Elephants Kill Eight In India; Sri Lankans Bomb Tamil Tigers; Bears Regroup In Kashmir

Maybe I've been covering the bogus GWOT for too long without enough sleep, but all these stories seem to share a common -- if symbolic -- thread.

From India, via Javno:

Rogue Elephants Shot After Killing Eight In India

Two elephants were shot dead after they went on the rampage killing eight people in northeast India, forest officials said on Thursday.

The elephants, used for moving logs in the timber industry, ran amok on Wednesday in Cachar district in Assam state, stampeding through villages and destroying dozens of bamboo and straw houses before police shot them.

Eight villagers were killed and nine injured.

"The elephants destroyed whatever came in their way. They trampled human beings, or flung them away," said Gautum Das, a local villager.

Elephants are a protected and endangered species in India, which has nearly half of the world's 60,000 Asian elephants.

Conservationists say elephant populations have fallen rapidly in recent years because of loss of habitat as a result of human encroachment into forest areas.

From Sri Lanka, via the International Herald Tribune:

Sri Lankan warplanes bomb Tamil rebel positions in north, says military

Sri Lankan fighter jets pounded Tamil Tiger rebel positions in the northern part of the country Thursday afternoon, the military said.

Air force planes launched two airstrikes on two separate targets in the rebel-held Mullaitivu district, said an officer at the Defense Ministry's media center.

The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said details of casualties and damage were not immediately available.

A spokesman for the Tigers was not immediately available to comment.

Earlier this month, the government celebrated the recapture of the east from the rebels. The Tamil rebels still control a virtual state in the north.

Tamil rebels have waged a separatist war against the state since 1983 to create an independent homeland for the country's ethnic minority Tamils who have suffered decades of discrimination from majority Sinhalese-controlled governments.

More than 70,000 people have died in the more than two decades of fighting.

The violence has worsened in the last 20 months, despite a 2002 Norway-brokered cease-fire.

And from Kashmir, Reuters via Gulf News dot com:

Bears regroup amid Kashmir insurgency

The number of endangered Asiatic black bears in Kashmir has increasedbetween 30 and 60 per cent ever since the violent separatist movement took effect in 1989, wildlife officials said.

An increased security presence in the Himalayan forests to root out the militants, as well as a ban on hunting, has helped curb poaching and allowed the population of bears to rebound significantly from between 800 to 900 in 1990.

Officials say poachers - who hunt the mammals for their fur, their paws (used as food) and gall bladder (used in traditional Oriental medicine) - have stayed away from the pine and conifer forests for fear of the insurgency.

"For fear of being caught by the security forces, the militants or in an exchange of fire between the two, no one dares to go deep into the forests since the militancy started," said Abdul Rauf Zargar, the state's wildlife warden.
...

Leopards - also an endangered species in India - have similarly increased, said officials, but did not give details.

Re-Connecting the Dots: Cheney of Arabia, Treason and Betrayal, and How They Get Away with It

In September of 2003, Robert Higgs wrote:

If you see someone shuffling along the street, eyes downcast, a pained expression on his face, you may have stumbled upon a member of the Peace Party. Once again, this party's cause has gone down to defeat, and its members are shaking their heads sadly, wondering why.

Thus begins "How Does the War Party Get Away with It?" a brilliant essay by Robert Higgs explaining a few things that everyone should know but hardly anyone does: secrets too obvious to be believed.

The ninth essay in Arthur Silber's "Dominion Over the World" series is another top-quality work; it makes good use of the Higgs piece, among other excellent sources. I want you to read both Higgs and Silber, in full if possible, and I will have more to say about both essays later (God willing and the creek don't rise), but first, another brief excerpt from Higgs:

While the architects of war, the Cheneys, Rumsfelds, and Wolfowitzs who sleep every night between clean sheets, deem these terrible costs to be worth bearing -- as well they might, because they personally bear not an ounce of them -- the members of the Peace Party often seem baffled. In view of the evident futility, and worse, of nearly every war the United States has fought during the past century, how does the War Party manage to propel this nation into one catastrophe after another, each of them clearly foreseen by at least a substantial minority who failed to dissuade their fellow citizens from still another march into calamity?

An adequate answer might fill a volume [...]

or perhaps several volumes! (And the emphasis in quoted passages is mine...)

[...] but some elements of that answer can be sketched briefly. The essential components are autocratic government, favorably disposed mass culture, public ignorance and misplaced trust, cooperative mass media, and political exploitation for personal and institutional advantage.

Speaking of Cheney and political exploitation for personal advantage, and autocratic government, and misplaced trust, and public ignorance, and mass media... hmmm ... TIME Magazine's Scott MacLeod throws a spotlight on Dick Cheney tripping through the Middle East in a piece called "Cheney of Arabia" which is thoroughly mainstream, of course, but revealing in more than one sense, and definitely worth excerpting at length:

Is Dick Cheney coming back for more? The Vice President has just completed a week-long tour of the Middle East that eerily retraced the visits he made to Arab capitals in March 2002 to drum up support for an American-led invasion over Iraq's alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons.

A look back at that earlier trip suggests that Cheney not only ignored the advice that he was given by Arab allies, he misrepresented their opposition to a prospective attack on Saddam Hussein's regime.

He ignored and misrepresented indeed! Let's see how many different ways Scott MacLeod can describe Dick Cheney lying without actually calling him a liar, and try to do it without thinking of Higgs' term "cooperative mass media".

It is thus worth looking closely at Cheney's latest trip to the region, during which he stated that Arab allies share the Bush administration's concern about the "mutual threat" posed by Iran and threatened military force over Iran's alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons. It's a stretch, as it was in 2002, for Cheney to suggest that shared concern somehow automatically translates into Arab support for a U.S. military option -- and of course it's wrong once again to use such a misrepresentation in building a case for war.

It's certainly no different than waging unprovoked war based on deliberate lies, except of course in how you spell it.

During and immediately after the 2002 trip, Cheney dismissed indications that Arab allies were opposed to a U.S. war against Iraq.

"No, not at all," Cheney assured CBS's Bob Schieffer. "What I came away with, Bob, is the sense that they share our concern."

Cheney repeated that reading of Arab attitudes to CNN's Wolf Blitzer, saying, "What I would say is that our friends in the region are equally concerned about the problems we see in Iraq."

