More Carnage in Iraq

It just goes on and on:

A female suicide bomber has killed at least 42 people and injured 58 in the Shia Iraqi holy city of Karbala, Iraqi health officials say. The bomb went off near the Imam Hussein shrine, reportedly inside a cafe, and eyewitnesses described seeing bodies scattered across the street.

17 more of our heroes have been killed this month bringing the total now to 3,987 who have died for George Bush's pointless nationbuilding fiasco in Iraq. So far this month 420 Iraqi civilians have died. This could end up being the worst month for civilian casualties since August of last year.

The reduction in violence brought about by the surge has come at the terrible price of a wave of ethnic cleansing, and the subdivision of Baghdad into separate walled and armed camps. What's more the US has now organized and financed an army of 100,000 Sunni militias members who are not loyal to the central government and will never be integrated into Iraq's army and police. By doing this, Bush has laid the groundwork for an even bloodier civil war than the one we've seen so far.

Meanwhile, the humanitarian disaster created by Bush's war is growing worse:

Five years after the United States led an invasion of Iraq, millions of people there are still deprived of clean water and medical care, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Monday.

[...]

Some areas of the country of 27 million people have no functioning water and sanitation facilities, and the poor public water supply has forced some families to use at least a third of their average $150 monthly income buying clean drinking water.

In short, Iraq is still a bloody disaster and the surge hasn't fundamentally changed the situation. All it has accomplished is to reduce the pressure for compromise among Iraq's warring factions and given them time to rearm and regroup.

The Surge is Still Not Working

The surge isn't going too well:

A U.S. military spokesman said three American soldiers were killed in a rocket attack on their combat outpost south of Baghdad on Wednesday. The deaths bring to 12 the number of U.S. troops killed in three days.

Navy Lt. Patrick Evans, a military spokesman, told The Associated Press that the soldiers were killed on Combat Outpost Adder near Nasiriyah, about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad.

Two other American soldiers were injured in the rocket attack. Eight American soldiers died in separate attacks on Monday and one was killed Tuesday.

Iraqi civilian deaths are on the rise too (these numbers are deaths per day):

January: 20
February: 26
March: 39

The fact that the death toll is again on the rise provides ample evidence that George Bush's much vaunted surge strategy has failed miserably. The goal of the surge (in Bush's words himself) was to provide the environment where political reconciliation could take place. While violence did fall in the last quarter of 2007, the endlessly bickering Iraqi factions did not take advantage of the respite to forge a lasting peace.

And now we have built an army of 100,000 Sunni militia members whom the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government refuses to induct into the police or the military laying the groundwork for the bloody civil war that must eventually happen. But George Bush has almost accomplished what he set out to do: play out the clock on Iraq and dump the whole disaster on the next president. That way he thinks he can escape responsibility and his right-wing lackeys in the media and blogosphere will chortle on endlessly about how President Obama lost Iraq.

Meanwhile the Iraq War drags on, bankrupting the country and helping to drag us down into a severe recession. Billions have been squandered and hundreds of thousands of lives lost all for no gain. We've redrawn the strategic map of the Middle East putting the Iranians in the driver seat and our allies at risk.

George W Bush. Worse. President. Ever.

Obama Back on Top

The much ballyhooed Clinton "surge" has fizzled according to Gallup

Obama: 49%
Clinton: 44%

What's even more interesting is that Obama has padded his delegate lead during his "bad week" as Kos explains:

A reader passed on a full list of all the super delegates who announced the last six days their endorsements:

Obama

1. DNC Carol Fowler (SC), 3-4-08
2. Mary Long (GA), 3-4-08
3. Roy LaVerne Brooks (TX), 3-4-08
4. Rhine McLin (OH), 3-5-08
5. DNC Jane Kidd (GA), 3-5-08
6. DNC Darlena Williams-Burnett (IL), 3-5-08
7. DNC Connie Thurman (IN), 3-6-08
8. Rep. Nick Rahall (WV), 3-6-08
9. DNC Teresa Benitez-Thompson (NV), 3-6-08
10. DNC Alexandra Gallardo-Rooker (CA), 3-7-08
11. Rep. Bill Foster (IL), 3-9-08
12. DNC Mary Jo Neville (OH), 3-9-08

Clinton

1. Sen. Barbara Boxer (CA), 3-6-08
2. DNC Mona Mohib (DC), 3-6-08
3. DNC Aleita Huguenin (CA), 3-7-08
4. DNC Mary Lou Winters (LA), 3-8-08

So that's an 8-delegate advantage for Obama.

