Hullabaloo

Monday, July 31, 2006

 
Down On The Hezbos

by digby


Didja know that Rush calls Hezbollah "Hezbos"? He does. And he's teaching his dittohead followers all kinds of good stuff about what's going on in the Middle east and what we should do about it:

We've got the Hezbos, who have in interesting fashion, and I think the same thing is being attempted in Iraq, and it poses the same kind of trouble, or the same kind of challenge. The Hezbos have pretty much made -- and we've heard the puff piece stories. Oh, they're wonderful humanitarians, the Hezbos, why, the social services they provide the general population, why, they're doing such wonderful things, they care about people, they passed out health care and whatever the hell it is. Well, what they're doing is making the general population of these countries dependent on them, and as such, that is how they secure -- it's either through blackmail or genuine support, but it's how they get the support of the general population centers. You also have the Israeli factor in that. These are Arabs absolutely, so there are a number of factors in it.

But the one thing that has really changed in warfare, from World War II forward -- and I know that tactics change, but strategy doesn't. The Art of War by Sun Tzu is still something that's regarded as timely, even though it's thousands of years old. The one thing that you just don't do these days is kill civilians. It used to be the name of the game in war. And it was done on purpose. Now, it was done to end wars, and it was done to achieve decisive victory, and it was done to save the lives of your own troops in the field. All of those things were factors.

So we had this episode at Qana. You know who really killed those people are the Hezbos. Hezbollah killed those people. Hezbollah put those people in that building and brought the rocket launchers in close by, knowing full well that the launcher would be targeted. That building didn't fall for eight hours after it was hit. What do you bet that the Hezbos finished the job that the Israeli bomb did not actually complete? What do you bet they killed their own people for the PR aspect? These people cannot compete militarily with any industrialized nation, so they have to fight the PR and the spin war. And it is amazing to me to see how easily the duped US and world media is.

[...]

Every bit of it is staged and the still photographers know it. Yet they send these pictures out without saying all of this is being staged for us. They send these pictures out as though they are in a timeline of an exact sequence, which they are not, which you will see when you read it. So the point is, Israel is probably not even killing all these civilians. I asked the other day, when you have the Hezbos who don't wear uniforms, how do you know what civilian deaths are versus Hezbo deaths, how do you know who's who there? You don't.

Man. Denial is a river in Egypt, but apparently it runs right through Rush's addled brain. Are people buying this?

He continues:

Until civilians -- frankly, I'm not sure how many of them are actually just innocent little civilians running around versus active Hezbo types, particularly the men, but until those civilians start paying a price for propping up these kinds of regimes, it's not going to end, folks. What do you mean, civilians start paying a price? I just ask you to consult history for the answer to that. It's not their fault, Rush, it's not their fault! No. Not saying that it is.

But as long as you're going to allow these people to hide behind baby carriages and women and children and mosques and so-called apartment buildings, and if you're going to launch military strikes at military targets, which Hezbollah is not doing -- 120 rockets into Israel yesterday. Nobody has a care in the world, nobody has one word of condemnation for that. We don't know what targets were hit, we don't know how many people died. The Israelis are not parading their victims around on TV for propaganda purposes. As long as we are going to pussyfoot and patty-cake around, we're not going to get anywhere, we're not going to make any real progress.

We may delay the inevitable, we may get ceasefire after ceasefire after ceasefire, but we're not going to deal with the root cause of the problem. And as such, your kids and grandkids are going to be saddled with that at some point when they assume responsibility for the fate and future of the country.

So, the pictures of the dead are all phony, staged propaganda but the civilians need to be killed anyway in order to get to the root causes of the problem --- which I understand to be too many living arabs. If we don't kill them now, our kids and grandkids will have to kill their kids and grandkids later.

This blatant genocidal bloodlust has become de rigeur on the right now. It's on talk radio, TV and in the columns of respectable newspapers. They don't even pretend to be civilized anymore. Maybe it's just the SOS, but I've got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I don't ever remember this kind of stuff being openly bandied about like it's normal. And those who did, like Curtis LeMay, didn't have audiences of 25 million listeners to spew their bilge to.

But hey,what do we expect? Once you explode the taboo against torture, can genocide be far behind?



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digby 7/31/2006 10:10:00 PM |

 
Scorecard Politics

by digby

Here is an excellent article in Salon by Colin McEnroe about Lieberman, well worth sitting through to ad to read in full. I'd like to highlight just one little piece of it:

Covering Lieberman is a good way to understand how misleading a voting record can be. (Are you listening, Courant editorial board?) Most members of Congress vote with their parties the preponderance of the time. There are other questions to ask. Did he vote differently on a much-more-important earlier amendment or cloture motion? Did he wait until it was clear his vote wouldn't hurt the other side? Are his public pronouncements strangely different from his votes?

This is a prime reason why the special interest groups are so ineffectual. They've gotten so lazily dependent upon their "scorcards" they can't even feel it when they are being slowly stabbed in the back. They simply aren't asking the right questions.

This article lays out all the gripes that Connecticut, a liberal state, has against old Joe and it's quite an indictment. But what it comes down to is that he's always tried to have it both ways. He rhetorically reinforces all the destructive GOP memes, hedges his bets on important votes and even though (like most politicians) he generally votes with the party he's effetively working for the other side a good part of the time. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that being a member of the minority party in the Senate for most of his career means that he's had a lot of free votes that don't mean diddly.

Rhetoric, on the other hand, is one of the few powers a minority party has as it tries to persuade the country to come over to their side and put the opposition on the spot. Helping the majority make its case is one of the most destructive things Joe does. Democratic partisans have been complaining about it for years and so apparently have his constituents.

I would even go so far as to say that it is exactly this kind of jarring incongruity that has made the voters feel uncomfortable voting for Democrats generally and it's the biggest failing of the DLC experiment which Lieberman embodies. Indeed, it's what people say over and over again: they don't know what the party stands for. Why would they? You have leaders like Lieberman constantly trying to have it both ways. It's confusing and it makes people uncomfortable --- and it finally made some of the voters of Connecticut uncomfortable enough that they decided to look for someone who reliably and consistently reflected their views.


Update: Here's Lamont on tonight's Colbert Report, from Crooks and Liars.

I couldn't get the video at first and so only listened. I was struck, as I was during the debate, that there is something in Lamont's delivery/cadence/accent that is reminiscent of JFK.



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digby 7/31/2006 09:09:00 PM |

 
Neoconservatism's First Family

by digby


One of the things I think people misunderstand about the neocons is that they think it is all about Israel. This is not the case. Not only are all neocons not Jewish, their ambitions are purely American in nature and encompass far more than the middle-east.

A case in point is the family of Norman Podhoretz, one of the founding fathers of neoconservatism. I'm reminded of what a tremendous scope they have this morning by Jonathan Schwarz writing over at This Modern World:

...I don’t think many people remember ... that in 2004 John Podhoretz’s mother, conservative luminary Midge Decter, frankly explained the real reason we attacked Iraq:

“We’re not in the Middle East to bring sweetness and light to the world. We’re there to get something we and our friends in Europe depend on. Namely, oil.”

So there you have it, straight from the world’s most appealing family: we invaded Iraq for the oil, but we may have made a mistake by not killing millions when we got there.

BONUS: Decter’s daughter is married to Elliot Abrams, making him John Podhoretz’s brother-in-law. Abrams, now on the National Security Council, pleaded guilty to misleading Congress over Iran-Contra. He also tried to cover-up the 1981 El Mozote massacre in El Salvador, in which 900 men, women and children were slaughtered.

Schwartz goes on to describe a typical Podhoretz family gathering:

“Has the caterer gotten here yet?”

“No. Let’s drop napalm on his town and then move house to house, shooting any survivors.”

“Sounds good! What about the band? Are they going to play standards, or more contemporary stuff?”

“I don’t know. Let’s pay a proxy army to rape and murder all the women and then go on a bloody rampage, killing thousands more.”

Yes, we laugh, but don't kid yourself. It's not wholly surprising that number one son, J-Pod, came up with this over the week-end:

What if the tactical mistake we made in Iraq was that we didn’t kill enough Sunnis in the early going to intimidate them and make them so afraid of us they would go along with anything? Wasn’t the survival of Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35 the reason there was an insurgency and the basic cause of the sectarian violence now?

That is neoconservatism in practice.

In theory, it goes waaaay beyond the middle east. Here's my favorite piece from the PNAC's influential paper "Rebuilding America's Defenses" signed by half the administration including Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld:

To ensure America's control of space in the near term, the minimum requirements are to develop a robust capability to transport systems to space, carry on operations once there, and service and recover space systems as needed. As outlined by Space Command, carrying out this program would include a mix of re- useable and expendable launch vehicles and vehicles that can operate within space, including “space tugs to deploy, reconstitute, replenish, refurbish, augment, and sustain" space systems. But, over the longer term, maintaining control of space will inevitably require the application of force both in space and from space,including but not limited to anti-
missile defenses and defensive systems capable of protecting U.S. and allied satellites; space control cannot be sustained in any other fashion, with conventional land, sea, or airforce, or by electronic warfare. This eventuality is already recognized by official U.S. national space policy, which states that the “Department of Defense shall maintain a capability to execute the mission areas of space support, force enhancement, space control and force application.

... the argument to replace U.S. Space Command with U.S. Space Forces – a separate service under the Defense Department – is compelling. While it is conceivable that, as military space capabilities develop, a transitory “Space Corps” under the Department of the Air Force might make sense, it ought to be regarded as an intermediary step, analogous to the World War II-era Army Air Corps, not to the Marine Corps, which remains a part of the Navy Department. If space control is an essential element for maintaining American military preeminence in the decades to come, then it will be imperative to reorganize the Department of Defense to ensure that its institutional structure reflects new military realities.

Never let it be said they limited their vision of "benevolent American hegemony" to the middle east --- or even planet earth. They always think big, very big.

Just as an aside, I think Midge Decter's lovelorn paean to Don Rumsfeld may stand as the most unintentionally funny of all the over-the-top Bush years hagiography:

“He works standing up at a tall writing table, as if energy, or perhaps determination, might begin to leak away from too much sitting down”

This one never fails to make me laugh out loud:

Decter: What Rumsfeld's having become an American sex symbol seems to say about American culture today is that the assault on men leveled by the women's movement, having poisoned the normally delicate relations between men and women and thereby left a generation of younger women with a load of anxiety they are only now beginning to throw off, is happily almost over. It's hard to overestimate the significance of the term "stud" being applied to a man who has reached the age of 70 and will not too long from now be celebrating his 50th wedding anniversary.

It's hard to overestimate it all right.

The Podhoretz's are America's first family of neoconservatism, dysfuntional masculinity and world domination. It's quite an achievement.



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digby 7/31/2006 12:16:00 PM |

 
Spoiler

by digby

In an interesting post by Ben Adler over at TAPPED today, I noticed this remark:

...those of us who are under-whelmed by Lamont and are more worried about potentially losing the seat to a right-winger...

I've heard this quite a bit. The Lamont challenge is seen as a possible threat to lose the seat. But I don't see why that is. The state regularly elects Chris Dodd who is a liberal. It's a state so blue that the moderate Republicans in the House are in trouble this time and the Republican party has had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to even find pedophiles and gambling addicts for the Senate seat. The only scenario by which anyone actually sees a Republican taking the seat is if Lieberman runs as an independent and he and Lamont split the Democratic and Independent vote.

Perhaps that will come to pass, although I sincerely doubt it. But let's say it does. Why would this be considered Lamont's fault? He's not the one who would be launching a third party candidacy when he failed in the primary.

It's Joe Lieberman who would be playing the Ralph Nader role in this scenario, not Lamont. Everybody needs to keep that straight in their heads after August 8th if Lamont wins. The spoiler is the guy who runs the third party race, not the guy who gets the party nomination.



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digby 7/31/2006 11:57:00 AM |

 
The Best And The Brightest

by digby

Here is a fascinating look at one of our government's most important foreign policy innovators. Considering her extremely important position and intimate influence on the president one can't help but wonder how the administration's mid-east policy came to be so simplistic and infused with magical thinking:

As part of her job, this Phi Beta Kappa, summa cum laude graduate in journalism and English from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, and former Texas television reporter, still writes news scripts -- to the world.

In the past year, she has created the "rapid response unit" to monitor global media, produce a daily summary of driving news and put out the government's cohesive response. Every cabinet secretary, ambassador, military commander gets these pages. "This was my effort to try, literally, to get the federal government on the same page."

Her next major assignment is to lead an interagency process in writing a strategic communications plan -- this time for the entire U.S. government.

"I will frequently say, 'I've been doing so many meetings, I can't get any work done.' I have to have time to think and have time to write. I'm very verbal, I like to talk, I like people, but I'm also a writer." What she goes home to write, these days, is this master plan.

[...]

Despite her resistance to meetings, her top management tip is for a manager to spend time with his/her own people -- and not to pigeonhole them in their job descriptions. She likes a "very collaborative approach so we have very interesting staff meetings, lots of ideas and laughs.

"I'm an idea factory. My staff laughs at me. If I've had a really good exercise night, I'll come in the next morning and have several ideas."

[...]

She says that it is "vitally important for our children to foster better relationships between America and people of different countries and cultures. I mean children in Canada, children in the United States, my own son, children around the world."

She has three job goals:

First: "Foster a sense of hope and opportunity. These are rooted in our values, beginning with our belief in the dignity of every person -- in every person's right to live in freedom, in equality, in a just society."

Second: "Work to marginalize the violent extremists and to confront their ideology of tyranny and hate. I really believe that's vitally important for our children to have a peaceful future."

Third: "Foster a sense of common interests and values between Americans and Canadians and people across the world. We have to be able to communicate a common humanity. You can't, I wouldn't think, blow up a bomb next to someone you see is a human being who has a lot in common with you."

[...]

What will history say about this president?

"I believe they'll say that he championed freedom and democracy and changed a volatile and dangerous region into one that was more, much more, hopeful and optimistic."

And, on the economic front, after the 2000 stock market bubble burst after 9/11, she says, "they'll say that his tax cuts helped avoid significant economic disruption."

As for herself, she continues to craft and deliver the Bush administration's public message.

Her nighttime reading is telling. A re-reading of Bernard Lewis' What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response. Alaa Al Aswany's The Yacoubian Building, about a building in Cairo and all its inhabitants. And, at her bedside, evangelist Billy Graham's new book, The Journey: How to Live by Faith in an Uncertain World.

It's this kind of thing that explains how Dick Cheney came to be so powerful.


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digby 7/31/2006 08:30:00 AM |

Sunday, July 30, 2006

 
How Do You Like Your Democratic Iraq Now, Mr Lieberman?

by digby


So I hear that the national political press corps is about to descend on Connecticut like a swarm of locusts to cover the Lieberman Lamont primary in its final week. They are going to be following Joe around in a bus apparently.

This is good news, actually. Maybe they can finally get him to answer a few questions about Iraq, which he has suddenly clammed up about. It seems like only yesterday that Joe was saying stuff like this every day:

"We have reached an important milestone and achieved a new momentum in reaching a goal all Americans should embrace - building a secure, peaceful, democratic Iraq that is no longer a threat to the United States or the international community,"

Now, not so much.

If I were a real journalist and I had a chance to chat with Joe, I'd ask him if he still thinks that's true in light of his fellow Senators' condemnation of Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki's remarks about Israel. It seems nobody has yet been able to get him to explain this.

He did attend and applaud Maliki's speech, but failed to appear afterwards when reporters were asking questions. He's been so busy bragging about his earmarks and having his campaign place flyers in black neighborhoods accusing Lamont of being a racist (Lee Atwater would be proud) that perhaps he hasn't had time to weigh in on the most pressing foreign policy issues of the day.

Still, Joe is a man of principle and mid-east policy is his signature issue, so I'm sure he'll be more than happy to take questions. Joe has been like a proud papa about this new Iraqi government. I'm curious what he thinks of it now, aren't you?


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digby 7/30/2006 08:30:00 PM |

 
Who's Putting The Party First?

by digby


Jonathan Alter's irrational fear of hippies leads him to write this:

...the Senate needs collegial moderates who work across party lines. It's the only way to stop the really bad stuff. And the revival of the romance of the antiwar left is a potential disaster for the Democrats. That's what gave the world Richard Nixon in 1968, when ideologically pure liberals who had backed Eugene McCarthy in the primaries refused to rally around Hubert Humphrey because Humphrey was "complicit" in the Vietnam War machine.

Apparently, challenging someone in Senate primary is comparable to people sitting out an election as a protest. I'm not sure why that is. If there is a move afoot to sit out the election, I haven't seen any sign of it. But hey, it's always 1968 in the DC establishment's mind so let's get groovy and smoke a doobie.

And I'd love to know what "really bad stuff" has been stopped by Joe Lieberman lately. The last I heard he was signing on to illegal domestic spying and indefinite prison sentences at Gitmo. He didn't think Abu Ghraib was such a big deal and certainly didn't lead the fight against torture. I haven't heard a word from him about signing statements or what to do about the black hole money pit that is Iraq. If that's the result of compromise, what in the hell were the Republicans originally trying to do --- institute capital punishment for eating falafels?

Clinton managed to forge a pragmatic center for Democrats, which is why he didn't hesitate to campaign last week for Lieberman. Clinton's strong support may well pull the man who once called his behavior "disgraceful" over the finish line. It's also a warm-up for selling his pro-war wife to skeptical liberals.

A lot of thanks Clinton got for his pragmatic centrism, too. He came within a hairsbreadth of being driven from office (with the help of his friend Joe)and when the Republicans took over they took the pragmatic surplus he created, handed it out to their rich friends and then proceeded to govern from as far right as they could possibly get with no thought to "collegial" moderation.

Grover Norquist said it and he meant it: they Republicans consider bi-partisanship date rape --- and it ain't the Democrats who are slipping the roofies in the kool-aid.

At some point in the last five years it should have occurred to Joe, who had no wingnut constituents to whom he needed to pander, that he was being used like a blow-up doll at a frat party.

The bloggers who have noisily intervened deny they're interested in ideological purity. They point to their support in Senate races for pro-life candidates. But on Iraq, the liberal blogs brook no dissent.

The Iraq war is not a tiny little policy difference. It has endangered our economic health and our national security. It's a matter of life and death. Is there anything these Washington insiders believe is worth fighting for? If "brooking no dissent" means that I think the Democratic party should stand with the large majority of Americans who want us out of Iraq, then I guess I'm guilty. On the war, there really should be NO controversy within the party, and there really isn't except among DC insiders whose irrational fear of hippies has them paralyzed on the greatest issues of our time.

Not that it matters in Connecticut. If Lamont wins, only the laziest analysts can attribute it to the Netroots. Daily Kos is not exactly Topic A in the diners and union halls of the Nutmeg State.

But if the blogs aren't a force on the ground, they are becoming a powerful factor in directing the passions (and pocketbooks) of far-flung Democratic activists. They're helping fuel a collective version of what shrinks call "projection," where the anger of Democrats at Bush is projected on a handy target, in this case Lieberman. But in doing so, they have neglected what FDR called "the putting of first things first." Job one for Democrats is identifying which Republican House incumbents are vulnerable in their own states and directing all available energy against them. Savaging fellow Democrats (except those who cannot win) should come after taking control, not before.

Bloggers are doing just what Alter says they should be doing, championing candidates across the country, liberal centrist and conservative, to beat Republicans. Clearly, he isn't following the netroots very closely. There is one primary going on in Connecticut featuring one Democratic incumbent whose challenger is being championed by bloggers. The intention was that this challenge would be over on August 8th at which point everyone would gather around the winner and on to victory in November.

Except there's now a little wrinkle. Joe Lieberman is apparently determined to run as an independent and put the safe Democratic seat at risk. I don't know why the bloggers or Lamont are being admonished for failing to put the party first, when all they did was stage a primary challenge, a very basic act of democracy.

Perhaps Alter should have a chat with Joe and his people about "putting first things first" eh?

The challenge facing voters this year is not to hold Democrats accountable for their heresies but Republicans accountable for where they have taken the country. They are the ones in power, not Joe Lieberman.

There's only one Democrat being held accountable for his "heresies" and that's Joe Lieberman. And that's because this election is a referendum on George W. Bush and Republican rule. Unlike many Republican politicians, Lieberman refused to distance himself from Bush and the Republicans when presented with a challenger. And like other Republicans who refuse to admit the error of their ways, he stands to lose this election because of it. When a "throw the bums out" election comes along, it's only smart to try not to be lumped in with them.

This isn't about a 60's style liberal "anti-war movement," which was a massive youth movement built around the draft coupled with huge social and cultural upheaval. This is just people trying to elect representatives to national office who represent their views. Despite all this blather about "congenial bipartisanship" the Republican Party went so far right they went off the cliff --- people are doing the predictable (and responsible) thing and pushing back. Many of them care passionately about their country and are frightened of the direction in which it's going. They are trying to do something about it. Is that really so scary?

This is just plain old politics, nothing unusual about it except we organize and talk over the internets. America hasn't heard much from liberals in a while but we've been out here the whole time --- and our policies have remained popular in spite of all the vilification we've endured because of the pathological fear of hippies that permeates the Democratic establishment.

Roll up a fattie, put on some Buffallo Springield and kick back, boys. It really isn't the end of the world if Democrats feel some passion about their politics. Human beings need some of that to be motivated. And so do political parties.



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digby 7/30/2006 12:29:00 PM |

Saturday, July 29, 2006

 
The New York Times

July 30, 2006
Editorial
A Senate Race in Connecticut

Earlier this year, Senator Joseph Lieberman’s seat seemed so secure that — legend has it — some people at the Republican nominating convention in Connecticut started making bleating noises when the party picked a presumed sacrificial lamb to run against the three-term senator, who has been a fixture in Connecticut politics for more than 35 years.

But Mr. Lieberman is now in a tough Democratic primary against a little-known challenger, Ned Lamont. The race has taken on a national character. Mr. Lieberman’s friends see it as an attempt by hysterical antiwar bloggers to oust a giant of the Senate for the crime of bipartisanship. Lamont backers — most of whom seem more passionate about being Lieberman opponents — say that as one of the staunchest supporters of the Iraq war, Mr. Lieberman has betrayed his party by cozying up to President Bush.

This primary would never have happened absent Iraq. It’s true that Mr. Lieberman has fallen in love with his image as the nation’s moral compass. But if pomposity were a disqualification, the Senate would never be able to call a quorum. He has voted with his party in opposing the destructive Bush tax cuts, and despite some unappealing rhetoric in the Terri Schiavo case, he has strongly supported a woman’s right to choose. He has been one of the Senate’s most creative thinkers about the environment and energy conservation.

But this race is not about résumés. The United States is at a critical point in its history, and Mr. Lieberman has chosen a controversial role to play. The voters in Connecticut will have to judge whether it is the right one.

As Mr. Lieberman sees it, this is a fight for the soul of the Democratic Party — his moderate fair-mindedness against a partisan radicalism that alienates most Americans. “What kind of Democratic Party are we going to have?” he asked in an interview with New York magazine. “You’ve got to agree 100 percent, or you’re not a good Democrat?”

That’s far from the issue. Mr. Lieberman is not just a senator who works well with members of the other party. And there is a reason that while other Democrats supported the war, he has become the only target. In his effort to appear above the partisan fray, he has become one of the Bush administration’s most useful allies as the president tries to turn the war on terror into an excuse for radical changes in how this country operates.

Citing national security, Mr. Bush continually tries to undermine restraints on the executive branch: the system of checks and balances, international accords on the treatment of prisoners, the nation’s longtime principles of justice. His administration has depicted any questions or criticism of his policies as giving aid and comfort to the terrorists. And Mr. Lieberman has helped that effort. He once denounced Democrats who were “more focused on how President Bush took America into the war in Iraq” than on supporting the war’s progress.

At this moment, with a Republican president intent on drastically expanding his powers with the support of the Republican House and Senate, it is critical that the minority party serve as a responsible, but vigorous, watchdog. That does not require shrillness or absolutism. But this is no time for a man with Mr. Lieberman’s ability to command Republicans’ attention to become their enabler, and embrace a role as the president’s defender.

•

On the Armed Services Committee, Mr. Lieberman has left it to Republicans like Lindsey Graham of South Carolina to investigate the administration’s actions. In 2004, Mr. Lieberman praised Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for expressing regret about Abu Ghraib, then added: “I cannot help but say, however, that those who were responsible for killing 3,000 Americans on September 11th, 2001, never apologized.” To suggest even rhetorically that the American military could be held to the same standard of behavior as terrorists is outrageous, and a good example of how avidly the senator has adopted the Bush spin and helped the administration avoid accounting for Abu Ghraib.

Mr. Lieberman prides himself on being a legal thinker and a champion of civil liberties. But he appointed himself defender of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and the administration’s policy of holding hundreds of foreign citizens in prison without any due process. He seconded Mr. Gonzales’s sneering reference to the “quaint” provisions of the Geneva Conventions. He has shown no interest in prodding his Republican friends into investigating how the administration misled the nation about Iraq’s weapons. There is no use having a senator famous for getting along with Republicans if he never challenges them on issues of profound importance.

If Mr. Lieberman had once stood up and taken the lead in saying that there were some places a president had no right to take his country even during a time of war, neither he nor this page would be where we are today. But by suggesting that there is no principled space for that kind of opposition, he has forfeited his role as a conscience of his party, and has forfeited our support.

Mr. Lamont, a wealthy businessman from Greenwich, seems smart and moderate, and he showed spine in challenging the senator while other Democrats groused privately. He does not have his opponent’s grasp of policy yet. But this primary is not about Mr. Lieberman’s legislative record. Instead it has become a referendum on his warped version of bipartisanship, in which the never-ending war on terror becomes an excuse for silence and inaction. We endorse Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary for Senate in Connecticut.


I couldn't agree more.


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digby 7/29/2006 09:10:00 PM |

 
Pathological Fear Of Hippies

by digby


Do you ever notice those older ladies who still wear their hair in the style they first adopted when they were 22 years old? Or eyeglasses? For some reason they never noticed that 40 years have passed since they first wore that style and they've never thought to take a look in the mirror and assess whether it still suits them.

That's what the Washington political establishment is like when it comes to the Democratic party. They are still wearing their 60's era cat-eye bifocals and helmet-head beehives long after they ceased to be fashionable.

The people backing Lamont are nothing if not sincere. But their breed of Democrats -- many of them wealthy, educated, extremely liberal -- often pick candidates who are rejected by the broader public. Many of the older Lamont supporters went straight from Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern in the 1960s and '70s to Howard Dean in 2004. They helped Joe Duffey challenge Sen. Tom Dodd in Connecticut for the 1970 Democratic nomination on the Vietnam War issue, only to lose to Republican Lowell Weicker in November. Lamont's campaign manager, Tom Swan, is also director of Connecticut Citizen Action Group, a populist organization founded in the 1970s by Toby Moffett, a Ralph Nader protege and anti-Vietnam activist who was one of the "Watergate babies" elected to the House in 1974. Moffett's political career also was ended by a loss to Weicker, who stayed in the Senate until Lieberman finally beat him in 1988.

Gosh, don't tell anybody, but Joe Lieberman ran Bobby Kennedy's Connecticut campaign in 1968. In fact, if you look at most professional Democratic politicians over the age of 50, you can probably find a connection to that unreconstructed hippy hero George McGovern within one degree of separation. I guess that explains everything.

I don't know what the hell he's talking about when he says that those who voted for McCarthy and McGovern went directly to Dean. If these "political activists" were old enough to vote in 1968 you can bet they also voted for Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, Gore and Kerry. I voted for all those guys. It's simpleminded bullshit to say that the biggest threat to the party is liberal elites. We've been voting for every preachy southern conservative and every bland technocratic centrist they've thrown at us since 1976. (It sure would have been really great if even one of them -- except Carter, who barely pulled it off --- could have won a fucking electoral majority! )

This is a deep and festering illness within political circles for which the only cure is to plug your ears and stop listening to the geezers. As far as David Broder and his ilk are concerned, nothing consequential has happened in the Democratic party in 38 years. That's the whole ball of wax --- "liberal insurgents," "silent majority" "Anti-Vietnam activist" all of it. Their irrational fear of hippies has rendered them incompetent to understand current politics for what they really are. And it has handed the Republicans the most powerful weapon in ther arsenal.

The thing that scared the straights (like Broder, I'm sure, considering his panic over the Clintons) back in the day was massive numbers of young long haired males and liberated braless women and blacks with huge afros that theatened all their fundamental beliefs about how society was supposed to operate. This was a jarring social and cultural change from the super conformist 50's and it freaked people out.

The political issues were just a small part of why people voted for Nixon both times and why the political establishment moved to the right (as the culture itself grew ever more liberal.) Broder and his pals' facile rendering of that history has pretty much crippled liberalism for almost 40 years and it's long past time that we ignored those who persist in perpetuating it.



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digby 7/29/2006 04:55:00 PM |

 
RMA 1.0

by digby

Billmon, in another of his excellent essays on the Israel Lebanon crisis (aptly entitled "the Debacle") points out what I think may just be the most important fact to emerge about our Really Big Adventure in the mid-east these last few years:

It's a dismal situation for the Israelis -- worse, in many, many ways, that what I would have called the worst-case scenario before the war started. This is what happens when your state-of-the-art blitzkrieg machine is exposed as a relic of a past century.

In 1870, when the Emperor Louis Napoleon declared war on Prussia, he was confident his armies could beat those of Kaiser Wilhelm I just as throughly as his famous uncle had whipped the Prussians at the Battle of Jena in 1806. After all, everyone "knew" the French were the masters of modern military science. In Europe's capitals the betting was on how long it would take the French to get to Berlin.

But the Prussians had undergone something of a revolution in military affairs since Jena. They'd reformed their Army, created the world's first general staff and mastered the use of railways to mobilize reserves and move troops quickly to the front.

The result was Zola's Debacle -- an utter defeat for the French, in which their entire army, and their Emperor, were cut off, surrounded and captured at the battle of Sedan. The political and military balance of power in Europe was transformed forever.

[...]

What is clear is that the failure of Israel's blitzkrieg (and at the moment, it looks like a catastrophic failure, at least politically) will have enormous repercussions in the Middle East, just as the downfall of Louis Napoleon had in late 19th century Europe. By betting the ranch on a quick, decisive victory, the Anglo-Israeli alliance has committed both a crime and a mistake. The architects may escape punishment for the former, but I think the latter is going to come back to haunt them, and probably very soon.

I think the same can be said for the Giant --- America. The Iraq invasion, too, has exposed the great military superpower as being incapable of handling the next generation of warfare. Everyone had an inkling of this after Vietnam, but I suppose that many assumed the US had managed to regroup and learn from its mistakes. We Americans were certainly led to believe the military had done so --- we've been bombarded with propaganda for years about how the new generation of officers had a completely different understanding of assymetrical warfare and the military's relationship to the political institututions it served.

So much for that.



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digby 7/29/2006 02:55:00 PM |

 
Peas In A Pod

by digby


So we come to this: increasingly violent exhortations from the right to clap louder --- leading inexorably from public musings about torture to actual torture and now, possibly, from public musings about genocide to ... actual genocide? I certainly hope not, but I have no reason to be optimistic.

Greg Djerejian at Belgravia Dispatch writes:

J-Pod concludes his piece by asking: "(c)an it be that the moral greatness of our civilization - its astonishing focus on the value of the individual above all - is endangering the future of our civilization as well?"

Sounds so reasonable, doesn’t it, J-Pod's closing, heart-felt query? But I fear it's nothing more than hyperbole born of deep paranoia, one married to serious incompetence, given that the tactics J-Pod would have us consider would, not only lead us towards a savage race to the moral gutter, and thus immense catastrophe in terms of the decent society America has been able to, almost miraculously, preserve these past two odd centuries plus—but also not even achieve the intended result—as fighting an insurgency movement in such fashion, as any serious West Pointer would tell you, is absolutely, drop-dead, out of the gates, doomed to failure. Utter, total, mega-failure.

[...]

The cornerstone of our polity and civilization, that what distinguishes us from our fanatical, nihilistic foes, is our respect of law, including the laws of war enshrined in the post-WWII, post-Holocaust era. To throw these by the way-side, in favor of the law of the jungle, is to defeat ourselves. We will have done the bidding of the Osama bin Laden's of our own volition, hoisted ourselves on our own petard, condemned ourselves to reversing the great human gains obtained via the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and modernity. This is too terrible to contemplate, and we cannot allow it to come to pass as a polity. I remain confident it won’t, though in my darker moments I wonder what awaits us if greater 9/11s visit our shores.

I'm going to make an obvservation that is inflammatory and politically incorrect so beware. I think it has to be said, though:

In many ways Osama bin Laden and and the J-Pod's are not all that different. They both hold with a simplistic, hyper-masculine belief that life is determined entirely by perceptions of strength and dominance. They are, of course, not the first. ("The whole world of nature is a mighty struggle between strength and weakness --- an eternal victory of the strong over the weak.") Nor are they alone.

As you continue to read things like this and wonder what are the consequences of the US losing both its moral authority and its powerful mytique, think about this:

The Soviet defeat produced in bin Laden not just a feeling of pride and self-confidence, but megalomania. He speaks about his dream of creating a unified Islamic empire, encompassing 50 countries, stretching from North Africa and the Balkans, encompassing the whole Middle East (including Israel, naturally) and former Soviet Central Asia, all the way to Indonesia and the Philippines on the Pacific. It turned out that bin Laden regarded the Soviet Union not as the primary enemy, but merely as the weakest link in the chain. He turned his attention to waging war against his erstwhile ally, the United States.

Please tell me in what substantial way these goals (if not entirely the means) differed from the post cold war PNAC plan for American global hegemony?



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digby 7/29/2006 01:43:00 PM |

 
Glorious Wankers

by digby


This really pisses me off. Atrios's wanker of the day, the ole perfesser, apparently finds it amusing to dishonestly claim that Josh Marshall once advocated killing many civilians in Iraq in order to pacify the country. This is nonsense, as Unfogged points out here.

Here's the thing about Marshall's argument, which a lot of us made in the run-up to the Iraq war: the glorious paladins of the 101st Keyboarders were dying to play Patton (in their minds, of course) and decided early on that the occupation of Iraq would be exactly as it had been in Germany and Japan after WWII. They were packing up nylons and Hershey bars for months in anticipation of our boys needing some blackmarket currency so Mr Roberts and Phil Silvers could keep the motor pool running --- "Maresy-doats and dozy-doats" went to the tops of the wingnut geek charts and stayed there for two years.

People tried to point out that the occupation of Japan and Germany were relatively peaceful affairs because the nations were defeated enemies whose entire infrastructure and systems of government had been destroyed in bloody conflict. Those conditions tend to create a pacific people who willingly accept a new order so that they can resume normal life after many years of horrifying warfare. The terrific generosity of the west, particularly the US, after WWII was a unique historical moment in which the victors treated the vanquished with respect and committed to rebuilding those societies as soon as possible. It wasn't, of course, because we were good and they were evil --- it was because we had learned the lessons of WWI the hard way --- and becuase we were building a bulwark against the Soviets.

Any historical parallels between our unprovoked, pre-emptive invasion and occupation of Iraq and post war occupations of Europe and japan existed only in the fevered wet dreams of the keyboard commandos and their neocon comic book heroes --- like Condi Rice who characterized WWII as the US "liberating the Germans from Hitler."

Marshall's column was another of the many, many warnings that were given back in the beginning of the war that these cakewalk-in-the-sky notions of what is actually required to make a foreign occupation be as successful as the aftermath of WWII were ridiculous. Contrary to Reynolds' profoundly dishonest characterization, Marshall wasn't advocating massive violence against the Iraqis, he was saying that because we were rightly unwilling to unleash hell on a civilan population for anything less than existential reasons, the occupation would not work. And he was right, just like all of us who pointed out that this grotesque comparison between WWII and the illegal invasion of Iraq was not only immoral and counterproductive, but doomed to fail on its face because of the sophomoric delusions of those who were dreaming of glory and tribute from the safety of their Barcaloungers.

