Republicans Spill the Beans Over Spilt Blood

In a cold blooded admission that will go down unmatched in the annals of infamy the Republican Party over the last two days has given some insight into the real reason why the Iraq War must be brought to a quick end. Notice I did not say a victorious end, since the Republicans have moved the definition of that word more often than birds migrate.

Does the Republican Party want to end it soon because hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have died, far more than Saddam ever killed, since the war of choice began? Get real and think again.

Does the Republican Party want to end it soon because, after misleading the American public into thinking it would be paid for by Iraqi oil revenues, it now has run up to $424 Billion and counting? Given that Republicans have a history of large deficits (see my post Republicant Balance a Budget) no reasonably informed person would ever think fiscal responsibility matters to the Republican Party.

Check out this site for a continuous running tally to see the dollars slip away: www.nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182

Does the Republican Party want to end the war soon because after misleading the American people into believing it would last "I doubt six months," as Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld put it, it is into its fifth year?

Well, you would think this might cause some concern but, regardless of the recent, showy pretense of breaking with their fearless leader the Republicans march right back to the Congress and put their votes at the opposite ends of where their months are and vote en masse to give Mr. Bush exactly whatever he wants.

Does the Republican Party want to end the war soon because the number of dead as of May 10, 2007, has reached 3,382 and continues to rise? Add the 25,245 wounded in action and the casualties in Iraq stand at 28,627. Is that why they want to end the war soon? Nope.

What really has the Republican Party unwrapping itself from the flag and on the run (away) from this war in Iraq? Well, none of the above, even though most Americans, even those only marginally acquainted with Christian ethos and pathos, would start to question continuing the war after hearing the first reason.

The real reason can be gleaned by looking at the comments of the Rep. Tom Coles (R- Okla), current head of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) and a former head, Rep. Thomas M. Davis III (R-Va), as revealed in two recent articles in The Washington Post and corroborated by Tim Russert, NBC's Washington Bureau Chief .

In an article two days ago, May 9, 2007, in the Post entitled A New Pitchman-and a New Pitch written by Juliet Eilperin and Michael Grunwald the inside-politics, database knowledge and expertise of Tom Coles is revealed, a story about the cold, hard numbers behind and the message out in front of successful campaigns, a story every campaign manager should read, a story that is all politics and nothing but politics, in the best sense of the word.

After a lengthy rendition of the ins and outs of the political calculus of candidate recruitment, fundraising, and message molding Coles, who is still optimistic about GOP's chances, reveals his greatest fear for GOP in 2008. What's his greatest fear? The answer comes near the end of the story: "His biggest fear is not poor NRCC recruiting or anemic NRCC fundraising but a collapse of the Iraqi government."

The second story from the Post dated yesterday, May 10, 2007, entitled Bush Told War is Harming the GOP by Shailagh Murray and Jonathan Weisman reveals the concerns of the former head of the NRCC, Davis (R-Va).

In a meeting that included, among others, the president, the vice president, Secretary Rice, Karl Rove and moderate Republicans, some part of a group known as the Tuesday Group, and has been described as candid, even blunt, Davis is reported to have pressed for a Plan B if the current surge, the current war escalation, fails and presented polling figures to the president.

"Davis, a former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, also presented Bush dismal polling figures to dramatize just how perilous the party's position is, participants said. Davis would not disclose details, saying the exchange was private. Others warned Bush that his personal credibility on the war is all but gone," Murray and Weisman report.

According to a recent Newsweek poll the president's approval rating has plummeted to 28%. Tim Russert reports that during the hour and a half meeting someone, presumable Davis, reported to Bush in some counties his approval rating is as low as 5%.

Are you getting the message now America? After wrapping themselves in the flag and campaigning on this war in 2004 the Republicans now are thinking about and speaking of "cutting and running" because it might hurt their election chances! Principles what principles? I think it is becoming clear to an ever growing majority of Americans that the only principle that matters to the jingoist Republican Party is political power is everything. To them power is truth, justice, the American way.

And for this, every made-member, every soldati, every Button of this unholy Republican camorra should be, if there is a god, condemned to stagger around purgatory draped with and dragging like Scrooge's Jacob Marley a chain, not of iron links, not of tiny American flags, but of rotting corpses of the dead of this war bound cadaverous head to cadaverous foot, and dragging at the end of this foul funereal procession a box with its lid ripped clean off and its owner's name scratched on its side in blood. The name on the box?.... Pandora!

Longer Surge or a Piecemeal One?

I have posted in the past here and , more so, on other sites that General Petraeus, for all his good qualities, may, in fact, be an idiot. Why? My previous posts would have the good general going to Iraq and leaving behind his most important weapon, namely, his own plan.

I have also posted here and elsewhere missives describing the dishonesty of the Republican Party and the duplicity of the command structure in the handling of the war in Iraq.

