The announcement has been made that it looks as though Defense Secretary Robert Gates is going to be staying on in the Obama Administration for at least the next year. There are many among us on the left and in the anti-war crowd who have not been at all pleased with this turn of events.

But as I see it - and I believe I’ve made this point somewhere along the line in the past - you can’t expect a new Sec Def to swoop in and move one hundred and forty thousand troops out of Iraq in a year without huge problems. I mean, you couldn’t even unpack a box before you started planning the withdrawal, and it would likely be a disaster no matter who you were. I think that if you’re serious about your pledge to get troops out of Iraq in the next eighteen months, you have to maintain some sense of continuity in the military hierarchy to do that. Of course, my years of working as a Secretary of Defense((that would be zero years, for you keeping track)) don’t lend themselves to an educated opinion on the matter.

Besides which, I think anyone whose been paying attention knows that Robert Gates has been as forthcoming as any member of the Bush Administration with Congress and the public. That’s not saying a lot, I grant. But it seems like he’s more sure of himself and less inclined to stonewall for the sake of his personal reputation alone. I think that, with a new president of the same party as the majority in the Congress, you will probably see much more candor going forward. That’s just a guess.

And its a damned shame that we can’t do the same with the economic team, but goddamn. I’ve never seen a guy fall so far so fast as has Hank Paulson. Ben Bernanke just seems like a putz lately, too. These are two guys I know from watching Wall Street Week for years, and I’ve been nothing short of shocked to watch them crumble in the face of this crisis. So, on that level, we need new leadership.

OK, so today is short-blogging day.

It just occurred to me whilst watching Countdown without Keith Olbermann from last night: why didn’t George Bush ever address the Iraqi Parliament, such as it is, to make his case for U.S. plans there? Such a move would be huge - even amid protest, especially amid protest - because it would legitimize the Iraqi Parliament as a legitimate chamber of governance. Would Barack Obama consider doing such a thing? It would go a long way towards easing tensions among the nominally ruling class of Iraq to know that the President of the United States puts such stock in what they are doing there.

If Barack Obama’s trip to the Mid East - and the sudden injection of Iraq’s Prime Minister Maliki’s plans into the U.S. political mix - have done anything, they’ve definitely flipped the entire conversation in unexpected ways.  But while many are viewing this as a positive for Barack Obama, there is one highly important question on which the media has jumped the shark entirely, even those dying to be supportive of the presumptive Democratic nominee: we’re now operating under the assumption that The Surge Is Working.

How did we arrive at that?  Is that even true?

What’s even more frustrating is the fact that media icons of the Left are struggling to find ways to continue arguing against a McCain presidency, insisting for example that the “Sunni Awakening” happened before The Surge, tacitly admitting that not only do they believe The Surge is working, but that they refuse to admit this “fact.”  It’s even getting “Digged” as I type.

And I can’t help but notice a critical element missing in all this. . . the facts.  The Surge isn’t failing, exactly, but it’s not working either.  Maliki is playing for his constituency, which is fine and I applaud him doing so, but that doesn’t mean anything else has changed.  What’s happened is that Barack Obama said he would stick to the 16-month timeline, then Maliki agreed to the timeline, then McCain said “but, but, but, . . he couldn’t agree to that if The Surge wasn’t working!”

… And then the media bought it, hook like and sinker without so much as a moment’s cricital inspection.  Now we’re off to the races with another line of BS that ultimately helps John McCain.

After a back and forth akin to a poorly-constructed Keystone Cops routine, the Nuri al-Maliki government has made it as clear as possible: call it what you want, but we want the U.S. troops out by 2010.  That happens to be Barack Obama’s timeline, but any way you slice it, they want the U.S. out.  As RT points out, you could hear a pin drop on the subject, here or nationally.

I think Josh Marshall has it about right: they may not want to make it look like they’re affecting politics in the United States, but the Maliki government has made the decision to support the Obama withdrawal timeline most likely in the hopes of exercising at least some control over the occupation and it’s eventual conclusion.  Its a classic example of swinging the political discussion over to your own side of things, and they’re playing it beautifully.  This is a full-scale defection from the Bush Camp in favour of the withdrawal supported not just by Barack Obama but by the Iraqi and American people, both.

So here’s a question which has proved historically entertaining for the last hundred and fifty years or so of American interventionism: what happens if the democracy we supposedly want to setup in Country X actually starts operating in the interest of it’s people - like a democracy should - against our interests?  What if “The Surge” actually works?  What will happen to the Bush agenda in Iraq?  The McCain hopes of a Hundred Year Occupation?

Of course, this whole line of questioning is a bit tongue-in-cheek, anyway: even if by supporting withdrawal, Maliki is pleasing a majority of Iraqis, that doesn’t mean he can pull that coalition together around a stable democracy.  My guess is that, regardless of when we pull out, some additional assistance will be required, hopefully from a more international or even largely-Arab force.

And, oh yeah: even if the press is trying its damnedest to ignore this turn of events at the moment, the long-term effect of this is going to be one more major plus for the Obama camp.  Just wait till it’s time to start the debates.

