The region that we refer to as the country called Iraq has been the site of warring tribal and religious factions for millenia. It held together as a "country" under Hussein only because of his brutal dictatorial rule. It has now reverted to its historical factional condition. There is nothing we can do to correct this, and it seems likely to continue for the foreseeable future regardless of our presence. It is stupid and arrogant of our so-called leadership to claim that our presence can conceivably make a difference over the long term, let along the present impossible situation. We should just get the hell out and cut our losses. NOW!!

So the surge is to be permanent. Can it technically be a surge in that case? Surely it is just an increase in troop levels. Five years on and the centre of Baghdad has yet to be secured, but meanwhile we have heard nothing from the Democrats in the House. I am past blaming the Republicans - it is now the fault of the Dems leadership who refuse to do a single thing to end this war. Anyone voting Dem or Rep is just going to end up perpetuating the situation. Obama or Clinton will not lift against their pay masters.

I don't know when Mr. Andrews was in Congress, so maybe this was different back in his day. I do remember a time when congressional hearings were meant to ask questions and obtain information. But that day has long since passed.

These days, its all about giving the members time to posture and preen in front of a TV camera. Thus the long speeches that don't even contain a question, or the congresscritter just reading a list of staff prepared questions and not even waiting for an answer or responding or following up on an answer. The goal is to create a piece of video they can use for their own benefit later on.

Its all about headlines and helping their campaigns. That's what's so disgusting about today's politicians. They don't give a damn about what's good policy or what's good for the country. They just want their five minutes on TV playing the role of congresscritter.

The surge was always permanent. The term 'surge' was always a PR phrase to mask a permanent troop level increase. Just the fact that they are still calling it a 'surge' 15 months later tells you this. It already is obvious it wasn't temporary. The only question was how would they address the next PR problem of coming back to the American people and explaining that the surge would never end.

Anyone who's studied any Vietnam history knew this was coming. Troop levels always increase. They don't ever come back down.

Once again our government is doing its best to quash the democratic voice of Iraqis. No mention ever of what Iraqis want, which is a complete and immediate withdrawal of all U.S. forces and a promise to abandon the silly notion of establishing `permanent bases`in a country who never invited us in to begin with!

Curiously, this time period coincides exactly with U.S. elections. If experts are correct that the current course is making things worse, not better in Iraq, then the time we are buying could actually be fueling the violence and bloodshed that will follow the election of the next U.S. president and Congress. Can we afford to take this horrible risk, particularly given the enormous price being paid by the deterioration of US military readiness?

The Republicans know they will lose big in the elections of 2008. And the powder keg known as 'the Iraq War' (why are Americans so afraid of the word 'Occupation' ???) will explode during the Obama Presidency. Republicans will then use this contrast (relative calm, turning to chaos) to 'prove' Democrats don't know how to do Foreign Policy, and they will run another comic book 'get tough on evildoers' campaign in the future, to do one last looting of America before the Empire is completely gone.

Karl Rove, evil genius ? No, it's just that Americans have been told since birth that 'we are the good guys'. They just don't expect such a lying, manipulative fat little bastard.

Sadly, our media, even the CBC, up here in Canukistan is parroting the BStray-us lines:

iran is evil, iran is a threatening menace to neigouring countries, etc etc

they forget mention that iran has never attacked anyone in the last 250y or so. they forget to mention that Sadr is not a fan of Iran, while the Malki-ites are the pro-iranian group in Iraq. they just read the Pentagon talking points and call it news. I just about smashed my radio.

Petraeus is what the military calls (or used to call) a "ticket puncher". He wants to be a five star general, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and then, ultimately, president. The man who five years ago asked re the occupation "Tell me how this all ends" turns out to be nothing more than an opportunist playing with American and Iraqi lives to achieve the ends dictated by his outsized ego, even though, down deep, he knows what an obscenity we have made of Iraq. There is one thing Petraeus most certainly lacks - a sense of shame.

There are no other ways than to use curse words, can you believe that asking some mildly tough questions of this corrupt puppet posing as general is all Democrats can do after 5 years of genocide and torture?

This was an invasion that should not have happened in the first place, why are we even discussing a surge, an exit strategy? Democrats should burn in hell.

Every human being is responsible for what he or she does in this life. In some fashion totally unknowable and unimaginable to human beings, there will be a reckoning for all of us. The endless parade of sociopaths and general scum of the earth that bloody the pages of history and disgrace us all, will ultimately get theirs. But that still doesn't do us, the living, any good.