Meanwhile, these same great global strategists are now truly advocating ultraviolence in the mid-east and calling it "birth pangs." I don't think "wanker" is adequate to describe such people.



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digby 7/29/2006 10:33:00 AM |

 

Encroachment and the Force of Empire (and Oil)

by poputonian

The mix is a little different today.

Two hundred and fifty years ago, the essential stakes were the abundant natural resources of North America, and the ostensible possessors of it were the Native Americans. The encroachers were the New Americans and their system of competitive trade, which paid premiums to anyone in a dominant position. To become dominant in America required settlement and expansion; to accomplish expansion required land. In 1758, an Ohio Valley Indian said this to an English missionary (source):

"We have great reason to believe you intend to drive us away, and settle the country; or else, why do you come to fight in the land that God has given us?"
...
"Why don’t you and the French fight in the old country, and on the sea? Why do you come to fight on our land? This makes everybody believe you want to take the land from us by force, and settle it."

It was true then, that gaining control of the land would require coercion, something best done systematically through the vehicle of trade and in the name of freedom. Writing in the mid-1990s, historian R. Douglas Hurt (source above) tells of the futility in making any resistance to the force of empire:

"White settlers and traders aggressively pushed into that region and prevented accommodation between the British and the Ohio Indians. These "Frontier People" sought not accommodation with the Ohio Indians but rather their removal. Compromise did not enter their thoughts, and magnanimity never governed their actions. Respecting personal freedom more than law and advocating their right to take unused land rather than to await negotiated settlements with trans-Appalachian Indians, these frontier people moved relentlessly into the Ohio Valley. By 1774, approximately fifty thousand whites lived on the trans-Appalachian frontier, and the British army could not control them. By that time, the British no longer remained the principal enemy of the Ohio Indians. Instead it was the relentless westward-moving Americans.

The paragraph below describes the manner in which the said force of empire deals with any attempt to resist it. This comes from another historian, also writing before 9/11, who tells how the British brain trust, along with the New Americans, discerned that they were opposed in North America by an organized conspiracy:

"How else, Amherst and his colleagues wondered, could so many diverse Indian groups have acted in concert against them? The British, trapped within their understanding of the Indians as childlike, violent creatures, could not explain what had happened to them in the west unless they could stipulate a French conspiracy behind it all. They never understood that the evidently synchronized attacks were loosely coordinated local revolts, all responding to the common stimuli of conquest, white encroachment, and Amherst's Indian policies, all animated by a religious revival with pan-Indian overtones, and all motivated by the desire to restore to North America a sympathetic European power to act as a counterpoise to the British and their numerous, aggressive colonists."

Hurt also noted that the Indian resistance " ... popularly known as the "conspiracy of Pontiac" ... should be more appropriately known as a "Defensive War" or as a war for independence by western Indians."

Everyone knows the rest of this particular story.

Today, the mix is different. It's oil instead of land, and a different opposing culture instead of Indians. But the alchemy is identical. It's the American system of unrestrained trade and a society dependent on a natural resource (oil) for its continued dominance; trade dominance, cultural dominance, material dominance, and religious dominance. Whatever brutal force is required to suppress anyone with an impulse to resist has become the de facto foreign policy. It's a foreign policy that fosters encroachment and builds empire. It's also a foreign policy that leverages the ambiguous qualities of liberty and freedom to ostensibly justify its violent suppression of any resistance. The President of the United States said so yesterday:

And so we have, we've taken a foreign policy that says: On the one hand, we will protect ourselves from further attack in the short run by being aggressive in chasing down the killers and bringing them to justice.

And make no mistake: They're still out there, and they would like to harm our respective peoples because of what we stand for.

In the long term, to defeat this ideology - and they're bound by an ideology - you defeat it with a more hopeful ideology called freedom.

And, look, I fully understand some people don't believe it's possible for freedom and democracy to overcome this ideology of hatred. I understand that. I just happen to believe it is possible.

And I believe it will happen.

And so what you're seeing is, you know, a clash of governing styles.

For example, you know, the notion of democracy beginning to emerge scares the ideologues, the totalitarians, those who want to impose their vision. It just frightens them.

And so they respond. They've always been violent.

Here's a rewrite of the bolded phrasing that historian Anderson used above:

The British Bush, trapped within their in his understanding of the Indians Arabs as childlike, violent creatures, could not explain what had happened to them in the west America on 9/11 unless they he could stipulate a French an ideological conspiracy behind it all.

Encroachment and empire? Not understood here at home. Oil. Huh?

This is Bush's foreign policy of submit or die. It's happened before with great success.

Well, great success for those in the dominant position.

poputonian 7/29/2006 06:35:00 AM |

 
The Man Is Clear In His Mind, But His Soul Is Mad

by tristero

Apparently, when John Podhoretz read Heart of Darkness he came to the conclusion that Kurtz had the right attitude:

What if the tactical mistake we made in Iraq was that we didn't kill enough Sunnis in the early going to intimidate them and make them so afraid of us they would go along with anything? Wasn't the survival of Sunni men between the ages of 15 and 35 the reason there was an insurgency and the basic cause of the sectarian violence now?

In other words, as Kurtz memorably wrote, "Exterminate all the brutes." And then Podhoretz asks:

If you can't imagine George W. Bush issuing such an order, is there any American leader you could imagine doing so?

Why yes, John, I can. Commander Jeff Schoep, the leader of the National Socialist Movement would be more than happy to issue such an order. He writes:

It is of tantamount [sic] importance, that each and every one of us as White Patriots be of steel will and determination! I will refer to a quote by a great American NS martyr, Capt. Joseph Tommassi "We must prepare to seize the day". Our Aryan peoples have triumphed throughout history!

A few examples: in Germany we had Adolf Hitler who fought Communism and Jewry (one and the same), in Romania the great Vlad Dracul (who drove the Turks out of his land), in Serbia the great Prince Lazar who repelled the mongrel invaders out of Kosovo, etc.

We are of the Race that drove Genghis Khan and the Huns from Europe, the Race that claimed America, and nearly rid it of the pestilence of the American Indians, the Race that drove the mongrel Mexicans out during the Mexican-American war, and many other glorious accomplishments throughout history!

We have a lot to live up to, as today's White Racial Patriots! ...

Thinking back to what I wrote about being timid, when duty calls. I am not trying to dwell on the issue, I just do not understand the rational [sic]. The will to protect and defend one's own, should be a natural instinct! ...

Whether Movement veteran, or fresh new enlistments, we all must put the collective Racial, and National whole, above self.

An assault on one of us, must be viewed as an assault on all, regardless of Rank, position, group affiliation, etc.

They also have some very groovy desktops John can download for his computer.



Of course, we'd have to persuade Commander Jeff to exterminate young Arabs. He is, after all, a proud anti-Semite but I think that once it's explained to him that Arabs are also not Aryan - and, in fact, Semites - he'll get with the program.

Hat tip to Anonymous in comments, who finds Podhoretz, I'm not kidding here, "insightful."

[UPDATE: Seymour Paine in comments notes that "anti-Semite" was coined specifically to refer to Jews, not *all* folks who speak a Semitic language. He also says that Nazis and Arabs have, historically, been quite friendly. Irregardless and notwithstanding,* once we explain to Commander Jeff why he shouldn't discriminate among kinds of Semites, John Podhoretz will have precisely the kind of American leader he so desperately craves.

*Yes, of course I know they're not words.]


tristero 7/29/2006 05:11:00 AM |

Friday, July 28, 2006

 
Open Letter To Liberal Hawks

by tristero

Dear Liberal Hawks and other fence sitters from 2002/2003 (you know who you are),

Don't even think about a "thoughtful, measured response" to this bullshit.

President Bush proudly declared that American foreign policy no longer seeks to “manage calm,” and derided policies that let anger and resentment lie “beneath the surface.” Bush said that the violence in the Middle East was evidence of a more effective foreign policy that addresses “root causes.”

This is sheer, abject lunacy of the sort that imagined the invasion of Iraq would lead to city squares in Iraq named after George W. Bush and the invasion would pay for itself out of oil revenues. The only appropriate reaction is to very loudly proclaim this is the reasoning of madmen. No rational human being thinks like this.

Your credibility has been ruined already by falling for the preposterous lies and rationalizations prior to the Iraq invasion. If you take this seriously, your immortal soul is majorly on the line. While I'm enjoying an eternity of Mozart, Bach, and Howling Wolf, you will be suffering the unbearable agony of exposure to Kenny G, 24/7. Forever. You don't want to risk that, trust me.

Repeat: there are no serious issues to be "engaged" in Bush's latest drooling remarks. The people who came up with an American foreign policy based on addressing "root causes" and no longer managing calm need straitjackets. Neither they, nor you, nor the rest of the world will benefit by opportunities to discuss these sick delusions. Under no circumstances should you try to do so.

I hope I've made myself clear.

Love,

tristero


[UPDATE: Here's Ilana Mercer of The American Spectator telling us about the sheer hypocrisy of the search for "root causes:"

The paradox at the heart of the root-causes fraud is that causal theoretical explanations are invoked only after bad deeds have been committed. Good deeds have no need of mitigating circumstances...

Sounds about right.]

tristero 7/28/2006 02:56:00 PM |

 
Swinging Them By The Tail

by digby


Bush's press conference with Blair today was even more frightening in its arrogant incoherence than usual:

QUESTION: Mr. President, Mr. Prime Minister, with support apparently growing among the Arab population, both Shiite and Sunni, for Hezbollah, by bounds, is there a risk that every day that goes by without a cease-fire will tip this conflict into a wider war?

And, Mr. President, when Secretary Rice goes back to the region, would she have any new instructions, such as meeting with Syrians?

BUSH: Her instructions are to work with Israel and Lebanon to get a -- to come up with an acceptable U.N. Security Council resolution that we can table next week.

And, secondly, it's really important for people to understand that the terrorists are trying to stop the advance of freedom. And, therefore, it's essential that we do what's right -- not necessarily what appears to be immediately popular.

There's a lot of suffering in Lebanon because Hezbollah attacked Israel. There's a lot of suffering in the Palestinian territory because militant Hamas is trying to stop the advance of democracy. There is suffering in Iraq because terrorists are trying to spread sectarian violence and stop the spread of democracy.

And now is the time for the free world to work to create the conditions so that people everywhere can have hope. And those are the stakes. That's what we face right now. We've got a plan to deal with this immediate crisis.

It's one of the reasons the prime minister came, to talk about that plan. But the stakes are larger than just Lebanon.

Isn't it interesting that when Prime Minister Olmert starts to reach out to President Abbas to develop a Palestinian state, militant Hamas creates the conditions so that, you know, there's a crisis, and then Hezbollah follows up?

Isn't it interesting, as a democracy takes hold in Iraq, that Al Qaeda steps up its efforts to murder and bomb in order to stop the democracy?

And so one of the things that the people in the Middle East must understand is that we're working to create the conditions of hope and opportunity for all of them. And we'll continue to do that. This is the challenge of the 21st century

I remember as a child a strange little neighbor girl who was found in her backyard swinging her cat by the tail against the sidewalk screaming "you're gonna love me!"

I'm pretty sure it didn't work.

Update: Oh. My. Dear. God.

Q: Mr. President, both of you, I'd like to ask you about the big picture that you're discussing.

Mr. President, three years ago, you argued that an invasion of Iraq would create a new stage of Arab-Israeli peace. And yet today there is an Iraqi prime minister who has been sharply critical of Israel.

Arab governments, despite your arguments, who first criticized Hezbollah, have now changed their tune. Now they're sharply critical of Israel.

And despite from both of you warnings to Syria and Iran to back off support from Hezbollah, effectively, Mr. President, your words are being ignored.

So what has happened to America's clout in this region that you've committed yourself to transform?

Bush: David, it's an interesting period because, instead of having foreign policies based upon trying to create a sense of stability, we have a foreign policy that addresses the root causes of violence and instability.

For a while, American foreign policy was just, Let's hope everything is calm - kind of, managed calm. But beneath the surface brewed a lot of resentment and anger that was manifested on September the 11th.

And so we have, we've taken a foreign policy that says: On the one hand, we will protect ourselves from further attack in the short run by being aggressive in chasing down the killers and bringing them to justice.

And make no mistake: They're still out there, and they would like to harm our respective peoples because of what we stand for.

In the long term, to defeat this ideology - and they're bound by an ideology - you defeat it with a more hopeful ideology called freedom.

And, look, I fully understand some people don't believe it's possible for freedom and democracy to overcome this ideology of hatred. I understand that. I just happen to believe it is possible.

And I believe it will happen.

And so what you're seeing is, you know, a clash of governing styles.

For example, you know, the notion of democracy beginning to emerge scares the ideologues, the totalitarians, those who want to impose their vision. It just frightens them.

And so they respond. They've always been violent.

You know, I hear this amazing kind of editorial thought that says, all of a sudden, Hezbollah's become violent because we're promoting democracy. They have been violent for a long period of time. Or Hamas?

One reason why the Palestinians still suffer is because there are militants who refuse to accept a Palestinian state based upon democratic principles.

And so what the world is seeing is a desire by this country and our allies to defeat the ideology of hate with an ideology that has worked and that brings hope.

And one of the challenges, of course, is to convince people that Muslims would like to be free, you know, that there's other people other than people in Britain and America that would like to be free in the world.

There's this kind of almost – you know, kind of a weird kind of elitism that says well maybe - maybe certain people in certain parts of the world shouldn't be free; maybe it's best just to let them sit in these tyrannical societies.

And our foreign policy rejects that concept. We don't accept it. And so we're working.

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digby 7/28/2006 01:09:00 PM |

 
Eating Their Lunch

by digby


I've long speculated that one of the biggest miscalculations of the war in Iraq was exploding the American mystique of military and intelligence superiority. It's like that old saying "It is better to remain quiet and thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt." It's better to hold your fire and be thought weak than attack for no good reason and remove all doubt.

But at least America had decades of post war success to draw upon and diplomatic and economic clout to employ even as it degraded its reputation in all those areas. Israel, on the other hand, is entirely dependent upon its military superiority and this ill-fated overreation in Lebanon is exploding that image:

Here's Christopher Dickey in Newsweek:

The bottom line: Hizbullah is winning. That’s the hideous truth about the direction this war is taking, not in spite of the way the Israelis have waged their counterattack, but precisely because of it. As my source Mr. Frankly put it, “Hizbullah is eating their lunch.”

We’re talking about a militia—a small guerrilla army of a few thousand fighters, in fact—that plays all the dirty games that guerrillas always play. It blends in with the local population. It draws fire against innocents. But it’s also fighting like hell against an Israeli military machine that is supposed to be world class. And despite the onslaught of the much-vaunted Tsahal, Hizbullah continues to pepper Israel itself with hundreds of rockets a day.

The United States, following Israel’s lead, does not want an immediate ceasefire precisely because that would hand Hizbullah a classic guerrilla-style victory: it started this fight against a much greater military force—and it’s still standing. In the context of a region where vast Arab armies have been defeated in days, for a militia to hold out one week, two weeks and more, is seen as heroic. Hizbullah is the aggressor, the underdog and the noble survivor, all at once. “It’s that deadly combination of the expectation game, which Hizbullah have won, and the victim game, which they’ve also won,” as my straight-talking friend put it.

[...]

When I heard Condi talking in pitiless academic pieties today about “strong and robust” mandates and “dedicated and urgent action,” I actually felt sorry for her, for our government, and for Israel. As in Iraq three years ago, the administration has been blinded to the political realities by shock-and-awe military firepower. Clinging to its faith in precision-guided munitions and cluster bombs, it has decided to let Lebanon bleed, as if that’s the way to build the future for peace and democracy.

I'm not sure I really get why the US and Israel haven't yet come to terms with the fact that this fourth generation war cannot be won with classic military action. I suspect it is the neocon influence which, throughout many decades, never gave a passing thought to terrorism or assymetrical warfare. They have been stuck in a cold war mindset (a mindset that was wrong about the cold war too) and have consistently seen the world through the prism of rogue totalitarian states. This is why, in spite of the fact that everything is going to hell in a handbasket in a hundred different ways, they persist in focusing on Iran (formerly Iraq) and ignoring all the moving parts that make their aggressive plans to "confront" these regimes simpleminded and doomed to failure.

For Israel and the US it couldn't be worse. They have systematically chipped away at any moral authority they had while demonstrating that their military, diplomatic and economic power are paper tigers. What an excellent strategy for all concerned. Oh, and too bad about all the dead bodies that have been produced to create that sad outcome.



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digby 7/28/2006 12:13:00 PM |

 

Maybe They'll Just Go Away

Las Vegas Makes It Illegal to Feed Homeless in Parks

“But if you want to help somebody, people can go to McDonald’s or Kentucky Fried Chicken and give them a meal.”
...
The city, Mr. Reese added, had just spent $1.7 million in landscaping
...
Las Vegas, whose homeless population has doubled in the past decade to about 12,000 people ... adopted ... ordinances ... to discourage homeless people from ... ruining efforts to beautify ... "

Landscape blemishes.

poputonian 7/28/2006 05:39:00 AM |

Thursday, July 27, 2006

 
Not So Favorite Son

by digby


In case you missed this little tid-bit earlier, Tom Tomorrow deftly took down Andrew Sullivan's lame attempt to proclaim that Joe Lieberman is actually quite popular in Connecticut. Among other things, he pointed out this little factoid I hadn't seen before:

One last thing: you hear a lot from lazy media types about how very popular Joe is here in Connecticut. Well, here’s a small reality check: in the 2004 Super Tuesday presidential primary in Connecticut, John Kerry got 58% of the vote. John Edwards came in second with a respectable 24%.

Joe Lieberman, meanwhile, came in third with five percent of the vote, here in the state in which he is so very popular.

Was there anyone who did that badly in his home state? It's true that he wasn't running any longer, but Dean actually won his primary that day and he'd already suspended his campaign. Kucinich got 9% in Ohio. Usually a favorite son will at least get a respectable loyalty vote from members of his local machine.

Joementum's problems became manifest in that campaign and it's why he's in trouble now. His Republican talking points, particularly on the war, were the last straw for a lot of grassroots Democrats --- many of them, apparently, in his own state.

How embarrassing for him.



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digby 7/27/2006 10:21:00 PM |

 
Bending The GWOT

by digby


In a preview at Arthur's of an upcoming post about Alan Dershowitz's suggestion that we civilized westerners develop a new way of defining collective punishment so as to be able to kill civilians with impunity, I noted this quote from an Israeli official:

Mr Ramon - a close confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert - said "everyone understands that a victory for Hezbollah is a victory for world terror".

"World terror" huh? How convenient for all of us then that the Israelis are fightin' 'em over there so we don't have to fight 'em over here. No wonder we rushed in those delayed missiles. We can't let "world terror" win fergawdsake!

It's in such nonsensical talk that we see the logic of the GWOT brought home in all its magnificent horror. People are fighting "world terror" everywhere --- except where they aren't.

Michael Hirsh has written an article in Newsweek about this topic and examines why this conflation of the threat of al Qaeda with a Global War on Terror first created the insurgency in Iraq and now threatens to set the entire mid-east on fire:

What's sad is that the "war on terror" began as a fairly straightforward affair. Al Qaeda hit us. Then we went after Al Qaeda. The enemy was clear, and the evidence against Al Qaeda was solid: there was a decade's worth of fatwas, of declarations of war, monitored conversations and bin Laden's own monstrous bragging, on videotape, about how the World Trade Center collapse had far exceeded his expectations. We had a lot of support around the world in pursuit of our mission to hunt these men down, kill them or capture them and do with them as we pleased.

But inexorably, month by month, the Bush administration broadened the war on terror to include ever more peoples and countries, especially Saddam's Iraq, relying on thinner and thinner evidence to do so. And what began as a hunt for a relatively contained group of self-declared murderers like bin Laden became a feckless dragnet of tens of thousands of hapless Arab victims like the sons of the hostel owner in Samarra, the vast majority of whom had nothing to do with Al Qaeda or terror, just as Saddam had little to do with Al Qaeda, just as the Iraqi insurgency had little to do with Al Qaeda (at least at the start), just as Hizbullah has nothing to do with Al Qaeda. And as the war broadened beyond reason, and the world questioned the legitimacy of the enterprise, our friends dropped away. Worse, we have found ourselves making enemies in the Islamic world faster than we could round them up or kill them.

Yes, the war against Al Qaeda called for a stretching and changing of the rules. We had to be ruthless with the maniacs who struck us on 9/11. But for that very reason, it required that we be very precise in identifying the enemy. Just the opposite occurred. "You can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror," President Bush declared on Sept. 25, 2002, as he made the case for the Iraq invasion. This was the kind of thing Bush often repeated as he sought to wheel the nation 90 degrees, in the middle of the fight against Al Qaeda, toward Iraq. The truth was quite the contrary: not only could you distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam, it was imperative that you do so, that you wage this fight with precision analysis as much as precision weaponry. We could not afford to let our soldiers see all military-age men as potential enemies.

Today, more from the muddled strategic thinking of the Bush administration than the actual threat from Al Qaeda, the "war on terror" has become an Orwellian nightmare: an ill-defined war without prospect of end. We are now nearly five years into a war against a group that was said to contain no more then 500 to 1,000 terrorists at the start (in case anyone's counting, 1,776 days have now passed since 9/11; that is more than a full year longer than the time between Pearl Harbor and the surrender of Japan, which was 1,347 days). The war just grows and grows. And now Lebanon, too, is part of it.

This is the Bush Doctrine at work. He said it explicitly:

We've sent a message that is understood throughout the world: if you harbor a terrorist, if you support a terrorist, if you feed a terrorist, you're just as guilty as the terrorists.

It didn't take much to extrapolate from that that anyone who lived near a "terrorist" or worked along side a "terrorist" or who even looked like a "terrorist" was just as guilty as a terrorist. Alan Dershowitz has recently expanded on that notion by saying that those who do not fight against the terrorists in their midst, or flee their homes if terrorists are among them, must also share the blame for these terrorists' actions.

The only thing that was left out of all this was a definition of terrorism.**

Hirsh points out in his article how this played out during the first years of the occupation of Iraq, a country we were ostensibly liberating from --- you guessed it --- terror:

Reading "Fiasco," Thomas Ricks's devastating new book about the Iraq war, brought back memories for me. Memories of going on night raids in Samarra in January 2004, in the heart of the Sunni Triangle, with the Fourth Infantry Division units that Ricks describes. During these raids, confused young Americans would burst into Iraqi homes, overturn beds, dump out drawers, and summarily arrest all military-age men—actions that made them unwitting recruits for the insurgency.

For American soldiers battling the resistance throughout Iraq, the unspoken rule was that all Iraqis were guilty until proven innocent. Arrests, beatings and sometimes killings were arbitrary, often based on the flimsiest intelligence, and Iraqis had no recourse whatever to justice. Imagine the sense of helpless rage that emerges from this sort of treatment. Apply three years of it and you have one furious, traumatized population. And a country out of control.

In Lebanon today:

"Over here, everybody is the army," one soldier said. "Everybody is Hezbollah. There's no kids, women, nothing."

Another soldier put it plainly: "We're going to shoot anything we see."

And so another front in the GWOT is opened.

Hirsh continues:

In strategic terms, the U.S. endorsement of Israel's retaliation against Hizbullah had some merit at the start, within limits: a Lebanon with an armed Hizbullah in its midst was never going to graduate to real democracy. The Israeli action is also, in a way, a proxy war against Iran and its nuclear program. Reducing Iran's influence in the region by degrading the power of its principal means of terror (and therefore of retaliation) is in America's interest, as well. This is the unspoken logic both of the fierce Israeli assault and Bush's fierce defense of it: "In the back of everyone's head is Iran looming as a threat over the region," says one Israeli official."In the back of everyone's head is Iran looming as a threat over the region," says one Israeli official.

But with each errant bomb that kills more Lebanese children, the U.S. position becomes less defensible. By walking in lockstep with the Israelis, we Americans make it impossible for Muslims not to see us as an enemy. And every Muslim official knows, even if Bush does not, that Hizbullah is not identical with Iran but is a client of it, in a relationship not unlike that of the United States and Israel. By making Israel's war our own we ensure that the Lebanese group and the Tehran mullahs will be even closer allies in the future. We place the Muslims whom we desperately need as allies, like Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, in an impossible position. Maliki, a Shiite, can no longer stand with Bush, as he showed during his tense visit to Washington this week.

I suspect one reason Newt Gingrich and his fellow nutballs are working overtime to get this WWIII business playing in people's heads is because to Americans the GWOT remains vague and ill-defined. They have yet to sign on to this existential struggle against well --- everybody, or at least a bunch of people they don't even know, forever. Are the French terrorists? They must be because we are supposed to hate them. How about the Mexicans who are invading our borders? Newt keeps bringing up Venezuela as part of our epic struggle against terrorism. And North Korea is a charter member of the Axis 'o Evil, so we know they are terrorists.

Who are we fighting again?

I suspect that many Americans are now so confused they simply think "they're all a bunch of terrorists" and wish a pox on all their houses. And with the logic of the GWOT they are all a bunch of terrorists. But then with the logic of the GWOT, we are the biggest terrorists of all.



*** I should add that the idea of creating a legal definiton of "terrorism" was advanced from early days after 9/11 by Wes Clark and others who noted that this elastic definition was a recipe for trouble. It even became an agenda item at the UN Millenium Summit --- which was tabled immediately upon John Bolton's appointment. In keeping with the overall philosophy of the Bush administration, they obviously recognized that the less they are required to conform to recognized legal norms the more they can wage war against "World Terror."



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digby 7/27/2006 08:30:00 PM |

 
Billmon Again

by tristero

Jeez, that guy can write. Magnificent.

One comment. Billmon writes about the disgusting "exterminate all the brutes" mindset, and behavior, of the Israeli army:

This all might be considered normal military behavior for, oh say, a Bosnian Serb militia captain, circa 1991, but when the political and military leaders of an allegedly civilized state start talking this way, something big is going on, and going wrong.

Yes, indeed, something big is going on. It's the opening skirmishes of a Middle East - wide war, brought to you by the losers who gave the world Iraq 2006.

And brother, is it ever going wrong.

Can an enormous, dreadful, and pointless war be averted? Yes, but it will require an American opposition to Bush willing to speak truth loudly, not a party so terrified of upsetting Americans' beautiful minds it doesn't have the courage to put the Iraq war and Bush's mad behavior front and center.
tristero 7/27/2006 07:21:00 PM |

 
What Matters To The Media, And What Doesn't

by tristero

For those who think that things are much better in the mainstream media since the disgraceful selling of the New Product in fall 2002 through March '03, Media Matters today will set y'all straight. Two reports about television stood out.

Here's who the tv folks DON'T think are important for you to hear from.

And here's who they do.

Kinda makes you sick to your stomach, doesn't it? Now I know there's a fine line between entertainment and news, but first of all it ain't *that* fine. Second of all, none of this is entertaining.

Meanwhile, am I the only one who's noticed the all the shameless puff pieces disguised as reporting on John Bolton, despite the fact that he is universally loathed and has accomplished next to nothing except the impossible, namely to make the US even more of a laughingstock internationally than it already was?
tristero 7/27/2006 03:08:00 PM |

 
Keeping it Straight

by digby


For those of you who are having trouble keeping track of all the allegiances among the various countries, groups, militias and terrorists in the mid-east, Slate put together a handy dandy interactive Middle East Buddy List



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digby 7/27/2006 01:26:00 PM |

 
Chi Sandwich

by digby

Ezra expertly slices and dices TimesSelect:

Wandering through the nation's op-ed pages is like ambling through a dojo. Each writer has his own particular style, technique, finishing move. There's Tom Friedman, who rushes in with the Implausible Conversational Anecdote, links it to an Off-Topic Invocation Of World Travels, and finishes you with a Confusing Metaphor From Above. Or there's Maureen Dowd, who deploys Unfounded Personal Speculation mixed with Confusing Allegories till she's set up her killing blow: Insinuation of Character Defect. It's impressive stuff.

The deadliest op-ed columnist, however, is unquestionably David Brooks. He's the drunken boxer of the opinion page, luring you into a false sense of security with Banal Observations that comfort through Faux Bipartisanship until you're ready for the Illogical Conservative Conclusion. Today's column is an archetypal example of the master at work: a series of cogent critiques of Hillary Clinton's college aid proposals that effortlessly glide through research demonstrating their uselessness, a couple lavish compliments to Clinton and her team, and finally a conclusion that explains the only way to increase college attendance is to encourage two-parent homes, fundamentally reform schools, and increase church-sponsored mentoring programs. Funny thing -- this is exactly the rightwing's agenda! And yet it comes wrapped in such warm bipartisanship and elevated chin stroking that you'd never notice Newt Gingrich silently mouthing along in the background.

And then there's Krugman who wanders in from the alley and while the other columnists are practicing their qigong he just plants a facer on the opposition.


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digby 7/27/2006 12:43:00 PM |

 
Destroy The Village In Order To Save It: Part Deux

by digby

"Our mission and our goal is to have a lasting peace -- not a temporary peace, but something that lasts," said Bush. "We want a sustainable ceasefire. We don't want something that's, you know, short term in duration."

This is the middle east he's talking about. Apparently somebody has told him that getting a lasting peace there is just a matter of resolve. If only people hadn't accepted all these temporary ceasefires in the past, everything would have been straightened out by now. (He's not saying they wouldn't have gotten their hair mussed...)

I know he's just an idiot who doesn't even have the barest grasp of simple logic. But when children are being killed and maimed, you'd think they could at least have the foresight to come up with a talking point that doesn't make "collateral damage" sound like a moral concept by comparison. This idea that in order to achieve longterm peace you can't have a temporary ceasefire is gibberish, yes, --- but it is immoral too. Apparently, he really doesn't grasp the fact that during a "short-term" ceasefire actual human beings are not being killed --- real people with jobs and homes and lives and everything.

I think that one of the sad consequences of Democrats being so hapless these last few years is that these silly Republicans have gotten it into their heads that the whole world works like the American political system. If you humiliate your enemy enough, they will become like "neutered barnyard animals" who will happily go along with their second class status. But that only works when the other side is comfortable and fat and enjoying the perks of the status quo as much as the victors. In the real world this is a very provocative and dangerous way to try to manage human events. It tends to create hatreds that can't be mitigated by a nice slice of political pork down the road.

I've always been quite fond of this statement by Bush back in 2001, which I think perfectly reflects his temperament:

The American people must understand when I said that we need to be patient, that I meant it. And we're going to be there for a while. I don't know the exact moment when we leave, David, but it's not until the mission is complete. The world must know that this administration will not blink in the face of danger and will not tire when it comes to completing the missions that we said we would do. The world will learn that when the United States is harmed, we will follow through. The world will see that when we put a coalition together that says "Join us," I mean it. And when I ask others to participate, I mean it.

That's been working out really well for us, don't you think?

That was at the zenith of Bush's post bullhorn power and I don't think he's progressed one moment past that point. When you combine it with the neocon obsession with war as the answer for every problem, you get an administration that sees sustained violence as the only way to achieve lasting peace and that the problem in the middle east is that there just hasn't been enough of it over the years.

It's as if "1984" were true, except that Big Brother is a hulking, braindead thug.


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digby 7/27/2006 10:52:00 AM |

 
Cakewalk

by digby


Via Laura Rozen I found this startling foreign policy index from the Democratic Policy Committee. Rozen and Democracy Arsenal highlighted a few of the items pertaining to Iraq:

Number of Iraqis who had access to potable water before invasion: 13 million

Number of Iraqis who have access to potable water, according to the April 2006 SIGIR report: 8 million

Number of Iraqi physicians registered prior to the invasion: 34,000

Number of Iraqi physicians who have been murdered or fled the country since the invasion: 14,000

Infant mortality rate in Iraq: (Middle East average is 37, sub-Saharan Africa average is 105): 102

Average number of daily attacks by insurgents in June 2004: 45
Average number of daily attacks by insurgents in June 2006: 90

Rank of Iraq on the “failed states” index: 4

Rank of Afghanistan on the “failed states” index: 10

Rank of Iraq among all nations as a training ground for terrorists:1

The last we heard from Joe Lieberman, (who isn't talking about foreign policy on the campaign trail, apparently) was that there was tremendous progress being made in Iraq, especially on the political front. Here's the index on the political situation:

Amount requested by the President in his Fiscal Year 2007 budget for democracy promotion in Iraq: 0

Percent of Iraqis who say they are optimistic about their future: 30 percent

According to a recent World Public Opinion poll, percent of Iraqis who approve of a timeline for U.S. withdrawal: 70 percent

Degree of corruption in Iraq on the Transparency International 2005 Corruption Perceptions Index (on a scale of 0-10, with 0 representing “highly corrupt” and 10 representing “highly clean”): 2.2

Number of corruption cases that have been filed since the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity was established in 2004: 1,400

Approximate number of Iraqi families internally displaced as of February 2006 (prior to February 22 bombing of Shiite shrine in Samarra): 3,000

Approximate number of Iraqi families internally displaced as of June 2006, according to Iraq’s Ministry of Displacement and Migration: 21,731 or 130,386 people

Number of Iraqi civilians killed in May, according to data from the Iraqi Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue: 2,669

Number of Iraqi civilians killed in June, according to data from the Iraqi Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue: 3,149

Civilian death toll in Iraq in June 2006: 100 per day

Rank of Iraq in Minority Rights Group International’s list of peoples most under threat from persecution, discrimination, and mass killing: 1

The number of passports issued in the past ten months, according to the U.S. Committee for Refugees:2 million

Percent of Iraq’s professional class that has left the country since late 2003:40 percent

You have to wonder what it would have looked like if it were going badly.


Update: The Poorman has a post up about one of those displaced Iraqis --- a catblogger named Raghda, whose family finally gave up and left the country.


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digby 7/27/2006 09:51:00 AM |

 
When Will They Ever Learn?

by tristero

When the present batch of Democratic consultants finally give up the ghost - that is, part this world for the next, ie. croak - it is my fervent wish that they be consigned a special space in hell where they'll be forced to watch unto eternity these Ed Sullivan shows with all the Beatles performances removed. I seen the shows recently so I realize that is an extremely cruel fate to wish on anyone. They deserve it.

Consider this small but important indicator of the continuing disaster that is national Democratic strategy:

Democrats plan to press for a minimum wage increase and "tough, smart" national security in their final push to wrest power from the Republicans in the November elections.

Something missing, boys and girls? Like the Iraq war, perhaps? Or the awful economy?

And guess what? When you avoid a subject, no matter what it is, you leave the field wide open for Republicans - who are so fluent in Newspeak by now that they don't even hesitate a beat - to define the playing field for you:

Danny Diaz, a Republican National Committee spokesman, said: "It is both ironic and amusing that Democrats believe they are making a final argument to the American people, while being incapable of deciding how much to raise taxes on working families or how quickly to retreat from Iraq."

Trying arguing from those premises.

And that, in the opinion of the Dems' most lavishly compensated advice-peddlers, is the problem. You can't, so it's best to avoid the subject. Nevermind that avoiding talk about a war that's costing the mothers of American soliders thousands of their children's lives - and for no purpose whatsoever - is just about the worst thing you could possibly do if you were trying to convince someone you were a serious alternative to Republican incompetence. Nevermind that avoiding talk on insisting that the Paris Hiltons and Dick Cheneys of America pay their fair share is simply insane. Better to avoid these subjects altogether than taking the effort to set a level playing field for these subjects. That would take work.

What should the Dems have done? Made Iraq and tax breaks for the Scaifes and the Ahmansons the central issues or at least define them clearly and loudly and long before the Republicans. Instead, they will now face an uphill rhetorical battle trying to counteract Republican rhetoric. And the Republicans will repeat Diaz's crap until Democrats won't be able to avoid it.

