My sentiments exactly

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 09/19/2007 | Commentary: Bush fulfills H.L. Mencken's prophecy:

"In one stroke of George W. Bush's pen America went from being a nation that distrusted foreign entanglements and fought wars only when grossly provoked to a nation that attacked first and without credible reason.

That same stroke — and the ensuing five years of war in Iraq — wiped out whatever remained of our reservoir of good will with the rest of the world. The shining city on the hill donned camouflage paint and went to war in the wrong place at the wrong time against the wrong people.

Now George Bush could posture and strut as a wartime president; could style himself The Decider, and could decide which parts of the Constitution and Bill of Rights bought so dearly by generations of Americans he would give or take away.

The mills of the military-industrial complex went into high gear, as the defense contractors jostled for their places at a trough filled each year with half a trillion dollars of taxpayer money. The Republican political operatives milked them all like so many Holstein cows and the Republican lobbyists romped over to Capitol Hill buying congressmen by the baker's dozen to keep the pumps primed."

Read it all...

I tried to post this comment on the Washington Post's story on the Senate resolution against MoveOn, but was denied, so here it is:

Did anyone read the actual ad? Every point in the ad is accurate. This was not a vicious attack on Petraeus; it was a statement of facts, every one backed up by sources at MoveOn.org.

The Bush administration called it an attack on the military. Fine words from a man who stood by silently while the so-called Swift Boat veterans savaged the reputation of a real war hero. An administration that vetoes bills allowing our soldiers a reasonable amount of time off between deployments in what even the soldiers now recognize as a fiasco.

And fine work by a Senate that chose to take no action at all after the shameful Swift Boat affair that was repudiated by those who actually served with Kerry.

Instead of calling MoveOn members names, why not take on the actual issues?

"Prebuttal" to Petraeus

Two of the soldiers who collaborated in this OpEd issued a few weeks before the Petraeus report have since died as a result of combat.

The War as We Saw It - New York Times

By BUDDHIKA JAYAMAHA, WESLEY D. SMITH, JEREMY ROEBUCK, OMAR MORA, EDWARD SANDMEIER, YANCE T. GRAY and JEREMY A. MURPHY

Baghdad, August 19, 2007

VIEWED from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is indeed surreal. Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)

The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the “battle space” remains the same, with changes only at the margins. It is crowded with actors who do not fit neatly into boxes: Sunni extremists, Al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite militiamen, criminals and armed tribes. This situation is made more complex by the questionable loyalties and Janus-faced role of the Iraqi police and Iraqi Army, which have been trained and armed at United States taxpayers’ expense.

A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.

As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.

Similarly, Sunnis, who have been underrepresented in the new Iraqi armed forces, now find themselves forming militias, sometimes with our tacit support. Sunnis recognize that the best guarantee they may have against Shiite militias and the Shiite-dominated government is to form their own armed bands. We arm them to aid in our fight against Al Qaeda.

However, while creating proxies is essential in winning a counterinsurgency, it requires that the proxies are loyal to the center that we claim to support. Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the Americans leave.

In short, we operate in a bewildering context of determined enemies and questionable allies, one where the balance of forces on the ground remains entirely unclear. (In the course of writing this article, this fact became all too clear: one of us, Staff Sergeant Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a “time-sensitive target acquisition mission” on Aug. 12; he is expected to survive and is being flown to a military hospital in the United States.) While we have the will and the resources to fight in this context, we are effectively hamstrung because realities on the ground require measures we will always refuse — namely, the widespread use of lethal and brutal force.

Given the situation, it is important not to assess security from an American-centered perspective. The ability of, say, American observers to safely walk down the streets of formerly violent towns is not a resounding indicator of security. What matters is the experience of the local citizenry and the future of our counterinsurgency. When we take this view, we see that a vast majority of Iraqis feel increasingly insecure and view us as an occupation force that has failed to produce normalcy after four years and is increasingly unlikely to do so as we continue to arm each warring side.

Coupling our military strategy to an insistence that the Iraqis meet political benchmarks for reconciliation is also unhelpful. The morass in the government has fueled impatience and confusion while providing no semblance of security to average Iraqis. Leaders are far from arriving at a lasting political settlement. This should not be surprising, since a lasting political solution will not be possible while the military situation remains in constant flux.

