Going to California to Get Out of Iraq

Yesterday I spoke on a panel in Los Angeles organized by the California Democratic Party Progressive Caucus, a body that is leading the way in promoting a plan to end the occupation. Below are my answers to the moderator's thoughtful questions.

QUESTION: During the Vietnam War, there was considerable propaganda that was disseminated and incorporated into the discussion about the war around the dreaded “domino effect” of Vietnam and the world falling to Communism if the United States Armed forces left. What parallels do you see between that propaganda and the discussion today about Iraq? And how can we formulate a thirty second “elevator pitch” to counter this assertion?



The parallel to the threat of global communism is the threat of global terrorism.

There's also the threat of civil war in Iraq, but there already is a civil war there of a sort that cannot end until the occupation does. The United States is arming and deploying Shiites and Kurds to fight Sunnis, thus encouraging sectarian and ethnic civil war. Insurgents have killed far more Iraqis than Americans. The longer the occupation goes on, the greater is the chance of a significantly intensified civil war when the U.S. soldiers leave. And I'm not convinced that concern for Iraqis is driving support for the war to the extent that fear of terrorists is.

I'm sure the image the U.S. acquired through its crimes in Vietnam gave a boost to global communism. Certainly the crime of an aggressive attack on Iraq, and the long list of crimes that have been part of the war, have given a boost to anti-US terrorists, have made Americans and everyone else less safe. Opinion of the US around the world has sunk to new lows. Terrorist incidents have increased to the extent that the Bush Administration won't produce those statistics anymore. The CIA says Iraq is creating so many terrorists that they are returning home to many other countries to further practice their skills.

It's important to make Americans aware that the attack on Iraq has made them less safe, but also – still – of the fact that Iraq was not a training ground for terrorism before Bush and Cheney made it one. The parallel to the Gulf of Tonkin incident is the WMD and ties to 9-11 lies.

It's disbelief in those lies that is driving opposition to the war. But that disbelief has not progressed far enough or sunk in deeply enough. Too many people see a mistake where they should see a crime, and too many are prepared to support a similar crime against Iran.

The main problem is not public opinion, but a lack of democracy. Congress lags far behind the public in opposition to the war. But we can move both Congress and the public forward by exposing this war as a crime. You cannot win a crime, you can only cease committing it.

This is an occupation by the Bush Administration. As Americans know from domestic experience, any country in the hands of the Bush Administration goes downhill fast. Iraq has no more been rebuilt than New Orleans has. The quickest route to a restored New Orleans is the impeachment and removal from office of Bush and Cheney. That's also the quickest route to ending the war.

So, we must expose, discredit, investigate, censure, impeach, remove from office, prosecute, and convict. And if we can get Senator Feinstein to filibuster, then this should be easy.

QUESTION: Despite the almost daily unfolding scandals of this administration, the president’s abysmal approval rating, and evidence that a majority of Americans disapprove of the war in Iraq, the US Media continues to either pander to or tread lightly on the administration. Why do you think this is and what will it take to change this?

Well, the major corporate media has of course become enormously concentrated in the hands of a small number of mega corporate conglomerates, and so represents the interests of corporate elites, combined with the influence of advertisers, and mixed with the profit-driven drive for fluff and infotainment, cost-cutting on research, and risk-cutting on challenging the powerful, plus the desire for access and powerful guests who will come back again and again because you never ask them challenging questions.

But the Bush Administration has added to that an unprecedented level of secrecy, records classified, FOIA requests ignored, requests from Congress rejected – even from a bipartisan committee investigation such as the one on Hurricane Katrina. There are almost no press conferences. The ones that happen are scripted. The questions are vetted, and our puppet president is fed words through an ear piece. The Bushies even planted a shill in the room who could be turned to for a reliable soft ball. Those who step out of line are moved to the back of the room and attacked with smear campaigns. Internal whistleblowers receive fierce retribution. Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame are only the most famous case of many.

Bush's administration produces video news releases that TV stations air as news (it's cheaper than making their own). And they pay Iraqi newspapers to print propaganda. A document that made the news yesterday shows that the Pentagon is aware that the lies it plants abroad reach Americans at home as well. There's also the paying of columnists for favorable opinions, which is just a more direct and less accepted case of normal practice. Routinely the Pentagon funds pundits who talk and write a pro-Pentagon line.

