Cheney's Secret Escalation Plan?

Note from Greetings: Scary stuff....go to Froomkin's website for the entire article. This is an excerpt. I recommend it anyway, as well as his daily blog for the Washington Post. I know many of you read it. However, I hope the press asks questions THIS time around, and the public discusses it long before we find ourselves involved in a 2nd war.

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.comFriday, August 10, 2007; 1:44 PM
for entire article, go to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/08/10/BL2007081001161.html

At yesterday's press conference, President Bush announced that he had put Iran on notice: "One of the main reasons that I asked [U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan] Crocker to meet with Iranians inside Iraq was to send the message that there will be consequences for people transporting, delivering EFPs, highly sophisticated IEDs [improvised explosive devices] that kill Americans in Iraq."

Describing Iran as "a very troubling nation right now," largely because of its nuclear program, Bush warned its leaders that "when we catch you playing a non-constructive role [in Iraq] there will be a price to pay."
White House Watch

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So what price is Bush prepared to exact? Is this saber-rattling a harbinger of war? And perhaps most to the point: What is Vice President Cheney up to?

Warren P. Strobel, John Walcott and Nancy A. Youssef write for McClatchy Newspapers today that "the president's top aides have been engaged in an intense internal debate over how to respond to Iran's support for Shiite Muslim groups in Iraq and its nuclear program. Vice President Dick Cheney several weeks ago proposed launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iraq run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to two U.S. officials who are involved in Iran policy. . . .

"Cheney, who's long been skeptical of diplomacy with Iran, argued for military action if hard new evidence emerges of Iran's complicity in supporting anti-American forces in Iraq; for example, catching a truckload of fighters or weapons crossing into Iraq from Iran, one official said.

"The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to talk publicly about internal government deliberations. . . .

"Lea Anne McBride, a Cheney spokeswoman, said only that 'the vice president is right where the president is' on Iran policy."

As the McClatchy reporters point out: "The debate has been accompanied by a growing drumbeat of allegations about Iranian meddling in Iraq from U.S. military officers, administration officials and administration allies outside government and in the news media. It isn't clear whether the media campaign is intended to build support for limited military action against Iran, to pressure the Iranians to curb their support for Shiite groups in Iraq or both.

"Nor is it clear from the evidence the administration has presented whether Iran, which has long-standing ties to several Iraqi Shiite groups, including the Mahdi Army of radical cleric Muqtada al Sadr and the Badr Organization, which is allied with the U.S.-backed government of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki, is a major cause of the anti-American and sectarian violence in Iraq or merely one of many. At other times, administration officials have blamed the Sunni Muslim group al Qaida in Iraq for much of the violence."

for rest of article, go to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2007/08/10/BL2007081001161.html

Define Victory

The American people are told that "we" are close to victory. Just allow the escalation to take effect. Why reporters have readily accepted the term "surge", I am not clear. But it does show a pattern of journalistic acquiescence - or at least a lack of curiosity. Give them something to write, and they will write it.

What would be journalistic would be to begin to ask questions, rather, to be a journalist and not a stenographer. The first question that has never been asked of the administration by the press is, "Define victory."

We've been given many reasons why we should stay in Iraq, and many more why we needed to go in the first place. We are well past the possibility of actual journalistic investigations into the over half a dozen reasons that the administration gave to U.S. citizens as to why it, and we, went to war with Iraq. Each reason was duly noted by the press as a reason. The public did what it was used to doing and accepted each "reported" reason.

Since the press was asleep for the first round of questions, perhaps they can begin to ask the next round. What does the administration consider victory?

We have been told 1) that we needed to quell the insurgency; 2) that elections needed to be held; 3) that "we would stand down when they stand up"; and most recently 4) so that Iraq would not become a haven for terrorists.

We found out that the insurgency was a civil war. Elections were held, and a government was elected that has closer relations with Iran. The Iraqi civilians now appear afraid of their own police. And Afghanistan remains the central war with Bin Laden and Al Qaeda; a war we are losing due to the lack of troops in that region. Bin Laden has found a safe haven in Pakistan, and remains there. And from Pakistan, he is launching a move to try to regain a foothold in Afghanistan. Afghanistanis are tired of being left in the lurch and the U.S. appears to be losing the hearts and minds of that nation.

The escalation is said to be working. However, the same people who questioned Cheney on his assertion that "we would be greeted as liberators" have noted some similarities between the escalation and the start of the invasion of Iraq. Insurgents, which reads either Iraqi Sunnis or Iraqi Shiites, have left Baghdad as more American troops move in, much as they did at the start of the war in 2003. Much like in 2003, they have moved into two surrounding provinces, where violence has apparently increased as violence in Baghdad has decreased. Ali called this his "rope-a-dope". I'd like to think we are smarter than George Foreman, although experience at least provided him with The George Foreman Grille and success in his later years.

Again, I come back to one question I would like the press to ask Bush and Cheney - repeatedly. "Define victory." In World War II, the definition of victory was clear. The defeat of Germany and Japan, at whatever cost it took from our citizenry and whatever it cost those countries in terms of civilian lives, as well. The fire bombing of Tokyo devastated Japan. Dresden Hiroshima, Nagasaki,- were all calculated to defeat not only the armed forces of those countries, but the wills of their citizens. After all, they had invaded us. And complete victory was our only option. Whatever it took to defeat those countries and their allies. Is that something we really want to do to the Iraqi people?

In Vietnam, victory was not well defined, and it was not achieved. We wanted to stabilize Vietnam so that other countries would not tumble as Communist dominoes. What was stabilization? What was victory? We wanted "to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese people", which we finally found were one against us. We now do most of our manufacturing in Vietnam, but we did not win that war, and we did not "define victory" in that war. China did not follow us home.

We were, and are, told that Iraq was involved in 9/11 - it was not. It was tied in with Bin Laden - it was not. And that it had weapons of mass destruction - it did not. And finally, that we would be welcomed as liberators. Many citizens and knowledgeable people questioned those facts, but many in the press and government did not. They wrote them down and passed them on to the public.

When we reached Baghdad, President Bush stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier and declared victory. Apparently not. So again... "Define victory."

For, while fighting terrorism has a more vague definition of victory, defeating a country does not. But are we prepared to do what it takes to defeat a country like Iraq and "define victory" as the defeat of that country, much as we did with Germany and Japan in World War II? In those cases it was much easier to install a government that we thought would be one that would act honorably in later years. And the governments of those countries have done just that. They have become allies, at least under previous administrations.

It becomes more clear that invading Iraq was meant by Bush and his neo-cons as a way to show our strength. They had premised the invasion of Iraq before Bush even took office in their documents under People for the New American Century. They felt it would be an easy win for Bush to unite the country behind him and the Republican Party. Pursuing Bin Laden and fighting terrorism is more difficult and more subtle.

So did invading Iraq get us closer to finding and defeating Bin Laden and the Taliban? It appears they are regrouping as I write this. Again, "Define Victory" - at least in Iraq. And journalists, please regain your wits and ask that question.

Then we can get on to pursuing the terrorists in Pakistan and Afghanistan, before they grow stronger. We can describe to the American public how we intend to fight and defeat terrorism, so that Americans again trust our leaders and unite behind them to fight the terrorists.Then we will know where to send our soldiers and why - or if we should send them or prescribe a different course of action. Then we can quit making our soldiers sit in a shooting gallery with no apparent goal in mind, other than "to fight there so 'they' don't follow us here'." We can stop saying that being in Iraq is the definition of victory.

Then we will know not when, but HOW our brave men and women in Iraq who have fought so valiantly can come home. Without a definition of victory, how can we win?