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March, 2007Saturday, March 31, 2007 Three Strikes, You're OutFrom "Iraq’s Militias: The True Threat to Coalition Success in Iraq", in Parameters, the Army War College's quarterly journal:
Unfortunately, the DDR initiative outlined in the article depends on three components that seem to be lacking in Iraq: the political will to disband the militias, the economic conditions necessary to reintegrate militia members into civilian employment, and the re-establishment of security to obviate the perceived need for "private", non-state security agents. Saturday, March 31, 2007 Adel HamadWhen people call for closing Gitmo, what they're talking about isn't the physical location of the detention facility. They're referring to the "legal" underpinning of the entire terrorist detention system established by the Bush administration. Namely, that by keeping detainees out of American jurisdiction, we can a) submit them to interrogation practices and detention conditions that would be actionable otherwise, and b) deny them the recourse to independent judicial oversight that is the cornerstone of the American legal tradition. No one's suggesting we shouldn't be detaining dangerous terrorists, or freeing the ones we've already captured. But without legitimate habeas corpus rights for all detainees, those who have been wrongfully detained have no legal safety mechanism to get their stories heard, and become dependent for reprieve on the very institution that detained them in the first place. The problem isn't the prison. It's the process. Watch this video and you'll understand why. Via Slate. Saturday, March 31, 2007 The American PastimeThe LA Times has got an op-ed piece on a book coming out tomorrow called Baseball Haiku. Which seems so obvious, once you think about it. I mean, most guys calling a ballgame actually speak in haikus. ("Two out, one man on,/Ninth inning, one-run ballgame./The stretch, the pitch, it's...") It's an artform that's tailor made for the sport, kind of like rap and basketball. Anyway, they give a bunch of excerpts, including the first baseball haiku ever written, by the inventor of modern Japanese haiku (and "mad-for-the-game left-handed prep school catcher"), Masaoka Shiki, back in 1890. (That's eighteen-ninety.):
Here's one I came up with on the fly:
Any amateur poets and baseball fans who want to take a stab at one, leave it in the comments. I'll send a copy of the book to the best one. (Wackipedia definition of a haiku here.) Saturday, March 31, 2007 Who's Zooming Who?Michael Crowley of TNR took issue with Charles Krauthammer's "Iraq or Afghanistan" WaPo op-ed as well, specifically Krauthammer's dismissal of Afghanistan as "geographically marginal". Trouble is, he's a little wide of the mark:
First of all, it's important to remember that the ISI, Pakistan's military intelligence agency, was responsible for creating stability and a climate hospitable to anti-American terrorists in pre-9/11 Afghanistan. Far from being a threat to Pakistan, our enemies in Afghanistan functioned as useful pawns for Pakistani interests. I'd also disagree with Crowley's characterization of who's triangulating whom. The ISI's been tossing the Coalition crumbs since the invasion, while continuing to supply covert aid to the Taliban and their terrorist fellow travellers. If anyone's playing both sides, it's Pakistan. As annoying as Krauthammer generally is, he's correct when he says that, as of today, Iraq is strategically more important than Afghanistan. Whatever threat Afghanistan posed to our national security was eliminated when the terrorist training infrastructure that it harbored was dismantled and Al Qaeda's command & control capacity was disrupted. And we can keep both from reconstituting that threat with targeted special forces operations and aerial firepower. Regardless of the fact that Iraq didn't pose a credible threat to America in 2003 (which I think is indisputable at this point), the consequences of a failed state there now would pose a much greater threat to our strategic interests than the consequences of failing to stabilize Afghanistan, which, it's important to remember, has essentially been a failed state for the past 20 years. That doesn't mean that a stable, de-Talibanized Afghanistan isn't in our interests. It is. More importantly, it's actually an attainable result, assuming we throw the necessary resources at the problem. Unlike a stable, de-Iranianized Iraq, which at this point is an impossibility. Which is why the Democrats are correct in calling for shifting our priorities and our resources from Iraq to Afghanistan. Even if they, and Crowley, are using the wrong arguments to do so. Saturday, March 31, 2007 Quote Of The Day"They told us this was one of the world's worst terrorists, and he got the sentence of a drunken driver." --Ben Wizner, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, on David Hicks' Gitmo plea bargain deal. Friday, March 30, 2007 Freedom Of The PressMore from the Iraq Weekly Status Report, this time from the section titled "Strengthen Public Understanding of Coalition Efforts and Public Isolation of the Insurgents":
Who's vetting this stuff, Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf? Friday, March 30, 2007 Cherry PickingFrom the "International Support for Iraq" section of the latest Iraq Weekly Status Report put out by the State Dept:
