OBAMA AND THE BUSH/IRAQ PACT

Sometimes I think I don’t appreciate the Springfield News-Leader enough. I didn’t have to wait until I got to the funnies to start laughing when I read this morning’s paper. The second page got me started with a story about a local man whose voices told him to rob a store and then talked him into turning himself in.

It wasn’t the sad state of schizophrenia the poor guy lives in that tripped my trigger, and it certainly wasn’t that the clerk had to deal with a mad man wielding a broken beer bottle. It was the police report quoted in the article. I pity the poor policeman who has to write up reports in the kind of language this one used, but my chuckling at that is probably just a personal quirk.

Surely everyone who read the article about the Hulshof/Steelman face-off about Viagra was rolling in the aisles. Not only did it turn out, after Steelman attacked Hulshof for voting to provide Viagra to welfare recipients, that both had voted to support Viagra, but the capper came with a quote from Steelman who said that Hulsof’s vote on Viagra was a “straight ‘up or down’ decision”. That one had me falling off my chair.

So, if you are on welfare, the decision is you stay down, eh? Only the rich get to rise?!?
There was nothing in the comics that came close to that one. Only the dark humor of institutional denial of pleasure to the poor lessoned my enjoyment of the article.

Another article that gave me pleasure was the one about the turning point in Iraq. If it’s true, I am happy for the people of Iraq. What a relief if must be when one can feel safe enough to walk the streets of his neighborhood after years of living in constant fear.

The amazing thing about this story is that it will be used by McCain and the Republican Party as a reason for the U.S. to continue its occupation of the country. They will point to this as evidence that we are winning the war on terror. Never mind that Iraq is not and has never been a hotbed of terrorism.

They will say that the presence of the U.S. troops in the country has been the main reason that calm was restored and will argue that, therefore, the surge was a good decision. Never mind that all the sectarian killing and political infighting started only after we had invaded the country and destroyed its stability.

They will say that because we have been able to achieve this level of peace in the county (Ony 532 Iraqis died violent deaths in the past month, what a triumph!), it is imperative that the Iraqi Parliament passes the new pact designed to replace the UN resolution that permitted the invasion. Never mind that the ultimate result is a permanent Amerikan military presence in Iraq and decades of responsibility for American taxpayers.

Will Barack Obama and the Democratic Party take the opportunity to stand up to this by pointing out that decreased violence in Iraq should be a sign that we should be able to begin pulling our troops out of the county rather than staying in Iraq permanently?

Will Barack Obama and the Democratic Party say that at this point there is no need for the Iraqi Parliament to agree to anything like the pact that BushCo has put before them and that would bind them to obedience to Amerikan foreign policy decisions for decades?

I doubt it, but I sure would like to be proven wrong.

Maybe there should be a petition campaign to request that kind of action from Obama. If I were writing for MoveOn.org, I would be pressing for it. In fact, I sent them a message this morning suggesting it. Here is a copy of my message to them:

“The news is now pushing the point that internal Iraqi violence has been reduced.

I would like to see a MoveOn petition for Obama to take the position that this is a sign that we should be reducing our presence in Iraq, not adding to it as the pact the Bush administration is currently asking the Iraqi Parliament to sign calls for. Additionally, it should request that he publicly denounce the Bush pact proposal entirely.”

If you agree, why not take a moment to send them the same message. Maybe it would help them to see that the idea has merit. Just go to www.moveon.org and hit the link for comments, paste in the message above and add your comments.


Be the change you wish to see in the world. -- M. K. Gandhi

Individually we have little voice. Collectively we cannot be ignored.
But in silence we surrender our power. Yours in Peace -- BR

The reason for going was to keep the crude flowing and raise a false flag abroad. – from a poem by Jack Evans titled 3500 Souls - http://www.myspace.com/paralegal_eagle