Will the Dems win either house or both in November? Let's put it this way: if they do (and God help us if Republicans continue their assault on the fabric of American government unopposed), it will be because the Republicans couldn't hide any longer how dangerously awful they are. Democratic victories will come in spite of their best efforts to remain powerless. And Republicans will easily reverse any Democratic wins in '08.

Why? Please. How much effort do you think it will it take a Republican propaganda machine that comes up with lines like "how quickly to retreat from Iraq" to blame Democrats for anything that goes wrong in the next two years if Dems actually control a house or two of Congress? Talk about cakewalks! (Well to be literate, "pieces of cake," cakewalks are dances.)

Now there are responsible people, for example Sean Wilentz in this important article in The New Yorker, who apparently feel the march into fascism hasn't progressed to the point where they're all but irreversible. I disagree. The assault on American values and institutions has been so thorough and relentless over the past 6 years they cannot be effectively counteracted simply by wresting temporary control of a house of Congress, especially if that control is won by avoiding talking about the important things that are going on. Think of all the extremist judges and bureaucrats Bush has placed in power. Think of all the good people who fled the CIA in the past few years. Sorry, Sean, I love your new book but I think you've misunderestimated the extent of the damage.

It's now generally accepted, once again and hallelujah for that, that avoiding reality is a Really Bad Thing and that Bushism is premised on avoiding reality. However, an opposition strategy that fails to confront head-on the disasters of Iraq, Afghanistan, the tax breaks for the wealthy, and the increasingly fascist nature of mainstream Republicanism is also entirely divorced from reality. If anything, it is even more so in some ways. And just like Bushism, it is doomed to spectacular failure.

Here's hoping I'm wrong. But I'm afraid I'm not. The pity of it all is that if mainstream Democrats would simply ditch the consultants and speak the truth, it would be utterly persuasive. There are some good people there - Kerry, Pelosi, Obama, Dean, Reid, Clark - and feel free to substitute/add others, they're are dozens of great politicians in the Dem party. But the campaign advice they are getting is just godawful.

And thus, eternal Ed Sullivan without the Beatles, without Elvis, without Buddy Holly - man, do they have it coming. There will be no mercy.

[UPDATE: As Atrios sez, Democrats should read this.]
tristero 7/27/2006 08:26:00 AM |

 
Who Needs Arab Language Specialists, Anyway?

by tristero

The Iraq war's forgotten, and in Iran the official language is Persian so this guy's totally expendable:

A decorated sergeant and Arabic language specialist was dismissed from the U.S. Army under the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy, though he says he never told his superiors he was gay and his accuser was never identified.

tristero 7/27/2006 07:05:00 AM |

 
Narrowing The Debate

by tristero

One further point in re: Digby's post on the neocons' alarm that Rice is misleading Bush into accepting diplomatic rather than military approaches to Iran, Hizbollah, NoKo, etc. On the face of it, the notion that Bush is seriously pursuing diplomacy is laughable. Rice surely is incompetent, but there is no possible way anything she says or does will prevent Bush from waging further war in the Middle East.

The airing of the neocon nutjobs' views at this time has a different purpose. It is part of a blatant attempt to define the limits of acceptable discourse on Israel/Hizbollah so that the only sensible position - an immediate halt by Israel of all hostilities and a withdrawal from Lebanon - is framed as so far left as to be beyond the pale of serious discussion. The Bush/Rice position - let's not too be too hasty about asking Israel to stop killing UN observers and Lebanese civilians - looks in comparison as the path of sober moderation, a compromise between the views of all serious observers.

Just as in 2002, there is a deliberate attempt to marginalize anyone in the reality-based community. And once again, the views of those to the right on Israel get defined as the reasonable center so the extreme right - Perle and Gingrich - are reframed merely as to the right and worthy of attention. In the process, genuine moderates are swept off to a far left corner. You want Israel to withdraw now? Forget it. Did you just mention Edward Said? Come on, get real.

Assuming no new terrorist attacks in the US, it is arguable whether again recasting the moderate/right center as far left will work as well as it did for drumming up support for the lunatic notion of invading Iraq. But it may confuse folks long enough for Bush to feel he has the "support of the people" to attack Iran. And that is all that is needed.
tristero 7/27/2006 12:55:00 AM |

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

 
Neocon Nutballs In Full Effect

by digby

So, the long knives are out for Miss Condi:

Conservative national security allies of President Bush are in revolt against Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, saying that she is incompetent and has reversed the administration's national security and foreign policy agenda.

The conservatives, who include Newt Gingrich, Richard Perle and leading current and former members of the Pentagon and National Security Council, have urged the president to transfer Miss Rice out of the State Department and to an advisory role. They said Miss Rice, stemming from her lack of understanding of the Middle East, has misled the president on Iran and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

"The president has yet to understand that people make policy and not the other way around," a senior national security policy analyst said. "Unlike [former Secretary of State Colin] Powell, Condi is loyal to the president. She is just incompetent on most foreign policy issues."

The criticism of Miss Rice has been intense and comes from a range of Republican loyalists, including current and former aides in the Defense Department and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. They have warned that Iran has been exploiting Miss Rice's inexperience and incompetence to accelerate its nuclear weapons program. They expect a collapse of her policy over the next few months.

"We are sending signals today that no matter how much you provoke us, no matter how viciously you describe things in public, no matter how many things you're doing with missiles and nuclear weapons, the most you'll get out of us is talk," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said.

What is he, 10? Is he seriously suggesting that we should launch a military attack for "viciously describing things in public?"

Mr. Gingrich ... said Miss Rice's inexperience and lack of resolve were demonstrated in the aftermath of the North Korean launch of seven short-, medium-, and intermediate-range missiles in July. He suggested that Miss Rice was a key factor in the lack of a firm U.S. response.

"North Korea firing missiles," Mr. Gingrich said. "You say there will be consequences. There are none. We are in the early stages of World War III. Our bureaucracies are not responding fast enough. We don't have the right attitude."

Several of the critics have urged that Mr. Bush provide a high-profile post to James Baker, who was secretary of state under the administration of Mr. Bush's father. They cited Mr. Baker's determination to confront Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein in 1990.

A leading public critic of Miss Rice has been Richard Perle, a former chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board and regarded as close to Mr. Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Mr. Perle, pointing to the effort by the State Department to undermine the Reagan administration's policy toward the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, has accused Miss Rice of succumbing to a long-time State Department agenda of meaningless agreements meant to appease enemies of the United States.

"Condoleezza Rice has moved from the White House to Foggy Bottom, a mere mile or so away," Mr. Perle wrote in a June 25 Op-Ed article in the Washington Post that has been distributed throughout conservative and national security circles. "What matters is not that she is further removed from the Oval Office; Rice's influence on the president is undiminished. It is, rather, that she is now in the midst of "and increasingly represents" a diplomatic establishment that is driven to accommodate its allies even when (or, it seems, especially when) such allies counsel the appeasement of our adversaries."

Mr. Perle's article was said to have reflected the views of many of Mr. Bush's appointees in the White House, Defense Department and State Department. Mr. Perle maintains close contacts to U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control Robert Joseph, Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams and Mr. Cheney's national security adviser, John Hannah.
A major problem, critics said, is Miss Rice's ignorance of the Middle East. They said the secretary relies completely on Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, who is largely regarded as the architect of U.S. foreign policy. Miss Rice also consults regularly with her supporters on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Chairman Richard Lugar and the No. 2 Republican, Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska.

[...]

The critics within the administration expect a backlash against Miss Rice that could lead to her transfer in wake of the congressional elections in 2006. They said by that time even Mr. Bush will recognize the failure of relying solely on diplomacy in the face of Iran's nuclear weapons program.

"At that point, Rice will be openly blamed and Bush will have a very hard time defending her," said a GOP source with close ties to the administration.

They're all 10.

Look, I think Condi Rice is a bad Secretary of State, but not for those reasons. She's a bad Secretary of State because she is loyal to a delusional moron and can't contain the crazies like those who are speaking in that article. If she really is some sort of dovish appeaser, she certainly has been ineffectual. She has been, after all, the National Security Advisor and Secretary of State for the last five years of non-stop warfare.

But this isn't really about Condi anyway. Remember Newtie's speech to AEI right after the invasion?

April 22, 2003:

It's been barely a week since the U.S. took control of Baghdad, but the Pentagon is already embroiled in a new war, this time with the State Department...
Gingrich, who is close to Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, aimed the full fury of his rhetorical fire at the State Department, accusing it of actively subverting President George W. Bush's agenda in Iraq and beyond.

"The last seven months have involved six months of diplomatic failure and one month of military success," Gingrich charged, adding, "Now the State Department is back at work pursuing policies that will clearly throw away all the fruits of hard-won victory."

It was a stunning attack from someone so closely identified with Rumsfeld and the neo-conservative hawks around him. "I've never seen a wholesale attack on America's entire diplomatic establishment like this," said Charles Kupchan, a foreign-policy expert at Georgetown University. "This is fundamentally about ideology and the efforts of the neo-conservatives to institutionalize their victories over the moderate and liberal internationalists."

[...]

Kupchan also said it was unlikely that Gingrich, as a member of the Policy Board, would not have cleared his remarks with top officials. The fact that Gingrich's remarks were leaked to the Washington Post in advance is also highly significant. So is his choice of venue. The AEI -- where Gingrich is a Fellow -- is where Bush presented his most comprehensive proposal yet for democratizing Iraq and the Arab world nearly two months ago. It is also home to the former chairman of the Defense Policy Board, Richard Perle and several other neo-conservative analysts who have been the most outspoken about promoting "regime change" in the Middle East and U.S. military dominance in the world.

Gingrich was careful to insist that he was not faulting Secretary of State Colin Powell, whom he depicted as a prisoner of the Department and its Near East bureau. But he charged that the administration was split between two "worldviews": the State Department worldview as one of "process, politeness, and accommodation," and president's worldview was that of "facts, values and outcomes." [hahaha --- d] Gingrich said that the Pentagon appeared far more faithful to the latter. When the State Department failed to persuade key allies, such as Turkey, South Korea, France and Germany to support Washington, it was the Pentagon who brought along Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, according to Gingrich, thus making it far easier to go to war. "The military delivered diplomatically and then the military delivered militarily in a stunning, four-week campaign," he declared.

Damn, these neos really smoke the good shit, don't they? And they are so high they just keep on being obliviously wrong in exactly the same way, decade after decade.

Whether they will succeed in mau-mauing Condi and/or persuading Bush that she's making him look like a wimp is anybody's guess. He's just that stupid and he might believe it. I suspect the real problem is that Junior may not trust Uncle Dick the way he once did and that means that the neos are probably going to have to do better than this to really get their war on. The best they can hope for is that through continued incompetence and incoherence, their greatest desire --- World War III --- will start by accident.

Hey, a lil' neocon boy can dream, can't he?



Oh and by the way, I'm looking forward to hearing the shrieks and bellows from noted civil rights activist Ann Coulter that criticizing Condi Rice for being incompetent is racist.



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digby 7/26/2006 10:24:00 PM |

 

Sometimes Politics Is Local

by poputonian

These folks have guts. First they pass a city ordinance (November 2005) ordering the United States to withdraw the troops from Iraq, and now they're pushing around Wal-Mart:

Chicago Orders ‘Big Box’ Stores to Raise Wage

After months of fevered lobbying and bitter debate, the Chicago City Council passed a ground-breaking ordinance yesterday requiring “big box” stores, like Wal-Mart and Home Depot, to pay a minimum wage of $10 an hour by 2010, along with at least $3 an hour worth of benefits.

The ordinance, imposing the requirement on stores that occupy more than 90,000 square feet and are part of companies grossing more than $1 billion annually, would be the first in the country to single out large retailers for wage rules.

A gallery packed with supporters of the bill broke into cheers as the measure passed, by a vote of 35 to 14, after four hours of intense speeches and debate.

“This is a great day for the working men and women of Chicago,” said Alderman Joseph A. Moore, the measure’s chief sponsor. Mr. Moore said he had had inquiries about the ordinance from officials in several other cities.

An Illinois retailers’ group said it would challenge the measure in court, and Wal-Mart’s response was swift and blunt.

“It’s sad — this puts politics ahead of working men and women,” John Simley, a spokesman for Wal-Mart, said in a telephone interview. “It means that Chicago is closed to business.”

Wal-Mart will still open its nearly completed branch on Chicago’s West Side this September — the company’s first store in the city — but any future plans “will likely change,” Mr. Simley said.

In arguing that Wal-Mart and other companies can easily afford to meet the new standards, proponents of the measure pointed to Costco, which says it already pays at least $10 an hour plus benefits to starting workers around the country.

In existing stores in the Chicago area, Wal-Mart pays entry-level wages of about $7.25 an hour but its average pay is $11 an hour, a company spokesman told The Chicago Tribune. The company has not revealed details of its benefits.

With this ordinance, Chicago has opened a contentious front in the growing national movement, led by labor and poverty groups, to raise the incomes of bottom-rung workers through local minimum wage and “living wage” legislation. Some economists say such measures will only stifle development and deprive consumers of access to cheap goods, but many poverty experts say that local efforts elsewhere to raise wages have not choked off growth and that the expanding, low-paying retail sector can be safely pressed to raise pay.

So maybe there is an antidote to wealthy elite politicians and a negligent federal bureaucracy.

poputonian 7/26/2006 08:48:00 PM |

 
Exploding The Mystique

by digby

Marc Lynch writes:

I don't know anyone who will be surprised that the Rome conference failed - it seems to have been designed to fail, to give the US the chance to appear to be "doing something" while giving Israel the time it wants to continue its offensive. But this policy is so transparent, such an obvious stalling mechanism, that it is probably making things even worse for the United States and for Israel: when you are faking it, you're supposed to at least try to maintain the pretence so that others can at least pretend to believe you. The call for an immediate ceasefire has become more or less universal now, other than from the United States and Israel: even the pro-American Arab states like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, which initially blamed Hezbollah for the crisis, are now loudly demanding an immediate ceasefire.

America is totally alone on this. And more than most Americans might realize, America is being blamed for Israel's actions. The shift in Arab public discourse over the last week has been palpable. For the first few days, the split between the Saudi media and the "al-Jazeera public" which I wrote about at the time. Then for a few days, horror at the humanitarian situation, fury with the Arab states for their impotence, speculation about the endgame, and full-throated condemnation of Israeli aggression. But for the last few days, the main trend has been unmistakable: an increasing focus on the United States as the villain of the piece. (That the Israeli bombing of Beirut stopped just long enough for Condoleeza Rice's photo op certainly didn't help.)

While there's disagreement as to whether Israel acted on behalf of an American project, there is near-consensus about American responsibility for not stopping what al-Jazeera is now calling "the sixth [Arab-Israeli] war". For instance, al-Jazeera's prime time Behind the News on July 25 was devoted to "the American project for a new Middle East" (with no American officials accepting their invitation to participate). If you review the daily Arab media selections I've been posting in the left sidebar (with short English comments and summaries) you'll see something of this trend over the last few days: Sami Soroush, in al-Hayat, a new Middle East through Israeli war? America keeps making the same mistakes every single time; Hossein Shabakshi, al-Sharq al-Awsat, yes the Middle East needs reform and change... but not through the massacre of innocents; Abd al-Wahab Badrakhan, in al-Hayat: American plans require Israeli victory at any cost; Yasir al-Za'atra, al-Hayat: real roots of the escalating crisis is American drive for hegemony in the region; Hazem Saghiye, al-Hayat, America's responsibility; and that's not even getting in to Abd al-Bari Atwan (today: the Middle East against America) and the writers in al-Quds al-Arabi.

Perhaps this negative focus on America was inevitable, given Iraq and the war on terror and al-Jazeera?

No. This wasn't inevitable. Real American leadership, such as quickly restraining the Israeli offensive and taking the lead in ceasefire negotiations, could have created a Suez moment and dramatically increased American influence and prestige (especially if the Saudis had delivered Iran in a ceasefire agreement, as I've heard that Saudi officials believed that they could). But by disappearing for the first days of the war and then resurfacing only to provide a megaphone for Israeli arguments and to prevent international efforts at achieving a ceasefire, the Bush administration put America at the center of the storm of blame. I think that the Lebanon war will go down in history as one of the greatest missed opportunities in recent American diplomatic history - not because we failed to go after Iran, or whatever the bobbleheads are ranting about these days, but because we failed to rise to the occasion and exercise real global leadership in the national interest.

I have said it before many times and I'll say it again: the neocons have always been wrong about everything. This is just the latest in a decades long series of delusional miscalculations in which it is fantasized that if only the US would just get tough everything would fall into place. This is the simple essence of everything they believe in. And when they found themselves an empty brand name in a suit named George W. Bush they found the man whose infantile personality and outsized vanity could be manipulated perfectly to advance that belief.

The situation in Lebanon requires American leadership and we have failed miserably to provide it. The various players are engaged in a struggle in which minimizing loss of life and face saving kabuki may be the best we can hope for at any given time. The megalomaniacal belief that if only the Israelis are allowed to "get tough" or the Americans "take it to the Iranians" or whatever other simplistic schoolyard impulses they have been operating under have led us to the point at which the US is taking on the character of a rogue superpower, not a global leader.

I maintain that the players in the mid-east expected the US to exercize its power wisely and the American failure to fulfill its obligation has led to confusion, overreach and miscalculation. This is not surprising. The bumbling, hallucinatory nature of this administration's foreign policy has been manifest for some time now, but it's still hard to wrap your mind around the fact that the most powerful country in the world is being led so incompetently that it simply cannot rise to the occasion when the stakes are so high. I confess that I'm still shocked by that myself, although less so each time we are confronted with a challenge and these neocon magical thinkers automatically default to bellicose trash talk they are unable to back up.

This is a very dangerous moment for the world. The US is showing over and over again that it is immmoral and incompetent. That is the kind of thing that leads ambitious, crazy or stupid people to miscalculate and set disasterous events in motion. The neocons have destroyed America's carefully nurtured mystique by seeking to flex its muscles for the sake of flexing them. What a mistake. This country is much, much weaker today because of it and the world is paying the price. At some point I have to imagine that we are going to be paying it too. Big Time.




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digby 7/26/2006 11:26:00 AM |

 
Value Menu

by digby


In this rundown of the latest "daddy has a right to know if his daughter/victim is aborting his child" law in the Washington Post, I see that the Republicans "values agenda" has a new item:

Yesterday's vote marked the most significant congressional action on abortion in some time. Republicans, concerned about sagging poll numbers as they approach the November elections, have emphasized a "values agenda" that includes bids to ban flag desecration, same-sex marriage and estate taxes.

What a scam. The GOP has convinced both their gullible base and the media that protecting Paris Hilton's inheritance from being taxed is a moral issue. There really is a sucker born every minute.



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digby 7/26/2006 10:08:00 AM |

 
Billmon

by tristero

By getting it so exactly right, he saves the rest of us the effort. Note his take on the murder of the UN observers - I agree - and be certain to click through on the post's last link.



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tristero 7/26/2006 03:07:00 AM |

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

 
The Squeeze

by digby

I've long felt that this was one of the most potent political issues that nobody ever talks about. It was the main reason why I thought those Democrats who supported the Bankruptcy Bill were prostituting themselves so cheaply when you considered the stakes for ordinary people --- and the political bounty for those who have the imagination and the will to take it on:

In a survey of 1,000 adults, we find a public widely aware of the problem of growing household debt and overwhelmingly supporting solutions to this issue. The public’s concern over this issue results from perceptions of an economy performing unevenly, from perceptions of rising costs of living, and for a surprising and pressing number, from first-hand experience with excess or unmanageable debt. Despite the prominence of pay-day loan artists and other debt merchants in low-income neighborhoods throughout the country, the public does not see this is as a “lower class” problem, but a growing threat to the American middle class and the American dream.

Several lenders draw intense criticism of the public, including pay-day lenders, car finance companies and credit card companies. The practice of universal default—where credit card companies can raise your interest rates even if you never missed a payment, based on your behavior in other areas—is near universally condemned by respondents in this study.


At the same time, the public does not discount the importance of individual responsibility when it comes to solving this problem. More so than the lenders or even the economy, respondents hold individual borrowers responsible for the debt problem, and, naturally, the public responds enthusiastically to solutions that attempt to educate borrowers and improve financial decision-making at the household level.

This is one of those water cooler issues, like health care, where you hear tales of woe from everyone who isn't making a healthy six figure income. (And I suspect that there are plenty of those too who have similar problems.)

Household debt is crippling people in a stagnant economy where nobody is really getting ahead. With the housing market finally coming back down to earth this is going to be a big issue for a lot of ordinary Americans. I know a bunch of them personally.

Key Findings

* The public recognizes the seriousness of the debt issue. Nearly half describe household debt on items like credit cards, car loans, home mortgages and payday loans a very serious problem in this country and 82 percent describe it as at least a somewhat serious problem.

* By a whopping 79 to 19 percent margin, the public insists this is a problem for middle class families, rather than a problem primarily for lower income families.

* The public is more worried about falling into debt, particularly through medical bills, than about being the victim of a terrorist attack or natural disaster.

It isn't taxes that are keeping American up at night and it probably isn't jobs, at least on a massive scale. It isn't even terrorism or the war.

It's debt. People are going to be looking for some help with this problem and one place to start would be to rein in these avaricious credit card companies who got a nice handsome payoff with that heinous bankruptcy bill. This is an issue to which average Americans can relate: greedy credit card companies who can literally raise your rates for any reason at all causing your debt to cascade from manageable to overwhelming overnight. It wouldn't be hard to fix. There used to be laws against usury --- we can just dust them off.

This would require, of course, going up against the banking and finance lobby. The votes are waiting for the guy or gal who has the nerve to take a populist stance on this. Who out there has the juice to do that?


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digby 7/25/2006 08:41:00 PM |

 
Too Clever For Me

by digby


Ok. I didn't sleep well last night so maybe my brain isn't working properly. Can somebody please explain to me what in the hell this is all about?

Democrats in the US Senate called on Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to condemn Hezbollah's attacks against Israel and to recognize Israel's right to defend itself.

The lawmakers expressed dismay during a press conference over Maliki's recent criticism of "Israel aggression" in Lebanon and called for a "clarification" from the Iraqi leader before he appears Wednesday before a joint session of Congress.

The lawmakers suggested that some members of Congress may choose to boycott the event if an explanation is not forthcoming.

"No matter how politically expedient he thinks it may be, to stand with America, you have to stand against terrorism," said Senator Chuck Schumer.

"Before he speaks in front of the Congress and the American people, there's a very simple question we are asking the prime minister today: Which side is he on when it comes to the war on terror?" Schumer said.

In a letter dated July 24, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, along with other party leaders, called on the Iraqi leader to clarify his views before speaking to a joint session of the US Congress.

"Your failure to condemn Hezbollah's aggression and recognize Israel's right to defend itself raise serious questions about whether Iraq, under your leadership, can play a constructive role in resolving the current crisis and bringing stability to the Middle East," the lawmakers wrote to Maliki.

"As you know, the American people have given so much in the name of fighting global terror and helping build a better future for the people of Iraq," the Senate Democrats said.

"Americans deserve to know whether Iraq is an ally in these fights."

Like I said, I'm a little bit punch drunk. The heat, you know. I'm sure this must be some sort of very clever ploy that I'm just not getting. They're trapping Bush into something with this, right? They don't honestly think this is a good idea on the merits do they?

I need another glass of Impeachment Tea, stat. I'm obviously dehydrated.



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digby 7/25/2006 12:47:00 PM |

 
Walk like A Republican

by digby


This is rich. Lieberman supporters are throwing ticketed participants out of campaign events because they recognize them as being Lamont supporters. Man, they really don't get it, do they?

This was the Clinton speech, which one would think would be open to any American who had a ticket. He was, after all, the president of the United States for eight years and many people would like to hear him speak regardless of the circumstances. Yet Joe Lieberman's pals kicked these people out of the event, something I would have thought they'd figured out by now isn't in their best interest in this primary.

This seems to be a cognitive problem with the Lieberman campaign. They don't understand that the reason he is being challenged is not his voting record, although there's plenty to complain about. It's that he acts like a Republican toward his fellow Democrats.

At a time when a number of Democrats are suing the Bush administration for exactly this kind of activity, you'd think that Lieberman's people would know better. Salon posted this article just last week on the numerous cases pending in courts all over the country:

July 22,2006 | CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa -- When school was canceled to accommodate a campaign visit by President Bush, the two 55-year-old teachers reckoned the time was ripe to voice their simmering discontent with the administration's policies.

Christine Nelson showed up at the Cedar Rapids rally with a Kerry-Edwards button pinned on her T-shirt; Alice McCabe clutched a small, paper sign stating "No More War." What could be more American, they thought, than mixing a little dissent with the bunting and buzz of a get-out-the-vote rally headlined by the president?

Their reward: a pair of handcuffs and a strip search at the county jail.

Authorities say they were arrested because they refused to obey reasonable security restrictions, but the women disagree: "Because I had a dissenting opinion, they did what they needed to do to get me out of the way," said Nelson, who teaches history and government at one of this city's middle schools.

"I tell my students all the time about how people came to this country for freedom of religion, freedom of speech, that those rights and others are sacred. And all along I've been thinking to myself, 'not at least during this administration.'"

Their experience is hardly unique.

In the months before the 2004 election, dozens of people across the nation were banished from or arrested at Bush political rallies, some for heckling the president, others simply for holding signs or wearing clothing that expressed opposition to the war and administration policies.

Similar things have happened at official, taxpayer-funded, presidential visits, before and after the election. Some targeted by security have been escorted from events, while others have been arrested and charged with misdemeanors that were later dropped by local prosecutors.

Now, in federal courthouses from Charleston, W.Va., to Denver, federal officials and state and local authorities are being forced to defend themselves against lawsuits challenging the arrests and security policies.

While the circumstances differ, the cases share the same fundamental themes. Generally, they accuse federal officials of developing security measures to identify, segregate, deny entry or expel dissenters.

digby 7/25/2006 11:43:00 AM |

 
Who's Your Daddy?

by digby


Uh Oh. Our Sunni Wahabbist allies in the war on terrah seem to be confused about who's running things:

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah warned on Tuesday of war in the Middle East if Israel continues attacking Lebanon and the Palestinians, in an apparent appeal to key ally the United States to end the fighting.

"Saudi Arabia warns everybody that if the peace option fails because of Israeli arrogance, there will be no other option but war," state-owned media quoted the king as saying.

Heck. How's the US 'n Israel gonna help the Sunnis defeat the Shi'a and bring democracy tah everybody if they lose their nerve at the least little thing? Surely, they aren't feeling heat from their own people now are they? If so, they just need to tell 'em to stop this shit.

They need to understand that the US is there to spread God's gift of freedom (and, if we're lucky, bring on Armageddon.) Israel is bombing the shit out of Lebanon for its own good.

Man, these Arabs have a helluva lot to learn about how things work in the middle east...



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digby 7/25/2006 09:33:00 AM |

 
After 9/11, Millions of New Yorkers Joined Al Qaeda

by tristero

That is the bizarre rationale behind those who seek to justify the leveling of southern Lebanon by Israel. If Israel, the "logic" goes, can demonstrate that merely living close to a Hezbollah office can get your children killed by an Israeli bomb, support for Hezbollah will dry up.

Riiiiiiiiiight.

In supporting the attacks, Samuel Freedman doesn't bother to focus on the enormous human cost to the Lebanese civilians who, in many instances reported on NPR and elsewhere, appear to have been deliberately targeted by Israeli missile attacks (there's a word to describe deliberate attacks on civilians designed to terrorize them: the word is terrorism). To Freedman, such unfortunate deaths are collateral damage in pursuit of a higher gain. To me, these deaths are clearly immoral and can only serve as a catalyst for further radicalization, endangering Israel's future as a nation.

Some other highlights of Freedman's article include the assumption that Israel really isn't at war with Hezbollah, but Iran. Using that logic, Hezbollah and Israel aren't fighting at all. It's a proxy war between the US and Iran. All of this dovetails very nicely with an insane PNAC fantasy: "we" can eliminate evil (a la Perle/Frum's The End of Evil) if only we are brave enough to use our Kristol balls and tackle the "root causes" of terrorism.* And sure enough, on CNN this weekend, an earnest discussion was held under the caption: "Iran: The Root of Evil?"

Nevermind that the situation is far more complicated than a mere proxy war. You get nowhwere, and fast, unless you immediately, and directly, address the proximate issues. In this case, they are (1) The outrageous kidnapping of Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah; (2) The outrageous and counterproductive destruction of Southern Lebanon by Israel; and (3) the unconsionable and wholesale slaughter, on both sides, of utterly innocent civiilians.

The fighting should stop. Now. A United States foreign policy that does not make that central and absolutely clear is not only immoral. It is insane. It is close to an open declaration of war against Iran and Syria. And if Bush persists, it will be a war that will last a generation and will accomplish nothing good for the US.

As for Israel, it is a dangerous illusion to think that turning Syria and Iran into Hobbesian dystopias similar to Afghanistan and Iraq will somehow make Israel safer. Any genuine friend of Israel should demand an immediate, total cease-fire.

Freedman writes:

Maybe the people so ready to assail Israel now should have been watching more closely a few months ago when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran convened a conference devoted to the exterminatory premise of a "world without Zionism." Maybe they should have been listening more closely when Ahmadinejad declared his desire to "wipe Israel off the map."

Oh, we listened closely, all right and you needn't tell us how obscene it was. But what else could you expect? Unfortunately, you, Samuel Freedman, didn't listen closely when a few years before that, an American president in one of the most important speeches in the modern world, declared Iran, Iraq, and North Korea an Axis of Evil. If Hezbollah equals Iran, then Israel equals the US. Given Bush's incredibly stoopid (spelled appropriately) words and action, it can only appear to Iran's leader as if eliminating Israel will remove a real, imminent, threat to Iran's very existence.

Israel has every right to protect itself. Therefore, it should immediately stand down, withdraw all troops from Lebanese territority, and put plenty of political distance between itself and those nuts, including the US president, urging them to tickle the Iranian dragon. To call the present course of action increasingly dangerous is to indulge in gross understaement.


---

*And let's not forget that the infamous PNAC paper outlining the conquest of Iraq, "A Clean Break," was written for Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, in order to solicit proposals to make Israel, not the US, safer.
tristero 7/25/2006 05:09:00 AM |

 
ABA Report On Signing Statements

by tristero

Here's a link to a PDF of the American Bar Association's report on Bush's use of signing statments. Anyone who doubts we are living under an early American form of fascism need only read this little excerpt and ponder how far we have moved from the quaint notion - the way the Geneva Conventions are quaint - that the US is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people:

Among those unanimous recommendations, the Task Force voted to:

- oppose, as contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers, a President's issuance of signing statements to claim the authority or state the intention to disregard or decline to enforce all or part of a law he has signed, or to interpret such a law in a manner inconsistent with the clear intent of Congress;

- urge the President, if he believes that any provision of a bill pending before Congress would be unconstitutional if enacted, to communicate such concerns to Congress prior to passage;

- urge the President to confine any signing statements to his views regarding the meaning, purpose, and significance of bills, and to use his veto power if he believes that all or part of a bill is unconstitutional;

- urge Congress to enact legislation requiring the President promptly to submit to Congress an official copy of all signing statements, and to report to Congress the reasons and legal basis for any instance in which he claims the authority, or states the intention, to disregard or decline to enforce all or part of a law he has signed, or to interpret such a law in a manner inconsistent with the clear intent of Congress, and to make all such submissions be available in a publicly accessible database.

As late as early January, 2000, the only response one would make to this list was, "No shit, Sherlock, like why waste time telling us the obvious?" 'Cause until Bush, each of these recommendations would have been utterly unnecessary. Even under Nixon? Even under Nixon. (And speaking of the old scoundrel, be sure to read Jane Mayer's excellent profile of creepy David Addington, and note the lessons Cheney, et al, took away from Watergate)

As the NY Times notes, in an editorial that is only three months behind Charlie Savage's famous article in the Globe, Bush has issued more than 800 signing statements, over 200 more than all the previous presidents combined. The Times concludes, with the kind of justifiable cynicism they really should have shown towards Bush's presidency in 2002 and 2003:

The A.B.A. called Mr. Bush’s use of presidential signing statements “contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers” and recommended that Congress enact legislation clarifying the issue.

We agree on both points, even though we fear that if Congress passes a bill, Mr. Bush will simply issue a new signing statement saying he also does not intend to follow it.

Exactly.
tristero 7/25/2006 03:58:00 AM |

Monday, July 24, 2006

 
Ain't Nobody's Business

by digby

Here's a terrific idea. Just fantastic:

The Bush administration acknowledged yesterday that it had long known about Pakistan's plans to build a large plutonium-production reactor, but it said the White House was working to dissuade Pakistan from using the plant to expand its nuclear arsenal.

"We discourage military use of the facility," White House spokesman Tony Snow said of a powerful heavy-water reactor under construction at Pakistan's Khushab nuclear site in Punjab state.

Pakistan has begun building what independent analysts say is a powerful new reactor for producing plutonium, a move that, if verified, would signal a major expansion of the country's nuclear weapons capabilities and a potential new escalation in the region's arms race.

The reactor, which reportedly will be capable of producing enough plutonium for as many as 50 bombs each year, was brought to light on Sunday by independent analysts who spotted the partially completed plant in commercial-satellite photos. Snow said the administration had "known of these plans for some time."

And yet (I know this will shock you) they didn't bother to tell the congress, not even members of the Eunuch Caucus:

The acknowledgment came as arms-control experts and some in Congress expressed alarm about a possible escalation of South Asia's arms race. Some also sharply criticized the administration for failing to disclose the existence of a facility that could influence an upcoming congressional debate over U.S. nuclear policy toward India and Pakistan.

"If either India or Pakistan starts increasing its nuclear arsenal, the other side will respond in kind," said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), co-chairman of a House bipartisan task force on nonproliferation. "The Bush administration's proposed nuclear deal with India is making that much more likely."

Pakistan is reportedly the new home of Osama bin laden and all indications are that it is the epicenter of the next generation of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. But no matter. Let's let the whole sub-continent nuke itself up to the gills. Nothing bad can come of it, right?

Still, I can't help but recall the immortal words of our Dear Leader when he said:

Tonight I want to take a few minutes to discuss a grave threat to peace, and America's determination to lead the world in confronting that threat.

The threat comes from Iraq. It arises directly from the Iraqi regime's own actions - its history of aggression, and its drive toward an arsenal of terror.

[...]

We also must never forget the most vivid events of recent history. On Sept. 11, 2001, America felt its vulnerability - even to threats that gather on the other side of the earth. We resolved then and we are resolved today to confront every threat, from any source, that could bring sudden terror and suffering to America.

[...]

Some ask how urgent this danger is to America and the world. The danger is already significant and it only grows worse with time. If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today - and we do - does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons?

[...]


We know that Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network share a common enemy - the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al-Qaida have had high-level contacts that go back a decade. Some al-Qaida leaders who fled Afghanistan went to Iraq.

[...]

Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliances with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.

[...]


There is no easy or risk-free course of action. Some have argued we should wait - and that is an option. In my view, it is the riskiest of all options - because the longer we wait, the stronger and bolder Saddam Hussein will become. We could wait and hope that Saddam does not give weapons to terrorists, or develop a nuclear weapon to blackmail the world. But I am convinced that is a hope against all evidence. As Americans, we want peace - we work and sacrifice for peace - and there can be no peace if our security depends on the will and whims of a ruthless and aggressive dictator. I am not willing to stake one American life on trusting Saddam Hussein.

The military dictator Pervez Musharraf, however, he's willing to trust with an entire nuclear arsenal and a population full of Islamic fundamentalists who hate the United States with every fiber of their beings. Now he's keeping Pakistan's secret development of plutonium from the congress. I sure hope he looked into Musharraf's soul and saw a guy who could guarantee an iron grip on events because if not, Pakistan holds a lot of very scary cards.

