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RedditThe Center for American Progress will call on Monday for the withdrawal of virtually all American troops from Iraq, for the first time--including US trainers in addition to combat forces.
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Peace Voters Face New Challenges
Tom Hayden: It was a barely good week for the antiwar movement in Denver; peace voters face huge challenges in the election season ahead.
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Warning to Obama on the New Cold War
Tom Hayden: McCain and the neocons are heating up a conflict in the Caucasus; it's up to the peace movement to keep Obama from signing on.
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The Defunding of the Peace Movement
Tom Hayden: If millions are to be spent on an anti-Iraq, anti-McCain message, the money will come from the Obama campaign or not at all.
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Obama From the Agora
Tom Hayden: Assessing Barack Obama's mythic destiny: will he become more Athenian than Spartan?
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Maliki's Obama Endorsement
Tom Hayden: In a huge setback for John McCain and the Bush Administration, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki endorses Barack Obama's timeline for withdrawal--and the presumptive Democratic nominee could reap a windfall.
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Obama, Iraq and Afghanistan
Tom Hayden: Obama's plan to de-escalate the war in Iraq only to ramp up another in Afghanistan just might work. It could also entrap the US in an even wider quagmire.
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Pentagon Fights Peace Majorities in US and Iraq
Tom Hayden: The electorates in both countries are threatening to topple the principal warmakers at the ballot box.
The new analysis is driven by a recognition that the United States would be training Iraqi troops in a sectarian civil war with no end in sight.
The conclusions reinforce those voices urging that the United States end its involvement in a "dirty war" and instead enforce the 1997 Leahy amendment, which prohibits security assistance to any foreign forces "against whom exist credible allegations of gross violations of human rights."
The CAP report should lead to Congressional hearings into whether the Iraqi government and security units are human rights violators, paving the way for a possible Congressional amendment to terminate US support.
The present US "advisory mission" consists of five teams:
1. Coalition Military Assistance Team [recruiting, training, equipping, basing and sustaining Iraqi military units]
2. Joint Headquarters Transition Team [assists with command and control functions]
3. Coalition Air Force Transition Team [intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance]
4. Civilian Police Assistance Training [training, equipping, organizing, mentoring Interior ministry police, commandos, etc.]
5. Ministry of Interior Transition Team [develops "law enforcement capacity"].
The CAP report further calls for all US troops to withdraw on a one-year timetable, except for troops redeployed to Kurdistan for one additional year. All US bases would be closed, and the Vatican-scale US embassy would be replaced by a network of smaller consulates to work at local and regional levels.
The sharpest debates are sure to occur about the proposals to phase out training. The pressure will be on the Iraq Study Group to reconsider its December 2006 recommendations based on the worsening situation on the ground.
Senators Russ Feingold, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Carl Levin and Joe Biden have supported the retention of 15,000 to 30,000 American trainers until the Iraqis "stand up."
Just last week, Biden and Senator Barbara Boxer advocated a new partitioning of Iraq with a smaller US force left to fight Al Qaeda and train the Iraqi security forces. The most progressive Senate proposal, by Feingold and twenty-nine others, would still leave thousands of US troops behind in training functions. All of these positions will be re-evaluated in the weeks ahead.
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