I agree about Weller, but I liked him in Naked Lunch as well. As far as Lithgow I wouldn't compare a screen role, to a stage role. I actually haven't seen him on stage that I can recall.
As Iraq Conflict Changes, Has Bush Kept Up? March 5, 2006 President Bush barreled straight ahead with old answers when ABC's Elizabeth Vargas asked him a new question about Iraq last week. And like any driver who missed a turn in the road, the president quickly found himself in a ditch. Vargas sensibly asked Bush how the growing civil strife in Iraq between the majority Shiites and the Sunnis who dominated the country under Saddam Hussein might change the U.S. mission there. Bush, to his credit, acknowledged the importance of encouraging Iraqis to form a "unity government" in the dangerously prolonged political haggling that has followed December's election. But the president gave no hint he'd considered how the widening gulf between Sunni and Shiite might alter America's strategy. Instead, he summoned old sound bites, as if cueing them on tape. "The troops are chasing down terrorists," he told Vargas. And: "As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down." Those arguments reflect the model that Bush, his aides and most Americans have used to understand the war in Iraq. In that framework, Iraq — like Vietnam — is a contest between a central government and an insurgency determined to overthrow it. But many experts are asking whether that construct really explains the challenge in Iraq anymore — especially after the horrific sectarian violence that swept the country following the Feb. 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra. Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and former advisor to the U.S.-led occupying authority in Iraq, concisely expressed the evolving view when he wrote in the latest issue of the New Republic: "Iraq is in the midst of a civil war." If Iraq is morphing from a struggle against insurgents into something more like a civil war between Sunnis and Shiites, Bush's responses to Vargas raise more questions than they answer. What does "chasing down terrorists" mean when neighbors are killing neighbors? And does training the Iraqi forces to "stand up" point toward greater stability, or greater friction, when many Sunnis see the military as the weapon of the Shiites? Bush isn't alone in dodging those deeper questions. Few leaders in either U.S. party have said much about how growing civil strife in Iraq might change the calculus there for America. But the shift in the Iraq conflict is likely to scramble the U.S. debate in ways unpleasant for each side. As Diamond notes, Iraq hasn't descended to a Bosnia-like level of "total ethnic conflagration." But, he says, the reciprocal violence between Sunni and Shiite, the intractable struggle over political power and the growth of private militias leave the U.S. and Iraq "staring at the prospect of something substantially worse" than the "gradual, creeping" civil strife that has bloodied the country over the last two-plus years. Diamond isn't alone in his fears. Many of the experts on civil conflict that writer Paul Starobin interviewed for a brilliant National Journal article see in Iraq the escalating spiral of fraternal grievance that characterizes civil wars. In Senate testimony last week, Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, dissented, but only slightly. "I do believe the underlying conditions are present," Maples said, "but that we are not involved in a civil war at this time." Whether or not we label it civil war, no one disputes that the tension between Sunnis and Shiites jostling for power or settling old scores has become a central component of the challenge in Iraq. Maples acknowledged that "even moderate Sunni Arab leaders … are pursuing a dual track policy of political engagement and armed resistance." Likewise, evidence is mounting that Shiite militias linked to government security forces are operating death squads against Sunnis. The United Nations' former human rights chief in Iraq said last week that the militia fighters linked with the largest Shiite political party in Iraq "do basically as they please. They arrest people, they torture people, they execute people…. " In this environment, fundamental assumptions about the war from left and right in the U.S. are becoming obsolete. The growing role of sectarian animosity in fueling Iraq's violence threatens Bush's calculation that strengthening the Iraqi defense capability is the key to restoring order and bringing home American troops. That might work if the Iraqi army and police are seen as a neutral, national force committed to protecting all of their countrymen. But, as defense expert Stephen Biddle of the Council on Foreign Relations recently noted, since most Sunnis view the American-trained forces "as a Shiite-Kurd militia on steroids, what we end up doing is making [the Sunnis] even more frightened for their security in a future Iraq, which makes them prone to fight back harder rather than less so." At the same time, the war's changing nature undermines the argument from many on the left that the U.S. presence is primarily fueling the violence. That seems increasingly untenable at a point when U.S. troops look like the only thing preventing Iraqis from tearing each other apart. In this murky and volatile period, the analysts who look most prescient are those, like Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who have insisted that the U.S. use its leverage in Iraq to pressure all sides to reach political accommodations. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad has grown more forthright in sending that message too. Bush now faces a paradox. As Iraq pulls apart, its need grows for American troops to serve as buffers and brokers. But as the sectarian violence rises, so will the pressure inside the U.S. to withdraw. However reluctantly, most Americans have not yet entirely abandoned the hope of building the Arab world's first functioning democracy. But they will probably show much less patience for watching American soldiers die in the next Lebanon. http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-outlook5mar05,1,3096502.column?coll=la-utilities-politics
Top US Envoy To Iraq: Country "Really Vulnerable" To Civil War... The top U.S. envoy to Iraq said Monday that the 2003 toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime had opened a "Pandora's box" of volatile ethnic and sectarian tensions that could engulf the region in all-out war if America pulled out of the country too soon. In remarks that were among the frankest and bleakest public assessments of the Iraq situation by a high-level American official, U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the "potential is there" for sectarian violence to become full-blown civil war. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-envoy7mar07,0,3620947.story?track=tothtml ---------------------- Sen. Tom Harkin: Iraq "Really Is A Civil War"... Sen. Tom Harkin said in Iowa Friday that Iraq has deteriorated into "civil war," declaring it no longer manageable by U.S. forces. http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060304/NEWS11/603040320/1001/RSS01
Very interesting read -- Iraq through the prism of Vietnam COMMENTARY | March 08, 2006 Those who say Iraq is nothing like Vietnam have another guess coming, says retired Gen. William Odom. He lists striking similarities and asserts that only after it pulls out of Iraq can the U.S. hope for international support to deal with anti-Western forces. By William E. Odom The Vietnam War experience can’t tell us anything about the war in Iraq – or so it is said. If you believe that, trying looking through this lens, and you may change your mind. The Vietnam War had three phases. The War in Iraq has already completed an analogous first phase, is approaching the end of the second phase, and shows signs of entering the third. Phase One in Vietnam lasted from 1961 until the Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution in March 1965, authorizing deployment of large U.S. combat forces in South Vietnam. It began with hesitation and a gross misreading of American strategic interests. It concluded with the U.S. use of phony intelligence that made it seem that North Vietnamese patrol boats had attacked U.S. ships in the Tonkin Gulf without provocation. President Kennedy was ambivalent about deeper involvement, but some of his aides believed that a North Vietnamese takeover of the south would bring Sino-Soviet dominion over all of Southeast Asia. They paid little attention to the emerging Sino-Soviet split, which the Intelligence Community was reporting in the early 1960s. Accordingly, the “containment of China” became their goal, their rationale for U.S. strategic purpose – that is, not allowing the Soviet Bloc to expand in this region. Was it really in the American interest to “contain China” in Vietnam? By 1965, Soviet leaders were also pursuing the containment of China, in Southeast Asia and elsewhere. Did it, then, make sense for the United States to commit large military forces to the pursuit of Soviet objectives in Southeast Asia? Obviously not; the White House’s strategic rationale had no grounding in reality. Not only Soviet leaders but Ho Chi Minh also wanted to contain China. A long-time loyalist to Moscow and early member of Lenin’s Communist International, he was never under China’s thumb. Yet he cooperated with Beijing to balance his dependency on Moscow, disallowing either to frustrate his aim, unifying all of Vietnam under his rule. The Johnson Administration used an apparent North Vietnamese attack on U.S. ships in the Gulf of Tonkin on the coast of North Vietnam in the spring of 1965 to persuade Congress to support the introduction of major U.S. ground forces in South Vietnam. We now know that U.S. special operations – incursions into North Vietnam by Navy Seals – played a role