Mordechai - I love the 'ticket puncher' metaphor. Seeing Petraeus' willingness, again, to say his script to the bloviating senators (on both sides) was miserable. The last 7 years enable more insanity. So your second post re reckoning makes me wonder if there really will be reckoning. Life doesn't end well for any of us. I like the death bed confessions of war criminals, as if some of them do get scared of some kind of hell. The hell on earth effects of power and greed seem worse to me.

One fact that I feel important to mention is the cease fire proclaimed by Sadr during the so called surge. If it weren't for this cease fire - which was followed, obeyed, what would have really happened during that period? My feelings are that the numbers of attacks and deaths would have continued to grow worse rather than level off some what. Why isn't this fact mentioned?

Perhaps it isn't mentioned because it shows that the people of Iraq are willing to listen to their own leaders and don't need the USA at all to begin a political process of some sort which may or may not lead to peace at some point, but it does show that they certainly don't need us nor will they listen to us. They just want us to leave.

Hey don't forget that too many of these Congressmen and women have a vested interest (read stocks) in companies that produce weaponry etc for this occupation. They are pandering to the people by pretending to oppose the war, while secretly enriching themselves. That's why they keep funding it! it's good for their portfolio! They are imperialists one and all, out to get as much as they can. Blech. I spit them all out of my mouth.

Hey catch,

What history books have you been reading? The area known as Iraq many times has been part of stable governments - some lasting centuries.

Before the invasion, Sunnis and Shia lived in same neighborhoods peaceably. Many of the refugees are mixed families who now have no place to return to thanks to our illegal invasion and occupation of a sovereign country.

The question that always comes up for me is why Bush and Petraeus and Crocker et al would be so adamant about kicking the can down the road to begin with. They have a perfectly good alternative story they could invoke, to just back out and spare themselves further cost and embarrassment and political damage. They don't hesitate to find reasons not to leap to the defense of democracy and tranquillity in places like Darfur. What's in it for them to continue with this futile pretense of resolving a 1400 year old bicker about whether or not Caliph Ali was the rightful successor to the Prophet Mohammed, or installing a multi-ethnic pro-American democracy in a part of the world that doesn't want it? The answer of course is oil, and to speak about that in the committee rooms of Congress is to bring up the sticky topic of whether we might really be a pack of thieves engaged in the age old activity of relieving third world people of their natural resources. Because the only topic of discussion that makes sense of all this is also a forbidden topic, the debate goes in brainless circles and the conversation is relegated to fictions like the Maliki Government and the War on Terror and ramping up Iraqi security and reconciling sectarian factions and a lot of other manufactured talking points that the authors of this piratical occupation could care less about. The government and the military and the candidates are all talking complete bullshit, and they all know it, and so do we. Isn't that a definition of bedlam?

Perhaps VOX clamantis you're mistaken in it only being about "The answer of course is oil. "

What about those friendly bankers in England, fronting for the Zionists?

Namaste

It's simple

Surge=escalation

Using militias to "maintain order"=Vietnamization

squawking about Iran and Syria=going into Cambodia and Laos

Petraeus'and Crocker's squishy testimony=peace with honor

Bush=LBJ/Nixon

Iraqi factions=Viet Cong, Viet Minh, & ARVN

Repeat after me: "Iraq is not another Vietnam" and continue as long as it takes to believe it.

After watching Gen Petraeus and Crocker testify on CSPAN before it was cut off, it is clear that the administration is pursuing and continuing with the Iran angle as the new threat to "American Interests" in the region. I would love to see Adm Fallon testify instead of these clueless puppets for the bush regime, but unfortunately it won't happen. Barbara Lee and Ron Paul really threw some big league curveballs to the otherwise cowardly softball questions by other representatives. Sadly, whether we like it or not, this disaster will be passed on the next president/congress. So here is a link that may provide a clue to the new commander in thief: http://www.forward.com/articles/12998/

From this tragic scene, it ought to be obvious that now is the time to overturn the ban on growing and cultivating hemp. 26000 industrial uses of hemp is what the oil and military scumbags don't want you to know. If you don't want another BETRAYUS bullshit talk, you'll work hard to fight for solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, and better biofuels such as hemp, switchgrass, algae, etc ... unlike corn and sugar.

NOW WHO'S READY TO BE A BRAVEHEART WINNER?

sung425 - I thought I was depressed BEFORE I read your link

sansf -- ditto

VOXCLAMANTIS: Excellent and wise post.