Oddly enough, no mention was made of this quote from Saudi King Abdullah from the same Arab League summit:
Friday, March 30, 2007 Half-Right vs. Mostly-WrongI hesitated before clicking through on Charles Krauthammer's op-ed in today's WaPo. The tagline, since changed, was typical Krauthammer nonsense, the gist of it being that Congressional Dems are wrong about shifting the focus of the War on Terror from Iraq to Afghanistan. Now I've hated Krauthammer ever since he used to write for the NY Post back when it didn't even have the excuse of being owned by Murdoch for its mindless editorial line. But in all fairness, on this one he happens to get two things right: First, for all the bitterness about how it was started four years ago, as things stand today the War in Iraq is by far more vital to American strategic interests than the War in Afghanistan. And second, the War in Afghanistan is not the central front in the War on Terror, Pakistani Waziristan notwithstanding. Of course, Krauthammer being Krauthammer, that doesn't stop him from getting three things wrong:
In other words, the Democrats are using the wrong arguments to advocate for the right policy. Which is still better than Krauthammer, who uses the wrong arguments to advocate for the wrong policy. Friday, March 30, 2007 Highest ConsiderationsHow to say, "Sit on this and twist" in Diplomatese. Friday, March 30, 2007 10 Million Enemy CombatantsThe latest transcript from the Combatant Status Review Tribunal hearings was just released today, and it's a bombshell. Here's the opening to the prepared statement that Abd Al Rahim Hussein Mohammed Al Nashiri presented to the tribunal:
He goes on to describe specific acts of torture under questioning, all of which were redacted out. Also under questioning, he specified that his torturers were American, and that the torture began at the time of his capture in 2002 and continued until his transfer last year to Gitmo. But while the torture allegation will certainly get most of the attention, Al Nashiri said a couple other things under questioning that are worth a mention. Talking about his reasons for leaving Yemen in August 2000, he offered the following insight:
Then there was this:
It's not really the kind of statement you'd expect from a jihadist sworn to the destruction of not only America, but the values of freedom and democracy. Which is why our treatment of detainees, combined with the rhetoric used by the Bush administration, is so counter-productive. Here's a guy who by his own admission travelled to Chechnya, Pakistan and other places "...to go to the battle fields. And witness how the fights were taking place." A guy who bought the boat used to blow up the USS Cole with money he personally borrowed from Osama Bin Laden. (He claims it was for a fishing venture and that he severed ties with Bin Laden when the latter suggested using the boat for an attack.) A guy who, despite denying any involvement in terrorist activities, had close contacts with just about everyone who's blown up a bomb in the vicinity of an American target in the past 10 years. Seems like the kind of solid case that's a pretty safe bet in a legitimate legal proceeding. Indeed, it's the kind of solid case that has already landed convictions for other terrorists, including one who's cited in the charges against Al Nashiri. But put him in a closed-door military tribunal, without a lawyer or any non-military personnel present, after five years of coercive interrogation that most everyone in the world besides the Bush administration considers torture, and he comes off sounding pretty reasonable, even a little sympathetic. It's all downside, with no upside. And what's worse, any future attempts to re-route these cases through the legal system will now be permanently tainted by the allegations of torture and the lack of due process. That's the real legacy behind the tough-talking rhetoric of the Bush administration: An ill-conceived, counter-productive, inflammatory approach to terrorism that's done as much for the enemy as the combatants it's supposed to confront. Thursday, March 29, 2007 Watch Your BackWilliam S. Lind might be something of a wingnut when it comes to cultural issues, but as a military theorist, he's a pretty creative thinker. And in this article, he points out that America's lines of supply in Iraq depend on safe passage through, 1) the Shiite south, and 2) the Persian Gulf. Neither of which is a safe bet in the event of hostilities with Iran. Something to think about. Thursday, March 29, 2007 Bloomberg's ExperimentA while back, I started trying to formulate a description of what I called wonk-free politics. The idea was that government should become less prescriptive and more adaptive. As long as data assessment remained centralized, the actual policy approaches could be experimented on at a local level, taking into account the fact that what works in one setting may not work in another. New York City's new experimental anti-poverty program is exactly what I had in mind. It offers poor families financial incentives (up to $5,000 a year) for meeting various behavioral goals such as school attendance, academic performance, and steady employment. The program has been privately funded, including a contribution from Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and