PERMANENT BASES IN IRAQ?

Lots in the news these days. Rumsfeld gets some face time with protesters in Atlanta and he lies on camera saying that he'd never said that Iraq had WMD. The CIA director just resigned, some speculating it is connected to the new military industrial complex - prostitution scandal.

The House of Representatives voted on April 26 to pass the Iran Freedom Support Act by a vote of 397-21. Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) calls it "a steppingstone to war." My own Congressman Tom Allen (D-ME) voted in favor of the bill.

The House and Senate passed amendments to the recent appropriation of $72 billion for Iraq that say the U.S. won't be building permanent bases there. Who believes this? The construction money was appropriated two years ago and now they are building 14 long-term U.S. bases in Iraq. The new U.S. embassy in Baghdad, costing $772 million, will be our largest state department outpost in the whole world. Built to be permanent.

Why do the politicians pull tricks like this? Say we are not going to stay in Iraq but then look how long we have been in Japan, Korea, Germany. Do they think we are that stupid?

One sad thing is that some in the peace movement, so hungry for some sign of a victory, are falling for this no permanent bases lie.

The same Democratic senator, Joe Biden from Deleware, who pushed the no permanent bases in Iraq is now pushing the break-up of Iraq into three separate entities. Maybe that is how they will get around this whole "no permanent bases" shell game. They will say, "See Iraq does not exist anymore. We never said we would not have permanent bases in the three separate autonomous regions that have now been set up."

I just remember what I heard Hillary Clinton say on TV last year. "We're going to be in Iraq a long time," she told Faze the Nation.

That's how these things seem to go. Let's just watch and see what happens.