“Russia is dying with desire to be what it hates most - a new America. An America which goes to war in Iraq without U.N. backing; An America that punishes Serbia; and an America that is godfather of the new state - Kosovo. ‘Europe is part of the periphery’ said a Russian MP. Russia has begun to imagine itself as a rising superpower confronting a declining America. The Russian media, entirely controlled by the Kremlin, has been feeding its readers with propaganda about new Russian grandeur.
“Russian MP Serguei Markov, a political scientist attached to the Kremlin, said that the signal to begin military operations had been given personally by Dick Cheney, and that Russia was at war against America - the only rival worthy of the new rival Russian power.”
“Despite the disclosure of some of the contents of the Convention, there is much that remains unknown to the Iraqi public. Since no harm would result if Iraq’s government made the contents of the draft-Convention public before it is finalized, that is exactly what it should do. That would be in the interest of creating a national consensus and would show the Iraqi people how the agreement is compatible with their own aspirations. It would also allay the fears of those who oppose the deal, even though many of these people were opposed to the agreement even before its first letters were written.”
He also writes that an agreement on a U.S. withdrawal remains elusive, that the Iraqi government has too many officials confusing the public by offering differing views of the agreement.
Iraq and the United States have agreed that a planned security pact will require all U.S. troops to leave by the end of 2011, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Monday, while Washington said no final deal had been reached.
“There is an agreement actually reached, reached between the two parties on a fixed date, which is the end of 2011, to end any foreign presence on Iraqi soil,” Maliki said in a speech to tribal leaders in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone.
“Yes, there is major progress on the issue of the negotiations on the security deal,” Maliki said.
The Iraqi government had proposed in bilateral talks that U.S. troops end patrols of Iraqi towns and villages by the middle of next year, and that U.S. combat troops leave Iraq by 2011, under a pact that will govern their presence after 2008.
So there is agreement, or so Maliki claims, on the date, but not on the specifics. According to State Department spokesman Robert Wood, there is no deal yet. For more on this — on the stumbling blocks — see my post from earlier this month.
Essentially, the U.S. is being forced out of a war it started and grossly mismanaged and, in many ways, lost, with the warmongers facing a firm timeline the very principle of which they have opposed all along.
Of course, the warmongers will blame the Iraqis themselves for Iraq’s problems, not least if the post-withdrawal period goes badly, but this is one huge slap in the face for those, like McCain, who still support this terrible war. The Americans were never really greeted as liberators and now they are being pushed out so that, at long last, the Iraqis can take full control of their country’s destiny.
In the “lull” between Obama’s announcement of his vice-presidential pick, and the opening of the Democratic Convention in Denver tomorrow, I am going to try to briefly re-direct the readers’ attention to what I feel is a shameful situation.
There have been many—too many—instances where an administration that claims to “support the troops,” falls woefully short of doing just that. The list is long, starting with body armor and other protective equipment for our troops in combat; continuing with the Walter Reed Medical Center and other active duty and veterans’ health care scandals; and most recently, the fact that Bush & Co. (read: McCain) had to be dragged kicking and screaming into signing-on to a decent G.I. Bill of Rights for our troops.
We have also heard, or even experienced, how Condoleezza Rice’s personnel in some U.S. Consulates and Embassies abroad treat Americans—or their spouses—who need assistance from their country with more red tape and red ink than red carpet. Read the rest of this entry »
“There was no mistaking the power and symbolism of the opening ceremonies for the Beijing Olympic Games on August 8. That multimedia spectacular did far more than trace China’s 5,000-year history; it was a statement that China is a major civilization that demands and deserves its rightful place in the global hierarchy.
There was also no mistaking the symbolism of seeing President George W. Bush, waving cheerfully from his spot in the bleachers while Chinese President Hu Jintao sat behind what looked like a throne. It’s hard to imagine that China’s government, which obsesses over every minute issue of diplomatic protocol, had not orchestrated this stark image of America’s decline relative to the country to which it owes $1.4 trillion. It would be hard to imagine Franklin Delano Roosevelt or Ronald Reagan accepting a similar relative position.”