Giving NBC's Tim Russert a figurative nudge, Cheney suggested that what Arab leaders said about Saddam in public was not what they told him in private. "I wouldn't believe everything I read in the newspapers," Cheney advised Russert. "I had, as I say, private, confidential meetings. They are able, under those circumstances, because we know each other, to talk honestly and frank with one another, and that's exactly what we did."

Cheney pleaded confidentiality about what the Arab leaders actually told him, but he implied that they supported Saddam's overthrow. "Many of them know," Cheney volunteered, embedding the notion of tight mutual thinking, "that right after us, they're high on his list of governments he'd like to do in."

But what the Vice President told millions of American television viewers on the Sunday talk show rounds on March 24, 2002 bears scant resemblance to what Arab leaders were saying at the time, in public or in private.

After Cheney left Cairo, Egyptian officials said publicly that President Mubarak had warned him about "the dangerous consequences" of attacking Iraq and that he had opposed any "unilateral" U.S. action.

In Jordan, King Abdullah II went so far as to issue a statement after the Cheney visit calling for Iraq to be settled "through dialogue and peaceful means" and saying he had warned Cheney about "the repercussions of any possible strike on Iraq and the danger of that on the stability and security of the region."

On the eve of Cheney's arrival in Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah, then Crown Prince, strongly warned against an Iraq attack in a rare television interview, on ABC: "I do not believe it is in the United States' interests, or the interest of the region, or the world's interest, to do so. And I don't believe it will achieve the desired result."

A month before Abdullah received Cheney in Saudi Arabia, I interviewed the Saudi leader on his farm outside Riyadh. I asked him what he would say to a U.S. plan to use force to change the regime in Iraq. He said he had already given President Bush "an answer on this matter...and that is where my answer will remain." But at one point he told me what he later told ABC: "I do not believe that the war on terrorism applies to... Iraq."

What a remarkable statement! It's so obviously true -- and woefully out of place in our national discourse -- that it must be treated as false until proven otherwise! This is the nature of "journalism" nowadays. Thus MacLeod continues:

Were the Arab leaders double-talking, as Cheney seemed to imply?

And I suppose the question is worth asking, although to me it seems a no-brainer. Yet it no doubt makes sense for MacLeod to pile a bit more evidence on the table.

Five years later, I am not aware of evidence that any of these three key Arab allies were saying one thing in public during Cheney's trip and another thing in private. As it happens, I had lengthy off-the-record interviews with senior Arab officials on the subject before and after Cheney's trip. In each case, the officials told me that their governments were strongly opposed to a war against Iraq.

One of them said, for example: "Cheney comes in. People thought he is coming to get a blessing for war. What he heard was, 'We are not for it.'"

Another told me: "What is the relationship between the Taliban and Iraq? If the issue is weapons of mass destruction, then everybody is aware that Iraq's capacity has been demolished while others in the area [i.e. Israel] have a capacity that nobody is talking about. If you are an Arab, the question is, Why Iraq and not Israel? Why open files selectively? We warn, you can't ignore public opinion."

A third, plainly exasperated senior Arab official called the idea of attacking Iraq "ridiculous" and "disastrous" and mocked Rumsfeld, who he described as "hopeless." "There is basically this attitude, 'We can do anything,'" the official told me. "I hope that will change, frankly."

Some writers argue that it has changed, or that it is already changing, but no evidence of such a change has penetrated my icy perspective.

I would contend that the Arabs still don't understand the game plan. But MacLeod can't go there. Instead he shifts gears and enters the realm of "international relations journalism", where one must describe as "allies" those countries which acquiesce when lied to and lied about and threatened and otherwise coerced by the American foreign policy politburo, maintaining the friend-or-foe dichotomy in balance with "enemies", namely those countries which stand firm despite being lied to and lied about and threatened and otherwise coerced.

It is certainly true that once the Bush administration ignored Arab advice and dispatched tens of thousands of troops to the region, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, as close U.S. allies, agreed to provide limited logistical support for the war.

The main U.S. ground, sea and air operations had to operate out of Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar, three tiny sheikhdoms that feel heavily dependent on a U.S. military deterrent for their survival. In the end, even Turkey, a NATO ally, refused to allow its soil to be used to launch a ground invasion of Iraq.

The warnings that Arab allies gave about the disastrous consequences of a U.S. invasion of Iraq turned out to be correct, as we now know.

But the desirability of these "disastrous consequences" to the US War Party -- at the expense of both America and the Middle East -- is still largely unrecognized.

This situation is not helped when journalists write about an ongoing and successful long-planned effort to plant an enormous American military footprint smack in the middle of the Middle East as if it were a result of incompentence or stupidity or bad luck or bad planning or lack of planning -- as if it were failing.

It simply isn't done; it simply can't be done; therefore MacLeod is more or less obliged -- if he wants to see his piece published -- to continue in such a vein:

Things are going so poorly for the Bush administration that as Cheney made his way through the Middle East last week, the White House was reversing policy and agreeing to hold rare talks with Iranian officials about how to stabilize Iraq.

One could quibble with that assessment.

There's reason to think that Cheney's day has past.

Is there? What reason could there possibly be to think that Cheney's day is past?

MacLeod doesn't elaborate -- maybe because he can't!

Dick Cheney may not be in his last throes at all.

Instead MacLeod hints at the opposite and then lays out another stack of evidence refuting himself.

This most curious aspect of post-democratic American journalism keeps showing its gnarly face -- and going mostly unrecognized, even (dare I say "especially"?) in the "progressive" blogosphere: Professional journalists can seemingly present as much evidence as they can find of administrative lying and betrayal and -- yes! -- treason!! -- as long as they don't dare call it what it obviously is. Instead they seem forced to weave the most unlikely narratives, purporting to "connect" the "dots" they have laid out. And it falls to bloggers, citizen journalists who do this work even though it costs them money, to sever the purported connections and "re-connect" the dots in ways that make logical and historical sense.

Thus MacLeod continues as follows:

The ostensible reason for his latest tour was to rally Arab support for American damage-control efforts in Iraq.

Yet, during this Middle East swing, Cheney curiously stuck to his 2002 script, substituting the Islamic regime in Iran for Saddam's regime in Iraq. Speaking on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS John C. Stennis, also a stop on his 2002 tour, Cheney told American sailors:

"With two carrier strike groups in the Gulf, we're sending clear messages to friends and adversaries alike."