NAMASTE: The "zionists" are one of a number of beneficiaries. I believe your mind is broad enough to recognize that FACT.

THADSTONE: Although the Clintons have morphed into the right wing camp, the photo of ROVE makes me think the creep has a form of penis envy. NO woman in America would blow him for all the money in China (that's where the $ is, right?) These Pillsbury boy asexual self-righteous authoritarians want to make sure no one else gets pleasure. I'd like one of his forms of penance to be giving head to 100 3rd world women. That would be a start. Sexual revolution, for those who think war and murder are more appropriate turn-ons.

Can we afford to continue to fuel the fire of sectarian division by funding sectarian enemies who have shown no signs of seeking, let alone finding, common ground and reconciliation?

The US Congress, including those campaigning for president, continue to support a White House determined to squish ideas of "common ground and reconciliation" on all fronts, in Iraq, the wider world, and particularly on the domestic front of its eternal war on people/planet.

Well you can forget about Obama being against the war. Did you hear his questioning? Pathetic.

Barack's views fit nicely inside the frame established by the Bush Administration. We are good; we have a right to be there; it's only a matter of figuring out how best to turn over the reins of power to the Iraqis.

Of course, all of the above is b.s. and if Barack were a real leader, which he's not, he begin to establish a different frame: we were wrong, we apologize, we will pay reparations for our terrorism, we are leaving immediately.

One Word

Bush bullshitted us into Iraq, and most of Congress endorsed his bullshit. Now the less talented Democratic bullshitters are (sort of) trying to bullshit us out of Iraq, but the more talented Republican bullshitters keep bullshitting us in even deeper.

In a few weeks none of this bullshit will matter, because Bush is about to bullshit us into Iran, and even if the new bullshit sets off nuclear annihilation, the last Democrats and the last Republicans will just keep right on bullshitting all the way to the end of the world.

In case anyone is interested:

open letter to congress to stop funding

http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizations/movecongress/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=964&t=petition.dwt

Last summer when 100+ troops were dying in Iraq for the surge each month, Ambassador Crocker made an astounding statement. He said that the surge would buy the Iraqi government time, which they would need in the future. ( I would love to buy some time that I could use in the future.) Did Crocker and Bush have the same nanny?

This so-called report to congress was predictable. Any time, and every time something like this comes up, Bush sends the script to Baghdad by Cheney or Rice to Petraeus, or, he visits Iraq himself and deliver it. The he tells us that he will make his decision based on what Patraeus tells him. That's why the two of them are always on the same page...kicking the can down the road.

To summarize Gen. PatronizeUs:

We will continue to illegally occupy Iraq until either the oil runs out or Jesus returns.

Anything anyone else has to say about anything will be ignored.

Same old s---, just a different month, year and day. Why do they even bother. Fifty years from now, whoever is President, we will hear we need more time, etc, etc, etc,. I'm so sick of hearing how every six months they'll reasses and get back to us. But, meantime, keep giving them the money and don't say anything.
At least, some brought up about the Iraqis having billions in reserve and using some of that money to pay for the cost but I wouldn't hold my breath. Senator Vonivech (sp) from Ohio was pretty good at giving them hell yesterday. He said the American people have had it up to their necks with what is going on. Of course, the General and the Ambassador just looked at him but the General said he understood the frustration. Sure he does. It's all lip service!
Senator Biden told the Ambassador that there won't be any binding deals with Iraq and the President without the approval or disapproval of Congress. Well, Congress gives the President everything he wants so why would it matter.
The beat goes on and it is growing very old and tiring

Challenge a General? Not me. I don't want to be rendered and water-boarded. Do you?

I mean, politicians and generals and bishops and billionaires, leave them well alone, I say. They know people! They can bring you harm, do you in, quick smart.

And don't try to see paintings of a homosexual orgy at the Last Supper either!

You folks need to figure out WHY you are so miserable and hateful.

Anything that doesn't agree with you, you pull out the "intelligencia" card.

Did you serve….sacrifice…..do anything but piss and moan and bitch? EVER? How many of you are veterans? Can you even think of answering without badmouthing our service men and women? No….I suppose not.

So go ahead, attend your wine tasting parties and show others just how many bull&%@t degrees you have. Impress yourselves…because friends….everyones got you all figured out…..by the way…I don't hunt, watch the NFL, NASCAR, etc., all your benchmarks for stupidity. You'd be quite surprized on the content of MY character, that's for sure…..sleep well PS I DO drive a pickup…..work 60 hours a week and have 4 kids and a wife who's a "real babe. Does that lower me even further in your ratings? Try it...you obviously have a 'lack' of something on your miserable lives.