“The world is not ready for the post-American era … until it is, the world needs a new kind of American leader - a leader able to inspire Americans to fix their problems at home and work with partners across the globe in promoting a common agenda as bold and progressive as the order built from the ashes of World War II 60 years ago.”
America loves to elect military men to political office. Since General Washington earned the votes for the Presidency numerous other military heroes - some generals and some common soldiers - have parlayed their military prowess into political gold. Presidents Jackson, Wm. Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Ulysses Grant, James Garfield, Teddy Roosevelt, and Dwight Eisenhower are the best examples of this tradition.
But American politics is also littered with military heroes who failed on the political front. Grant was elected President, but was a terrible President. Winfield Scott Hancock, Bob Dole, George McGovern and John Fremont were military heroes of one sort another, only to face defeat at the polls. In recent years Jimmy Carter and George H. W. Bush failed to convert their military experience into second terms of office.
But one example that stands out to me the most this year is Winfield Scott (for whom Winfield Scott Hancock was named). Scott was a hero of the War of 1812 and for much of the early 19th century was the most prominent military official in the country. The Whig Party, formed in the 1830s in opposition to Andrew Jackson’s Democrats, found that they could only win popular office by running military men with broad appeal. In 1840 they struck gold with “Old Tippecanoe” William Henry Harrison, who promptly died 33 days after taking office. After genuine ideological Whig Henry Clay lost in a nail-biter in 1844, the Whigs went back to the military well again and picked Mexican War hero Zachary Taylor. Sadly, once again the winning Whig died in office, leaving an ineffectual Millard Fillmore to finish out the term.
So in 1852, the Whig tried again with Winfield Scott. As the sectional crisis between North and South grew more intense, the Whigs thought they could nominate a pro-slavery Virginian in Scott, and could once again unite for victory. Scott was demolished by New Hampshire Democrat Franklin Pierce, mostly because the South did not trust the Whigs anymore, and the North split its votes among various anti-slavery parties.
But Scott faced a sort of cultural assault that no military leader in America had ever faced. His insistence upon military honor and his love of military dress earned him the nickname “Old Fuss and Feathers.” Americans of all political stripes cherished and respected Scott for his dedicated service in the War of 1812 and his leadership in the intervening decades. But he seemed truly out of touch by 1852, unable to grasp the complex nature of the post-Mexican War political scene.
The now-cascading blow-up over McCain’s inability to recall his number of houses reminds me of the sorts of problems that Winfield Scott faced. The political environment for the Whigs in 1852 was deadly; and the party would effectively collapse afterward, leaving a rump of ex-Whigs in Kentucky and Tennessee to carry the old banner, with Northern Whigs forming the new Republican Party in 1854. Scott’s greatest strength was his military service and his sense of honor. Like McCain, he knew that nobody would question his service to country. But, in spite of Americans’ love affair for military heroes, Scott effectively painted himself as out of touch on the issues that mattered to Americans in 1852.
I’ve long thought that McCain’s weakness on the economy would come back to bite him. But as long as he didn’t provide the Democrats with the sort of imagery that paints the “old maverick” as a spoiled military aristocrat who married his wealth, then he could avoid the sort of cultural onslaught that tore Winfield Scott down in 1852. Americans love their military heroes. But they hate military aristocrats.
Old Fuss and Feathers would continue to serve the nation as the first General of the Union army during the Civil War in 1861. He developed the “anaconda strategy” that ultimately starved the Confederacy. But, he was ousted by General George McClellan, who would finally built a new modern army tasked with carrying out the anaconda plan (even if he didn’t know how to use it). Once again, Winfield Scott’s time had passed him by.
“The disproportion of the military force used by Russia against Georgia belongs then, to the deep history that remains common to both peoples. The other certainty, no less historical, is the bankruptcy of the hegemonic role of the United States: driven by a resentment as irrational as it is mean-spirited, the American republic has continued to practice the delusional encirclement of post-Soviet Russia. Without a doubt, the twisted minds at the inept CIA’s Langley headquarters or the brains at the Pentagon have dreamed of having their own Cuba [reference to the Cuban missile crisis]. They thought they had found it in Georgia with their agent of influence, the current president Saakachvili.”