"We'll stand with our friends in opposing extremism and strategic threats."

"And we'll stand with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region."

And he provides much more detail -- journalists apparently can provide as much detail as they like, as long as their narrative is off-target:

In interviews just before and just after his meetings with Arab leaders, Cheney conveyed the sense that the Bush administration and Arab leaders are on the same page about Iran.

He informed Fox News's Bret Maier that Arab allies share the U.S.'s concerns. Iran is "obviously a major source of concern not only for the United States but also for most of our friends in the area...My experience has been generally throughout the region that everybody is really focused on the Iranian situation. It's a top priority, if you will, in terms of concerns and the prospects of the Iranians developing nuclear weapons."

If Cheney is suggesting that Arab governments are concerned about Iran's expanding influence, slippery behavior and nuclear capability, he is right. Arab leaders were indeed very wary of Saddam Hussein back in 2002.

But Arab leaders did not support the U.S. attack on Iraq in 2003 and, notwithstanding Cheney's insinuations, there is no evidence that they would support a U.S. strike or full-scale war on Iran in the future.

The U.S. failures in Iraq, in fact, have left Arab allies even more doubtful about the Bush administration's capacity for good judgement than they were five years ago.

Like he did in 2002, Jordan's King Abdullah II issued a statement after his talks with Cheney on Monday, affirming that "Jordan stands in support of a peaceful resolution to the issue of Iran's nuclear capabilities that would spare the region further tensions."

Phrases such as "doubtful about the Bush administration's capacity for good judgement" seem to imply a continuing ignorance -- even in the most dramatically affected part of the world -- about what the Bush administration aims -- or rather aimed -- to achieve in the Middle East, and what the administration has in fact achieved there already.

It's not a question of good judgement. It's a question of identifying what they want -- and they are surely getting what they have always wanted.

But to "senior Arab officials", according to MacLeod, it all seemingly comes down to a question of judgement.

The Incompetence Defense still reigns supreme in post-democratic American journalism, and behind it the Bush administration hides all its lies -- from 9/11 to WMD in Iraq to Katrina to all sorts of foreign and domestic policy "failures", including perhaps the president's failure to manage the English language; in fact this might explain his failure to have been legitimately elected, ever! But we don't talk about that, not in the big media, anyway, where the Incompetence Defense is the officially sanctioned limited hangout, and even the "best" journalists labor under its strictures.

Thus MacLeod is more or less obliged to land on the theme of questionable judgement, and to write a closing paragraph like this:

That's the same message that senior Arab officials are again stressing to me in off-the-record interviews. They're saying that the U.S. had better find a way of negotiating with Iran on the nuclear concern, before things get further out of hand.

Despite the fiasco in Iraq, I suppose it remains to be seen whether the Bush administration will absorb the advice of its Arab allies this time.

Well, that's fine. But is Iraq really a fiasco? And does anything really remain to be seen?

Does the Bush administration ever "absorb" the advice of the coerced little pawns our journalists keep calling our "allies"?

Or is perhaps the mere hint of such a thing just another "misrepresentation", a thoroughly bogus tale, another shining example of how bowing to fiction has become part of the price American journalists must pay in post-democratic America, not only to get paid, but also to get readers!

Readers who would never find Arthur Silber, for instance.