And then there's the murdering of unembedded journalists in Iraq. In case after case, the US military has targeted and killed journalists.

So, what do we do?

In the United States, our best journalism is published in books now and talked about on the radio and the internet, in alternative papers, and face-to-face. If you get your news from a television or a major newspaper, you live in another world. This no doubt contributes to how divided we are politically. "Fog Facts" is the term Larry Beinhardt has coined for information that is known to those who search it out in the international media and websites or on the back pages of US papers below misleading headlines.

We need to tell that other America the fog facts. One way is through a campaign to pressure the corporate media. That's how we made the Downing Street Minutes a story. Another way is through talking to people, giving them books and flyers, pointing them to websites. But ultimately, the left must build our own media. We should absolutely cease funding corporate media by buying ads in it. And we should support good radio, print, and internet outlets, free speech tv, link tv, and independent world television.

Whether we can develop major media in time to end this war will depend on how long it takes to end the war by other means. If we can develop decent media or pressure the existing media to begin covering the war as a crime by Bush and Cheney, then we may see the media pay even less attention to post-occupation suffering than it now focuses on, say Afghanistan or Rwanda. Otherwise, the media will try to tell us that withdrawing was a mistake, and it will be our duty to get out the message that undoing a crime and holding its designers accountable is what is needed to build global security.

QUESTION: There are two main “talking points” against immediate withdrawal from Iraq 1) that pulling our troops out will result in a civil war in Iraq and 2) the one stated by many elected Democratic representatives, that, although we were misled into going to war, we’re there now and we can’t just cut and run.” How do you respond to each of these statements?

I think a third is "We Must Support the Troops." We must support the troops by not cutting a running. We must send more young men and women to their deaths and wounds and trauma because we've already sent so many, and it wouldn't be fair to them not to send more. We must support our troops by denying them proper equipment and armor, by denying them health care and mental health care, by imposing a draconian bankruptcy bill on them after depriving them of their normal income.

I've spoken earlier about the civil war threat. The US is causing it. I don't know what will happen after the occupation ends, but a majority of Iraqis want it to end now, and many of them say that the threat of sectarian civil war is as much a US myth as the WMDs were.

Regarding cutting and running, here's how I see it. If I break into your house and smash up your furniture, I do not have a moral obligation to stay the night. And if I convince the cops to let me do so, then there is no more law. And if you attack me and I kill you in self-defense, I am guilty of murder because I broke into your house.

The proper thing for me to do is to get out, but also to pay for the damage, fund efforts to help you recover, restore a legal structure, and surrender to it for my crimes.

At stake in ending this war is the existence of international law, the prohibition on any one nation aggressively attacking another (always, of course, claiming to do so in self-defense, as we did in Iraq and as Germany did in Poland). At stake is the possibility of constraints on future presidents.

Imposing democracy is an absurdity, like commanding freedom, like permitting slavery. It makes no sense. The instant you actually try to do it, you have to stop because they vote you out. You also can't have democracy at home if you try to impose it on another country, because the people at home won't support you.

The idea is to impose democracy until it's ripe and then leave. But it can only begin to ripen if you leave, though there's no guarantee it will. The best you can impose is something with democratic trappings, something with some freedom of speech and absence of political power for people, something widely seen as illegitimate: something like the Bush administration. And this is true whether you get out now or ten years from now after spending trillions more to kill hundreds of thousands more.

General Odom, head of NSA under Reagan, wrote an article called "What's Wrong With Cutting and Running?" in which he wrote: "Postwar Germany and Japan are not models for Iraq. Each had mature (at least a full generation old) constitutional orders by the end of the 19th century. They both endured as constitutional orders until the 1930s. Thus General Clay and General Macarthur were merely reversing a decade and a half totalitarianism -- returning to nearly a century of liberal political change in Japan and a much longer period in Germany. Would it not be better to pull out now rather than to continue our present course of weakening the Sunnis and Baathists, opening the way for a Shiite dictatorship?"