“And just like that retard Fidel Castro who, in 1962, wanted to launch atom bombs against Washington before the terrified eyes of his reckless allies in Moscow, here we have “Frankenstein-Saakachvili” wanting to involve his American patrons in the extreme and absurd logic that governs those who exalt in the narrow nationalism of Georgia. Indeed in Washington today, the climate is not indignation over the childishness of our news commentary, but about mutual accusations of irresponsibility, just as it was in Moscow the day after the Kennedy-Khrushchev duel over Cuba.”
So what’s the solution? Adler suggests:
“In the first place, put a permanent end to the logic of force to which Russia has tendency to give in to. Then, definitely inhibit the use of force by giving Russia the decent and necessary place that it must occupy in the construction of Europe. In addition, we must not push Ukraine toward confrontation with Russia. But also for Russia, do everything possible to ensure its historic reconciliation with our Polish and Turkish allies. This is a very tough, but indispensable road.”
“To those who weren’t in Moscow in the moments that followed the implosion of the Soviet Empire, it’s difficult to convey the depth of humiliation that Russians felt. A good part of the public reaction to the political reordering of the country is tied to the fact that the expansion of the Empire wasn’t just a victory for the Bolsheviks [seized power in the 1917 Revolution ] - and here I directly address the tendency toward strong-arm politicians like Vladimir Putin. Historians generally agree that this was a continuation.
“But It isn’t because of the communist era - or Stalinist paranoia - that Russians think they’re being surrounded by the West or dismissed by Western capitals - or both. … I’m taking care here not to fall into the rather simplistic argument that Russia’s stance on the separatist provinces and Georgia itself is a ‘justified’ reaction by Moscow to the way the West has treated it … And the way the United States went to war in the Middle East; or the way that the major Western countries have recognized the independence of Kosovo from Serbia, a former client of Moscow. After all, to explain a behavior (in this case, of the Russians) is not to support it.”
“For a long while as they ranted about democracy, Iraqi politicians were also laughing to themselves. And they have been backed up by the greatest laughers of them all, the Americans - and the might of the U.S. Army. In fact, since the Americans created the racist, sectarian Governing Council on the first day of their occupation, everyone has been laughing to themselves over the ‘democracy; that Iraqis have been practicing.”
After venting a bit on Iraq’s political class and foreign interference, Abdusalam adresses what Iraqi leaders need to do to make things right:
“Now all of Iraq must show the courage necessary to stop this democracy game that has been exposed, and for which we Iraqis have paid so heavily with our priceless blood. The question is: what’s the solution?What’s the alternative to the false democracy with which all Iraqis ‘comfort’ themselves today? For if the new Iraq is to rise up, Iraqis must take hold of the only choice - real democracy - which doesn’t submit to racial or sectarian influence, regardless of which side it comes from.”
Wess Mitchell, director of research at The Center for European Policy Analysis, writes that the EU’s largest states are more interested in avoiding a rupture with Moscow than in protecting the vital interests of the Unions eastern members. Therefore, the United States should announce its intention to transfer the entire Europe-based American military establishment to new locations in Central Europe: Atlantic Community: “How America Should Respond to Resurgent Russia
One commenter suggested that the US troops should not move eastward from Old Europe to New Europe, but should rather move west, as in to the United States as an incentive for Europeans to take their own security more seriously.
I found Wess Mitchell’s response interesting:
I’m sympathetic to your view. However, I believe that if we were to withdraw our forces from Europe altogether, as for example Stephen Walt argues in a recent book, a future generation of U.S. leaders would have to send them right back. They can stay as a preventative or return as a corrective; either way,it is our fate to remain a European power.
That being the case, I’d rather stay. But if we’re going to do that, let’s use the forces we have there more wisely. As Ron Asmus points out in an oped in today’s Wall Street Journal “NATO’s Hour”, we’ve resisted permanently redeploying U.S. military assets to the east in the period since the Cold War on the logic that this act of self-restraint would be seen as a confidence-building move in Moscow. As he points out, this logic no longer applies.
Is that still the case? Is it really America’s fate to remain a “European power”?
Do you agree with Wess Mitchell’s thesis that US troops would be forced to return to Europe as a corrective, if they do not stay as a preventative?