The Iraqi government is run by the main coalition partners of the Shiite-dominated United Iraqi Alliance, with Kurds as minority members. The Shiite clerical establishment formed the alliance to make sure its people did not succumb to the same mistake as in 1920: rebelling against the occupying Western force (then the British) and losing what they believed was their inherent right to rule Iraq as the majority. The qualified and reluctant welcome we received from the Shiites since the invasion has to be seen in that historical context. They saw in us something useful for the moment.

Now that moment is passing, as the Shiites have achieved what they believe is rightfully theirs. Their next task is to figure out how best to consolidate the gains, because reconciliation without consolidation risks losing it all. Washington’s insistence that the Iraqis correct the three gravest mistakes we made — de-Baathification, the dismantling of the Iraqi Army and the creation of a loose federalist system of government — places us at cross purposes with the government we have committed to support.

Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers. The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party in the conflict — as we do now — will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run.

At the same time, the most important front in the counterinsurgency, improving basic social and economic conditions, is the one on which we have failed most miserably. Two million Iraqis are in refugee camps in bordering countries. Close to two million more are internally displaced and now fill many urban slums. Cities lack regular electricity, telephone services and sanitation. “Lucky” Iraqis live in gated communities barricaded with concrete blast walls that provide them with a sense of communal claustrophobia rather than any sense of security we would consider normal.

In a lawless environment where men with guns rule the streets, engaging in the banalities of life has become a death-defying act. Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence. When the primary preoccupation of average Iraqis is when and how they are likely to be killed, we can hardly feel smug as we hand out care packages. As an Iraqi man told us a few days ago with deep resignation, “We need security, not free food.”

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are — an army of occupation — and force our withdrawal.

Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.

We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.

Buddhika Jayamaha is an Army specialist. Wesley D. Smith is a sergeant. Jeremy Roebuck is a sergeant. Omar Mora is a sergeant. Edward Sandmeier is a sergeant. Yance T. Gray is a staff sergeant. Jeremy A. Murphy is a staff sergeant.

Iraq: More lies, damned lies and statistics

NPR : Statistics the Weapon of Choice in Surge Debate: (Excerpt)

"People are making claims and assertions that don't stack up when they are viewed in the context of the last four years," MacGregor says.

Here's an example: The Pentagon says sectarian deaths in Iraq were sharply down in August. But the military's definition of what constitutes a sectarian murder is narrow."

Last month's massive bombing in northern Iraq that killed more than 500 ethnic Yezidis made August 2007 the second-deadliest for Iraqi civilians. Yet the Pentagon doesn't consider large bombings like that one an example of sectarian violence. The result is that it can show that sectarian murders are down.

"What we have right now is an illusion created by the White House, created unfortunately with the help of many people in the media," MacGregor says. "And the result is, people pick up on what is said [and] it becomes conventional wisdom."

......

And then there's the issue of Anbar province. Both the White House and the Pentagon have attributed the changes in Anbar to the surge strategy. But several military advisers who worked in Iraq until late last year have said that is simply not true. MacGregor says that the increasing cooperation between U.S. forces and Sunni tribes in Anbar started more than 18 months ago, long before the "surge."

"And they were done on the initiative of the Marines and the Navy who looked at Anbar and said, "There's gotta be a better way to do business here," he says.

Read it all...

Not sure? Check this out from the Washington Post.

Sanctions or engagement? It depends

Bridging the Shia-Sunni Divide With Free Trade - CommonDreams.org

Sept. 11, Inter Press Service
by Meena Janardhan

DUBAI - While Iran and the United States exchange aggressive statements, the Arab countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) have been busy building trade relations with Tehran and charting an economic course with a potential of mending ties in a tough neighbourhood.

Read more...

Here's an example of engagement to bridge differences. I've been thinking about the use of sanctions as opposed to engagement.

Sanctions worked beautifully in South Africa, leading to the downfall of apartheid. But in Cuba they have merely served to preserve a Communist anachronism in amber. (Whether that's good or bad for the Cuban people is another discussion.) There's no doubt that North Korea would be better off if we engaged with them instead of sanctioning them.

When to sanction, when to engage? I think the answer depends on the situation. South Africa was a secular system that exploited racism for economic benefit. Many of our "enemies" today are religious (including Communist) zealots. Sanctions isolate them and push them further into extremism.

Repressive secular systems, on the other hand, quickly see the economic disadvantages of the sanctions and begin to change their ways. They don't have the religious zeal to suffer deprivation willingly. That's why I think imposing carefully chosen sanctions on Saddam Hussein--a secular dictator--in 1991 would have been a better idea than starting the Gulf War.

