And Proud of it

Which part are you proud about again?

The launching of an illegal war of aggression that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians?

Or was it the displacing of millions of innocent civilians?

Or crimes against humanity like the operation in Falluja?

Or selling out Iraq’s oil reserves to private corporations?

This is like claiming that a wife beater should feel proud that he stopped beating his wife, even after causing years of multiple fractures and psychological traumas.

Stopping abhorent behavior is not cause for self-congratulation.

I’m relieved that all that shit is ending. Why are you so hung up over the headline?

Spencer, if you don’t believe the sky is falling, you don’t get to have credibility with the fucking clear-eyed realists who do.
You don’t set out to educate the righteous any more than you set out to negotiate with the desperate; either you give them what they want and hope they’ll come back in a better state of mind or you ignore them.
You’re informed perspective here is valuable, especially to the people you don’t agree with you; but you’re at a higher point on the information pyramid than they are. Don’t. Punch. Down.

Thanks for the clarification. I hadn’t followed the comments and thus wasn’t quite clear on what you meant by ‘no Iraq war Syndrome” but this does make it pretty clear and your lessons learned make sense.

I’m disappointed that we’re NOT afflicted by an “Iraq War Syndrome.” The greatest victory in the Vietnam war was the “Vietnam Syndrome” because it prevented another Quagmire for 28 years (1975 to 2003). Unfortunately, the next Quagmire will happen much sooner than 28 years (Iran?).

What is the evidence that anyone in power has learned the lessons that you learned? So far, it seems to the contrary, that they learned that the surge worked, and that if you do it one more time and a little bit harder, surely it will work.

We’ll be out of Iraq in two years, so 2010 is like 1972 in terms of developing a “war syndrome.” I fully expect the GOP to blame everything that goes wrong in the Middle East on Barack Obama for the next decade: squandering the success of the Surge™.

Why would you predict it won’t happen now, or claim it hasn’t? We really aren’t due for a Syndrome until the middle of this decade at the earliest; I don’t really understand. I’ll repeat my comment in the previous thread: You suffer from premature Iraqification.

Not questioning your integrity, just questioning your having arrived at your conclusions terribly — perhaps tragically — early.

Spencer, I would never question your integrity.

We might disagree, on occassion, but my respect and appreciation for you continues to grow, I also commend your courage in putting up this post.

You and I have learned that it is time for a less imperialistic and militaristic foreign policy. But the “we” that I asked about last evening regarding “what” has been learned, was not about us, but rather, about the “learning” of the powers that be.

I do not imagine that many of them agree with us.

Among that larger “we” is the learning absorbed by the people, for most, I doubt they would agree with us.

Many of those who were “there” may well agree with us, but can they embrace that understanding without feeling used and abused? I wonder.

Thanks for all you share with us Spencer, I appreciate the many things I have learned from your posts.

DW

Second that “courage in putting up this post.”

I have not read all the related articles. Sorry.

I was a volunteer to help those with, um, “mental problems” after Gulf 1 and 2 get counseling.

Watching the way Cheney/Bush handle “the war” infuriated me. Those ignorant, fucking bastards.

Now I try to help those with “incurable” diseases, obvious to me from the Gulf but denied help of any kind from the VA. One example. An airlift squadron from Charleston has, since Gulf 1, lost over half their members due to immune deficiency diseases and otherwise unexplained tumors. I believe it is because of the “top secret” cargo they carried that inevitably spilled. Lindsey Graham should really be hanged as he is no better than Saddam.

You, sir, do us all a great service. Question those bastards and help us hold their feet to the fire.

Thank you, sir.

I always find it quite amusing that people believe we (USA) will be “leaving” Iraq…how so? Who is leaving? Everyone, some, only “active military”.

This country will never leave Iraq. Why would we spend treasure, blood, international standing and then leave. To me, leaving thousands of American related contractors, diplomats and what have you is not leaving.

I just want clarity…what do you mean when you say “leaving Iraq” and do you actually believe it?