When the Bush administration put out the word that only guilty verdicts were allowable at the Guantánamo Bay war crimes tribunal, Brigadier General Thomas Hartmann saluted crisply and answered the call.
Hartmann (small photo), an Air Force reservist and corporate lawyer, has been a relentless and aggressive advocate for the military commission system despite his supposedly neutral role and so shamelessly pro-prosecution that a military judge has barred him from acting as a legal advisor to an accused terrorist for the second time.
The judge, Stephen Henley, also ordered a new top-level review of the charges against Mohammed Jawad, who is accused of attempted murder for allegedly throwing a grenade as a teen that wounded two U.S. soldiers and their translator in a bazaar in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Hartmann’s aggressive advocacy in the media and other public statements ”compromised the objectivity necessary to dispassionately and fairly evaluate the evidence and prepare the post-trial evaluation,” Henley ruled in declaring that the general could not serve as a “neutral advisor” on the case.
The ruling means that Pentagon officials will need to appoint a new legal advisor over the trial, one of 20 so far in the pipeline. Hartmann still has oversight of the other 19.
Hartmann’s first disqualifiction was in the run up to the just-completed trial of Salim Ahmed Hamdan.
Hamdan, who admitted to being Osama bin Laden’s driver, received a 5 1/2 year sentence after being found guilty of only a lesser charge of material support for terrorism and acquitted of the far more serious charge of conspiracy.
The unexpectedly light sentence, which means that Hamdan could be released in about five months because of time served, has put the Pentagon in a quandary: While the White House got less than a half a loaf with the sentence, it can claim that the system worked but at the same time has vowed that Hamdan will not be released from custody until the Global War on Terror is over.
Please click here to read more at Kiko’s House, here for an index with links to torture-related post and here for the last of 25 excerpts from Jan Mayer’s The Dark Side.
As you might imagine, trying to cover what the rest of the world thinks and says about the United States is a pretty ambitious undertaking. At times, when there is a major story like the war in Georgia or the U.S. presidential election, many other issues get shunted aside for a time.
One such issue is the ‘war on drugs’ now taking place in Mexico, in good measure funded by the United States.
Unbeknownst to most people in our country, many Mexicans feel that the drug ‘war’ we are waging along with the Mexican government is not only illegal, it is part of a Bush administration plan to permanently undermine the Mexican state and turn it into a U.S. vassal.
“Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, under the guise of an effective but undeclared state of emergency, the administration of George W. Bush has proceeded with the systemic demolition of the Constitutional order of the United States. … The White House chief has instituted illegal espionage operations at home and has become embroiled in pre-emptive war abroad, has resorted to ‘legalized’ torture and the abduction-disappearance of suspected terrorists, and has kept thousands of ‘enemy non-combatants’ under indefinite arrest, detaining them in an archipelago of clandestine and ‘floating’ prisons under the control of the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency … In a permanent state of emergency, the exception becomes the rule. In the case of the United States, the war became the ontological foundation of the State. All these years Bush has governed through fear, encouraging nationalism and exploiting the racial and ethno-religious prejudice of his fellow countrymen.”
“Here, as in Colombia, the pattern of U.S. intervention took the form of a war on narco-terrorism, by de facto including Mexico as part of the ’security perimeter’ of the United States, via the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, from which is derived the Merida Initiative, which is similar to Plan Colombia. … Bush’s model for Mexico is that of the “Colombianization” of the country. As part of a system that protects corruption and the impunity of entrenched criminal networks within the institutions of State, banks and large corporations, the prescription is more narco-politics, heavy-handedness, torture, detentions and disappearances, dirty war, mercenaries, the criminalization of social protest, and the militarization of society. The goal of the United States is to plunge the country into chaos and destabilization, in order to penetrate [Mexico’s] States security institutions, further weaken national sovereignty and accelerate dependency.”
Everyone agrees that the Georgia-Russia crisis requires European mediation. But the question is, who’ll settle the dispute among Europeans about what to do?
As WORLDMEETS.US and The Moderate Voice readers have seen from around the continent over the past two weeks - Eastern and Central Europeans are completely split over what to do about the resurgent Russian bear.
