John McCain, Fear and Lying

Update II: Consider that this contrived non-issue (demonstrating either McCain's lack of character or lack of vigor in that he could be the unthinking recepient of lame talking points fed to him) is the most that they can brand Obama with at this point. Sure, it's an opening salvo in the GOP brand manglement of Obama, but it is so clearly lame, that at some point even the broadcast talking heads can see that something is more rotten than usual.

Update: McCain buddy Bush picks up the lying talking point. [just too precious, at right]

BUSH: It's an interesting comment. 'If Al Qaida is securing an Al Qaida base'? Yes, well, that's exactly what they've been trying to do for the past four years. That's — their stated intention was to create enough chaos and disorder to establish a base from which to either launch attacks or spread a caliphate.

From the inception of the Bush presidency which effectively began on September 12, 2001, the war paradigm and fear have been its trademarks.

In policy and politics, Bush and neocons have transformed this country into a permanent culture of fear while claiming to be the sole instrument to provide security.

John McCain has picked up the torch, and is now lying, howler after howler, on the campaign trail with impunity.

The question is: Will the media that credulously reported the weapons-of-mass-destruction and al-Qaeda/Saddam lies [“allowed to stand unchallenged,” it was later reported with regret] continue to let John McCain lie with the newest iteration of the al-Qaeda will strike us from Iraq fable?

“(Al-Qaeda in Iraq) if we left, they wouldn’t be establishing a base. They’d be taking a country, and I’m not going to allow that to happen,” John McCain tells us.

Ludicrous.

As Juan Cole writes:

The allegation that (McCain) makes about there being ‘al-Qaeda in Iraq' that could well take over the country is part lie and part insanity. ... The idea that this small minority of violent Muslim fundamentalists could take over Iraq is completely crazy. They haven't even been able to keep their toehold in Baghdad-- the Sunnis have been largely ethnically cleansed from the capital by Shiite militias.

In GOP political rhetoric, al Qaeda has become inclusively the Islamofascists—the coming caliphate composed of everyone in Iraq and the Middle East who raises a gun or thought against foreign invaders, though Pakistan and Saudi Arabia (and assorted other authoritarian states) remain our steadfast, democratic friends.

And McCain is taking his fear show on the road as he looks to the general election, blasting Barack Obama for answering Tim Russert’s hypothetical question about reinvading Iraq should America withdraw in the future.

Asked Russert: ". . . do you reserve a right as American president to go back into Iraq, once you have withdrawn, with sizable troops in order to quell any kind of insurrection or civil war?"

Obama: . . . Now, I always reserve the right for the president -- as commander in chief, I will always reserve the right to make sure that we are looking out for American interests. And if al Qaeda is forming a base in Iraq, then we will have to act in a way that secures the American homeland and our interests abroad.

That’s just too much for McCain.

“Al Qaeda is there now,” Mr. McCain said today in Houston, with a tone of belittlement in his voice. “So to state that somehow if Al Qaeda were there that he would consider going back militarily is really a remarkable comment, and I don’t think displays an understanding of the size of the threat and what’s at stake in Iraq.” (Bosman, NYT)

But as Juan Cole points out: “Note that Obama was simply responding to Russert's hypothetical, which assumed that the US was already out of Iraq but that in the aftermath, there was ‘insurrection’ or ‘civil war.’ The world that Russert imagined was presumably one in which Iraq had firmed up enough for the US to get out ... "

There are two blatant lies that McCain peddling:

- That Al Qaeda, such as is, can take over Iraq and pose a danger to the United States.

- McCain's failure to acknowledge that Obama’s statement to which McCain has now spent two days misrepresenting was based on Russert’s hypothetical question.

There is nothing “remarkable” about Obama’s comment, except in the disingenuous manner that McCain, Mr. straight talker, is presenting it.

But McCain’s blatant lying is remarkable and ought to be challenged by someone besides Juan Cole.

John McCain’s character, specifically his willingness to lie, is on display, and every journalist ought to be reporting on what is happening.

Instead, the newest media narrative, as I write, is: Can Obama withstand this McCain attack, and is he seasoned enough on military and foreign policy?

Let's hope that the media will heed the lesson of its admitted failure before the Iraq invasion. From The Times and Iraq (New York Times, May 26, 2004):

"We have studied the allegations of official gullibility and hype. It is past time we turned the same light on ourselves."