will be assessed by comparing a randomly selected participant group to a randomly selected control group. If it produces measurable results, it will become a city-funded program next year. Will it work? Who knows. But it's a streamlined policy proposal that can be experimentally tested. And I'll take that over a telephone book-sized white paper any day. Thursday, March 29, 2007 Al Qaeda's Company ManAnother transcript of the Combatant Status Review Tribunal hearings was released today, this time for Mustafa Ahmed Al Hawsawi. The charges against him, listed separately here, really demonstrate what I was talking about in this post when I said that the most valuable information for a counterterrorism operation is network data that brings the structure of the enemy organisation and the identities of the people who comprise it into focus. If the charges against him are true, Al Hawsawi was basically a financial hub for the terrorist network, routing money to and from operatives in the field, as well as keeping records of expense accounts and expenditures. Not quite the image of the menacing terrorist we're used to seeing in "24". In mob terms, he was a bean counter, not a capo. But as such, far more valuable to the effort to crack the Al Qaeda organigram. Another point with regards to the "ticking bomb" scenario. A good deal of the incriminating evidence against him consists of wire transfers he received from the 9/11 terrorists in the days preceding the attack (presumably they were repatriating excess expense account funds). But as this exchange demonstrates, although the 9/11 cell was among those he was responsible for, operational details were highly compartmentalized (in the transcripts, "Member" refers to a member of the military tribunal):
In other words, the bad guys have heard about the "ticking bomb" scenario, too. And they've taken measures to lessen their vulnerability to it. Thursday, March 29, 2007 The Big Lie, Pt. 1213In today's White House press briefing, Helen Thomas asked about the President's reaction to Saudi King Abdullah's comments at the Arab League summit that the American presence in Iraq is illegal. Deputy Press Secretary Dana Perino correctly responded that under international law, we are no longer an occupying power, since we are now in Iraq at the invitation of a diplomatically recognized Iraqi government. But here's the tail end of their back and forth:
Contrast that with this article from the BBC back in September 2004, titled "Iraq war illegal, says Annan":
It's this kind of blatant disregard for what's commonly known as reality that results in the President's die-hard base living in an alternate universe of convenient, reassuring, faith-based falsehoods. That this sort of stuff passes among the readership of World Net Daily is one thing. But that not a single person in a roomful of White House correspondents called Perino on it is shocking. Thursday, March 29, 2007 Out Of The Frying Pan, Into The FireMeanwhile, as this BBC article shows, sometimes releasing detainees from Gitmo is not the humane thing to do:
As much as it offends the American conscience, compared to many parts of the world Gitmo is a model prison. That doesn't by any means justify the abuses that go on there. But amidst our outrage, we should remember to be proud of just how high our standards in this country are. Update: Here's another article on the Human Rights Watch report, from The Independent, which kind of knocks the wind out of that sense of pride I was talking about:
There's also this from the BBC, about a British resident/Iraqi national soon to be released from Gitmo. He's been there five years, and in isolation for the past year. None of which prevented British MP Edward Davey from stating categorically that,
Oh, well. One out of three... ain't so good. Thursday, March 29, 2007 Quote Of The Day"A year ago my approval rating was in the 30s, my nominee for the Supreme Court had just withdrawn, and my vice-president had shot someone... Ah, those were the good ol' days." -- George W. Bush at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner. From the BBC. Thursday, March 29, 2007 Making Torture Hurt... The TorturersA US District Judge yesterday dismissed a lawsuit brought by nine former prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan to hold Donald Rumsfeld and several military officers accountable for torture, abuse, and illegal interrogation practices they suffered while in American custody. According to this WaPo article, the judge maintained that "...Rumsfeld cannot be held personally responsible for actions taken in connection with his government job":
Now I understand the logic of not holding a government official accountable for actions taken by his staff that he was unaware of. After all, that would certainly have a chilling effect on people's willingness to serve in government. But this particular lawsuit makes the claim that, a) Rumsfeld was aware of the abuse, and ignored the warnings, and b) that he authorized illegal interrogation practices that violated the prisoners constitutional & human rights. I'm not a lawyer, but that strikes me as just the sort of thing that government officials are in fact held accountable for. The lawsuit brings a factual claim that seems to my layperson's eye to meet the standard for government malfeasance. If Rumsfeld can rebut it, by all means, let him. But the lawsuit should proceed. In a bitter irony, on the same day the suit was dismissed, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak presented his annual report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva:
