McCain Now Pro-torture

The one thing I used to like about John McCain was that he was strongly anti-torture. Why then has he voted in favor of torture? My theory is that he is desperately trying to win over the conservative voters that he evidently doesn’t have the support of. I knew he would do this on some issues, but torture seemed to be one issue that he wouldn’t change his mind on.

I am more and more scared of John McCain every day.

Barack Obama

From an article on antiwar.com, a nice snippet that nicely sums up my view of Barack Obama:

Barack Obama, an Iraq war opponent who otherwise has found no foreign intervention he opposes.

The American Public Scares Me

Really, I try to have confidence in the intelligence of the American public, but polls like this one really scare me and make me rethink my assumptions.

Twenty-eight percent believe the U.S. should wait to strike until after the next president is in office while 23% would favor a strike before the end of President Bush’s term. Another 29% said the U.S. should not attack Iran, and 20% were unsure.

Your Democracy In Action

From Tuesday’s Democracy Now:

NBC Bars Sen. Mike Gravel From Democratic Debate

In campaign news, former Senator Mike Gravel is protesting a decision by NBC News to bar him from next Tuesday’s debate at Drexel University in Philadelphia. NBC said it made the decision in part because Gravel hadn’t raised over one million dollars. Gravel said “The fact that NBC is owned by General Electric, one of the world’s leading military contractors, is frightening and certainly smacks of censorship directed at the most outspoken critic of the influence that the military-industrial complex holds over this great nation.”

End The War In Iraq Day, San Francisco

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has unanimously adopted a resolution declaring October 27 as “End The War In Iraq Day” in San Francisco. This makes me happy. 🙂

Another Big Lie

We’ve all heard the big lies that led to the war in Iraq. First it was that Iraq was behind 9/11. Easily proven false. Then it was that Iraq had WMDs. Also proven false, but it took longer for it to become accepted among the public. The next lie was that the United States government cared about democracy in Iraq. This idea is still widely accepted by the mainstream press, and as a consequence, the public still generally believes this as well. The more honest reporting does not make this assumption.

One idea that still receives rather universal acceptance is that violence is largely sectarian. Sunni against Shiite, Shiite against Sunni. However, Anthony Arnove’s Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal put forth the claim that the majority of violence in Iraq is pro-occupation against anti-occupation, and anti-occupation against pro-occupation. So, Iraqi police, government, and military are pro-occupation. Remove the American occupation, he says, and you remove a majority of the violence.

I hadn’t heard this idea before reading Arnove’s book, and he didn’t provide much evidence, so I was a bit skeptical. But after reading it, I started paying attention to why massive amounts of Iraqis are being killed over there. In the news articles, they usually say where the killing was done. At a market, at a police ceremony, at a military checkpoint, at a school, et cetera. You can easily separate the sectarian killing from the occupation-influenced killing. And this isn’t meant to be a thorough study, but I have noticed that since I have been looking for it, the vast majority of Iraqi-on-Iraqi killing is indeed anti-occupation against pro-occupation, or vice versa. I am just ashamed that I hadn’t noticed it before, on my own. And of course this is to say nothing of US against Iraqi violence and Iraqi against US violence.

I, of course, was an advocate for withdrawal all along. It is not our country, and the overwhelming majority of Iraqis want us out. This alone is reason enough for us to leave. But having a clearer picture of what is going on in Iraq just reinforces the case for withdrawal for me. Not only do we have no right to be in Iraq, but if we leave the violence will likely drop significantly.