Readers who would never read Robert Higgs.

~~~

I'll have more on this and much else later, or at least that's the plan. In the meantime we have quite a bit to read and think about and, hopefully, discuss.

Scott MacLeod:
Cheney of Arabia

Robert Higgs:
How Does the War Party Get Away with It?

To cover their tracks, the leaders of the War Party are relying on Machiavelli’s wisdom, which tells them: “It is necessary ... to be a great pretender and dissembler; and men are so simple, and so subject to present necessities, that he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived.”

Pretending to cut taxes, wildly increasing federal spending for nearly every species of boondoggle (thus buying off potential Democratic opponents in Congress), hiking the deficit and shoving the burden of servicing the resultant public debt onto future generations of taxpayers, they understand well the classic expression of political irresponsibility, “apres nous le deluge.”

Arthur Silber:
Dominion Over the World (IX): The Elites Who Rule Us

This is the reality that the widely accepted mythology is designed to avoid, a reality that rests upon an intricate series of connections among government, corporations, national media, foundations, law firms, and additional elements (including, very significantly, a massive defense industry).

These are the elites who run our government, and who direct our lives.

These are the elites who continue the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people who never threatened us and the destruction of entire countries that never attacked us, and who ache for still another war.

These are the elites who oversee death and destruction on a vast scale, who seek to eliminate what little remains of our liberties, and who are never satisfied.

No matter how much power they have, they always want more, unto the end of time.

As always, your comments and questions are most welcome.

Peaceful Protesters Threatened And Assaulted By Those Who Claim To Protect Their Freedom Of Speech

[updated below]

In this post, two eyewitness accounts from yesterday's peace march in Washington, both provided by friends from the Baltimore area. (Full disclosure: I have edited both of these items very slightly, mostly for spelling and punctuation. I have also added a bit of context [in square brackets] and a few links.)

R.O.:

I just got back from the Rally. What a much different experience from the other relatively peaceful ones! Confrontational: scary at one point. Went with Pete and some of the women from [the] Sept '05 [demonstration], and Margaret, and Gabe (African American -- I tell you this to paint the picture). We took the van all the way in. Great parking on the street. But in Starbucks we encountered the start of it. Vietnam vet in military gear. His group something Eagles (screaming a-holes, see this site) was called in by some right-wing group who told them we were going to deface the monuments, including Vietnam ones. I'd estimate a thousand or more of these guys.

"They" had the area near the start of demo all mazed off in fencing. You tried to go one way and "they", backed by the Park Service Police, blocked your access, and told you you can't go that way. Then there was a security checkpoint like at the airport near the war memorial. So we decided to go around all that. At one point, one of the guys pushed me (ERRRRRRRRRRRR) and it took all my control not to do it back and get arrested -- and the Park Police pushing me and others getting in my face. And, same with Margaret who is very level-headed but questioning them. "They" got right in Gabe's face and were saying some ugly things. Pete called them &*^^%%$$$ Fascists! My heart was a pounding and I was SO happy to get out of there and in friendly territory. Some yelled "I'd go to war for her!" and others saw my Buck Fush t-shirt and yelled "buck you", and one guy called Margaret "ass" and worse etc. etc.

We walked over the bridge to the Pentagon to the stage (some of those WV, brainless pro-war guys were on the sidelines holding up signs that said "Peace Sucks", "Here and There" and more) -- there were fewer people than other marches (maybe 50,000-100,000)? the weather deterred folks -- cold and windy. Good speakers, though, from all over world. Midway thru one of the speakers interrupted and said the police (dressed like storm troopers) had created a barricade not even near Pentagon and had sprayed some of the demonstrators with mace. I didn't see it, but heard they all of a sudden showed up (sirens wailing) and did this (unprovoked). Margaret and I stayed till the end, as the others were too cold and left before all the speeches. We took the train back to Baltimore. Stopped by a campout of demonstrators on way out -- quite a contrast to the rumored quarters of the pro-Bushies (rumor, too? -- who knows!!).

This one was tense and not as upbeat...

J.P.:

It was an important day to be in Washington, DC. And while many Americans busy themselves with their own personal lives, whether the kids have done their homework, or whether the car will be out of the shop on time, or even ponder what plan for season tickets they want for baseball season, too many still are only barely conscious that their country started it’s fifth year in Iraq. Our rogue government seeks to keep it that way.

I am very fortunate to have met and joined with so many people and friends that do care about more than their own very tiny, small lives. Is that redundant? I don’t think so. I know my own life is a tiny grain of sand upon a vast beach. But it does take all those grains of sand to make the beach.

Let it be known, I am NOT anti-war, but only against wars of aggression perpetrated by those who have profited in the amount of trillions in weapons, contracts and alliances with unsavory governments and selling them weapons. This happened in the 80’s. Iran contra. But few remember that those involved with that (who were pardoned), are the ones once again in charge now. Many Americans are stunted with long term memory loss. Well, those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it, and here we are once again. I am so angry at those people for forgetting or simply deeming high crimes and treason negligible.

A friend and I had decided to join the march on the Pentagon today, joining with tens of thousands of others, maybe hundreds of thousands once again to protest the war and truly support our troops and veterans. I can’t see. I am short.

However, this day was different. I knew it would be since it was publicized that the motorcycle group Rolling Thunder would be there in opposition as they were concerned that the “anti war” protesters would somehow "deface and desecrate The Vietnam War Memorial." I am NOT lying to you. (link to their site). Somehow they felt a bunch of peace activists were going to damage the national monument which bears the names of over 55,000 dead soldiers who gave their lives in the illegal immoral war for profit of 40 years ago. After 40 years, they still believe that peace activists spit on soldiers, a lie that was fabricated and encouraged by the administration and propagandists of the time.

To me, it was nothing less than astonishing to see that a number of people have been so brainwashed to believe that we are anti troop, don’t know the value of freedom and are “anti-democracy”. What was more astonishing were those that were completely ignorant of the Bill of Rights, that they challenged and acted physically aggressive to the peace activists, minding their own business, trying to get to the march.

My friend and I were two of those, and had mistakenly found the wrong area in which to try to get to where the march was forming. I had nothing outwardly to show my anti-war stance. My friend, however, wore several peace buttons. We really said nothing to the crowd, but the Iraq war and Bush supporters had plenty to say to us. We were told that we should be ashamed of ourselves, that we should support the troops and the president. Funny, but do they know what is being done to our troops, to lecture us in such a way? I suppose they thought they redeemed themselves by saying “it’s a free country and we had the right to free speech.” In truth the Bill of Rights allows them to say what they wish. However, their words indicated the very opposite of free country and free speech.

And well after a long walk, we dared to stop in the public restroom. Really, we thought we were in a “mixed” crowd at first. I pretty much kept my mouth shut, but I listened to the other women in the bathroom ranting about “those stupid war protesters” and “I guess we gotta go out and yell at them again” and “why don’t they understand our soldiers are fighting for our freedom? Why don’t they remember September 11th?” I can tell you there was not one New Yorker in that public restroom. Lucky there was not ... for all of our sakes. And I hate to say it, but their accents really were “red-state”. I guess the schools are bad there? Ignorance.

