From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [NYTr] Alterman: Death and denial, death and denial...
[See original for complete links] The Guardian Blogs - Jul 13, 2007 http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/eric_alterman/2007/07/death_and_denial_death_and_den.html Death and denial, death and denial... by Eric Alterman More craziness from the surge's supporters and an administration that would rather send more soldiers off to die than admit a mistake. I've studied the neocons pretty closely ever since I wrote my undergraduate college thesis on their origins 25 years ago. But there are still a number of things I suppose I will never understand about how and why they do what they do, and first among these is the amazing ability to simply ignore reality, no matter what the cost. This proclivity - I almost called it a "talent" - is most impressively displayed with regard to what they have successfully named "the surge," even though it is nothing more than an escalation of a failed war policy. In yesterday's Washington Post, not only did Bob Woodward report that the Bush administration ignored the fact that CIA Director Michael V. Hayden told the Iraq Study Group that "inability of the [Iraqi] government to govern seems irreversible," adding that he could not "point to any milestone or checkpoint where we can turn this thing around," but also the fact that Thomas Fingar, the top intelligence analyst in the office of the national intelligence director, argues that "the surge... has not yet had a sufficient effect on the violence, [and levels of violence] have not yet been reduced significantly." And yet yesterday morning, speaking from the comfort of a Fox News studio with absolutely no access to the information available to Fingar, William Kristol blithely announced, "The truth is if you look concretely on the ground in Iraq, the military situation is better than anyone expected. Better than David Petraeus expected. Better than those of us here at home who supported the surge expected six months ago. ... And we're going to win the war. I think we're going to win this war if we just don't lose our nerve here at home." He added later to New York-based radio host Brian Lehrer: "I think the media is understating the military progress that has been pretty astounding, I would say as a supporter of the surge. If you look at the documents that were made to argue for it, that say what could be done in six or seven months, Petraeus has done more actually; pretty amazing. I think the most important political progress has been happening on the ground not in the legislature in Baghdad, which is the flipping of the Sunni tribes in Anbar province and the beginning of splitting Shia away from the Iranian- backed extremists. So, I think Petraeus is doing a pretty fantastic job." This morning, I see in a column by Kristol's protege, New York Times neocon David Brooks, that the problem with our Iraq policy is that "Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, is doing everything he can to prevent a bipartisan consensus.." That's funny. I would have thought the problem was the fact that the policy is being conducted by an administration that has done just about everything imaginable to screw up Iraq, and even a few things that were unimaginable. They are the kind of people who would prefer to throw good money after bad - or in this case, live soldiers after dead - to save themselves the political inconvenience of admitting a mistake. After all, not only did they reject the face-saving mechanisms of the Iraq Study Group, we now know that they were informed by the head of the CIA - a general as well - that their ambition was already hopeless. Still they persist with the combination of happy talk about how well things are going on the one hand as their supporters engage in a campaign of character assassination toward anyone who feels compelled to deal with reality on the other. On and on it goes. Our president continues to assert against every available shred of evidence that we are fighting those who attacked us on September 11 in Iraq instead of enemies that he, himself, helped create with his foolish policies. The New York Times reports that this may not be accurate without admitting anywhere in the piece that the newspaper has been helping him make this phony connection, as its new Public Editor demonstrated with this hard-hitting column: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/opinion/08pubed.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fThe%20Public%20Editor And yet the game goes on. Billions are wasted. Thousands are killed. The chaos grows and grows and yet at home, nothing changes. The president lies; the neocons repeat those lies with even more enthusiasm; and our soldiers pay for it with their lives. It's like our country is caught on a merry-go-round of death and denial, death and denial, death and denial. *** http://select.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/opinion/15dowd.html?th&emc=th Who's Sorry Now? By MAUREEN DOWD NY Times Op-Ed: July 15, 2007 WASHINGTON There's not much lately that we'd like to import from China. Certainly not the yummy steamed buns stuffed with shredded cardboard soaked in a caustic agent used to make soap. Or the tasty toothpaste laced with an antifreeze ingredient. Or the scrumptious seafood with a chemical kick. Or those pet foods with kibbles and bits of poison. But there is one thing made in China we could use: mea culpas of high officials. Zheng Xiaoyu, a top regulator who helped create China's Food and Drug Administration, accepted $850,000 in bribes from drug companies and became enmeshed in the mistakes that flooded the market with dangerous drugs. Before he was executed Tuesday, he wrote a short confession titled "How I Look on My Mistakes." "Thinking back on what has happened these years, I start to