Guantanamo Bay and the Big Shitball

"...the consequence of error may be detention of persons for the duration of hostilities that may last a generation or more, this is a risk too significant to ignore."

-from the Supreme Court decision
to allow for habeas corpus hearings
for prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay
(pp.56-57)

So habeas has returned to Gitmo. Like swallows to Capistrano, it is inevitable that as sense and law rotate back to their proper planetary positions, they eclipse fear's fury. The downside? It's only a chink in armor that's seven years' thick with piled bodies and reckless leadership, guarded by secrets as sticky to get through as electrified flypaper.

OH MY GOD! I hope whomever we choose for our new leaders have the sense to realize that Gitmo and torture and waterboarding and wiretapping are all part of the same petrifying, putrid shitball as the war in Iraq! It may seem like the typical multi-limbed monster that any government at war would have to deal with, but this is no fucking octopus; it's a goddamn plutoid!

So how do we fix it? Do we land some NASA rover on it to break off a piece at a time and hope that we find the secret formula to destroy it before the piece we broke off grows back, even more stubborn and resistant to reason?

Do we blow the whole mess up, pull out of Iraq, close Guantanamo, free the rendered innocent, indict our war criminals and let the burning meteorite chips fall where they may, even if it's back on us?

The way I like of clearing away this dangerous rock is to drill deep inside it, to the corrupted U.S. foreign policy that is at its core. If we repair our relationship with the world from the inside out, maybe the rest of the big hunk of goppy poo will just die and rot, then dry up and blow away. To me, that is the most elegant solution, though as such, it requires the steady hand of a skilled politician that works with surgical precision, and doesn't just go in there with a chainsaw and an earthmover.

Hacking away at something until it appears to be dead would be bad at so many levels. It would be messy, to be sure, not knowing for certain whether or not we'd slain the beast or just made it angrier. Worse still, another bad leader's cavalier carelessness might start with a moment of exultation (a la "Mission Accomplished") but as the cheers and applause began to die down, a small hiss would penetrate the din, and we would quickly devolve to the dreaded realization that we were getting sucked into oblivion through the black hole of annihilation that we created for ourselves when we chose who we wanted to fight for us. Oh, shit.

I do hope we are wise enough this time to choose properly.

-PBG

For the Sake of Surrender

John McCain will not surrender in Iraq. He continually says so.

In another military cemetery in America, a widow, a mother, a son receive a folded flag. The stars and stripes that draped the coffin of their fallen hero is a flimsy bandage for the bloody scar on their hearts. Each mourner, consumed by pain, let's out a wail, letting all who hear it know that they have reached the point when the deep sorrow they have been feeling has sucked even more emptiness from the depths of their already empty soul.

And we cry with the son, the mother, the widow. We reach our hearts around them and hope to heal them by our embrace.

Some of us wrap ourselves with our own flag, hugging it as close as a rabbi's prayer shawl, as we try to find meaning to the tragedy of this war. Beneath our shroud, we mumble:

For the sake of the wounded and the dead,

we must surrender to the error,

surrender to the folly,

surrender to the truth,

for God's sake.

In any case, we are the enemy to whom we must surrender.

During the Vietnam War peace negotiations, there was a term made popular in Washington: "Peace with Honor." It was a phrase that always seemed odd to me, a way of saving face during an unwinnable war. But it was never considered surrender.

Here and now, in this war, we must pursue honor first, the honor of our own nation. When we vote this November, honor is what's at stake - our global identity as an ethical and honorable nation. Peace may follow; it may not. But at that point, when we stand in good faith to confront our enemies, we will do so as respected, responsible members of the world community.

Surrender? No. Cut and run? Puh-lease.

But when we are united in changing our country? Honor. And peace.

-PBG

Surge Plus 365

A War Going Better Is Not a Better War

Here we are, a year after Bush announced the Surge. Brave men and women have fought and died and many parts of Iraq have settled down, but the flaccid influence of America continues to slowly stir the morass of dysfunctional politics around the world.

Instead of being a banner of freedom we have become the hammer of destruction. It's like slamming a country over the head, and when it raises its bruised and beaten face, Uncle Sam says, "See? I told you freedom wasn't free."