in prompting North Vietnamese gun boat actions that became the casus belli for President Johnson. Thus, a misleading interpretation of the known facts, i.e., the intelligence assessment of these events, became the critical factor in making it America’s war, not just Saigon’s war. Phase One in Iraq, the run-up to the invasion, looks remarkably similar. Broodings about the “necessity” to overthrow Saddam’s regime were heard earlier, but signs of action appeared in January 2002, when President Bush proclaimed his “axis of evil” thesis about Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, countries he accused of acquiring “weapons of mass destruction” and supporting terrorists against the United States. This became the cornerstone of his rationale for invading Iraq, and it was no less ill-conceived than the strategic purpose for President Johnson’s war in Vietnam. It better served the interests of Iran and Osama bin Laden. Iran had serious scores to settle with Iraq. In 1980, Saddam Hussein launched a bloody war that dragged on until 1988 without a decisive end. That President Bush would destroy Saddam's regime, saving Iran the trouble, was probably beyond its clerics’ wildest dreams. He did the same for al Qaeda. Osama bin Laden must have been ecstatic. The U.S. invasion opened the way for al Qaeda cadres to enter Iraq by the scores. Killing Americans in Iraq is much easier than killing them in the United States after 9/11. Moreover, toppling secular Arab leaders – including Saddam – was, and remains, Osama bin Laden’s highest priority aim. America is farther down his list, seen as an intermediate objective in the long struggle to bring his version of radical Islamic rule to all Arab countries. As it turned out, the alleged intelligence that Iraq had “weapons of mass destruction” and that Saddam aided al Qaeda was grossly wrong. That, of course, became a major international embarrassment, alienating many U.S. allies and aiding its enemies in their claims that America is an aggressor state that cannot be trusted. Does all of this – confused war aims and phony intelligence – sound familiar? It should. Phase Two in Vietnam was marked by a refusal to reconsider the war’s “strategic” rationale. Rather, debate focused only on “tactical” issues as the war went sour. By1965 things had begun going badly for U.S. military operations. By the end of March 1968, public opinion was turning against the war and Johnson chose not to run for re-election. His own party in Congress was breaking with him, and the pro-war New York Times reversed itself that summer. During this phase, no major leader or opinion maker in the United States dared revisit the key strategic judgment: did the U.S. war aim of containing China make sense? Instead, debate focused on how the war was being fought: on search-and-destroy operations, on body counts, and pacification efforts. This obsession with tactical issues made it easier to ignore the strategic error. As time passed, costs went up, casualties increased, and public support fell. We could not afford to “cut and run,” it was argued. “The Viet Cong would carry out an awful blood-letting.” Supporters of the war expected no honest answer when they asked “How can we get out?” Eventually Senator Aiken of Vermont gave them one: “In boats.” Phase Two in Iraq reveals that the same kind of strategic denial error prevails today. Since 2003, public discourse has focused on how the war is being fought. Reconstruction is inadequate. Not enough troops are available. We should not have dismantled the Iraqi military. Elections will save the day. The insurgency is in its “last throes.” And so on. Some of these criticisms are valid, but they fail to address the fundamental issue, the validity of U.S. strategic purpose. As al Qaeda marched into a country where it had not dared to tread before, the White House refused to admit that its war allowed them in. As Iran’s influence with Iraqi Shiite clerics and militias quietly expands, the administration refuses to confess its own culpability. As Shiite politicians appear headed to dominate the U.S.-created “democracy” in Iraq, no one is asking “Who lost Iraq to Iran?” Instead, after each election and referendum in Iraq, hope surges in the media. The New York Times’s reporting on the elections in February of last year was eerily reminiscent of its reporting from Saigon on the 1968 elections. The end of Phase Two is not yet here, but the Congress is showing signs of nervousness about where the war is taking the country. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel has said that by no measure can it be said that the United States is winning the war. Republican Congressman Walter Jones is trying to push a resolution through the House, calling on the President to begin a withdrawal. When Democratic Congressman Jack Murtha, a highly decorated Marine war veteran, asserted that the war was hopeless and that U.S. forces should be withdrawn, supporters of the Bush White House attacked his patriotism. Sadly, the Democratic leadership refused to defend him. Does all this sound familiar? Not entirely. In 1968 the Democratic Congress proved willing to oppose the Democrat in the White House. The Republican Congress today has yet to show the same courage and wisdom. Phase Three in Vietnam was marked by “Vietnamization” and “make-believe diplomacy” in Paris, policies still ignoring the strategic realities at the war’s beginning. The wind-down in Vietnam actually started in Johnson’s last year in office, but Richard Nixon implemented it (taking his time doing so). Rather than a rapid pullout, he pursued two tactics. The first was turning the war over to South Vietnam’s military so that U.S. forces could withdraw. By 1972 most of them were gone. Second, negotiations in Paris through Soviet intermediaries with the North Vietnamese began. Both were based on transparently false assumptions. The key problem in South Vietnam had always been achieving a political consolidation among anti-Viet Cong elites. It was not building effective military and police forces. In fact, as South Vietnamese military units became more effective, their commanders competed aggressively for political power, insuring a weak dictatorial regime in Saigon. The assumptions about the Paris peace talks were no less illusory. Their designer, Henry Kissinger, believed that Moscow would “help” the United States reach a settlement short of total capitulation. In fact, by the late 1960s, the war was not only serving Soviet purposes against China, but also weakening NATO, hurting the U.S. currency in the international exchange rates, and making the charge of “imperialism” believable to citizens in many countries allied to the United States. Thus Soviet leaders had no objective reason to help the United States find a face-saving exodus. The deeper into “the big muddy” in Vietnam went the United States, the better for the Soviet Union. Second, Moscow could not have compelled North Vietnamese leaders in Paris to accept half a loaf in South Vietnam. Hanoi was playing off Moscow and Beijing with no intention of conceding its ultimate goal for any price. The war ended, we now know, with the abject failure of both policies. As helicopters evacuated the American Embassy in Saigon in 1975, both illusions vanished. Phase Three in Iraq is only beginning. Early signs were apparent in the presidential election campaign of 2004. Both Bush and Kerry put full confidence in “Iraqization.” U.S. forces will “stand down” as Iraqi forces “stand up.” They differed only on who could train more Iraqis faster. Nor would they acknowledge that “political consolidation” had to come before “military consolidation,” as the Vietnam experience demonstrated. In Iraq, we watch U.S.-led make-believe diplomacy negotiating a constitutional deal among Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds. Should we believe that the Iraqi Shiites, a majority of the population with the trauma of Saddam’s bloody repressions burned into their memories, will settle for less than full control? And why should we expect the Kurds to surrender their decade-old autonomy after suffering no less bloody repressions than did the Shiites? And why should we expect Sunnis to trust a Shiite-Kurdish regime not to take revenge against them for Saddam’s crimes? And why would Iran and Syria be willing to abandon support for their co-religionists in Iraq in order to strike a peace deal favorable to the United States? Will Phase Three in Iraq end with helicopters flying out of the “green zone” in Baghdad? It all sounds so familiar. The difference lies in the consequences. Vietnam did not have the devastating effects on U.S. power that Iraq is already having. On this point, those who deny the Vietnam-Iraq analogy are probably right. They are wrong, however, in believing that “staying the course” will have any result other than making the damage to U.S. power far greater than changing course and withdrawing sooner in as orderly a fashion as possible. But even in its differences, Vietnam can be instructive about Iraq. Once the U.S. position in Vietnam collapsed, Washington was free to reverse the negative trends it faced in NATO and U.S.-Soviet military balance, in the world economy, in its international image, and in other areas. Only by getting out of Iraq can the United States possibly gain sufficient international support to design a new strategy for limiting the burgeoning growth of anti-Western forces it has unleashed in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.), is a Senior Fellow with Hudson Institute and a professor at Yale University. He was Director of the National Security Agency from 1985 to 1988. From 1981 to 1985, he served as Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, the Army's senior intelligence officer. From 1977 to 1981, he was Military Assistant to the President's Assistant for National Security Affairs, Zbigniew Brzezinski.
