The Toll Road

Last weekend, 12 U.S. troops died in Iraq, eight on Sunday. On Sunday alone, another 100 Iraqis died in Baghdad.

The rate of American casualties is going up - it's higher now than earlier in the year; it's higher this year than last year. Last week, the Pentagon said that it expects the casualty rate to rise even higher as the year unfolds, because "now we're taking the war to the enemy". I guess the last four years have been just a preliminary bout for what is now being viewed as the main event.

Republican leaders are now calling for a reassessment of our current strategy in "the fall". When "the surge" began, they told us it would be reassessed in "the summer". I wonder what we'll be told in the summer, and then in the fall. Actually, I don't wonder. I think we know what we'll be told.

We're delaying the inevitable in Iraq while hoping for the impossible in Washington.

The beat goes on.

A Show of Hands

At last week’s debate between the Republicans running for president there was one of those moments that sticks in the mind, without a word being said. The moderator, Chris Matthews, asked the candidates to raise their hand if they did not believe in evolution.

There was a pregnant pause on the stage as each candidate appeared to momentarily weigh the question, or perhaps the answer. Then, two hands went up – from Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas and former Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas. After another short pause, perhaps after confirming that he wasn’t going to be alone, Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado joined the elite minority. No other hands appeared to flinch.

My wife reacted in disbelief, as though she couldn’t believe what she’d just seen. She hit the “Rewind” button to play back the scene.

The next day she said, “I will have that scene emblazoned in my mind for a long, long time. When asked for a show of hands, ‘Who does not believe in evolution?’ three men running for President of the United States raised their hand. I never thought I would see that. Never. Next worst was hearing a candidate [former Gov. Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin] say that it was okay to fire a gay employee because it is a ‘private business.’”

While those moments might not fall into the politically infamous or ignoble category, I think they qualify for special attention. I agree with the implications of my wife’s observation – we should not elect a man or woman to the highest office in the land, and perhaps the most powerful in the world, if s/he does not believe the scientific evidence that supports basic evolution.

Americans are, of course, free to hold whatever belief they choose on matters at the intersection of faith and reason, but that doesn’t mean that those who adhere to the creeds of religious fundamentalism should be elected president, notwithstanding the fact that the voting citizens of various states have elected them governor, senator or representative. The President of the United States has to be capable of weighing the evidence at hand, no matter what his mommy, daddy, and pastor taught him or her when s/he was growing up in the holler.

As for it being OK to fire a gay employee in a private business solely on moral grounds, which is what the question asked – even Tommy Thompson had to back away from his answer the next day, claiming that he misunderstood the question. The question was not only clear, it was repeated, and then Thompson’s answer was confirmed. We shouldn’t elect a person to the presidency who can’t understand a clear question and can’t adhere to their confirmed answer for at least 24 hours.

So, stick a fork in these four guys – they’re done.

Success and the Commander Guy

President Bush has come up with a new nickname for himself. On Wednesday, when speaking to the Associated General Contractors of America, “the decider’’ was discussing his veto of the Iraq war spending bill that included a timeline for troop withdrawal. He said:

“The question is, ‘Who ought to make that decision, the Congress or the commanders?’’ Mr. Bush said. “As you know, my position is clear – I’m the commander guy.”

But, the Commander Guy wasn’t through dazzling the audience with his adroit turn of a memorable phrase. Next, he offered a penetrating and deeply nuanced assessment of whether his new strategy in Iraq will be successful.

"… slowly but surely, the truth will be known. Either we’ll succeed, or we won’t succeed.”

Insert at this point the now patented head-bobbing smirk and muffled giggle. While I’m well beyond tired of watching that smirk, it didn’t bother me nearly as much as the almost casual dismissal of the cost of the war that is embedded in “slowly but surely”. But that didn’t bother me nearly as much as the nonchalant shrug that was embodied in the simple-headed comment, “Either we’ll succeed, or we won’t succeed.” That statement signaled a disturbing detachment from the death and destruction that goes on under his command. I found it disrespectful of the U.S. troops and the innocent Iraqis who continue to be killed day after day.

Sensing that this flippant remark required just a tad more explanation, the Commander Guy went on to proffer his newly-minted definition of “success”:

“And the definition of success as I described is ‘sectarian violence down’. Success is not ‘no violence’."

Hey, just the day before he said that sectarian violence is down – ergo, we have succeeded in Iraq and we can leave. Hell, if he’d just tossed out this tripwire for American withdrawal earlier then at least the Shia militias would have stopped fighting in a nanosecond so that we could declare “success” for the second time and then leave for the first time.

As for the second sentence in the president’s definition, I confess that I’m not real good at interpreting double negatives, but doesn’t “success is not ‘no violence’” mean that “success is violence”? Well, we’ve achieved success under that standard as well; so, time to go.

Sensing that three- and four-word definitions might prove problematic, the president added an important benchmark by saying:

“There are parts of our own country that have got a certain level of violence to it.”