I have always wondered why this was not questioned during the run-up to the war. Pakistan always made the Iraq invasion absurd. Still does, more than ever.


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digby 7/24/2006 10:29:00 PM |

 
Double Trouble

by digby


Joe Klein's surprisingly mild column on Joe Lieberman in this week's TIME contained one very interesting bit of information:

There are those who believe the Senator's unwillingness to criticize Bush has its roots in politics. "He flew too close to the sun," said a Connecticut Democrat who believes that Lieberman played nice with the President in the hope of securing both the Democratic and the Republican nominations for Senate this year.

Johnathan Chait asks:

Can this really be true? If so, it's astonishing. Lieberman represents one of the bluest states in the country. He had zero to fear from a Republican challenger. Was he so eager to avoid having to undergo the formality of a reelection campaign that he wanted a double-endorsement?

The nugget from Klein's source strikes me as not completely implausible, but pretty hard to believe. If Lieberman really pulled his punches against Bush so he could avoid a token challenge, that would be a pretty good reason to vote against him. I'd love to see more reporters dig into this.

I don't find it hard to believe. I was chattering with Jane Hamsher about this yesterday and we both immediately speculated that Joe might have been plotting a presidential run --- not as a Democrat, but under the Unity '08 banner. It certainly would explain why he would have wanted a double endorsement.

It might also explain why he has been acting so shocked and angry. He thought he was getting a double endorsement and he may just be getting no endorsement at all.
digby 7/24/2006 09:52:00 PM |

 
No Need To Lie

by digby


You need to check out Barbara Boxer stumping for Joe Lieberman and (aside from being arrogant and rude) misrepresenting his stated position on whether publicly funded hospitals should be required to provide emergency contraception to rape victims.

The irony in all this is that Barbara Boxer was the one who led the fight to provide poor women abortions under medicaid in cases of rape or incest back in 1989 when she was a congresswoman:

HOUSE, IN BIG SHIFT, VOTES TO RESTORE AID FOR ABORTIONS

By ROBIN TONER, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES

Published: October 12, 1989

In a significant policy reversal long sought by abortion rights advocates, the House of Representatives voted today to allow the Federal Government to pay for abortions for poor women whose pregnancies result from rape or incest.

In a significant policy reversal long sought by abortion rights advocates, the House of Representatives voted today to allow the Federal Government to pay for abortions for poor women whose pregnancies result from rape or incest.

The decision, which came in a 216-to-206 vote, was described by both sides in the bitter abortion debate as a sign of the shifting political landscape since the United States Supreme Court's decision in July giving states new latitude to restrict abortion.

The measure now goes to the Senate, where it is expected to win approval, reversing an eight-year-old policy.

[...]

Representative Barbara Boxer, the California Democrat who led the drive to ease the ban on Federal financing for abortions, said, ''Today we have a historic moment, a change in direction.''

As ebullient abortion rights supporters crowded around her moments after the vote, she said, ''The political momentum is so strong right now that if President Bush vetoed this he would be making a big mistake.''

Now she is covering for Joe Lieberman's reprehensible position that taxpayers should subsidize illogical religious beliefs which hold that even birth control, much less abortion, is wrong. But then so is NARAL and Planned Parenthood. The pro-choice movement seems to have forgotten what it stands for.

I wouldn't normally object to Boxer going up to Connecticut to stump for her pal Joe. They are friends and it's human to want to help out your friends. But it is not necessary for her to lie about his position.

It is indisputable that Lieberman said "In Connecticut, it shouldn’t take more than a short ride to get to another hospital." When asked about this today, Boxer testily replied, "no that's not what he said ... let me finish, because I read about it... what he said is he believes that the hospital has an obligation to take care of the patient and let's say there's a hospital next door ... walk ... get the patient help, that's what he meant."

That is about as lame as anything I've ever heard a professional politican say. It is beneath her. And you can bet that if the shoe were on the other foot, Joe Lieberman would sooner join Hezbollah as twist himself into that kind of a pretzel for her. Joe only does such gyrations for his own benefit, never anybody else, and certainly not a liberal from California.



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digby 7/24/2006 05:25:00 PM |

 
We Have Always Been At War With Terror

by digby


Billmon brings up something that's been bugging me for a while. When, exactly, did George W. Bush officially make the US an ally of the Sunnis in a quest to crush the Shi'a crescent? Was it before or after we took down Saddam Hussein, who (with our help) kept the Shi'a in his own country thoroughly repressed and fought the Shi'a in Iran to a bitter standstill over the course of a bloody decade? Between the purple fingers and the cedar revolution babes I guess I lost track of which "terrorists" we like and which ones we don't.

Billmon says:

The Daily Telegraph explains what we've been fighting for these past five years:

White House aides have said they consider the Lebanon crisis to be a "leadership moment" for Mr Bush and an opportunity to proceed with his post-September 11 plan to reshape the Middle East by building Sunni Arab opposition to Shi’a terrorism. Yesterday Mr Bush cited the role of Iran and Syria in providing help to Hezbollah. (emphasis added)

The question is whether this astonishing statement is the product of bad writing, the slack-jawed stupidity of the Telegraph's Washington correspondent, or a deliberate Eastasia/Eurasia switch by our fun-loving Orwellians in the Cheney administration.

If it’s just bad writing or stupidity – if the phrase “building Sunni Arab opposition to Shi’a terrorism” doesn’t actually modify “post-September 11 plan,” but instead is just another way of pretending that Shrub is capable of the kind of leadership that has its “moments,” then the sentence is only unintentionally hysterical. However, given the current situation on the ground (all 18 zillion square miles of it) it may well be precisely the lie it appears to be, to wit: that fighting “Shi’a terrorism” was the point of Shrub’s post-9/11 master plan all along.

It may just bad writing from the Daily Telegraph in this case, but it's certainly indicative of the themes we've been hearing from right wingers over the last couple of weeks, not to mention the Israelis themselves. Billmon excerpts this astonishing quote in a different post:

An adviser to Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz told The Observer: 'We are finally going to fight Hizbollah on the ground. The Israeli people are ready for this, and the Sunni Muslim world also expects us to fight Shia fundamentalism. We are going to deliver.'

Manichewitz tastes a little bit like kool-aid, but it's still a mistake to drink too much of it. It's hard to believe that any Israeli has actually bought into that absurd rationale, but maybe they have. To put it mildly, it's a really big mistake to think that just because Washington is assuring them that the "arab moderates" are on their side that their people agree.

The truth is, I don't think it matters a damn anymore which "terrorists" we are fighting today or what the goals allegedly are. This is the GWOT and the enemies of "non-terror" are whomever is deemed "terrible" today. It's irrelevant that the terrorists we were supposed to be fighting yesterday are now our allies against the terrorist we are fighting today. It's all good.

And the press has signed on without even a second thought. Here's Newsweak:

While Washington was sleeping the night before, yet another corner of the Middle East had erupted into violence, after Hizbullah launched a deadly ambush on an Israeli patrol. The summit, which was supposed to focus on Iran's nukes and Russia's democracy, had just been hijacked by the war on terror

.

So you see, we have always been at War with Terror. (Or, at least Israel has been, since its inception.)

The US managed somehow, against the best efforts of Karl Rove, to separate the Iraq war from the broader "War on Terror." It looks as though they are taking another crack at it and are now trying to conflate every problem in the mideast with its alleged fight against terrorism. This, I believe, is purely for domestic political consideration. It must be, because it is completely incoherent on the substance: we simply cannot be "fightin' terrorism" as allies of the Israelis and Sunni muslims against the Shiites while we occupy Iraq and say we are promoting democracy. The mind reels at the cognitive dissonance embodied in that statement.

Unfortunately, while the nutty rhetoric must have the rest of the world wondering who put the acid in the sweet mint tea, here in the US it makes perfect sense. We're fightin' em over there --- whoever those Ayrab/Jews/terrorists are --- so we don't have to fight 'em over here. Don't worry your pretty little heads about the details -- here's a tax cut, go out and buy one of those big screen Teevees and watch you some American idol. Republicans will keep you safe from all of 'em.




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digby 7/24/2006 12:00:00 PM |

Sunday, July 23, 2006

 

Oh Goody

Just when you thought our long national erection might be ending:

Panasonic to offer $70,000 plasma TV for Christmas

Christmas is less than half a year away and some of us may already setting up their wish list for their parents and spouses. If you are looking for something different this year, ditch that Porsche and consider the world's largest plasma HDTV.

(Alternate titles included Oh Woody, The Rapture Will Be Televised, and The True Meaning of Christmas. )

poputonian 7/23/2006 07:47:00 PM |

 
Birth Pangs

by digby


My electricity has been iffy all afternoon, but I was able to check in over at FDL for a bit to see what Mr Soros had to say. I brought up the Condi Rice "birth pang" comment in passing and one of the commenters pointed out that it's actually Rapture talk, if you can believe that.

I checked it out and over at the Rapture Forum they've been talking about the "birth pangs" of Armageddon ever since 9/11.

Having told His disciples which characteristics would not indicate the end of the age, Jesus turned to the questions themselves; He begins with the third one about the sign that would mark the end of the age (Matthew 24: 7-8; Mark 13:8; Luke 21:10-11).

According to all three Gospels, the sign of the end of the age is said to be when nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. This act will be coupled with famines and earthquakes in various places, which Messiah clearly stated would be the beginning of travail.

The term travail means “birth-pang,” referring to the series of birth-pangs that a woman undergoes before giving birth. The prophets pictured the last days as a series of birth-pangs before the birth of the new Messianic Age. Yeshua is saying that the beginning of travail (the first birth-pang and the sign that the end of the age has begun) is when nation rises against nation and kingdom against kingdom.

This is Condi's quote:

"What we're seeing here ... are the birth pangs of a new Middle East and whatever we do, we have to be certain that we are pushing forward to the new Middle East, not going back to the old one."

Aside from the unbelievable arrogance of that statement, which is virtually designed to piss off just about everyone in the region, this "birth-pang" characterization struck me a bizarre when I heard it. It seemed like an odd image to evoke under the circumstances and I didn't quite understand what she was referring to since the "democracy baby" she and her unofficial husband call Iraq is dying a violent death before it is even born.

Now I get it. Members of the Bush administration have been speaking in code to the Christian fundamentalists for years. In fact, they've been praised for their innovation by the mainstream press. From "culture of life" to "Dred Scott" to "wonder working power" the administration is often talking above the mainstream discourse directly to its Christian Right base.

The only explanations for employing such language at a time like this are that the Secretary of State of the United States is a flipped out fundamentalist herself --- or Karl Rove is deeply involved in the diplomatic language Rice is employing in order to stimulate their base. I lean toward the second (Karl's legacy depends upon his holding the congress this fall) but I wouldn't rule out the first.

Either way, it's unbelievably inappropriate for the top diplomat of the US to be using coded Christian fundamentalist language to discuss this, of all topics. What is wrong with these people?
digby 7/23/2006 04:19:00 PM |

Saturday, July 22, 2006

 
Civilian Continuum

by digby


Ward Churchill:

[I]f what the combat teams did to the WTC and the Pentagon can be understood as acts of war – and they can – then the same is true of every US "overflight' of Iraqi territory since day one. The first acts of war during the current millennium thus occurred on its very first day, and were carried out by U.S. aviators acting under orders from their then-commander-in-chief, Bill Clinton. The most that can honestly be said of those involved on September 11 is that they finally responded in kind to some of what this country has dispensed to their people as a matter of course.

That they waited so long to do so is, notwithstanding the 1993 action at the WTC, more than anything a testament to their patience and restraint.

They did not license themselves to "target innocent civilians."

There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed on September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside comprised military targets, pure and simple.

As for those in the World Trade Center, well, really, let's get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire, the "mighty engine of profit" to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved and they did so both willingly and knowingly.

Alan Dershowitz:

[T]he recognition that "civilianality" is often a matter of degree, rather than a bright line, should still inform the assessment of casualty figures in wars involving terrorists, paramilitary groups and others who fight without uniforms — or help those who fight without uniforms.

Turning specifically to the current fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and Hamas, the line between Israeli soldiers and civilians is relatively clear. Hezbollah missiles and Hamas rockets target and hit Israeli restaurants, apartment buildings and schools. They are loaded with anti-personnel ball-bearings designed specifically to maximize civilian casualties.

Hezbollah and Hamas militants, on the other hand, are difficult to distinguish from those "civilians" who recruit, finance, harbor and facilitate their terrorism. Nor can women and children always be counted as civilians, as some organizations do. Terrorists increasingly use women and teenagers to play important roles in their attacks.

The Israeli army has given well-publicized notice to civilians to leave those areas of southern Lebanon that have been turned into war zones. Those who voluntarily remain behind have become complicit. Some — those who cannot leave on their own — should be counted among the innocent victims.

If the media were to adopt this "continuum," it would be informative to learn how many of the "civilian casualties" fall closer to the line of complicity and how many fall closer to the line of innocence.

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digby 7/22/2006 08:16:00 PM |

 
Sustainable

by digby


The Bush administration are monsters. That is not hyperbole. There can be no other explanation as to why the secretary of state, the person in charge of American diplomacy, would be so crude and stupid.

From Maureen Dowd:

Condi doesn’t want to talk to Hezbollah or its sponsors, Syria and Iran — “Syria knows what it needs to do,’’ she says with asperity — and she doesn’t want a cease-fire. She wants “a sustainable cease-fire,’’ which means she wants to give the Israelis more time to decimate Hezbollah bunkers with the precision-guided bombs that the Bush administration is racing to deliver.

“I could have gotten on a plane and rushed over and started shuttling, and it wouldn’t have been clear what I was shuttling to do,” she said.

Keep more civilians from being killed? Or at least keep America from being even more despised in the Middle East and around the globe?

Jesus. They don't even know how to fake it anymore. Isn't it at least smart to pretend you care about the dying children?

I guess not. These lunatics are still laboring under the false belief that the world is impressed by their macho trash talk and will capitulate just because George W. Bush says boo.

And notice that Rice says "Syria knows what it needs to do" which is apparently a reference to the leader of the free world spitting out that the Syrians need to "stop this shit" between flecks of dinner roll at the G8 conference. Any thought that he wasn't speaking official US policy has, I think, been put to rest. Dear God. (Juan Cole noted at the time, "I come away from it shaken and trembling." No kidding.)

Dowd continues:

Condi was as cool as ever in the State Department briefing room yesterday, perfectly groomed in a camel-colored suit with an athletic white stripe. Like her boss, she does not show any sign of tension over the fact that all of their schemes to democratize the Middle East ended up creating more fundamentalism, extremism, terrorism and anti-Americanism. Having ginned up the idea that Al Qaeda was state-sponsored terrorism backed by Saddam, now W. and Condi have to contend with the specter of real state-sponsored terrorism.

Like a professor who has grown so frustrated with one misbehaving student that she turns her focus on another, Condi put aside the sulfurous distraction of Iraq and enthused over the need to make the fragile democracy in Lebanon a centerpiece of the “new Middle East.”

She said that the carnage there represented the “birth pangs of a new Middle East, and whatever we do we have to be certain that we are pushing forward to the new Middle East, not going back to the old one.” Yet everything in the Middle East seems to be reeling backward in a scary way, and neocons are once more mocking W. as a wimp who should blow off the State Department and blow up Syria and Iran.

Having inadvertently built up Iran with his failures in Iraq, W. is eager now to send Iran a shock-and-awe message through Israel.

I honestly think that last is part of what's motivating the warmongers. As with their last epic failure, Vietnam, they believe their hands have been tied by a bunch of liberal generals and a pansy-ass populace who refuse to let them fight the way they need to fight. They see the Israelis as their personal Rottweilers and they want to let them off the chain.

The Israelis should ask themselves if they really want to do George W. Bush's dirty work for him. I continue to suspect they did not expect that the US would give them the green light on this (it is insane, after all) and now they have no face saving way out. America did not do its job and now things are deteriorating beyond anyone's control.

But, you know, we didn't want to waste time with a cease fire that might not last longer than nine or ten months. Hey, all those kids might as well die today as next year, right?

Of course, it could also just be politics. It often is. The bridegroom is a-comin' and the warmongers are chomping at the bit. The election is right around the corner and the Republican base is dying for WWIII. Well, not dying exactly. Somebody else is doing that. They are in the throes of le petit mort --- a different thing entirely.

And I can't help but be reminded of this:

"God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them."

Update: Here's another "clarifying moment" for everyone:

President Bush Saturday again blamed Hezbollah for the crisis but said responsibility must also be shared by Syria and Iran, which support and provide weapons to the militant Shiite Muslim political and military organization. "Their actions threaten the entire Middle East and stand in the way of resolving the current crisis and bringing lasting peace to this troubled region," he said in his weekly radio address from his ranch in Crawford, Tex.

[...]

Bush said again that the United States is pressuring Israel to use care "to protect innocent lives and is concerned that the warfare is putting Lebanon's democratic government in peril.

They sure have a funny way of making that point:

The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.

The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran’s efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.

Yah think?



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digby 7/22/2006 09:38:00 AM |

Friday, July 21, 2006

 
I'm Not Ready To Make Nice

by digby


Rush:

The Democratic Party today is assumed to be -- well, it's not assumed to be. The Democratic Party today is oriented around one thing -- aside from its hatred of Bush -- oriented around its anti-war position. The Democrat base is pure anti-war, and that's why Lieberman is in trouble. It is such a powerful base or perceived to be by other Democrats, that Democrats like Hillary and others, John Kerry said, (paraphrasing) "If Lieberman loses, I'm not supporting him. I must support my party. My party stood behind me. I always be a Democrat," and Hillary has pretty much said the same thing. Barbara Boxer however is in trouble, so-called.

There is a little tremor in Rush's description of the "powerful" Democratic base (he realizes it and tries to amend his statement.)The opposition actually has him rattled for the first time in recent memory.

Unfortunately a good part of the Dem establishment is not just rattled but virtually hysterical. Ezra wrote this today:

I had it out the other night with a very pro-Lieberman writer who, it came clear to me, believed the entire concept of a primary challenge against Lieberman a simply illegitimate form of opposition. Lieberman, as a Democratic incumbent, had a claim on his party's nomination and his Senate seat that couldn't be challenged by a bunch of bloggers and a cable television executive named Ned. It was the impudence of the whole thing that so offended.

I've really been saddened, in fact, by how often, when I drill down into anti-Lamonter motivations, I find their ideological and electoral motivations mere sandrock obscuring a core rage at this affront to tradition and orderly succession. I didn't believe this even a few months ago, but I've been forced to conclude that what scares folks about Lamont is that he represents an assault on privilege -- Joe Lieberman's, to be sure, but also theirs, no matter what sector of politics they currently represent.

Apparently these comfy Democratic insiders don't mind the Republicans treating them like neutered farm animals --- but I do. I take it personally when a propaganda industry makes millions spreading lies that liberals are terrorists or traitors. Yet the political establishment, including the media, doesn't seem to think I should care about such things --- even as I've seen my party and my country degraded and humiliated for years by this virulent strain of rightwing politics.

I was driving the other day and the announcer of the pop station I was listening to said that their most requested song was "I'm Not Ready To Make Nice" by the Dixie Chicks. I realized I had never closely listened to it before. As I drove alongside the Pacific Ocean with the windows open and the stereo blasting I think I finally understood -- or admitted to myself -- that much of this netroots and grassroots energy and emotional committment is coming from the simple fact that we've just reached the rope of our ends with these malignant Republican bullies and the people who would protect their privilege rather than stand up.

I think this song expresses how many of us feel after 20 years of a non-stop assault from the right --- and the eager capitulation of those who find us a convenient strawman from whom they can distance themselves:




Forgive, sounds good.
Forget, I'm not sure I could.
They say time heals everything,
But I'm still waiting

I'm through, with doubt,
There's nothing left for me to figure out,
I've paid a price, and I'll keep paying

I'm not ready to make nice,
I'm not ready to back down,
I'm still mad as hell
And I don't have time
To go round and round and round
It's too late to make it right
I probably wouldn't if I could
Cause I'm mad as hell
Can't bring myself to do what it is
You think I should

I know you said
Why can't you just get over it,
It turned my whole world around
and I kind of like it

I made my bed and I sleep like a baby,
With no regrets and I don't mind saying,
It's a sad sad story
That a mother will teach her daughter
that she ought to hate a perfect stranger.
And how in the world
Can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they'd write me a letter
Saying that I better
Shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

Forgive, sounds good.
Forget, I'm not sure I could.
They say time heals everything,
But I'm still waiting

Amen.

Did they think we were going to take their shit forever?

Don't lose your nerve Democrats. I know you hate to be "unseemly" and loathe the idea that anyone will think you are "unreasonable." I understand that having Rush say you are in thrall to the lunatic left fringe brings on a 60's flashback that leaves you dripping in a cold sweat. But get a grip on your subconscious fear of being a feeling and breathing human being and recognize that this is a good and necessary thing for your country. (You might even come to "kinda like it" like those Dixie Chicks have.) You don't have to be neutered farm animals anymore. If you're ready to take it to them we're here to get your backs.




In case anyone has forgotten just what it was that Natalie Maines said that caused people to send her death threats it was: "Just so you know, we're ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas." They are now virtually banned from country radio. Their CD was #1 on the Billboard charts for three weeks and is still selling briskly anyway.




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digby 7/21/2006 10:48:00 PM |

 
Huh?

by digby

Italy will host an international conference next week to discuss the possibility of a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, the Italian government said on Friday.

[...]

An Italian foreign ministry spokesman said neither Syria nor Iran - accused by Israel of sponsoring Hezbollah - had been invited, and no one from Israel was expected to attend for the time being.

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digby 7/21/2006 09:15:00 PM |

 
Swippery Swope

by digby


Oh no, not the bunnies....



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digby 7/21/2006 09:10:00 PM |

 
ReElect The Fighters

by digby


Last week I wrote regarding the mid-east crisis:

Karl Rove must be very happy this morning. He is convinced that "war" (it doesn't matter who or why) always accrues to the Republican party's benefit. And the media agree that when things heat up, they really want the guys with the big swinging members in charge. (For some reason, they are under the misapprehension that the group of chickenhawks running the US government have such endowments.)

I realize that it is somewhat distasteful to discuss this issue with domestic politics in mind. But I can guarantee that the white house is. They view everything through the lens of domestic politics.

There was some disagreement among readers who thought that it is ridiculous to think a widening war could benefit the failed Republicans. I certainly hope that's true.

But in case anyone thinks they aren't going to run on their reputation for manly manliness anyway, think again:

Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday pointed to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah as fresh evidence of the ongoing battle against terrorism that underscores the need to keep President Bush's Republican allies in control of Congress.

"This conflict is a long way from over," Cheney said at a fundraising appearance for a GOP congressional candidate. "It's going to be a battle that will last for a very long time. It is absolutely essential that we stay the course."

Cheney's visit to Tampa helped raise about $200,000 for the campaign of Gus Bilirakis, a state legislator who is running for the Tampa Bay area congressional seat his father is vacating.

"Gus is going to remember that the first order of business is to protect the American people and to support the men and women who defend us in time of war," Cheney told the audience at a $500-a-ticket fundraising reception. "There's still hard work ahead in the war on terror."

Cheney said that as Republicans make their case to voters in the midterm elections, "it's vital that we keep issues of national security at the top of the agenda." He faulted Democrats in Congress who have pushed for a timetable for withdrawing Americans from Iraq, saying that would send the wrong message to terrorists.

"If anyone thinks the conflict is over or soon to be over, all they have to do is look at what's happening in the Middle East today," he said.

I know it seems ridiculous in light of what we are seing in Iraq that they would think of running on their superior competence in dealing with the middle east. But remember, the Republicans are counting on thirty years of rightwing propaganda to get them over the line again. They expect that many voters will simply fall back into their comfortable understanding of the two parties: the Republicans are tough men who can handle national security and the Democrats are sensitive women who will help you when you need help (if you're a pathetic loser who actually needs help that is.) The Fighters and the Lovers. This is the paradigm under which we've lived for many years and people find it very disconcerting to be asked to relinquish such reflexive internalized beliefs --- no matter what they see before them.

I do not know that they can pull it off one more time. We may have finally reached a tipping point. But I'm not counting any chickens.



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digby 7/21/2006 12:38:00 PM |

 
Political Capital

by digby


Ezra wonders why war president Bush killed off compassionate conservative president Bush.

I've never been entirely convinced by the explanations for why that happened. Bush's record in Texas and his rhetoric on the campaign trail never suggested the sort of leader that would emerge. September 11 changed him, but it's not precisely clear why it enabled such an abandonment of the domestic realm. I will, in the interest of debate, offer this thesis, which I find interesting if not convincing. I've adapted it from something Grover Norquist said at the Prospect breakfast: He argued that the high poll numbers of 9-11 straitjacketed the administration, leaving them terrified of downward drift. So in their efforts to retain 80 percent approval ratings, they refused to engage in the sort of divisive, unpopular fights needed to actualize their agenda. They just went with the interest groups as the path of least resistance. And by the time they were ready for domestic policies again, they couldn't afford to split the coalition. Compassionate conservatism died because Bush became popular and wasn't willing to sacrifice that support for issues beneath War and Peace.

I would argue that there never was a "compassionate conservative" Bush, but a political slogan that was adopted when the face of the party was the slavering beasts of the Gingrich years who shut down the government and impeached a popular president against the will of the people. The game plan was to run Bush as a Republican Clinton without the woody.

And to the extent that they actually believed any of their campaign blather about "soft bigotry of low expectations" and prescription drug coverage, it was only to massage certain constituencies they needed to cobble together a majority --- which they didn't actually manage to do in 2000. Karl was just buying votes like any smart pol does.

Bush, however, always wanted to be a "war president" and knew exactly what he wanted to do with all that political capital:

“He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. “It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade ... if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.”

What we didn't realize is that so much of his agenda had to do with expanding executive power and invading Iraq. Indeed, he probably didn't realize it either, but he's the type of personality who undoubtedly found those two agenda items very enticing.

They failed on social security, the big ticket domestic item of the second term, but the reason was that they always overestimated the amount of political capital a "war president" who only won a second term by 51% of the vote actually has. He had plenty of juice after 9/11 but he used it all up on Iraq --- and when the WMD didn't show, most of that evaporated over time.

But the tax cuts, the indiscriminate deregulation, the expansion of executive power (not only through the programs like the illegal wiretapping but through the passage of the Patriot Act as well) can only be considered great successes by the standard he set forth. The reason his "compassionate conservative" agenda wasn't part of that package is because it was just an campaign ploy to begin with. After 9/11 they made the calculation that he could win by running solely on national security with a smattering of homo-hating. And he did.



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digby 7/21/2006 10:55:00 AM |

 
Another Moment of Clarity

by digby


The conflict in the mideast has always had a certain kabuki element. In the past when these situations would flare up, Israel would take an agrressive action to demonstrate that it wasn't a pushover and the US would step in like a Dutch uncle and reluctantly pull the pissed off Israelis back. In a dangerous part of the world, these face-saving kabukis can prevent things from hurtling out of control while allowing each side to stage a little bloodletting. It's an ugly, ugly business, but ultimately it has managed to help keep this volatile region from hurtling out of control. The "honest broker" thing may have always been phony, but sometimes a phony "honest broker" is all you need.

This time, the US has abandoned that role and they are letting Israel off the leash to do some real damage before they "step in." Via Atrios I see that Bush thinks he's smarter than everyone else on this:

When hostilities have broken out in the past, the usual U.S. response has been an immediate and public bout of diplomacy aimed at a cease-fire, in the hopes of ensuring that the crisis would not escalate. This week, however, even in the face of growing international demands, the White House has studiously avoided any hint of impatience with Israel. While making it plain it wants civilian casualties limited, the administration is also content to see the Israelis inflict the maximum damage possible on Hezbollah.

As the president's position is described by White House officials, Bush associates and outside Middle East experts, Bush believes that the status quo -- the presence in a sovereign country of a militant group with missiles capable of hitting a U.S. ally -- is unacceptable.

The U.S. position also reflects Bush's deepening belief that Israel is central to the broader campaign against terrorists and represents a shift away from a more traditional view that the United States plays an "honest broker's" role in the Middle East.

In the administration's view, the new conflict is not just a crisis to be managed. It is also an opportunity to seriously degrade a big threat in the region, just as Bush believes he is doing in Iraq. Israel's crippling of Hezbollah, officials also hope, would complete the work of building a functioning democracy in Lebanon and send a strong message to the Syrian and Iranian backers of Hezbollah.

"The president believes that unless you address the root causes of the violence that has afflicted the Middle East, you cannot forge a lasting peace," said White House counselor Dan Bartlett. "He mourns the loss of every life. Yet out of this tragic development, he believes a moment of clarity has arrived."

One former senior administration official said Bush is only emboldened by the pressure from U.N. officials and European leaders to lead a call for a cease-fire. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan demanded yesterday that the fighting in Lebanon stop.

"He thinks he is playing in a longer-term game than the tacticians," said the former official, who spoke anonymously so he could discuss his views candidly. "The tacticians would say: 'Get an immediate cease-fire. Deal first with the humanitarian factors.' The president would say: 'You have an opportunity to really grind down Hezbollah. Let's take it, even if there are other serious consequences that will have to be managed.' "

They are now officially crazy.

I haven't bought into all the 1914 stuff that's been going around, but I'm heading that way. It will be sheer luck if we avoid serious consequences from letting these dimwit megalomaniacs loose on the world.

It seems like a good time to remind people of our vaunted leader's history. I'm speaking, of course, of Dick Cheney. (I won't bother with Junior-- he's a foreign policy ventriloquist dummy.)

From Frances Fitzgerald in the NY Review of Books:

In “A World Transformed,” the memoir that he and Bush senior published in 1998, [Brent] Scowcroft makes it clear that while all Bush senior's top advisers had different perspectives, the fundamental division lay between Defense Secretary Richard Cheney and everyone else. By his account, and by those of others in the administration, Cheney never trusted Gorbachev. In 1989 Cheney maintained that Gorbachev's reforms were largely cosmetic and that, rather than engage with the Soviet leader, the US should stand firm and keep up cold war pressures.

In September 1991 Cheney argued that the administration should take measures to speed the breakup of the Soviet Union—even at the risk of encouraging violence and incurring long-term Russian hostility. He opposed the idea, which originated with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Colin Powell, that the US should withdraw its tactical nuclear weapons from Europe and South Korea. As a part of the preparations for the Gulf War he asked Powell for a study on how small nuclear weapons might be used against Iraqi troops in the desert.

This is the person who is playing a longer game than the tacticians, not Little Bushie. And he is playing a long game. His sharklike, relentless, predatory concentration on achieving long held goals no matter what the current circumstances is quite awesome to behold. The problem is that he's nuts.



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digby 7/21/2006 09:38:00 AM |

 
Heckuva Job Neggie

by digby

So apparently John "Death Squad" Negroponte has decided that rather than take the risk of information being leaked, the CIA just won't compile National Intelligence Estimates anymore. Ken Silverstein at Harper's blog reports that ever since the last NIE on Iraq was rejected by the Bush administration back in 2004 (for being "too negative") they haven't bothered to write another one.

Apparently, they want to keep the president from having to deal with bad news:

“What do you call the situation in Iraq right now?” asked one person familiar with the situation. “The analysts know that it's a civil war, but there's a feeling at the top that [using that term] will complicate matters.” Negroponte, said another source regarding the potential impact of a pessimistic assessment, “doesn't want the president to have to deal with that.”

Especially going into an election.

And heaven forbid that the president of the United States be aware that his lovely little war is turning into a living nightmare:

Iraqi leaders have all but given up on holding the country together and, just two months after forming a national unity government, talk in private of "black days" of civil war ahead.

Signalling a dramatic abandonment of the U.S.-backed project for Iraq, there is even talk among them of pre-empting the worst bloodshed by agreeing to an east-west division of Baghdad into Shi'ite and Sunni Muslim zones, senior officials told Reuters.

Tens of thousands have already fled homes on either side.

"Iraq as a political project is finished," one senior government official said -- anonymously because the coalition under Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki remains committed in public to the U.S.-sponsored constitution that preserves Iraq's unity.

One highly placed source even spoke of busying himself on government projects, despite a sense of their futility, only as a way to fight his growing depression over his nation's future.

"The parties have moved to Plan B," the senior official said, saying Sunni, ethnic Kurdish and majority Shi'ite blocs were looking at ways to divide power and resources and to solve the conundrum of Baghdad's mixed population of seven million.

"There is serious talk of Baghdad being divided into east and west," he said. "We are extremely worried."

On the eve of the first meeting of a National Reconciliation Commission and before Maliki meets President George W. Bush in Washington next week, other senior politicians also said they were close to giving up on hopes of preserving the 80-year-old, multi-ethnic, religiously mixed state in its present form.

"The situation is terrifying and black," said Rida Jawad al -Takki, a senior member of parliament from Maliki's dominant Shi'ite Alliance bloc, and one of the few officials from all the main factions willing to speak publicly on the issue.

"We have received information of a plan to divide Baghdad. The government is incapable of solving the situation," he said.

As sectarian violence has mounted to claim perhaps 100 lives a day and tens of thousands flee their homes, a senior official from the once dominant Sunni minority concurred: "Everyone knows the situation is very bad," he said. "I'm not optimistic."

The spectacle in Lebanon has taken over the popular imagination and the attention of the media. But it really should be noted that while the death and destruction is significant --- and a widening war is a frightening consequence of what's happening there --- 100 people a day are now being killed in Iraq. Many more are being wounded. There are now tens of thousands of refugees. It's turning into a bloodbath.

I know it would be wrong to worry the president's beautiful mind with such ugliness, but perhaps the congress ought to get off its ass and demand a comprehensive analysis of the situation from the US Intelligence community anyway. Just for the heck of it.



And by the way, are any of the national reporters covering the Lieberman-Lamont race asking old Joe whether he still thinks there is a lot of "progress" being made there? I know that the bad language we bloggers use is a much more important issue, but this does seem like a logical question that someone might think is worth asking.



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digby 7/21/2006 09:10:00 AM |

 

The Logic of Rebellion

by poputonian

Fear of an ecclesiastical conspiracy against American liberties, latent among nonconformists through all of colonial history, thus erupted into public controversy at the very same time that the first impact of new British policy in civil affairs was being felt. And though it was, in an obvious sense, a limited fear (for large parts of the population identified themselves with the Anglican Church and were not easily convinced that liberty was being threatened by a plot of the Churchmen) it nevertheless had a profound indirect effect everywhere, for it drew into public discussion -- evoked in specific form -- the general conviction of eighteenth-century Englishmen that the conjoining of "temporal and spiritual tyranny" was, in John Adams' words, an event totally "calamitous to human liberty" yet an event that in the mere nature of things perpetually threatened. For, as David Hume had explained, "in all ages of the world priests have been enemies to liberty ... Liberty of thinking and of expressing our thoughts is always fatal to priestly power ... and by an infallible connection which prevails among all kinds of liberty, this privilege can never be enjoyed ... but in free government. Hence ... all princes that have aimed at despotic power [Bush, Rove] have known of what importance it was to gain the established clergy, as the clergy, on their part, have show a great facility in entering into the views of such princes."

Excerpted from The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967) by Bernard Bailyn; winner of the Bancroft Prize in American History and a Pulitzer in History; p. 97, chapter titled The Logic of Rebellion.

"new ... policy in civil affairs' ... "gain the established clergy" ... "despots"

poputonian 7/21/2006 05:33:00 AM |

Thursday, July 20, 2006

 
Moral Boundaries

by digby

"This bill would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others. It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect, so I vetoed it."

Jesus H. Christ.

BAGHDAD, 20 July (IRIN) - The Iraqi government says it is worried about increasing sectarian violence in the country, following statistics released by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) stating that nearly 6,000 civilians were killed in May and June alone.