Spenser, dude…we TRUST you. Mistakes are to be worn on the chest like medals, proclaiming “I learned something today!”

You do mean it, and so do we. Keep up the great work!

Spencer, I haven’t questioned your integrity (yet); I’m just questioning your grasp of reality.

As of today, I believe that the Iraqi government of which you seem so proud and optimistic, is STILL meeting in the green zone, where they have been for some years now. I think it’s fair to say that the reason they are meeting there is because if they met OUTSIDE of the green zone they would quickly be at some risk of having their ongoing parliamentary duties interfered with by being bombed or shot or kidnapped on the way to work.

It’s also worth pointing out, that as of the last information I had, the security for most of the parliamentarians is being provided by western “contractors” (Isn’t that a novel use of that word? :o) ) since it seems that the level of trust for their fellow Iraqis is still pretty low. Actually, don’t most of them LIVE inside the green zone?

I note you didn’t address the fact that in the first week of this month, some 150 people died in bombings across Iraq. Nor did you see fit to refer to the pipeline bombing a few days ago that cut the production of that Baghdad refinery in half.

If you are privvy to some information that leads you to believe that this sort of thing is going to subside as a result of our leaving, don’t be bashful; please share it with us. Personally, I’ve been waiting for years for that good news; if you have it, it’s cruel of you to withold it.

Also, today, according to a piece in AW.Com, in southeastern Iraq, 10 civilians were killed and five more wounded, in a joint raid by U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces.

http://news.antiwar.com/2010/02/12/provincial-official-us-troops-killed-at-least-10-civilians-in-iraq-raid/

As usual, there is some dispute as to how innocent the deceased and wounded really are, but given the pentagon’s track record in these matters I’m sure you’ll forgive me for being willing to give the Iraqi source of the article at least as much credence as our military, especially since they’ve already changed their initial story, and are now saying that the…shootees…are “Iranian-backed terrorists”. I know you understand that these days, that’s kind of a catch-all phrase for people in Iraq, particularly, the southern part, whom we don’t like, and/or, have just killed.

I read your article. You certainly pointed out some good things, and raised some good questions, which leads me to ask, since we still have about 110,000 troops there, and since Obama came in with about 125,000 still there, has that 15,000 or so reduction caused this great change in you from the skepticism of Bush, to the optimism for Obama?

Since you had access to some interesting specifics in the article, can you tell us which bases have been closed down? I mean, you didn’t actually say that any HAD been closed down; only, that we “are leaving some”. And given my suspicions regarding years of bush’s protestations of innocence regarding a permanent presence there, I have to say, I’m reluctant to begin to dance the withdrawal hoedown with you, until I see the Iraqis completely taking over some of those fortress america’s, and until we have drawn down to something in the neighborhood of 50,000, and can judge the effects of that, good or bad.

In closing, I’d like to caution you about several things:

“But the administration truly does have a great achievement to it’s name here…”

I think you’re premature with that. In fact, with 110,000 of our troops still there making sure that any attacks on the government are small and un-organized, I know damn well you are. :o)

The second part of that: “…leaving Iraq is thoroughly uncontroversial.”

That pretty much kicks everything you say into the Spencer-in-Wonderland rabbit-hole. It is a horrible assumption that you’re making that NOTHING is going to happen when we leave. Either you believe that it’s going to be straight kumbayah-city, or you believe that it won’t be, but the republicans won’t try to capitalize on that. I don’t know which is worse.

“Hell, the political climate on Iraq just 18 short months ago was such that Obama was pledging a residual force of 30,000.”

And has he reduced that prospective number? I mean, Odierno is making statements to the effect that anyschedule for leaving is ON the table and very subject to change. I haven’t heard Obama contradict him. Did I just miss it?

Speaking of Odierno, you say of Obama:

“(He) Gave General Odierno an extra few months to withdraw combat troops and allowed him to backload the process, thereby preventing any antagonism.”