“Europe wants to mediate, but it is so divided itself, that it too, requires mediation. … For Moscow, which is acting from a position of strength since its campaign, it will be easy to use this division for its own purposes. The Kremlin wants to expand its influence and to keep neighboring countries which that aspire to the West in a state of permanent instability. The E.U. has no interest in allowing this - but given the disharmony, they have little to oppose the Russians with. This war sends a very clear signal that together with the united States, it’s high time to restrict Russia’s sphere of influence. However, not all want to hear that signal.”
As we’ve seen over recent days, there are two diametrically opposed positions within Europe about what has cause the Georgia crisis and what should be done about it.
The first, which has been perhaps best enunciated by the Polish, is that NATO must be strengthened and that the Alliance must stand up to Russia with ever-greater determination.
The other, well represented by this article from France’s Rue 89, argues that an ‘obsolete’ NATO’s ham-handed expansion eastward is at the root of the problem, and that eastward expansion should have taken place exclusively within the European Union - which is inherently less threatening to a badly-slighted Russia with decades of wounded pride to get out of its system.
“Many commentators of course condemn this drive into an independent country as a manifestation of resurgent Russian imperialism. This, first of all, is to somewhat ignore history; it also sets aside more than a few cases of wounded Russian pride, for the most part widely flouted before Putin; and incidentally, not to offend our new European Union partners from the East, it is a demonstration of the futility and even the toxicity of NATO.”
“Eastern Europe … with fear in the belly of the Russian bear, has never relied on European integration to ensure its security. In their view, only the United States could provide that. Hence their absurd following of the Americans into the Iraqi adventure. Hence their irrepressible desire to join NATO. … A grave error on their part, because the United States, entangled as it is in the Iraqi affair and with its allies in Afghanistan, won’t budge for a piece of the former empire’s confetti [Georgia] and perhaps not even in case of a more serious invasion. Especially since the new American leaders, starting in November, are likely to mobilize all their forces on domestic affairs.”
The Moderate Voice prides itself in “Domestic and international news analysis, irreverent comments, original reporting, and popular culture features from across the political spectrum.” A comment on my “Bill Kristol on Victory in Iraq and Impotence in Georgia,” certainly qualifies in each and all of these aspects. I do not know who “Spikester” is (perhaps I should), but he has written a most original, “irreverent,” superb, and–if it weren’t for the subject matter–entertaining comment on the Russia-Georgia conflict. I highly recommend it to TMV readers.
It is a l o n g comment, so please take your cup of coffee, or whatever liquid nourishment, with you and be prepared to stay a while. Whatever you think of the situation, you will find Spikester’s comments interesting–certainly irreverent–and worth your time. Scroll down in the comments section to my post until you come to Spikester’s comment.
As we have pointed out before, given Poland’s history of being governed by imperial Russia and then the Soviet Union, the events in Georgia have had a tremendous impact in that country.
So what should be done, according to Warsaw? To put it simply: Stand Tough.
“One could say: ‘Today Georgia, tomorrow the Baltic States and Ukraine.’ And the day after that? Will it be, perhaps, the “near abroad”? Such is the euphemism Russians use to describe countries that were once under their sway and which in their view should again find themselves in Moscow’s sphere of influence. Poland is one of them. … Poland was part of that empire for 200 years, except for two intervals - including this one - of 20 years apiece.”
“The “catchphrase” of not irritating the Russian bear is a manifestation of magical thinking. That bear has a well-established sense of its imperial interests. Only a tough stance on the part of E.U. members who understand the Russian danger are capable of setting a steadier course for the Union regarding the Kremlin. What is needed now is determination.”
I usually comment on Bill Kristol’s much-awaited Monday morning columns in the New York Times. Because of travel, I did not get the opportunity to do so this week. But not to worry, the Times’ letters-to-the-editor writers came through, and not only do an excellent job of critiquing Kristol’s column, but also do a better job than I have in previous posts of describing the limited role our country can play in trying to resolve this latest conflict—because of our military adventure in Iraq.