see the problems clearly," he wrote in prison. "Why are the friends who gave me money all the bosses of pharmaceutical companies? Obviously because I was in charge of drug administration. "I am confessing here that I loosened self-discipline, ignored the bottom line," he said, adding that he had to confess his mistakes "as an act of saving my soul." We would skip the execution - although perhaps there should be ranch arrest for W., and Cheney could do community service passing out condoms at Gay Pride festivals. But it is time for the lethally inept duo running the country to do some painstaking self-examination and confession. Just as the Communist Party helped the late Mr. Zheng compose his thoughts, I volunteer to ghost-write our leaders' self-scrutiny: "How I Look on My Mistakes," by George W. Bush The people trusted me with an important position. I didn't live up to expectations. I let Dick supersize the executive branch and cast Democrats as whiners and traitors. Why did I not suspect that Dick might be power-hungry when he appointed himself vice president? Why did I let him take over my presidency and fill it up with warmongers? I was so afraid to be called a wimp, as my father once was, I allowed Dick and Rummy to turn me into a wimp. I should never have allowed Dick to conspire with energy lobbyists and steer contracts to Halliburton. A tip-off should have been when Dick kept giving himself all the same powers that I had. Or when he outed that pretty lady spy. If only I had kept my promise to go after the thugs who attacked us on 9/11, because now I've made Osama and Al Qaeda stronger. I know my false claim about Al Qaeda's ties with Iraq led to Iraq's being tied down by Al Qaeda. I see now that my bungled war on terror has created more terror, empowered Iran and made America less secure. Oh, yeah, and I'm sorry I broke the military. I stained the family honor when I ignored the elders of the Iraq Study Group. I should not have worried that I would be seen as kowtowing to my dad's friends. The Oval Office is not the right place for a teenage rebellion. I should not have picked that dimwit Brownie, and I should have trusted the gut of anyone besides that goof-off Chertoff to keep the nation safe. And what was I thinking when I said Harriet Miers should be a Supreme Court justice? That was loony. I'm sorry I made the surgeon general mention my name three times on every page of his speeches. That was childish. How could I have let Dick bring in his best friend, Rummy, my dad's old nemesis? Dummy Rummy let Osama escape at Tora Bora, messed up the Iraq occupation and aborted a mission to wipe out top Al Qaeda leaders because he was protecting Musharraf, who was protecting Al Qaeda in the tribal areas. Even though I promised to get rid of dictators who helped terrorists, I ended up embracing a Pakistani dictator who helps terrorists. I'm embarrassed that the Iraqi Parliament is taking a monthlong vacation in the middle of my surge. Could I have set a bad example when I rode my bike in Crawford while New Orleans drowned? I'm sorry I keep pretending Iraq will get better if we stay longer. It wasn't very nice of me to push the surge when I knew it couldn't work. I just wanted to dump the defeat on my successor. I wish Hillary the best of luck. If I had left the gym long enough to read about Algeria or even one of T. E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, then I might have not gotten bogged down in Iraq and let North Korea, China and Russia slide. Being the Decider is so confusing. I regret stealing the presidency and wish I could give it back. "How I Look on My Mistakes," by Dick Cheney Buzz off. *** From: John Jones This is amazing ... Cheney better burrow deeper into his bunker .... Arch-conservative Pittsburgh newspaper publisher, Richard Mellon Scaife, who funded the Arkansas project and the attack on Clinton, has now turned on Bush....his paper's editorial yesterday stated that "the President is delusional" and questioned his mental stability. Calls our 'staying the course' in Iraq "a prescription for suicide." http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/archive/s_517212.html Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Editorial The war in Iraq Sunday, July 15, 2007 Perhaps Jack Murtha put it best: The Pennsylvania congressman, among the first to make the cogent argument that staying the course in Iraq was the exercise in futility that indeed the war has become, says President Bush is delusional. Based on the president's recent performance, we could not agree more. "Staying the course" is not simply futile -- it is a prescription for American suicide. We've urged for months to bring our troops home. Now is the time. "Progress" has become such a nuanced, parsed and tortured term that it no longer has meaning. The "fledgling" Iraqi government -- how long can it reasonably be called that? -- consistently has not stepped up to the plate. President Bush warns that U.S. withdrawal would risk "mass killings on a horrific scale." What do we have today, sir? And quite frankly, during last Thursday's news conference, when George Bush started blathering about "sometimes the decisions you make and the consequences don't enable you to be loved," we had to question his mental stability. If the president won't do the right thing and end this war, the people must. The House has voted to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by April. The Senate must follow suit. Our brave troops should take great pride that they rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein. And they should have no shame in leaving Iraq. For it will not be, in any way, an exercise in tail-tucking and running. America has done its job. It's time for the Iraqis to do theirs. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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