Levees Not War

Photo by Tim Hetherington for Vanity Fair / Panos Pictures.

As reported in The Guardian (UK), which has seen a confidential draft agreement covering the future of U.S. forces in Iraq, the U.S. has plans for an indefinite stay there. The agreement is intended to replace the existing UN mandate and authorizes the U.S. “conduct military operations in Iraq and to detain individuals when necessary for imperative reasons of security” without a time limit.

It is not just a war, it is an occupation, so we have to decide that there is not going to continue to be an occupation. There is going to be a withdrawal. This is broader than just Iraq. We need to demand a Middle East–wide withdrawal of military forces from Iraq and Turkey and Qatar and what remains in Saudi Arabia and possibly Jordan and so on. We need to realize our presence there is an irritant that will always be resisted—and we’ll call that resistance “terrorism.”

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These are the last few years of decision, but they can be the first years of a bright and hopeful future if we do what we must. . . .We have everything we need to get started, save perhaps political will, but political will is a renewable resource.’

On the very same day that Al Gore was awarded his (shared) Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway (Dec. 10), the also honorable Henry A. Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, released a report concluding that “the Bush Administration has engaged in a systematic effort to manipulate climate change science and mislead policymakers and the public about the dangers of global warming.”

The stark contrast between Waxman’s report and Gore’s speech shows two very different paths that can be taken: one of an administration’s childlike, even mentally ill refusal to face reality, and another of a courageous grown-up’s acknowledgement of a life-endangering predicament. Because of the threat that rising surface temperatures and melting ice caps pose to low-lying, hurricane-prone areas such as New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, we prefer the adultlike approach. Yes, we’ll go with Mr. Gore’s call to move from business-as-usual in order to live in a more sustainable relationship with the planet that gave birth to our sometimes admirable species. We believe that the name Homo sapiens need not always be as ironic as it’s been feeling lately.

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Iraq, Afghanistan wars could cost $2.4 trillion over the next decade = $8,000 per man, woman and child in U.S.

Appropriations for U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and for the War on Terrorism, in billions of dollars [Congressional Budget Office

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The Associated Press and ABC News report that on the same day the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis collapsed (Aug. 2), Bush administration officials announced the White House would veto a $20 billion water-projects bill that the president claimed was “laden with pork-barrel programs.”

Now, nobody approves of wasteful spending-frivolous ‘bridges to nowhere’-but it looks to us like many worthy infrastructure projects are vetoed as pork-barrel spending, just as worthy social programs for health and education are slowly defunded, whittled away, dismissed as ‘patronage’ hand-outs or as inefficient, outdated initiatives that no longer make the grade in the cost-benefit analyses.

If the money’s being spent here in the Homeland, we don’t mind a little pork here and there. Like the sign at Little Richard’s BBQ, we say “Eat mo’ pig.”