ARTICLE SYNOPSIS:

Already more than five years old, the War in Iraq is far from winding down as evidenced by the Pentagon's announcement of plans to maintain existing troop levels.

Follow this link to the original source: "U.S. Announces 42,000 Deployments [1]"

COMMENTARY:

Approximately 42,000 U.S. troops will be sent to Iraq in the months ahead to replace many who have been serving extended (15-month) tours of duty. Pentagon officials claim that these soldiers will serve for no more than 12 months and there will be no more extended tours of duty.

By fall, deployments will maintain 140,000 troops in Iraq, down slightly from the 155,000 soldiers currently on station. In addition to regular army units, four of the brigades scheduled for deployment to Iraq are National Guard units, one each from Texas, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, and Tennessee. These are forces that are supposed to be on hand to protect this nation, not fight abroad.

Three weeks ago marked the fifth anniversary of President Bush's highly publicized appearance on the deck of the carrier Abraham Lincoln. Under a banner claiming "Mission Accomplished," Mr. Bush proudly announced the "end of major combat operations." He couldn't have been more wrong — as 97 percent of U.S. casualties have been suffered, and half a trillion dollars has been spent, since his May 1, 2003 statement.

Prior to the March 2003 invasion, as false claims for its need abounded and enthusiasm for the attack ran rampant, Vice President Cheney assured America that the people in "Basra and Baghdad are sure to erupt in joy." Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz insisted that there would be "Iraqis out cheering American troops."

Defense Policy Board expert Richard Perle said that Iraqi military operations "will collapse after the first whiff of gunpowder" while his colleague Kenneth Adelman claimed that the operation would be "a walk in the park." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld falsely predicted, "Five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn't going to last any longer than that."

All of these men were also insisting that Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, that Iraq was in league with Al Qaeda, and that the Baghdad regime shared responsibility for the 9/11 attack. Each of those claims has been shown to be false. And the falsehoods have been replaced by a supposed need to create democracy in Iraq amongst a people who have no experience with that style of government and never asked for it.

In addition to over 4,000 American lives lost and 20,000 more suffering various wounds, the financial cost of the war itself and the resulting need to care for the many who have been seriously wounded approaches $3 trillion. Furthermore, many of the friends our nation had in the Middle East have become decided enemies; Al Qaeda recruiting has escalated; and the cost of rebuilding what we have destroyed will be enormous.

Creating a stable situation in Iraq has become the new U.S. goal. But expecting stability among factions competing for dominance in that nation is unreasonable. Shiites and Sunnis have been at each other for 1,400 years. The Kurds in the north trust neither of these claimants for Islamic purity.

Only yesterday, 11 police trainees were gunned down and Sunni militants have been targeted as perpetrators of the crime. The 11 died in retaliation for a U.S.-led crackdown on suspected Al Qaeda forces only a week earlier. The incident's real meaning, something U.S. forces are reluctant to admit, is that the Sunni versus Shiite struggle continues, even grows.

Here at home, the remaining big party candidates for President promise more of the above. But the only sensible course to follow is to bring the troops home and let the Iraqis sort out their differences by themselves.

Stiff Right Jab contributing editor, John F. McManus, is President of The John Birch Society, publisher of The New American, and author of several books.

by Pat Buchanan

It was said behind closed doors to the chablis-and-brie set of San Francisco, in response to a question as to why he was not doing better in that benighted and barbarous land they call Pennsylvania.

Like Dr. Schweitzer, home from Africa to address the Royal Society on the customs of the upper Zambezi, Barack described Pennsylvanians in their native habitats of Atloona, Alquippa, Johnstown and McKeesport.

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and … the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them.

“And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

This is the pitch-perfect Hollywood-Harvard stereotype of the white working class, the caricature of the urban ethnic — as seen from the San Francisco point of view.

As Linus clung to his security blanket, Barack is saying, out-state Pennsylvanians, bitter at the world that has passed them by, cling to their Bibles and guns and naturally revert to ancestral bigotries against “people who aren’t like them” — blacks, gays and immigrants.