And so we passed through this sea of leather and flannel clad people with their signs of “God Bless America”, “We love our president”, and “support the troops”. And as we passed through amidst the angry, antagonistic jeers of those who saw my friend’s buttons, we heard the Rolling Stones blasting over their PA. Funny, I wonder why the Stones latest “Sweet Neo-Con Con” was not playing. It just goes to show magnified the ignorance of many in this country.

We realized this was no mix of Americans for and opposed to the war, but rather it was a stark symbol and reminder of the carefully planned Psy-Ops creating division among our people. This was not a friendly disagreement or difference of opinion. The “pro bush, pro-war” side was out for blood and angry. And they saw us as traitors and Anti-American. But which side, do you think, actually knew what the Bill of Rights actually used to guarantee us?

We made our way through to where we could see the peace marchers, and there was a barricade/jersey wall that separated where we needed to be. However the bikers blocked our path and told us they had the permit, and we were not allowed through. Really, this was a public monument and property. And they were NOT security, but citizens angry at the “traitorous” peace activists. He advised us we would have to walk through the crowd for several blocks and around. We gave up for a moment, paying attention to another scene that was unfolding.

And there also was a man probably in his 40’s, who held an “Impeach Bush” sign, and a small child in his arms. Like us, he had obviously entered in on the wrong side of things. But those of the pro war group quickly surrounded him and began screaming at him obscenities and to get out. The man (and child) tried to move and several rushed in and began pushing and pulling at them, trying to rip the sign out of his arms and telling him he was not allowed to leave their area with it. At which point the man started yelling back at them. This caused the women to yell about taking his child from him and the men proceeded to move in, like nothing less than a pack of wolves, grabbing him and pushing and shoving him. It was more than obvious that they wished to gang beat him. The men had little regard for the child and they would not let him leave. Thankfully, a police officer rushed in solo ... what a brave thing to do. He yelled at the Rolling Thunder people to clear a path and got the man, the child and the rest of us out of there. Ignorance and violence is a scary thing.

I lamented to myself that the bikers had surrounded the Viet Nam Memorial and I was prevented by their temperament from seeing it. Sadly, it seemed to me that it was they who desecrated that amazing wall with their hatred, ignorance and violent nature. I wanted badly to be able to see that wall. I did not mention it to my friend. There was no way it would have been possible.

We finally arrived at the march. It was an amazing site as the number of people gathered really did dwarf the gathering by Rolling Thunder which was by far small in comparison. The number of pro war bikers really was representative of the 30 percent who back Bush and the war. When put up against the peace crowd. That was heartening.

I was cursing though as the images of the one crowd against the other could not be captured due to most likely faulty batteries. Especially, when members of each crowd were shouting angrily. We were met with signs such as “Go To Hell Traitors” which to me was particularly memorable as well as the obscenities, hate and “FU”s screamed at the peace group as they marched past. Mostly the peace group was shouting “This is what democracy looks like” back at the bikers. And finally, fed up, I began to shout “Support Our Troops” which got a few others started and for a moment there was silence from the bikers. Pardon my language, but I am so god damned tired of hearing “Support Our Troops” from the Bush zombies who have no clue as to what sacrifices our troops are really making and how they are being taken advantage of.

I know this is a long story. Much happened today, and I did not have my camera to depict it. We did march until we reached the Pentagon where we had the parking lot and a stage was set up. There were many many speakers, memorable to me were the parents of fallen soldiers, Giuliana Sgrena, Cindy Sheehan, and also former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. And yeah, get over the anti McKinney propaganda. She was lynched because she worked harder and knew more than most in Congress bothered to. Don’t write me about either Cindy either, if you believe the slander and lies. Spare me regurgitation of the hate propaganda. I’m sick of it.

I want it also noted that up on one of the bridges at the pentagon, police in full riot gear complete with masks and clubs pushed a number in the crowd off of the bridge where they were. It should also be noted that many of the escalators in the Metros near the Pentagon had been turned off, making them almost impossible to use to get back to the center of DC. Odd, isn’t it, that the escalators in our nation's capital “just weren’t working” on a Saturday?

Lastly, it was huge and empowering. Don’t think for a minute that I feel protests are going to stop this war. The Democrats the people elected have granted the president authorization to attack Iran, and later Syria and Lebanon. The only thing that will stop the war is if the rest of this country wakes up before a war of a much larger scale happens.

Many people just don’t care in America. It’s just not their problem. And others of us who took the red pill can assure them: it will be.

Many thanks to J.P. and R.O. for attending the rally, and for sharing their experiences with us.

As always, your comments are most welcome.

[UPDATE]

For a great deal of background please see Gavin M. at Sadly, No!
Anatomy of a Con Job

Prison Planet Calls Out "Progressive Bloggers"

In a powerful article posted Thursday, Paul Joseph Watson of Prison Planet calls out the BBC, the rest of the mainstream media, Digg dot com, and so-called progressive bloggers in general.

You can click the link to read about the first three; here's what Paul says about the bloggers:

Kudos goes to Wonkette for covering the Building 7 story, but almost every other so-called "progressive" website has been mute. Crooks and Liars, one of the biggest liberal blogs on the web, today spotlights a story about lesbian koala bears. On Tuesday night they led with a gossip puff piece about Mitt Romney's hair. How can these gatekeepers claim to represent "alternative media" when they stuff this kind of crap down our throats on a daily basis, while ignoring massive stories like the WTC 7 fiasco?

Shucks, Paul; you caught me. I didn't say anything about the BBC/WTC7 fiasco myself. But I was busy, telling a different 9/11 story, the day it broke! ;-)

Echoes of Disaster: Iraq is George Bush's Vietnam

Senator Ted Kennedy introduced legislation today that

requires the President to obtain approval from Congress before he sends even more American soldiers to Iraq. And it prohibits the President from spending taxpayer dollars on such an escalation unless Congress approves it.

He also delivered the following speech (thanks to Kate Phillips at The Caucus: Political Blogging from the New York Times)

I had hoped to speak today about health care and my agenda as Chairman of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. I will speak to those concerns on another day soon, but an issue of grave importance requires our immediate action.

President Bush will address the nation tomorrow about his decision to send tens of thousands of additional American troops to the war in Iraq. That war is the overarching issue of our time, and American lives, American values and American honor are all at stake.

If ordered into battle, we know our brave men and women will serve us with pride and valor, just as they have throughout this troubling war. All Americans will support them fully, as will those of us in Congress. We will always support our troops in harm’s way.

It’s a special honor to have here with us today a person who symbolizes that commitment – Brian Hart of Bedford, Massachusetts. His presence reminds us who is being called to sacrifice and service – husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, friends and neighbors.