We waited until after the Gulf War to impose sanctions on Saddam. Unfortunately, they were so unreasonable that they caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children.

I look forward to this new engagement of Iran by Iran's former enemies in the region.

Too bad that our administration's approach is to ratchet up the threat level. The majority of our administration is now openly espousing an attack on Iran, possibly with nuclear weapons, which may happen any day. This will turn the entire world against us, and most particularly the oil-rich Middle East, and cause death and hideous suffering to millions of blameless human beings. Too bad that Congress is buying the hype that Iran somehow poses a threat to us.

If Congress is too scared to stop this attack, it's the duty of every patriotic American to stand up and demand that our leaders stop this rogue administration.

The surge--what do Iraqis think

Not much, according to a new poll. I wonder if any of this will make it into the Congressional discussion of the merits of the surge.

Poll Highlights Disconnect Between U.S. Commanders, Iraqis - washingtonpost.com:

By Megan Greenwell Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, September 10, 2007; 8:16 AM

BAGHDAD, Sept. 10 -- Seven out of 10 Iraqis believe the U.S. troop buildup in Baghdad and Anbar province has made security worse in those areas, and nearly as many say their own lives are going badly, according to a new poll conducted by ABC News, the British Broadcasting Corp., and the Japanese broadcaster NHK."

The poll reveals a disconnect between U.S. commanders' view of a steadily improving situation in Iraq and a bleaker outlook among Iraqis. As Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker prepare to testify before Congress on Monday and Tuesday about the results of the troop increase, poll numbers show that ordinary Iraqis are significantly more likely to say "things are going badly" than in the early days of the increased military presence in March.

Fewer than one-quarter of Iraqis report that things in Iraq are going well, down from 35 percent in March, while the number of people who expect conditions to improve in the next year has declined precipitously.

In November 2005, shortly before Iraq's historic open elections, 69 percent of residents said they believed life would be better in a year. That number decreased to 40 percent last March and 23 percent in the new poll.

Read the rest...

The rich, they're not like you and me

And the difference is growing.

Will the rich save the economy? - By Daniel Gross - Slate Magazine:

Recent sales figures from retailers like Wal-Mart, J.C. Penney, Dollar General, and Sears have been less than encouraging. But the huge mass retailers may not be the best indicators of overall spending. Instead, we should probably focus on the what the rich are doing.

On the other hand....

At Saks, same-store sales in August were up a stunning 18.2 percent; at Tiffany, same-store U.S. sales rose 17 percent in the second quarter. Indeed, luxury retailers are in an expansive mood. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this week (subscription required) that "this year, some 30 high-end retailers have opened boutiques in Austin [Texas], including Tiffany & Co., Michael Kors, Ralph Lauren, David Yurman, Louis Vuitton and Burberry." These stores are located in a new mall anchored by Neiman Marcus, where same-store sales rose a healthy 4.6 percent in August. Among the strongest performers: "designer handbags, shoes, designer jewelry, women's fine apparel, and men's."

Nationwide, the housing sales market may be a bust. But the Journal reports (subscription required) Friday morning that while many California housing markets suffer, "[e]ye-popping sales are spreading along a 40-mile stretch of southern Santa Barbara County." In July, sales in the area, "the only region of California where the median sales prices surpassed $1 million," rose nearly 28 percent. Publicly held home builders that cater to middle-class buyers are faring poorly. But the very wealthy are still building. This 50,000-square-foot home under construction in West Hartford, Ct., is worth 20 starter homes—and probably more, given the amenities. Or take personal transport. While auto sales are down, "the market for private jets is stronger than it has ever been," said Richard Aboulafia, analyst at the Teal Group. Economically speaking, a Gulfstream G550, which is made in the United States and goes for $48 million, is worth the equivalent of 3,200 Ford Focus coupes, which go for about $15,000 each.

Read the whole article.

(By the way, Gross concludes that the the answer to his question is no.)

Why can't they at least learn the language?

(I'd love to link this, but the original Hartford Courant link is dead.)

Why Can't These Pale Pilgrims Learn The Language?
Colin McEnroe - The Hartford Courant

We've been having quite a debate about immigration lately. I was chatting with some guys right after a Wampanoag medicine circle last week, and I was surprised at how many people favor immediate deportation of everybody who has come here without proper authorization from our government - which is pretty much everybody who has come here.

"How are we going to do that?" I asked a guy named Tinsin. "We don't ever know how many of them there are. They're impossible to keep track of. How are we going to round them all up and send them back to England or Holland or wherever?"