One of the finest summations of the War in Iraq and it's parallels to Vietnam that I have read, and this is from the Director of the National Security Agency during the last years of the Reagan Administration. Thanks for the read, mc mark. Do any of Bush's supporters, the "come hell or high water, Bush is right," folks have anything to say about this column? By the way, as someone who was a young man during Vietnam, a war protester, someone who had friends that were drafted and served there, who went through hell, and someone who could have easily been drafted himself, had he not lucked out in the first draft lottery, it is also a very depressing read. Unsurprising, but very depressing. I'll trot out another cliché... those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. Bush and his small group of advisors thought themselves above all that sort of thing. They wanted a war in Iraq, come hell or high water. It pisses me off that they got it. This didn't have to happen. Keep D&D Civil.
I was in the first lottery, too. I had a 30 or 31, and came very close to winding up in Canada, when Nixon ended the draft.
Also yesterday... On a day of sweeping arguments from both sides, the most dramatic comments came from Allawi.
Then you weren't in the first lottery, glynch, the one they had on TV. If you'd had a number that low, you would have been drafted. You were at the end of the lottery, as it affected Vietnam. Trust me. I had my passport up to date, and an eye on the border. I intended to go north if I was drafted, but whether I really would have is something I'm still not, to this day, sure about. It would have been hard to leave family and friends for what I felt was a political statement I had to make, should it come to that pass. I'm glad it didn't. My life would have been completely changed. As it happened, watching my fate on TV, my number was 336. I was lucky. We all faced the prospect of having our lives completely changed, something those who are of draft age today can really have no clue about. If you faced being drafted, you had choices. You could enlist, and hope you got duty that either kept you out of the theatre (Germany was where most hoped to serve), or keep you away from the front lines, and both of those, regardless of what you were told by recruiters, were a slim chance. You could enlist in the Navy or the Air Force, and hope you got a good assignment. You could try to flunk the physical. I knew people that went to enormous lengths to flunk it. I won't say what they did, but the options were endless. Usually, their attempts were laughed at, and they were told to, "enjoy boot camp, punk!" I had a cousin who water-skied barefoot, and flunked the physical because they said his knee was shot. The guy water-skied barefoot! (and he was damned good at it) I always thought his Dad (my Uncle) knew someone on the draft board that got him the deferral. His Dad had friends on the board, and was financially well off. Maybe, maybe no, as we say around here. You could try consciences objector status, which was nearly impossible to get. You could get drafted, and see what happened, hoping you would luck out, and get assigned to anywhere but Nam. That's what most did, trusting to luck. You could join the Guard, if you could get in... the waiting list was enormous. You needed someone on the inside to insure you got in, which is what our President did. Or you could go to Canada. To the great unknown in the frozen north, which is what it seemed like to warm weather Texans. Those who gladly "answered the call" of the draft were, in my experience, at least, a distinct minority. Everyone needs to be clear on one thing... the reaction of young people to getting drafted was based in large measure on Vietnam being an unpopular war that millions felt was a mistake, and that millions felt could be avoided by those wealthy enough to get deferrals from going to college, or the other ways to get out of the draft. Just ask Dick Cheney. He used just about every one of them, short of conscientious objector status. Unlike some, I've never blamed him for doing that. You had to be there to understand why so many went to such lengths to avoid it. I blame him for being a gigantic hypocrite later, in his political career, something he still is, but not for doing what he did back then. Same with George Junior. I don't blame him for taking advantage of his family connections. If you had them, you used them. No one faces that today. If they did, those who are so ardent in their support for Bush's war would have a completely different perspective. They would be worrying about the same things we worried about, for themselves, or for their kids. It puts things in wonderful focus when you are looking at being pulled into the military against your will, to fight a war that the overwhelming majority believe to be wrong. That's enough of an anti-draft rant for today. I don't want anyone to experience a draft again, and to face what we faced. It's marvelous that we have a volunteer military, and I have tremendous respect for those who serve. I also believe that part of the "contract" we have with them is to not use them foolishly, and without good reason. And that is exactly what George W. Bush did in Iraq, in my opinion. Not in Afghanistan, but in Iraq. He broke the unwritten contract with those men and women, and they are paying the price, while his supporters, and the rest of us, click away in the comfort of this internet world, far away from the reality of this war. Keep D&D Civil.