Brian Hart’s son John, at the age of 20, gave his life in Iraq in 2003, defending his patrol from ambush. Brian and his wife Alma turned that enormous personal tragedy into a remarkable force for change. He’s worked skillfully and tirelessly ever since to ensure that our soldiers have better equipment to protect them. Today and every day, I salute his patriotism and his own dedicated service to our country – Brian Hart.

As the election in November made clear, the vast majority of Americans oppose the war in Iraq, and an even greater number oppose sending even more troops to Iraq today.

Families like the Harts and all Americans deserve a voice in that profound decision. Our Constitution gives them that right. The President is Commander-in-Chief, but in our democracy he is still accountable to the people. Our system of checks and balances gives Congress – as the elected representatives of the people – a central role in decisions on war and peace.

Today, therefore, I am introducing legislation to reclaim the rightful role of Congress and the people’s right to a full voice in the President’s plan to send more troops to Iraq. My bill will say that no additional troops can be sent and no additional dollars can be spent on such an escalation, unless and until Congress approves the President’s plan.

My proposal is a straightforward exercise of the power granted to Congress by Article I, section 8 of the Constitution. There can be no doubt that the Constitution gives Congress the authority to decide whether to fund military action. And Congress can demand a justification from the President for such action before it appropriates the funds to carry it out.

This bill will give all Americans – from Maine to Florida to California to Alaska and Hawaii – an opportunity to hold the President accountable for his actions. The President’s speech must be the beginning – not the end – of a new national discussion of our policy in Iraq. Congress must have a genuine debate over the wisdom of the President’s plan. Let us hear the arguments for it and against it. Then let us vote on it in the light of day. Let the American people hear – yes or no – where their elected representatives stand on one of the greatest challenges of our time.

Until now, a rubber stamp Republican Congress has refused to hold the White House accountable on Iraq. But the November election has dramatically changed all that. Over the past two years, Democrats reached for their roots as true members of our Party. We listened to the hopes and dreams of everyday Americans. We rejected the politics of fear and division. We embraced a vision of hope and shared purpose. And the American people voted for change.

We campaigned as Democrats in 2006. And we must govern as Democrats in 2007. We have the solemn obligation now to show the American people that we heard their voices. We will stand with them in meeting the extraordinary challenges of our day – not with pale actions, timid gestures, and empty rhetoric, but with bold vision, clear action, and high ideals that match the hopes and dreams of the American people. That is our duty as Democrats and as Americans on the war in Iraq.

The American people sent a clear message in November that we must change course in Iraq and begin to withdraw our troops, not escalate their presence. The way to start is by acting on the President’s new plan. An escalation, whether it is called a surge or any other name, is still an escalation, and I believe it would be an immense new mistake. It would compound the original misguided decision to invade Iraq. We cannot simply speak out against an escalation of troops in Iraq. We must act to prevent it.

Our history makes clear that a new escalation in our forces will not advance our national security. It will not move Iraq toward self-government, and it will needlessly endanger our troops by injecting more of them into the middle of a civil war.

Some will disagree. Listen to this comment from a high-ranking American official: “It became clear that if we were prepared to stay the course, we could help to lay the cornerstone for a diverse and independent [region]. If we faltered, the forces of chaos would smell victory and decades of strife and aggression would stretch endlessly before us. The choice was clear. We would stay the course. And we shall stay the course.”

That is not President Bush speaking. It is President Lyndon Johnson, forty years ago, ordering a hundred thousand more American soldiers to Vietnam.

Here is another quotation. “The big problem is to get territory and to keep it. You can get it today and it will be gone next week. That is the problem. You have to have enough people to clear it and enough people to preserve what you have done.”

That is not President Bush on the need for more forces in Iraq. It is President Johnson in 1966 as he doubled our military presence in Vietnam.

Those comparisons from history resonate painfully in today’s debate on Iraq. In Vietnam, the White House grew increasingly obsessed with victory, and increasingly divorced from the will of the people and any rational policy. The Department of Defense kept assuring us that each new escalation in Vietnam would be the last. Instead, each one led only to the next.

Finally, in 1968, in large part because of the war, Democrats lost the White House. Richard Nixon was elected President after telling the American people that he had a secret plan to end the war. We all know what happened, though. As President, he escalated the war into Cambodia and Laos, and it went on for six more years.

There was no military solution to that war. But we kept trying to find one anyway. In the end, 58,000 Americans died in the search for it.

Echoes of that disaster are all around us today. Iraq is George Bush’s Vietnam.

As with Vietnam, the only rational solution to the crisis is political, not military. Injecting more troops into a civil war is not the answer. Our men and women in uniform cannot force the Iraqi people to reconcile their differences.

The open-ended commitment of our military forces continues to enable the Iraqis to avoid taking responsibility for their own future. Tens of thousands of additional American troops will only make the Iraqis more resentful of America’s occupation. It will also make the Iraqi government even more dependent on America, not less.

General Abizaid made this point plainly when he told the Senate Armed Services Committee last November, “I believe that more American forces prevent the Iraqis from doing more and from taking more responsibility for their own future.”

General Abizaid was unequivocal that increasing our troop commitment is not the answer. He said, “I’ve met with every divisional commander – General Casey, the corps commander, General Dempsey – we all talked together. And I said, ‘in your professional opinion, if we were to bring in more American troops now, does it add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq?’ And they all said no.” That was General Abizaid.

General Casey reiterated this view just two weeks ago. He said, “The longer that U.S. forces continue to bear the main burden of Iraq’s security, it lengthens the time that the government of Iraq has to make the hard decisions about reconciliation and dealing with the militias. They can continue to blame us for all of Iraq’s problems, which are, at base, their problems..”

One of our great military commanders, who actually won a war, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, put it this way last month: “I am not persuaded that another surge of troops into Baghdad for the purpose of suppressing this communitarian violence, this civil war, will work.”

Such an escalation would be a policy of desperation built on denial and fantasy. It is “stay the course” under another name. It will not resolve the Iraq war, but it will exact a fearsome new toll in American lives and further weaken our nation.

For the sake of our men and women in uniform in Iraq, the President should have heeded these generals, not discarded them and gone shopping for advice that matches his own wishful, flawed thinking. Cooking the intelligence is how we got into this war. Ignoring the sound counsel of our military is no way to end it.

The American people are also well aware that the military action authorized by Congress in 2002 was for a very different war than we face today. Our troops are now caught in the crossfire of a civil war – a role that Congress has not approved and that the American people rejected in November.

Many of us felt the authorization to go to war was a grave mistake at the time. I’ve said that my vote against the war in Iraq is the best vote I’ve cast in my 44 years in the United States Senate.

But no matter what any of us thought then, the Iraq War resolution is obviously obsolete today. It authorized a war to destroy weapons of mass destruction. But there were no WMDs to destroy. It authorized a war with Saddam Hussein. But today, Saddam is no more. It authorized a war because Saddam was allied with al Qaeda. But there was no alliance.

