Is the Right Really Rising Up Against the Iraq Occupation? (AlterNet)

Is the Right Really Rising Up Against the Iraq Occupation?

By Phyllis Bennis, AlterNet. Posted July 18, 2007.



Getting Republicans to jump ship is central to the anti-war movement's strategy to get out of Iraq. But activists need to be wary of their intentions and not let them co-opt the message that it's time for withdrawal.

The sudden "surge" of anti-war positions among powerful Republican senators, most recently John Warner and Richard Lugar, and other elite forces (such as the editors of the New York Times) is putting intense new bi-partisan pressure on the White House to begin withdrawing troops. And while it is certainly an indication that our years of work are bearing fruit, this new period is going to be very dangerous, and create new problems for the anti-war movement.

Television and radio hosts are begging Washington pundits to define the new buzz-phrase allegedly being heard all over town: the "post-surge redeployment." Last December's Baker-Hamilton report is also back in the news, with many analysts pointing to broader bipartisan support for many of its key provisions, including partial withdrawal of some troops and direct negotiations with Iran and Syria. Internationally, close Bush allies are feeling the heat. In Australia, pressure is mounting on Bush-backer John Howard to withdraw troops from the collapsing, now tiny "coalition." A cautious break-through editorial from the country's leading paper, the Sydney Morning Herald, acknowledged, "There are clear signs in the United States and Britain that a crucial 'tipping point' is, indeed, nearing. It is not that elusive moment when coalition troops and Iraqi units finally gain the upper hand against insurgents, but rather the turning of the tides of political and public opinion. With the lofty goals of the invasion now so distant, and the human cost of the war so appalling, the only way forward may be backwards."

Bush administration officials are responding with new dire reports from military and White House officials about the dire consequences of troop withdrawals. But with mainstream Republicans increasingly distancing themselves from Bush on Iraq, there's a danger that their counterparts in the Democratic leadership are likely to soften their own opposition to the U.S. occupation in order to reach the brass ring of a "bipartisan" position. That could well mean agreement on a "post-surge redeployment" designed to partially withdraw some troops (probably about half the current 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq), and establish what is already being touted as the prize: a "sustainable" U.S. military occupation of Iraq. Sustainable, in this context, means permanent. Partial withdrawal will set the stage for permanent occupation. A smaller, less visible occupation force stationed primarily at the huge U.S. bases built across Iraq will keep U.S. soldiers mostly off Iraq's IED-filled roads and far away from Iraq's resistance-stoked major cities. The U.S. troops will no longer maintain even the fiction of responsibility for protecting Iraqi civilians, and crucially, will take far fewer casualties. The result (since the far more numerous Iraqi casualties are so easily ignored): Iraq will be largely out of the headlines and off the front page. .....(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/56673/

The shitheads may talk the talk, but when it comes to vote, they vote for war.

kissing Bush's, um, ring when it comes time to put his actions where his mouth is ...

And why there was a surge.

They need to label this war the Iraq/Bush/Republican/oil company profits war, because that's what it is.

And don't let the GOP spin their way out of it. They created it, they funded it, it's theirs.

They have never explicitly tied the war to oil company cronyism and explained how that effects what they are doing there right now.

I'm afraid that silence means that many, probably most, agree with that agenda.