Thursday, March 29, 2007 The Wrong WallMelissa Rogers has this to say about the bi-partisan Congressional group that held a press conference yesterday at the Capitol to "call America back to prayer":
I'd only add that they were doing more than leading a spiritual pursuit. They were advocating religious practice, even if they made a point to use ecumenical language. And not only are they not entitled, in their capacity as government officials, to do that. They are expressly forbidden by the constitution. Randy Forbes, the Congressman who organized the event, claimed that it took place during their lunch hour, so no tax money was spent on religion. But the question isn't about money. It's about keeping political institutions free of religious affiliation. Mr. Forbes has every right to build a "spiritual prayer wall" around the country if he so desires. He just can't tear down the wall of separation between church and state to do so. Tuesday, March 27, 2007 Eyeball To EyeballEvents in the Persian Gulf are either heading for a bang or a whimper. Either way, it's going to be mettle-testing time for the next week or so:
Of course, Iran could still release the sailors, everyone could calm down a notch, and the uranium enrichment negotiations could get jump-started. But we're getting to that point where if someone doesn't blink soon, it'll be too late to walk this one back from the brink. Update: Meanwhile, in support of the whimper option, from an interview with Financial Times:
Update, Take Two: And in support of the bang option, another article from RIA Novosti:
Update, Take Three: The Economist weighs in on why Iran acted up now:
Monday, March 26, 2007 There's A First Time For EverythingThe most curious aspect of the Iranian capture and detention of 15 British sailors has to be the President's deafening silence on the matter. From today's White House press briefing:
Obviously, they want to avoid any unnecessary bellicosity to keep from aggravating the situation... Wait a minute. Did I just say that? About the Bush administration? Like I said, the most curious aspect of the Iranian capture and detention of 15 British sailors has to be the President's deafening silence on the matter. Monday, March 26, 2007 That Was Then, This Is NowFrom reader RGM, a NY Times story about how O.J. Mayo, a high school basketball star, wound up committing to USC, a school known more for football than hoops:
As RGM put it, "The new era of high school has arrived." Indeed. Compare this with Robert Lipsyte's article in the Nation about the underbelly of college hoops:
Damn, sh*t done changed. Monday, March 26, 2007 Not All Politics Are The SameI've been reluctant to do much posting on the US Attorneys scandal, mainly because there's already so much quality coverage elsewhere (TPM and McClatchy in particular stand out.) But in her New Yorker article about the firings, Dorothy Wickendon offers a simple, one-sentence summary of just what the big deal is:
Republicans are trying to confuse the issue by blurring the various meanings of "politics". It is normal for Presidential appointees, including US Attorneys, to toe a political line when "political" refers to policy (ie. prosecutorial priorities). That's why this was the DoJ's first line of defense for the firings. Monday, March 26, 2007 The Essence Of EmpireBrig. Gen. Stephen Mundt, director of Army aviation, from an article in the Hill:
Mundt was referring specifically to the difficulties the Army has had replacing the 130 helicopters lost in Iraq and Afghanistan. It takes two years from the time Congress ok's the funds before the helicopters are delivered. I mentioned this before with regards to an eventual attack on Iran, but it bears repeating. The sine qua non of the neocon agenda is an America placed on permanent wartime footing. That is the essence of Empire: continuous partial engagement. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are first steps towards that goal, but they are still reversible. Should we attack Iran, on the other hand, there will be no turning back for the foreseeable future. Sunday, March 25, 2007 Sacrificing CertaintyWhen the Military Commisions Act was passed last October, it mandated a Presidential Executive Order to provide the legal framework for acceptable interrogation practices by the CIA in their network of black hole detention centers for terrorist detainees. According to the Times, that framework has still not yet been elaborated. One of the reasons for the delay are the new players at Defense, the CIA, and in the White House Counsel's office. But while there's reason to hope that the outcome will be more restrictive guidelines, there's also a good deal of skepticism that they will ultimately prohibit torture. Reading through the detainee transcripts coming out of Gitmo these past few weeks has already triggered a lot of reflection about torture for me. This audio slide show from Slate about Gitmo, along with the Times article cited above, makes me want to share some of them, even if they're by no means fully developed. The fairly mechanical