Hayden smacks down warmongering writer for distorting Kerry's plan

[ProSense]

Tom Hayden
05.03.2006

where is george packer? does he favor the war forever?

George Packer writes more eloquently about Iraq than anyone in the establishment, usually for the very influential audience who read the NY Times magazine, the New Yorker, etcetera. His special talent is writing persuasively and gracefully about how impossible it is to withdraw from Iraq. His function is to freeze liberals where they are, which his crowd thinks is better than supporting withdrawal.

In fact, withdrawal is virtually taboo, delegitimizing, for anyone seeking a mainstream forum. In fact, the spectrum of "serious" debate nearly eliminates the option of withdrawal altogether. Like Packer, we apparently are to accept the tragic burden of justifying a war which is unjustifiable, but which will somehow become more tragic if we stop the justifications.

Packer's latest pronouncement as a key gatekeeper of acceptable opinion is a subtle assault on Sen. John Kerry in the May 8 New Yorker. Packer credits Kerry for "having found his voice" in his recent anti-war speech, but then criticizes Kerry for calling for withdrawal by the end of the year. "But abandoning Iraq is an exasperated rush will leave ordinary Iraqis far more vulnerable to the murderous conduct of the militias and the insurgents than they are now", Packer writes, in a declaration more inelegant than his usual prose. Without an "American buffer", he warns, there will be a wider war and a "larger safe zone for jihadis."

Snip...

In this case, he cleverly alters Kerry's proposal by leaving out the international summit Kerry has proposed to address peacekeeping, reconstruction and other issues concerning the transition to a post-war period. Kerry thus is categorized as an uncaring advocate of "out now", unlike Packer who at least cares about the killing he seems to support forever.

Snip...

While distorting and dismissing Kerry for "finding his voice", Packer applauds the recent op-ed by Leslie Gelb and Sen. Joe Biden calling for a devolved, tripartite Iraq - Kurdish, Sunni, and Shiite - with a weakened central government to assure the fair share of oil revenues and other matters. This is the longstanding preference of numerous neo-conservatives, and Israeli officials, to put an end to Arab nationalism. By redefining Iraqis along tribal, not national lines, by weakening the central state apparatus, a threat to stability (oil stability, Israeli stability, presumably) would be removed from the Middle East.

more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-hayden/where-is-george-packer-d_b_20323.html

[ProSense]

1. More...

Packer sees the US troops not as occupiers, not the cause of violence, but as "buffers" between violent Iraqis. The same civilizing role was claimed by the British when they sent troops to Northern Ireland in 1969; thirty years later they signed the Good Friday Agreement but still haven't permitted free elections. Baghdad is simply the next Belfast, in this view.

Snip...

It's another imperial scenario, of course, though it seems more benign than the continued slaughter. The problem is that Gelb-Biden take an opposite course from Kerry, failing to answer if and when a US troop withdrawal would take place, no small matter.

[blm]

3. This is BAD NEWS that Biden is getting journos to distort Kerry's plan

for him.

It was bad enough that Biden distorted a serious withrawal plan to equate it with cut and run, like the GOPs, but he also completely IGNORES the Dayton Accord type summit Kerry calls for, and then offers that his plan calls for similar diplomatic efforts while pretending Kerry's doesn't include that aspect.

GRrrrr.....

Thankfully, Hayden sees the facts clearly, but I doubt the corporate media will book him while Biden and his buddies will get all the time they need to distort, distort, distort.

[jenndar]

2. Perfect.

I love Tom Hayden.

[blm]

4. Hayden's right, but he'll get ignored - corpmedia gives Biden a microphone

whenever he wants it.

[ProSense]

5. Packer likened the troops (military) to an "American buffer."

WTF?

[blm]

6. That's pretty insulting to put the troops in that position.

.

[blm]

7. Kick - people need to see how undermining works.

Reminds me that during the 2004 election, Biden promised Bush he wouldn't make Iraq war a political issue. Now he's distorting Kerry's Iraq withdrawal plan to sell his own.

He doesn't HAVE to do that.

Submit your plan, Joe, but don't lie about the other plans on the table to sell yours.