As for the elections:

Obama Clinton
OH 66 75
RI 8 13
VT 9 6
TX 99 94
WY 7 5

Total 189 193

That gives Obama a four-delegate victory since last Tuesday. Add the four delegate gain out of California after that state's vote was certified, and we're up to 8 delegates for Obama. Throw in the four delegates Clinton lost in California, and that's 12 delegates for Obama. Today we had DNC member and super delegate Everett Sanders of Mississippi endorsing Obama, so make that 13 delegates for Obama.

So officially, Obama has a 13-delegate advantage for the week even before Mississippi votes tomorrow. Throw in the unpledged delegate in Wyoming who will certainly be an Obama delegate, and unofficially, Obama notched a 14-delegate gain in this "week from hell" for him.

Drumbeat Grows Louder for Clinton Tax Returns

The mainstream media is finally taking an interest in this. From ABC News:

After weeks of intense pressure, and more than a year after announcing her presidential candidacy, Sen. Hillary Clinton has offered little explanation for why she has delayed releasing the tax returns made public by most other Democratic presidential candidates in recent years.

"What is the holdup?" said Sheila Krumholz of the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit group that tracks the role of money in politics. "She hasn't exactly made it clear as to what process is making it so cumbersome to just release them."

The laughable excuse that they keep offering is that her taxes won't be done until April 15. They seem oblivious to the fact that April 15 is the deadline for 2007 taxes. Not 2006 or 2005 or prior years. That they keep offering this as an excuse is an insult to the public's intelligence.

The Clintons certainly have cashed in on their celebrity status since Bill left the White House:

Since 1999, the couple's net worth has increased from somewhere between $1.25 million and $5.7 million to between $10 million and $50 million, according to filings. In 2006, the Clintons earned hundreds of thousands of dollars from book royalties, and former President Bill Clinton made $10 million in dozens of paid speeches.

The disclosures shed some light on President Clinton's role in two companies run by longtime friends and fundraisers. Clinton earned an unspecified amount as a consultant for InfoUsa, a data company run by longtime friend and fundraiser Vin Gupta, according to the filings. The forms also showed ten of thousands of dollars invested in funds with the Yucaipa Companies, a private equity firm run by another close friend, Ron Burkle.

Joe Klein rips Hillary on all of this:

Hillary is not fighting for the average worker. She is fighting to conceal evidence that she and Bill have exploited the kind of tax loopholes that are costing average working people who play by the rules many millions of dollars in tax revenue that could go toward paying for universal health care, education, housing relief, etc.

It gets even more interesting when we examine Clinton's ties with billionaire playboy Ron Burkle:

Even worse is the mystery surrounding Bill’s relationship with three Cayman Island-based global funds, run by his billionaire pal Ron Burkle. Through WJC International Investments GP, Bill Clinton has invested in Yucaipa Global Holdings and Yucaipa Global Partnership. The Yucaipa Global Partnership Fund “invests in securities of corporations that conduct significant operations in foreign countries.” Bill is one of three owners of the Yucaipa global fund’s general partner. The others are Mr. Burkle, who is the managing member, and an entity connected to the ruler of Dubai.

