The 2008 Outlook for Iraq: The Fun Never Ends

[Anyone who reads here regularly knws I adore Greg's work but I did not know until tonight that he now has a blog of his own, separate from Editor & Publisher magazine.]

Can you say, "What exit strategy?" There. I knew you could.

Greg Mitchell, editor at Editor & Publisher and someone I admire highly, posts on his own blog about the very bleak outlook on Iraq and our continued occupation of that country, including why any hope of our pulling out is diminishing rapidly.

Go read. Greg is always well worth the time.

USA Today's Founder: Once Supportive of Bush, The First To Call For U.S. Troop Exit From Iraq

Al Neuharth, the founder of USA Today, once quite supportive of the president's "grand mission" in Iraq, also became one of the first (and for too long, only) editorialists/political pundits to call for an exit strategy to bring American soldiers home from Iraq. I've quoted from many of his columns on the subject because they are lucid and infinitely understandable at the same time demonstrating that sane people who exist to the right of dead center often share many of the same aspirations, savvy administration, and intelligent discourse with those to the left of center.

As Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher notes, Neuharth even strongly recommended that, given the situation in Iraq and elsewhere in Bush's "another day, another war" kingdom, Bush NOT seek re-election in November 2004.

In The "How Kind Of Bush To Pay $200 In Restitution For Killing My Son But I Would Rather Have My Child Back" Department

Here's another example of why Greg Mitchell is a good as well as an important read in these disastrous, far from rapturish Bush years:

Until recently, the press has rarely covered the U.S. military program that occasionally offers “condolence” payments to Iraqis and Afghans whose loved ones have been killed or injured by our troops. But a number of high-profile incidents involving the killing of noncombatants has drawn some long-overdue, if fleeting, attention to the subject.

On Tuesday, in the latest example, the U.S. military apologized for a not-accidental atrocity near Jalalabad back in March and agreed to make the usual maximum payment -- don’t laugh -- of about $2000 to survivors for each of the 19 Afghan lives lost.

That’s an improvement in some ways. Last month I titled a column on this subject, "Sorry We Shot Your Kid, Here’s $500," referring to a documented case in Iraq.

Of Bill Moyers, LBJ and the Vietnam/Iraq Link

One of my favorite columnists, editor Greg Mitchell with Editor & Publisher magazine, gives us the deeper background behind "a chilling 1964 phone conversation" linked to then president Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ, as in "LBJ, LBJ, how many kids have you killed today?") at a time when documentarian and returned PBS host (what a mistake they made in pushing him out) Bill Moyers was LBJ's press secretary.

This chat transcript, between LBJ and a top aide, occurred not long after JFK's assassination, and sounds more reminiscent than some may find comfortable re: parallels between today's Iraq and the '60s' Vietnam. I started to cry when I read this remark, finding it way past tragic and pathetic that Johnson could ask these questions at that particular point in time because LBJ did have a conscience.

Johnson: I will tell you the more, I just stayed awake last night thinking of this thing, and the more that I think of it I don't know what in the hell, it looks like to me that we're getting into another Korea. It just worries the hell out of me. I don't see what we can ever hope to get out of there with once we're committed. I believe the Chinese Communists are coming into it. I don't think that we can fight them 10,000 miles away from home and ever get anywhere in that area. I don't think it's worth fighting for and I don't think we can get out. And it's just the biggest damn mess that I ever saw.

Bundy: It is an awful mess.

Johnson: And we just got to think about it. I'm looking at this Sergeant of mine this morning and he's got 6 little old kids over there, and he's getting out my things, and bringing me in my night reading, and all that kind of stuff, and I just thought about ordering all those kids in there. And what in the hell am I ordering them out there for? What in the hell is Vietnam worth to me? What is Laos worth to me? What is it worth to this country? We've got a treaty but hell, everybody else has got a treaty out there, and they're not doing a thing about it.

(Note Jurassic Pork's question regarding that Iraq could turn into another 50-year police action/occupation as it has with South Korea while it continues to wage tactics which have NEVER produced a positive result.) Bush, on the other hand, seems incapable of taking responsibility for any action, operates in delusional mode so often I wonder if he's ever known the truth about anything, and like just about all sociopaths, demonstrates he is without conscience.

Absolute Must Read/Must See: A Probe of the Press and Iraq by PBS' Bill Moyers

Regular readers know of the extremely high esteem in which I hold Greg Mitchell of Editor and Publisher magazine (the journal of the press about the press). While I link to him and the online magazine frequently, I implore you to catch Greg's latest piece about the new Bill Moyers' PBS documentary upcoming about the press and America's war with Iraq labeled "devastating (and then you need to be sure you see this documentary):

The most powerful indictment of the news media for falling down in its duties in the run-up to the war in Iraq will appear next Wednesday, a 90-minute PBS broadcast called "Buying the War," which marks the return of "Bill Moyers Journal." E&P was sent a preview DVD and a draft transcript for the program this week.

While much of the evidence of the media's role as cheerleaders for the war presented here is not new, it is skillfully assembled, with many fresh quotes from interviews (with the likes of Tim Russert and Walter Pincus) along with numerous embarrassing examples of past statements by journalists and pundits that proved grossly misleading or wrong. Several prominent media figures, prodded by Moyers, admit the media failed miserably, though few take personal responsibility.

The war continues today, now in its fifth year, with the death toll for Americans and Iraqis rising again -- yet Moyers points out, "the press has yet to come to terms with its role in enabling the Bush Administration to go to war on false pretenses."

Among the few heroes of this devastating film are reporters with the Knight Ridder/McClatchy bureau in D.C. Tragically late, Walter Isaacson, who headed CNN, observes, "The people at Knight Ridder were calling the colonels and the lieutenants and the people in the CIA and finding out, you know, that the intelligence is not very good. We should've all been doing that."

At the close, Moyers mentions some of the chief proponents of the war who refused to speak to him for this program, including Thomas Friedman, Bill Kristol, Roger Ailes, Charles Krauthammer, Judith Miller, and William Safire.

But Dan Rather, the former CBS anchor, admits, "I don't think there is any excuse for, you know, my performance and the performance of the press in general in the roll up to the war…We didn't dig enough. And we shouldn't have been fooled in this way." Bob Simon, who had strong doubts about evidence for war, was asked by Moyers if he pushed any of the top brass at CBS to "dig deeper," and he replies, "No, in all honesty, with a thousand mea culpas….nope, I don't think we followed up on this."

Time Magazine: Bush "Clearly Unable to Lead"

The excellent Editor & Publisher is beating Time Magazine in reporting that Time's column by Joe Klein will hint very much at presidential impeachment and declare that George W. Bush is "clearly unable to lead."

Now this fact was obvious to over half the country in November 2000; thank the Supreme Court for forcing Bush down our throats in 2000 and rigged elections in 2004 for keeping Bushy there.

Military Serving Wounded GIs A Nice Big Cup of "Shut The Fuck Up"

Editor & Publisher reports today that wounded GIs, such as those ensconced at Walter Reed Hospital, are being told to "shut up" to the press, lest they reveal perhaps how well (translation: miserably and shamefully) many of them are being treated once they make it out of Iraq and Afghanistan alive.

Oh yeah, boys and girls, the Bushies just respect the hell out of the men and women they send over to fight Georgie's war of empire while the Bush Twins slut and drug their way through the decade, largely at taxpayers' expense.

And this graphic is one I shamelessly lifted from Ole Blue the Heretic (hi, Blue!) because it was sadly extremely apt given this story.