"They're easy to find," a guy named Masshantamaine chimed in. "They smell bad. And they never do anything or go anywhere. They're very lazy. And they drink that alcohol stuff all the time."

"And they bring diseases," said Tinsin. "They're dirty and sneaky. And they refuse to learn the language."

They had a point. I'm pretty liberal on the immigration question, but I do think they should learn the language. Half the time they're babbling away in English, like we're supposed to understand them. We've set up Wampanoag as a Second Language evening classes down at the community wetu, but hardly any of them show up.

So I say to the pale immigrants, "How do you think you are going to make it here in this country, in this Shining Land of the First Light, if you don't speak the language?"

I learned enough English to say this to them, but that only encourages them. They want us - just for example - to do our signs in Wampanoag and English. How practical is that?

I feel sorry for them. They're obviously scared. They have this crazy religion that scares them instead of making them brave. Their religion tells them they are evil and broken and nothing can save them except their One God's son, whom they killed by mistake quite a few years ago, so he's in no mood to save them. So they spend a lot of time on their knees whimpering about how horrible this world is and worrying that they're going somewhere even worse after they die. Great religion, huh?

Sometimes, I say to them,"Toughen up! Everything is a God. The bear is a God. And the moose is a God. So is the wind and the fire. The river is a God. And the trout. And it's all good. It will make you brave to know these Gods, so you can get revenge against your enemies and 1 ive a great life and die a good death."

And they just start waving bunches of papers around and whimpering some more about what John Calvin said at the Synod of Dort or something.

So no wonder everybody says they're drain on our economy.

"Look," I said the other day. "They come from these really crappy countries where they are apparently right at the bottom of the river bed. They are not even allowed to practice their miserable religion of Oops, We Killed God's Son and Now He Hates Us."

"I thought God hated them because they ate something off one of his trees," said Hoken.

"That's ridiculous. A tree is a God," said Masshantamaine. "These people are morons. Make them go home."

"I'm concerned that this has become a racial thing," I said. "Would we be talking this way if they were not pale? If they were like us?"

"This has nothing to do with skin color. It has to do with following the rules," said Tetannett. "Did they petition the council of chiefs? Did they bring us five deer? I am totally about process not skin color and these people do not go through the process. They show up on their boats and immediately they want us to bring them squash and corn and turkey, because they lack the basic tools to fend for themselves, so they're starving and cold and sick. We have people who are here legally who do not get free corn and squash and turkey."

"Still, if we work with them, maybe they can become productive members of the Shining Land of the First Light," I said.

Boy, you would have thought I was the lead act at Clever Fox Comedy lief Jam Powwow Night, the way they laughed at that one.

So anyway, we've been trying to come up with some kind of plan that balances everybody's interests. For example, some of the people in the beaver skin field really like these immigrants, because they're just a tremendous market for beaver skins. They're always cold.

We're kicking around some kind of point system. They'd get a point, for example, if they had fishing skills or knew our language. They'd have to go back across the ocean and apply for a Special Otter Permit, then they could come back and work under the otter program for eight seasons, accumulating more points. Then they would be hawks.

Eventually, after 40 seasons, if they didn't break any of our laws or excessively get on our nerves, we would make them human beings.

That's the framework, so to speak, but people keep trying to make changes. There's a surprisingly large contingent that wants to add a "They Have to Not Smell So Bad" rule. I admit, the pale ones smell really bad, but you get used to it.

A lot of people just want to work on tightening our borders, and there's a big project down by the beach to cut down frees and float them out in the water and tie them together so the boats can't get through.

"It's not going to work. People will just get through, because it's so great here, so they'll find a way. They just want what we have," I told a bunch of them.

"Yes," they said, "but we were here first."

What I'm proposing is amnesty for the ones who are already here, but they have to carry a piece of bark explaining who they are. We'll tell them they need it to get a canoe license.

"There's no such thing as a canoe license," Tetannett objected.
"They don't know that," I answered.

Part of the compromise is that the bark things will carry the message, "Hello. I smell bad and am probably carrying some kind of pestilence. I am also too stupid and lazy to learn the language this is written in."

Because, after all, what's the point of having immigrants if you can't pick on them?

Tomatoes at last!