arguments stem from the fact that there are obviously persuasive limits to moral outrage, otherwise there would be no need to have this debate. People who try to justify the use of torture generally focus on the "ticking bomb" scenario. But in reality this type of situation is so rare as to be meaningless as an argument. The most valuable data for a counterterrorism or counterinsurgency operation, and the goal of all interrogations, whether coercive or not, is network data: information that gives a clearer picture of the structure of the enemy organisation, and the identities of the people who comprise it. Confessions are only useful insomuch as they reveal operational mechanisms that were previously unknown. But the "ticking bomb" argument does reveal at least one assumption in all apologias for torture: the idea that somehow we can be certain beyond any doubt that the detainee is guilty. No one, so far as I've read, advocates the use of torture to go fishing for information. Unfortunately, we already know of at least one case where an individual was unlawfully kidnapped, secreted off to a black hole detention center, tortured, and then released when it became obvious he was the victim of mistaken identity: Khaled el Masri. The problem is that when you start with an absolute certainty that someone is guilty, as indeed you must in order to justify the use of torture, it makes it all but impossible to admit the possibility that they are telling the truth when they claim they're innocent. Now let's imagine that Khaled el Masri had not been able to maintain his innocence throughout his interrogation. When he finally cracked, offering up whatever name he could think of to simply bring his suffering to an end, what do you think would have happened next? Another detainee would have been kidnapped and secreted to a black hole detention center, guilty beyond any doubt and therefore eligible for torture. Except that like el Masri, they would just happen to be innocent. It's not true that torture never produces actionable intelligence. There are circumstances under which a certain technique, used at a certain time, on a certain suspect, will cause a guilty detainee to divulge a piece of useful information. And there are others when an innocent detainee will resist until the error is recognized. But torture never produces reliable intelligence, because it's impossible to know when those circumstances arise. Guilty detainees might resist. And innocent detainees might not. It's been pointed out that apart from the young men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their families, the American people have been asked to sacrifice nothing for these wars. I propose that we start by sacrificing certainty: the certainty of guilt that permits torture to even be considered. And the certainty of security in whose name we've abandoned our most lofty principles. The statement we would make by fearlessly embracing our principles even though it might make us more vulnerable to attack would be more valuable in the fight against terror than anything we might learn from the use of torture against our enemies. Sunday, March 25, 2007 Money TalksThis graphic is taken from the State Dept's Iraq Weekly Status Report for March 21. The blue line shows the volume of US Dollars sold in the Iraqi currency auction. As you can see, there's a dramatic drop, from a daily average of roughly $80 million to $8 million, in the first week in November 2006. After a slight bump, the action finally picks back up on... January 21. The two dates correspond to the mid-term Congressional elections and President Bush's State of the Union address.
What does it mean? One possible explanation is that given the possibility of an end to the US occupation, represented by the Democratic takeover of Congress, Iraqis overwhelmingly decided to hold on to their greenbacks. Once the President announced the troop surge in the SOTU address, on the other hand, folks felt secure enough to put their dollars back on the market. Evidence of at least two ways in which Iraqi public opinion is more dialed in than George Bush's. First, it recognized that the American mid-term election was a rejection of the war. And second, it recognized that Iraq as a stable society does not exist absent an American military presence. The entire war debate now revolves around the question of whether it's still possible to change that, and if so, at what cost. Saturday, March 24, 2007 Failed States & The War On TerrorIn his Enemy Combatant Status review hearing, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who is accused of being a member of the terrorist cell that carried out the Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, admitted to having spent three months at an al-Qaeda training camp. When asked why he had gone to the camp, which he described as having an open-door policy, here's what he said:
The causal relationship between poverty and terrorism is overblown. But the one between failed states and terrorism isn't. Unfortunately, we're too busy creating more failed states to seriously address the ones that already exist as a critical component of a global anti-terrorism strategy. Saturday, March 24, 2007 Power Of The PurseWith a group of veterans and the families of fallen soldiers gathered behind him at the White House, President Bush accused House Democrats yesterday of engaging in political theater by passing a war funding bill requiring staged withdrawal from Iraq (video here, text here):
