Other Music from a... Different Kitchen

On his way to confirmation as U.S. ambassador to Iraq, the current U.N. envoy John Negroponte was busily twisting language like a pretzel at a Senate hearing the other day. The new Baghdad regime, to be installed on June 30, will have sovereignty. Well, sort of. Negroponte explained: "That is why I use the term 'exercise of sovereignty.' I think in the case of military activity, their forces will come under the unified command of the multinational force. That is the plan."

In other words, the Baghdad government will be praised as the embodiment of Iraqi sovereignty while the U.S. military continues to do whatever Washington wants it to do in Iraq -- including order the Iraqi military around. Negroponte talked about "real dialogue between our military commanders, the new Iraqi government and, I think, the United States mission as well." But ultimately, he said, the American military "is going to have the freedom to act in their self-defense, and they’re going to be free to operate in Iraq as they best see fit."

The disconnect between democracy rhetoric and imperial reality is glaring enough to require some media acknowledgment. [emphasis added] During an April 25 interview on NPR’s Weekend Edition, a former adviser to the Iraq occupation authority discussed the Bush administration’s concept of "limited sovereignty" for Iraqi people. "The sovereign of the country is the power that has the last say," law professor Noah Feldman commented, "and you can’t really have the last say in a country unless you command the army. So in a sense, you can’t really claim to be sovereign if someone else runs your army."

But the gaping holes in the U.S. stance are being largely papered over in news coverage. [emphasis added] Part of the process is for major American media outlets to simultaneously acknowledge and deny fundamental contradictions between the Bush administration’s rhetoric about democracy and its actual policies. (full story)

Sinclair Broadcast Group, one of the largest owners of local television stations, will pre-empt tonight's edition of the ABC News program "Nightline," saying the program's plan to have Ted Koppel read aloud the names of every member of the armed forces killed in action in Iraq was motivated by an antiwar agenda and threatened to undermine American efforts there. (full story)

We are in a terrible bind, "a nightmare" Ritter told me. We put oursleves there, with 8,000 bombs, 130,000 troops. We toppled Saddam's statue. Yeah, mission accomplished. Quagmire accomplished. "The preseident went to war on a prayer."

So, we broke Iraq. We created a leadership void and set loose not just hope but all the country's desperate, vying factions, and opened doors for foreign interests as well to back their favorite militants and try to gain influence and control in the country. Like the sorcerer's apprentice, we created chaos.

"There is no plan. There is no exit strategy," Ritter said. "We are in a nightmare that will last at least four more years.... the longer we stay, the more radical it wll be."