"Sectarian violence in Iraq is increasing and day after day more bodies are being found countrywide after suffering serious torture," says Lt. Col. Abdel-Kareem Hassan, a senior official in the Ministry of Interior. "The numbers presented by UNAMI has just confirmed this is reality and also increases fear among the local population.

"We [the government] have to act fast in holding talks with insurgents and the reconciliation plan should be put in practice to prevent more innocent civilians from dying due to the lack of security."

According to the UNAMI report, insurgent, militia and terrorist attacks continued unabated in many parts of Iraq, especially in Baghdad and in the central and western regions.

"A total of 5,818 civilians were reportedly killed and at least 5,762 wounded during May and June 2006," the report stated. "Killings, kidnappings and torture remain widespread. Fear resulting from these and other crimes continued to increase internal displacement and outflows of Iraqis to neighbouring countries."

In the first six months of the year, 14,338 people were killed, the report added. The statistics were compiled with help from the Ministry of Health.

The Ministry of Health says that more than 50,000 people have been killed "in a brutal way" since April 2003. "All these bodies were unrecognisable and suffered serious torture," says Safa'a Yehia, senior official in the Ministry of Heath. "What is more shocking is that this included women and children. We have reached a serious deterioration in conditions and instead of an improvement of this sectarian violence, the death toll is rising without control."

I guess it's a good thing the Bridegroom is coming shortly so that we can finally sort out where all these moral boundaries really are. I need some divine guidance because I'm terribly confused.



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digby 7/20/2006 10:59:00 AM |

 

What Government Minders Don't Understand

In response to the Empire post below, the Government Minder assigned to Hullabaloo made this comment regarding Arab reaction to the Israel/Hezbollah conflict :

"The assertion that Americans are turning isolationist, as evidenced by this poll on the Israel/Lebanon conflict, is an overly broad interpretation. Look at the recent emergency meeting of the Arab League; half its member nations were critical of Hezzbollah instead of a uniform condemnation of Israel. That split is historic and unprecedented."

Is it?

Here are some additional scraps from that Chicago Trib op-ed piece written in 2005 by E.W. Chamberlain III, a retired Army colonel. It provides some elucidation on the topic. The title of the op-ed was Prediction.

The toll of the war in both lives and treasure are going well beyond what we were promised. The elections in Iraq already are proving themselves to have been merely a vote of the majority for the majority with no room for any meaningful minority voice in the emerging government.

Our goal of bringing democracy to Iraq, while worthy, is unattainable. The Shiite clerics won't stand for it.

The clerics, who have taken on the same titles as those used by the Iranian Shiite clerics when they toppled the Shah, have won the elections.

The grand titles being used in Iraq right after the elections, "Ayatollah of the Revolutionary Islamic Council," for example, should have some people in Washington sitting up and taking notice. The Iranians already have visited the newly elected clerics, and it will be but a short time before some agreements between the two countries are formalized.

Washington persists in seeing Iraq as, well, full of just Iraqis.

Washington doesn't differentiate between the religious sects in Iraq, nor does it understand that the concept of a state called "Iraq" was arbitrarily devised by the British and the French in the Balfour Declaration at the end of World War I as those two victors divided the spoils of war.

People in Iraq and Iran are Shiite first, and Iraqis and Iranians second.
...

The first predictable event was that the Shiites would score an overwhelming victory at the polls in January. This was a no-brainer, because they were the only ones participating. The Sunni political parties had seen the handwriting on the wall and had withdrawn from a contest they could not even hope to win. The Kurds participated in the elections and are participating in the development of the constitution, but this will continue only as long as U.S. forces remain on the ground.

Once they are gone, the best the Kurds can hope for is an independent state recognized and supported by the United States in a sea of enemies. The worst they can expect is to be dominated and oppressed by the government in Baghdad, switching one secular dictator for a non-secular one.

So much for democracy in Iraq.

The insurgency in Iraq is Sunni, which many in Washington have yet to figure out. They are fighting us because we provide a focal point for rallying the Sunni people inside and outside of Iraq.

As soon as we leave, the full force of the insurgency will fall upon the Shiite government of Iraq. It already has started. The suicide car bombings that have killed so many Iraqi civilians are mistakenly tagged as terrorist attacks, when in reality they are attacks against Shiites by the Sunni insurgency.

If a couple of Americans also get killed, so much the better in their view, but the real target is the Shiite population and the Shiite-dominated government.

Probably even before the U.S. withdraws, the "democratically elected" Shiite government in Iraq will be aligned rapidly with Iran and will receive open and massive support. The Saudi Arabian government will continue to support the Sunni insurgency, as it does today, but the support will become open.

The Sunni insurgency eventually will lose as the full weight of a Shiite Iraq and a Shiite Iran overwhelms it. Numbers alone, coupled with a real war of attrition that does not discriminate between combatants and noncombatants or follow any rules of engagement, will result in horrific casualties and defeat.

This will not be the kinder, gentler, American way of war. This will be an Old Testament conflict with no quarter given.

The remnants of the Sunni insurgency will flee to Saudi Arabia. There they will foment discord because the Saudi royal family did not do enough and allowed the Sunnis to be defeated in Iraq. The royal family will be overthrown in a violent revolution in Saudi Arabia led by Sunni clerics who long have chafed under the pro-Western rule of the House of Saud. The Sunni clerics will emerge as the dominant power in Saudi Arabia. Americans and all other Westerners will be killed or, at best, ejected from Saudi Arabia, which has enough native petrochemical engineers and knowledgeable oil field workers, and can find other non-Westerners to run the oil fields. No Westerner need apply.

Of course, we need not fear another attack here at home from Osama bin Laden as all this occurs, because he will have fulfilled his fatwa. The only thing bin Laden ever said he was after was to remove the Westerners from Saudi Arabia, the Land of the Holy Places. This will be done when the clerics assume control of Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden will win the war on terrorism by achieving his goals with our unwitting help.

Anxiety for the established Sunni order? An emerging Shia dominance? Trouble in oil land?

Not only is it understandable, apparently it was predictable.

If only.

poputonian 7/20/2006 10:54:00 AM |

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

 
So Much For The Indispensible Nation

by digby

Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the United States should stay out of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, according to a CNN poll conducted and released Wednesday by Opinion Research Corp.

Sixty-five percent of 633 American adults responding to the telephone poll said the United States should not play an active role in attempting to solve the issue.

Yet respondents were much more closely divided on whether they would favor the presence of U.S. ground troops as part of an international peacekeeping force on the border between Israel and Lebanon.

Forty-five percent said they would favor such a measure, and 42 percent said they would oppose it. Thirteen percent had no opinion.

One might assume on first glance that this is incoherent. How can 65% believe that the US should stay out of it while 45% favor sending in peacekeepers? But if you think about it, it likely reflects a natural and healthy reluctance to give the Bush administration permission to pursue some mad plan to fight WWIII, which is what they are hearing from the wingnuts on TV.

The neocons have achieved the opposite of what they set out to achieve. Instead of an empire their failed experiment is turning the American public isolationist. There was a time not so long ago when it would have been assumed that the US would play an active role in solving any serious foreign policy crisis. After the cock-ups of the last few years, people are no longer so sanguine that we will actually help the situation rather than make it worse.

As we survey the situation tonight, it seems as if the Bush administration is living in an alternate universe. In a week, after Israel has "defanged" Hezbollah, Condi is slated to fly in and sing kumbaaya. Either that or we are going to officially begin WWIII. Or Armageddon is imminent --- oh happy day, the Bridegroom is on his way. These are what the big thinkers on the right are offering us right now. Of those choices the Bush administration has, so far, opted for the first scenario. They are going to wait until the Israelis shoot all the bad guys and then they'll ride in and hold a town meeting.

David Ignatius wrote today:

There is an attitude among policymakers in the United States and Israel that I would call "Prospero's temptation," after the wizard of Shakespeare's "The Tempest." Prospero thinks that with his magic powers he can do anything -- subdue the wild Caliban and the other denizens of his haunted island and bend them to his purposes. This temptation was evident in Ariel Sharon's invasion of Lebanon in 1982; it was clear in America's 2003 invasion of Iraq. In each case, Israel and America were encouraged by their Arab allies to think that they could alter the fundamentals in a way that the Arabs themselves could not. You can hear echoes of that same thinking today, as Israeli analysts talk of how the Sunni nations -- Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan -- are privately thanking them for breaking Shiite power.

I'm not sure why anyone is surprised by this:

''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

That is what's known as magical thinking and it is the hallmark of this administration. Again, maybe the public really has the right of this. We've seen ample evidence over the last six years that these are not the people you want in charge during a crisis.


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digby 7/19/2006 09:59:00 PM |

 
To The Right Of Trent Lott

by digby

Ben Adler over at TAPPED asks why Ben Nelson is being given a pass on his morally repugnant vote against stem cell research today. I honestly can't answer that. I and others often make the argument that Red State Senators have to answer to their conservative constituents, so they must be given latitude. But this vote is odd because, as Adler points out, even Trent Lott voted for it. And according to this article, 70% of Nebraskans are in favor of stem cell research:

Statewide poll shows support for fetal cell research
courtesy of Nebraskans for Research

Findings of a statewide poll released today shows more than two-thirds (70 percent) of Nebraska registered voters support fetal cell research at UNMC. Nearly three-quarters of the registered voters contacted also indicated support for embryonic stem cell research should it be conducted in the future at the University of Nebraska. The poll was commissioned by Nebraskans for Research (NFR).

"After two-and-a-half years of public debate, voters in Nebraska have reached a consensus on this research -- they support it overwhelmingly," said Sanford M. Goodman, volunteer executive director for NFR, "and they favor a continued state role in it."

"I am very pleased that the majority of Nebraskans understand and value the stem cell research that is carried out by the world-class research teams at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. It is most gratifying to me and all the other researchers at UNMC, that the people who pay the bills, the taxpayers, understand and acknowledge that we are responsible stewards of the public trust."
Thomas Rosenquist, Ph.D., vice chancellor for research

The poll, conducted from June 20-23 by Decision Research, Inc., also found that 66 percent of voters think the Nebraska Unicameral should continue to allow fetal cell research to be conducted at state facilities using state funds. Only one quarter of the voters would support a ban in Nebraska on such research and resulting treatments.

It's honsestly quite hard to believe that any Democrat would vote against stem cell research because of their own personal beliefs --- it's way outside the mainstream and you have to wonder why such a person would run as a Democrat in the first place (although when you look at Nelson's record it's hard to find a good reason for him to be a Democrat at all, frankly.)

Does anyone out there from Nebraska know what to make of this particular vote?



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digby 7/19/2006 08:21:00 PM |

 
Heckuva Job Karen

by digby

Isn't Karen Hughes the undersecretary of state for Public Diplomacy? Wouldn't you think someone in that position would at least appear in public once in a while? Or at least when the midle east is blowing up and public diplomacy might be called for?

From John Brown:

In recent days, Karen Hughes, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, whose job is to explain US policy abroad, has remained silent. The Spinstress of the Decider, known for her garrulity and love of being in front of a camera, has chosen to be out of the media limelight. With many in the Arab world blaming the United States for the situation in the Middle East, she has said nothing about American goals in the region. Gone, at least for now, are her vapid proclamations about US "transformational public diplomacy." Nor has she uttered another saccharine word about the need to foster common interests and values throughout the world. And - surprise! - she has not gone on another so-called "listening tour" in the Middle East.

Why is Ms. Hughes silent? One can only speculate about this, as answers are not forthcoming from the State Department, whom I contacted in preparation for this piece. A Mr. Justin Wilson said "right" when I noted that Ms. Hughes had said nothing on the situation in the Middle East, then transferred me to an employee whose answering machine said he was out of the office until July 24. I am still waiting, at this writing, for answers to the two messages I have left to other State functionaries. Silence reigns. Talk about 'round-the-clock public diplomacy, rapid reaction to breaking events! There seems to be, in Ms. Hughes's shop, no sense of urgency to the public-diplomacy dimension of the situation in the Middle East.

Maybe she's busy handling the Katrina ... er... Beirut evacuation.

It appears that the last anyone has heard of Karen was back on June 26th when she gave a speech to the US-Arab Economic Forum in Houston. It was very inspiring:

Our opponents want closed minds. They say their way or no way. Death to anyone who disagrees with them, no matter what faith or what religion. Together we must confront the violent extremists and their ideology of tyranny and hate. They seek to portray the West as in conflict with Islam, because that's the window into which they recruit. They can only flourish in environments that foster anger and misunderstanding. Yet their world view is wrong. Islam is a part of America. As an American government official, I represent almost seven million American Muslims who live and work and practice their faith freely here in our country. Together we must undermine the extremists by providing platforms for debate, by empowering mainstream voices of tolerance and inclusion, and by demonstrating our respect for Muslim cultures and contributions to our society and to world society.

And as soon as she picks up her messages, she's going to get right on that.

Brown continues:

[M]aybe what's really behind Ms. Hughes's taciturnity is that the administration has decided, as it did so efficiently during Bush's first term, to stay "on message" - the message being, in the case of US policy toward Israel's military actions in Gaza and Lebanon, practically no message at all, except that Israel can do just about everything that it wants to "defend itself."

One of the most intelligent commentators on the Middle East, Marc Lynch, puts it this way in his blog: "American public diplomacy has been virtually invisible on [Israel's actions in Gaza and Lebanon], at a time when it is more urgently needed than ever. I can understand this - you have to have a policy if you want to try to explain or defend it, and right now the Bush administration doesn't seem to have any policy at all beyond supporting Israel and issuing calls for 'restraint,' which Israel promptly and publicly rejects. And what administration official wants to subject him or herself to tough Arab questioning on live TV right now?"

But really, let's think about this. Do we really want someone like Karen Hughes out there sticking her large foot in her mouth? Look what happened when Junior was let off his leash for five minutes. Even Condi Rice, who thinks that any thought the US might have contributed to current unrest with our ill-fated Iraq invasion is "grotesque," tends to make things worse. Maybe it's actually better not to have the Bush grown-up team in public. This is serious business.

How much is Karen getting paid, do you think? More than Brownie? Seriously, he was a screw-up, but he showed up at least. Karen has completely taken a powder. Does she have an important PTA meeting or something? A long planned river rafting trip?

Where in the world is Karen Hughes?


Update: According the TPM Mucraker, this criticism of the Katrina .... er... Beirut evacuation is all wet. The state department is in touch with the 25,000 or so Americans in Lebanon via their web site. Yeah, I know.


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digby 7/19/2006 07:37:00 PM |

 

May I Puke?

by poputonian

Would it be a violation of human dignity if someone dropped a five-hundred pound laser bomb on your head?

I thought so.

This must be the most ironic statement in history:

"Like all Americans, I believe our Nation must vigorously pursue the tremendous possibilities that science offers to cure disease and improve the lives of millions. Yet, as science brings us ever closer to unlocking the secrets of human biology, it also offers temptations to manipulate human life and violate human dignity. Our conscience and history as a Nation demand that we resist this temptation. With the right scientific techniques and the right policies, we can achieve scientific progress while living up to our ethical responsibilities."

George W. Bush, July 19, 2006 veto statement.

What a sick and confused bastard.

poputonian 7/19/2006 07:30:00 PM |

 
Apology To Marc Lynch And Some Others

by tristero

In a previous post, I questioned the credentials of the members of the Foreign Affairs roundtable on "What to do in Iraq." Some members of that panel clearly are qualified, eminently so, to have an opinion appear under the auspices of the journal that promotes itself, by way of a quote, as "The Bible of Foreign Policy Thinking."

In particular, Marc Lynch of Abu Aardvark wrote to Hullabaloo: "...in addition to being a liberal blogger (www.abuaardvark.com), I do speak and read Arabic, write about al-Jazeera and the Arab media all the time, and published an op- ed opposing war with Iraq in the Christian Science Monitor in July 2002." Marc's clearly one of the Serious People who knows what he's talking about when it comes to Iraq; his opinions on the mess in Iraq are invaluable. Marc, a full and complete apology. I haven't read your blog in anthing resembling a regular fashion and that has been truly my serious loss.

And I'd like to apologize to other panel members who have garnered high-level credentials similar to Marc's. Your comments, too, were helpful, even if I disagreed with them...no especially if I disagreed with them.

Indeed, Digby's right: It could have been worse, much worse. And one should count one's blessings that Gingrich wasn't involved. As panels go, it sure beats the Sunday blarney-fests handsdown when it comes to gravitas. That said, I wonder if that says more about how alarmingly poor public serious discourse on foreign policy has become. Yes, I'm grateful that a panel under Foreign Affairs' auspices wasn't entirely dominated by utterly unqualified right-wing ideologues living in a fantasy-world and even had some real experts on it. And that's rather sad, to settle for the mediocre.

I still can't help but wonder how why there were no Muslims included in the roundtable. Imagine, for a moment, a roundtable discussion of "What to do about Israel" with, say, Prince Bandar, the editor of the Danish newspaper that printed the anti-Muslim cartoons, Cardinal Egan of New York, James Wallis, Arianna Huffington, and anyone else you can think of who might have an opinion about Israel. Except for Israelis or American Jews.

Similarly, the exclusion of women and people of color is utterly shocking, but not because of some notion of "political correctness." Let's be clear about this: when expertise is involved, I simply want to hear from qualified experts and if none of them are men (or women), I couldn't care less. But genuine expertise wasn't one of the major prerequisites for this panel. There was some other standard that trumped genuine knowledge because some of the panel members - not all - could only have reached their opinions from studying secondary sources. They'd never been to Iraq, or they couldn't even speak the language, some had had minimal if any contact with the culture or government policies, and so on. So that does raise the question as to what was the standard for choosing roundtablers. And being white, being male, and not being Muslim - those criteria suddenly seem to loom very large in how Foreign Affairs came to make their choice.

As I mentioned in the original post, I'm not saying the people on the panel were stupid. I'm sure that even the least expert member follows the news from Iraq more than the average lay reader. But if I am to learn something I don't already know about Iraq, and I mean really learn something, then I need to hear from an entire panel of experts. Period. As good as some of the panelists were, as great as some others were, that's not good enough by half. We're living through a rather difficult time, after all; simply being smart, verbal or having your heart in the right place should not qualify you for inclusion at such a level.

Which brings up one further point. I would be the last person to claim that I have unique expertise in any aspect of foreign policy. I'm smart, I read a lot, I've talked to a lot of people who are experts, but I don't. Here's the thing: my lack of genuine knowledge wouldn't prevent me from participating in the next Foreign Affairs roundtable on, say, "What To Do In Tuva." Why not? I like throat-singing quite a bit and I can find Tuva on a map. I'm sure I could read enough in a month to know whatever I'd need to perform admirably in a roundtable. That may be good enough for Tuvan/American relations - although I doubt it. That's not good enough for Iraq.

So I fully apologize to the experts on the Foreign Affairs panel. At the same time, I cannot urge Foreign Affairs and other similar institutions to provide the rest of us not merely with intelligent people, but with knowledgeable people, and only deeply knowledgeable people, who can help the rest of us understand an extremely complex world situation. A situation that - partly because of the lack of expertise in high places - seems poised on the edge of a precipice.
tristero 7/19/2006 02:32:00 PM |

 
Blogosphere Day

by digby


July 19th is blogosphere day in which bloggers are asking their readers to contribute to Ned Lamont (and other worthy candidates.) Chris Bowers at MYDD explains, here, what it's all about:

Our message is simple. No longer will candidates be considered unelectable for holding progressive views. No longer will the establishment take its supporters for granted. No longer will Democrats get away with boosting their own national image by facilitating the conservative movement and distancing themselves from their own party.

I do not have many complicated messages to give you when it comes to this race. We have already written more about this election on MyDD than any single election since the 2004 Presidential election. You can read you extensive archives on Ned Lamont, Joe Lieberman and CT-Sen. It should suffice to say that I believe this election represents nearly everything that the netroots is fighting for in our struggles to reshape the Democratic Party.

I don't have an Act-Blue page set up for my readers, but there are many great blogs that do. Just check in with your favorites today and if you feel the urge, send along a couple of quarters.

I think my readers know that I care a great deal about this race. I have been a pragmatist my whole life and am temperamentally disinclined to support windmill tilting just for the hell of it. But I am also an unreconstructed liberal who believes, like FDR, that experimentation and risk are necessary to progress. I supported the DLC concept years ago when I thought it made sense to try something new to accomplish liberal goals. That was a different time and we faced a different Republican party. It is now time, again, to try something new.

We are in a brutal partisan era that cannot be "fixed" by any more capitulation to the rightwing agenda. The Democratic party has hit a wall and can go no further if it cares to remain true to its principles. Joe Lieberman has proven that he is incapable of holding that line, even in such fundamental areas as social security and equal rights. If bi-partisanship is to be reborn, it must come from the other side moving back toward the center.

Grassroots Dems understand that we cannot hold every Democrat rigidly to this standard. Some come from regions and states that are conservative and turning those attitudes around will require a long term committment to persuade those voters that their traditions and beliefs will actually be better protected by a Party that believes in democratic institutions than one that answers to corporate lobbyists. That means that right now we cannot spare any safe Blue seats to accomodate Joe Lieberman's ego. Turning back this conservative juggernaut requires that every Democrat who hails from a progressive state must carry his or her weight. Lieberman has not only failed to do that, he has gone out of his way to give weight to the other side.

So, check out your favorite blogs and if they ask for a contribution to Ned Lamont today, consider giving. This is an important moment for the Democratic party. We may just be deciding if this party is answerable to the people or if the people answer to the party. There is a considerable difference between those two things and at the end of the day it may be the most significant thing that separates us from the Republicans.



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digby 7/19/2006 02:05:00 PM |

 
Huckleberry Howler

by digby


How can the paper of record write a lengthy puff piece about the brave, maverick integrity of Senator Huckleberry Graham and make no metion of the fact that he and his pal Jon Kyl inserted a fraudulent 12,000 word colloquey into the congressional record to fool the US Supreme Court and were caught red-handed. The Supreme Court merely noted this in the footnotes of the Hamdan decision, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued an unusual order rejecting their amicus brief alone, although they accepted five others. As John Dean wrote: "No one familiar with this remarkable behavior by Graham and Kyl can doubt why the court did not want to hear from these senators."

This was not a small thing. Huckleberry and Kyl wrote an entire script of a debate that never happened in order to create a false legislative history that they then cited in an amicus brief for the government in the Hamdan case. They defrauded the court and they did it with the express purpose of bolstering the government's argument that the Senate had intended that the Supreme Court be stripped of jurisdiction in the Hamdan case.

This is remarkable not only because it features two Senators outright lying to the Supreme Court. It is also remarkable because the decision in that case is the one the NY Times says Huckleberry is now bravely defending against the wishes of his own party. I would have thought the reporter might have asked old Huck about where he actually stands on this issue.

This is the thing about Graham and why he is one of the most untrustworthy members of the Republican party. He is the guy who is out there portraying himself as the voice of reason, the man who thoughtfully entertains the whole range of opinion and settles on the reasonable middle ground. The truth is that he pretends to do all that while he ruthlessly advances the Republican agenda --- even to the point where he would outright defraud the US Supreme Court while claiming to be a strict adherent to the rule of law.

The media love those they deem "mavericks" because they believe this silly trope that if both sides are mad at you, you must be right. The problem is that they fail to see that the modern Republicans --- the most disciplined political party in American history --- never seem to get really angry at Huckleberry. You'd think they'd wonder why. The reason is that he's a slick political operator who manages to advance the Republican agenda while convincing the gullible press he's bucking it.

He is going to go far in the post Bush universe. The market for "men of integrity" on the GOP side is going to be huge. Graham and his soul mate John McCain, every reporter's dream duo, are going to be the beneficiaries of the rebranding of the "real conservative." And the NY Times will be there to cheer them on --- ignoring all the evidence of their opportunism and political calculation to advance the new narrative of the brave Republicans who saved America. Again.



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digby 7/19/2006 09:38:00 AM |

 

Democrats Then and Now

by poputonian

So Ralph turns to clay in Georgia.

Meanwhile up in Ohio (from Reuters):

Megachurches build a Republican base

It's not Sunday but Fairfield Christian Church is packed. Hundreds of kids are making their way to vacation Bible school, parents are dropping in at the day-care center and yellow-shirted volunteers are everywhere, directing traffic. In one wing of the sprawling church, a coffee barista whips up a mango smoothie while workers bustle around the cafeteria.

"There are people here from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day -- sometimes later," senior pastor Russell Johnson says as he surveys the activity.

The 4,000 members of Fairfield Christian are part of the growing evangelical Christian movement in middle America. In a March survey, a quarter of Ohio residents said they were evangelicals -- believing that a strict adherence to the Bible and personal commitment to the teachings of Jesus Christ will bring salvation.

The fastest-growing faith group in America, evangelical Christians have had a growing impact on the nation's political landscape, in part because adherents believe conservative Christian values should have a place in politics -- and they support politicians who agree with them.

In that March survey, more than 82 percent of the Ohio evangelicals who attend church at least once a week said they approve of bringing more religion into politics.

"Christians stepped back too far. I prayed in school but my kids can't pray in school," said volunteer Lisa Sexton, 42, a Bible school volunteer. "I should have spoken up earlier."

Political analyst John Green said evangelical growth has had a major political impact in Ohio, a key swing state that narrowly decided President George W. Bush's election victory in 2004.

"Evangelical Protestants have become much more Republican in recent times, although 40 or 50 years ago more of them were Democrats," said Green, director of the University of Akron's Bliss Institute of Applied Politics.

...

"I appreciate the fact that the church is politically involved," said Kyle Hatfield, a 30-year-old father of two who believes the separation of church and state has gone too far.

"It was not our forefathers' intention to prevent churches from being involved," he said. "Our forefathers did not want to force people to belong to a church, but that has been tweaked to mean churches cannot be involved."

So let's go back forty or fifty years. Here's Susan Jacoby quoting JFK in her book Freethinkers:

In his celebrated speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on September 12, 1960, Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy declared unequivocally that he believed ...

"... in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute--where no Catholic prelate would tell the President (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote--where no church or church school is granted any public funds for policy preference--and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the President who might appoint him or the people who might elect him."

Kennedy went on to make it clear that he regarded the Jeffersonian wall of separation not as a flexible metaphor but as the foundation of the American system of government. He reminded his audience, composed heavily of evangelical Protestants, that Jefferson's relgious freedom act in Virginia was strongly supported by Baptists who had endured persecution both in England and in America. With a nod to the non-religious, the candidate also expounded his vision of America as a nation "where every man had the same right to attend or not attend the church of his choice."

My how the landscape has changed.

poputonian 7/19/2006 07:15:00 AM |

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

 
Hovering And Wheedling

by digby

Modo has an entertaining column on Georgie's Big G8 Adventure. I thought this was particularly good:

He treated Tony “As It Were” Blair like the servant in “The Remains of the Day,’’ blowing off his offer to help with the Israel-Lebanon crisis, and changing the subject from substance to fluff at one point, noting about his 60th-birthday Burberry gift: “Thanks for the sweater. Awfully thoughtful of you.’’ Then he razzed the British prime minister, who was hovering and wheedling like an abused wife: “I know you picked it out yourself.”

(I'm pretty sure the servant to whom she's referring was the one played by Emma Thompson, not Anthony Hopkins. Like her, Blair has such expressive hands.)

She didn't mention Bush's obsession with pig meat. I think it was a matter of space. There were just so many outrageous behaviors on this trip that it takes more than one column to cover them all.

Update: I had vaguely remembered this and finally tracked it down. Bush has always had such bad manners that he couldn't be trusted to behave properly in the White House when his father was president.

Even as an adult, George was so out of control that his mother, then the president's wife, removed her eldest son to the opposite end of the table at a state dinner for the Queen of England. Although sober by then, the First Son had introduced himself to the Queen as "the black sheep of the family."

George W. Bush was then 44 years old.

He's almost 60 now.



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digby 7/18/2006 11:03:00 PM |

 
Ralphie, We Hardly Knew Ye




by digby

So Ralph Reed, the darling prince of the Christian Right, top Bush administration advisor,ratfucker extraordinaire, coveted election night analyst and infamous college Republican couldn't win the Republican primary for Lt Governor of Georgia. Wow. How the mighty have fallen. This was supposed to be his first step toward the presidency.

Reed has always been a phony and his criminal association with Abramoff finally brought him low. His Christian Right fans weren't impressed with the fact that he was making millions promoting gambling and forced abortions. And they particularly didn't like the fact that he refused to repent. (There's a lesson in that, strategists, if you care to look.)

I think the thing I've always found most interesting about Ralph is the fact that he's seen as a real evangelical when it's quite clear that he became one purely for political reasons.

[In 1981]At the College Republican Natipnal Committee, Abramoff, Norquist and Reed formed what was known as the "Abramoff-Norquist-Reed triumvirate." Upon Abramoff's election, the trio purged "dissidents" and re-wrote the CRNC's bylaws to consolidate their control over the organization. Reed was the "hatchet man" and "carried out Abramoff-Norquist orders with ruthless efficiency, not bothering to hide his fingerprints." Abramoff promoted Reed in 1983, appointing him to succeed Norquist as Executive Director of the CRNC. (Nina J. Easton, Gang of Five: Leaders at the Center of the Conservative Crusade, page 143)

In the spring of 1983, Reed was accused of rigging the election of ally Sam Harbren as his successor as president of the College Republicans at the University of Georgia. Promising a keg party, Reed recruited a number of new "members" to vote in the election, submitting their membership paperwork on the last night before the deadline for the election. The defeated presidential candidate, Lee Culpepper, wrote to the College Republican National Committee calling the election a sham. The CRNC investigated the matter, reprimanded Reed and ordered a new election. However, in the meantime, Culpepper "led an angry exodus" out of the UGA College Republicans and into a newly formed Young Republicans of Clarke County club. Harben admitted later, "We ran a dirty election." (Nina J. Easton, Gang of Five, page 129–130)

Reed has said that, on a Saturday evening in September of 1983, he had a religious experience while at Bullfeathers, a upscale pub in Capitol Hill that is popular with staffers (and, to a lesser extent, members) of the House of Representatives. Regarding the experience, Reed said "the Holy Spirit simply demanded me to come to Jesus". He walked outside the pub to a phone booth, thumbed through the yellow pages under "Churches," and found the Evangel Assembly of God in Camp Springs, Maryland. He visited the next morning and became a born-again Christian. (Nina J. Easton, Gang of Five, pages 201–202)


In March 1985, Reed organized members of Students for America and College Republicans to picket the Fleming Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the nearby home of its founder, a Dutch-born doctor. Clinic staff reported that protestors "screamed epithets and intimidated patients with mock baby funerals." Reed was arrested after bursting into the waiting room of the abortion clinic. He signed an agreement promising to stay away from the clinic and was not prosecuted. (Nina J. Easton, Gang of Five, page 205)

In 1989, Reed and Pat Robertson formed the Christian Coalition out of the ashes of Robertson's failed presidential campaign.

Ralph has always been a sleazy Republican operative who pretended to be a Christian. The party's full of people like him (Ann Coulter says she goes to church!) but he was the face of the Christian Coalition for many years so the revelation of his worldly corruption was particularly ruinous.





Oh, and by the way, Ralph has always had a lot of friends in high places. one of them is Joe Lieberman:


July 12, 2002

Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein and Republican strategist Ralph Reed were talking on the phone, shortly after announcing the launch of Stand for Israel, a campaign to mobilize Evangelical Christian political support for Israel.

Few political operatives have as much access to the White House these days as Reed, chairman of the Georgia Republican Party and former executive director of the Christian Coalition. But when Senator Joseph Lieberman phoned on the other line, Eckstein, 51, was happy to take the call from an old friend.

Old allies and pioneers in the push to build bridges with conservative Christians, Eckstein and Lieberman had not spoken since the senator's ascension to the Democratic presidential ticket in August 2000.

"He said that he had just seen The New York Times piece about Stand for Israel, wanted to tell me how proud he was, and encouraged me to do more," Eckstein told the Forward, recounting his conversation with Lieberman. "He also told me that, finally, after 25 years, my work has been vindicated."

Joe and Ralph and the Rabbi had worked together in the past on a project called the Center for Christian and Jewish Values:

In 1994, when the ADL issued a scathing report blasting fundamentalist evangelicals, and Robertson's Christian Coalition in particular, as a grave threat to Jewish life, Eckstein leaped to defend his allies. He convened a meeting in Washington between evangelical and Jewish leaders, and convinced the ADL's director, Abe Foxman, to invite Robertson's master tactician, Reed, to issue a call for reconciliation at ADL's annual conference....According to Eckstein, "Reed made a wonderful impression."

Eckstein capitalized on his successes by forming the Center for Christian and Jewish Values in Washington. Co-chaired by Orthodox Jewish Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and evangelical Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., the now-defunct center, according to Eckstein, "brought together disparate groups to find common ground on issues of shared concern." While Eckstein did bring people of different faiths under one roof, their ideological leanings were mostly uniform. The center was made up almost entirely of right-wing evangelicals like then Family Research Council director Bauer, Southern Baptist Convention executive director Richard Land and the dean of Robertson's Regent University's school of government, Kay James. (James is now director of the Office of Personnel Management under Bush.) Also involved were neoconservatives such as Abrams, William Kristol and William Bennett. The center was essentially a command post for the culture war.

I would imagine Joe felt a little frisson of fear tonight when he heard his old ally in the culture war went down in a primary. Ralph was a superstar of the conservative movement and plenty of people believed that he was headed for the white house.

Something's in the air.



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digby 7/18/2006 09:38:00 PM |

 
It Could be Worse

by digby


Tristero calls the bonafides of this foreign affairs roundtable into question in the post below. I'm not sure I can wholly endorse his criticisms as long as great thinkers like Newt Gingrich and Jonah Goldberg are out there pontificating to larger audiences and with much greater influence. Gingrich, you'll recall, is a great intimate of Donald Rumsfeld and worked hand in glove with him on the military strategy for Iraq. He is considered a leading conservative intellectual:

James Wolcott leads us through Newties latest foreign policy advice:

'This is World War III,' Gingrich said. And once that's accepted, he said calls for restraint would fall away:

"'Israel wouldn't leave southern Lebanon as long as there was a single missile there. I would go in and clean them all out and I would announce that any Iranian airplane trying to bring missiles to re-supply them would be shot down. This idea that we have this one-sided war where the other team gets to plan how to kill us and we get to talk, is nuts.'

"There is a public relations value, too. Gingrich said that public opinion can change "the minute you use the language of World War III. The message then, he said, is 'OK, if we're in the third world war, which side do you think should win?'"

So Gingrich wants to roll out World War III as a bugle call to give Republicans a Viagra injection and force Democrats to slink behind the cavalry in mealy-mouthed agreement, for fear of being called appeasers and peaceniks by useful fools like Michael Goodwin.

But I don't know about this. It might have worked as a portentous sales device in the immediate aftershock of 9/11, but we're nearly five years on and the US stature has shrunk. If a majority of Americans want us to withdraw from Iraq, how eager are they going to be to sign on to a declaration of world war against a stateless enemy?

They'll only do it notionally, as long as nothing is actually required of them.

President Bush speaks to the camera: "We're going to call it World War III, but there'll be no draft of your precious darling geniuses, no tax increases, no sacrifice demanded, and I promise not to preempt your favorite programs, such as American Idol."

Fred and Wilma Flintstone, feet propped up on baby dinosaur: "Er, okay; fine; whatever."

Gingrich of course is thinking tactically--he probably flosses tactically, imagining the most ingenious angle a vanguard thinker like himself should employ in a flossing opportunity--but there's also a strong component of nostalgia in this world war talk. You see in the writings of Victor Davis Hanson, the constant references to Neville Chamberlain and Patton, the primping of Blair and Bush for the role of Churchillian stalwart. It's as if Gingrich, Bill Kristol, Max Boot, and the whole gang have fallen for their own romantic bluster and fantasize that the Winds of War are going to sweep them through History like Robert Mitchum in Herman Wouk's epic, where they will feel the spray of the North Atlantic, the stinging sands of North Africa, and enjoy the passionate embrace of a USO entertainer after a heavy night in the canteen. They want to believe that inspired and educated with the right words--their words--Americans will once again rise and meet the mortal challenge.