Imagine that. The elected House of Representatives might actually believe they have the right to govern. The audacity of it. He ended by saying, "The Democrats have sent their message, now it's time to send their money." This is obviously a guy who's not used to having his allowance cut off. Update: Good catch. The New York Nerd points out that a woman standing behind the President during his address was in uniform, which is a violation of Dept. of Defense regulations for both active duty soldiers and veterans. Saturday, March 24, 2007 Political BrinksmanshipIt's still too early in the process to tell whether Congress' gambit to link war funding to a withdrawal timetable will be successful. To begin with, the Senate could still kill the deal. But assuming the bill eventually does wind up on President Bush's desk, he's already promised a veto, one that Pelosi doesn't have the votes to overturn. At that point, scrapping the withdrawal timetable reinforces the false image of Democrats as being weak and quick to cave in. But sending the same bill back to the Oval Office for another veto turns war funding into a political game of chicken. And that's where the President has the advantage, because he's only got one person to convince to get the veto issued, whereas Pelosi's got to twist 218 arms to get the bill passed. She got the votes this time, but only just barely. Where the rubber hits the road on this tactic is once the clock starts winding down on getting the money where it's needed to protect the American soldiers' lives that are at stake. Friday, March 23, 2007 Time For A New Cover StoryThis would appear to be the final nail in the coffin. The AP is reporting that according to documents released today, Alberto Gonzales approved the plan to fire eight US Attorneys in a meeting with his Chief of Staff and other Dept. of Justice officials, and signed off on the procedure for carrying out the dismissals. Gonzales had previously told reporters that he had not been involved in the process. Hard to imagine, even under the present administration, how the country's top law enforcement official could brazenly lie to the press, the public and Congress, and still hold onto his job. I wager he doesn't last the weekend. Friday, March 23, 2007 48 HoursWhen the British announced they'd be drawing down their troop levels in the south of Iraq, the Bush administration insisted it was a sign not of failure, but of success. So it's instructive to note that exactly two days after British troops pulled out of downtown Basra, turning the city over to the Iraqi Army, street battles broke out between the armed militias of Moqtada al-Sadr and the Fadhila Party which governs the province. According to the CSM article, it's not clear whether the battles represent a political or clan-related dispute. And it's still too early to tell whether the Iraqi forces will be capable of restoring order. But it seems obvious that given the choice between applying surge-like pressure in Basra and pulling out, the British chose the latter. Probably, I suspect, because they believed that the battles that broke out today might be postponed, but not prevented. Something to keep in mind as the administration vaunts the initial successes of the Baghdad Surge. Friday, March 23, 2007 Talks Are Cheap?Remember the agreement we reached with the N. Koreans to re-seal their plutonium reactor? Well it's on ice for the time being, because the Treasury Dept. dragged its feet in freeing up $25 million in frozen N. Korean accounts. The US has claimed that the accounts represented a money laundering scheme, since half of the balance was the result of smuggling and other illegal activities. But as part of the agreement over N. Korea's nuclear program, we agreed to unfreeze the loot. After a lot of back and forth over somewhat confusing finance regulations, the money has been unfrozen but the N. Koreans still don't have access to it yet. So they walked out of the latest round of Six-Party Talks in Beijing today. Now it could be, as some have argued, that the N. Koreans are just using this as an excuse to stall the negotiation process. But for a measly $12 mil, why give them the chance? Update: As this McClatchy article points out, part of the problem with clearing the N. Korean funds from the Macau Delta Bank where they've been frozen is that no other bank is willing to accept them, even for immediate disbursement to the N. Koreans. Why? They're worried about getting caught up in the bureaucratic red tape and hot water of Patriot Act banking regulations:
I suppose it's not surprising that the administration that introduced Faith-Based Initiatives should be so hostile to evidence. What's curious is why the American people, usually so pragmatic and skeptical, would go along for the ride. Friday, March 23, 2007 Power Of The PurseAnother quick thought on the House bill tying supplemental appropriations for the Iraq War to a withdrawal schedule. If ever there was a case study for why the line item veto is a bad idea, this is it. There's an enormous difference, politically speaking, between Congress de-funding the war and attaching conditions on its funding. A difference that would be moot if the President had the power to take the funding and veto the conditions. Friday, March 23, 2007 Money TalksIn response to Congress linking supplemental appropriations for the Iraq war to a withdrawal timetable, President Bush promised a veto. So my question is, Does that mean he doesn't support the troops? Thursday, March 22, 2007 Mapquest, With The Body CountsThanks to reader and commenter RGM for catching this "nice, interactive map of hell" from the same BBC story on the Ban press conference in Baghdad. Take a look. Thursday, March 22, 2007 The Price Of UnityI admit I'd always been a little bit baffled every time I read that Moqtada al-Sadr's militia had infiltrated the Iraqi Health Ministry. I could understand infiltrating the Defense Ministry, or the Justice Ministry. But what the heck can you do with the Health Ministry? Then this article in the BBC about the exodus of Iraq's doctors and the resulting lack of decent medical care triggered a little light bulb moment. It describes how patients and even staff have been routinely killed by militias who raid the hospitals with impunity. Militias that are based in the Health Ministry. A quick google search returned this USA Today article from last November. This is pretty chilling stuff, worth a lengthy quote:
There's alot more about ministry offices being used for holding cells, complete with gruesome evidence of torture, as well as the steady degradation of the quality of the nation's health care services. This is what al-Sadr got in return for giving up armed resistance to the occupation and opting into the political process. It's worth recalling that until very recently, the Bush administration trumpeted the Iraqi unity government as a major benchmark of progress. But it was never anything but a sham. A bloody and murderous sham. And Bush only agreed to drop the pretense because the Iraq Study Group blew his cover. Thursday, March 22, 2007 Explosion? What Explosion?Check out this video clip of a mortar blast interrupting UN chief Ban Ki-Moon's and Iraqi Prime Minister Mouri Maliki's press conference today in Baghdad. The expression on Ban's face as he looks around the room and realizes that no one else seems to have even noticed the loud explosion is priceless. Thursday, March 22, 2007 Purge-icaI understand that "-gate" when used as a suffix has come to mean an Executive branch scandal involving illegal activity, lies and a cover up regarding same, and stonewalling Congress when they attempt to investigate. But I'm really tired of seeing it hauled out and tacked on to whichever word it fits best any time the White House press corps smells Presidential blood in the water. It's time to put the Sixties (and Watergate was the Sixties, even if the date in the history books says different) behind us. Besides, Purgegate sounds like some sort of pre-party group ritual for bulimics. As you can tell from the title of this post, I propose "-ica" as a replacement. Despite its obvious shortcomings, it has the advantage of working with just about any word imaginable. But if anyone has got any better ideas, drop them in the comments. Wednesday, March 21, 2007 The Next Whiskey BarChristopher Hitchens has a piece in Vanity Fair vaunting the successful reconstruction under way in Iraqi Kurdistan, where he spent his Christmas vacation with his son. Short version? This is what Hitchens had in mind for the rest of Iraq when he vociferously argued in favor of the war, so now when he considers how things have turned out, he feels betrayed. Shorter version? In Kurdistan, "Liquor stores and bars are easy to find, sometimes operated by members of the large and unmolested Christian community." Something tells me Hitchens has finally found a use for religion that he can approve of. Wednesday, March 21, 2007 FlawlessPoliticians at the local level can be entertainingly mistake-prone. Whether it was bad grammar or bad temper, bad judgment or bad attitude, we've all known (and loved) mayors, governors and even Congresspeople who managed to get elected in spite of, and in some cases because of, the idiosyncrasies that made them human like the rest of us. Which is to say flawed. Once someone takes the leap and decides to run for the Senate, the stakes go up a notch. The suits are crisper, the ties more tightly knotted, and the makeup a little more thickly applied. Still, although there's less room for error, a few memorable cranks and crackpots manage to slip in. (Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms, and Rick Santorum all spring to mind.) But something happens to politicians once they make the cut and become serious Presidential candidates. The closest analogy I can think of is that of a sixty year-old Hollywood actress who, in order to land one of the few roles scripted for a woman her age, must actually resemble, not a woman her age or even a woman thirty years younger, but a woman who doesn't exist. That is, a woman who didn't exist until Hollywood's imagination brought her into being. This new being is not an older woman who has somehow been magically perfected. In fact, there's something mildly disturbing about her appearance, especially upon closer scrutiny. Because in going to such great lengths to hide the flaws that come with age, she inevitably calls more attention to them. And so it is too with Presidential candidates, at least the ones