Though he sees himself as a progressive who has risen above prejudice, Barack was reflecting and pandering to the prejudice of the class to which he himself belongs, and which he was then addressing.

A few months back, Michelle Obama revealed her mindset about America with the remark that, “for the first time in my adult lifetime, I’m really proud of my country.” Barack has now revealed how he, too, sees the country. The Great Unifier divides the nation into us and them.

The “us” are the privileged cosmopolitan elite of San Francisco and his Ivy League upbringing. The “them” are the folks in the small towns and rural areas of that other America. Toward these folks, Obama’s attitude is not one of hostility, but of paternalism. Because time has passed them by, Barack believes, they cannot, in their frustration and bitterness, be held fully accountable for their atavistic beliefs and behavior.

Though neither mocking nor malicious, Barack’s remarks are, nonetheless, steeped in condescension. Inherent in his words is that these folks in Middle Pennsylvania are in need of empathy, education, assistance and perhaps therapy.

His remarks are of a piece with his address on civil rights that liberals have compared favorably to Lincoln’s Second Inaugural.

Note, from that Philadelphia address, the highlighted words.

“Most working- and middle-class white Americans don’t feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race … as far as they’re concerned, no one’s handed them anything. … They … feel their dreams slipping away … opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense.

“Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.”

In Barack’s mind, black anger and resentment at “racial injustice and inequality” are “legitimate.” But the anger and resentment of white folks, about affirmative action, crime and forced busing are born of misperceptions — and of “bogus claims of racism” manipulated and exploited by conservative columnists and commentators to keep the racial pot boiling and retain power, so the right can continue to do the bidding of the corporations that are the real enemy.

Barack has stumbled into the eternal failing of the left-wing populist. He cannot concede that the anger of white America — that its right to equal justice has been sacrificed to salve the consciences of guilt-besotted liberals — is a legitimate anger.

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Coming as absolutely no surprise to real conservatives, the breaking New York times story on Republican candidate John McCain’s questionable relationship with lobbyist Vicki Iseman in 2000 is a telling harbinger of the nature of the upcoming election cycle. Perhaps McCain is surprised to find himself in the crosshairs of his fickle former media allies. But if so, he is virtually alone in such a reaction.

Furthermore, it matters little that the story thus far appears to be absolutely baseless. John McCain, once considered by the liberal press to be their “darling” among Republicans, can be confident that between now and November he will be getting more of the same, both real and contrived. It is reasonable to anticipate that the Times might eventually invoke some version of a “stained blue dress,” whether authentic or concocted, to corroborate their allegations.

In any case, McCain carries an enormous load of past baggage, from dubious political alliances to rash and provocative declarations, which liberals in the media fully intend to expose at the most strategically inopportune moments of his campaign. This has been their plan all along, and if their mudslinging bears elements of validity even only occasionally, the strategy will be effective.

Yet John McCain faces an even bigger threat to his political viability, and that is the actualities of his political philosophy, when inconveniently revealed by those who consider themselves his friends and allies. The more they talk, the worse they make it for their chosen candidate. Former “Bush 41” Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, the latest of these, loudly proved this point last week on MSNBC when attacking conservative talk radio.

Eagleburger understands that in order for McCain to win, it is essential to bring grassroots conservatives into the fold. Yet these are the very people whom John McCain has most diligently betrayed over the years in his efforts to exploit closely divided political situations for his own aggrandizement.

Having so thoroughly cast himself in the mold of turncoat, the only remaining intellectually honest case for choosing him over Hillary or Obama is that, as bad as a McCain presidency promises to be, either of the two Democrats would be worse.

