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Senator Russ Feingold

Senator Voinovich

Senator Joe Biden

Well, isn’t this refreshing. From TPMMuckraker:

GOP Sen: “Simply Appealing for More Time to Make Progress Is Insufficient”

Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, immediately cast a different tone on the Republican side than the one that prevailed throughout the earlier hearing, led by the ranking member on that committee, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

Earlier, McCain started from the assumption of what success means and seemed to take for granted the means of achieving it. Lugar’s take was much different.

In his opening statement, Lugar offered a sweeping analysis of the situation in Iraq and concluded that today’s hearing was actually much different than the one held last September:

At that time, the President was appealing to Congress to allow the surge to continue to create breathing space for a political accommodation. Today the questions are whether and how improvements in security can be converted into political gains that can stabilize Iraq despite the impending drawdown of U.S. troops. Simply appealing for more time to make progress is insufficient. The debate over how much progress we have made and whether we can make more is less illuminating than determining whether the Administration has a definable political strategy that recognizes the time limitations we face and seeks a realistic outcome designed to protect American vital interests.

Senator Dodd at Iraq hearing

If I had read the following article just a few, short years ago, I would have been knocked to the floor in shock. But now, knowing we will eventually see that $4.00/gallon, and knowing big oil is making HUGE PROFITS, profits that they defended in a Senate hearing, I’m not phased. Saddened and disgusted, but not phased.

Gov’t says gas prices could hit $4

NEW YORK - Retail gas prices could climb as high as $4 a gallon this summer, but prices at such lofty levels will make many Americans think twice about hitting the road this summer, the Energy Department said Tuesday.

High prices and a weak economy are expected to cut demand for gasoline by about 0.4 percent during the peak summer driving season, the department’s Energy Information Administration said in a monthly report on petroleum supplies and demand. Overall consumption of petroleum products will drop by 90,000 barrels a day this year. Previously, the EIA had projected petroleum consumption would rise by 40,000 barrels a day.

Average monthly gas prices will peak around $3.60 a gallon in June, the EIA said. However, prices could rise much higher than that at times.

Nir Rosen’s consistently delivered some of the best coverage on Iraq, which we’ve featured in August 2007 and March 2008. Here’s some other recent Rosen appearances.

Rosen spoke with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! on 4/1/08. He has harsh words for both Democrats and Republicans on Iraq. Some excerpts:
Read more »

Had enough of the propaganda today? Let’s see what Juan Cole reports.

COST OF OCCUPATION IN IRAQ: $3 TRILLION ESTIMATE TOO LOW

ANXIETY RISES OVER VULNERABLE HOUSING IN GREEN ZONE

THE ECONOMIC COSTS OF THE ENDLESS WAR

AMERICAN SOLDIERS SPEAK OUT ABOUT THEIR PRESIDENTIAL ENDORSEMENTS

SADR THREATENS TO END IRAQ TRUCE

BAGHDAD TO IMPOSE VEHICLE CURFEW

SECRET U.S. PLAN FOR MILITARY FUTURE IN IRAQ

Senator Graham (get puke bucket at the ready)
General David Petraeus Testimony
Senate Armed Services Committee

If you can stand it…….. Joe Liebermann

Senator Clinton questioning Petraeus

Senator Kennedy

by Tom Engelhardt

Yes, their defensive zone is the planet and they patrol it regularly. As ever, their planes and drones have been in the skies these last weeks. They struck a village in Somalia, tribal areas in Pakistan, rural areas in Afghanistan, and urban neighborhoods in Iraq. Their troops are training and advising the Iraqi army and police as well as the new Afghan army, while their Special Operations forces are planning to train Pakistan’s paramilitary Frontier Corps in that country’s wild, mountainous borderlands.

Their Vice President arrived in Baghdad not long before the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki launched its recent (failed) offensive against cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia in the southern oil city of Basra. To “discuss” their needs in their President’s eternal War on Terror, two of their top diplomats, a deputy secretary of state and an assistant secretary of state for South Asian affairs, arrived in Pakistan — to the helpless outrage of the local press — on the very day newly elected Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani was being given the oath of office. (”I don’t think it is a good idea for them to be here on this particular day… right here in Islamabad, meeting with senior politicians in the new government, trying to dictate terms…” was the way Zaffar Abbas, editor of the newspaper Dawn, put it.)

At home, their politicians have nationally televised debates in which they fervently discuss just how quickly they would launch air assaults against Pakistan’s tribal areas, without permission from the Pakistani government but based on “actionable intelligence” on terrorists. Their drones cruise the skies of the world looking for terrorist suspects to — in the phrase of the hour — “take out.” Agents from their intelligence services have, these last years, roamed the planet, kidnapping terrorist suspects directly off the streets of major cities and transporting them to their own secret prisons, or those of other countries willing to employ torture methods. Their spy satellites circle the globe listening in on conversations wherever they please, while their military has divided the whole planet into “commands,” the last of which, Africom, was just formed.

More at Tom Dispatch

Time. This war has been about time. Always, more time. Endless time for an endless war.

Do yourself, your fellow man and your country a big favor today and tell the warmongering Petraeus to FUCK OFF ALREADY!

Top general in Iraq war to urge patience

WASHINGTON - The four’star general in charge of Iraq wants more time in a war that is now in its sixth year. Democrats say he’s got until the November elections.

Gen. David Petraeus planned to testify Tuesday on the war for the first time in seven months. He was expected to tell two Senate committees that last year’s influx of 30,000 troops in Iraq had helped calm some of the sectarian violence but that to prevent a backslide in security, troops would likely be needed in large numbers through the end of the year. [...]

Democrats contend that this approach guarantees an open-ended commitment to a $10-billion-a-month war as the economy at home is faltering. They say the lack of political progress made in Iraq, as well as the recent spike in violence in Basra, indicates the troop buildup has failed.

“We need a strategy that will clearly shift the burden to the Iraqis, that’ll begin to take the pressure off our forces, begin to allow us to respond to other challenges in the region and worldwide,” said Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., a member of the Armed Services Committee.