Today, in the Washington Post, in an article entitled Commanders in Iraq See 'Surge' Into '08 written by Ann Scott Tyson evidence emerges that I was wrong about the former and right about the latter.

Tyson's article describes the August 2007 deployment plans of 35,000 troops who will serve as replacements for troops ending their tours of duty in Iraq. The deployment notifications are occurring now in order for the military to be ready to "sustain the increase of U.S. troops there until at least the end of this year."

"'The surge needs to go through the beginning of next year for sure,'" Tyson quotes of General Ordierno, Petraeus' Operational Commander!

Next year! The Democrats and Republicans in Congress are currently debating funding of the Iraq war within a backdrop, a context, given to them by the Republicans and the military and General Petraeus that gives September of this year as a time frame for evaluating success or failure of the surge, the escalation of the war, in Iraq, not next year! If we need to keep the troops in Iraq into next year it seems the military may have used the September time line as a pacifier and a ruse to get reluctant approval from the Congress of the Republican escalation of the war.

Have the Republicans with the duplicity of the military command been less than honest with America once again? Given how many times in the past they have misled America on the war in Iraq one could make a strong argument that they have.

But how is this news evidence that I was wrong about Petraeus and his plan?

His plan, you will recall, as detailed in FM 3-24, approved December 2006, calls for 20 to 25 counterinsurgency troops for every 1000 inhabitants in the Area of Operations. That would require between 550,000 to 685,700 for all of Iraq. The plan's troop density numbers include in their total the host countries troops and police.

With the June completion of the the troop surge into Baghdad, the number of U.S. counterinsurgency troops will rise to about 170,000 from 140,000 for all of Iraq. The short fall of troops in all of Iraq would be around 380,000. Is anyone not recently released from an insane asylum claiming there are 380,000 fully trained, battle tested, and trusted Iraqi troops and police in Iraq to help us fight the counterinsurgency? I don't think so. Hence my previous doubts about Petraeus taking his own plan with him to Iraq.

But this recent news strongly suggests that he has. He is just implementing it piecemeal. If you look at the troop density numbers for Baghdad alone one could argue Baghdad is a test bed for his plan.

The population of Baghdad is roughly 6 million and, tragically, falling. This would require a troop density of about 120,000 to 150,000. This surge in Baghdad, this escalation of the war, would bring the total U.S. counterinsurgency troop density to about 70,000. What number one could honestly put on Iraqi troop and police participation is unclear. Let's be generous, or ridiculous, some would argue, and say 20,000. That gets us closer to the minimum number. It may be, and many Americans have every right to doubt it, a number that quells the violence in Baghdad.

I hesitate to use the word success for the simple reason that no one has ever given the American people a clear set of parameters, quantitative or qualitative, by which to measure the success of the surge.

Do you know how we measure it? Will someone please tell me? Will this administration for the record state as clearly as possible without giving away battle plans how the American people should measure the success of the surge?

Let's say that the surge in Iraq does quell the violence in Baghdad. Then what? This brings us to the piecemeal implementation I believe Petraeus and the Republicans have in store for America.

One of the problems in the past with our "winning the hearts and minds" approach in Iraq was not having enough troops, the proper troop density. We would go in and clean up a town or city or province and leave. Back would come the insurgents, and we would be back to square one, at the most. Tal Afar and other places come to mind.

With the test bed surge in Baghdad, perhaps, we really do have a new plan. Perhaps General Petraeus did bring his plan with him to Iraq. If we quell the violence in Baghdad, and I'll use that as a success matrix for now, perhaps we will keep the surged troops in Baghdad and not trot them off to other places in Iraq.

This would require additional troops, an additional surge elsewhere in Iraq, unless you are going to let the fleeing insurgents have free reign in the rest of the country. This would require a piecemeal implementation of Petraeus' plan, a complete escalation of the war that would drive the troop density levels closer to the one stated in his plan.

But before all that, America is owed a fair, frank, maybe even blunt, discussion about what constitutes success in Iraq, what constitutes victory. It was decried by Republicans not long ago that it was a sad day in America when you had to define the meaning of "is," but how much sadder a day is it when you have to define the meaning of victory, once a word that had clear meaning to America before this Iraq war. Sadder still it is because every day that passes while we try to define it or move its definition, as the Republicans have, more Americans and Iraqis die, more are wounded, and more treasure is squandered.

Victory once was defined as removing Saddam Hussein. Victory on that score was achieved long ago. Victory was also defined as ridding Hussein of Weapons of Mass Destruction. He no longer had any. We could have achieved that without a single soldier leaving our shores by simply telling the truth or, if you prefer, by having performed an honest appraisal of the prewar intelligence.

We have achieved victory by two definitions. What's left, a democracy in Iraq?