-PBG

A Sabbatical for War

Letting the Killing Fields Lie Fallow
After the Autumn Harvest

So the seeds sown in the spring surge have been cut, and baled in flag covered coffins. The noble Petraeus, in the regalia of an honored soldier, and the honorable Crocker, intent hidden behind the skirts of his diplomat's robes, pay homage to the lords of state who put up the treasure of the people that they may do the king's bidding and return in glory and praise.

They bring gifts to the lords of the House and the stone walls of the Senate, those same bales of bodies of the honorable and the innocent, piled against the mark on a marble column etched MMI. They bow low as they present the lords with the grisly gift. "My lords, I bring you the promise of military progress," says the noble Petraeus, eyes still on his shoe tops. But from the bench, the chair merely clears his throat.

"This," says the chair as he glances at his fellow legislators, "this is what he calls progress?" The disappointed dais shakes its collective head.

"But my lords," says Petraeus, edging his eyes up from his still bent head, "You cannot call this anything but a good sign. The enemy is at least partially, somewhat subdued. See how our divine guidance has enabled us to shrink his harvest! Why, by next summer, we will even be able to give him fewer seeds to sow."

"Correct me if I am wrong, Petraeus," responds the chair, "but aren't you the one who recommended giving the enemies of our republic the extra seed with which to sow their killing fields, those self-same seeds that you now say you will soon rescue from the scythe of our country's foes?"

Petraeus shuffled his feet together and examined his chest of medals. "I never said it would be easy," he offered meekly. "I am merely a soldier in service to my king."

At this point, the court jester and her friends began their taunts in an allegro chorus:

"Ah. Ah. Ah. Ah.
You brought the seeds.
You brought the knife.
You dared the enemies to take more life.



"Oh. Oh. Oh. Oh.
You say in Anbar
The enemy scurries,
But here you bring us our children to bury!


Owww. Owww. Oww. Owww."

Showing bemusement, the chair calls for the jesters to leave, lest he reveal his amusement with their song and incur the wrath of the king. "Get them out," he shouts, and when they are gone, turns to the ambassador. "Do you see the clamor of the people, Mr. Crocker? Surely you can guarantee them that all this blood and treasure is worth the cost."

"Well, it is worth it to those our deaths and money protect," says Crocker proudly. "But," he adds, "I cannot guarantee victory."

"Then woe to our country and God bless our people and its vacuous leadership," concludes the chair. "Woe to us all."

And in the hallways, someone is singing, "Woe. Woe. Woe. Woe."

-------------------

So goes the conversation after six years of conflict, six years of sowing the killing fields with dedicated, patriotic men and women for our enemies to harvest "over there so they don't kill us over here."

Rare is the harvest that cuts down life to no purpose.

For whose consumption do our brothers and sisters bleed and die? For us or for our enemies?

If it is for me that they die, as we start the seventh year of the conflict of a generation, let's give the war a sabbatical. I wish that by next September 11, we allow the killing fields to lie fallow, to sow no more seeds, that we may allow honor to recover. Then, after another year, we can plant the seeds of peace, that we can all eat of its fruit and restore the devalued soul of our great nation.

-PBG

Behind the Curtain

Pay No Attention to the Politician Behind the Curtain

There is a shadow play going on behind the shroud, and like the characters in an old cartoon, the shaded shapes creep in apparent self awareness, while we cheer and jeer the performances of those who cast them. The hidden machinations of the players bear little resemblance to what they choose to show us.

It works something like this. In any political goings-on, there are three kinds of curtains that drape the stage where our politicians play: opaque, translucent and transparent. Then there's the performance upstage, in front - the one they play out to dazzle, distract or otherwise numb us into obeisance. Occasionally, the sharp observer can discern a movement not quite right in the narrow, transparent panels, that belies the otherwise unrevealing obfuscators.

For example, let's say Bush is standing in front of a crowd of foreign war veterans, comparing the chaos under which Saigon fell with the potentially worsening dissolution of order when we leave Baghdad, and saying that it would have been different had we stayed in Vietnam and "finished the job."