QUESTION: There are several indications that this Administration has made preliminary plans about invading Iran, including the flying of unmanned “predator” planes over Iran, sending small reconnaissance teams directly into Iranian territory, sending electronic surveillance planes and submarines into, or just to the edge of Iranian coastal areas and by sending CIA and Special Opposition Forces officials have met with Iranian opposition forces--in particular, the Mujaheddin-e Khalq (MEK)--to discuss their possible involvement in commando raids inside Iran or a full-scale proxy war. We have also heard recent stories of how over-stretched our Armed Forces are at this time. What is your impression about the possibility of engaging Iran in a similar manner to Iraq, and what would that mean for the region and the US armed forces?

Iran has plans for opening an exchange for oil and gas in March in Euros and based on Persian Gulf Oil. According to the reports I've seen in the corporate media, this is a more serious threat to so-called US interests than is an Iranian nuclear program. And of course Iran is years away from developing a bomb – though the CIA helped them get closer by giving Iran the plans to build a bomb, as revealed in James Risen's new book.

Iran has security concerns that the US and EU are not addressing – first and foremost the fear of being next to receive the axis of evil treatment that Iraq is getting.

If the US or Israel bombs Iran, that will bomb away any chance for inspections and control, any chance to allow Iran a nuclear energy program that is carefully monitored.

If we bomb, they go underground with the nuke program – literally underground. You'd have to occupy the country, as in Iraq, with no end in sight, and a country in stronger shape to fight back. You'd have another Iraq, only worse, with the occupation of Iraq itself still ongoing.

And you'd unite the Middle East and the rest of the world's people against the United States.

The US Army can't possibly do it without a draft.

It makes more sense to negotiate with Iran – allow a nuclear energy program, under careful watch. Then work on a plan for a nuclear-free Middle East through negotiations with Israel. And set an example by reducing US nukes, by not developing new ones, by not threatening to use them, and by signing the international weapons conventions that lack a US signature.

This is how the Democrats can seize the moral high ground. We don't just oppose the latest glorious war. We have a vision for a world made safer through disarmament, diplomacy, foreign aid, and support for international law and the United Nations.

QUESTION: There are three withdrawal possibilities (broadly speaking): First, withdrawal as certain benchmarks are reached (the Bush Administration posture is one such position); (2) Timetable for withdrawal (which usually implies a phased withdrawal); and (3) Immediate withdrawal (which involves withdrawing as quickly as logistically possible (without leaving forces there any longer than it takes to physically organize the withdrawal). Can you discuss these options, both in terms of their relative morality, and in terms of their political and military impact (in Iraq, the US, and the world).

Whether it's for the purpose of restoring international law or that of improving the current state of Iraq or that of bringing our men and woman home and putting hundreds of billions of dollars to better use, the answer is immediate and complete withdrawal – including corporate withdrawal.

The US needs to not only withdraw but to go to the UN and the world community and commit to never doing it again, to maintaining no permanent bases in Iraq, to maintaining no control over Iraqi oil or the Iraqi economy, to forswearing the use of so-called preemptive war, and to leading the way to disarmament, supporting the Word Court and the International Criminal Court, to funding the reconstruction and funding the United Nations. Doing this will reduce tensions in Iran and Palestine and persuade other nations to help with the rebuilding of Iraq. Iraq's best hope lies in a strong UN and a reformed US controlled by progressives.

QUESTION: Given the arguments here tonight and by experts elsewhere, what do you think are the key points for an effective US exit strategy in Iraq?

Dem majority in congress

Impeachment of Bush and Cheney

Massive aggressive demonstrations to force President Pelosi to pull out

Stick the soldiers on planes and bring them home



Expanding on point #4, several plans have been drafted. Dennis Kucinich had a plan two and a half years ago. Tom Hayden had a plan some months back. Lynn Woolsey has held hearings to develop a plan. But the best plan I've seen is the one being drafted by the California Democratic Progressive Caucus. I would only add to it that the UN should control the reconstruction contracts, that none should go to any company that has contributed to a Bush – Cheney campaign, and that all contracts should be awarded in a transparent process.