McCain Dumber than Bush on Iraq

Update II: McCain Keeps up Al Qaeda in Iraq Talk

Update: Obama Scores against McCain

... The allegation that (McCain) makes about there being 'al-Qaeda in Iraq' that could well take over the country is part lie and part insanity. ... They don't call themselves 'al-Qaeda in Iraq.' The major such group is 'The Islamic State of Iraq.' And to say that they have 'bases' in Iraq is pretty grandiose. They have some safe houses and try to take and hold neighborhoods, so far with indifferent success. The idea that this small minority of violent Muslim fundamentalists could take over Iraq is completely crazy. They haven't even been able to keep their toehold in Baghdad-- the Sunnis have been largely ethnically cleansed from the capital by Shiite militias. - Juan Cole

Senator John McCain is in way over his head, no matter how tightly he hugs Bush.

McCain speaking today after the Democratic debate, offered:

"... Senator Obama made the statement that if Al Qaeda came back to Iraq ... after the American troops are withdrawn, then he would send military troops back, if Al Qaeda established a base in Iraq. I have some news. Al Qaeda is in Iraq. It’s called Al Qaeda in Iraq. My friends, if we left, they wouldn’t be establishing a base. They’d be taking a country, and I’m not going to allow that to happen... "

John McCain apparently believes that the Sunni tribes and the Shiite majority (with their various militias) in Iraq will, after the hypothetical withdrawal of American troops, allow the Sunni Al Qaeda to take over "a country," a ridiculous proposition that even the most pedestrian of students of Iraq recognize as an absurdity.

Will the corporate media call McCain on this rubbish?

"John McCain may like to say he wants to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of Hell, but so far all he’s done is follow George Bush into a misguided war in Iraq," said Obama.

600 Attacks per Week in Iraq

From Juan Cole:

The guerrilla movement in Iraq is generating a steady 600 attacks a week using bombs, small-arms, mortars and sniping. This number has not changed during the past six weeks, and although it is lower than the rate in September, it is a very significant number of attacks. Roadside bomb attacks in specific are down, but there is no change in the number of over-all attacks. The Iraqi government statistics show 600 civilian deaths a month (the US military's statistics are lower).
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There Is No U.N.-mandated occupation of Iraq; McClatchy Parrots Old Bush Lie

Update: Robert Parry's The 'Triumphant' Neocons:
Citing signs of military progress in Iraq, America’s neoconservatives are reasserting their vision of the United States as an imperial power that can reshape the Muslim world in a way favorable to the interests of Washington and Tel Aviv.

McClatchy Newspapers has been a rare treasure, a news service often reporting the facts and history flatly contradicting the PR streaming out of the White House.

But Leila Fadel's piece Monday is a disappointing exception.

Fadel writes:

BAGHDAD — Iraq and the United States agreed Monday that the U.N.-mandated occupation of Iraq will end in December 2008 and that any U.S. troop presence in the country after that time will be subject to U.S.-Iraq negotiations that are to be completed by next summer.

But there was no "UN-mandated occupation" of Iraq. Bush could not muster it. And Fadel parrots a discredited administration line.

The U.S. is calling the shots in Iraq. The war of aggression remains illegal. There is no functioning government in Iraq, as millions remain displaced, and over one million killed, wounded or jailed.
As Robert Parry notes (Sept. 4, 2004):

“Although the (UN) inspection organization was now operating at full strength and Iraq seemed determined to give it prompt access everywhere, the United States appeared as determined to replace our inspection force with an invasion army,” Blix wrote in his book, Disarming Iraq. ...
Perry quotes Bush:

“I went there [the United Nations] hoping that once and for all the free world would act in concert to get Saddam Hussein to listen to our demands,” Bush said during the presidential debate on Sept. 30, 2004. “They [the Security Council] passed a resolution that said disclose, disarm or face serious consequences. I believe when an international body speaks, it must mean what it says."

Fuuny.

United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has said the U.S. invasion of Iraq was ''an illegal act that contravened the UN charter.'' (BBC, 16 September, 2004).

Scott Ritter points out that:
Unilaterally attacking Iraq is totally unconstitutional and illegal under United Nations Charter and Nuremberg Judgements.

Andy Dunn points out in Z-Net:
Bush claimed that he was invading Iraq to enforce UN Security Council (UN Security Council) resolutions and that the UN’s reluctance to endorse his invasion risked making the institution “irrelevant.” Besides the contrary logic of “do what we want or you’re irrelevant,” the charge that Iraq was then violating resolutions on WMD was dubious, if not completely false. Likewise, the charge that resolutions were violated by Iraq’s firing on U.S.-British planes over the “no-fly zones” (aircraft that regularly killed civilians throughout the previous decade) was also false and was rebuffed by the UN’s secretary-general and members of the Security Council.