He wants us to see brave men and women fighting to victory, but instead in the transparent panel directly behind him we easily see a drunken, AWOL flier from the Texas Air National Guard, circa 1970. He wants us to see the genocide of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, but behind the wider translucent panel we can discern the shadowy images of bullets and bombs felling American soldier after American soldier, the piling bodies and flag draped coffins and weeping Gold Star mothers. He wants us to see an America responsible for squashing terrorism like a foot crushes a cockroach, yet we know that somewhere behind the very wide, opaque curtain America is enabling the torture and rendition of perceived enemies while it supports the governments of those who harbor our real enemies.

Meanwhile every shout is greeted with applause, every wag of the finger greeted with cheers.

Status Quo or Quid Pro Quo

Some of those cheers are our own, fellow lefties. Karl Rove leaving? Sure, shout for joy. Hooray! But now that he is no longer in government (officially anyway), will there be as hard an effort to expose his malfeasance? He is not leaving because any threat of exposure that we know of, so it looks like this is his own decision, status quo for the waning months of a lame duck administration. But what don't we know? Is it possible that this is part of a deal? The weak Congress seems unwilling to pursue any sort of retribution against an administration that continues to abuse its power. This could be more quid pro quo than status quo.

I really don't know. I'm just saying that things are not always what they seem, especially in First World politics, so we have to be willing to look past what is presented as truth and find the real truth. We can't rely on just the Washington Post or the New York Times. We have to make our congress-people be accountable to holding the Executive accountable. That, sadly, is the one thing they seem unwilling to do.

So for those of you who give money specifically to the DCCC (Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee), I'm asking you to stop. They are not working for us. They want to continue to do business as usual. I'm asking that you give money directly to the campaign coffers of the legislators who actually seem to stand against the status quo.

Send money to Russ Feingold's re-election campaign, or any of the 28 other senators or 183 members of the House who stuck to their convictions and voted against the Wiretapping bill that was passed just before the August recess. Why did the Democratic led Congress end up passing this bill? Well, CNET has an interesting and uncomplicated answer: it was political.

See, the Democrats want to appear strong in the "War on Terror." But just behind them you can see them through the transparent curtain shaking in political fear. Behind the translucent curtain, their shadows are stomping on the Bill of Rights while they hold out their hands to the "military industrial complex," who hide just out of sight, behind the opaque curtain.

-PBG

Freedom in Chains

Refute Apathy
Rebuke Bush
Repatriate Freedom

What remains of Freedom's robes are threadbare, and her scalp is scabbed and scarred between clumps of matted, thinning hair. Her humid, windowless cell is an oven, where crawling cockroaches pull peeling plaster off the blistered, wet walls. Sitting on the dirty floor, in a dark corner, with her knees to her chest and her head hanging low, Freedom distresses in her exile.

It has been months since she stood hopefully by the prison door, waiting for the click of the jailer's key card, the metallic clunk of the bolt sliding back. She was waiting for the AG to greet her outside, to hand her a paper signed by the People and tell her this had all been a horrific mistake. But the door never opened. The apology never came.

"They must be very afraid of me," she mumbled in her despair. She had given them so much, even up to the very moment that, disguised as patriots, they burst into her infinite light of grace, pulled her lamp away like it was a weapon of destruction, toppled her from her ancient pedestal, loaded her on a military transport and threw her in this Caribbean dungeon.

Yet, she is not angry with them, even though she has heard that they covered the old, clear lenses of her lamp with a milky filter and stuck it in the hand of an impostor, a poser in drag, whose other arm is holding a rifle.

She cannot hold malice because Freedom knows her gift is either accepted or rejected by choice, and by her own nature, she cannot challenge choice. She leaves it up to us to do it for her. That is not her demand, but she does want us to know that we have a choice. We can challenge. In this, she is more loving and patient than the most devoted mother.

But for Freedom to even have a chance, we first have to repatriate her brother, Habeus Corpus. Without being asked if he wanted it, he is carrying something we thought might have been locked away in a secret CIA prison sometime over the last six years: the integrity of our nation.

Over the last week, the People have chosen to instigate the processes necessary to rebuke the status quo. The "Habeus Corpus Restoration Act" just came out of committee, there is bipartisan support for adopting more of the Iraq Study Group's report than the dopes in Executive want to, and the AG is about to face a no-confidence vote.

