Stu Bykofsky has been a columnist with the Philadelphia Daily News since 1987. Prior to the column, his assignments included theater critic, TV critic, copy editor, general assignment features reporter. A native of New York City, Stu has won numerous public service and journalism awards. His professional affiliations include the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and Philadelphia’s Pen and Pencil Club. He supports civil-rights, human-rights and animal causes. He is married.
Scott Kohlhass, former chair of the Libertarian Party of Alaska and founder of DraftResistance.org, discusses War Czar Lute’s trial balloon about reviving conscription and explains how Selective “Service” is unknowingly enlisting individuals in over half of the American States.
On Sunday, Glenn Greenwald demolished the pro-surge scam that Michael O’Hanlon and Ken Pollack have been trying to pull for the last couple of weeks. After Greenwald’s evisceration of these con men, one would think that the matter was settled, that anyone with a reputation to maintain would sooner peddle Nigerian investment opportunities on national television than so much as whisper the names O’Hanlon and Pollack in public.
Ah, but one would misjudge the shameless, pathetic little worm that is Bill Kristol. Granted, Kristol doesn’t have much of a reputation to maintain: his claim to “public intellectual” status is based solely on his frequent Fox News appearances and his editing of such heavyweights as Stephen Hayes and Stephen Comrade Sandalio Suleyman Ahmad al-Kosovi Shaka Zulu Schwartz. Still, even Kristol must have been slightly embarrassed when Jon Stewart instantly shot down his invocation of the Look! Even war critics say the surge is working! talking point on last night’s Daily Show. (It’s about 2:30 into this clip.)
A video has surfaced of Dick Cheney predicting an invasion of Iraq would lead to a “quagmire.”
In 1994, Cheney explained his reasons for not advocating an invasion of Iraq following the first gulf war:
Q: Do you think the U.S., or U.N. forces, should have moved into Baghdad?
A: No.
Q: Why not?
A: Because if we’d gone to Baghdad we would have been all alone. There wouldn’t have been anybody else with us. There would have been a U.S. occupation of Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.
Once you got to Iraq and took it over, took down Saddam Hussein’s government, then what are you going to put in its place? That’s a very volatile part of the world, and if you take down the central government of Iraq, you could very easily end up seeing pieces of Iraq fly off: part of it, the Syrians would like to have to the west, part of it — eastern Iraq — the Iranians would like to claim, they fought over it for eight years. In the north you’ve got the Kurds, and if the Kurds spin loose and join with the Kurds in Turkey, then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.
It’s a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq.
The other thing was casualties. Everyone was impressed with the fact we were able to do our job with as few casualties as we had. But for the 146 Americans killed in action, and for their families — it wasn’t a cheap war. And the question for the president, in terms of whether or not we went on to Baghdad, took additional casualties in an effort to get Saddam Hussein, was how many additional dead Americans is Saddam worth? Our judgment was, not very many, and I think we got it right.
For those who listen to Antiwar Radio, you know I refute this lie every single day, citing CSM and Reuters’ reports that an EFP factory was found in Iraq in April by troops during “Operation Black Eagle,†according to Army Spokesman Lt. Col Scott Bleichwehl.
Journalist Gareth Porter, whom I often interview, has written extensively on this matter.
Andrew Cockburn took an axe to the lies in this Los AngelesTimes article back in February. NBC News and Wired have also run articles casting doubt on the alleged Iranian origin of the bombs. Allisa J. Rubin in the New York Times discusses the discovery of an EFP factory in Iraq (Shhhh! Don’t tell Michael R. Gordon’s editor!) and even the Wall Street Journal has spoken truth to the propaganda.