Powell’s and Bush’s presentations of detailed lies to the UN failed to convince the UNSC that invading Iraq was justified (despite U.S. bribes, arm twisting, and spying on delegations to the UNSC), [in fact, Ari Fleischer was literally laughed out of White House press room for suggesting in late Feb. 2003 that countries were not being bribed to support the UNCS - "MR. FLEISCHER: I haven't seen the story. And you already have the answer, about what this will be decided on. But think about the implications of what you're saying. You're saying that the leaders of other nations are buyable. And that is not an acceptable proposition. (Laughter.)" The video is hilarious.] a lack of approval which made our subsequent invasion explicitly illegal under the UN Charter, under international law as agreed to by the U.S. through treaty (and hence also illegal under U.S. law), and under war crimes conventions that describe such aggressive war as the “supreme crime.”

Remember Bush's March, 2003 speech that "France and the rest of world have to show their cards on the table" to support a UNSC resolution authorizing the invasion.

Bush never got his resolution, invaded anyway, with predictable results.

So, now the UN has mandated the occupation of the country, the invasion of which it refused to endorse?

What's with Leila Fadel?

What's with McClatchy Newspapers?

Please contact and ask: McClatchy Newspapers' Baghdad bureau can be reached through the D.C. office. Leila Fadel, Bureau Chief, kriraq@yahoo.com .

Update:

Amazing the opprobrium one receives in asserting that:

- Charter of the United Nations, the Hague and Geneva Conventions, the Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal still apply today.
- The Westphalia convention still applies today.
- The Iraqi invasion and war are and remain illegal.
- The Iraq government is a fiction.

One writer at Kos, in a cross-post, tells me in comments twice to “fu&K off”.

And now accuses me of “Following me around and TRing (whatever that means) me from diary-to-diary ... ,” though I have no idea who this writer is, and have not (and judging from his/her comments) would not read his/her pieces, diaries, as it were.

Person IDs him/her self as one Shane Hensinger. He/she must be off the meds.

One cannot speak of a UN-mandated occupation when an illegal war of aggression continues in a land with no legitimate government.

Some Kos readers fail to grasp this rather obvious point that the rest of the world comprehends effortlessly.
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Twelve Former Army Captains Blast Iraq War

Twelve former Army captains who served in Iraq set the record straight, presenting a desperate and hopeless situation in Iraq maintained by lies from the administration and U.S. tax dollars.

We need more people in government like these former Army captains to tell the truth as Bush keeps lying, spending billions, and killing and maiming.

From this morning's Post:

As Army captains who served in Baghdad and beyond, we've seen the corruption and the sectarian division. We understand what it's like to be stretched too thin. And we know when it's time to get out. ...
There is one way we might be able to succeed in Iraq. To continue an operation of this intensity and duration, we would have to abandon our volunteer military for compulsory service. Short of that, our best option is to leave Iraq immediately. A scaled withdrawal will not prevent a civil war, and it will spend more blood and treasure on a losing proposition.
America, it has been five years. It's time to make a choice.

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Bush Is the New Saddam

Hitler revisited, weapons of mass destruction, al Qaida, attack them before they attack us here; we've heard all of the phrases used over 17 years to describe Saddam Hussein.

Now he's one of us.

Patrick Graham of Macleans of Canada has a great piece detailing Bush's constantly changing goals, now reduced to simply running out the clock until 2008 and letting his successor clean up the mess.

It seems that former Sunni extremists, the dead-enders aren't so bad after all.

Writes Graham:

Many of America’s new allies are former insurgents and Saddam Hussein loyalists (Saddam was a Sunni) who only a short while ago were routinely called terrorists, “anti-Iraqi fighters,” and “Baathist dead-enders.” They are suspicious of one another and strongly anti-American, although willing to work, for the moment, with the U.S.

Nothing Bush says ought be taken at face value. But maybe that's obvious.

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War Without End

The Huffington Post has it dead-on: a war without end.

Though the majority of the American people have long since said "no" to a war without end in Iraq, there is a question to be posed to the people that has not: Are you willing to kill innocent Iraqis and kill and maim 1,000s more American troops to institute a client oil state?

If Iraq were merely exporting nuts and dates and not oil, we would not be there.