This has been the case from the beginning and it infects not only the crazed neocon right, but liberal hawks and certainly the media, who all don their fabulous Prada safari jackets and head out on the first plane to whatever desert is exploding to do their bad Walter Cronkite impressions. (I blame Tom Brokaw and Stephen Spielberg for all this, btw.)

When you have this level of "intellectual" discourse being taken very seriously in newspapers and on television, I look at this foreign affairs panel and just breathe a sign of relief that Newt Gingrich wasn't on it. This is, of course, the problem. The spectrum of opinion is always restricted by the fact that the right blasts the atmosphere with gaseous rhetoric so inane and outrageous that they define the perimeter of the debate.

Seriously, when Jonah Goldberg is actually paid to pontificate on serious topics, you know that something has gone terribly awry. Here's Wolcott again:

Let the learning curve begin, advises Jonah Goldberg, taking a break from playing with his action figures: "...the advantage of calling all this World War Three is that it's easier to understand and takes less explanation. Most people don't think of the Cold War as a war so much as an effort to avoid one."

The post also provides a helpful glimpse of Goldberg's thought processes at work, which resemble Horton trying to hatch an egg:

"Domino theory and public diplomacy had fairly minor roles in World War II. But such considerations are central to our understanding of today's challenges. Of course, tthe Cold War analogy fails in some important respects as it was mostly a contest between states. But all analogies fail in important respects, that's why they're analogies."

He sure makes that Foreign Affairs panel look better, doesn't he?


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digby 7/18/2006 09:39:00 AM |

 
Questions For Foreign Affairs' "What to Do in Iraq" Panel

by tristero


Hi, boys:

Got a few questions for you:

1. Are you Muslim? It doesn't appear that any of you are.

2. If you're not, do any of you speak fluent Arabic, ie, well enough to hold a conversation, listen to al Jazeera, and read the newspapers?

3. If not, how many of you have read the entire Qu'ran and most of the Hadith in translation? If not, how many of you have participated more than once in worship at a mosque? Sh'ia or Sunni - and can you quickly define the difference?

4. If not, how many of you have travelled to Iraq since the occupation, how long did you stay, and where did you go?

5. How many of you publicly opposed the invasion prior to the launch of the New Product - as the Bush administration termed the invasion and occupation - long before it was politically safe to do so, say, prior to the passage of the Senate resolution in fall of 2002? Before January, 2003?

6. If you are not Muslim, don't speak Arabic well, haven't read the basic texts of Islam or participated in services, haven't been to Iraq, and/or believed - for whatever reason - prior to the invasion that it was a smart, or at least reasonable, idea to invade Iraq - that is, if you can't answer "yes" to a decent number of my first five questions - then why should I bother to take seriously anything you might think to say?

I'm not saying you're stupid or uninformed, I know you're not. I'm asking: upon what is your expertise based, besides attending conferences, reading a lot of thick books by non-Islamic Americans, reading American newspapers and official government reports?

Just asking.

Love,


Tristero
tristero 7/18/2006 06:46:00 AM |

 
Answering Digby's Question

by tristero

After Bush gave the Chancellor of Germany an unasked-for quickie of a a massage, Digby asked, "What do you suppose you need to do to get treated with respect by this asshole?"

Well one thing's for sure:





You want more than backrubs from Bush, it sure helps to fill your country with a zillion barrels of that there Texas Tea.

tristero 7/18/2006 05:06:00 AM |

 
Sharpening The Pitchforks

by digby


Somebody bring Lanny Davis some smelling salts. Big media Atrios lays out the blogofascist case against Lieberman in the LA Times.



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digby 7/18/2006 12:32:00 AM |

 
Oh Those Guys

by digby


If you're in the mood for dark speculation there's nobody better or smarter than Billmon. Tonight's post on the mid-east will keep me awake for awhile.

He asks an obvious question: What about al Qaeda?

However senior Al Qaeda leaders feel about Hezbollah and the emerging Shi'a crescent, they can't be too happy about seeing their status in the terrorist celebrity pantheon overshadowed by Hezbollah's starring role in the Lebanon extravaganza -- particularly at a time when Al Qaeda is already under considerable pressure to prove it still has political and operational relevance. But there's really only way to show the world who the real scourge of the Jews and Crusaders is: By executing a major terrorist attack, either in Israel (hard) America (less hard) or Britain (even less hard -- although something bigger than a couple of pipe bombs in the Tube would probably be necessary to make the point.)

The bottom line is that like any fading rock group, Al Qaeda badly needs a hit to avoid being permanently supplanted in the public eye by its Shi'a rival, which is setting the charts ablaze, so to speak. If the original band or its various spin offs have any ambitious projects on the drawing boards, now might be the opportune time to put them into production. Which means it's at least possible that the silent party won't remain silent much longer.

One thing our neocon overlords have never really given a damn about it's al Qaeda. I doubt any of them are giving it a second thought right now either.


Sweet dreams.


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digby 7/18/2006 12:12:00 AM |

Monday, July 17, 2006

 
Frat Boy Prick


I guess he thought she was just another one of his office wives.


Check out the look on his face. Does he look like he's "just having fun" or does he look like he's putting the uppity bitch in her place?

This woman is the Chancellor of Germany. What do you suppose you need to do to get treated with respect by this asshole?




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digby 7/17/2006 08:33:00 PM |

 
Personal Conviction

by digby


Adding to my post below about Joe Lieberman's views of "life" issues, reader Dover Bitch sent this for us to think about:

I must pass this one along to you because I think it really shows what's in Lieberman's mind and why Alito got a free pass from the Gang of 14. It also shows why Planned Parenthood and NARAL are clueless.

Here's what Lieberman said on the Senate floor back on Oct. 20, 1999:

"I remember I first dealt with these issues when I was a State senator in Connecticut in the 1970s, after the Roe v. Wade decision was first passed down by the Supreme Court, and the swelter of conflicting questions: What is the appropriate place for my convictions about abortion, my personal conviction that potential life begins at conception and, therefore, my personal conviction that all abortions are unacceptable? How do I relate that to my role as a lawmaker, to the limits of the law, to the right of privacy that the Supreme Court found in Roe v. Wade?"

Lieberman has voted in line with Roe as a matter of constitutionality, but not as a matter of respect for a woman's right to control her own body. And the way to satisfy both his own convictions and his respect for the rule of constitutional law is to allow justices like Alito end up on the Supreme Court and overturn Roe.

This explains why he was able to say he was "reassured" by Alito's vague statements prior to the hearings:

Alito met privately with the senators, both supporters of abortion rights. Afterward Lieberman quoted Alito as having told him that Roe v. Wade ''was a precedent on which people, a lot of people, relied . . . for decades and therefore deserved great respect."

Other politicians have said they don't personally believe in abortion but they support a woman's right to choose based on the principle of personal autonomy or an inherent right to privacy. Lieberman's rationale (like other Blue State Republicans) is based on a "respect for precedent" and the rule of law, not the principle underlying it.

When the forced pregnancy forces finally get a majority (with Lieberman's help) and Alito votes to overturn Roe, Joe will appear before the cameras and dolefully endorse the decision saying that as much as he has supported abortion rights in the past and is disappointed the court chose to reverse, he's always said that the court's decisions must be respected.

If you don't believe in the underlying principle, then it's all just a matter of paperwork, isn't it?

Lieberman always gets to have it both ways, doesn't he?



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digby 7/17/2006 04:27:00 PM |

 
Crazed Secular Base

by digby

Democrats are held hostage by their secular base and need to distance themselves from it in order to win over all the religious southerners who left the Democrats when the atheists took over. Happy birthday Karl.

Stung by their loss in the 2004 presidential election, a growing number of prominent Democrats are, well, finding religion in religion. And with polls saying that 70% of Americans want their president to have "strong religious beliefs," it's not hard to deduce that they just might be on to something.

[...]

What Democrats won't say, however, is that the secular posturing Obama is railing against is more a function of the party's desire to appease a powerful, but relatively small, constituency than it is a deeply held, widely shared ideological stance. Just as the Republican Party pays obeisance to the demands of the 37% of its base that is white evangelical Christian, the Democrats feel they must not offend the 22% of their core voters who claim no religious affiliation. Why not? Because although they make up less than one-quarter of the coalition, these secular Democrats are much more likely than others to be high-level party activists.

Before I delve into the rest of this, here's a little known fact:

Americans almost all say religion matters, yet more people than ever are opting out. Not just out of the pews. Out from under a theological roof altogether. In 2001, more than 29.4 million Americans said they had no religion — more than double the number in 1990, and more than Methodists, Lutherans and Episcopalians all added up — according to the American Religious Identification Survey 2001 (ARIS).

Here's another one:

The largest growing religious cohort in the United States is "non-religious", doubling in the past decade and growing stronger. And it's particularly true in the western states where there is a growing preference for "spirituality" over formal religion.

Contrast this with the studies that show Protestants losing ground for decades, perhaps stabilizing now, but certainly not growing, while Catholics remain fairly stable, but divided politically. The Barna group, a Christian organization that does the most in-depth polling on religion in America recently wrote:

"There does not seem to be revival taking place in America. Whether that is measured by church attendance, born again status, or theological purity, the statistics simply do not reflect a surge of any noticeable proportions.

If we are to look at the electoral landscape, we will see that the hard core religious cohort is most influential in the south, which is no surprise. But if you take a look at this interesting map, created by USA today, you' will see that "non-religious" is a rather large minority in the west and midwest swing states

Ok. That's out of the way. From a purely pragmatic standpoint, it does not make a whole lot of sense to insult a fairly large and growing faction of your own coalition. And if you look at an electoral map, the places where this is most important are the places where the Democrats have the best chance of changing the map from Red to Blue.

It should also go without saying that secularists are decent, hardworking Americans just like the religious folk. If you aren't careful with this kind of talk you could find yourself making arguments like this:

Right now, there are 50 Democrats in the Senate. How many would be there without African-American voters? ... Without the African-American vote, the number of Democrats in the Senate would be reduced from 50 to 37.

As Fred at Slactivist points out:

This is a conversation between Schneider and Woodruff on behalf of people who look like Schneider and Woodruff. The us-and-them subtext is only barely "sub." Marshall's description is dead on -- they're not comparing black voters with white voters, they're comparing black voters with "real" (legitimate, truly American) voters. Separate and unequal.

You will never, ever hear Woodruff and Schneider discussing the hypothetical makeup of the Senate "without the white vote." You will never hear this from Schneider:

"What would have happened if no whites had voted in 2000? ... A Florida recount? Not necessary."

Underlying all of this is a hugely suggestive, but largely unexplored, fact: Black voters overwhelmingly favor the Democratic Party.

Why this might be so is such a potentially explosive question that it is usually evaded with sleight of hand -- "black voters have traditionally voted for Democrats." That "traditionally" merely puts off the question without answering it ("turtles all the way down").

The two most obvious possible answers to this question are considered impolite and impolitic -- one answer is blatantly racist, the other implies that a major political party is implicitly racist. So don't expect Judy Woodruff or Bill Schneider to have the courage to ask such a question any time soon.

Perhaps the question should broached in this case too. Why do the vast majority secularists vote for the Democrats? Could it possibly be for the same reason that African Americans do? Could it be that the Republican Party is so implicitly or explicitly religiously intolerant that they have no place in it?

Rodriguez continues:

But the Democratic delegation that nominated South Dakota Sen. George McGovern for president at the '72 convention represented a profound shift from what had been the cultural consensus in American politics. Whereas only 5% of Americans could be considered secular in 1972, fully 24% of first-time Democratic delegates that year were self-identified agnostics, atheists or people who rarely, if ever, set foot in a house of worship. This new activist base encouraged a growing number of Democratic politicians to tone down their appeal to religious voters and to seek a higher wall separating church and state. With little regard for the traditionalist sensitivities of religious people within or outside of the party, the Democrats also embraced progressive stances on feminism and homosexuality that the public had never openly debated.

Over the next generation, the shift in the Democratic Party pushed many religious voters, including the traditionally Democratic bloc of Southern evangelicals, into the arms of the Republican Party.

But I thought it was the "strident secular rhetoric," rather than the actual stands on civil rights that resulted in the departure of the Southern evangelicals. (And by all means, let's not talk about the black elephant sitting in the middle of the room.)

But does Obama's appeal to religious voters mean that if Democrats want to win they have to adopt the positions of the religious right? Absolutely not.[thank God! --- d] The good news is that the vast majority of Americans are sitting out the culture wars. The real combatants are actually minority constituencies within each respective political party — the secularists among the Democrats and the evangelicals in the GOP. Look closely at surveys on religiously charged issues and you'll find that all religious voters don't think alike.

No kidding. But this person believes that there is a significant sub-set of religious voters who are pro-choice, pro-gay rights and pro-civil rights who are voting Republican because of these crazed atheists who are holding the Democrats hostage. Except I've never seen any evidence that such people exist.

Now, are there pro-choice, pro-gay rights Republicans who vote for the Republicans because of taxes? Sure. National security? Absolutely. You can easily split the baby that way. Some of these voters no doubt consider themselves religious too, and maybe they think the Democrats are hostile to religion as well. But that's not the reason they are voting Republican. It's these people who are sitting out the culture wars, not this fantasy faction of pro-choice, gay religious voters who would happily vote for Democrats if it only it weren't for the atheist extremists in their midst.

If you are voting on the basis of somebody else's religious belief, you are neck deep in the culture war, by definition. And Republicans who are neck deep in the culture war are social conservatives.

But hey, Greg, thanks for giving Karl the nice present. I'm sure the wingnuts will put this new "crazed secularist base" meme to good use. The media will latch on to it as a way to point out that both parties are equally to blame for the polarized atmosphere.

And choice will go on the chopping block. Anybody who thinks that they can woo Republicans by publicly slapping down this atheist straw man is a fool. If the party insists on going in this direction the social conservatives will insist they show their good intentions with something real. They always do. The death penalty is off the table. So are guns. The uterus is next on the list.

Update: Via Atrios I see that Elton has already trod this ground:

So what's going on here? Rodriguez makes his real problem clear enough: he is not happy that "Democrats feel they must not offend the 22% of their core voters who claim no religious affiliation." Go ahead, offend them, he recommends. Tear down this wall separating church and state that only the activist base cares about. Piss on your secular supporters - where else can they go, anyway? - and in return you'll gain a whole bunch of shiny new religious voters like me, says Mr. Rodriguez.

Stark, but there you have it. Although there was no obvious good reason for stirring this particular pot at this particular time, the Democratic Party is now confronted with a choice. It can change course and become more theocracy-friendly on the advice of people who hear voices in their heads that others cannot discern - I refer, of course, to the "stridently secular rhetoric" - or it can continue to best respect all its diverse supporters by, as a party, neither endorsing nor rejecting any particular belief system or lack thereof.

In other words - walk away from your core voters, or not. Take your pick, Democratic Party.

updateII: Jim Snowden writes a nice short historical summary of the real American political history since 1972. I think you'll find it a bit more recognizabe than the Martian version of Gregory Rodriguez.



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digby 7/17/2006 02:26:00 PM |

 
In Plain Sight

by digby


When are Americans going to take the neocons seriously?

I'm not talking about the Republican party here or the movement conservatives. I'm speaking specifically of the group that can be called the true neocons of the era: The PNAC signatories and their supporters throughout the rightwing think tank intelligensia.

I've been writing about these guys online from practically the first moment I went online back in the 90's. My friends thought I was a tin-foil nutter and at times, I thought I was too. The sheer grandiosity of their scheme was awesome.

Despite a reputation for Straussian opacity, the truth is that they have always made their plans known. There is no mystery about what they are about. To a shocking degree they have successfully promoted their agenda within the Republican establishment for the last two decades. And in the last six years we have seen them act without hesitation to opportunistically advance their strategic goals, regardless of the price.

These guys have been around for a long time, but I honestly never thought they would ever be granted the kind of power they would need to do what they sought to do.

How foolish of me.

Today, Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, one of the many scholars and experts whe were consistently right about Iraq (and ignored by the media and the punditocisy even today) writes:

Neocons Resurrect Plans For Regional War In The Middle East

In 1996, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser (all later senior officials in the Bush administration) had a plan for how to destroy Hezbollah: Invade Iraq. They wrote a report to the newly elected Likud government in Israel calling for “a clean break” with the policies of negotiating with the Palestinians and trading land for peace.

The problem could be solved “if Israel seized the strategic initiative along it northern borders by engaging Hizballah (sic), Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon.” The key, they said, was to “focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.” They called for “reestablishing the principle of preemption.” They promised that the successes of these wars could be used to launch campaigns against Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, reshaping “the strategic balance in the Middle East profoundly.”

Now, with the U.S. bogged down in Iraq, with Bush losing control of world events, and with the threats to national security growing worse, no one could possibly still believe this plan, could they? Think again.

William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, is still pushing this radical vision. He now uses the excuse of Hezbollah terrorist attacks — what he calls “Iran’s Proxy War” — to push the United States deeper into a regional war against Iran and Syria:

We might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions — and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement.

Perle has already weighed in in a June 25 Washington Post editorial decrying Bush’s “ignominious retreat” on Iran. He, too, wants war. Newt Gingrich on Meet the Press this Sunday said we were already in World War III and that the US needed to take direct action against North Korea and Iran. Less well known pundits have flooded cable news and talk radio this weekend beating the war drums. Meanwhile, David Wurmser is ensconced in Vice-President Cheney’s office, and his neoconservative colleague Elliot Abrams (the convicted Iran-Contra felon who urged war with Iraq in a 1998 letter to President Bill Clinton) directs Middle East policy on the National Security Council staff.

The neoconservatives are now hoping to use the Israeli-Lebanon conflict as the trigger to launch a U.S. war against Syria, Iran or both. These profoundly dangerous policies have to be exposed and stopped before they do even more harm to U.S. national security then they already have.

We will never know for sure all the reasons we found ourselves in this mess. There are many moving parts in the Bush administration. But you have to admit, if you step back and look, the neocon faction, of all the others, have had their way almost unimpeded. And no amount of failure in real terms has slowed their pace.

They are very adept at taking advantage of circumstances to advance their goals. prior to 9/11 Islamic fundamentalism was a footnote in their plans. They had arranged their "threat matrix" around China and "Rogue States" (hence the fully formed plan for Iraq before the smoke had even cleared.) But they had always known that they needed a galvanizing crisis to put the nation on the war footing needed to carry out their vision. They were agile enough to adopt the GWOT when it presented itself and they have been agile enough to take advantage of new circumstances to advance their goals ever since.

Meanwhile, the titular president of the United States says something so stupid, even for him, that it's crystal clear that the administration cannot effectively stop these people. From Ezra:

A live mic at the G8 Summit caught Tony Blair and George Bush talking privately about the conflict in Lebanon. Given the relative opacity of Bush's thoughts on the situation, the frank discussion offered a fair amount of insight and a couple nuggets of news, including that he was going to send Condi to the region (or possibly the UN -- but she's going somewhere to deal with this), that he blamed neither Israel nor Lebanon for the violence, and that "the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over."

That's a big deal: Bush believes it within the Syrian government's power to calm the conflict. Theoretically, that should have major implications for American diplomacy and, possibly, policy.

(Ezra says "theoretically" because the focus of the event has been on the fact that Bush said "shit.") But think about this. Bush is at a meeting of the world's most powerful leaders and he says, off the cuff, something that betrays such a misunderstanding of the situation that it's clear he hasn't even been properly briefed. Condi, too, has been incoherent. So who's really running the show?

I think we all know his name is Dick Cheney, original signatory of the PNAC and the man who stated baldly that he came into office with ideas about executive power and America's place as a sole superpower that he's been percolating since the late 70's. Cheney has been playing a long game, much longer than anyone else in the administration. Like a shark, he is single minded, focused and relentless. By his standards, and the standards of his multi-national corporate and neocon theorist patrons, he has been tremendously successful so far. They do not see the dangers staring them in the face, or if they do they truly believe the risk (and the blood and money) are worth it. They have no doubts.

It's tempting to write them off as a bunch of kooks, but it is their kooky vision that is right now playing out in the mid-east. It's not that they are necessarily directing it, to be sure. But they are always prepared to take advantage of circumstances that advance it. And like all historical leaders of aMarch of Folly they believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that everything will turn out ok in the end.


Update: Via John Amato and Arthur Silber, I see that Rush Limbaugh is priming the base for the rapture. He's gotcher Strauss for ya, right here.

This plays perfectly into Karl's plan as well, by the way. Beating the war drum is the only card he's really got to play --- national security and foreign policy are the only issues in which the Republicans are even pulling close to the Dems in the polls. How serendipitous death and destruction always are for Republicans.


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digby 7/17/2006 12:03:00 PM |

 

Tribes Without Borders

by poputonian

Recently, Bubba was in Aspen and had this to say about why the US should remain in Iraq, for however long it takes:

“Once you break the eggs, you have the responsibility to make an omelet."

I'm not sure how much he believes that versus how much he's rationalizing for the wife's war vote, but an omelet for a metaphor is an interesting one. A bloody interesting one, unfortunately.

From the NYT today:

In an About-Face, Sunnis Want U.S. to Remain in Iraq

As sectarian violence soars, many Sunni Arab political and religious leaders once staunchly opposed to the American presence here are now saying they need American troops to protect them from the rampages of Shiite militias and Shiite-run government forces.

The pleas from the Sunni Arab leaders have been growing in intensity since an eruption of sectarian bloodletting in February, but they have reached a new pitch in recent days as Shiite militiamen have brazenly shot dead groups of Sunni civilians in broad daylight in Baghdad and other mixed areas of central Iraq.

The Sunnis also view the Americans as a “bulwark against Iranian actions here,” a senior American diplomat said. Sunni politicians have made their viewpoints known to the Americans
through informal discussions in recent weeks.

The Sunni Arab leaders say they have no newfound love for the Americans. Many say they still sympathize with the insurgency and despise the Bush administration and the fact that the invasion has helped strengthen the power of neighboring Iran, which backs the ruling Shiite parties.

And then this from the Times Online:

What worries the rulers of Sunni Arab countries is that, as their citizens watch satellite television images of the destruction wrought by Israel on Lebanon, sympathy will grow for Hezbollah, regarded by many Arabs — Sunni and Shia alike — as the only credible political and military force willing to match words with actions by taking on the might of Israel’s military force.

Perhaps that is why President Mubarak of Egypt, who has little taste for Hezbollah, admitted yesterday that “Israel will not be victorious in the current conflict”. He said: “Israel should stop the killing of defenceless Lebanese civilians.”

RELIGIOUS DIVIDE

IRAN 89% Shia 9% Sunni

PALESTINIANS 5% Shia 90% Sunni

IRAQ 65% Shia 20% Sunni

LEBANON 40% Shia 20% Sunni

SYRIA 15% Shia 74% Sunni

So take away the artificial borders, and what are you left with?

Team Shia

Syria (military leadership)
Hezbollah
Hamas
Iran
Iraq (backed by US troops)

Team Israeli

Israel
The Bush administration 'Murica
Joe Lieberman (waterboy)

Team Sunni

Saudi Arabia
Hamas
Iraq Insurgency (protected by US troops)
Palestine
Syria (the people)

Where do the other players fit, and exactly how does all this play out? You've got majorities and minorities in each jurisdiction; and the big prize is the oil. And what about bin Laden?

An opinion piece in the Chicago Tribune said this a while back:

The remnants of the Sunni insurgency will flee to Saudi Arabia. There they will foment discord because the Saudi royal family did not do enough and allowed the Sunnis to be defeated in Iraq. The royal family will be overthrown in a violent revolution in Saudi Arabia led by Sunni clerics who long have chafed under the pro-Western rule of the House of Saud. The Sunni clerics will emerge as the dominant power in Saudi Arabia. Americans and all other Westerners will be killed or, at best, ejected from Saudi Arabia, which has enough native petrochemical engineers and knowledgeable oil field workers, and can find other non-Westerners to run the oil fields. No Westerner need apply.

Of course, we need not fear another attack here at home from Osama bin Laden as all this occurs, because he will have fulfilled his fatwa. The only thing bin Laden ever said he was after was to remove the Westerners from Saudi Arabia, the Land of the Holy Places. This will be done when the clerics assume control of Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden will win the war on terrorism by achieving his goals with our unwitting help.

What do you think? Is there a one percent chance?

UPDATED

UPDATE II - for Syria



poputonian 7/17/2006 09:36:00 AM |

Sunday, July 16, 2006

 
The One Percent Doctrine: Part One

by tristero

One of the most remarkable things about Run Suskind’s remarkable new book, The One Percent Doctrine, is what he omits. The book focuses a good deal on Tenet's role in the post 9/11 period and is loaded with serious new indictments of the Bush administration’s incompetence. But Suskind's book, at least for me is just as relevant to understanding the pre-9/11 Bush administration.

Let's start - I hope to write a series of posts on this terrific book and urge all of you to buy and read it - with the one percent doctrine itself. It’s November, 2001 in the Situation Room, during a meeting with Cheney, Rice, Tenet, and a CIA briefer. They are reviewing some of the new intelligence. Suskind writes (p.61):

Cheney sat for a moment, saying nothing. “We have to deal with this threat is a way we haven’t yet defined,” he said, almost to himself. “With a low-probability, high-impact event like this….I’m frankly not sure how we engage. We’re going to have to look at it in a completely different way…

“If there’s a one percent chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response,” Cheney said. He paused to assess his declaration. “It’s not about our analysis, or finding a preponderance of evidence,” he added. “It’s about our response.”

So now spoken, it stood: a standard of action that would frame events and responses from the administration for years to come. The Cheney Doctrine. Even if there’s just a one percent chance of the unimaginable coming due, act as if it’s a certainty. It’s not about “our analysis,” as Cheney said. It’s about “our response.” This doctrine – the one percent solution – divided what had largely been indivisible in the conduct of American foreign policy: analysis and action. Justified or not, fact-based or not, “our response” is what matters. As to “evidence,” the bar was set so low that the word itself almost didn’t apply. If there was even a one percent chance of terrorists getting a weapon of mass destruction – and there has been a small probability of such an occurrence for some time – the United States must now act as if it were a certainty. This was a mandate of extraordinary breadth. Everyone sat for a moment, rolling it over in their minds, sketching the implications.

The one-percent doctrine, the Cheney Doctrine. From here, Suskind will immediately begin detailing all the incredibly bad decisions that immediately followed from its acceptance. If there’s even a one-percent chance that, say, an Iraqi agent met Atta in Prague, treat it as a certainty…and respond.

Since Suskind only reports on events post 9/11, he lets readers draw their own conclusions. Most importantly he doesn't mention, but he surely realizes, that during the summer of 2001, and the spring before that, the highest levels of the Bush administration treated a high-probability, high-impact event – an imminent al Qaeda terrorist attack in the US – as if it had a one percent chance of occurring and did nothing. In Bush’s words (page 2) to a CIA briefer that August who interrupted his vacation to impress upon Bush how serious the threat was,

“All right, you’ve covered your ass, now.”

Let's look a little closer at how "one percent thinking" may inform Bush administration behavior from the getgo. In fact, contrary to what Cheney asserts, it's pretty clear that a one-percent doctrine was in place from Day One of the Bush administration. And, while focusing on threats they had been told were highly improbable (such as Saddam funding WMD terrorist attacks against the US), they missed the highly probable, going so far as to marginalize, deliberately, many of those who were warning them the loudest about imminent al Qaeda attacks (John O’Neill and Richard Clarke are only two of the most prominent).

In other words, the one-percent doctrine, in force from the beginning of the Bush era, failed to prevent 9/11, as it has failed to make the world any safer since. And it will continue to fail for a very simple reason: The one percent docrtrine is not based on anything resembling consensual reality.

It is hard escaping the conclusion that the Cheney Doctrine, the one percent solution is utterly irrational. Although Suskind probably wouldn't go this far, I see it as the muddled reasoning of panicked cowards who have no business commanding the most powerful armed forces in the world. Ever.

There’s more, much more. But let’s stop here for now.

[Edited slightly after original posting.]
tristero 7/16/2006 07:53:00 PM |

 
Unbelievable

by digby


This is such a shocking bit of lazy, bass-ackwards journalism that it requires a deluge of letters to the NY Times. The reporter and the editor should be called on the carpet.

If anyone ever doubted that the press operates from a scripted narrative, here's your proof.

Update: McJoan at Kos has more on this reporter's kewl kid proclivities.



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digby 7/16/2006 11:21:00 AM |

 

TheirSpace

A bipartisan group of prominent political strategists this past week announced an Internet information venture designed to interact with America's opinion leaders and serve as an antidote to the right-left clash that typifies political discourse on the Web.

The site, called Hotsoup.com, will debut in October and will be edited by Ron Fournier, former chief political writer for The Associated Press.

Hotsoup is the brainchild of some of the best-known practitioners of partisan politics in Washington, including Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004, and Joe Lockhart, former White House press secretary under President Bill Clinton and a senior adviser to Democratic Sen. John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.

Despite their political backgrounds and distinct party affiliations, Hotsoup founders said the site will provide a nonpartisan forum not just for politics, but for topics ranging from science to popular culture, from business to current affairs.

The effort is ambitious and risky, using the Internet to create an online social network similar to the popular teenage Web retreat MySpace.com.

Web site aims to be MySpace for politicians

poputonian 7/16/2006 07:16:00 AM |

 
"I Would Leave The Tube In"

by digby


Reason #5677

"You would have kept the tube in?" asked NBC's "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert.

Lieberman, a Demcoratic U.S. senator from Connecticut who ran as his party’s vice presidential nominee in 2000, replied, "I would have kept the tube in."

The exchange began when Russert mentioned Lieberman's Republican House colleague, Rep. Christopher Shays.

Shays said he believed the GOP would suffer "repercussions" from voting last week to try to get the brain-damaged Florida woman's feeding tube replaced.

"This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy. ... There are going to be repercussions from this vote [on Schiavo's constitutional rights]," Shays said. "There are a number of people who feel that the government is getting involved in their personal lives in a way that scares them."

Russert asked Lieberman if he "agreed" with that statement.

"I don't," Lieberman said. And though he said Shays' statement was "a very credible and respectable opinion, the fact is that, though I know a lot of people's attitude toward the Schiavo case and other matters is affected by their faith and their sense of what religion tells them about morality, ultimately as members of Congress, as judges, as members of the Florida state Legislature, this is a matter of law. And the law exists to express our values.

"I have been saying this in speeches to students about why getting involved in government is so important. I always say the law is where we define the beginning of life and the end of life, and that's exactly what was going on here," Lieberman continued.

"And I think as a matter of law, if you go - particularly to the 14th Amendment, [you] can't be denied due process, have your life or liberty taken without due process of law, that though the Congress' involvement here was awkward, unconventional, it was justified to give this woman, more than her parents or husband, the opportunity for one more chance before her life was terminated by an act which was sanctioned by a court, by the state."

Lieberman added, "These are very difficult decisions, but - of course, if you ask me what I would do if I was the Florida Legislature or any state legislature, I'd say that if somebody doesn't have a living will and the next of kin disagree on whether the person should be kept alive or that is whether food and water should be taken away and her life ended - that really the benefit of the doubt ought to be given to life."

In conclusion, Lieberman said, "The family member who wants to sustain her life ought to have that right because the judge really doesn't know, though he heard the facts, one judge, what Terri Schiavo wanted. He made a best guess based on the evidence before him. That's not enough when you're talking about aggressively removing food and water to end someone's life."

"You would have kept the tube in?" asked NBC's "Meet the Press" host Tim Russert.

Lieberman replied, "I would have kept the tube in."

Lieberman grossly misrepresented the legal issues and endorsed the novel conservative theory that a married adult's parents should have equal say in these situations as his or her spouse --- but that doesn't make him a bad guy, right? And while the vast majority of Americans may have disagreed with this outrageous government intrusion (that he mildly calls "unconventional") you can't really hold it against him. He's a man of integrity with deep religious beliefs. Just like these people:














Randall Terry must have been so pleased.

With all that talk about the law choosing when life begins and ends, how long before Joe switches on abortion? He's hedging on birth control already. It's only a matter of time...



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digby 7/16/2006 02:18:00 AM |

 
An All-Too-Brief 992 Pages

by tristero

Christmas is coming early this year:

With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred.

The sizable cast of characters includes anarchists, balloonists, gamblers, corporate tycoons, drug enthusiasts, innocents and decadents, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, psychics, and stage magicians, spies, detectives, adventuresses, and hired guns. There are cameo appearances by Nikola Tesla, Bela Lugosi, and Groucho Marx.

tristero 7/16/2006 01:36:00 AM |

 
More Rightwing Rapture

by digby


Jesus' General posted some excerpts from a freeper thread celebrating the deaths of Lebanese children. The posts are as disturbing as you might imagine. I clicked over to see if there were any protests of this callousness. Surprisingly enough, there are sometimes a few freepers with a slight conscience who step into these psycho-threads and try to pull people back from the brink.

Not this time. It's one sick comment after the other. Like this:

To quote Tom Quick, Avenger of the Delaware, following dashing the head of an Indian baby on a rock, "From nits come lice".

and this:


boo friggin hoo.

just eliminating future terrorists IMO.

Between the rapturous arab children death cult and the cult of the rapture, it appears that a significant portion of the American rightwing are decending into some sort of crazed, bloodlust fantasy about events in the middle east. What's up with this?


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digby 7/16/2006 01:00:00 AM |

Saturday, July 15, 2006

 

Look Ma ...

Think back to when you were young, say five or six, maybe seven; whenever it was that you first learned to ride a bike. Remember how you finally got the hang of it, but things were still a little shaky; and then, SHIT, as you took one hand off the handlebars to wave at someone you lost control of the bike? OK -- hold that image in your mind and click here.

poputonian 7/15/2006 09:26:00 PM |

 
Paper Heroes

by digby


James Wolcott makes an observation that in a sane world would not be necessary. In this world it cannot be made enough. He quotes wingnut historian Victor Davis Hanson:

"But we shouldn’t forget that the global village gets back to normal only after a Shane or Marshall Will Cane [sic: Kane] is willing to take on the outlaws alone and save those who can’t or won’t save themselves. So, remember, when, to everyone’s relief, such mavericks put down their six-shooters and ride off into the sunset, the killers often creep back into town."

Wolcott says:

First of all, it's embarrassing for a historian of any stature to seal his arguments with Hollywood citations. Alan Ladd's Shane and Gary Cooper's marshall in High Noon were fictional heroes whose success in the final showdowns were preordained in the script; their relevance to the policy decisions of a prime minister or president is nil.

I'm reminded of a story I heard about Kirk Gibson after he made his famous home run in the 1988 world series. Some sportswriter asked him if he thought he really was better than Roy Hobbs in "The Natural." Gibson replied, "Of course I am, Hobbs is a fictional character."

It seems to me that a lot of people on the right really don't understand that distinction. I don't know whether it's a pathetic attempt to appear "hip" or whether they really think it makes sense.

I understand that people need myths and stories and narrative to understand their world and blah, blah, blah. But this is something else and it's so pervasive among wingnuts that I have to think they really do forget that movies, books, comics and the like are controlled not by real world events, but the imaginations of those who write them. This Hollywood notion of heroic Uncle Sam fighting for truth and justice permeates the right's mythology to such an extent that even Condoleeza Rice ends up blurting out things like "how could any German say such a thing after all the United States had done to liberate Germany from Hitler?"

It's like the country is being run by trekkies.



Update: No offense meant to Trekkies', merely noting that some of them seem to believe that Star Trek is real rather than fictional. (Not all! Just some.)