Again, I’m sorry, but that lack-of-antagonism horse isn’t in the barn yet. Not by half. Again, let’s see Obama cut that 110,000 in half, and see how the factions react, before we turn Raymond Odierno into a quiescent little dove.
My feeling is that if Obama does cut the troop level in half, there is going to be a substantial increase in attacks on the government, as well as an increase in factional violence, PLUS, more attacks on any americans who aren’t hunkered down in those bases. If I’m right about that, Odierno isn’t going to be interested in negotiating with a president who’s looking more and more like a lame duck with every passing week; I think he’ll turn into Chesty Puller/Combat Kelly, and given Obama’s track record for ducking confrontations with the warbots, I think that he won’t do a damn thing about it.

I’m a little tired of typing, but I think you’ve been WAY too optimistic, and I think the evidence of that is right there in Iraq, for anyone to see who doesn’t have on blinders of one sort or another.

I’ll tell you what we can do: watch Hillary Clinton. If she starts siding with the pentagon in the debate with Obama (and she’s already done some of that) about how much and how fast, to draw down, then, he’s in a world of hurt. He may be, anyway, since the question of getting us out isn’t really in his hands, anymore. Sometime along about the 6th-8th month of his presidency, I think he substantially lost control of that option.

We’ll see. It’s gonna be a hell of a summer.

Well– at least the Iraqi government is running the last of Blackwater out. Gotta give them credit for a little backbone.

I never question Spencer, Truth Teller, keep telling the truth.

Tan, thanks.

Spencer, despite your ’06 treatsie and continued writings on this issue I fail to understand or see where you draw your posits that we are leaving Iraq in ANY manner that you have described.

All other evidence gathered from domestic and foreign information sources points to a long term stay as part of an American interventionist policy to benefit and support the corporate facist structure that has encompassed the MIC since the 50′s, and has bought and taken control of our elected offals since Reagan.

You have not convinced me, nor persuaded me, we are ever leaving Iraq.

You don’t present any evidence or rationale or protocol for why we would, that I’ve read yet.

I appreciate your life’s works, scholarly efforts, and your body of work and knowledge.

I’d grant yer likely much more well schooled, well read and better linked to your constructs than I.

But as you put it, it all falls short.

I don’t see USA leaving Iraq, I don’t see only a hundred or so in the Green Zone Embassy (for god’s sake we built it for thousands for crying out loud), I don’t see us emptying the bases we built across the ME.

Unless you think (and I’ve not heard or read you advocate what we did all that for SHORT term contracting profits) we did all that to leave it behind once the short term deals were done in the name of profits, then I just can’t fathom where yer coming from.

We didn’t invade, build and ruin governments, people and civilians to leave.

It’s contrary to the precept that we are corporate owned, we the people, the government, and all.

Your posits are contrary to the reality we exist in.

We exist in a corporate structure that’s taken control of our political strurcture.

It’s fuckin facism, Spencer. Pure and simple.

And until you accept that we the people are facing domestically and foreign wise, a facist rule built on corporate ownership and control of our political system, then you’ll continue for some reason I can’t fathom, to believe that there’s a chance we’ll leave Iraq. Or cut back our military interventions, or cut back funding for the MIC, or stop selling weapons systems to foreign countries, or . . . on and on.

Srsly, hoss, funniest shit I’ve ever read.

When are ya gonna come clean and tell us you were doing satire?

Where ya been?

Pure fucking kabuki, Talk, don’t buy it.

How long did it take Vietnam Syndrome to evaporate? My father trained helicopter pilots for that “war” when I was 12 and 13. What would that be, 1963 – 2003 to forget?

Vietnam Syndrome was the best thing that ever happened for Erik Prince, when Bush/Cheney and Blair got around the taboo by not drafting our youth. Without the draft, everybody knows, it’s not Vietnam, so it’s ok. It’s not even really happening.

(I feel ashamed for attacking Ackerman, cuz I like him and am certain he’s sincere, not a bomabot.)

Anyone (boomers) remember “The Rock” by Harry Chapin?

