News for July 1

The Long Goodbye

By Pat Bagley/Salt Lake Tribune

Iraqis began celebrating Tuesday as U.S. troops withdrew from towns and cities, and handed over responsibilities for municipal security to local forces. U.S. troops, however, will not be quit of the country for another two years. What does that mean for the future of Iraq? Links include:

MoJo Blogs |  “The general consensus seems to be that this is a big deal.  And in one sense it unquestionably is: in a lot of ways, the “surge” was less about the number of new troops sent to Iraq than it was about the way they were deployed.  Gen. David Petraeus insisted from the beginning that they establish a direct presence in neighborhoods throughout Baghdad and other cities, and that presence — along with several other factors — played a substantial role in reducing violence.  Now that presence is gone.”

The Economist |  “Nothing is so clear cut in Iraq. For a start, despite the official claims, many Americans will remain within cities. American trainers will stay embedded with Iraqi units, and those trainers themselves will be protected by other American troops. (The American forces still worry about attacks from within the ranks of the Iraqi army). All told, at least 10,000 trainers, and possibly thousands more, will remain in Iraq’s urban areas.”

Informed Comment |  “I was talking to a US military officer who had been in Baghdad in December, and he told me that he thought that Iraqi troops were now capable of patrolling independently, something he would not have said a year or two earlier. If they get into trouble, he said, they stand and fight. They still have poor logistical support. If the firefight lasts 5 hours rather than one hour, they might be in trouble because no one is bringing them ammunition and water. Az-Zaman writes in Arabic that the governor of Najaf remarked Sunday that US troops would still provide logistical support to Iraqi ones, despite the end of routine American patrols.”

The Brookings Institution |  “As U.S. troops withdraw back to their bases in Iraq, questions remain about Iraq’s ability to maintain security and stability in the country. Iraq’s leadership, military, and police force face a number of challenges ahead as they assume control, but as Senior Fellow Kenneth Pollack explains, Iraqis are eager to end the so-called U.S. occupation and establish their sovereignty.”

Truthdig |  “Despite the presence of 131,000 U.S. troops who will remain in Iraq, there is no political support at home for anything that would look like an open-ended reassertion of American military control. Besides, the removal of troops from urban areas is mostly cosmetic, as American forces have merely been redeployed to less visible areas on the outskirts of central cities, according to Joost Hiltermann, deputy program director for the Middle East at the nonpartisan International Crisis Group. “In any case, they are available if called upon or invited by the Iraqi security forces. That’s the main thing,” he said in a phone interview from Amman, Jordan. “It is a formal handover and the Iraqis are allowed to claim victory. But a whole lot doesn’t change.””

The Cost of the Hashtag Revolution  |  The American Prospect

Twitter is becoming a genuinely important political tool — collectively, we seem to be making it into something essential. It’s probably worth asking whether this is a good idea.

Twitter is far from the only online tool being used for political ends, but it’s one of the few that is both a medium and a company. Yahoo.com might handle your e-mail, but if it went down, the e-mail system would still work. Google search is important, but its disappearance wouldn’t make the sites it indexes stop working, and there are plenty of search engines that would be glad to take its place.

Twitter is not like that. If it went away, that would be that. Your tweets and your contacts would vanish. And this is largely by necessity. Most Internet technologies are decentralized. Twitter is just the opposite: Its hub-and-spoke architecture enables the network effects that make it worthwhile.

The Mullah’s Secret Battle  |  The Daily Beast

Either way, it now appears likely that the fate of Iran depends on which way the clerical establishment falls. If they can be convinced that the rise of the Revolutionary Guard is a threat to their stewardship of the Islamic republic, then they will side with the reformers aligned with Rafsanjani and Mousavi, if for no other reason than to remain significant. In that case, Iran may begin to resemble China, a country ruled by an oligarchy but with greater freedoms for its people and open to the international community.

If, however, the clerics side with Khamenei, who every day looks more like an aged patsy of the Revolutionary Guard, then Iran could conceivably become a military state akin to North Korea or Myanmar.

The Truth Alone Will Not Set You Free  |  Chris Hedges @Truthdig

American culture—or cultures, for we once had distinct regional cultures—was systematically destroyed in the 20th century by corporations. These corporations used mass communication, as well as an understanding of the human subconscious, to turn consumption into an inner compulsion. Old values of thrift, regional identity that had its own iconography, aesthetic expression and history, diverse immigrant traditions, self-sufficiency, a press that was decentralized to provide citizens with a voice in their communities were all destroyed to create mass, corporate culture. New desires and habits were implanted by corporate advertisers to replace the old. Individual frustrations and discontents could be solved, corporate culture assured us, through the wonders of consumerism and cultural homogenization. American culture, or cultures, was replaced with junk culture and junk politics. And now, standing on the ash heap, we survey the ruins. The very slogans of advertising and mass culture have become the idiom of common expression, robbing us of the language to make sense of the destruction. We confuse the manufactured commodity culture with American culture.

Time for Immigration Reform is Now  |  New American Media

Our nation needs comprehensive immigration policies that will replace a broken system of raids and roundups with one that protects all workers from exploitation, improves America’s security and builds strong communities. It’s time to end the division between workers, which has allowed big business to exploit both sides. Clearly, working-class citizens and immigrant workers have much in common – dreams of better homes, education for their families and quality healthcare. There is more that brings us together, than separates us. United we can be a strong force for change, changes that that bring more workforce safety and humane conditions.

Related link: A Hora para a Reforma Imigratoría é Agora  |  New American Media