Here's the plan from the California Democratic Party's Progressive Caucus:

Multilateral Cooperation.The U.S. must engage the international community, including the UN and NATO, to immediately establish a multinational interim security force for Iraq. The Department of Peacekeeping Operations at the United Nations, for example, is well suited for this task. To show earnest in this initiative, the US must immediately pay all its arrearages to the UN for prior peace keeping operations as well as for normal annual UN operating assessments and any past due obligations to UN specialized agencies. It must agree to pay now at least half of the cost of Iraq Peace Keepers and UN trainers for a new Iraq military and the new police force. Further, the US ambassador to the UN must be instructed to cooperate in the consensual program for UN reform and to cease and desist from further obstructionism in this effort. Agreement to start the immediate withdrawal of US forces and to start positioning international Peace Keepers must be reached before the end of March, 2006.

2. Diplomatic/Non-Military Initiatives. Starting now, the U.S. must pursue a "diplomatic offensive," shifting its role from that of Iraq's military occupier to that of a reconstruction partner with other UN members. This means giving Iraq back to the Iraqi people. It means providing a substantial share of the funds, perhaps half or more, necessary to set up an international fund to assist in rebuilding their devastated economic and physical infrastructure. It means engaging Iraqi firms, non-governmental and public agencies in the task thus creating thousands of Iraqi jobs heretofore let to foreign contractors by the occupying authority. The U.S. must so engage the United Nation Specialized Agencies and Commissions and international non-governmental organization so that the UN family, not the US, oversees Iraq's economic and humanitarian needs. The US must publicly renounce any desire to control Iraqi oil or to determine the shape of its economy. The US must publicly acknowledge the Iraq Government's full sovereignty with unfettered right to rescind oil contracts let during the occupation and to alter any other law, decree or order issued during the occupation by the Coalition Authority. And the U.S. must declare and affirm that it will not maintain lasting military bases in Iraq.

3. Post-Conflict Reconciliation and Reconstruction. An international commission for peace and reconstruction must be established to oversee Iraq's post-war reconciliation. This group should include the states with common borders with Iraq as well as key members of the global community who have experience in international peace-building, conflict resolution, and post-conflict reconstruction under democratic government. Through this commission talks between Iraq's various factions should be facilitated as essential to the reconstruction effort, resource allocations, and power sharing. Likewise, peaceful relations with neighboring states must be maintained in order to rebuild cross-border physical infrastructure, to deal with water and other shared resource issues, and to find working agreements to further transnational economic cooperation.

4. Initiate Immediate Withdrawal of the U.S. Armed Forces. Most urgently, the US must immediately initiate the withdrawal of US armed forces as a demonstration of its determination to carry out this about face in foreign policy. The cost of the war in Iraq - both human and financial - has been staggering and is crippling every other aspect of our political economy as well as ravaging and savaging the Iraqi people. Tragically, the American and Iraqi lives lost, and the billions of dollars spent, have failed to actually make our country safer from the threat of international terrorism. At home, our social safety net is in shambles with falling wages for the working poor, more people without provision for health care, growing homelessness, and a untenable, growing divide between the wealthy and all others. To treat these issues - from international terrorism to the failures in US economic policy - the Iraq war must be ended. The passing clock marks more carnage, destruction and wasted resources. It means a U.S. spiraling even further into debt with gross inequities in society growing apace. It means an America incapacitated and unable to mount a genuine program for disaster prevention and post disaster reconstruction, whether this arises as a result of terrorism or from natural calamity. The U.S. must withdraw its Armed Forces from Iraq.

5. A Date Certain. Based on international agreement reached by March 1, 2006, the orderly withdrawal of US forces should begin no later than April 1, 2006 and in coordination with the arrival of UN peacekeeping forces, be concluded by December 1, 2006. The Congress should make it clear to the administration that delay in this timetable will not be allowed by building a stop dates of funds for overseas military operations keyed to the withdrawal targets. The Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party submits that unless a plan of action for ending American occupation of Iraq, a plan at least as specific as that outlined above, is adopted by the National Democratic Party, the American people will have little or no confidence that we are worthy of their support in the November 2006 elections. With such a plan and candidates for the Senate and the House pledged to fully honor it, the party will be speaking with one voice. With that message, we can and will regain control of both the House and the Senate and the means to stop this corrupt and wrong headed administration from further destruction of progressive democracy in America.



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