5 years ago this week, a Dem think tank changed the Iraq war mission to spreading Democracy.

[madfloridian]

The article simply rewrote the mission of the invasion of Iraq. By 2005 it was obvious we had been wrong about the WMDs, there was no immediate danger to us from that country. So they simply rewrote the mission using very casual terms, as though nothing wrong had happened.

Not a word about how we had killed his sons and displayed their bodies for the world to see. Not a word about the shock and awe damage. Not a word about the lies that led us there.

They wrote an article at their website about the "real" goal in Iraq...a revision of all we had been told.

Idea of the Week: Middle Eastern Democracy

From December 16, 2005, they spoke of the elections in Iraq in glowing terms.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, these elections help vindicate the basic idea that democracy remains the strongest weapon in what is ultimately a war of ideas against Islamist extremism. By this we don't mean democracy as a magic elixir, as Bush administration officials sometimes seem to describe it, but democracy as a process whereby people wounded and fearful after decades of tyranny learn to negotiate, compromise, build up institutions of civil society, and forge a national identity based on mutual respect and free consent rather than brutal coercion.

And if that can happen in Iraq, it can happen throughout the Middle East -- in Palestine, in Egypt, and even in Saudi Arabia.

In the end, that's the just and worthy cause we are fighting for in Iraq -- the cause our troops have suffered and died for -- and we urge Democrats in particular to look beyond our justifiable anger at the administration's many blunders and its stubborn refusal to admit them, and embrace that cause as our own.

That's what our troops died for? That is most likely not what our troops thought during the rush to war in 2003. They thought they were going there to make our country safer.

A Democratic think tank just does not get the right to rewrite history like that.

Sounds a little like a sort of empire building to me.

That very same week, two of the leaders of the think tank wrote a memo about not believing polls about George Bush...and they included a new warning about "the left."

One of them was head of the DLC Al From, the other was Mark Penn. Penn's wife, Nancy Jacobson, is helping to form the new "centrist" group called No Labels. She joins many Republicans and other conservative Democrats in forming that group to encourage bipartisanship.

Here is part of the WP column that week:

Don't Be Fooled by Bush Polls, Democratic Council Warns

Al From, president of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, and pollster Mark Penn wrote a strategy memo to DLC supporters last week warning party leaders not to use Bush's problems as an invitation to call for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, or generally to steer a more liberal course that could alienate the middle-of-the-road voters the party needs.

"It is important for Democrats to understand that despite Bush's decline, America remains a moderate to conservative country -- particularly on economic and security measures," the two wrote. While a poll taken by Penn for the DLC showed voters opposing the Iraq war 54 to 44 percent, they warned that "Democratic leaders could be playing with political dynamite if they call for an immediate pullout of American troops."

..."From and Penn said the most defensible ground for Democrats is a middle path: rejecting deadlines for troop withdrawal but endorsing "clear benchmarks" to measure progress and hold Bush accountable for the results.

The DLC has been arguing since its inception 20 years ago that the party needs to transcend its liberal activists and traditional interest groups to be electable nationally, a message that has rarely varied with any new issue or circumstance. From and Penn say the latest evidence still supports them.

And they are still "transcending" the left of the party and the "traditional" interest groups...meaning unions and minorities.

When I posted about this rewriting of history a couple of years ago...two comments stuck with me.

"What passes for democracy in the ME is actually oligarchy...

Without a liberally educated populace (i.e. critical mass), these experiments in 'democracy' are destined to crash and burn."

(Now I worry about our populace being liberally educated.)

And another:

"The word "democracy" is always the pretty bow they put on things."

(A pretty bow covering up the ugliness underneath.)

[Lint Head]

1. Too bad we are a democratic republic that has become a theocratic corporate fascist state.

[madfloridian]

7. Agree that there is too much blending religion and government.

It seems to be continuing pretty much as it did under Bush.

[saorsa]

23. Thanks so much

for this excellent post. There is so much history here it is amazing.
I just read an article about standardized test scoring companies and thought of you. I can't send it to you so I will post the link if that is ok, you may already have read it, or covered the subject before.


http://www.truth-out.org/the-loneliness-long-distance-test-scorer65845




Oops, sorry meant to respond to the OP !

[defendandprotect]

25. Historically, patriarchy uses religion as a tool/ as a weapon -- of conquest and oppression....

Patirarchal religion is also an excellent way to leave landmines behind --

Think of India winning its independence from Great Britain, only to have the nation

divided and actually split in two by religion.