A big embassy? Only the largest in the world.

Spencer, I usually read your posts, you have valuable info, but to me you come off a little to much like a Jamie (cruise missile liberal) Rubin . So how many outposts, bases, garrisons will the US have in Iraq by the end of the 2011? Two? three? probably more like 40-50, hardly what one would call leaving Iraq.

‘Stick; it sure looks that way.

Of course, I hate to be cynical ( :o) ) but the “run-out” has some political value to Maliki, as he heads into the March elections. Now that he’s banned so many of the Baathist Sunnis, he can still point to this as some evidence that he’s at least tugging back, on the U.S. leash.

Which reminds me; check this out.

http://news.antiwar.com/2010/02/12/iraqi-politics-in-growing-disarray/

It doesn’t exactly square with the idea of some Iraqi version of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir helping sing the withdrawal Ode to Joy, but I think there’s some good points made.

“blood”

The spending of our blood is immaterial to the MIC.

How many “We regret to inform you…” letters has Obama signed in his first year in office? Plenty were still coming from Iraq for much of that year. Yet on TV, he’s almost always movie-star smiling, eyes sparkling. I always wonder how he can do it. But rulers always have.

Some fiction…

The American Socialist Democrat Party had unseen origins forming up during the first Obama WH term. By 2012 with the American dollar having seen massive sell offs by China after USA did not let go of Taiwan and after the failed 2011 attack on Iran by combined Israeli/American military effort. Iran having sunk three USN attack aircraft carriers before WashingtonDC withdrew all aircraft carriers from ME waters.

The American Socialist Democrat candidate was swept into the WH despite all counter political efforts the combined R and D parties could muster to derail this new and very real threat to the agreed Reaganism Democratic status quo WashingtonDC had settled into post 1990.

Tne newly elected ASD POTUS within thirty days of being in the WH as was promised to American voters set in motion executive orders that the Pentagon,CIA and Homeland all would be required to submit 2014 budget requests showing across the board reductions of at least 25 percent for all current programs and deeper reductions for future projected programs and selected other areas. Also the POTUS set in motion new and extensive reviews of both Obama WH and Bush/Cheney WH for torture law violations, war crimes investigations and follow up prosecutions according to American rule of law.

The American voters had voted for a ASD run WH and sizeable numbers of ASD candidates for Congress in both the House and U.S.Senate.

The M-I-C as represented by the Pentagon,CIA and Homeland soon mounted fierce pushbacks. The POTUS did not back down. As President. As C-in-C.

So at this point in this fictional scenario who thinks/believes the AEI/Heritage/CFR types and the M-I-C or it’s main agents in Pentagon,CIA and Homeland stood down or went for a coup POTUS overthrow or assassination of?

Who rules in WashingtonDC? Who is running post 9/11/01 American foreign affairs? Can the American voter vote to dismantle or reduce Pentagon/CIA/Homeland roles in post 9/11/01 USA?

Could American voters overrule the current two party corporatist/M-I-C/imperialist regime in WashingtonDC? Yes? No? Or would any such effort be forcibly suppressed by current WashingtonDC ruling regimes? Do elections count or are they just for the Potemkin these days?

A fictional inquiry.

Absolutely agree! First thought I had, so loud and frustrated that it spattered and stung like a whistling tea kettle jumping clean off the stove, couldn’t type a coherent sentence on it. Still can’t.

First, I want to second your calls, Spencer, for less imperialism in our foreign policy. And I admire the passion you bring to your work. But on the whole, I find your articles too willing to believe the myths with which we keep getting jacked to war. And, like Larue and others, that confuses me.

With apologies to Glenn Greenwald, if you substitute “leaving Iraq” for claims about detainees, this sounds, to my ears, a lot like Ackerman:

In other words, if one hears only the Government’s unchallenged, untested accusations about detainees and others whom it labels Terrorists and Enemy Combatants, it semes (sic) clear and obvious that the person is an Evil, Dangerous and Bad Man. But when those accusations are actually subjected to scrutiny by courts, it turns out that — in the overwhelming majority of cases — there is virtually no reliable evidence to support them.

