Tag: Iraq war

(originally posted at The Motley Patriot and cross-posted at the Out of Iraq Bloggers Caucus)

How does a man, or woman, betray their country?  How does a person justify watching other people die for lies?  What purpose can be called "noble" that it cannot be named outright, instead, lies are necessary in order to carry out that cause?  America's involvement in Vietnam did not start with the "shock and awe" of invasion and it did not begin with the American public being fed lies by our President; that came later.  

TPM  reports that the Kurd's in Iraq have signed an oil agreement:

Texas' Hunt Oil Co. and Kurdistan's regional government said Saturday they've signed a production-sharing contract for petroleum exploration in northern Iraq, the first such deal since the Kurds passed their own oil and gas law in August.

Hunt has ties to the Bush administration:

"In October 2001 and again in January 2006, Mr. Hunt was appointed by President George W. Bush to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board in Washington, D.C."

Welcome to the Bush administration's Middle East oil gambit...

Kevin Drum at `The Washington Monthly` blog asks a very important question in his article, `REVOLT AT THE PENTAGON?`:

Second, even if the generals do stand their ground, can someone explain how this makes sense? We're not fixing things now even with 168,000 troops, and if we draw down we're supposedly going to unleash a massive civil war. So what are 50,000 troops in scattered outposts going to do while that's going on? Hunker down? Head out and get slaughtered? Evacuate? I just don't see how this makes any sense at all.

As Mr. Drum asks, what are 50,000 American troops scattered around Iraq at various Forward Operating Bases going to do?  

There has been an outcry from the GOP about Moveon.org's ad.  The GOP quickly pounced on the ad calling for the Democrats to denounce the ad.  The progressive blogosphere has, by and large, followed suit condemning the ad.

What is lost in this discourse from both sides, Left and Right, is one thing; how do the active-duty and veterans feel?

Ira Chernus, Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder, has written probably the most sobering article I've yet seen about the prospects for the Iraq occupation, and what can be expected from Democratic presidential candidates.

The war isn't in Vietnam, and it isn't 1967. But a bad war and bad government have again engendered protest. Some of the faces are familiar, although the slogans have been updated.

Tens of thousands of anti-war protesters, energized by fresh congressional skepticism about the war in Iraq, were demanding a withdrawal of U.S. troops in a demonstration Saturday featuring a handful of celebrities such as Jane Fonda and Susan Sarandon. ...

Other demonstrators on a clear, sunny day carried signs to the National Mall that said "Make hip-hop not War," "The surge is a lie," and "Clean water speaks louder than bombs."

Not that the president will notice ... or care.