Native Americans branded as "pagans" here and divided from their own natural religions

and their communities by having Christianity forced upon them --

The Mission Schools run by the Catholic Church and Mormon Church are two excellent

examples of that -- used to brainswash the native American children -- to steal their

heritage from them. Children were actually kidnapped from their families and taken to

these schools which maintained control by violence -- beatings, murders, hangings, rapes,

every kind of sexual abuse --

By the time we get to the African enslaved here -- who were also offered the "pie in the

sky when you die" religion -- they eventually managed to use the religion to communicate

while enslaved -- and later during the battle to end Segregation, Inc. they used their

churches to organize, strengthen and protect AA protesters ---

Hawaii is another example of this -- "the sword used to introduce the cross" -- as are

many other nations.

And, recent times in America are simply another example of it -- organized patriarchal

religion used to divide the public.





Patriarchy -- and its underpinning =

Organized Patriarchal Religion -- and its economic system =

Capitalism =

The Unholy Trinity

[RaleighNCDUer]

2. Had me going there for a second.

Of course, the DLC is not a Democratic think tank. It is a Republican think tank in Democratic drag.

[struggle4progress]

3. The DLC is not really a "Democratic" think tank: it is a corporate think tank, which

pushes Reaganite propaganda

[madfloridian]

4. Unfortunately for them, they defined themselves.

http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ka.cfm?kaid=86

:hi:

[struggle4progress]

5. I've looked at their website hundreds of times over the years: they claim they're not about

"political messaging," but it seems to me that political messaging is a major part of their endeavor -- they choose Reaganite projects and then try to sell the projects as "progressive" while spouting stupefyingly bland blather and periodically saying "Pragmatic! Centrist! Pragmatic! Centrist!"

[madfloridian]

10. I notice recently the Third Way gets more attention.

I read a segment that the DLC said the TW just sent out political memos. In fact that is about what they both do..that and write about centrism. :)

[AlabamaLibrul]

11. I call religious folks out on "No True Scotsman", I have to call you out on it too.

They are people who identify as Democrats, which is a big-ass party that encompasses people who self-identify but have a wide range of positions on the issues.

The DLC wing of the Democrats are indeed corporatist, and often do push neocon foreign policy mixed with neoliberal economics. But they are, by definition, part of the gang.

[struggle4progress]

12. ... Marshall Wittmann ... is a former senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, a think

tank affiliated with the Democratic Leadership Council. Wittmann served as the conservative Heritage Foundation's director of congressional relations, the Christian Coalition's director of legislative affairs, and as a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute. In the first Bush Administration, he served as the deputy assistant secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services after founding "Jews for George" ... He retired his blog on November 17, 2006, and five days later, he was named the new Director of Communications for Senator Joseph Lieberman ... Wittmann has changed his political party affiliation and ... describes himself as a member of the "McCainiac wing of the Democratic Party" ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Wittmann

This is fairly informative about rightwing false-cover operations in recent years: Bushista Marshall Wittmann, closely tied to the Heritage Foundation and the Christian Coalition, masquerades as a "McCain Democrat." I consider your "No True Scotsman" jabber to be empty noise: I'll stand by my previous assessment that the DLC is a corporatist group that produces smooth soundbites for a Reaganite agenda, while pretending to be an organization of Democrats

[AlabamaLibrul]

13. That's fine you think it's empty noise, I think that we have right-wing people who are "actual" Dems

:shrug:

[struggle4progress]

14. You will get a clearer understanding if you attempt to subdivide that group some

Traditionally, one had segregationist Dixiecrats, who were Democrats mainly because the abolitionist Lincoln had been a Republican: after the Civil Rights Act and Nixon's "Southern strategy," the party was largely (but not completely) stripped of these people

One also has the false registrants: that is, people who are actually Republican but register as Democrats for the purpose of primary voting. There are quite a few of these folk in my town, because the town is mostly progressive and Republicans seldom win the general election, so Republicans register as Democrats to sway primary results

What concerns me most, for the purposes of this thread, is a phenomenon that became common in the Bush era: Republican talking heads who pretend to be Democrats for purpose of influencing the public debate. Marshall Wittmann is, to my view, a good example of that

[madfloridian]

15. I'm Not a Leftist, But I Play One on TV

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1969

Great article from Fair....lots of that still going around.

[struggle4progress]

16. Of course: in this corner, representing the Republicans, Glenn Beck! And in the other corner,

representing the Democrats, here's ... Marshall Wittmann!

[madfloridian]

6. More from that site on "building democracy" in Iraq.

http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?kaid=124&subid=158&contentid=251480

"We should not delude ourselves: Building democracy in Iraq will be difficult and expensive and will take years. But there is no reason that Iraq cannot join the ranks of democratic nations if the United States is willing to take on the burdens of helping Iraq build a democracy, and to create a coalition of other nations willing to help. Moreover, we must remember that our goal in Iraq is not merely to rid the world of the menace of Saddam Hussein, but to bring stability to the Gulf region. If the United States is not committed to building good government in Iraq, we are liable to be simply substituting one set of problems for another. Democracy in Iraq is not just a nice bonus of a war, it is a necessary component of victory."