As for the fate of Freedom's evil twin, we need not concern ourselves with that, for like the cockroaches on the wall of a Guantanamo cell, it will scurry away, back into its dark hole, when Freedom's light is finally restored. I do hope we make the right choice and step up soon.

-PBG

Power Failure

Last Power Standing

Rockets and bombs, tank tracks and bullets, leave blood-soaked boots standing burnt and empty. In the flash of mortar fire, a fallen, legless marine loses his hold on purpose, and lets his life go, seeping, into the sand. "I will not be the last to die," his mind says when he finally releases. "I will not be the last."

Meanwhile, a half a planet away, the Superpower says that more are needed. More must go. More will die. They see honor in turning cannon fodder into heroes. They are doing them a favor. It's a slam-dunk.

The war goes on. The bullets cost money. The money is borrowed. I will not be the last to pay. I will not be the last. We were not asked if we wanted to pay for this war, this failure. To finance a war, we are usually asked to sacrifice. That's why in World War Two everyone had a chance to be a hero, whether you held a rifle or a rivet gun, because everyone sacrificed. So this is not stopping Hitler. This is a slam dunk, a walk in the park. It's Grenada. It's bombing Libya. Only it's not.

They want us to think this is a different kind of war. It is not, except that with this one, each death does not lead us closer to victory. These soldier's sacrifices just disappear into invisible coffins, hidden under the tainted banner of a country led by stubborn and greedy fools.

Even now, NOW, that two-thirds of the country thinks this hole thing is a colossal mistake, that we are tired of young people dying and killing for a mistake in which none of us want to share, even when the administration's integrity is smaller than the debris in a super-collider, they are still afraid to let us see and honor the soldiers' coffins. What do they have to lose by giving us at least that?

Children who have yet to be born will be paying for this war, and not just with money. Bush, Cheney, Rice and Rumsfeld didn't just send the military to war; they sent our country to war, all of us. When we finally turn off the lights on this thing, we will limp home, a weak and wounded nation. In less than ten years, the enemy we are so hot to destroy will have more political clout than we do now, and all the money will be in Russia and China.

We may have won the Cold War, but somehow, in the smoke of the World Trade Center we got turned around and did a face-plant into the hottest war in modern history.

It's time to learn that we don't have to be the biggest or the strongest or the richest country. That is not what makes us the best. It's the simple, human things that make us great, like a sense of community, a drive toward tolerance and equal opportunity, and a work ethic that revolves around creative solutions. It's all of those things coming together that make this country one of the best. Those are the reasons people still come here from all corners of the planet, even from our own backyard.

I don't care if we are powerful. I just want us to be good.

-PBG

Get Off the Surge; Go Off On the Contractors

Posturing is not governing. It's like a farmer wearing an expensive Italian suit to plant potatoes - you can only stand there looking good for so long before your customers wonder why you aren't bending down and getting dirty so you can fill their orders.

Look, I'm all for Congress resolutely standing against the President's surge (ewww), but let's move on. America's tragic policy in Iraq deserves all the attention and light Congress can shed on it, but there's no need to bulldog what everyone already knows: the country is opposed to the Surge.

The President has just asked for a lot more money to pay for his failed policy, and promises that he'll ask for even more next year. The problem is, all this vocal opposition to the Surge has put those of us against the war in a difficult position. We cannot hold off funding the troops and come out smelling good in the long run, regardless of the probable failure of the "new way forward". If we want to attack the White House's funding proposal we have to start questioning where the money is going, and get off of, sadly, who it's killing.

More waste from contractors like Parsons, Haliburton and KBR has come to light in the last week. The report from the Special Inspector General for Iraqi Reconstruction cites numerous abuses of our money; that is what we should question. It is the one thing we actually can do something about.

We can talk about resolutions against Bush, but in the end, his word is the dragon's breath that sends brave young men and women into danger. The various Congressional resolutions are not only non-binding, they are non-gagging too. We can't keep him or Cheney from talking (ahh to dream) and that makes this principled stand little more than a thin ribbon of raffia on a pole in a hurricane.

