[Dialogue] {Spam?} It's not what they say that matters...

[KroegerD at aol.com]

Published on Friday, September 14, 2007 by _Salon.com_ 
(http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/14/noise/index.html)   
The Endless, Meaningless Blather From The Washington  Establishment 
by Glenn Greenwald 
 
It has been extremely difficult over the past several months to pay any  
attention at all to the discussion of Iraq from our political and media stars.  It 
is all just complete blather, and never means anything. All of these stern  
and worried and tough words spill endlessly from their mouths — they all  
proclaimed in May that September was the Day of Reckoning: there would be  
bipartisan, forced withdrawal if the political benchmarks weren’t met — only for  the 
same thing to happen over and over. The conditions are not met; Bush  
proclaims we are staying; and the Washington Establishment submits. 
Just look at the Serious behavior of The Washington Post’s Fred  Hiatt in the 
last week alone to see how barren and worthless their words are.  Last 
Sunday, Hiatt came closer than ever before to admitting failure in Iraq,  ending his 
_Editorial_ 
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/08/AR2007090801421.html)  by asking: 
If Iraqis are not moving toward political reconciliation, what  justifies a 
continuing commitment of U.S. troops, with the painful sacrifices  in lives 
that entails?
Thus, argued Hiatt, if the President cannot answer that question, and “if  
there is to be no political accord in the near future,” then we must change our  
Iraq policy to “limit troop levels to those necessary to accomplish” very  
specific and more modest goals. But today, Hiatt _admits_ 
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/13/AR2007091302342.html)  that what 
he said just five days ago were  pre-conditions for supporting Bush’s Iraq 
policy have not been met:  “the president failed to acknowledge that, according to 
the standards he himself  established in January, the surge of U.S. troops 
into Iraq has been a failure —  because Iraqi political leaders did not reach 
the political accords that the  sacrifice of American lives was supposed to make 
possible.” 
Thus, by Hiatt’s own reasoning on Sunday, it means that there is no  
justification for “a continuing commitment of U.S. troops.” So does he embrace  that 
conclusion? Of course not, because nothing he says matters; all that  matters 
is that we stay in Iraq and do what the President wants: 
Mr. Bush’s plan offers, at least, the prospect of extending recent gains  
against al-Qaeda in Iraq, preventing full-scale sectarian war and allowing  
Iraqis more time to begin moving toward a new political order. For that  reason, it 
is preferable to a more rapid withdrawal. It’s not necessary to  believe the 
president’s promise that U.S. troops will “return on success” in  order to 
accept the judgment of Mr. Crocker: “Our current course is hard. The  
alternatives are far worse.”
This is how it goes endlessly with people like Hiatt: (1) If X does not  
happen, there is no justification for staying; (2) X has not happened; (3) we  
must stay. That is why nothing they say has any meaning. Staying in Iraq is  
always the only real goal. Everything else is just pretext and blather to  
continue to do that. Just look at the virtually unanimous consensus among our  
political and media class from last May, just four months ago. They all banded  
together to assure Americans that, come September, if the benchmarks were not  met 
and there was no political reconciliation, that would be the end of the line  
for the war. Worried and principled Republicans were willing to wait until  
September, but come September, they would join with Democrats and end the war,  
or at least force a significant withdrawal. 
Yet regardless of one’s views regarding the latest claims of “military  
progress,” everyone agrees that this allegedly necessary condition — benchmark  
fulfillment and political reconciliation — has not happened. It is not even a  
close call. As Hiatt himself said today, even Petraeus and Crocker “emphasized 
 that political accords will be slower in coming than Washington has 
expected, if  they are achievable at all.” 
Yet it does not matter. Even though the condition they all proclaimed must be 
 met in order to stay has not been met, they still all insist we must stay. It
’s  always the same: 
(1) If X does not happen by Y date, there is no justification for staying,  
they proclaim; (2) X has not happened; 
(3) We must stay.
Here is but a tiny sample of the consensus that the political Establishment  
spewed in May. If you listened to any of this, you wasted brain cells, because 
 it all proved to be completely meaningless, as always: David Gergen,  CNN, 
May 10, 2007: 
But I think, overall, Anderson, what we’re seeing is what we talked about  
last week. And that’s the emergence of a consensus on both sides, and in  
Congress and in the White House, that, probably, Congress will go ahead and  fund 
this, put some benchmarks in. They will fund it until September. But  that’s 
going to be the critical month, when there’s going to be a resolution  by both 
Democrats and Republicans on two things: Are we making enough progress  on the 
battlefield? And has the Maliki government and Iraq made enough  progress to 
justify going on? 