Of course we’ll be leaving Iraq, the government said so!

Two parts speak the loudest to me: one, that keeping the largest embassy in the world, built as a result of an illegal war of aggression, would be an “appropriate” thing to do, given how difficult it will be–to what, Spencer, rule by proxy from that fortress? You have heard of the Crusades, haven’t you?

And two, that the Afghanistan war is “blessed” many times over by the Security Council, as if that were independent of US control, and as if we were really attacked from there (the 9/11 19 were aided by Saudi Arabia, trained in Germany, and finished their flight training in the US; so where’s the “safe haven” were supposedly denying to al Qaeda?).

Haven’t you been reading Pepe Escobar?

Excerpted from

Vietnam-lite is unveiled
By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times Online Dec 3, 2009

Real men go to Riyadh
Obama still says Afghanistan is a “war of necessity” – because of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Wrong. The Bush administration had planned to attack Afghanistan even before 9/11. See Get Osama! Now! Or else … Asia Times Online, August 30, 2001.)

“War of necessity” is a polite remix of the same old neo-conservative “war on terror”; blame it on the “towelheads” and exploit public ignorance and fear. That’s how al-Qaeda was equated with the Taliban and how Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11, according to the neo-con gang.

[...]

Taking pains to distance his new policy from the Vietnam trauma, Obama stressed, “Unlike Vietnam, the American people were viciously attacked from Afghanistan.” Wrong. If the official narrative of 9/11 holds, the hijackers were trained in Western Europe and perfected their skills in the US.

And even while he still emphasizes the drive to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat” al-Qaeda and deny it a “safe haven”, Obama is fully contradicting his own national security advisor, General James Jones, who has admitted that there are fewer than 100 al-Qaeda jihadis in Afghanistan.

The myth of al-Qaeda has to be exposed. How could al-Qaeda pull off 9/11 but be incapable of mounting a single significant attack inside Saudi Arabia? That’s because al-Qaeda is essentially a thinly disguised brigade of Saudi intelligence. The US wants to win “the war on terror”? Why not send special forces to Saudi Arabia instead of Afghanistan and knock the Wahhabis – the root of it all – out of power? [Emphasis added.]

Only the US gov’t is claiming it will be leaving, and only the gullible believe it. We’re still in Japan, Korea, Germany, Italy, the list goes on and on and on. Full-spectrum dominance is the name of the game, dear brother, our modern incarnation of Manifest Destiny. We plan on imposing our dominance on everyone, everywhere, forever. Now if that isn’t madness of mythical proportions, I don’t know what is.

Joint Vision 2020, released May 30 and signed by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Army Gen. Henry Shelton, extends the concept laid out in Joint Vision 2010. Some things will not change. The mission of the U.S. military today and tomorrow is to fight and win the nation’s wars. How DoD goes about doing this is 2020′s focus.

Full-spectrum dominance means the ability of U.S. forces, operating alone or with allies, to defeat any adversary and control any situation across the range of military operations.

Joint Vision 2020 addresses full-spectrum dominance across the range of conflicts from nuclear war to major theater wars to smaller-scale contingencies. It also addresses amorphous situations like peacekeeping and noncombat humanitarian relief. Key to U.S. dominance in any conflict will be what the chairman calls “decision superiority” — translating information superiority into better decisions arrived at and implemented faster than an enemy can react.

The development of a global information grid will provide the environment for decision superiority.

Well, at least now we know what they meant by that last sentence! Note that the military defines its mission for itself as “fighting and winning the nation’s wars.” What’s that got to do with “defense”?

See the part about “defeat any adversary and control any situation”? That also means public opinion. Or “strategic domestic disinformation campaigns.” You know, battlefield psy ops deployed against us, the public, to keep us from getting uppity.

