As always
Hillary tried to have it both ways and went on to say: 'We're just years
too late changing our tactics...'  If you want to know the truth about
the surge, look at the numbers of innocent Iraqi civilians killed and
number of people fleeing the country this summer ... General Petraeus's
September report will of course paint a different picture. He'll offer
the same cheerleading that we always hear from Bush's media savvy, but
militarily clueless generals. We, in the anti-war movement, will counter
his lies with facts and try to push the cowardly congressional Dems and
wavering Republicans to cut off funding. But thanks to Hillary our task
will be more difficult."

[3] Democrat Barack Obama said Tuesday the recent increase in American
troops in Iraq may well have helped tamp down violence, but he insisted
there is no military solution to the country's problems and U.S. forces
should be redeployed soon. Obama spoke a day after his main Democratic
presidential rival, Hillary Rodham Clinton, made similar comments. [AP]

[4] AAEI, the Democratic party front group directing a campaign against
some 40 (Republican) congress-people, has generated an equal and
opposite reaction with "A new group formed to pressure members of
Congress to continue supporting U.S. military efforts in Iraq, [who]
launched a $15 million ad campaign Wednesday [AAEI says it's spending
$12 million] that mostly targets members of both parties who have voted
or spoken out against continued operations in that country.  Freedom
Watch, which counts former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer among its
supporters, is targeting several Republicans who are deemed vulnerable
in 2008 ... The group says it ... wants to refocus the Iraq debate on
the threat to U.S. security." [Hill]
	One of the senators targeted by Freedom Watch group is John Warner, 
Republican of Virginia, who this week said that the administration 
should withdraw some troops, while Obama did a little sucking up to him 
(a "very capable Republicans who I have a great deal of respect for").
	Representatives from the two groups were featured on the PBS Newshour 
Friday night, altho' the man from Freedom Watch refused to debate.

[5] "The Iraqi government will become more precarious over the next six
to 12 months and its security forces have not improved enough to operate
without outside help, intelligence analysts concluded in a new National
Intelligence Estimate released Friday."  Here's one of the reasons why:

[6] "Barbour Griffith & Rogers has long been a powerhouse GOP lobbying
firm ... [it] has been promoting Ayad Allawi, the one-time Iraqi interim
prime minister who over the weekend published an op-ed in the Washington
Post calling for the parliamentary overthrow of current PM Nouri
al-Maliki. The piece amounted to a trial balloon for American support
for a second Allawi-led government ... Allawi has decades-old ties to
the CIA ... Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) called on the Iraqi parliament to
hold a no-confidence vote on Maliki."  [Senator Clinton agreed.]

[7] Two dozen retired diplomats, two rear admirals and a Marine general
joined 383 current or former members of the European and British
parliaments on Friday in urging the U.S. Supreme Court to grant
detainees at Guantanamo Bay full access to the U.S. court system. ...
[They wrote that the United States] "is regarded by many around the
world as an outlaw nation, using a rigged process to reach a
predetermined result that is effectively immune from independent
judicial review. That perception increases the risk to American military
forces unfortunate enough to be captured by enemies abroad. Only by
rejecting the government’s position and upholding Guantanamo detainees’
right to pursue the habeas petitions filed after Rasul will the Court
demonstrate that our Nation’s adherence to the rule of law remains alive
and well." ["Rasul" is the 2004 SC decision establishing that the US
court system has the authority to decide whether foreign nationals held
at Guantanamo are rightfully imprisoned, which of course the Bush
administration denied.  The name means "messenger" in Arabic.] [CBS/AP]

--Carl Estabrook <www.newsfromneptune.com>

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