What I Didn't See in Iraq (honest observation from Mass.'s McGovern)

[katinmn]

Did you know that when our elected representatives visit Iraq they are in and out in less than 24 hours (they can't spend the night), are limited to visiting the heavily armed Green Zone, and that soldiers are instructed not to complain to these visitors?

As they are set up now, these "fact-finding" tours are a waste of time and money. They could get the same info from a memo without ever leaving Washington.

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/21786/
"Trust me when I tell you things are so much better in Iraq," said one U.S. military official to me on my recent visit to that war-ravaged country. I didn't know whether to scream or pull the remaining two strands of hair out of my head. I was in Iraq as part of a delegation of eight members of Congress, led by House minority leader Nancy Pelosi. Everything we have been told about Iraq by the Bush administration has either been an outright lie or overwhelmingly false. There were no weapons of mass destruction; we have not been greeted as liberators; and the cost in terms of blood and treasure has outpaced even their worst-case scenarios. Trust is something I cannot give to this administration.

[Larkspur]

1. I like Jim McGovern and so do my Mass co-workers who live in his

district.

[katinmn]

2. I'm impressed with him, too. Wish we had more like him in Congress.

[Larkspur]

3. These are the 2 most significant quotes from McGovern's article that

impressed me...

...One military leader told us they can tell that things are changing for the better because when U.S. helicopters fly over certain areas of Iraq, Iraqis wave. Well, I took a helicopter ride (it's too dangerous to drive) from the Baghdad airport to the Green Zone wearing an armored vest and sandwiched between two heavily armed American soldiers who were pointing their guns down at the ground. I suggested to the military leader that perhaps he was confusing a wave with a plea not to shoot.

Yep, only a progressive Dem, like Jim McGovern would note the real reason for the "friendly" wave from Iraqis.

What worries me almost as much as our misguided policy in Iraq is that so many of my colleagues and so many citizens have become resigned to the fact that the war will go on. Congress is not being inundated with letters and phone calls and faxes and e-mails and street protests demanding an end to our presence in Iraq. President Bush's re-election seems to have taken much of the energy out of the anti-war movement. My recent visit to Iraq only strengthened my belief that this war is wrong. And only renewed, passionate dissent by the American people can end it.

The DLC has done a wonderful job of aborting the anti-war movement within the Dem Party, and many like me, who opposed the Iraq War, participated in MoveOn.org's anti-Iraq war campaign and ended up supporting anti-Iraq war candidate Howard Dean, feel betrayed by Dems, like the DLC horde and John Kerry, whose convention was geared to the pro-war and pro-military message. Of course, many of us are still working within the Dem Party, note that California Dems passed an anti-Iraq war resolution at their annual convention, to foster infrastructure change, but it will take time and setbacks will happen as long as Dem Hill leaders, McGovern excluded, only shoot for short-term goals that stroke their overinflated egos.

[katinmn]

5. I agree the DLC took the wind out of our anti-war sails

I am still upset that one of the Dem's policy goals at the start of the session was to add more bodies to the military.

The military is a bottomless pit that is severely mismanaged and ripe for corruption. Course, with Rumsfeld in the lead, what can we expect?

[Glenda]

4. i wish this stuff would be more reported, instead of the lies

also, how much does it suck to be these people:

"Our young men and women in uniform are performing their difficult duties extraordinarily well. Indeed, the only honest and direct responses I got from any American in Iraq were from the soldiers. They told me they had been instructed by their superiors not to share any complaints with visitors."

[reprehensor]

6. bump