If either one of those tests fail, that’s when we’re going to see  the 
moment of starting to disengage. Republicans are — clearly do not  want to go over 
the waterfall with this president, if, by September, things  haven’t cleared 
up. . . . 
It sent a very clear signal to the whole country that the Republicans are  
not going to stand by. And they’re not going over this waterfall  together with 
him. He’s got to get this thing straightened out by September,  both on the 
military side and with the Iraqi  government.
National Journal, May 5, 2007: 
Congressional Republicans are increasingly looking to September as  the 
deadline for political progress in Iraq before their support for  the war starts to 
buckle, and Senate GOP leaders have been conveying  that message to the White 
House, Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., told National  Journal. By September, 
Republicans want to see evidence of stability  in Iraq, including a more effective 
army, a working oil-revenue-sharing  agreement, and government control over the 
militias that are attacking  opposing factions, Hagel said. 
Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, who has complained about a lack of dialogue  
between the White House and Congress on the war, said that the Bush  
administration is hearing out Republicans’ worries about the Iraqi government.  “I 
think the administration is listening more in terms of what’s being done  behind 
the scenes,” Voinovich told NJ. “There’s a lot more going on than  what’s out.
” . . . 
Republican patience could run out even earlier than September if  the Iraqi 
parliament takes a scheduled two-month summer recess in July and  August, 
especially if it has made little headway on political reconciliation  among the 
country’s factions. 
If the parliament recesses anyway, GOP support on Capitol Hill could  
dissolve, according to Voinovich, a key swing vote. “One thing [President Bush  had] 
better make sure is that that parliament doesn’t go on a two-month  vacation,”
 he said. “If that happens, the stuff is going to hit the fan,  big-time. I 
think all hell will break loose, here, all over.”
David Broder, The Washignton Post, May 31,  2007: 
Meanwhile, a significant movement is developing in the Senate to make  
Baker-Hamilton’s recommendations the official policy of the government. A  
resolution to that effect, co-sponsored by Democrat Ken Salazar of Colorado  and 
Republican Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, will be introduced in early June,  with at 
least six other senators — three from each party — endorsing it. . . .  These 
senators are centrists — the kind who can exert leverage on  their 
colleagues. But the man who can do the most to catalyze the  shift among Republicans is 
Sen. John Warner of Virginia, the widely respected  former chairman of the 
Armed Services Committee. . . . If Warner  shifts, many other Republican senators 
will move with him, and the policy will  change. I think that time is coming 
soon.
Anne Flaherty, Associated Press, May 25, 2007 — “U.S. Democratic,  
Republican leaders predict change in Bush’s Iraq war policy”: 
Republican and Democratic congressional leaders both forecast a change in  
President George W. Bush’s Iraq war policy as the president prepared to sign  
legislation Friday providing funds for U.S. military operations through Sept.  
30. “I think the president’s policy is going to begin to unravel now,” said  
the Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, Speaker Nancy Pelosi. .  
. . At a separate news conference, Senate Republican Leader Mitch  McConnell 
predicted a change, and said Bush would show the way. “I think the  
handwriting is on the wall that we are going in a different direction in the  fall and I 
think the president is going to lead it,” he  said.
U.S. News & World Report, May 21, 2007: 
A Gallup Poll last week showed that while the approval rate for the  president
’s handling of the war is a low 30 percent, congressional Democrats,  at 34 
percent, don’t score much higher. Republicans, at 27 percent, rate even  lower. 
That means that come September, when General Petraeus must  deliver his own 
progress report to Capitol Hill, Republicans may be more ready  to talk about 
withdrawal.
National Journal’s “Insider Poll” of D.C. Democrats - May  12, 2007: 
Q: If the political and military situation in Iraq has not significantly  
improved by September, will Congress enact legislation to withdraw  U.S. troops 
from Iraq? Democrats (32 votes) 
Yes: 59 percent 
No: 41 percent
Sen. Olympia Snowe’s Press Conference, May 10, 2007, in  Iraq: 
Our legislation provides for within 120 days that General Petraeus would  
come before the Congress and report in terms of whether or not the  Iraqi 
government has met these benchmarks. And if they have not achieved them,  then 
General Petraeus would be required within 14 days, to submit a plan on  phased 
redeployment of the troops associated with the Baghdad security plan,  as well as a 
change in mission for all the other troops, consistent  with the stated 
objectives that were set forth in the Iraq Study Group  plan.
Voice of America, May 9, 2007 — “SEPTEMBER LOOMS AS KEY MONTH IN U.S.  