Happy feels good....it really does, and it's contageous, as well.

The only time it's OK to temporarily be a snob…..is when your around bonified SNOBS. Think about it at your next social gathering…….Semper FI

banjoman...

Most of the anger you see on Common Dreams is directed at Bush exactly because he has sacrificed the lives of so many brave soldiers for lies and his own political advantage.

You thinks it's the progressives on Common Dreams who let Walter Reed Hospital turn into a shit-hole, and keep wounded veterans from Iraq waiting an average of 188 days before they see the first benefit check?

You think it's the commenters on Common Dreams who send reservists back to Iraq for a fourth or fifth tour, while their families go broke and get foreclosed out of their houses?

You think it was progressives on Common Dreams who took four years to protect soldiers in Iraq with ceramic body armor?

Or was it really Bush who despised and disrespected our brave soldiers, and made it a priority to give more and more tax cuts to his billionaire friends, while Marines rode down the mean streets of Iraq in unarmored Humvees?

It was also George W. Bush who cut funding for the VA in the middle of a war. What kind of man cuts funding for wounded veterans in the middle of a war?

I just watched a Move Over. Org vidio. How do you get to 100 years in Iraq? Answer: Six months at a time.

It played Rumsfield saying, "we could be there six days, six weeks, I doubt six months." That was Feb. 2003

Then in Sep 2003, McCain said, "the next three to six months will be critcal."

May 2004 Pres. Bush said, "the next six months will be crucial."

Dec. 2005 MaCain said, "we are making significant progress and we need another six months to a year."

In Nov. 2006 McCain said, "it is critical or crucial that we could loose or win in the next six months."

May 2007, Bush, "we need to stay the course." "It's crucial."

In April 2008, Petraeus is expected to call a halting of troop reductions for six months. McCain says "success is within reach."

This is the Bush McCain stategy, an endless war on the installment plan.

So there is no end in sight, unless a new President and hopefully, Obama or Clinton, can change the direction of the war if possible.
We know McCain will not.

Could someone remind me just WHAT the good general does over there?

The Dreaded Lebanese Hezbollah Department 2800

Yes, the dreaded Lebanese Hezbollah Department 2800.... What? You never heard of an outfit that's been blamed for most of the trouble in the ME?

Why, it's gospel truth, spoke by none other than that bringer of light, General David Petraeus, back at the last White House Iraq Dog and Pony show, back on September 12, 2007. (Nice touch, one day after 9/11. Gotta hand it to those propaganda geeks in the WH basement)

Here's what the general had to say back then about the dreaded Department 2800

"In the past six months we have also targeted Shia militia extremists, capturing a number of senior leaders and fighters, as well as the deputy commander of Lebanese Hezbollah Department 2800, the organization created to support the training, arming, funding, and, in some cases, direction of the militia extremists by the Iranian Republican Guard Corps' Qods Force. These elements have assassinated and kidnapped Iraqi governmental leaders, killed and wounded our soldiers with advanced explosive devices provided by Iran, and indiscriminately rocketed civilians in the International Zone and elsewhere. It is increasingly apparent to both Coalition and Iraqi leaders that Iran... "

Iran, Iran, Iran, it's almost like Davie was chanting a mantra... And there you have it, the latest target of the homicidal WH war mongers, Iran. The good general wouldn't tell a lie, would he?

He sure wouldn't tell A lie, but a whole damned army of lies told by this WH sycophant and neoCON lackey. Lies, more lies and damned lies, all to get up the blood lust so America will launch another illegal and immoral war, against another of Israel's "existential" enemies, Iran.

If the dreaded Department 2800 was such a nefarious operation, then why was there no mention of that department in the last few days of testimony shoveled out for consumption by Americans by the tag-team of Petraeus-Crocker?

Did ya smoke 'em out, general? Or did you take the tough guy stance, like that of your disgraced hero and psychopath, GW and put out a "Wanted, Dead or Alive" poster?

Just be careful there Davie and don't get so exited about the prospect of having a John Wayne type of showdown with Dept. 2800, that you shoot yourself in the foot again, like you did on a training exercise.

BTW, Davie, is one of the over the top collection of medals on your chest a Purple Heart, won for shooting yourself?

What's the status of the dreaded Lebanese Hezbollah Department 2800, there Davie old boy?

Or did you just drop the pretense, at the urging of your paymasters in Tel Aviv, and just point your MOSSAD manicured finger of blame at Iran?