Bill is reportedly going to make around $20 million if he disentangles himself from this foreign-based relationship, as he said he would do in the event that Hillary wins the Democratic presidential nomination. Yet, in Hillary Clinton’s Public Financial Disclosure Report that she filed with the Federal Election Commission and signed on June 13, 2007, she indicated that the valuation of her spouse’s holdings in the Yucaipa Global Holdings and Yucaipa Global Partnership Fund did not exceed $15,000. Her 2006 Senate disclosure filing for the calendar year 2006, signed on May 15, 2007, lists the valuation of both these holdings at less than $1000! More miraculously than Hillary’s profits in cattle trading decades ago, the asset value of the Clintons’ Yucaipa global investments appears to have risen about two thousand percent in less than a year’s time when those financial disclosure filings were made - unless the filings were misleading in the first place. Of course, Hillary has not sought fit to amend her public financial disclosure filings accordingly.

Bill and Hillary. Change you can believe in.

Obama Halts Hilary's Momentum in Wyoming

Any momentum Hillary Clinton may have acquired from her wins in Ohio and Rhode Island hasn't carried over with the voters of Wyoming where Obama won today's caucus:

Obama: 61%
Clinton: 38%

The whole concept of "momentum" that the media likes to promote is probably more of a figment of their imagination than anything else. Just now on ABC News a reporter said that Obama now has to deal with a "surging" Hillary Clinton. This is utter nonsense. The net 10 delegates she gained on March 4 (which will likely be cut in half when the Texas caucus results are in) don't represent a "surge" at all; they are simply reflective of each candidate's relative strengths with the varying Democratic party constituencies.

Voters in Wyoming didn't wake up on March 5 and decide that they were going to switch their vote from Obama to Hillary because of what happened in far-away Ohio. By this point in the race most voters have already made up their minds, and they aren't going to be swayed by what happens in other states. The whole idea of "momentum" is simply a creation of the mainstream media that wants to keep you tuning in and watching their commercials for as long as possible.

If Hillary did in fact have any momentum she would not have been blown out of Wyoming by 23 points. I am sure she will whine about the caucus format again but the fact is that Wyoming with it's small black population and relative lack of affluent suburbanites should have been a state that played to her strengths.

The reality is that Obama's campaign continues to run circles around Hillary's and rack up delegates which are, after all, the name of the game. So, it's on to Mississippi where Hillary will once again try and fail to throw a monkey wrench into the Obama machine. Good luck.

From Rezko to Cattle Futures

You've got to love these conference calls that the Clinton campaign staff has with the media every day. Real Clear Politics has a post on how Clinton communications director Howard Wolfson has demanded that Obama be more forthcoming on his relationship with Tony Rezko:

"Obama had an opportunity yesterday to put some of the questions of his relationship with Mr. Rezko to rest," Wolfson said. "The bottom line is that Democrats are prepared to begin voting in Ohio, Texas, Rhode Island and Vermont, and there are many many more questions than answers in regards to the Rezko matter. Voters deserve answers."

Yes, I'm sure that the Rezko affair is the single-most important issue for voters going to the polls today. It's more important than NAFTA, the economy and the war in Iraq without a doubt.

The fact is that very, very few people voting in the Democratic Party have the slightest interest in the Rezko affair. Why? Because it reminds them of the incessant and endless Republican attacks on the Clintons during the 90's. We were subjected to an almost daily bombardment about the many and varied Clinton scandals for eight long, agonizing years. One after the other and they never amounted to much of anything because it is extremely difficult to prove these kinds of allegations.

Was Hillary's $100,000 profit at trading cattle futures really some sort of a kickback or payoff from someone she did favors for? To this day, no one really knows and Democratic primary voters certainly don't care. While the Clinton campaign has gotten down into the mud about the Obama-Rezko "scandal" Obama has steered clear of the many scandals that clouded Clinton presidency. I think that needs to change. It's time to start fighting fire with fire.

Ironically, we now see the Clinton campaign employing the same tactics that were used against them for so many years. What you do is repeatedly ask the same questions that have already been asked dozens of times before about an issue that challenges the integrity of your opponent. Never mind that those questions have all been asked and answered dozens of times before. Never mind that reporters have been poring over the details of the Obama-Rezko connection for years now and haven't found anything substantial to report. The idea is that if you repeat the same questions over and over again it will eventually ruin a politician in the eyes of the voters.

In keeping with the way the Clinton campaign thinks this campaign should be run I'd like to ask the following questions of Hillary:

• How did Hillary manage to score a $100,000 gain on trading cattle futures when she had no history or experience with that type of investment?