Let's focus our attention on the contractors. Let's start that immediately, and make it part of the congressional budget hearings. Let's not appropriate funds for inappropriate work. The real way to get to the administration is to bite the hand that feeds it: big special interest contractors. A well reasoned confrontation on this front will put the administration back on the defensive in a way that will keep them from being able to claim that we are "emboldening the enemy".

Besides, it's the right way to deliver the potatoes.

-PBG

Mis-state of the Union: President Projector

"For the terrorists, life since 9/11 has never been the same."

With those words, President Bush began the portion of his speech Tuesday night that was yet another justification for taking on Iraq, for turning it into a terrorist haven and a killing field. I am not comforted by his assurances, and not because I fear the long arm of al-Qaeda; it's how he will use his misrepresentation of success to muscle through more changes in our lives that I fear most.

A PROSE AND THORN TRUTH:
I am more afraid

of my government
than I am of
my country's enemy.

This is how our lives have changed since 9/11: an abrogation of our rights and our most basic liberties, no habeus corpus for anyone in U.S. custody, warrantless wiretaps and phone company data mining, the inability to board a plane because your name is on a list, sanctioned torture, needless passport laws and a baggie full of travel-size lotions.

Hector-the-Projector struck again later in the speech, with his characterization of the enemy we are killing and dying to fight:

"They preach with threats, instruct with bullets and bombs, and promise paradise for the murder of the innocent."

If you substitute the word "democracy" for "paradise" (no, they are not always inter-changeable) Iraqis, Pakistanis and Afghans (and soon Iranians) can be saying the same thing about us.

The real problem here is Bush believes in this fight as if it were a classic biblical battle against a godless enemy, and those whom we fight feel the same:

"This war is more than a clash of arms -- it is a decisive ideological struggle..."

The problem here is that wars for ideological principles weren't even that successful in their heyday, a thousand years ago.

ANOTHER PROSE AND THORN TRUTH:
Just because our guns are bigger
doesn't mean we're right.

Fighting for a principal in a "civilized society" is something you do with words in Debate Club, not with weapons in an armed conflict eight thousand miles away, and not in someone else's civil war (regardless of the fact that we started it). But Bush says he didn't mean to be in a war like this:

"This is not the fight we entered in Iraq, but it is the fight we're in."

And that is what has really changed for the terrorists since 9/11. The fight we wanted, the one that made the most sense, was the one that we could stop with a vigilant government that doesn't ignore warnings. But now, the "fight we're in" is the fight the terrorists want, and despite his Texas machismo, Bush cannot stop his own ignorant disaster from delivering the dead to our doorstep.

So be afraid, America.

"If American forces step back before Baghdad is secure, the Iraqi government would be overrun by extremists on all sides. We could expect an epic battle between Shia extremists backed by Iran, and Sunni extremists aided by al Qaeda and supporters of the old regime. A contagion of violence could spill out across the country -- and in time, the entire region could be drawn into the conflict.

"For America, this is a nightmare scenario. For the enemy, this is the objective. Chaos is the greatest ally -- their greatest ally in this struggle. And out of chaos in Iraq would emerge an emboldened enemy with new safe havens, new recruits, new resources, and an even greater determination to harm America."

Epic battles? Come on, Mr. President, this is already a nightmare. I have to believe, though, that America can be restored in spite of all you have done to bring our society to the brink. I'm counting on it.

-PBG

When They Stand Up, We'll Stand Up...Again!

or
Pay As You Go: Balancing the Body Count

Sometime this week, Bush will share his "New Way Forward" with us, at least, as much as he is willing to. It's already known that he will order more troops into the melee for a free and independent Iraq, part of the overall Tumult on Terror, but according to this Sunday's New York Times, US troops "will be sent only if the Iraqis also increase their own forces."

So it's time for a little Orwellian revisionism. Let's put the phrase uttered by our concussive Commander-in-chief in 2004, "When they stand up...," into the the true-memory machine. I think he said - wait, I thought it was - geez! My head is spinning...can't think...ugh...seem to remember "...we'll stand down," but OW! The pressure to conform! My brain, my memory, somehow changing...and yes! It makes so much less sense to me now! I play the tape again, and I hear it clearly through the mud: "When they stand up," so far so good, "we'll stand up...AGAIN!"

