One Utah

What is President Bush’s Iraq strategy? Not military strategy, he hasn’t got one unless you count “stay the course.” I mean the political and media strategy, something the White House and GOP are actually very good at. The Petraeus-Crocker hearings were just a start. As Arianna Huffington wrote today, “[Y]ou have to give Bush credit. Despite record-low approval ratings, he’s unabashedly playing — and winning — the PR game on the war.”

I got a wake-up call of sorts last Tuesday morning. Rush Limbaugh was on a phone interview (video clip, if you can stand listening to this guy, not to mention the commercial that comes with it) with MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and he said:

I actually think the election in ’08 is not going to be so much about Iraq, I think it’s going to be about the future of the country. I think, I think by the time we get there, nobody is going to be able to saddle the President with defeat in Iraq—probably quite the opposite. And so, it’ll drop off of the radar screen. The future of the country, mark my words, will be what the ’08 presidential race is about.

Limbaugh is always well-informed about one single subject: the latest GOP propaganda talking points. So what’s going on?

• Slate’s military analyst Fred Kaplan has identified the key tactic in the Iraq theater: air strikes in lieu of ground combat. To be sure, it’s almost always a violation of the law of land warfare to attack insurgents with F-16s. What counts for the Bush administration is the dramatically reduced American casualties– which can fool the media into declaring the so-called “surge” a success.

US Air Force F-16 fires Maverick air-to-ground missile over the Utah Test & Training Range.

• Oh, but what about all those Iraqi civilian casualties from collateral damage? News of Iraqi suffering has less domestic political impact in the USA. Anyway, earlier this year the Iraqi government stopped releasing detailed statistics on civilians killed and wounded. Also the US military and the Iraqi government now prohibit news media from covering bombings.

• Columnist Joseph Galloway reminds us that the whole burden of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is being carried by just over half a percent of Americans. The US Army in particular is becoming exhausted by repeated combat deployments, and career soldiers are leaving active duty in record numbers– including 58 percent of the West Point class of 2002. However, the majority of us are not bearing any burden. Most people don’t know anybody in the military. We owe $8,000 each, but that bill hasn’t come due yet.

• The Pentagon is on the phone daily with right-wing bloggers, reports Think Progress. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald observes, the “U.S. military, like everything else, is becoming rapidly politicized, fully incorporated into and following the model of the Republican right-wing noise machine.”

• President Bush’s threats regarding Iran might be intended as a weapon of mass distraction. By threatening us with World War III (or is it IV?), Bush effectively takes attention off the Iraq fiasco. Who else could say “World War III” with a smirk on his face?

Did Limbaugh call it? Are the Democrats going to let Iraq “drop off the radar screen”? If Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) is any indication, they might be willing to. As chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), Emanuel has led the way in trying to duck the Iraq issue.

WHAT SHOULD CONGRESS DO?

Stop writing checks for the Iraq occupation. The Democrats are trying to rely on what David Sirota calls the “innocent bystander fable.” This is the false story that says Congress is powerless to stop President Bush on Iraq unless the Democrats can find enough votes to override a veto. In reality, Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution specifically states, “No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law.” Speaker Nancy Pelosi can simply refuse to send an Iraq appropriations bill to the floor.

Hold more investigative hearings. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has led the way with hearings on corruption and mercenary contractors in Iraq. These hearings are a start– more are needed now.

What ever happened to Phase II of the Senate Intelligence Committee hearings on Iraq? These hearings, first scheduled three years ago, were supposed to delve into how the Bush administration knowingly manipulated secret intelligence to make a case for war. Senate Intelligence Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV), promised to make completion of the Phase II investigation a top priority after Democrats took control of the committee in January. According to Congressional Quarterly, nothing has been done.

This entry was posted Friday, October 26th, 2007 at 10:48 am and is filed under Disaster, Iraq, Military, National Politics, Party Politics, This Blog, War. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.