Real men go to Tehran, right general?

There wasn't then, nor is there now, a Lebanese Hezbollah Department 2800. Oh sure, there probably is a Dept. 2800 at the big box retail store at your local mall, but there isn't one in the ME.

The only place in the ME that the dreaded Lebanese Hezbollah Department 2800 exist is at the psyops department of the Israeli intelligence agency, MOSSAD. And in the depraved minds of Petraeus and his boss, Cheney.

So pile your offerings to your god, MARS, general, pile them high. That god surely must be pleased with the over ONE MILLION Iraqi's we've killed and left at Mars altar of death.

And if the sick and twisted general gets his way, we'll pile up another ONE MILLION or more dead Iranians, sacrificed to Petraues' god, Mars.

P.S. My name is greg bacon, i served in the US Army with the 82nd Airborne and I approved this message!

banjoman -- Any one who condescends to you, or to anyone else, should be ashamed. But I hope you will take Jacob Freeze's thoughts in the spirit in which I think they were intended -- i.e., not as demeaning to you, or to your views, but as a comment that whether one thinks that the US should have gone into Iraq or not -- I do not think so, and never have -- it is the case, as Jacob Freeze well said, that those who've sent soldiers into harm's way without minimal support, and have left them in misery if they came home alive, are not those who oppose the war. It is perhaps one of the country's greatest achievments that where those who were forced to serve in Vietnam were often reviled by the increasing majority that opposed the war, those who enlisted in this century and have been sent to the Middle East have, by and large, received respect and sympathy. I think that that is right and good -- for the grunts, but not for men like Petraeus. And ceertainly not for those who sent them -- Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld, Feith, Perle and the lot. Although there are indeed contemptible people among the 65% of Americans who say that they want a quick withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq, as there are contemptible people among the 31% of Americans who say that they want American troops to stay in Iraq for "as long at it takes", the overwhelming proportion of both groups are not contemptible at all. They're trying to figure out what's right. Just as one can be smart and decent and humane while driving a pick up, one can be decent and humane without having "sacrificed".

Catch: You are mistaken. This problem is not of millenia. It comes from the Brits purposely putting separate peoples together to create instability that gives the empire leverage. You said millenia which takes us as far as Babylon which had no shiites or sunnis. The brits put the sunnis in charge because they were most like them and the shiites as their inferiors because they were most unlike them. The kurds were included to split up the Kurdish nation. You seem to suggest there is an inherent problem with the people of the area, while the truth is the Brits engineered it this way.

Thad stone. Nice post but why do you say the republicans will lose big?

FOXNEWS.COM HOME > WORLD

Petraeus: Iran Behind Rocket Attack On Green Zone
Monday, March 24, 2008

Gen. David Petraeus, commanding general of the Multi-National Forces in Iraq, says he has evidence that Iran trained, equipped and funded insurgents who fired a volley of mortars and rockets at the protected Green Zone in Baghdad.

Petraeus, in an interview Monday with the BBC, said Iran's Quds Force, a branch of the Revolutionary Guards, was behind the insurgent attack.

"The rockets that were launched at the Green Zone yesterday, for example... were Iranian-provided, Iranian-made rockets," he said, adding that the groups that fired them were funded and trained by the Quds Force.

"All of this in complete violation of promises made by President Ahmadinejad and the other most senior Iranian leaders to their Iraqi counterparts," he told the BBC.

Some rockets meant for the Green Zone missed their targets, killing 15 Iraqi civilians, officials said.

ctrl-z, you hit the nail on the headed. Even the CBC here in Canada, who Canadians worship as if it is a holy journalistic Vishnu, has totally got into the habit of running stories saying Iran is supplying weapons to the Taliban with no evidence to back it up:

http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/12/25/mackay-afghanistan.html

That is how you dull the brains of your population into supporting yet another war.

General Petraeus, is a member in good-standing with the US Military. He is, by all counts a good soldier, loyal American and a person of high intergrity. I think is he doing the best job he can given the increasingly big rock and harder place he finds himself. I am sure that managing a foreign military in the mist of a civil war is more than he ever bargained for in his career. I WANT him to suceed; I want the surge to work; you see, I have a brother who is looking at a possible 4th tour of duty and I don't want him over there again. Call the General in charge a traitor, a liar, a manipulator, etc only makes his job harder. AND, what is even sadder, is that most of the name-callers have probably never even been in the military, let alone served in a war. You people need to learn some respect and discretion and stop degrading people you don't even know.