Maine Owl

Rep. Chellie Pingree discusses recent South Asia trip:


h/t Gerald at Turn Maine Blue

Here the tenor of Representative Pingree's remarks on Iraq is a little different (in a good way) than what I read in the newspaper yesterday. Primarily she omits the "victory" formulation here. Still, I think in speaking of improvements in the immediate situation, she avoids addressing the overall devastation. You'll see what I mean if you read Dahr Jamail's SITE. Dahr has been in Iraq for a month now.

Meanwhile, we must be very skeptical about "withdrawal" plans, as the Pentagon is fixing to push against withdrawal.

New Maine 1st District Representative unimpressive in borderline jingoistic comments after recent South Asia trip

If anything, Representative Chellie Pingree has a conventional Democrat-Obama position on the current U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But she did run on a platform suggesting she would be a stronger anti-war advocate, stating,

Pingree: We must end the war now. Congress must stop funding the war and rescind its authorization if the administration refuses to make plans for immediate withdrawal. We can't continue to squander our resources on the worst foreign policy mistake in our country's history. Leaving will be complicated, but staying only continues the tragic loss of our soldiers, Iraqi citizens, and almost unthinkable amounts of money.

Now that she is in office and traveling to the Pentagon beachheads, the tune is different. In a story in today's Bangor Daily News--"Pingree returns to U.S. after Middle East visit" (apparently not yet on line, follow-up to this one), Pingree is quoted saying that she is "closer to understanding what U.S. forces need to do to achieve victory in Iraq" and that "U.S. military and reconstruction campaign in Iraq has achieved some success."

These lines could have been written for George W. Bush.

What about the prospects for the "immediate withdrawal" she ran on? According to the BDN story, "She said it is too soon to tell, however, whether democracy will stand on its own there after American forces withdraw. 'That was one of the key questions that we asked over and over again: What is going to slide back when we leave, and what can we achieve with our limited resources? ... I don't think I came to a final answer on this, but I got a lot of information that is going to help make a final decision."

Again, this isn't much of an anti-war position. No longer is there mention of "tragic loss of our soldiers, Iraqi citizens." In fact, it is extremely disheartening that Pingree could return from Iraq and fail to communicate concern about the devastation of the Iraqi people and looting of Iraqi and reconstruction resources under U.S. occupation, preferring instead to use the Bush-McCain frame of military "victory."

It's not like she never makes such comments about the failure of military solutions, as reported HERE: "If there's one thing we've learned, it's that we can't do this all by military force, ... brutalizing people with weapons isn't going to repair what's going on," Pingree said.

But I think she is going to have to do a lot better than adopting the jingoism and paternalism implicit in these American military adventures.

More on rampant American corruption

Proper context from Patrick Cockburn.

A 'fraud' bigger than Madoff
Senior US soldiers investigated over missing Iraq reconstruction billions
By Patrick Cockburn in Sulaimaniyah, Northern Iraq - Monday, 16 February 2009

In what could turn out to be the greatest fraud in US history, American authorities have started to investigate the alleged role of senior military officers in the misuse of $125bn (?88bn) in a US -directed effort to reconstruct Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein. The exact sum missing may never be clear, but a report by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) suggests it may exceed $50bn, making it an even bigger theft than Bernard Madoff's notorious Ponzi scheme. ...

Despite the vast sums expended on rebuilding by the US since 2003, there have been no cranes visible on the Baghdad skyline except those at work building a new US embassy and others rusting beside a half-built giant mosque that Saddam was constructing when he was overthrown.

Last year I wondered how the U.S. embassy in Baghdad -- "empire's architecture" -- "doesn't look like a huge insult and provocation to every decent Iraqi."

New York Times now interested in war "graft" and "bribes" as military heads (slowly) begin to roll

It's been over five years since I began covering how a major objective of the U.S. occupation has been to steal Iraq's money and also that of the U.S. taxpayer. In fact, the "privatization" (theft) program for Iraq was the topic of my second-ever blog post.

Indeed the occupation was set up for theft through legal immunity. This allowed, during 2003 and 2004, $20 billion of Iraqi oil revenue, including billions left in the coffers by Saddam Hussein, to be flat out misappropriated and disappeared after the U.S. gained legal control of the country's government through U.N. Security Counsel resolution 1483 in May 2003.

Firms like Custer-Battles long have been under scrutiny, first by only a handful of Democratic lawmakers. At that time during late 2004 and early 2005, laughable hysteria about the U.N. Oil-for-Food program was the faux raison d'etre of Republican "investigations" of the day.

The horrid loser Senator Norm Coleman of Minnesota working under the animated full-committee leadership of Maine's Susan Collins operated a subcommittee more interested in proven-phony reports on Kofi Annan and British politician George Galloway than the American criminals operating right under their noses. Despite pleas from leading Democrats, Collins actively refused to investigate, failing to see the irony in her indignation over the by-comparison puny issues of corruption in the Oil-for-Food program during the then in-the-past Saddam Hussein period.

The story of just who was responsible for this American culture of stealing is being filled in now years later. It doesn't look good for the U.S. military and those who were charged to supervise the occupation:

Inquiry on Graft in Iraq Focuses on U.S. Officers
By JAMES GLANZ, C.J. CHIVERS and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Published: February 14, 2009

Federal authorities examining the early, chaotic days of the $125 billion American-led effort to rebuild Iraq have significantly broadened their inquiry to include senior American military officers who oversaw the program, according to interviews with senior government officials and court documents. ...

Former American officials describe payments to local contractors from huge sums of cash dumped onto tables and stuffed into sacks as if it were Halloween candy. ...

The story is full of shady characters, suicide, and murder on the highways of Iraq. "An extraordinary element of the current investigation is a voice from beyond the grave."

The Times produces a quote from associates of the killed man describing the "clandestine delivery of bribes" as "a classic New York scenario." I bet you didn't know we sent Pauley Walnuts to occupy the oil-rich country.

And Collins? She's naked on this issue. But you wouldn't know it from the way she is allowed in local media to "dismiss" criticism of her performance as "political gamesmanship."