The mission of our armed forces today in Iraq bears no resemblance whatever to the mission authorized by Congress. President Bush should not be permitted to escalate the war further, and send an even larger number of our troops into harm’s way, without a clear and specific new authorization from Congress.

In everybody’s reality except the Administration’s, Iraq is now in the middle of a civil war. Sectarian violence is on the rise. Militias continue to commit unspeakable acts of violence and torture. Ethnic cleansing is a fact of daily life. Millions of Iraqis are fleeing the violence and leaving their country.

Can anyone seriously deny that this civil war is radically different from the mission which Congress voted for in 2002? Can anyone justify why even more of our troops should be sent to Iraq in the middle of this civil war?

The President may deny the plain truth. But the truth speaks loudly and tragically. Congress must no longer follow him deeper into the quagmire in Iraq.

I recognize the President’s almost certain determination to persist in his failed course. It appears that he will not listen to the views of Congress or of the American people. It is disappointing that he seems ready – even eager – to reject the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group. Instead of heeding the growing call for genuine change, he has used the time since that report to root out dissent in his own Administration and in our armed forces.

This Congress cannot escape history or its own duty. If we do not learn from the mistakes of the past, we are condemned to repeat them. We must act, and act now, before the President sends more troops to Iraq, or else it will be too late..

The legislation that I will introduce today is brief but essential. It requires the President to obtain approval from Congress before he sends even more American soldiers to Iraq. And it prohibits the President from spending taxpayer dollars on such an escalation unless Congress approves it.

My proposal will not diminish our support for the forces we already have in Iraq. We will continue to do everything we can to make sure they have all the support they truly need. Even more important, we will continue to do all we can to bring them safely home. The best immediate way to support our troops is by refusing to inject more and more of them into the cauldron of a civil war that can be resolved only by the people and government of Iraq.

I will seek a vote on this proposal at the earliest realistic date. I hope that instead of escalation without end and without authorization, the President will follow through on his words last week, when he said, “We now have the opportunity to build a bipartisan consensus” on Iraq. If he truly means those words, he will ask Congress for our approval.

The heavy price of our flawed decisions a generation ago is memorialized on sacred ground not far from here. On a somber walk through the Vietnam Memorial, we are moved by the painful, powerful eloquence of its enduring tribute to the tens of thousands who were lost in that tragic war that America never should have fought. Our fingers can gently trace the names etched into the stark black granite face of the memorial. We wonder what might have been, if America had faced up honestly to its failed decisions before it was too late.

I often pause as well at Section 60 in Arlington National Cemetery. Those from Massachusetts who have fallen in Iraq lie there now in quiet dignity. Each time, I am struck by the heavy price of the war in their young lives cut so sadly short.

The casualties are high. The war is long. The time is late. But as Tennyson said, “Come, my friends. ‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.”

Those words speak clearly to all of us today. And we are inspired anew to wage this battle by the concluding line of that great poem: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

Thank you very much.

Tony Blair Is A Disaster Whether He Admits It Or Not

Depending on whom you choose to believe, British Prime Minister Tony Blair has either confirmed or denied that the war in Iraq is "a disaster".

The PM's frank admission -- or slip of the tongue -- came during an interview with Sir David Frost on Al Jazeera English television.

Al Jazeera provides a transcript of the interview, the following snippet of which has caused all the controversy:

Frost: In terms of Iraq, prime minister, in the light of the latest figures from the Iraqi health ministry, that the number of Iraqis who have died is between 100,000 and 150,000 and so on, with those scale of figures, if you had known that that was the scale of bloodshed, would you have still gone to war?

Blair: Well the alternative was leaving Saddam in charge of Iraq, where hundreds of thousands of people died, there were a million casualties in the Iran/Iraq war, Kuwait was invaded and four million people went into exile.

So the idea that Iraqis should be faced with the situation where they either have a brutal dictator in Saddam or alternatively a sectarian religious conflict, why can't they have in Iraq what their people want? Which is a non-sectarian government, a government that is elected by the people and the same opportunities and the same rights that we enjoy in countries such as this.

Frost: But, but so far its been ... you know, pretty much of a disaster ...

Blair: It has, but you see what I say to people is "why is it difficult in Iraq?" It's not difficult because of some accident in planning, it's difficult because there is a deliberate strategy, al-Qaeda with Sunni insurgents on the one hand, Iranian-backed elements with Shia militia on the other to create a situation in which the will of the majority of Iraqis, which is for peace, is displaced by the will of the minority for war.

The current controversy swirls around the question of what Blair meant when he said "It has".

According to the BBC,

Liberal Democrats said Mr Blair had finally accepted the enormity of his decision to go to war in Iraq.

But Downing Street insisted his views had been misrepresented and that he had not made "some kind of admission".

The BBC article goes on to explain the opposing positions:

Commenting on the al-Jazeera broadcast, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell said: "At long last the enormity of the decision to take military action against Iraq is being accepted by the prime minister.

"It could hardly be otherwise, as the failure of strategy becomes so clear."

However,

Downing Street insisted it was not Mr Blair's view that the violence in Iraq had been a disaster.

A spokeswoman said: "He was simply acknowledging the question in a polite way before going on to explain his view.

"To portray it as some kind of admission is completely disingenuous."

I find delicious irony in the fact that Blair's spokeswoman actually said it was disingenuous to believe that what he actually said was what he actually meant. Of course it is! It is completely disingenuous and dangerously irresponsible to think that anything he says has any connection with or bearing on any aspect of reality.

But that's beside the point.

For me, the main point in this whole sorry saga is being overlooked -- perhaps deliberately -- by all the media accounts, whether they praise this glib and cocky warmongering liar, or whether they condemn him.

The sad but inevitable, and amply documented, fact is that Iraq is a disaster on an unimaginable scale. Whether Blair confirms or denies this fact is of little consequence.

What I find most disingenuous is the way Blair attempts to blame the victims for the disaster which he played such a huge part in bringing about.

The alternative, as Blair correctly stated, was leaving Saddam Hussein in power. Would this have been a disaster on a comparable scale? Hardly.

The casualties of the Iran/Iraq war were irrelevant, as that war had ended many years before. Similarly, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was already a matter of ancient history. Furthermore, the infamous "gassing of the Kurds", for which Saddam Hussein has been roundly blamed, was almost certainly done by the Iranians. And all the other reasons -- such as the alleged people-shredder -- which were used to justify the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq have similarly turned out to have been false.

Saddam's regime was indeed brutal, and it may well have killed hundreds of thousands of people. It took him decades to do it. How many have been killed in the past three and a half years? Hundreds of thousands? Ahhh... Now I see the difference!!