• Who assisted Hillary in making this trade? Was it her idea or did someone suggest it to her?


• Why did James Blair of Tyson Foods place most of the orders for the cattle futures?


• What is the extent of Hillary's ties with Tyson Foods? Has she ever done any work for that company?

All questions that have been asked and answered countless times before. All questions that Democratic Party primary voters couldn't care less about. But, nevertheless, turnabout is fair play. Hillary needs to come forward with answers and put this issue to rest once and for all.

Surge Euphoria is Wildly Misplaced

It seems nearly every day we are bombarded with the "surge is working" mantra by right-wing war apologists and their willing accomplices in the media. In reality, the deep fissures and conflicts bubbling just under the surface are just waiting for the appropriate moment to break out and destroy this false sense of euphoria about Iraq. As an example, consider the question about the future of Kirkuk:

The struggle between Kurds and Arabs for control of the city of Kirkuk and its oil amounts to a "ticking time bomb'' in northern Iraq, according to the new United Nations envoy trying to broker a settlement.

Mediator Staffan de Mistura said in an interview that he has about four months left to solve "the mother of all crises'' in Iraq. "If that takes place, we will have contributed substantially to avoiding a new conflict at the worst possible time,'' he said.

The Bush administration's approach to Kirkuk has been the same as it's approach to every other conflict facing the faltering Iraqi state: paper over the differences and play out the clock until it's all someone else's problem. The next president will inherit an Iraq that continues to descend deeper into crisis despite the presence of 150,000 US troops and the expenditure of billions of US dollars.

The whole question of Kurdish autonomy and self-government is one that will be with us for years to come and will most likely result in a bloody war of independence pitting allies of the US against each other. In the Sunni areas of Iraq, militias that have been organized, financed and armed by the US present a grave threat to the central regime in Baghdad. In the south, powerful Shiite militias hold sway and are gradually enforcing a strict regime of Islamic law that is completely contrary to the democratic and open society that President Bush hoped to foster in Iraq.

The Iraqi state continues to fragment internally while powerful regional players like Iran and Turkey work to tear it apart at the edges and establish their spheres of influence. While the administration sleepwalks through it's last year providing no effective leadership or plan for success, the situation continues to deteriorate and will pose an enormous challenge on multiple fronts for the next administration.

Rove Warns Republicans off the "Hussein" Game

Yes, we all know by now that Barack Obama's middle name is Hussein. How ironic that the leading presidential candidate for the Democratic Party would have a middle name that is the same as the last name of the evil dictator that our troops brought down just five years ago.

Yet, we all know that in this life none of us gets to choose our names. While many on the right are having great fun endlessly repeating "Barack Hussein Obama" none other than Karl Rove is warning his fellow Republicans away from this course:

"The context was, you're not going to stimatize this guy. You shouldn't underestimate him," one of the executive directors said. Rove said that the use of "Barack Hussein Obama" would perpetuate the notion that Republicans were bigoted and would hurt the party.

I rarely agree with Karl Rove, but on this issue I think he is right on target. And that's why I hope the right-wing blogosphere and talk-show hosts continue to use Obama's middle name as often as possible. I'm sincerely hoping that Rush creates one of his famous parodies (remember "Barack the Magic Negro") and plays it over and over endlessly until November.

I know a lot of Republicans (hey, I used to be one until last month when I registered Democrat to vote for Obama) and I know most of them are not bigoted. But by pursuing this game of repeating Hussein at every opportunity they send a subtle message to all people whose color and ethnicity does not match the standard white Anglo-Saxon mold.

The message is that you're somehow different from the rest of us and you'll never really be accepted by us. In a country with rapidly expanding minority populations that puts the Republican Party at an enormous disadvantage in winning over groups that are absolutely vital to restoring their majority status in Congress and capturing the presidency.

Making fun of Obama's middle name may be good red meat for a Republican rally and fire up the base, but it's a turn-off to independent voters who will decide the presidential election and determine the balance of power in Congress.