Whew! So that's what a change in course looks like to our Yaley Cheerleader-in-Chief.

Let's follow this new course across to Nancy Pelosi's House. There, in the middle of a conversation about the "pay-as-you-go" budget proposals, "The New Way Forward" flies up the steps, fills the rotunda, and blows through the caucus conference. Nancy, Steny and the rest sway slightly in their seats while the breeze of this fresh Iraq policy scatters papers about the room and lifts their hair like a gale through a palm tree.

When the wind settles, the group, dishevelled but proud, in chorus boom from the Capitol, "You got your Iraq policy in our budget policy!"

And across the Mall, a whiny twang comes screaming from the White House portico, "Don't you go gettin' your budget policy in my Iraq policy. Heh. Heh."

But behold, someone in between the two, standing atop the Washington Monument, will respond with a triumphant poke at the sky, "That's it! Pay-as-you-go! The policy for fighting the budget and fighting the war! Yes," the guy who thinks he has the pulse on policy will exclaim, "we'll balance the budget with one and balance the body count with the other! It's genius!"

And then a god - who doesn't believe in beltway compromises that sound like they make more sense than they do and accomplish less than they sound like - will send a strategic bolt of lightning and crisp the finger poking fool.

Ahhh, to dream.

But seriously, escalating the war is not the way to elevate the lives of the people whose country and citizens our soldiers have destroyed and killed. We should be escalating the pace of withdrawal and elevating the notion of responsible leadership, but you can't teach a new government something your own government doesn't understand itself. It's so hard to tell these days which government could use a "New Way Forward" more, whatever that means. I guess it's better than the "Old Way Forward". At this point, I'd just settle for either a "New Way" or any "Way Forward."

-PBG

Nothing Fails Like Success

So the Baker-Hamilton Commission decided, among other things, that we must engage in direct talks with Iran and Syria. As loyal readers of this column may remember, we called for the Iraq Study Group to make just such a recommendation (Shaking Hands with Extremists: An Exit Strategy , 22 October, 2006). Since the report's release on Wednesday, this has become one of the commissions most controversial points.

In his press conference with Tony Blair yesterday, President Bush was adamant (shock!) that the United States will not talk to Iran until it steps back from its nuclear enrichment program. Nor will there be any discussions with the Syrians until they stop trying to "de-stabilize" Lebanon.

Not to include regional powers in talks aimed at stabilizing Iraq is stubborn and shortsighted (and not limited to the administration, but more about that later). It also indicates that this administration will only accept a "working" Iraq on its own terms, which, according to the ISG, are no longer attainable.

Still, Bush speaks of his consensus-less success as if it were still just around the corner. He does not admit that success became failure in Iraq years ago. "If we were to fail," he said yesterday, phrasing it as a hypothetical even though it has already happenned, "If we were to fail, that failed policy will come to hurt generations of Americans in the future."

Doesn't that sound like something that should have been said before March, 2003? It appears Bush is setting it up to look like failure will be the future's fault - a future Congress, a future president - and not his own, criminal stubbornness.

And while we await the immediate future Congress and what they will or won't do about Iraq, the Senate Armed Service's Committee questioned the members of the Iraq Study Group yesterday. They also had something to say about engaging Iran and Syria in the process. Not surprisingly, Senator Joseph Lieberman wondered aloud if Iran was willing to "help the United States succeed" in Iraq.

Joe misunderstands the same thing that many who cling to this entanglement do: we are not there for the benefit of the United States. We haven't benefitted at all since Saddam fell. Our goal now is to help the Iraqis succeed, not the U.S.

That is the point of the Baker-Hamilton / Iraq Study Group report: the United States has failed in the goal of stabilizing Iraq. There is no more succeeding. It's a done deal. The report begins with that brutal, honest assessment. That is why we must create a new regional consensus - so Iraq can succeed, in spite of us and the mess our president's policy has made.

If U.S. policy is to have the Iraqis stand up, we need regional cooperation to help hold them up while we crawl out from under their massacred bodies.

-PBG