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digby 7/15/2006 03:20:00 PM |

 
Setting Back The Cause

by digby

Fox News, May 7, 2004

Some Democrats are calling for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to resign amid controversy surrounding pictures depicting U.S. military personnel abusing Iraqi prisoners outside of Baghdad.

But others say the demand for pink slips is merely politics in an election year when Democrats are hoping to oust President Bush.

"The Congress will politicize this, will spend too much time investigating it," Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., told Fox News. "The other danger is, the administration will be defensive about this instead of being aggressive ... This has been a setback for our cause."

[...]

Lieberman told Fox News that the calls for Rumsfeld's ouster are a distraction from the larger picture.

"We're in the middle of a war — you wouldn't want to have the secretary of defense change unless there's really good reason for it and I don't see any good reason at this time," Lieberman said.

But the senator said it's imperative to get to the bottom of what happened as soon as possible."Let's flush it all out, clean it up and get back to the war on terrorism," Lieberman continued.

For a guy who considers himself one of the moral guardians of the nation he sure has a high tolerance for torture, abuse and humiliation. They certainly "flushed it all out," "cleaned up" Abu Ghraib and moved on, didn't they? And keeping Rumsfeld has really been just great for "the cause." (Characterizing oversight as "politicizing" has worked out really well too.)

It occurs to me as I read that article (with ever increasing anger) that this was a defining moment for Lieberman and perhaps it gets to the heart of why the visceral resentment among Democrats is so strong. Here's a man whose reputation rests upon his moral rectitude and he could not see that the horror of Abu Ghraib was a sign of abject immorality (and failed leadership) that required condemnation of the chain of command that endorsed it. How could this be?

This was, after all a man who said this in 1998 about the moral dangers presented by the president having had an extramarital affair:

I have come to this floor many times in the past to speak with my colleagues about my concerns, which are widely-held in this chamber and throughout the nation, that our society's standards are sinking, that our common moral code is deteriorating, and that our public life is coarsening. In doing so, I have specifically criticized leaders of the entertainment industry for the way they have used the enormous influence they wield to weaken our common values. And now because the President commands at least as much attention and exerts at least as much influence on our collective consciousness as any Hollywood celebrity or television show, it is hard to ignore the impact of the misconduct the President has admitted to on our children, our culture and our national character.

[...]

Such behavior is not just inappropriate. It is immoral. And it is harmful, for it sends a message of what is acceptable behavior to the larger American family, particularly to our children, which is as influential as the negative messages communicated by the entertainment culture.

[...]

I am afraid that the misconduct the President has admitted may be reinforcing one of the most destructive messages being delivered by our popular culture --namely that values are essentially fungible. And I am afraid that his misconduct may help to blur some of the most important bright lines of right and wrong left in our society.

That was such a stirring appeal to our national values and our morals. The president lied about a sexual affair and the details were splashed all over the media by Republicans withchunters, using the legal system as a partisan tool. Yet Joe felt he had to speak out against the president on this because the nation's moral authority was at stake and the president's misbehavior was sending a bad message to the nation's youth.

Abu Ghraib, on the other hand, didn't even deserve a GOP kangaroo congressional investigation or a call for the firing of the man who was in charge when it happened because it might make the administration "less aggressive" in the future.

Joe's very first statement about the Abu Ghraib revelations on the floor of the Senate was this weaselly peroration:

Mr. Secretary, the behavior by Americans at the prison in Iraq is, as we all acknowledge, immoral, intolerable and un-American. It deserves the apology that you have given today and that have been given by others in high positions in our government and our military.

I cannot help but say, however, that those who were responsible for killing 3,000 Americans on September 11th, 2001, never apologized. Those who have killed hundreds of Americans in uniform in Iraq working to liberate Iraq and protect our security have never apologized.

And those who murdered and burned and humiliated four Americans in Fallujah a while ago never received an apology from anybody.

So it's part of -- wrongs occurred here, by the people in those pictures and perhaps by people up the chain of command.

But Americans are different. That's why we're outraged by this. That's why the apologies were due.

Yes, by all means let's pat ourselves on the back for being better than terrorists. That is, after all, the guage by which we now judge our morality in the Great GWOT.

He was also only one of six Dem senators, and the only one from a Blue State, who voted for the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales. He made another of his memorable speeches on his behalf:

As I look back post-September 11, what seems to be in Judge Gonzales’s memo and memos submitted by the State Department, by the Defense Department and others, there is a very serious and classically American debate going on about how to handle al Qaeda and the Taliban – prisoners taken from their membership. And what is the relevance of the Geneva Convention to those people? It is the argument of a nation that cares about the rule of law.

You can agree with Judge Gonzales’s position in this matter or not. I happen to agree with the ultimate decision made. And the decision was, in my opinion, a reasonable one, and ultimately a progressive one.

This was February 5, 2005 long after it was well known that torture, sexual humiliation and abuse had taken place in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo. And it was well known that many of these prisoners were not terrorists. That was where George Bush's policies, under the guidance of Alberto Gonzales, had led --- and everybody knew it.

On marital infidelity, Joe Lieberman, moral conscience of the Democratic party, is uncompromising. On torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners he sees shades of gray. From where I sit, Joe Lieberman's failure to publicly and resolutely condemn this torture regime, (much less vote to reward those who instigated it) puts the lie to his claim to moral superiority and personal integrity. A man who cannot see unequivocally that torture is wrong cannot be a moral leader. I resent the fact that he seems to believe that he's entitled to the benefits of that reputation when he has proven he is actually little more than a puritanical sexual scold --- on the big moral question of the day he has fallen very, very short.


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digby 7/15/2006 10:22:00 AM |

 
There He Goes Again

by digby

During a joint news conference Saturday in St. Petersburg, Bush said he raised concerns about democracy in Russia during a frank discussion with the Russian leader.

"I talked about my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world, like Iraq where there's a free press and free religion, and I told him that a lot of people in our country would hope that Russia would do the same," Bush said.

To that, Putin replied, "We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy that they have in Iraq, quite honestly."

No shit.


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digby 7/15/2006 08:57:00 AM |

Friday, July 14, 2006

 
Oh Happy Day

by digby


Remember how everybody sat around discussing the horrible nihilism of Islamic Fundamentalists after 9/11? Fox news went on and on about their crazy death wish and insisted that they be renamed "homicide bombers" because they were killing innocent people in their sick desire to fulfill their bizarre religious destiny. Do you recall how everyone laughed nervously at their freakish belief that the deaths of others would result in their being granted 72 virgins and eternal life?

I know. Crazy Muslims.

Now we see the Middle East in turmoil. We are potentially entering a terrible crisis with the stakes incredibly high. Nobody knows where it's going and people are frightened of what might happen. Well, not everybody...

Is it time to get excited? I can't help the way I feel. For the first time in my Christian walk, I have no doubts that the day of the Lords appearing is upon us. I have never felt this way before, I have a joy that bubbles up every-time I think of him, for I know this is truly the time I have waited for so long. Am I alone in feeling guilty about the human suffering like my joy at his appearing some how fuels the evil I see everywhere. If it were not for the souls that hang in the balance and the horror that stalks man daily on this earth, my joy would be complete. For those of us who await his arrival know, somehow we just know it won't be long now, the Bridegroom cometh rather man is ready are not.

-----

If He tarries, I will just have time to get my hair and nails done (you know let all I come into contact with know of my Bridegroom and what He has/will do). So i am all spiffied up for Him when He does arrive to take me home. No disappointment, just a few last minute details to take care of to be more pleasing to look at.


-------


I too am soooo excited!! I get goose bumps, literally, when I watch what's going on in the M.E.!! And Watcherboy, you were so right when saying it was quite a day yesterday, in the world news, and I add in local news here in the Boston area!! Tunnel ceiling collapsed on a car and killed a woman of faith, and we had the most terrifying storms I have ever seen here!! But, yes, Ohappyday, like in your screen name , it is most indeed a time to be happy and excited, right there with ya!!

Ok fine. Religious fundamentalists are nutty. (I'm not taking it back, Obama. It's the plain truth.)

But what do you make of someone who writes this:

Can you imagine being a hate filled person that "preaches" tolerance but really really hates Christians when the rapture does happen. It must be sad to live like that. I feel sorry for them and feel we should pray for them. Their tolerance doesn't include anyone but themselves, and all they preach is hate.

... and has an "Ann Coulter '08" sticker on her posts?

Hey, I'm one of the tolerant haters. These folks can believe whatever kooky nonsense they choose. The world is full of fruitcakes. I do wonder, however, if Uncle Karl is calculating that George the Pig Slicer will cause the GOP to lose seats in the fall if he doesn't appear to be helping his base achieve the Rapture. That's got me a little bit worried.



Via Crooks and Liars.
digby 7/14/2006 06:47:00 PM |

 

Oh My Freakin God ...

... grab the amish popcorn and run for the hills.

America's No. 1 Terror Target.

poputonian 7/14/2006 06:33:00 PM |

 
Middle Aged Delinquent

by digby

Can't somebody medicate him?

With the world's most perplexing problems weighing on him, President Bush has sought comic relief in a certain pig.

This is the wild game boar that German chef Olaf Micheel bagged for Bush and served Thursday evening at a barbecue in Trinwillershagen, a tiny town on the Baltic Sea.

"I understand I may have the honor of slicing the pig," Bush said at a news conference earlier in the day punctuated with questions about spreading violence in the Middle East and an intensifying standoff with Iran about nuclear power.

The president's host, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, started a serious ball rolling at this news conference in the 13th-century town hall on the cobblestone square of Stralsund. But Bush seemed more focused on "the feast" promised later.

"Thanks for having me," Bush told the chancellor. "I'm looking forward to that pig tonight."

This 13th-century setting and formal news conference may seem an odd stage for presidential banter. The 21st-century problems that Bush confronts often prompt him to attempt to defuse the tension in the room with a dose of humor.

Reporters from Germany and the U.S. peppered him with questions about the standoff in Iran, violence in the Middle East and flagging democracy in Russia. He answered all in earnest but leavened it all with pig talk.

"Apart from the pig, Mr. President, what sort of insights have you been able to gain as regards East Germany?" a German reporter asked.

"I haven't seen the pig yet," Bush said, sidestepping the question about insights gained from his two-day visit to this rural seaside region that once rested behind the Iron Curtain.

And when an American reporter asked whether Bush is concerned about the Israeli bombing of the Beirut airport and about Iran's failure to respond to an offer for negotiations, Bush replied with more boar jokes before delving into the substance of the questions.

"I thought you were going to ask about the pig," said the president. "I'll tell you about the pig tomorrow."

This is typical of this fratboy jerk. Remember this?

THE PRESIDENT: I need some ribs.

Q Mr. President, how are you?

THE PRESIDENT: I'm hungry and I'm going to order some ribs.

Q What would you like?

THE PRESIDENT: Whatever you think I'd like.

Q Sir, on homeland security, critics would say you simply haven't spent enough to keep the country secure.

THE PRESIDENT: My job is to secure the homeland and that's exactly what we're going to do. But I'm here to take somebody's order. That would be you, Stretch -- what would you like? Put some of your high-priced money right here to try to help the local economy. You get paid a lot of money, you ought to be buying some food here. It's part of how the economy grows. You've got plenty of money in your pocket, and when you spend it, it drives the economy forward. So what would you like to eat?

Q Right behind you, whatever you order.

THE PRESIDENT: I'm ordering ribs. David, do you need a rib?

Q But Mr. President --

THE PRESIDENT: Stretch, thank you, this is not a press conference. This is my chance to help this lady put some money in her pocket. Let me explain how the economy works. When you spend money to buy food it helps this lady's business. It makes it more likely somebody is going to find work. So instead of asking questions, answer mine: are you going to buy some food?

Q Yes.

THE PRESIDENT: Okay, good. What would you like?

Q Ribs.

THE PRESIDENT: Ribs? Good. Let's order up some ribs.

Q What do you think of the democratic field, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: See, his job is to ask questions, he thinks my job is to answer every question he asks. I'm here to help this restaurant by buying some food. Terry, would you like something?

Q An answer.

Q Can we buy some questions?

THE PRESIDENT: Obviously these people -- they make a lot of money and they're not going to spend much. I'm not saying they're overpaid, they're just not spending any money.

Q Do you think it's all going to come down to national security, sir, this election?

THE PRESIDENT: One of the things David does, he asks a lot of questions, and they're good, generally.

It's not humor --- it's inappropriate, sophomoric diversion designed to intimidate the reporters. It works. They are unwilling to come right out and say that Junior is an ill mannered, tasteless, middle aged delinquent.

How I long for the day when we might once again have a president with the maturity of someone who has already passed through puberty.


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digby 7/14/2006 03:34:00 PM |

 
The Good News

by digby

In case you missed it:

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Bombs and mortars struck Shiite and Sunni mosques in the Baghdad area Friday, the latest in a week of tit-for-tat sectarian attacks that have killed more than 250 people.


The deadliest explosion came as worshippers left services at a Sunni mosque in northern Baghdad, killing 14 people and wounding five, police said.

The bomb, planted near the door of the mosque, exploded during a four-hour driving ban starting at 11 a.m. Fridays in the capital, aimed at preventing car bombs that have frequently targeted weekly prayers.

Earlier Friday, five mortar rounds fell near the Shiite Imam al-Hussein mosque in Balad Ruz, 45 miles northeast of Baghdad, killing two people and wounding six, provincial police said.

Shiite clerics, meanwhile, denounced Israel's attacks on Lebanon during Friday prayers, and hundreds of Iraqis demonstrated to show solidarity with the Lebanese. Israel began its assault after guerrillas from the Shiite group Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a raid inside Israel.

Thousands of Iraqis also demonstrated in the Shiite district of Sadr City in Baghdad and the southeastern cities of Kut and Amarah, praising the leader of Hezbollah and denouncing Israel and the United States. Some protesters said they were ready to fight the Israelis.

"No, no to Israel! No, no to America!" demonstrators chanted in Sadr City.

"Let everyone understand that we will not stand idle," read one of the banners carried by the demonstrators. "Iraq and Lebanon are calling. Enough silence, Arabs," read another.

I'm reminded of this little anecdote from Tom Friedman back in 2004. Since he actually sources it to an identifiable person rather than the usual cab driver, I tend to think it might just be true.

I was speaking the other day with Scott Pelley of CBS News's ''60 Minutes'' about the mood in Iraq. He had just returned from filming a piece there and he told me something disturbing. Scott had gone around and asked Iraqis on the streets what they called American troops -- wondering if they had nicknames for us in the way we used to call the Nazis ''Krauts'' or the Vietcong ''Charlie.'' And what did he find? ''Many Iraqis have so much distrust for U.S. forces we found they've come up with a nickname for our troops,'' Scott said. ''They call American soldiers 'The Jews,' as in, 'Don't go down that street, the Jews set up a roadblock.'''

(We all know by now that we have a neat little name for the Iraqis too --- Hadjis.)

If this is true and the Americans in Iraq are conflated with Israel to such an extent they are actually called Jews, the events of this week are likely to have a more direct impact on American troops than might seem immediately obvious.

Meanwhile, the civil war proceeds apace.



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digby 7/14/2006 01:59:00 PM |

 
The Wilsons R Us

by digby


John Amato has the video of Joe and Valerie Wilson's press conference this morning. It's quite moving seeing Valerie Wilson speak. She is a very impressive person. You can't help but be struck by what a travesty it is that the administration was willing to destroy her career and weaken our national security for political purposes.

I think of the NSA spying program and all the other programs that the president and his henchmen insist aren't being used againt political opponents and I have to laugh. In light of what they were willing to do to a covert CIA agent, why would anyone think they wouldn't be willing to use their power to spy on their political opponents. It's pretty clear they have no limits.

Scooter Libby has been collecting millions for his defense fund from all manner of rich Republicans. Mary Matalin has even held a big fundraiser at the Carville home. If anyone would care to help out the Wilsons, who aren't millionaires and don't have the entire Washington establishment backing them, here's a web-site where you can contribute to their legal support trust.



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digby 7/14/2006 01:29:00 PM |

 
He Went Too Far

by digby


I wonder what would be happening in Mississippi right now if Trent Lott were more popular among Democrats than Republicans? Do you think the Mississippi Republicans would be happy?




This handy chart comes from Political Arithmetic, who writes:

It is incredibly rare to see a Senator more popular among opposition partisans than within his own party. Yet that is increasingly the case for Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman. Since late in 2005, Lieberman's approval rating among Democrats has dropped from around 70%, to the mid-50s. In two early June polls, Lieberman fell again, to under 50% approval among Democrats. This was after Democratic primary challenger Ned Lamont's strong showing at the CT Democratic Convention, but before Lieberman made public his plans to run as an independent should he lose the primary. (The data in the graph are taken from Quinnipiac University polls and from SurveyUSA's 50 state tracking poll in Connecticut. The two polling houses track each other reasonably well in CT, so I've pooled the data and won't focus on differences between the two polling organizations here.)

While slowly trending down recently, Lieberman's job approval among Republicans remains in the upper 60s, while job approval among independents has fallen to the mid-to-upper 50s, as has overall approval.

Now here's the question. What happened in late 2005 that made Lieberman tank among Democrats? It certainly wasn't blogofascist attention at that point.

I'm guessing it was this, which was picked up by all the local papers in Connecticut.

If Trent Lott told his Republican constitutents they were betraying the country by speaking out against a Democratic president, I suspect he'd find himself in the same straits as Joe Lieberman does today.

It was the straw that broke the camels back.


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digby 7/14/2006 12:16:00 PM |

 
Planning Is For Losers

by digby


That commie outfit, the non-partisan Congressional Government Accountability Office, has analyzed the Bush administration plan in Iraq. Naturally, being terrorist lovers, they found that the plan was a complete failure.

The report is worth reading, but it's written in bureaucratese which makes it something of a challenge to those of us whose first language is English. Luckily, Tim Dunlop at the Road To Surfdom has translated it for you:

I’ve called in Surfdom’s team of crack linguists again to do a bit of translation (which is bolded):

The November 2005 National Strategy for Victory in Iraq and supporting documents incorporate the same desired end-state for U.S. stabilization and reconstruction operations that were first established by the coalition in 2003: a peaceful, united, stable, and secure Iraq, well integrated into the international community, and a full partner in the global war on terrorism.

They’d really like it if everything worked out perfectly.

However, it is unclear how the United States will achieve its desired end-state in Iraq given the significant changes in the assumptions underlying the U.S. strategy.

It’s really hard for things to work out perfectly when you have no idea what you are doing.

The original plan assumed a permissive security environment.

They figured the biggest problem would be hookers and post-coital cigarette smoking.

More here.

It's actually quite an amazing report. In a world that hadn't gone mad it would be damning for the Bush administration.



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digby 7/14/2006 11:50:00 AM |

 
War Cry

by digby


I haven't had the guts to listen to FoxNews this morning, but I've been tuned in to CNN. According to their latest chyron, "the middle east is hurtling out of control." There are breathless teasers: "Were the missiles made in Iran???!!!" They have sent in Anderson Cooper (and he looks just fabulous in his desert gear.) New logos are being designed as we speak. Eric Boehlert notes this oddity in CNN coverage.

Is it groundhog day?

Karl Rove must be very happy this morning. He is convinced that "war" (it doesn't matter who or why) always accrues to the Republican party's benefit. And the media agree that when things heat up, they really want the guys with the big swinging members in charge. (For some reason, they are under the misapprehension that the group of chickenhawks running the US government have such endowments.)

I realize that it is somewhat distasteful to discuss this issue with domestic politics in mind. But I can guarantee that the white house is. They view everything through the lens of domestic politics.

They are incoherent. Even while they publicly pretend to be seeking a peaceful solution, they're publicly fanning the flames:

John R. Bolton, the American representative, denounced Hezbollah for a "deliberate and premeditated provocation" meant to destabilize the region. Mr. Bolton also said that Syria and Iran, which he called the main sponsors of Hezbollah, must be "held to account" for the kidnapping of the Israeli soldiers.

"No reckoning with Hezbollah will be adequate without a reckoning" with those two countries, Mr. Bolton said.

I can't help but think back to the summer of 2002, before the last midterm, when the Iraq war suddenly seemed inevitable. From that moment it didn't matter what anyone said --- and deep inside we all knew it. The only question at that point was whether you'd jump on the bandwagon.

I have a sinking feeling that we are in the same position again today. Perhaps this time it will peter out. Let's hope so. But even if it does, after the smoke has cleared (if it clears) we will have a middle east that is more unstable than it was a week ago. And despite the fact that the Bush administration has been instrumental in destabilizing it over these past few years the smart bet is that by a very tiny majority, the American people will once again look to the "strong" leadership of the GOP to handle the situation.

I'm beginning to believe that if there is a God, he is definitely a Republican. He seems to always provide for Karl at just the right moment. (Either that or Karl is a genius at turning lemons into lemonade.) I don't know if he's succeed this time. But look for the GOP rhetoric to start shifting to reflect the notion that the world needs the big tough Republicans to manage this dangerous situation. They will count on Americans reflexively accepting that premise as they have for the last thirty years. The question is whether the events of the last six might have made them wonder if that makes sense anymore.


Update: Billmon darkly analyzes the situation through the prism of oil politics -- as only he can. Jesus Christ, what a mess.


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digby 7/14/2006 09:04:00 AM |

 
You Go First

by digby

Here's one of those cases where moral authority really comes in handy:

President Bush told Lebanon's leader on Friday that he would urge
Israel to limit civilian casualties as it steps up attacks on its neighbor, a promise that fell short of Beirut's calls for a cease-fire.

"President Bush affirmed his readiness to put pressure on Israel to limit the damage to Lebanon as a result of the current military action, and to spare civilians and innocent people from harm," said a statement from Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora's office

Too bad he doesn't have any.



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digby 7/14/2006 08:23:00 AM |

 

Conservative Progression-Progression: What Causes What?

by poputonian

David Brooks' starry-eyed wet dream (see Conservative Progression post below) reminds me more of the nexus between the French and Indian War, in which England kicked France out of North America, thus ostensibly gaining control of the North American booty, and its connection to the ensuing financial debacle, which led eventually to America's founding. The consequences were at best contingencies as they played out, but the connections in retrospect are inextricable: the war led to the the ensuing financial disaster, which led to Britain's coercion of the American colonies in an attempt to refill her treasury, which triggered America's resistance, which led to the violence, which resulted in the founding of American Democracy.

So who picked up all the marbles? In Brooks' analogy England would have, since they started the chain of causation. But in reality the result of the war led in part to England's eventual decline.

So who or what is it that will rise out of the Conservative Progression-Progression? After they've destroyed America, it sure as hell won't be lasting power for conservatives.

For a succinct look at America's financial status, see this apt post by Mimikatz at The Next Hurrah.

But with economics as with everything else, Bush knows what he knows, and facts (especially the fact that the cumulative debt will almost certainly double on his watch) are only for sissies.

poputonian 7/14/2006 03:33:00 AM |

 

Going To School

by poputonian

I imagine Digby will have something to say about this later, but for now I would suggest reading this amazing guest post by BigTentDemocrat at TalkLeft.

What Barack Obama Needs To Learn From Richard Hofstadter, Abraham Lincoln and FDR

Very satisfying ... better than coffee in the morning.

poputonian 7/14/2006 03:13:00 AM |

Thursday, July 13, 2006

 
Fogies

by digby

Those clever boys over at TNR are at it again today:

With all due respect, I think Mike missed the key passage in the Obama interview he linked to earlier. This one clearly takes the cake:

Q: You probably saw what Atrios said: let's not talk about process, let's actually exercise some leadership. How would you-

A: I, I, I, I don't think I understand the criticism. I mean, I didn't read the article.

Whaaa???!!! You don't read Atrios, Senator Obama? I mean, as a U.S. Senator, isn't it kind of your obligation to keep up with who's a "whiny ass titty baby" and who's just a "wanker"? Unbelievable.

Atrios responds here.


I think this is a great insight, however, from one of TNR's commenters:

In looking at Scheiber's post again, I now realize what it reminds me of ... Steve Allen's infamous reading of the lyrics to "Be-Bop-A-Lula" on his TV show in the 1950s.

Like Scheiber, Allen probably thought he was putting that whole uncouth new genre in its place.

There is an element of "that's not music, it's just noise!" to this little dustup.

(Whatever you do, don't tell these guys about hip-hop. They'll have an aneurysm.)



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digby 7/13/2006 05:49:00 PM |

 
Conservative Progression

by digby


One of my favorite hawkish pundit rationalizations of the last year or so, since it has become evident even to them that Iraq is a cock-up of epic proportions, is that even if it looks bad right now, it could improve in the next 30 years or so in which case everything will turn out all right in the end and everybody will be happy. Indeed, if you look at it in the long sweep of history, even if Iraq devolves into outright civil war, the US did the right thing by "laying the foundations for peace." (David Ignatius rather famously set that forth in this op-ed.)

However, I've never seen this so interestingly explained as is has been today by David Brooks:

In 1848 a democratic revolution swept across Europe, and then promptly collapsed. Thousands of protesters were killed in the streets. Authoritarian regimes were re-established. Some called 1848 “the turning point when Europe failed to turn.”

And yet that wasn’t true. Anti-democratic regimes did regain power, but within decades they had enacted most of the reforms the revolutionaries of 1848 had asked for. Constitutions were written. Suffrage was expanded. Welfare systems were created.

Conservative authoritarians enacted these reforms reluctantly, and with cynical motivations. But they knew they had to keep up with the times to retain their grip on power and to forestall more radical change. Democracy didn’t move forward in a burst of glory, but in a long slog of gradual concessions made by reluctant conservative reformers.

I wonder if, when we look back at the world of today from some future vantage point, we will see an echo of that pattern.

(Interesting that he calls the the reluctant acquiesers conservative authoritarians. Without irony, too.) But his point is that progress always happens so just because conservative authoritarians stand in its way doesn't mean anyone should get their panties in a bunch. They'll get it together eventually.

Brooks takes his look into the future:

We’ll see a burst of democratic change that swept the world between 1980 and 2005. Authoritarian regimes collapsed, sometimes under their own weight (the Soviet Union), sometimes amid outside pressure (the Philippines) and sometimes by force (Iraq). In places where the fabric of society was thick, nations maintained their equilibrium and democratic dreams were realized. But in nations where totalitarianism had been strongest, and civil society most brutally pulverized, liberation begat chaos.

In these places, the old political order was the only source of social authority, and once that was removed everything was permissible. The worst people in the nation were given free rein to prey upon the best. In Iraq, that meant brutal violence, rampant crime and a sectarian power struggle that produced unimaginable horror.

In Russia, the chaos produced a culture of plunder and gangsterism that rewarded the dishonest. A large share of the population was set free to drink themselves to death, with the average lifespan of the Russian man declining by seven years.

Moreover, the Western liberators were complicit in and discredited by the chaos. In Russia, the West sent in economists and technocrats. Coming from places that had always been stable, they took for granted the moral foundations that undergird stability. They didn’t see that Russia lacked these foundations, and that any institutions they built on top would simply be perverted.

In Iraq, the American liberators didn’t understand what would happen if brutalized Iraqis were left in a state of nature, and didn’t or couldn’t impose a humane order.

Yes those brutalized regimes just couldn't get it together and nobody could really help them. It was sad. But fear not. Everything turns out ok in the end with the help of some good old fashioned conservative authoritarianism:

So if the first stage of the democratic era in these places was liberation and the second stage was chaos, the third stage was conservative restoration. Unlike the Western democrats, the conservatives — Putin in Russia, the theocrats and strongmen who came to dominate Iraq [can you believe it? --- d] — did understand the desire for order. They understood the people’s desire to live in an environment in which it was possible to lead a dignified life. They shared the feeling of national shame that had come amid the chaos and the longing to restore national prestige. In short, they had a deeper understanding of human nature than the technocrats who came to modernize them.

These conservatives did have their shortcomings:

The autocrats created nations that were not totalitarian but not free. On the one hand they sought to stifle liberty in order to secure their grip on power. Democracy activists were arrested and TV stations suborned. On the other hand, as in 1848, the democratic forces did not go away. The people, especially the growing middle classes, longed for freedom. New technologies threatened centralized power.

You see, if everybody just has a little patience, waits a few decades maybe, a century in some cases, it will all turn out just fine. The key is that progress just "happens" sort of inevitably (certainly without the hard work of those icky "progressives" who keep plugging away for decades for equality and freedom.)The conservative authoritarians will eventually give way because otherwise they have to govern with terror which is "unstable." (Thank goodness for small favors.)

(One wonders about his little fantasy about democracy activists arrested and TV stations being suborned. Seeing as he writes for the NY Times, you'd think he'd see a little foreshadowing in his own backyard, but I don't think he does...)

If this pattern is true, and future historians do look back on our period this way, then a crucial task for U.S. foreign policy in the years ahead will be to cajole semi-autocratic regimes — in places ranging from Russia to the Middle East and even China — into making gradual democratic reforms. At the moment we do this badly, alternating between bold speeches that call for revolution and craven diplomatic gestures that suggest capitulation.

Who is this "we" you ask?

Why not here? This is the most powerful question in the world today: Why not here? People in Eastern Europe looked at people in Western Europe and asked, Why not here? People in Ukraine looked at people in Georgia and asked, Why not here? People around the Arab world look at voters in Iraq and ask, Why not here?

Thomas Kuhn famously argued that science advances not gradually but in jolts, through a series of raw and jagged paradigm shifts. Somebody sees a problem differently, and suddenly everybody's vantage point changes.

''Why not here?'' is a Kuhnian question, and as you open the newspaper these days, you see it flitting around the world like a thought contagion. Wherever it is asked, people seem to feel that the rules have changed. New possibilities have opened up.

The question is being asked now in Lebanon. Walid Jumblatt made his much circulated observation to David Ignatius of The Washington Post: ''It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, eight million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world.''

So now we have mass demonstrations on the streets of Beirut. A tent city is rising up near the crater where Rafik Hariri was killed, and the inhabitants are refusing to leave until Syria withdraws. The crowds grow in the evenings; bathroom facilities are provided by a nearby Dunkin' Donuts and a Virgin Megastore.

The head of the Syrian Press Syndicate told The Times on Thursday: ''There's a new world out there and a new reality. You can no longer have business as usual.''

[...]

Why not here?...this is clearly the question the United States is destined to provoke. For the final thing that we've learned from the papers this week is how thoroughly the Bush agenda is dominating the globe. When Bush meets with Putin, democratization is the center of discussion. When politicians gather in Ramallah, democratization is a central theme. When there's an atrocity in Beirut, the possibility of freedom leaps to people's minds.

Not all weeks will be as happy as this one. Despite the suicide bombings in Israel and Iraq, the thought contagion is spreading. Why not here?

That was none other than David Brooks in February of 2005.

Can someone remind me again why i am supposed to take these people seriously? This is some kind of bi-polar reality in which they "believe" certain things one day and then as soon as they are no longer able to hold the facts at bay, simply shift to a completely different stance without so much as a backward glance at their own mistaken judgment. (Josh Marshall documented a similar shape shift from Robert Kaplan earlier this week.) I guess being a hawkish pundit means never having to say you're sorry.

Liberals have plenty of internal disagreements. The punditocrisy can talk of little else. But at least these internal disagreements don't usually happen inside each individual liberal's head.

How a country like the US can support freedom and democracy, and what tools should be used, is a valid question. There has always been the problem of a mighty superpower seeming to throw its weight around having the effect of creating a certain human resistence to its influence. Nobody has an easy answer to that question, but most liberals believe that the best, if not perfect, hope lies in international law and institutions.

But, honestly, anybody who thought that it was a good idea to illegally (and virtually unilaterally) invade and occupy a middle eastern nation that had not attacked anyone, in the name of freedom and democracy was nuts. (To compound the error by thinking that you could use torture and humiliation in the process and still somehow be seen as a valiant liberator is simply mind-boggling.) If there is ever a case in human events in which you cannot adopt an "ends justify the means" philosophy it's in the realm of spreading liberal values. The minute you do it, you have defeated yourself.

This was not a difficult thing to understand for those who actually believe in liberal values. It seems, however, to still elude those who for the last decade, at least, have been swinging wildly from one position to the other without even pausing for breath. David Brooks has managed to go from starry-eyed neocon optimist to dreary, cold hearted realist in less than 18 months. I shudder to think where he and his friends might land by 2008.



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digby 7/13/2006 03:49:00 PM |

 
Danger Spreading?

by digby

Arthur Silber has been bellowing about Iran for some time now, convinced (as is Seymour Hersh) that the administration is really quite serious about attacking. (Whether or not forces within the administration or the military gather to prevent this is an open question.) Today, Arthur homes in on the question of this latest somewhat inexplicable actions by Israel and how it may relate to this plan.

He quotes Drudge's latest screaming headline:

Israel has information that Lebanese guerrillas who captured two Israeli soldiers are trying to transfer them to Iran, the Foreign Ministry spokesman said. Spokesman Mark Regev did not disclose the source of his information.

Arthur comments here.

I do not have adequate tin foil today to comprehend the full spectrum of issues. But let me just say that I would not find it suprising for the Bush administration hard liners to work in concert with the Israeli hard-liners to gin up a crisis that ends up "requiring" action against Iran. It is to the political advantage of both groups to do so. I certainly don't know that this has happened but from watching this administration operate for the past six years I do know that it could happen. And that's scary enough.

Certainly, it's quite odd that the US seems to be simply sitting on the sidelines diplomatically and throwing ill-advised potshots from the sidelines. Arthur quotes this passage from an article by Jim Lobe:

"The combination of our own diplomatic disengagement, our blaming Syria and Iran, and our giving the Israelis a green light [for their military campaign] has inflamed the entire region," according to Clay Swisher, a former State Department Middle East expert and author of the Truth About Camp David, who just returned from Lebanon last week.

It's always likely that this sort of thing is just typical Bushian incompetence. But I would never discount the idea that there is a wrongheaded Cheneyesque plot behind it as well. There often is.

Matt Yglesias also discusses this a bit yesterday in a TAPPED post, quoting from a Yossi Klein Halevi essay that claims this is all part of a plan for Israel to finally destroy Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. Matt wryly observes:

Let me just go on the record as saying that as bad an idea as bombing Iran may be, doing so as part of a wildly impractical scheme for Israel to launch a general Middle Eastern war is significantly less appealing.

Meanwhile, I totally understand why establishment liberal foreign policy types don't like to talk about Israel, but things are getting to the point where I don't think total silence in the face of dramatic goings-on is very viable.

No kidding. What the hell is going on?


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digby 7/13/2006 12:23:00 PM |

 

March 7, 2003 Revisited

by poputonian

How could anyone have known back then that invading Iraq was going to be a mistake wrought with negative consequences?

The speech that follows was surely heard by the key planners in America, including everyone in the White House. It was delivered to the United Nations Security Council just days before the Iraq invasion. The speaker used the same reports and evidence available to the US. Note how accurate his comments were:

- He correctly ascertains the degree to which Iraq represented a threat to the world, and to its neighbors.

- He identifies the convergence of international institutions as the reckoning force that was successfully disarming Iraq.

- He debunks the Iraq / al Qaeda link.

- He predicts that innocent families would suffer.

- He forecasts the postwar carnage.

- And, he zeroes in on the Bush administration's disingenuous motives for war.

He did all this before the Iraq invasion; I'll keep his identity hidden until the end of the post.