Not just spreading democracy, but building governments. :shrug:

[laughingliberal]

8. K & R nt

[madfloridian]

9. .....

Thanks for the k & r. Can't believe they just decided to be honest 2 years after. And ignore the bad parts, glorify the good parts.

It really does seem to have been about building democracy, and now we are determined to bankrupt our country trying to build little d democracy in Afghanistan. :shrug:

[Hell Hath No Fury]

17. The cancer on the Party.

It's been all down hill since their arrival.

[EFerrari]

18. There was a segment this morning on Amy's show re Holbrooke

and his role in East Timor, Korea, the Balkans and Iraq.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/15/richard_holbrooke_dies_at_69_remembering

[avaistheone1]

19. k&r

[defendandprotect]

20. Bull -- we've been using Israel to gain control of ME/OIL .... introducing nuclear state into ME....

We've been using RELIGION again to create violence in ME ---

Taliban/Al Qaeda -- to confuse and terrify the public while actually

moving this radical religious concept into ME --

US/CIA financed Taliban/Al Qaeda thru ISI-Pakistan -- up to 9/11 -- and

who know ... perhaps beyond?

Remember those fearsome Islamic religous texts we heard so much about --

with the fithy and violent writings being taught to children? US/CIA

created those writings, printed those books and shipped them into the ME

in order to create a violent Islam.

US is in the ME because they fear a loss control of the oil --

they fear China, India, Russia may move into the area and claim the oil.

And what would happen -- ?

Well, we wouldn't have quite the same MIC without oil, would we?

Do we have solar jet fighters yet?

Military uses 80% of the oil --

What happens if we lost the MIC? Would others take their perhaps justified

revenge on us for 20-30 years of bombing Iraq -- killing 1 million Muslims --

and/or our long history of violence and terrorism in the world?

Or might the world settle down to some peaceful years?


Democratic Party has to become less the party of war, less the party of the MIC,

less the party of spying/intelligence -- less the property of corporations --

and more the party of the people. If we don't manage to make that change, we

can be sure that Mother Nature will make it for us!

[bertman]

22. No argument with your assertion that we use Israel to further our goals

in the ME, defendandprotect, but I doubt that the CIA can be held solely responsible for generating the likes of al Qaeda. Muslims, just like Christians and Jews, have their extremists who believe in holy war and throwing out the infidels/non-believers/heretics. Our presence in so many ME nations and our not-so-well-concealed efforts to control their internal politics by manipulation or by force, has surely spawned a generation or two of anti-American 'freedom fighters'. If you're saying the CIA has exploited that anti-imperial collection of nationalists/Islamists then I can agree with that.

[defendandprotect]

24. US/CIA created Taliban/Al Qaeda thru ISI Pakistan .....

and financed it up to 9/11 --

but I doubt that the CIA can be held solely responsible for generating the likes of al Qaeda.

Al Qaeda was an older Arab group which Nazis picked up and later turned over to CIA post-WWII.

Brzezinski began to relate this story quite a number of years ago --

US went into Afghanistan 6 months before the Russians came in ... and we did so ...

"in order to bait the Russians into Afghanisan" .... "in hopes of giving them a Vietnam-type

experience."


Here are some details on it -- first I heard of it was after he told all of this to O'Reilly

on his TV show --

Also note who created those violent Islamic textbooks we heard about so much from TV "news."

The CIA's Intervention in Afghanistan
Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski,
President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser

Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998

Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs <"From the Shadows">, that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?

B: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

Q: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

Q: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

http://www.takeoverworld.info/brzezinski_interview_shor...


A N D ------


The US spent $100's of millions shooting down Soviet helicopters yet didn't spend a penny helping Afghanis rebuild their infrastructure and institutions.

They also spent millions producing jihad preaching, fundamentalist textbooks and shipping them off to Afghanistan. These were the same text books the Western media discussed in shocked tones and told their audiences were used by fundamentalist teachers to brainwash their charges and to inculcate in young Afghanis a jihad mindset, hatred of foreigners and non-Muslims etc.



Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad schoolbook scandal?

Or perhaps I should say, "Have you heard about the Afghan Jihad schoolbook scandal that's waiting to happen?"

Because it has been almost unreported in the Western media that the US government shipped, and continues to ship, millions of Islamist textbooks into Afghanistan.

Only one English-speaking newspaper we could find has investigated this issue: the Washington Post. The story appeared March 23rd.

Washington Post investigators report that during the past twenty years the US has spent millions of dollars producing fanatical schoolbooks, which were then distributed in Afghanistan.

"The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system's core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books..." -- Washington Post, 23 March 2002 (1)

According to the Post the U.S. is now "...wrestling with the unintended consequences of its successful strategy of stirring Islamic fervor to fight communism."