Like everything else about this war, this has never really been openly and honestly discussed with the American people. I have my doubts democracy in Iraq would be a success for the West or for Sunnis world wide.

Why? Because rule in a democracy means rule by the majority, even Republicans will begrudgingly admit that, and rule by the majority in Iraq means rule by the Shiites; and rule by the Shiites in Iraq means, de facto, rule of Iraq by Iran. That is not what I would consider a victory for the West, unless I mean a Pyrrhic one, since the Republicans have constantly demonized Iran- Axis of evil and all that.

In all the world, Sunnis make up the vast majority of the Muslim world. But in Iran and Iraq the world is upside down. Shiites are the majority in Iran and Iraq. The Shiites and Sunnis have been fighting, often in a hot blooded manner, for control of all of Islam for over 1300 years. That's a battle that has been going on for over a thousand years longer than America has even existed.

And off we have gone, half-cocked, singing the praises of democracy, of which there are many, as we try to give someone else a democracy, and we have never considered if that would constitute a victory.

How is turning the weapon of Iraq's oil reserves over to the Shiites of Iran and Iraq- a.k.a. West Iran, a victory for the West? It can't even be a victory for the Sunnis, because after the Shiites handle the West they will turn to their age old enemy the Sunnis.

So do I pray for success of Petraeus' tactics if it means victory of a strategy that brings a Pyrrhic victory of galactic proportions to the West and to Sunnis world wide or not? Should America have a dialogue about it before we go forward with any more surges? God, I hope so because one of the alternatives to a democracy is allowing another Sunni strongman to rise to dictator.

Fool Me Once

May 8, 2007

Today, in the Washington Post, in an article entitled September Could Be Key Deadline in War Jonathan Weisman and Thomas E. Ricks wrote about the most recent clash between Democrats and Republicans over further funding of the war in Iraq.

To me, it all brought to mind the old saw "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." Isn't that the bromide, the old saw, George Bush made a fool of himself with when he, with his usual clipped and grunting reticence, tried to repeat it in Nashville in 2002. But what new bromide would one have to invent to describe the number of times the Republicants have fooled America on this war in Iraq?

Once again, under the guise of a "new direction" in Iraq under General Patraeus' plan, the Republicants are trying to fool America.

Why am I so skeptical? Is it because the war was started with a lie resulting from the constant hammering and intimidation of the intelligence agencies by the vice president and his minions and given full throated urgency on the world stage by Colin Powell?

Is it that the war was further sold with a lie that it would not last long? "I doubt six months," was Rumsfeld's prediction of its length.

Is it the further lie sold to America by the camp-followers of the Republicant Party that the cost of the war would be picked up by Iraq's oil revenues? The costs currently run into the hundreds of billions of dollars.

And now, after four years of war in Iraq and nearly 30,000 casualties, a small percentage of which are attributable to Afghanistan, we are told we have a NEW plan, a surge, an escalation of the war under a new general.

Well, let's talk about this new plan. General Pataeus' plan has been memorialized in a writing. It is called Army Field Manual 3-24 (FM 3-24), In it, on page 25-sections 1-67 and 1-68, the details of the troop density levels for effective COIN (COunter INsurgency) operations are given. "Most density recommendations fall within a range of 20 to 25 counterinsurgents for every 1000 residents in an AO." To repeat, the minimum troop density level is 20 counterinsurgency troops-that's us- to every 1000 inhabitants in the AO (Area of Operations?). This figure includes the host nation’s military and police forces.

The total population of Iraq, according to the 2007 CIA Fact Book is approximately 27.5 million. Twenty-seven and one half million divided by 1000 times 20 equals 550,000 troops for all of Iraq. And that's the minimum. The maximum would be 687,500!

The population of Baghdad is approximately six million which means we should have, again, at a minimum, 120,000 counterinsurgency troops for Baghdad alone!

We have nowhere near this many troops in Iraq or Baghdad, even if you take at face value the Republicants' padded numbers of completely trained, tested, and more importantly, trusted host country troops and police. And I don't think it's an exaggeration to describe the Republicants' padding on this score as being akin to the padding that it would take to turn a 12-year-old boy into a Anna Nicole Smith look alike.

Scant wonder I and a growing majority of Americans are skeptical, but still the rabid right, which pretty much describes the entire Republicant Party, is content to be fooled, again. But the growing majority of Americans are no longer willing to play the fool. The growing majority of Americans now want real, reality based, answers to the most important questions of our times from the party that lied us into this war- the Republicant party, an unholy camorra, if ever there was one.

I started this piece searching for a new bromide to describe the number of times the Republicants have fooled America on this war in Iraq, but I think it more appropriate to pass along not a new bromide but an old admonition about fooling the American people from the last true Republican:


"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time." -Abraham Lincoln



And for those few members of the Republicant Party who put country before party I'll pass along another quote from old Abe:

“I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong.”