The end of the occupation of Iraq

The Swords of Qādisīyah, Baghdad (Wikipedia)

The AP reports today that:

The U.S. is abandoning plans to keep U.S. troops in Iraq past a year-end withdrawal deadline, The Associated Press has learned. The decision to pull out fully by January will effectively end more than eight years of U.S. involvement in the Iraq war, despite ongoing concerns about its security forces and the potential for instability.

It is significant to note that this is the culmination of a status of forces agreement negotiated by the Bush administration in 2008, and which the Obama administration (or, rather, the bi-partisan military industrial consensus) has been trying to find a way to weasel out of every since.

Unsuccessfully.  Because whoever holds the political power in Iraq right now, which might mean Muqtada Al-Sadr or even Iran, held firm and demanded the end to military occupation.

While there are plenty of caveats to the U.S. forces' departure, including the remaining thousands of "diplomats" and private contractors to try to protect them, this is still a vindication for those of us who have opposed this illegal war and occupation from the beginning, and aggressive empire building more generally.

But mostly, history will record this as independence day for the new Iraq, whatever form that takes.  I for one hope it doesn't take the form of a theocratic dictatorship or a bloody civil war, but that will be up to the Iraqis. 

And that is as it should be.

On Labor Day, losing the class war over language

Nine Workmen by James Chapin

There is a good column by E.J. Dionne in the WaPo about the disappearance of the working class from popular culture.

I've been noticing for many years that the working class is disappearing from our LANGUAGE as well.

It's not just the Republicans, who of course hate everything about the working class, and only recognize that some people do actual labor when they are self-employed entrepreneurs like Joe the Plumber.

But Democrats and mainstream liberals never utter the words "workers", "labor", or "working class" anymore either. For several years, they have been using "middle class" as code for working class. It's not the same thing, folks.

In the broadcast emails I see from the AFL-CIO and other union groups, they are no better. The best they can do is "working familes". There the cuddly word "families" is used to soften the scary word "working".

We are long overdue to introduce a discussion of class into our politics, but if everyone seems to think it is off limits to even utter the words "working class", that's going to be hard.

Feel that tremor?

1. Budweiser urges men to skip shaving to save water and the environment.

2. Gillette urges men to stop drinking beer to save water and the environment.

3. Consumer capitalism collapses.