Do you really believe this is about democracy, or weapons of mass destruction, or 9/11, or fighting them there and not here, or what's the latest one now? Who cares, declare victory and bring the troops home.

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Bin Laden Is Not Important, Republicans Now Say

The Republicans invent their own reality: About the imminence of a Shia caliphate (Islamic state) taking over the world, about the Sunni bin Laden changing everything about America so that George W. Bush must have special powers to fight him and our Constitution changed to prevent attacks from him.

But when bin Laden gets on tape demonstrating the idiocy not just of Bush's military policy, but Bush's competence, Republican reactions change fast:

Via Steve Benen at Crook and Liars:
Fred Thompson’s reaction to today’s Osama bin Laden tape:
“Bin Laden is more symbolism than anything else,” he said.

Mitt Romney on bin Laden: [Romney] said the country would be safer by only “a small percentage” and would see “a very insignificant increase in safety” if al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was caught because another terrorist would rise to power. “It’s not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person,” Romney said.

George W. Bush on bin Laden: “I truly am not that concerned about him.”

Benen asks, "At what point did the GOP decide that bin Laden no longer matters? And how would the right respond if Dems made similar comments?"

Here's a good one by Greg Saunders at This Modern World:

These Colors Sorta Run

What happens when a grandstanding fool whipped into a patriotic fervor makes a sucker’s bet that George W. Bush would do a good job?

Bob Flournoy swore after 9/11 that he would wear the same patriotic tie until the day Osama bin Laden was captured or killed.

He figured that it would take the USA a couple of weeks to find the notorious terrorist leader. Despite that miscalculation — it’s been almost six years — the city attorney has kept his word. He’s been wearing the same red-white-and-blue necktie since the attacks on America.

“It looks like Francis Scott Key’s Star-Spangled Banner,” Flournoy tells The Lufkin (Texas) Daily News. “It is faded, worn and tattered. It has been reworked, patched and pieced together. Velcro has been added around the neck because it is too fragile to tie and untie. It is smaller and even a little smelly, but it is still a grand old flag. Betsy Ross would be proud. . . .

“If Bin Laden is alive, I challenge him to prove it by Sept. 11, 2007,” Flournoy says. “If he does not come forward with some proof, I am personally going to declare him dead, and I will be able to take off my tie and give it a proper burial.”

Poor guy just wants to take off his smelly tie and in a few more days…
Crap. Osama just messed with the wrong Texan.

Flournoy said he has had enough of waiting for proof of bin Laden’s death. He thinks his friends and those around him every day will be very happy once he stops wearing the tie.

“Flies kind of gather around me, and I don’t have quite as many friends,” Flournoy said.. . .

“If by chance Bin Laden is not dead and proves it by Sept. 11th, I offer to meet him, man to man, at the park at City Hall and fight him to the death of one of us,” Flournoy said. “He just can’t kill Americans and get away with it.”

Flournoy doubts his challenge will reach Tora Bora, but wants a way to put his tattered old flag tie to rest once and for all.

“It’s been fun, but the fun’s about to end,” Flournoy said.

Writes Saunders: "That’s right, Osama. You’re about to get your ass kicked by somebody wearing a disgusting tie. Let’s Roll!"

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Iraq Surge Is a Failure

Patrick Coburn continues his typically sober reporting from Iraq and knocks down the propaganda about the array of successes made in the occupation through the surge.

Bush and company are lying again.

On January 10 this year President Bush announced that he too now believed he had the formula for victory. In an address to the American nation he announced a new strategy for Iraq that became known as “the surge”. He said he was sending a further 20,000 US troops to Iraq. ...

The surge is now joining a host of discredited formulae for success and fake turning points that the US has promoted in Iraq over the last 52 months. In December 2003 there was the capture of Saddam Hussein. Six months later in June 2004 there was the return of Iraqi sovereignty to Iraq. “Let freedom reign,” said Mr Bush in a highly-publicised response though the present Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki claims he cannot move a company of soldiers without American permission.

See CounterPunch for more.
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Bush Wrong Again on Iraq

Bush says al Qaida in Iraq is the single biggest threat facing America.

Who believes a word this guy says? McClatchy shoots him down, if more evidence were needed that this guy is a liar.

BAGHDAD — Despite President Bush's recent insistence that al Qaida in Iraq is the principal cause of this country's violence, senior American military officers here say Shiite Muslim militias are a bigger problem, and one that will persist even if al Qaida is defeated.
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