Kristol’s topic this week was–what else?–the Russia-Georgia conflict. In his column, “Will Russia Get Away With It?,” in a rambling, circular way (”So Russia helps Iran. Iran and North Korea help Syria. Russia and China block Security Council sanctions against Zimbabwe. China props up the regimes in Burma and North Korea.”), Kristol both celebrates:
The further good news is that 2008 has been, in one respect, an auspicious year for freedom and democracy. In Iraq, we and our Iraqi allies are on the verge of a strategic victory over the jihadists in what they have called the central front of their struggle. This joint victory has the potential to weaken the jihadist impulse throughout the Middle East.
and laments:
The United States, of course, is not without resources and allies to deal with these problems and threats. But at times we seem oddly timid and uncertain.
But, let me stop right here and let what I assume are “regular” people do the talking:
To the Editor:
Re “Will Russia Get Away With It?,” by William Kristol (column, Aug. 11):
Those who advocated the invasion of Iraq believed that it would offer an intimidating show of the United States’ power, cementing its status as the world’s dominant, and sole, superpower. The result has been precisely the opposite:
The limits of American power — our Army tied down in Iraq, even as we lose a second war in Afghanistan — have been humiliatingly displayed for the entire world to see.
The effects of this strategic failure are now on display, as Russia invades Georgia, while the United States can do little more than stand by and complain ineffectually, its once intimidating power exposed as so much empty bluster.
In the face of this wholesale disaster, William Kristol, an early and continuing supporter of the Iraq war, responds with precisely the arguments that got us into this mess in the first place, and finds it both regrettable and puzzling that the United States is now “oddly timid and uncertain”: unable, evidently, to recognize his own role in America’s current quandary.
François Furstenberg New York, Aug. 11, 2008
and,
To the Editor:
If Georgians wonder where the United States may be while their country is enslaved by our good friends from Russia, they are really slow learners.
Didn’t they pay attention while the United States turned its back on the Hungarians in 1956? Didn’t they notice that the Cubans we transported to the Bay of Pigs were massacred because we provided no support? Weren’t they watching our Vietnamese allies being kicked out of the fleeing helicopters as we abandoned that country? Have they heard about the Hmong?
William Kristol asks, “Will Russia Get Away With It?” Of course it will. We don’t have a coherent foreign policy — we have sound bites of tough talk followed by abandonment of those dumb enough to believe us.
Arthur O. Armstrong Manhattan Beach, Calif., Aug. 11, 2008
Perhaps better than anything we’ve seen so far, this French news item, which discusses the peace plan negotiated by Nicolas Sarkozy with the Russians, sums up the impotence of the West in confronting Russia’s shock onslaught against Georgia.
“Before Sarkozy arrived in Moscow yesterday, Medvedev declared that the French President would always be able to say that he obtained from Moscow a halt in the bombing of Georgia.
To see the look of seriousness on Sarkozy’s face, it appeared, however, that the French president was aware of having swallowed a substantial Russian snake.”
“Asked about the pressure that Europeans could exert on Moscow, Bernard Kouchner was climbing the walls yesterday, accusing journalists of asking only “aggressive” questions. “What would you do? Send Clémenceau? Send the gas back to Russia?,” retorted the French diplomat, for the most part at a loss to outline what kind of European response could make Russia understand that bombing and occupying a neighboring states isn’t acceptable.”
So how did the crisis in Georgia really come about? Many Europeans believe that the events of the past week can be traced back to the recognition of Kosovo - which was also a clear violation of international law - and which the Russians have skillfully turned to their own advatage.
“Twenty years after being eclipsed by what was called the American ‘hyper power,’ we are witnessing the Russian Bear’s big comeback to the international scene. The Western diplomatic ballet now trying to temper the violence of the Russian reaction to Georgian President Saakachvili’s forceful blow against Southern Ossetia last Thursday will change nothing. … Naively, Saakachvili believed that having international law on his side was enough to enable him to use force. The problem is that his Western friends have just precisely violated these very rules, by unilaterally recognizing Kosovo’s independence … In Brussels earlier this year, Russian Foreign minister Lavrov solemnly warned his American counterpart Condi Rice: the recognition of Kosovo would set a precedent for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The Americans and their major European allies were mistaken not take him seriously.”
Hartmann (small photo), an Air Force reservist and corporate lawyer, has been a relentless and aggressive advocate for the military commission system despite his supposedly neutral role and so shamelessly pro-prosecution that a military judge 
