Today, speaking at Annapolis in front of yet another controlled audience, George Bush finally addressed the issue that’s been on everyone’s mind of late – does the United States have a realistic exit strategy and will they put it into motion?

According to today’s speech, President Bush’s position is that a US withdrawal from Iraq will only happen after a defined victory has been achieved, which is detailed in the National Security Council’s National Strategy For Victory In Iraq, which, not surprisingly, includes the use of human rights as justification for continued US occupation. From Part 1: Strategic Overview - Victory in Iraq is a Vital U.S. Interest…

“Middle East reformers would never again fully trust American assurances of support for democracy and human rights in the region – a historic opportunity lost.�

One first has to define what is meant by ‘Middle East reformers’. Given the context of the strategy, and US hegemony to this point, one can only assume that it is referring to those that adhere to a marginalized democratic understanding wholly based on a US model.

This statement is also a prime example of how those who abuse human rights attempt to use them to support their own agendas when convenient. Were the Bush administration truly concerned about human rights it would conduct its own affairs accordingly. It would not maintain secret locations for purposes of detention and interrogation (without informing the International Red Cross), nor would it deny those captured their rights under international law and the Geneva Conventions. There is little doubt that a structured policy resulted in the abuses at Abu Ghraib, FOB Tiger, and Bagram, among others, just as there is little doubt that the US has used rendition in its efforts to acquire intelligence.

The US is no example to anyone when it comes to the safeguarding of human rights, and by the precedents it has set over the last four years, has seriously damaged global human rights standards.

This strategy does nothing more than placate the continued fantastical perceptions of those minds in Washington that have supported this agenda since the early 90’s. It does nothing to soberly address the complexities of present day Iraq whatsoever, and strangely suggests that the Iaqi army, which is currently fraught with complications, is to be employed as the primary deterrent in what President Bush has referred to as ‘the central front in the war on terror’. By way of this assertion, the Bush administration places itself in what it must surely view as a ‘win - win’ situation.

In Cairo recently, the government of Ibrahim Jaafari accepted the demand for a call to withdrawal coalition forces. One wonders how the United States will react. It certainly doesn’t fit into the National Strategy For Victory’s framework, yet presents a serious challenge to US assertions that they support the democratic sovereignty of the new Iraqi government.

Today’s speech was simply another example of President Bush talking tough, leaving an overstretched, undermanned, and battle fatigued military, primarily populated by the nation’s impoverished, to pay the price.

As an interesting aside, the following from the LA times might interest you…

“As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq.

The articles, written by U.S. military “information operations” troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor, according to U.S. military officials and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.”

How, exactly, does one reach the conclusion that by wanting to end a war, those fighting it aren’t being supported? It seems to me that the best way to support a soldier is to promote peace, and thus their removal from a situation that could very well claim their life.

Trumpeted in response to what is inevitably labeled ‘simplistic thinking’ by pro-war pundits, is that this war must be fought for national security reasons (if not to save the world itself from evil), and that those currently fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are, in fact, fighting to protect the freedoms of others. That sort of logic has been employed since the end of the Second World War, cost millions of lives in the process, and resulted in little more than the survival of one corrupted ideology and the defeat of another. Those that use human rights concerns as justification for military action still largely do so to promote their own agendas. The rights and prosperity of multinationals are still placed above the rights and prosperity of people, and, as an additional slap in the face, we’re led to believe that without them the possibilities of prosperity are limited. Lastly, to add insult to injury, mythologized history gives credit to those whose policies were merely a smoke screen for the real risk takers - men such as Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, for example.

The American people have no control over the military apparatus of their country, yet some think it inexcusable to question it. Of course, that’s precisely why they have no control over it and it’s allowed to view them as little more than adjuncts. Like it or not, that’s America’s reality.

How do those that support the war, and use Iraqi’s pseudo-democratic progress as proof that it’s been successful, feel about the recent position adopted by Iraqi Prime Minister Jaafari in Cairo? Not only have the three factions of the Iraqi government unanimously called for foreign troops to leave Iraq, but Jaafari has now conformed to the idea that attacks on US troops by Iraqi guerrilla’s are a legitimate form of resistance to foreign occupation. And, as Juan Cole recently commented…

“… we now know that back channel negotiations with the guerrilla movement were taking place in Cairo, and these provisions may have been an attempt to reach out to them and bring them in from the cold. Such a move would be in the interest not only of Jaafari, but also of the United States, and the latter may therefore not have protested very much about what were after all pretty painful agreements. (It seems to me unprecedented for a government fighting a guerrilla movement actually to acknowledge the legitimacy of the guerrilla group’s attacks on it and its allies!)â€?

While the CIA played games in Cairo, working to make inroads with various insurgent factions in an attempt to combat the al-Zarqawi group, the US allowed the Iraqi government’s legitimization of attacks against US troops to pass without comment.

How do those driving that pickup truck feel about that?

The last fifty years of Guatemalan history shares similarities to numerous other Latin American counties, such as El Salvador and Chile. Besides being exploited by foreign interests, it has had to endure the violent legacy of US interference and their support for corrupt and violent regimes.

Guatemala’s road into chaos began when, in 1954, its democratically elected leader, Jacobo Arbenz Guzman, was removed by a CIA backed coup, better known as Operation PBSUCCESS. (more…)