I think he’s saying we need Iraq at least to get closer to being like Detroit or Washington, DC.

Finally, the Commander Guy set forth a standard for success that most of us can understand; one that we’ll know when we see it. He said:

“But success is a level of violence where the people feel comfortable about living their daily lives. And that's what we're trying to achieve.”

OK, that’s something we can work with because most of know something about feeling comfortable about living our daily lives. Under that definition, there is no meaningful chance that Iraqis are going to feel comfortable about living their daily lives until the following nine things happen:

1) the Sunnis and the Shia stop killing each other at a rate greater than that found in certain parts of America; 2) markets, bus stations, police stations, restaurants, libraries and colleges stopping getting blown to smithereens; 3) Iraqi security forces are actually forces to be reckoned with; 4) the Iranians and Syrians stop trying to intervene in the Shia-dominated government in Iraq; 5) the Saudis and Jordanians stop threatening to intervene to protect the Sunni minority in Iraq; 6) the Kurds and the Turks solve that gnarly little border problem they’ve had for several decades (or is it centuries?); 7) the Sunnis and the Kurds become full participants in the Shia-dominated government in Iraq; 8) Sunnis be allowed to hold any job other than trash collector and hod carrier; and 9) all three groups figure out how to divide the billions of dollars of national oil revenue that constitutes the lifeblood of the country.

Actually, there are more things, but I didn’t want the list to get into double digits. The point is – there’s not a Popsicle’s chance in hell that Iraqis are going to feel comfortable about living their daily lives before the year 2525 (cue Zager & Evans). “Success” by any definition this president is likely to endorse is an infinitesimally low probability.
Unlike Senator Harry Reid, I don’t say the war in Iraq is lost. Like General David Petraeus, I say the mission in Iraq cannot be accomplished through U.S. military action. Therefore, it’s time for the U.S. military to develop and implement a plan to leave.

Second Amendment Madness

The knuckle-dragging NRA just asked the White House to withdraw its support for new federal legislation that would prohibit suspected terrorists from buying guns. The NRA adamantly asserts that any person suspected of being a terrorist should be able to buy as many guns as they want - because, after all, they're just suspects.

No, I'm not making this up.

Apparently, the NRA wants us to wait until after the identified suspects have bought their arsenal and killed people in a terrorist attack. We wouldn't want to stand in their way until it's clear that there's no longer any reason or means to do so.

I'll be the first to be critical of the administration for things it has done to strip average Americans of long-cherished civil liberties, but this is one "right" that the government can hold in abeyance until such time that a suspect does what is necessary to get their name off of the government's suspected terrorist list.

At this point, I think it would be appropriate for NRA members to scrap those "We Support the Troops" bumper stickers off of their Chevy pickups. In the alternative, they can paint over the word "Troops" and insert the words "Suspected Terrorists".

An Unending Episode of Mission Impossible

Four years ago today George Bush decided it was time to grandstand on the deck of an aircraft carrier and announce that our mission in Iraq had been accomplished – that major combat operations had come to an end. It’s hard to recall another moment at least in recent history when the President of the United States has been so wrong. Many people in the U.S. and Iraq have paid dearly for the president’s mistake.

Since that day four years ago, thousands of Americans have died; tens of thousands of Americans have been wounded; tens of thousands of Iraqi have died; hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been wounded; and millions of Iraqis have been displaced.

As for the war on terrorism, the terrorists have become for more numerous, far more active, and far more deadly than they were on May 1, 2003. NPR broadcast an analysis this morning that makes that point in simple terms. Four years ago, there were an estimated 5,000 Sunni insurgents in Iraq – now, there are 25,000. Four years ago, there were an estimated 5,000 Shiite militiamen in Iraq – now, there are 50,000.

Iraq has become a festering breeding ground for terrorism. Before the war, there were no organized al Qaeda operations in Iraq – now, there are. Before the war, there was no alignment between Iraq and Iran, the largest supporter of terrorism in the world – now, there is.

In 2006, there were 14,338 terrorist attacks around the world, an increase of 28.5% compared to 2005. In 2006, there were 20,498 people killed in terrorist attacks around the world, an increase of 40.2% compared to 2005.

Four years after “shock and awe” pummeled the Baghdad infrastructure, most of the residents in that city still don’t have electricity during the daytime or a working sewage system. But, in that regard, they aren’t particularly different than the residents of Washington, DC. There is very little light being generated in that city, either, and the effluent being generated in Washington continues to flow almost unabated from the broken decision-making systems that underlie that city. Washington got pummeled by “shock and awe” almost as badly as Baghdad did.

Mission accomplished? Not hardly; not even close. We’ve been fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq longer than it took to defeat Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. We won that two-front war because we had a clearly defined military mission that could be accomplished. We will not win the war militarily in Afghanistan and Iraq because we’re trapped in an unending episode of Mission Impossible.