The Pentagon’s Public Affairs Office has been one of the last redoubts of the Neoconservatives. Burrowed Bush era figures remain in key positions in the office, which had responsibility for implementation of some of the Rumsfeld Pentagon’s most controversial strategies in which the American public was targeted with practices previously associated with battlefield psy-ops.

Not a word a gov’t spokesperson says can be taken at face value. I realize that will make cultivating contacts nigh impossible. I trust you’re resourceful enough to overcome that challenge.

Bullshit! I am a Viet Nam vet and I do not know what you mean by a “Viet Nam Syndrome”. Veterans and the rest of the world live in real time not in some cerebral fantasy where you worry what someone may or may not think of you. Do you remember the adage that says ” To your own self be true”? Mealy mouth is what got us here now. Speak truth to power and always question authority. If you choose to live in this manner the benefits will be all yours.

the Syndrome thing doesn’t refer the veterans, buckinnm.
it’s something about the political argument about the war that continued long after the war ended.

Mr. Ackerman, I owe you a complete and utter apology.

The language and tone I used in my comment above was inappropriate.

I sincerely regret having used such language and tone.

You are a dedicated, experienced and committed writer that brings us insight and information on a regular basis and as such, as any FDL member or Pup Diarist, deserve better from this reader.

I disagreed with your message but I attacked the messenger, and regret having done so.

Again, I apologize profusely.

You deserve better than what I offered.

Thanks for any consideration possible, and if the mods want to delete my post, I’d certainly support that decision.

To clarify: Domestically speaking, only US gov’t spokespersons, often appearing anonymously in the role of NO1, (as in, NO1 says we intend to stay in Iraq, NO1 says we intend preventively to detain only Muslim men in our secret prisons; it’s what we leave unsaid, but is heard and seen loud and clear in the minds of electorates, that distinguishes political myth-making from plain prose), and their unofficial myth-,makers, are saying we’ll be leaving Iraq. I’ll believe that when we begin leaving other places we’ve been occupying much longer, as well as making “appropriate” reparations, to include the costs borne by vets like buckinnm.

A bit of commenter’s remorse, Larue? Good on you. Like you, I find Ackerman frustrating to read, at times, but who can doubt dude’s sincerity and passion? In fact, now that I think about it, Ack’s post, here, could be seen in the same light. It’s damn hard, to eff the multi-dimensional ineffable, with just these squiggles-and-spaces we call the written word. If we sometimes throw caution to the wind, that’s only human. Standing within one’s sentiment, while respecting an interlocutor’s person, IMO, is a hallmark of civil discourse. I bow in your virtual direction.

Great, thoughtful, thread.

The honest courage of all is much appreciated and respected.

Spencer, you’ve provided an opportunity for bringing out the best of each of us.

DW

It is very clear that the lessons that were learned about Vietnam were DO NOT SHOW AMERICANS THE PICTURES OF THE DEAD (that is of Iraqi’s) don’t count the numbers of dead, injured, displaced. Makes sure the MSM goes along (how often do you hear Rachel, Keith, Chris Matthews, Diane Rehm Neil Conan, Scott Simon focus on the death and destruction in Iraq.

Discount and undermine any studies that come out reporting about these deaths (Lancet reports) Keep Americans in their bubble where they like to be.

Don’t show them the death, destruction, torture that they are ultimately responsible for.

Don’t count and DON’T SHOW THE PICTURES. The only things learned from Vietnam

I do understand that. That is what I meant. The cerebral as opposed to participatory lead to the delusional syndrome of thinking that everyone else gives a shit what you think. Not many pols are veterans.

I sadly agree with you. I feel that most people need a refresher course in the art of war. Mark Twains essay “A War Prayer” depicts very well without pictures the reality of war.

Yes, buckinnm.

“A War Prayer” should be required reading on a regular basis by … someone.

Perhaps Obama should read it aloud to the nation?

DW

“…You’re at a higher point on the information pyramid than they are.”

Great! Now, we get to the core of it:

Out-and-out happy-times-are-almost-here bushCo shitspeak.

I’ve got that little comment bookmarked, Endymion, for future reference.