From today's Times -- Two Deadlines and an Exit By JOHN F. KERRY Published: April 5, 2006 Washington WE are now in the third war in Iraq in as many years. The first was against Saddam Hussein and his supposed weapons of mass destruction. The second was against terrorists whom, the administration said, it was better to fight over there than here. Now we find our troops in the middle of an escalating civil war. Half of the service members listed on the Vietnam Memorial Wall died after America's leaders knew our strategy would not work. It was immoral then and it would be immoral now to engage in the same delusion. We want democracy in Iraq, but Iraqis must want it as much as we do. Our valiant soldiers can't bring democracy to Iraq if Iraq's leaders are unwilling themselves to make the compromises that democracy requires. As our generals have said, the war cannot be won militarily. It must be won politically. No American soldier should be sacrificed because Iraqi politicians refuse to resolve their ethnic and political differences. So far, Iraqi leaders have responded only to deadlines — a deadline to transfer authority to a provisional government, and a deadline to hold three elections. Now we must set another deadline to extricate our troops and get Iraq up on its own two feet. Iraqi politicians should be told that they have until May 15 to put together an effective unity government or we will immediately withdraw our military. If Iraqis aren't willing to build a unity government in the five months since the election, they're probably not willing to build one at all. The civil war will only get worse, and we will have no choice anyway but to leave. If Iraq's leaders succeed in putting together a government, then we must agree on another deadline: a schedule for withdrawing American combat forces by year's end. Doing so will empower the new Iraqi leadership, put Iraqis in the position of running their own country and undermine support for the insurgency, which is fueled in large measure by the majority of Iraqis who want us to leave their country. Only troops essential to finishing the job of training Iraqi forces should remain. For this transition to work, we must finally begin to engage in genuine diplomacy. We must immediately bring the leaders of the Iraqi factions together at a Dayton Accords-like summit meeting. In a neutral setting, Iraqis, working with our allies, the Arab League and the United Nations, would be compelled to reach a political agreement that includes security guarantees, the dismantling of the militias and shared goals for reconstruction. To increase the pressure on Iraq's leaders, we must redeploy American forces to garrisoned status. Troops should be used for security backup, training and emergency response; we should leave routine patrols to Iraqi forces. Special operations against Al Qaeda and other foreign terrorists in Iraq should be initiated only on hard intelligence leads. We will defeat Al Qaeda faster when we stop serving as its best recruitment tool. Iraqis ultimately will not tolerate foreign jihadists on their soil, and the United States will be able to maintain an over-the-horizon troop presence with rapid response capacity. An exit from Iraq will also strengthen our hand in dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat and allow us to repair the damage of repeated deployments, which flag officers believe has strained military readiness and morale. For three years now, the administration has told us that terrible things will happen if we get tough with the Iraqis. In fact, terrible things are happening now because we haven't gotten tough enough. With two deadlines, we can change all that. We can put the American leadership on the side of our soldiers and push the Iraqi leadership to do what only it can do: build a democracy. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/05/opinion/05kerry.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
More crap... while we're at this Iraq thing, let's make sure the State Department comes out of it in asbad a shape as the Army.
Wow. Just wow. And basso is jonesin' for Rice to run for President. Good god almighty. Her dishonesty clearly knows no bounds, and she is working hard to depose George W. Bush as the living imbodiment of the Peter Principal, so she should be rewarded with the Presidency?? I find these reports completely credible, and they remind way too much of Vietnam. Give the country a break! And the world, while you Bush/Rice supporters are at it. I really feel for the career diplomats who are being placed in a nightmare Catch 22 situation in Iraq. There is no way for them, or us, to win. We are well and truly screwed. Keep D&D Civil.
It's the same reason why the administration can't find one sane person to run FEMA. Nobody of any brains wants that job.
April 9, 2006, is the 3rd anniversary of the toppling of the statue of Saddam in Baghdad, aka the "Freedom Day." The situation in Iraq, which has been under illegal US-led occupation for than more than 3 years, is sh!tty than ever. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died due to US hegemony and millions more continue to suffer mightily from never ending violences from all angles. Iraq's economy is in shambles. All-out civil war is looming large. The force-fed "democracy" has never been manifested so lively and vibrantly.