DEBATE OVER IRAQ”: 
September is looming as a key month in the U.S. political debate over the  
war in Iraq. Congressional Democrats and a growing number of Republicans say  
they will take a hard look at how President Bush’s military surge strategy is  
working in Iraq by then and whether changes will be needed to the U.S.  
approach. . . . “If by September we do not see clear signs of progress, then I  think 
we have to face reality and start planning for a complete change of  mission,”
 said Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine. 
Another moderate Republican, Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon, told NBC’s  
Today program that other Republicans may press for changes in Iraq if the  
president’s surge strategy does not produce quick results. 
Smith was one of only two Senate Republicans to support a Democratic  funding 
bill that included a troop withdrawal timetable. 
“I only speak for one Republican senator, but I know what I hear  from many 
Republican senators, and that means that many of them will simply  change their 
votes and Chuck Hagel and I will not be the only ones calling on  the 
president to put the troops in a new place,” he  said.
_The Washington Post, May 8, 2007 — “September Could Be  Key Deadline in War”
_ 
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/07/AR2007050701689.html) : 
Congressional leaders from both political parties are giving President Bush  
a matter of months to prove that the Iraq war effort has turned a corner, with 
 September looking increasingly like a decisive deadline. In that month,  
political pressures in Washington will dovetail with the military timeline in  
Baghdad. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the commanding general in Iraq, has said that  
by then he will have a handle on whether the current troop increase is  having 
any impact on political reconciliation between Iraq’s warring factions.  And 
fiscal 2008, which begins Oct. 1, will almost certainly begin with  Congress 
placing tough new strings on war funding. . . . 
“September is the key,” said Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), a member of  
the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds defense. “If we don’t see a  
light at the end of the tunnel, September is going to be a very bleak month  
for this administration.” . . . 
House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), who has taken a hard line  in 
Bush’s favor, said Sunday, “By the time we get to September, October,  
members are going to want to know how well this is working, and if it isn’t,  what’
s Plan B.” . . . 
“There is a sense that by September, you’ve got to see real action  on the 
part of Iraqis,” said Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.). “I think everybody  knows 
that, I really do.”  
“I think a lot of us feel that way,” agreed Sen. Susan Collins  (R-Maine).
And on and on. Everything they said in unison was completely false. And they  
do not even have the defense that it was difficult back then to see that it 
was  false. Go read what virtually every blogger was saying back in May and it 
was  painfully obvious that the Establishment was both deceiving itself and 
deceiving  the country yet again. What they fear and hate more than anything is 
withdrawal  from Iraq because staying at least allows them to avoid their own 
Day of  Reckoning: when they are forced to accept how disastrous was the war 
that they  all enabled. That is why what they say — all of their sober 
prognostications and  warnings and analyses — is meaningless. All of the talk about “
worst options”  and alleged fears of what will happen if we withdrawal and our 
“strategic  interests” all just mask the simple truth that we are going to 
stay — even when  their own premises amount to an acknowledgement that there is 
no point in  staying — because we are staying to protect the reputations and 
credibility and  egos of the Washington Establishment. 
As much as our political class disgraced itself with its obsequious support  
for the invasion itself, and further disgraced itself with its complicity in 
the  endless claims (including from the General Whose Credibility Must Not Be  
Questioned) that things were going well when the opposite was true, their  
behavior over the last twelve months — when even they admit that the war is a  
failure and keep promising to support withdrawal only never to do so — is the  
undeniable evidence of how corrupt and worthless they really are. 
We continue to wage one of the most absurd wars in history — one in which all 
 of the original justifications have long ago vanished and nobody can 
identify  any specific purpose in staying, yet one which continues with no remote end 
in  sight. Put another way, we have exactly the war that befits our political 
 establishment. 
UPDATE: The Beltway Three-Step, as danced by Fred  Hiatt: 
(1) Hiatt on Sunday: “If Iraqis are not moving toward political  
reconciliation, what justifies a continuing commitment of U.S. troops, with the  painful 
sacrifices in lives that entails”? 
(2) Hiatt today: “It’s impossible not to be skeptical that the necessary  
political deals and improvements in Iraqi security forces will take place.” 
(3) Hiatt’s conclusion: “Mr. Bush’s plan offers, at least, the prospect of  
extending recent gains against al-Qaeda in Iraq, preventing full-scale 
sectarian  war and allowing Iraqis more time to begin moving toward a new political 
order.  For that reason, it is preferable to a more rapid withdrawal.” 
Translation: Nothing justifies the continued loss of U.S. lives by staying.  
But we should sacrifice their lives anyway so we don’t have to withdraw. 
_- Glenn  Greenwald_ (http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/)  
© 2007 Salon.com




************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wedgeblade.net/pipermail/dialogue_wedgeblade.net/attachments/20070914/a9116410/attachment-0001.html