Blair attributes the current situation to

a deliberate strategy ... to create a situation in which the will of the majority of Iraqis, which is for peace, is displaced by the will of the minority for war.

But he neglects to mention that this "deliberate strategy" was conceived and implemented by his friends in the Pentagon, who created, trained, funded and motivated the death squads which now roam freely in Iraq.

Yes, it's a disaster. Yes, he bears a large share of the responsibility. Yes, he was amply warned. And no, he will never admit any of this.

Next question?

NYT Beats The Terror Drums Again, But Exposes A Vital Fact!

None of the alleged terrorists arrested in Britain last week have even been charged!

They didn't have tickets, they didn't have bombs, and some didn't even have passports -- but the threat was imminent. Yeah, sure.

I wasn't surprised to see the New York Times banging the terror drums again today. It seems to have become a specialty of the house. My attention was particularly drawn to piece in today's NYT by Eric Pfanner of the Iternational Herald Tribune, which bears this headline: Europe Seeks to Unify Airport Security Rules.

I noticed that headline immediately, because I have good reason to believe it may be misleading...

Nowhere in the article -- or anywhere else that I know of -- is there any indication that "Europe" "seeks" to unify airport security rules. Instead, the article describes what regular readers of The BRAD BLOG -- or of my own nearly frozen blog -- have come to expect: that Britain, represented here by Home Secretary John Reid, is trying to force the rest of Europe to follow it down the garden path that starts with phony terror and leads to totalitarianism.

Based on what we've seen so far, we have no reason to believe John Reid and every reason to be suspicious.

But that doesn't stop Reid from providing the usual scary quotes:

“It’s very important that the measures that are taken in one country are reflected in other countries because we want equal security for all our countries,” Reid said at a news conference after the meeting. “What is clear to all of us is that we face a persistent and very real threat across Europe,” he said.

But his logic is faulty and his propaganda is showing. There is no good reason why measures that are taken in one country should be reflected in other countries, especially if they are imposed arbitrarily and most especially if they don't prove effective.

The new security measures put in place in Britain last week, while inconveniencing tens -- maybe hundreds -- of thousands of people and causing the cancellation of more than a thousand scheduled flights, were not even sufficient to keep a 12-year-old boy from boarding an international flight without a ticket or a passport!

Thank God he didn't have any contact lens cleaner with him!

In other words, the new "security measures" could be described as "laughable" if they weren't so oppressive.

We've had all kinds of warnings, and unsubstantiated claims of anti-terror success, we even get all sorts of blather about "ongoing investigations" and "foreign connections", but we still haven't seen any actual evidence that would lead us to believe that our governments are telling us the truth about the "terror" threat.

While we wait for such proof to materialize, it is by no means clear whether or not we face a "persistent and very real threat" ... unless we can count the persistent and very real threat that our so-called democratic governments may be setting up their own false-flag terror operations (such as this one), and rapidly turning non-democratic.

Oh wait, that's not a threat -- that's reality!

Despite the rather obvious facts -- or maybe because of them -- I've been seeing an explosion of editorials from all over the world, clamoring for less freedom in the name of more "security", but none so ludicrous as this piece from Japan, which accepts the reports from the British security forces at face value -- without even the slightest hint of a question -- and contains the following very specious claim:

[I]t would be foolish to even imagine of complaining about the new security checks that are being rushed into place at airports everywhere.

So much for fair and reasoned analysis. So much for open debate. So much for so-called journalistic standards.

I could rage about that Japanese piece all day. But I want to get back to the piece in NYT for a moment. In my opinion, the most important sentence in the whole sorry tale comes at the very end, after most readers have already made up their minds to give up some of their rights in turn for some so-called "security".

None of the suspects have been formally charged.

So ... we are so sure of the "imminent threat" that we have to take away basic freedoms from all sorts of innocent people, not only in Britain and the USA but throughout all of Europe; but we don't even have enough on the so-called "terrorist suspects" to charge any of them with a crime!

And it would be foolish to even imagine complaining about this?

Well, ok, then. I won't. How about you?

We wouldn't want to do anything foolish, would we?

UPDATE: The NYT article which I quoted in this item has been changed significantly since I first read it. Passages which I quoted here no longer appear in the text. Jason noticed the difference and was kind enough to point it out. My response to his comment is here; the previous version of the article is mirrored here.

===

third in a series

Beware the Wolf Brigade

Dahr Jamail's latest piece on Iraq Dispatches is called "Sketchy Details" and begins like this:

Yesterday Iraq’s Minister of Defense, Sadoun al-Dulaimi, announced that starting Saturday 40,000 Iraqi troops will seal Baghdad and begin to “hunt down insurgents and their weapons.” Baghdad will be divided into two main sections, east and west, and within each section there will be smaller areas of control.

There will be at least 675 checkpoints and al-Dulaimi said this is the first phase of a security crackdown that will eventually cover all of Iraq.

Keep in mind that most of Iraq has remained in a “state of emergency” since the beginning of the siege of Fallujah, on November 8th.

“We will also impose a concrete blockade around Baghdad, like a bracelet around an arm, God willing, and God be with us in our crackdown on the terrorists’ infrastructure.”

Also at the press conference was Bayan Jabor, the Minister of Interior who added, “These operations will aim at turning the government's role from defensive to offensive.”

This is really, really bad news.

Wow! Is it ever! Read it again, slowly, if you will. Every sentence is loaded with horror. As if things needed to get any worse.

Then, this passage quoting a Baghdad doctor:

“Iraqi forces now have what they call “liwaa al deeb,” which means the Wolf Brigade. This is a very American name, and is an ugly name which gives the impression of violence. In the past the Iraqi troops held names of some famous Muslim and Arabic symbols which were more accepted. Anyway, the name wouldn’t matter if their behavior was straight….they now practice a kind of state sponsored terrorism.”

He went on to give an example of their not-so-straight behavior…

“Eyewitnesses in Al-Saydia area to the south of Baghdad told me that recently when a car bomb detonated and destroyed the area nearby, people were astonished to see the so-called police looting a destroyed mobile phone store that was nearby! The police now are a bunch of thieves. Many of then are already criminals who were released from Abu Ghraib prison before the war.”

What is this Wolf Brigade? Is this the Iraq version of the infamous Salvadoran death squads?

It's not so far-fetched a question. Some of the people who have been involved in Iraq were involved in the creation of the terrorist death squads in El Salvador two decades ago. And some of those same people were running the terrorist "Operation Phoenix" in Vietnam ten or fifteen years before that.

The Pentagon mentioned a while ago that they might do something similar in Iraq. They even called it "The Salvador Option". Some people thought it was a trial balloon which wouldn't fly; others [more credibly, in my opinion] said that if they were talking openly about it as a possibility this meant they were already doing it.

Even if the Wolf Brigade is not a third-generation incarnation of Operation Phoenix, it still bears close scrutiny. As does this recent plan. What surrounds Baghdad, cuts it in half, then breaks it into little pieces? And what happens then?

You can read Dahr Jamail's entire post here. And you should set a bookmark on Iraqi Dispatches.

May we never again be victims of mass deception. And may the Iraqi people be free of American military intervention as soon as possible.