So the books made up the core curriculum in Afghan schools. And what were the unintended consequences? The Post reports that according to unnamed officials the schoolbooks "steeped a generation in violence."

How could this result have been unintended? Did they expect that giving fundamentalist schoolbooks to schoolchildren would make them moderate Muslims?

Nobody with normal intelligence could expect to distribute millions of violent Islamist schoolbooks without influencing school children towards violent Islamism. Therefore one would assume that the unnamed US officials who, we are told, are distressed at these "unintended consequences" must previously have been unaware of the Islamist content of the schoolbooks.

But surely someone was aware. The US government can't write, edit, print and ship millions of violent, Muslim fundamentalist primers into Afghanistan without high officials in the US government approving those primers.

http://www.tenc.net/articles/jared/jihad.htm



:)

[bertman]

27. Thanks for the info, defendandprotect. I had heard about the textbooks

but did not see them as the most important catalyst in the continued growth of al Qaeda. Certainly that is about as bad as it gets in terms of meddling in another region's politics for one's own political gain. My question would be 'if the U.S. were not maintaining a huge military force that was killing, maiming, and displacing MILLIONS of nationals in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, would we still be facing the kind and degree of backlash that we now face. Even with the textbooks in place, it's hard to imagine that there would be so much outrage and response without the slaughter and provocation.

Chicken or egg, I guess.

[defendandprotect]

28. Religion/text books ...

aren't really about this ONE incident --

It's about patriarcy's continued use of organized patriarchal religion as a tool -

a weapon against others.

In general, the idea of the textbooks would have been NOT directly related to Al Qaeda --

but across the Middle East to create a more violent form of Islam which ultimately

services the goals of US/CIA. Same here in the US in using religion as a right wing

tool -- Christian Coalition was financed by the GOP in the 1980's ...

Richard Scaife financed Dobson's organization -- and other wealthy Repugs financed Bauer's.

Presumably this was in response to the loss of patriarchal authority which was under attack in

the Youth Revoluiton of the late 1960's.*


Islam is generally seen as a peaceful religion -- it is Israel which is feared in the

region -- not Iran or Iraq!


And, not sure I'm clear on your question here . . .

My question would be 'if the U.S. were not maintaining a huge military force that was killing, maiming, and displacing MILLIONS of nationals in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, would we still be facing the kind and degree of backlash that we now face. Even with the textbooks in place, it's hard to imagine that there would be so much outrage and response without the slaughter and provocation.

Chicken or egg, I guess.


If your question is internally re Afghanistan, recall that they defeated the Russians --

and will likely defeat us -- and there is at least one terriric article on that right now -

I'll see if I can find it for you -- think Common Dreams has it.

And, evidently, in response, America is becoming even more brutal in our occupation of

Afghanistan!

And if you are saying that a brutal occupation by us creates more intense response by the host --

I agree!!


******************


*

Indeed, in 1972, when the details began to come out about a break-in at Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate Hotel, Mae immediately recognized personnel and modus operandi from nine years of assassination research, while the mainstream press continued to refer to Watergate as a "caper" and "a third-rate burglary." And so it came to pass that while Rabbi Magnin was entertaining Richard Nixon at his home in Los Angeles, his daughter Mae was revealing the President's role in an incredible conspiracy. Meanwhile, she also perceived an assassination plot, not merely against specific individuals, but against the entire counterculture that was burgeoning at the time.

"I realized that in this country we had a revolution--of housing, food, hair style, clothing, cosmetics, transportation, value systems, religion--it was an economic revolution, affecting the cosmetics industry, canned foods, the use of land; people were delivering their own babies, recycling old clothes, withdrawing from spectator sports. They were breaking the barriers where white and black could rap in 1967. This was the year of the Beatles, the summer of Sergeant Pepper, the Monterey Pop Festival, Haight-Ashbury, make your own candle and turn off the electricity, turn on with your friends and laugh--that's what life was all about."

http://maebrussell.com/Mae%20Brussell%20Articles/Ballad%20of%20Mae%20Brussell.html


****************


And think this article today on Afghanistan may apply to your question?

Gains in Kandahar Came with More Brutal U.S. Tactics
Analysis by Gareth Porter*

WASHINGTON, Dec 17, 2010 (IPS) - The Barack Obama administration's claim of "progress" in its war strategy is based on the military seizure of three rural districts outside Kandahar City in October.

But those tactical gains have come at the price of further exacerbating the basic U.S. strategic weakness in Afghanistan – the antagonism toward the foreign presence shared throughout the Pashtun south.


http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53900

[bertman]

21. Thanks for another episode of "Telling It Like It Is", madflo. REC. nt

[WinkyDink]

26. "Democracy" has also been re-defined: "Corporatism." Whoops! That defines a different word! My bad.