Oh, there had been a ripe tomato or two in early August, along with a basket of cherry tomatoes. But never enough to bother making pasta for. The harvest finally got going with a bang at the end of August. Now I am tripping over baskets of tomatoes in my kitchen--red ones, yellow ones, orange-and-red striped ones, round ones, pointy ones, squashed ones with many fantastic lobes, like brains. Tomatoes that show a pattern of red and yellow rays when you slice them. Tomatoes that are almost purple inside. Tomatoes five inches across. Really the loveliest tomatoes I've ever been blessed with; the photo doesn't even come close to doing them justice.

Meanwhile, the vines outside are groaning under the weight of more bounty. One cubic foot of vine has 15 tomatoes in it. Where earlier it was, "Is it ripe? We'll say it's ripe enough," now it's "Can these stay on the vine a little longer without disintegrating? We'll say they can."

I've made tomato juice, tomato soup, lots of Vitamix sauces with tomatoes, peppers, onions, carrots and a host of whatever else is available. This morning we had tomatoes and the one eggplant with garbanzo beans and rice. Tasty. I've hauled out my pasta maker and whipped up bunches of pasta to serve as a vehicle for shoveling more tomatoes into my mouth. Another thing we've done is sliced the tomatoes up in a little balsamic vinegar, garlic and basil and later piled the marinated tomatoes on cheese sandwiches.

I can say this is a local meal, sort of, since the bread is homemade. The wheat, however, is from got knows where--no one grows wheat in California.

Now if the tomatillos would only hurry up. They've never been so late as this year.

Apples and green beans are piling up. Here's one day's harvest--enough green beans for a generous meal, a few more tomatoes, and a dozen or so apples. Most of my apples tend to go to waste because each one of them has its own resident codling moth larva. But for some reason, there were many bug-free apples this year.

By a stroke of serendipity, I acquired a small juicer for $5 at a garage sale. I'm not a big apple eater, but I love the fresh juice. So...I gathered all the apples--even the ones that had fallen on the ground and gotten bruised or sun-scalded, and made apple juice that is beyond description, thick, creamy, exploding with flavor. Apple juice you have to drink up in short order, because it's not pasteurized or frozen or preserved in any other way. And on a hot summer day, this is not a chore.

I buy carrots in large Costco-sized quantities because they keep a long time and I like to add one to the soup. But the collection in my vegetable bin was beginning to look a little shriveled. No problem! I turned a bunch of them into delicious juice. Why is it that carrots are kind of a ho-hum vegetable, but the fresh juice is divine (and the canned stuff so awful)?

This was a bumper year for nectarines. There must have been at least a hundred on our little tree--which produced basically zero nectarines last year. They are small ones with big seeds--probably because of deficient watering--but very concentrated in flavor. After wondering what to do with the baskets of them, I hit on the idea of drying them in the solar oven, leaving the glass top off so it wouldn't get too hot. The first batch got a little over-heated and acquired a delightfully toasted flavor, like peach cobbler. The next batch was a little moister and just as good.

I've started harvesting winter squash. Two of them are curing on my back porch now. I'm letting some of the beans go to seed for next year, and getting ready to plant onions and garlic, broccoli and spinach. I have cilantro started in a pot on the porch and under the tomatoes. Is there any way to preserve fresh basil for the winter? If so, dear non-existent reader, please let me know.

My only heartbreak, one that I experience nearly every year, is the usual pepper crop failure. This is a serious problem, because the ones I like aren't available in the stores and nurseries.

I like to make salsa verde, which requires poblano chiles, tomatillos and cilantro. Every year, I manage to have two of the three ingredients, but never all three.

I know it's not just my garden location, because one year I had baskets full of my favorite peppers--poblanos and pimentos. Unfortunately, that was the year that the tomatillos didn't do too well.

This year, I can't find the poblanos even in the farmers markets. It seems no one has peppers to sell. Why that is, I don't know. It's been a dry year, but that doesn't explain it. Summer has been a bit cool until the last two weeks, when it's been decidedly hot.

Another perennial crop failure is spinach. Now, Steve eats a LOT of spinach. I'd like not to have to go to Safeway or Costco and buy those 4-pound bags every week. But I've gotten precious little spinach out of my garden so far. Well, I'm going to try again. This time I'll try planting it while it's still warm and dry, so the slugs and pillbugs don't get them all, and hope it cools off before they bolt.

You know, I'm not getting nearly enough done of the other stuff I have to do, because of all this produce growing and processing, but what is life for if not to grow food and eat it?

Okay, I have to go check the bread in the solar oven.

Next: Summer of Love photos.