I’m Still Tortured by What I Saw in Iraq
By Matthew Alexander, Washington Post

Update: The author was interviewed extensively on Democracy Now! today.

I should have felt triumphant when I returned from Iraq in August 2006. Instead, I was worried and exhausted. My team of interrogators had successfully hunted down one of the most notorious mass murderers of our generation, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq and the mastermind of the campaign of suicide bombings that had helped plunge Iraq into civil war. But instead of celebrating our success, my mind was consumed with the unfinished business of our mission: fixing the deeply flawed, ineffective and un-American way the U.S. military conducts interrogations in Iraq. I’m still alarmed about that today.

I’m not some ivory-tower type; I served for 14 years in the U.S. Air Force, began my career as a Special Operations pilot flying helicopters, saw combat in Bosnia and Kosovo, became an Air Force counterintelligence agent, then volunteered to go to Iraq to work as a senior interrogator. What I saw in Iraq still rattles me – both because it betrays our traditions and because it just doesn’t work.

Violence was at its peak during my five-month tour in Iraq. In February 2006, the month before I arrived, Zarqawi’s forces (members of Iraq’s Sunni minority) blew up the golden-domed Askariya mosque in Samarra, a shrine revered by Iraq’s majority Shiites, and unleashed a wave of sectarian bloodshed. Reprisal killings became a daily occurrence, and suicide bombings were as common as car accidents. It felt as if the whole country was being blown to bits.

Is it change we can believe in, or just the sputterings of overly hopeful tea leaf readers on the cusp of a long overdue administration switch? I think it’s too early to say, but at least people are being more upfront about the situation we find ourselves mired in with regard to the Israeli Occupation.

From Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski:

Resolution of the Palestinian issue would have a positive impact on the region. It would liberate Arab governments to support U.S. leadership in dealing with regional problems, as they did before the Iraq invasion. It would dissipate much of the appeal of Hezbollah and Hamas, dependent as it is on the Palestinians’ plight. It would change the region’s psychological climate, putting Iran back on the defensive and putting a stop to its swagger.

The major elements of an agreement are well known. A key element in any new initiative would be for the U.S. president to declare publicly what, in the view of this country, the basic parameters of a fair and enduring peace ought to be. These should contain four principal elements: 1967 borders, with minor, reciprocal and agreed-upon modifications; compensation in lieu of the right of return for Palestinian refugees; Jerusalem as real home to two capitals; and a nonmilitarized Palestinian state.

It should also be pointed out that Obama is reaching out to the Scowcroft circle for foreign policy input. He’s tapped people like Richard Lugar, Richard Haas, indicated he’ll retain Robert Gates, and of course got Colin Powell’s endorsement. All of those guys share Scowcroft’s general pragmatic worldview.

Andrew Sullivan posts this little note from Henry Blodget:

Ford, GM, and Chrysler are done for regardless, Obama. Bailing them out yet again won’t fix them. It will just prolong the agony.

Obama is more likely concerned about the 3 million jobs that might be lost if the Big Three auto makers collapse:

The major automakers — G.M., Ford and Chrysler — are each using up their cash at unsustainable rates. The Center for Automotive Research, which is based in Michigan and supported by the industry, released on Election Day an economic analysis of the impact of one or all of them failing. If the Big Three were to collapse, it said, that would cost at least three million jobs, counting autoworkers, suppliers and other businesses dependent on the companies, down to the hot-dog vendors and bartenders next door to their plants. [NY Times]

Granted, that’s an estimate from CAR (.pdf) which is funded by the auto industry. But presume for a second that they are overestimating it 2-to-1; that’s 1.5 million jobs lost. Imagine if that happened as fast as the last round of finance collapses occurred. Frightening.

During this election cycle, many friends of mine who would position themselves well on the left side of our political spectrum, including self-defined anarchists and even communists, told me repeatedly that the political system we have is totally corrupt and not worth investing into. We all know folks who are more interested in pop culture and MTV than they are of politics and C-SPAN. Many of us laugh at just how disconnected and willfully uninformed they are of the issues of the day. Yet I heard from as many or more of my lefty friends the exact same sentiment.

One good friend who is as politically engaged in our local community through grassroots organizing and activism as you can be told me that they could not name one single position that Obama had taken in this campaign.

While I am not indifferent to their concerns (and in fact share many of them), the simple truth of the matter is totally the opposite. There are major differences between the divides in our political landscape and Obama represents more than just a symbolic victory for the (insert your favorite) minority group.

Today’s Washington Post has an interesting article that, I think, perfectly sums up the impact that the President can have if they are attuned to the American people, cognizant of the key issues of the time, and progressive in their general outlook.

Obama Positioned to Quickly Reverse Bush Actions

While this isn’t exactly a new statement, this is, perhaps, the most direct and blunt Haniyeh has been about Hamas’ developing position.

By Amira Hass, Haaretz Correspondent and News Agencies

The Hamas leader in Gaza, Ismail Haniyeh, said on Saturday his government was willing to accept a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.

The Hamas leader spoke at a meeting with 11 European parliamentarians who sailed from Cyprus to the Gaza Strip to protest Israel’s naval blockade of the territory. Haniyeh told his guests Israel rejected his initiative.

Clare Short, who served in the cabinet of former British prime minister Tony Blair, asked Haniyeh to repeat his offer. He said the Hamas government had agreed to accept a Palestinian state that followed the 1967 borders and to offer Israel a long-term hudna, or truce, if Israel recognized the Palestinians’ national rights.

In response to a question about the international community’s impression that there are two Palestinian states, Haniyeh said: “We don’t have a state, neither in Gaza nor in the West Bank. Gaza is under siege and the West Bank is occupied. What we have in the Gaza Strip is not a state, but rather a regime of an elected government. A Palestinian state will not be created at this time except in the territories of 1967.”