No doubt, behind closed doors, McCain campaign operatives realize that this approach will work no better for the Arizona Senator than it did for the senior George Bush in 1992, or Bob Dole in ‘96. But aside from this insipid argument, which hardly constitutes a political platform, Senator McCain has by his own malicious actions and words thoroughly neutralized any other basis on which to support his candidacy. And

Since it is impossible at this late juncture to prove to conservatives that McCain is really one of them, the only alternative is to press them to abandon their own convictions and principles and concede the inherent superiority of those beliefs held by McCain.

So, the task ahead for Lawrence Eagleburger and his political class is nothing less than the eradication of real conservatism, or at least the political marginalization of its most prominent advocates. Thus, the necessity to demean the likes of Rush Limbaugh and his relationship to true conservatism.

To be sure, Limbaugh has on rare occasions found himself at odds with many of his listeners. He tends to regard market driven capitalism as the progenitor of a free and moral society, rather than being its inevitable byproduct. As a result, he sometimes draws odd boundaries around the definition of “conservatism.” For example, by his characterization of Rudy Giuliani as a “conservative,” he seems willing to ignore or at least minimize the symbiosis that exists between the malignancies of moral/social collapse and bigger government.

Yet overall, he can rightfully claim deep loyalty from his vast audience, based not on his likeability or charisma (which are both evident in abundance) but because his thinking and his words overwhelmingly validate real America’s recognition and understanding of why the nation works, and which of its virtues require diligent guarding and protection.

Notwithstanding, in Eagleburger’s world, Rush does not represent real “conservatism.” Or perhaps he has simply failed to “evolve” with it as it has been reinvented by the Establishment Republicans. On this basis, Eagleburger contends that he is no less a “conservative” than Limbaugh or Hannity, and as such counts himself among those on the right who adamantly support John McCain.

Hardly a bastion of conservative principle, by attempting to impute such “flexibility” to the very definition of conservatism, Eagleburger is gravitating dangerously close to those who claim right and wrong be fundamentally altered by mere consensus, patriotism can mean virtually anything including the overt support of terrorists, and life exists only whenever the Supreme Court says it does.

Eagleburger further offers the flimsy argument that his case is strengthened by concurrence from other principle-starved pragmatists and open borders opportunists who have long been working like termites to erode the GOP from within and ensure that it remains politically impotent as a force for real conservatism.

Within this realm, no room for real debate or consideration exists. Total allegiance is an imperative, which requires that McCain’s supporters drink the Kool-aid and accept “conservatism” on whatever terms McCain offers it. Ultimately, this desperate and ill-begotten effort holds the potential to do much more harm to him than any pointed questions from his conservative critics.

By their stridency, the Establishment Republicans focus attention like a laser on McCain’s Achilles’ heel, which is his irrefutable affinity for Democrat ideology and visceral disdain for true conservatism. And if it continues, this tack will backfire to an enormous degree.

The icons of conservative talk radio connect with grassroots conservatives where Establishment Republicans, with all of their money and pretense of status, only generate cynicism and disgust. And this means that the more the Establishment Republicans tout McCain as one of their own, the less popular he will be.

Hardly qualifying as rock-ribbed “purists,” Limbaugh, Hannity, and their cohorts have often made creditable efforts to support candidates who are far less than absolutely conservative. But it is simply not within their nature to go to the extremes necessary to support McCain on such a basis. And the more they are squeezed to do so, the more vocally they will assert the reasons why McCain does not qualify.

Eagleburger and those of his political stripe are only rubbing salt in the wounds that McCain has created over the years. They would do far better to simply revert to the “lesser of two evils” mantra. It may not be much, but it is all they have. Yet let them wrest control of the current debate and warp it into a referendum on their version of “conservatism,” and Republican defeat this November will be decisive.

Meanwhile, newly emboldened Republican “moderates” and closet liberals be warned. Your moment in this current “spotlight” is fleeting. And conservatives are taking names.

Stiff Right Jab contributing editor Christopher G. Adamo is a freelance writer for the new Media Alliance. He lives in southeaster Wyoming. He has been active in local and state politics for many years. Contact him or read his archives at ChrisAdamo.com