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Saturday, August 11. 2007
Death in the Yangtze and Iraq
This is some sad news from the Wild Dolphin Foundation: Reuters...(NY POST Aug 8 )
LONDON - The long threatened Yangtze River dolphin in China is probably extinct, according to an international team of researchers who said this would mark the first whale or dolphin to be wiped out due to human activity. The freshwater dolphin, or baiji, was last spotted several years ago, and a six-week search in 2006 failed to find any evidence it survives, said Samuel Turvey, a conservation biologist at the Zoological Society of London who took part in the search.
Some might argue that the loss of a species is no big deal, species have been evolving and dying out for millions of years, but the baiji had survived for 25 million years until mankind began hunting it for food and skin and mostly, indiscriminately killing them using illegal fishing practices initially meant for catching fish, not marine mammals. And of course, habitat encroachment. What was bigger news than the extinction of a species, earlier this year? The prospect of Paris Hilton going to jail, Lindsey Lohan’s first — or was it her second — trip to rehab and of course “Brangelina.” In the second tier of news there was the continuing saga of the lying attorney general, his lying bosses, Scooter Libby on trial and getting convicted and then having his sentence commuted — The irony: the “law and order” president giving a break to his former aid. “Law and order” but only for the unwashed masses. Remember the comedian back in the early ’70’s who said, “yeah, there’s justice in America, it’s just us getting convicted,” or something along those lines. Gregory Alan Norton has a book entitled There Ain’t No Justice, Just Us. Since Dubya let Scooter off the hook, I’ve often wondered if he would have pardoned O.J. had the wife beater been convicted of the double homicide.
Then of course there is Bush’s war in Iraq. What did he say Friday? It doesn’t matter what anyone says about the conditions there for our troops, they’re staying in Iraq until … what? The Middle East is free for Democracy? Once again Bush linked the 19 9/11 hijackers to Iraq — despite the fact that not one of them was from Iraq, saying conditions in the Middle East led the 19 to become terrorists—and that is why he is going to stay the course in Iraq, regardless of what the report from General David Petraeus says about the conditions on the ground or the condition of our troops who have performed magnificently under extreme pressure.Earlier this evening I met a young Marine who had just returned from his second tour in Iraq. He was with his wife and small child, whom he hadn’t seen in person until he got home. When the young Marine said he would be rotating back to Iraq in 15 months, you could see the expression grow dark on his young wife’s face. I kept my political views to myself; in these situations, if the young marines don’t mention their views on the war first, I leave mine out of the conversation. But the prospect of a third deployment didn’t fill this young man with any great joy, that’s certain, and the information was certainly devastating to his wife.
Bush seems to think peace in Iraq can be achieved militarily, even though all those in his administration keep telling us this isn’t for U.S. troops to win or lose. It’s up to the Iraqis to strike a political solution and as of yet, the Iraqi government, such as it is, hasn’t passed any legislation to achieve that goal. Our troops are mired in a civil war, in some areas supporting the Shi’ites and in other areas, supporting the Sunnis. Bush’s newly appointed “War Czar,” General Douglas Lute said in an interview with NPR’s “All Things Considered,” reinstating the draft was an option for building the military to meet the needs of the constant deployments to Iraq. Although he held the administration’s party line, that the current all-volunteer military was meeting the nation’s security needs, he did dance around the fact that the repeated deployments were severely stressing our military and that the families of these young men and women were having an affect on whether the service members stayed in the military after their enlistments ended. In other words, these constant deployments are forcing many service members to leave the military rather than put their families through the stress of unending deployments to the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq.
You may not know this: For all intents and purposes, the British military has left Iraq. This “coalition of the willing” — you gotta be kidding! Former Bush aid Ron Christie still uses that term — now consists of just the United States. Maybe we should call it the Coalition Leaving the Sinking Ship. Bush is committed to keeping our troops in Iraq until a working government emerges, a government that can defend itself from … what? Itself? All the different factions that are at war with each other inside Iraq? The reality of bringing democracy to the Middle East is that when elections are held—in places outside of Iraq, like Algeria, Palestine and even Lebanon, the parties of the Islamic fundamentalists win those elections and those are the very people who so hate the United States. Hey, I learned something watching Hardball With Chris Matthews.
The neocon view of going into the Arab countries and changing the governments is still Bush’s firm commitment: Global change through force of arms. That philosophy has been proven to fail and sadly, it is our troops that have been put into the position of being the instruments of the failure.
The troops didn’t fail, the policy of regime change in Iraq was a failure from the beginning! The Bush 41 Administration knew regime change in Iraq by force of arms would fail in 1991. The Clinton Administration knew it in 1998 when PNAC sent their letter to Clinton telling him to invade Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein. People like General Anthony Zinni, former commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and Bush 41 confidant and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft warned us of what would happen long before the invasion took place. Too bad Congress wasn’t listening in October, 2002. In 2004 Zinni said, on 60 Minutes, senior officials in the Pentagon were guilty of dereliction of duty in their handling of the war. But nobody was listening. Certainly not the 50.8% of the population that voted for Bush in 2004. Bush, Cheney and their lackeys are criminals and should be treated as such.
As the president said just about two years ago, the removal of our troops from Iraq will be up to the presidents that follow. Sadly, the young Marine I met this evening will be heading back to war about the time we will be having our general elections to choose a new president. Unfortunately for this young Marine, and all his comrades (and their families) due to rotate to Iraq in November, 2008, that new president will take office much too late to save them from that horror.
Yes, the Yangtze River dolphin is now extinct, but even that great tragedy pales next to the prospect of more widows and orphans destined to come in the months — years — ahead. Bush has no intention of starting a draw down of troops on his watch. That itself is a tragedy and until we end this horror in Iraq, things like species going extinct will remain back page news. And as long as we as a Nation pay more attention to celebrity gossip than the serious issues confronting our lives, the Yangtze River dolphin will be lost in the shuffle.
Wake up people, the broomstick is firmly up your ass.
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