Late Update: Oh, lame.  Not only is the press trying to ignore the Obama/Maliki connection, but they’re even stooping to split hairs to make distinctions without difference.

Vincent Bugliosi, the man who convicted Charles Manson and 20 other murderers without ever losing a case, is convinced that a murder charge can be brought against George Bush and he seems pretty serious about following through on it:

Bugliosi v. Bush

I’ve also drafted a letter to DAs across the country offering my services. I’m dead serious about this. With my record as a prosecutor with twenty-one consecutive murder convictions, I would never in a million years argue for a prosecution against the President of the United States unless I knew I was standing on firm and strong legal grounds.

I’m going after Bush and I’m not going to be satisfied until I see him in an American courtroom prosecuted for murder.

Anybody remember how the U.S. Army gave soldiers LSD back during Korea? Or how about how the “Reefer Madness” propaganda convinced the Army to give soldiers pot to see if they could turn them into killing machines? Results fell somewhat short of expectations, comically so, but what is happening now is not even remotely funny:

ABC News: ‘Disposable Heroes’: Mentally Distressed Veterans Used to Test Suicide-Linked Drugs

Mentally distressed veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are being recruited for government tests on pharmaceutical drugs linked to suicide and other violent side effects, an investigation by ABC News and “The Washington Times” has found.

I’m sure the Veterans Administration will have some snappy answer as to why they didn’t warn soldiers, even after repeated warnings from the manufacturers of the drug. But if I were a cynical man - and as luck would have it, I am - I’d say that the Veterans Administration is doing the Pharmaceutical industry’s own worst-case drug testing on the cheap.

So, let us now drop this silly pretense about “supporting the troops,” shall we?

TPMtv gives us the layout of John McCain’s devolving concept of American troop levels in Iraq, from liberating and leaving to maybe staying as a small force to staying ala Germany for a hundred years. It should be noted, by the way, that we have not been in Germany for a hundred years just yet - to say nothing of a thousand, or ten thousand - so whether or not that is an attainable goal remains to be seen:

Talking Points Memo

In today’s episode of TPMtv, we go back to the TPM video archives to put the whole back and forth on the Korea m
odel together. Let’s go to the tape …

But in every case, John McCain consistently makes the point that, “it’s not troop levels, it’s casualties.” Because if American soldiers aren’t dying, the American people won’t mind their presence anywhere. This shortsightedly political rhetoric ignores a very basic premise of occupation: it will not be the opinions of the American public that will determine that all-important casualty rate, but the opinions of the Iraqis, whose voice is noticeably absent from McCain’s argument.

And if Iraqis do not want long-term American presence in their country - as indeed, they have voiced many times over - then no amount of political gamesmanship here at home nor tactical maneuvering in Iraq will produce anything less than consistent casualties.

But, hey! I’m not a presidential candidate with “experience,” so what the hell do I know?

As the situation in Iraq degrades towards civil war, The Decider continues to declare progress being made. There is not a whit of recognition, nor will there be for months, that the situation is getting close to out of control. As TPM reports, Baghdad police are leaving in droves and Iraqi soldiers (who, according to the Bush Administration, are fighting in Basra) are back-filling those positions. Meanwhile, our troops are once again filling in the front lines of the Iraqi Civil War:

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 03/27/2008 | Bush: Iraq is returning to normal

President Bush, saying that “normalcy is returning back to Iraq,” argued Thursday that last year’s U.S. troop “surge” has improved Iraq’s security to the point where political and economic progress are blossoming as well.

Do not click on this link unless you’re sure you’re ready.  This was done at Abu Ghraib in your name.  Let us not pretend that this was either an isolated incident or the act of a few bad apples.

Crooks and Liars does a good job of contrasting Hillary Clinton’s speech on the floor of the Senate in 2002, voting in favour of the Iraq resolution and what she’s saying now about that vote which she has never recanted and never will:

Crooks and Liars » Hillary Clinton Defends her 2002 Iraq War Vote — through Attack

Senator Clinton briefly outlined why she voted as she did, that her vote was not one for preemptive war but for further UN weapons inspections, and that she had President Bush’s personal assurances that all avenues would be taken to prevent war, war as an option only of last resort.

Specifically, she said,”mine was not a vote for war . . ” As though you get to vote for different things than everybody else does. Everybody voted on the same resolution.

Well, OK, anyone who reads this website knows I’m not a big supporter of Hillary. But for chrissakes, this really needs to be said: if you say you didn’t know we were going to war, you’re either a fool or a liar.

Because we all knew, didn’t we? There was never a doubt in my mind that George Bush and Dick Cheney had every intention of going to war, and neither was there any such misapprehension in any of my non-politician, non-Washington friends, Right or Left. Even the least-interested person I knew was aware of what was happening and that we were going to war.

And after that, she and Barack Obama’s voting records remained roughly the same on the war: both voted to fund the war time and time again. She insists that if he was as sure of his convictions against the war, he shouldn’t have funded it. I say that if she was as sure that she only wanted war as a last result - and if indeed she was surprised by the result of her vote - she was under equal obligation to do the same.

But she didn’t. And now she questions Obama’s judgment.