[Excerpted]

I would like to thank Mr. Blix and Mr. ElBaradei for the presentation they have just given us.
…
And what have the inspectors told us?
…
Significant evidence of real disarmament has now been observed.
…
Therefore, I would like solemnly to address a question to this body, and it's the very same question being asked by people all over the world. Why should we now engage in war with Iraq? And I would also like to ask, why smash the instruments that have just proven their effectiveness? Why choose division when our unity and our resolve are leading Iraq to get rid of its weapons of mass destruction? Why should we wish to proceed by force at any price when we can succeed peacefully?
…
War is always an acknowledgment of failure. Let us not resign ourselves to the irreparable. Before making our choice, let us weigh the consequences. Let us measure the effects of our decision. And it's clear to all in Iraq, we are resolutely moving toward completely eliminating programs of weapons of mass destruction. The method that we have chosen worked.
…
The information supply (inaudible) has been verified by the inspectors and is leading to the elimination of banned ballistic equipment. We must proceed the same way with all the other programs: with information, verification and destruction. We already have useful information in the biological and chemical domain.
…
With regard to nuclear weapons, Mr. ElBaradei's statement confirmed … the IAEA will be able to certify the dismantlement of Iraq's program.
…
What conclusions can we draw? That Iraq, according to the very terms used by the inspectors, represents less of a danger to the world than it did in 1991, that we can achieve our objective of effectively disarming that country. Let us keep the pressure on Baghdad.
…
The adoption of Resolution 1441, the assumption of converging positions by the vast majority of the world's nations, diplomatic action by the Organization of African Unity, the League of Arab States, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the non-aligned movement, all of these common efforts are bearing fruit.
…
The American and British military presence in the region lends support to our collective resolve. We all recognize the effectiveness of this pressure on the part of the international community, and we must use it to go through with our objective of disarmament through inspections.
…
As the European Union noted, these inspections cannot continue indefinitely. The pace must therefore be stepped up. That is why [we] wants to make three proposals today.
...
First, let us ask the inspectors to establish a hierarchy of tasks for disarmament, and, on that basis, to present us, as quickly as possible, with the work program provided for by Resolution 1284. We need to know immediately which priority issues could constitute the key disarmament tasks to be carried out by Iraq.
…
Secondly, we propose that the inspectors give us a progress report every three weeks. This will make the Iraqi authorities understand that in no case may they interrupt their efforts.
…
And finally, let us establish a schedule for assessing the implementation of the work program. Resolution 1284 provides for a time frame of 120 days. We are willing to shorten it if the inspectors consider it feasible.
…
The military agenda must not dictate the calendar of inspections. We agree to timetables and to an accelerated calendar, but we cannot accept an ultimatum as long as the inspectors are reporting cooperation. That would mean war. That would lead the Security Council to relinquish its responsibility.
…
By imposing a deadline of only a few days, would we merely be seeking a pretext for war? As a permanent member of the Security Council, I will say it again: [We] will not allow a resolution to pass that authorizes the automatic use of force.
…
Let us be clear-sighted. We are defining a method to resolve crisis. We are choosing how to define the world we want our children to live in.
…
These crises have many roots. They are political, religious, economic. Their origins lie deep in the turmoil of history.
…
There may be some who believe that these problems can be resolved by force, thereby creating a new order. But this is not what [we] believes. On the contrary, we believe that the use of force can arouse resentment and hatred, fuel a clash of identities and of cultures, something that our generation has a prime responsibility to avoid.
…
To those who believe that war would be the quickest way of disarming Iraq, I can reply that it will drive wedges and create wounds that will be long in healing. And how many victims will it cause? How many families will grieve?
…
We do not subscribe to what may be the other objectives of a war. Is it a matter of regime change in Baghdad? No one underestimates the cruelty of this dictatorship or the need to do everything possible to promote human rights. But this is not the objective of Resolution 1441. And force is certainly not the best way of bringing about democracy. Here and elsewhere it would encourage dangerous instability.
…
Is it a matter of fighting terrorism? War would only increase it and we would then be faced with a new wave of violence.
…
Is it finally a matter of recasting the political landscape of the Middle East? In that case, we run the risk of exacerbating tensions in a region already marked by great instability. Not to mention that in Iraq itself, the large number of communities and religions already represents a danger of a potential break-up.
…
We all have the same demands. We want more security and more democracy. But there is another logic other than the logic of force. There is another path. There are other solutions. We understand the profound sense of insecurity with which the American people have been living since the tragedy of September 11, 2001. The entire world shared the sorrow of New York and of America struck in the heart. And I say this in the name of our friendship for the American people, in the name of our common values: freedom; justice; tolerance.
…
But there is nothing today to indicate a link between the Iraqi regime and al Qaeda. And will the world be a safer place after a military intervention in Iraq? I want to tell you what my country's conviction is: It will not.
…
Four months ago, we unanimously adopted a system of inspections to eliminate the threat of potential weapons of mass destruction and to guarantee our security. Today, we cannot accept, without contradicting ourselves, a conflict that might well weaken it. Yes, we also want more democracy in the world. But we can only achieve this objective within the framework of a true global democracy based on respect, sharing, the awareness of a true community of values and a common destiny, and its core is the United Nations. Let us make no mistake, in the face of multiple and complex threats, there is no single response, but there is a single necessity -- we must remain united.
…
Today we must together invent a new future for the Middle East. Let us not forget the immense hope created by the efforts of the Madrid conference and the Oslo agreement. Let us not forget that the Mideast crisis represents our greatest challenge in terms of security and justice. For us, the Middle East, like Iraq, represents a priority commitment, and this calls for even greater ambition and boldness. We should envision a region transformed through peace; civilizations that, through the courage of reaching out to each other, rediscover their self-confidence and an international prestige equal to their long history and their aspirations.
…
Mr. President, in a few days, we must solemnly fulfill our responsibility through a vote. We will be facing an essential choice: disarming Iraq through war or through peace. And this crucial choice implies others; it implies the international community's ability to resolve current or future crises; it implies a vision of the world, a concept of the role of the United Nations.
…
[We], therefore, believes that to make this choice, to make it in good conscience in this forum of international democracy, before our peoples and before the world, the heads of state and government must meet again here in New York at the Security Council. This is in everyone's interest. We must rediscover the fundamental vocation of the United Nations, which is to allow each of its members to assume its responsibilities in the face of the Iraqi crisis, but also to seize together the destiny of a world in crisis and thus to create the conditions for our future unity.
…
Thank you, Mr. President.

Excerpted remarks as delivered by France's Foreign Minister to Security Council and recorded by the Federal News Service. March 7, 2003. New York. Note: all the bracketed [we]'s above replaced "France" in the text.

This speech shows the remarkably accurate observations made by someone able to detach from the emotional context of a tense situation, which is what a skilled Chief Excutive is able to do. Our friend, Mr. De Villepin, was calm and reserved, and able to think with disciplined restraint. The American Chief Executive, on the other hand, was, for whatever reason, unable to grasp the same evidence seen by others. The results speak for themselves. The point now is not to ask how anyone could have missed the evidence that others could see, nor is it to insist that America should have known. The point is, how can anyone today, with the advantage of retrospection, still deny what was evident on March 7, 2003?

poputonian 7/13/2006 05:53:00 AM |

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

 
Déjà Vecu

We have all some experience of a feeling, that comes over us occasionally, of what we are saying and doing having been said and done before, in a remote time - of our having been surrounded, dim ages ago, by the same faces, objects, and circumstances - of our knowing perfectly what will be said next, as if we suddenly remember it. Charles Dickens, "David Copperfield"

I'm honored to offer my readers another exclusive sneak preview of Rick Perlstein's forthcoming book, Nixonland:

The President was glad for a politically useful distraction. On March 29,[1971] after the longest court-martial trial in history, Lieut. William "Rusty" Calley was convicted of murder by a jury of his military peers.

When Calley had first been called to Washington in June of 1969, he thought it was to receive a medal. He was shocked to learn it was for a court martial: "It seemed like the silliest thing I had ever heard of. Murder." It betokened a national confusion. At the trial his defense lawyer said, "This boy's a product of a system, a system that dug him up by the roots, took him out of his home community, put him in the Army, taught him to kill, sent him overseas to kill, gave him mechanical weapons to kill, got him over there and ordered him to kill." He argued that the decision to scapegoat Calley went all the way up the chain of command--better to indict a lieutenant, shut down this whole embarrassment incident as neatly as possible, than the entire system of "pacification" and "free fire zones" and "search and destroy missions" itself. He tried to call Defense Secretary Laird as a witness. The judge overruled him.

The argument was lent support by the fate of Calley's commander, Major General Samuel Koster. Koster had witnessed the massacre from his observation helicopter and complained only that they weren't recovering enough enemy weapons. He signed off on an Army report that noncombatants had been "inadvertently killed...in the cross fires of U.S. and V.C. forces." After the Army's investigation into the My Lai massacre, he suffered a mere reduction of a grade in rank. Everyone else involved ended up acquitted or with their charges dropped.

Calley stood ramrod straight at his sentencing and mewled in a breaking voice about his victimhood: "Yesterday, you stripped me of all my honor. Please, by your actions that you take here today, don't strip future soldiers of their honor." He was sentenced to life at hard labor. You didn't have to construe Calley a put-upon innocent to conclude that something stunk. "Calley Verdict: Who Else Is Guilty?" read Newsweek's cover line. "Who Shares the Guilt?" asked Time.

John Kerry, the VVAW spokesman, had an answer: "We are all of us in this country guilty for having allowed the war to go on. We only want this country to realize that it cannot try a Calley for something which generals and Presidents and our way of life encouraged him to do. And if you try him, then at the same time you must try all those generals and Presidents and soldiers who have part of the responsibility. You must in fact try this country." It was a common conclusion of liberals: Senators Ribicoff and Hatfield, the New Yorker, Telford Taylor, a prosecutor of Nazis at Nuremberg and the author of Nuremberg and Vietnam: An American Tragedy.

But that was what the Communists were saying, too, conservatives observed. And if Calley was their villain, he must be our hero.

The VFW's national commander Herbert Rainwater led the way: "There have been My Lais in every war. Now for the first time we have tried a soldier for performing his duty." A little Mormon boy in Utah, Timmy Poppleton, wrote his senator begging him to intervene: "I'm only eight years old, but I know that Lieut. Calley was defending our freedoms against Communism." His mother--many mothers--had explained that the villagers of My Lai must have done something to deserve it. Joseph Alsolp agreed. The hawkish one of the columnizing brothers complained in his second column after the verdict about what his editors did to his first one: "by no fault of this reporter, the persons Lt. Calley was convicted of killing were miscalled 'civilians.'.... These victims from My Lai in fact came from a 'combat hamlet' of a 'combat village.' From about the age of four on up, all persons in a 'combat village,' of both sexes, are trained to kill. by the iron rules of the Viet Cong, if they do not follow their training, they are killed themselves after one of the VC kangaroo-trials."

The American Legion post at Columbus, Georgia, home of Fort Benning, pitched in a promise they would raise $100,000 to help fund Calley's appeal "or die trying": "The real murderers are the demonstrators in Washington who disrupt traffic, tear up public property, who deface the American flag. Lieut. Calley is a hero. He's an all-American. He fought for us in a country where Communism is still trying to take over. We should be proud of him. We should elevate him to saint rather than jail him like a common criminal." Calley was now Columbus's favorite son. At a revival at the football stadium, the Rev. Michael Lord pronounced, "There was a crucifixion 2,000 years ago of a man named Jesus Christ. I don't think we need another crucifixion of man named Rusty Calley."

Entrepreneurs stood at attention. "Free Calley" stickers managed to blossom on car bumpers within 24 hours, like toadstools after a spring rain. A Nashville record producer slapped a solemn recitation as if in William Calley's voice over a backing track of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," and moved 200,000 45-rpm records in a day and a million in a week:

While we were fighting in the jungles they were marching in the street
While we're dying in the rice fields they were helping our defeat
While we're facing V.C. bullets they were sounding a retreat
As we go marching on...

When I reach my final campground in that land beyond the sun
And the great commander asks me, 'Did you fight or did you run?'
I'll stand both straight and tall stripped of medals, rank and gun
And this is what I'll say:

Sir, I followed all my orders and I did the best I could
It's hard to judge the enemy and hard to tell the good
Yet there's not a man among us would not have understood

We took the jungle village exactly like they said
We responded to their rifle fire with everything we had
And when the smoke had cleared away a hundred souls lay dead...
There's no other way to wage a war when the only one in sight
That you're sure is not a VC is your buddy on the right...

Glory, glory hallelujah, glory, glory hallelujah...

And radio stations played the silent majority's "Four Dead in Ohio" over and over again, only pausing in between to call for donations to Rusty Calley's defense fund, as respectable editorialists stood aghast. "We responded to their rifle fire"? A jury of six decorated combat veterans had ruled there had been none. "For the first time we have tried a soldier for performing his duty"? The stockades were full of soldiers and Marines tried for killing Vietnamese captives in combat. "The only difference," wrote William Greider, who covered the four-and-a-half month trial in the Washington Post, "is that, instead of 22 people, most of them killed only one or two." The Wall Street Journal pointed out, "This is a young man duly convicted of taking unarmed prisoners entirely at his mercy, throwing them in a ditch, and shooting them. Is this nation really to condone such an act, as a strange coalition of super-patriots seems to urge?" The Washington Star said "the day this country goes on record as saying that unarmed civilian men, women, and children of any race are fair game for wanton murder, that will be the day that the United States forfeits all claims to any moral leadership of this world." Scott Reston, in the Newspaper of Record, wondered whether "somebody were going to propose giving Lieutenant Calley the Congressional Medal of Honor."

Above and beyond all the commotion, Nixon spied simple commonality: super-patriots and peace were on the same side.

The White House had done its polling. 78 percent disagreed with Calley's conviction and sentence; 51 percent wanted him exonerated outright. Within 24 hours the White House got 100,000 telegrams, calls, and letters. They were 100 to one for Calley's release. Meanwhile the President's handling of Vietnam in general he was heading into Lyndon Johnson territory: 41 percent approval, 47 percent disapproval. On March 30 the White House alerted the media that on March 7 the President would go on TV to announce more troop cuts. Then they got to work exploiting Calley.

Nixon delegated the legal questions to John Dean's office. Overnight his staff became experts on military law. The conclusion: the conviction was by the book, the sentence would likely be reduced on appeal, the President was extremely limited in his power to intervene, and that any White House interference mitigating "a gross violation of the customary law of war" could have a domino effect weakening the good order of the military justice system.

Military justice be damned. Nixon conferred with his new favorite political enforcer John Connally. He complained to Haldeman and Ehrlichman the "lawyers provide no political gain for us on the argument." It was Chuck Colson who came up with his first move: he could immediately order Calley released from the stockade until his appeal was decided. On April 1 President made the call to Admiral Moorer. "That's the one place where they say, 'Yes, Sir,' instead of 'Yes, but,'" he pronounced with satisfaction. The action was announced at the House of Representatives; the floor broke out in spontaneous applause (the President was so proud of the response he noted it in his memoirs).

And a man convicted by fellow Army officers of slaughtering 22 civilians was released on his own recognizance to the splendiferous bachelor pad he had rented with the fat proceeds of his defense fund, as featured in a November 1970 Esquire feature laid out like a Better Homes & Gardens spread--padded bar, groovy paintings, and comely girlfriend, who along with a personal secretary and a mechanical letter opener helped him answer some 2,000 fan letters a day.

April 2, in San Clemente, the leader of the Free World allotted almost a full day for discussion of l'affaire Calley (save for three hours with the governor of California to try to talk him down from sabotaging the Family Assistance Program as part of Reagan's "all-out war on the tax taker"). White House polls showed 96 percent of the public was following the case, the highest they'd recorded on any subject. They had to move: it was time for some virtuoso difference-splitting. The Old Man ordered a course "on the basis of what does us most good"--anything to to buck up his approval rating to end Vietnam "our way." Ehrlichman summarized the final recommendation: "The President does nothing"--in a way that strongly hinted at a future pardon.

At the next day's morning briefing Ron Ziegler said before any sentence was carried out the President would "personally review the case and finally decide it." Ehrlichman took the podium: this "extralegal ingredient" was appropriate in a case which had "captured the interest of the American people," and which required "more than simply the technical, legal review which the Code of Military Justice provides." The officers involved in the appeal, he reassured the press, would be in no way influenced by their Commander in Chief.

The political reviews were stellar. Senator Margaret Chase Smith of Maine, the "Conscience of the Senate," released a statement: "I think the President performed a very wise and useful service to his nation.... it was impressively evident that the President caused many Americans to pause in their judgement, to gain perspective, and to replace emotion with reason." Senator Robert Taft (whom Nixon called in other contexts a "son of a bitch...peacenik") said he had restored the morale of the military. The White House's private polling showed his actions found favor with 75 percent of the American people. Only 17 percent disagreed.

The legal reviews were not so salubrious. Privately, Secretary Laird complained, "Intervention in the Calley case repudiates the military justice system." Publicly, the case's prosecutor, Captain Aubrey Daniel, wrote the President, in a four-page single-spaced letter made available by Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern's office, "The greatest tragedy of all will be if political expedience dictates the compromise of such a fundamental moral principle as the inherent unlawfulness of the murder of innocent persons." Bill Greider asked in the Post: "Should it open the doors at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and release all the other soldiers convicted of the same offense as Calley?"

Then there were those enraged the President hadn't gone nearly far enough. On the front page of The New York Times on April 4, one of the Green Berets charged but never tried for killing a Vietnamese civilian, Robert F. Marasco, now a life insurance salesman in New Jersey, announced he had carried out murder on "very, very clear orders" from the CIA. "He was my agent and it was my responsibility to eliminate him with extreme prejudice."

John Dean once more proved his usefulness to the President by crafting the White House's subsequent talking point: in such ongoing legal cases, "it would be improper and inappropriate for White House staff members to make any comments or statements."

That would turn off some problems. Secretary Laird, Colonel Daniel, Robert F. Marasco, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and all the rest would have to howl in the wilderness.

*****

Luckily for the President the Post and Times weren't howling as loudly as they might. Two days later, on April 5, Senator Hatfield read the "Winter Soldier" testimony from Detroit into the Congressional Record. He stated on the floor that they revealed "the institutionalized racist attitudes of the military in the training of men who are sent to Vietnam--training which has indoctrinated them to think of all Vietnamese as 'gooks' and subhuman," and that atrocities were the consequences of "policies adopted by our military commanders." If the Times had reported on it readers would have learned about, from SP/4 Gary Keyes, the time "there were some fishermen out on the ocean and a couple of our sergeants thought it would be good sport to use them as target practice"; or of Marine Sergeant Scott Camil, whose buddy, when a woman one of their snipers shot asked for water, "stabbed her in both breasts, they spread her eagle and shoved an E-tool up her vagina, an entrenching tool, and she was still asking for water. And then they took that out and they used a tree limb and then she was shot." Or the prisoner of war interrogator, Lt. Jon Drolshagan--discharged soldiers bravely using their names and stepping up publicly didn't risk court martial any more, just ostracization from their communities--who described one of their "normal things": "The major that I worked for had a fantastic capability of staking prisoners, utilizing a knife that was extremely sharp, and sort of filleting them like a fish. You know, trying to check out how much bacon he could make of a Vietnamese body to get information."

The Times did, however, run a sentimental story on Nixon's latest appeal to the silent majority.

He went on TV Wednesday, April 7 from the Oval Office at 9 PM (first he read a handwritten note from Henry Kissinger: "Because you go on tonight I want you to have this note to tell you that--no matter what the result--free people everywhere will be forever in your debt. Your serenity during crisis, your steadfastness under pressure have been all that has prevented the triumph of mass hysteria. It has been an inspiration to serve").

The speech was the usual: it announced a dizzying new pace of troop withdrawals; included the selective historical review, the optimistic assessment ("tonight I can report that Vietnamization has succeeded.... Look again at their chart on my left. Every action taken by this administration, every decision made, has accomplished what I said it would accomplish"); the affirmation of the selflessness of the American effort ("never in history have men fought for less selfish motives--not for conquest, not for glory, but only for the right of a people far away to choose the kind of government they want"); the mournful lament that the only roadblock to progress was the recalcitrance of the enemy negotiators in the face of generous American offers, the wild-eyed insanity of setting a date for withdrawal ("we will have thrown away our political bargaining counter to win the release of American prisoners of war...we will have given enemy commanders the exact information they need to marshal their attacks against our remaining forces at their most vulnerable time.... Shall we leave Vietnam in a way that--by our own actions--consciously turns the country over to the Communists?"). He again mobilized the trope of shame as cheap shot at those who argued for a different way ("I know there are those who honestly believe that I should move to end this war without regard to what happens in South Vietnam. This way would abandon our friends. But even more important, we would abandon ourselves.... We would lose respect for this nation, respect for one another, respect for ourselves").

Then finally, as ever, he wound up for the sentimental dénoumente. Which this time was a masterpiece. "While we hear and read much of isolated acts of cruelty, we do not hear enough of the tens of thousands of individual American soldiers--I have seen them there--building schools, roads, hospitals, clinics, who, through countless acts of generosity and kindness, have tried to help the people of South Vietnam. We can and we should be very proud of these men. They deserve not our scorn, but they deserve our admiration and our deepest appreciation...."

His voice took on a honeyed Norman Rockwell tone.

"The reason I am so deeply committed to peace goes far beyond political considerations or my concern about my place in history, or the other reasons that political scientists usually say are the motivations of Presidents.

"Every time I talk to a brave wife of an American POW, every time I write a letter to the mother of a boy who has been killed in Vietnam, I become more deeply committed to end this war, and to end it in a way that we can build lasting peace."

(You cared about peace because you cared about those brave Americas left behind in the Hanoi Hilton. They, on the other hand, do not.)

"I think the hardest thing that a President has to do is present posthumously the nation's highest honor, the Medal of Honor, to mothers or fathers or widows of men who have lost their lives"--he was nearly whispering--"but in the process have saved the lives of others."

This was a rhetorical gambit. It let him end with a story about little Kevin: the Checkers of 1971.

"We had an award ceremony in the East Room of the White House just a few weeks agao. And at that ceremony I remember one of the recipients, Mrs.--Karl--Taylor.

"He charged an enemy machine gun single-handed and knocked it out. He lost his life. But in the process the lives of several wounded Marines in the range of that machine gun were saved.

"After I presented her the Medal, I shook hands with their two children, Karl, Jr.--he was 8 years old--and Kevin, who was 4. As I was about to move to the next recipient, Kevin suddenly stood at attention and saluted."

Pause.

"I found it rather difficult to get my thoughts together."

His voice deepened.

"My fellow Americans, I want to end this war in a way that is worthy of the sacrifice of Kevin Taylor."

He was speaking very slowly.

"And I think he would want me to end it in a way that would increase the chances that Kevin and Karl, and all those children like them here and around the world, could grow up in a world where none of them would have to die in a war; that would increase the chance of Americans to have what it has not had in this century--a full generation of peace."

Yesterday, one of the masterminds of President's Bush's torture regime, William Haynes, testified before a Senate committee. He was not there to answer for his crimes. He was there because George W. Bush has nominated him to be a federal appeals court judge. He explained that the problems we've all heard about are the result of a few "bad apples" and they are all being properly dealt with. As of today, it's not known if he will be confirmed. digby



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digby 7/12/2006 12:50:00 PM |

 
Saving Western Civ

by digby


So the big protest against the NY Times took place yesterday and all the heavyweights showed up. Atlas Shrugged was there and took pictures:



Gavin adds:

It’s also why we drink booze, woo a flooze, and take poos in our shoes — because hey buddy, you snooze, you lose.

But indeed, why doesn’t the New York Times quit it with all that high-flown cloak-and-dagger ‘warrantless spying’ stuff, and simply haul off and print a New York City subway map, so that al-Qaeda can know where all the secret and never-advertised subway routes are?

Atlas also claims that these guys are anti-semites.


Update: Wolcott's protest review.



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digby 7/12/2006 09:59:00 AM |

 
Presidentin' For Dummies

by digby

Q Well, Mr. President, you've known Mr. Prodi for a long time, and you've known Mr. Berlusconi -- you've known both of them. And how would you assess the personal relationship that you had with Mr. Prodi and with Mr. Berlusconi? Is there a difference how comfortable would you feel with one or the other?

THE PRESIDENT: I feel very comfortable with both. The first thing that's important is I feel comfortable with the people of Italy. We've got very close ties.

And let me just take a step back. What's interesting about our country is that we've got -- we've had close ties with a lot of countries. My ranch was settled by Germans.

Q Really?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. There's a huge number of Italian Americans. A lot of Russian Americans. You know, Norm Mineta in my Cabinet is a Japanese American. In other words, so when you talk about relations with an American President, you've got to understand that there's a -- at least I have, I know my predecessors have, connections, close connections with people who have fond -- either fond memories and/or great pride in their motherland.

Who knew?

How embarrassing it must be these days to be John Podhoretz, who wrote this in his hilariously ill-timed tome, Bush Country, How Dubya Became A Great President While Driving Liberals Insane:

The consistent inability of Democrats and liberals to pay proper respect to their adversaries has surely done more damage to them than to their adversaries. Their misunderestimation will continue to cost them as long as they persist in their comforting delusion that the whip-smart George W. Bush is an idiot.

And, by the way, Norm Mineta's resignation was official last week.



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digby 7/12/2006 09:01:00 AM |

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

 
Norquistian Boogeyman

by digby

Jonathan Chait expands upon his Sunday op-ed, noting that I offered up "a fairly cogent and persuasive, albeit profanity-laced, case against Lieberman." (I did say shit and fuck once each. Oops, I did it again.)

Chait reiterates that he dislikes Lieberman but is concerned that if Lieberman loses he will become a martyr. I suppose he probably will. But he will be one without a platform in the US Senate. He will do much less damage as a Fox News analyst or an AEI fellow --- or even Sec Def reporting to his good pal Dick Cheney. (Even I don't think he's worse than Rumsfeld --- who is?) In any event, he will no longer be an elected Democrat from a liberal state deriding his own party and enabling the Republicans. That is its own reward.

Chait worries even more that if Lieberman actually wins the primary, or the general as an independent, he'll be angry and alienated from liberals. Frankly, I'm not sure what that means. Will the man of integrity suddenly begin changing his stance on the issues? If the worry is that he will become more rhetorically abusive toward the base of his own party, well what else is new? He already went on the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal and said we were undermining national security by speaking out against the president. His disdain for us (and I would argue in that case, for American values) is manifest already and has been for years.

Chait's larger point is that the netroots are a danger to liberalism because of our alleged "party line." He begins with this:

Since I have space here, I'd offer up two prime examples of the party line. The first is Iraq. To be on the side of the angels, one must favor withdrawal and believe that there was no rational case to be made for war given the publicly-known information in 2002.

I find this interesting because to the best of my knowledge, virtually the entire Democratic party is in favor of some kind of withdrawal from Iraq. This is a mainstream position. Indeed, there were only six Democrats in the senate who voted against the Levin-Reed resolution that called for a phased redeployment: Sens. Mark Dayton of Minnesota, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Joe Lieberman of Connecticut, Bill Nelson of Florida and Ben Nelson of Nebraska. Only one of them is taking heat for his position on Iraq. There is no litmus test --- but Blue State Democrats in safe seats who defy their constituents' wishes on this matter risk being challenged --- by their constituents.

The second part of his argument --- "one must ... believe that there was no rational case to be made for war given the publicly-known information in 2002" is puzzling. After all, the rationale for the war in Iraq was absurd on its face: al Qaeda had attacked us so we attacked Iraq. We could have attacked New Zealand for all the sense it made.

Now I realize that they dazzled a lot of people with a lot of bullshit but the fact remains that even if the publicly known information had turned out to be true it still wouldn't have made any sense. The world was full of potential threats. Why Iraq? Why then? Why the rush? Why alienate our allies? Why take our eye off the ball? Why not North Korea or Pakistan, both of which at that very moment presented a more obvious threat? Those are questions that have not to this day been adequately answered. Hell, the questions have barely even been asked by the mainstream press.

This was not a tough call on the merits, regardless of the lame demagogic gobbledygook (drone planes anyone?) about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction." That is unless you supported the ridiculous Bush Doctrine that permits the US to "take out" any country that might someday think of posing a threat. Or you agreed with the puerile notion that we had to prove our manhood in the middle east by kicking somebody's ass --- didn't matter whose. I reserve the right to not support people who thought things like that --- or who believed that it made sense after 9/11 to invade a country in the mid-east that had not attacked us. They were very foolish about something very serious.

I do not, however, think that the Democrats in congress believed any such thing. I'm not so naive that I don't know that the political exigencies of the moment put Democrats in a tough spot. I wish they had had the courage to stand up and say, "wtf?" but the militant zeitgeist demanded that they genuflect to the flag every five minutes or be called terrorist loving traitors. It was not easy, particularly since the memory of the Democratic votes against the first Gulf War seemed fresh to many of those geezers.

Still, 22 Democratic senators and Jim Jeffords voted against the use of force resolution, so it's not like this view was way out there. And I have no doubt that not one of those 23 saw even the remotest justification for war with Iraq. (I seriously doubt the rest of them did either.)

Today, most Democrats who voted for the resolution have found ways to publicly distance themselves from that moment. I think they know that history is going to judge them harshly for their weakness. It will judge America harshly. But while I do insist on my prerogative to boldly assert that up was up and down was down back in 2002, I'm not suggesting that every Democrat who voted for the war be booted out of office. I haven't seen any evidence that anyone is doing that. You will recall that Democrats, including the entire blogosphere, supported John Kerry and John Edwards in overwhelming numbers, both of whom voted for the war. It just ain't so that we are hardline doctrinaire on this subject. (At least until Commandante Markos orders us to be.)

As for political writers who continue to insist that the war was rational in 2002, I no longer respect their opinions. So what?

Chait's other example of a party line is that we bloggers demand that everybody kiss our asses:

To be in the good graces of the activists, one must believe not only that the rise of Internet activism has some potentially positive ramifications, but to signal that one accepts a Manichean battle between virtuous people-powered activists and corrupt Washington insiders.

I am unaware of that requirement, but speaking for myself I could not care less if people believe that we are the second coming or even that they think "the rise of Internet activism has some potentially positive ramifications." (I do have to wonder how much you have to hate internet activism to think that there aren't even any potential positive ramifications of it, though.) Perhaps there are those who feel that politicians must signal that they accept the "Manichean battle between virtuous activists and corrupt Washington insiders" but I didn't get the memo. Requiring everyone to see us as heroes is a little grandiose, even for the elite blogofascist cabal.

It should be noted that the observation that the political establishment is corrupt is pretty mundane stuff, however. It's been a staple of politics forever. And the belief that "the people" need to take back control of their government is also pretty mundane. It's even got a name. It's called populism. Only the delivery system is new. After nearly two decades of DLC corporatism and Democratic losses, did anyone not anticipate that that there might be exactly this sort of backlash? Whose fault is that?

It's certainly fair enough to criticize populism on the merits. There are ongoing debates within the blogosphere on that very topic. I will admit that defending the political establishment probably won't find you Kos level readership (a sad reality of which I'm sure that the publishers of TNR are all too well aware.) But the blogging marketplace is wide open to anyone and if someone wants to defend the establishment they are free to do so and there are plenty of blogs that do it. There are even official establishment blogs. The worst thing they face from people who disagree is criticism.

Chait quotes Kevin Drum who wrote:

Last I heard, Grover Norquist had built an entire career on insisting that every last Republican politician kiss his pinkie ring and pledge never to vote for a tax increase. And the Republican Party seems to have done pretty well as a result.

and then adds:

I think the citation of Norquist is telling. Some of the liberal internet activists consciously fashion themselves after Norquist (who, by the way, fashions himself after Lenin) and would like to replicate on the left the comintern-like apparatus he has constructed on the right. It is true that the Norquist mentality has helped Republicans win elections. But plenty of conservatives wonder whether it has actually helped advance conservatism. Government, after all, has grown under Republican rule, and the fact that it now funnels more of its largesse to GOP-affiliated interests is of small comfort to honest conservatives.

(That's actually a cheap shot at Drum. He was making a rhetorical argument not advancing that theory.)

If there are those in the blogoshpere who are consciously fashioning themselves after that corrupt putz Grover Norquist, I'm unaware of it, and I think I'd know. The only people anywhere who are wearing that particular tinfoil are the writers of TNR.

Certainly Democrats of all stripes have awakened to the notion that the partisan infrastructure the Republicans created must be met with something. We are at a huge disadvantage. But that isn't a netroots thing. Ask John Podesta or Simon Rosenberg or any number of others who are working to set up think tanks and publishing houses and all kinds of organizations that have nothing to do with the netroots. I honestly don't know what the hell he's talking about.

I would welcome a little more organization and communication in the netroots and look forward to the medium maturing as an effective way to advance liberalism. But all we've got right now is a very loose confederation of activists, writers, gadflys and humorists --- and millions of readers --- who all agree that Republicans (and Joe Lieberman) are bad for the country and we are doing whatever we can to replace them. We also tend to agree that something has gone awry in the Democratic party -- the fact that we are completely out of power being the big clue. We discuss that a lot. Some bloggers raise money for candidates. Some write emails to each other about topics they are interested in and try out new ideas on each other. Is that really so threatening?

It is true that the Norquist mentality has helped Republicans win elections. But plenty of conservatives wonder whether it has actually helped advance conservatism. Government, after all, has grown under Republican rule, and the fact that it now funnels more of its largesse to GOP-affiliated interests is of small comfort to honest conservatives.

Yes, isn't that something? Now that it is falling under its own venal, corrupt weight, all the "honest conservatives" are suddenly realizing that it isn't conservative at all. How very convenient. Chait is falling for the oldest trick in the book and my regular readers know exactly what I'm talking about. Conservatism cannot fail, it can only be failed. (If you want to see a purge in full glory, keep your eyes on the right if they lose the election. Nobody does it better. Not even Stalin.)

Chait claims the blogosphere is paranoid and sectarian and he worries what it will do to liberalism. I'm frankly worried about the paranoia and sectarianism at The New Republic, a magazine I've been reading for 30 years. This notion that Kos is some sort of commander of the blogofascist empire is ridiculous. Kos is a successful, respected blogger, but believe me, I don't take orders from anybody and I don't know any other bloggers who do. The blogosphere is a kind of organism. To the extent there's a hierarchy, it's not manufactured, it's organic, and there is no recognized leadership --- there's readership. This idea of a Stalinist comintern is a misunderstanding of epic proportions. The blogosphere has the most open distribution of power of any human endeavor I've ever participated in. If a certain amount of groupthink occurs, it's certainly no more than what you see at the DLC --- or The New Republic.

People in Washington need to wrap their minds around the fact that this stuff really is bubbling up from below and it's real. Bloggers are merely in the vanguard of a rising leftwing populist sentiment around the country. It is a predictable reaction when a party ceases to be responsive to its voters. Liberalism has been moribund for some time now. This is a chance to at least begin the process of resuscitation and could be used by the political establishment as a useful counter-weight to help drag the country back from the brink of rightwing extremism.(If that's what they want, that is.) Smart politicians will accept this and find a way to use its strength strategically, not fight it.

Jay Rosen wrote in the comments to Chait's post:

In my view... The TNR writers just cannot accept that liberal opinion journalism of the insider variety has been invaded or at least affected by the unbelievably crude, overheated and totally unsavvy writers in the Kos, Townhouse orbit, and that people in politics, specifically the Democratic party, actually pay attention to these activist-loudmouths. The "perch" they thought TNR represented just isn't the same in the Net era, which to them isn't fair. They hate it. They wanted their turn to sneer at the unsubtleties of left activists so as to demonstrate TNR-style Washington savvy.

They went to good schools; they know people on the inside. They want those gates (around liberal opinion journalism) back up. The gates were good to them.

I didn't say it, he did.

I would just again point out that the characterization of the "Kos Townhouse" orbit as being a group of "unbelievably crude, overheated and totally unsavvy ... activist-loudmouths" is only partially correct. (I proudly wear the labels, others may not.) But to the extent you believe it's true, keep in mind that it reflects the frustration of millions of politically active progressive citizens who have been scapegoated and derided for decades by the political insiders who now find themselves on the other end of the attack. These people are the base of the Democratic Party. If people think the party can prevail in this modern hyper-partisan era by continuing to insult its most active and ardent supporters, then have at it. But no one should be surprised then when those supporters decide to take matters into their own hands. Democracy is untidy that way.



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