with the misfortune of having a shot at winning. Somewhere it was decided that the best way for someone running for the Oval Office to appeal to actual people was to cease to be one him or herself. Any ideosyncrasies are carefully vetted and either tossed out for good or else replaced with the carefully scripted version. What we're left with are candidates bearing so little resemblance to actual people that when they do actually slip up, we greet their misfortune with fascination, if not relish. A lot of it has to do with the political consultants that manage campaigns for the major candidates. A lot of it has to do with the lack of courage or imagination on the part of the candidates themselves. But a lot of it has to do with us, as well. We've come to expect that a sixty year-old actress be without any wrinkles, after all. Even if we know what she's done to get rid of them. Wednesday, March 21, 2007 When Comedy Gets SeriousJon Stewart's 2004 appearance on Crossfire, where he wryly observed that "...the news organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity", is by now legendary. But take a look at this clip of former UN Ambassador John Bolton's recent appearance on The Daily Show, and you'll see that it wouldn't be such a bad thing if they did. Wednesday, March 21, 2007 Never Complain, Never ExplainAmid all the accusations of ethically questionable and politically backhanded motives for the firing of the eight US Attorneys, here's President Bush's assessment of the basic underlying issue (video here):
My hunch is that, if the President disapproves of anything, it's the fact that an explanation was even offered in the first place. Why else would he hold a press conference about why the US Attorneys got fired and not bother to... explain why the US Attorneys got fired? Wednesday, March 21, 2007 Playdate For CheneyLooks like Dick Cheney's got someone to play with in the padded rec room after all. In a WSJ Opinion piece, Edward Jay Epstein claims that Khalid Sheikh Muhammad's confession raises new questions about the link between... You guessed it: Saddam and al-Qaeda. Here's Epstein playing Columbo:
Epstein goes on to describe how the other bomb-maker for the 1993 attack, Ramzi Yousef, fled to Pakistan, where he was later caught after taking part in yet another bombing plot. Obviously, no mention is made of Pakistan's possible link to al-Qaeda. Tuesday, March 20, 2007 Afghan SpringThis passage from The Wind Blows Away Our Words, Doris Lessing's account of her travels among the Afghan mujahideen, gave me pause. The speaker is an Afghan guerilla commander briefing Western visitors on the status of the war against the Russians:
Sometimes I think we lose sight of the fact that there are places in the world where there's only one breaking story, and the news cycle lasts until you're either dead or victorious. Tuesday, March 20, 2007 Good PointAnne Applebaum, from a WaPo op-ed about the damage done to American credibility by its treatment of GWOT detainees:
Tuesday, March 20, 2007 Words Of WisdomDirect quote from a conversation I had today with an Englishman of uncertain but advanced age:
Tuesday, March 20, 2007 There's Room On This Planet For The Two Of UsCall it age, or maybe it's the consequences of fatherhood. But despite my fascination with and natural inclination towards apocalyptic and worst-case scenarios, I'm willing to acknowledge that this is a very good sign. The Russians have apparently decided to use the yet-to-be-delivered fuel for the nuclear reactor they've built for Tehran as a bargaining chip in the uranium enrichment dispute. My guess is that this is the payoff for the Bush administration's recent decision to take Russia's concerns over the planned Eastern European missile defense system seriously. Which is to say, it's striking what a little bit of good old-fashioned diplomacy can accomplish. Update: The Russian National Security Council has apparently denied the link between the fuel delivery and the uranium enrichment program, saying,
I still think a deal went down, based on this article from a few weeks ago, and that a gag rule was part of the agreement. Tuesday, March 20, 2007 So What's The Problem?After a very mild winter and several weeks of early summer-like weather, yesterday afternoon the sky suddenly blackened and it began to snow. Now it's freezing out, and as I went outside to get something to cook for dinner it occurred to me: Global warming = Less cold + Less people. In other words a much more satisfying beach experience. So be advised that I am hereby officially in the pro-Global warming camp. Tuesday, March 20, 2007 Say Your Prayers, GonzoHere's a guilty pleasure I can't resist. The Presidential Prayer Team has just come out with a handy deck of cards to help folks remember America's leaders in their prayers:
Better get your order in quick though, because judging from the sample cards it's going to be a collector's item any day now:
Monday, March 19, 2007 Iran Hysteria AntidoteHow's this for a refreshingly reasonable take on Iran? From an interview in Foreign Policy with Rep. Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee:
Monday, March 19, 2007 Off Their MedsThere's been something of an online firestorm lately regarding whether it's possible to support the State of Israel without supporting the position of the American pro-Israel lobby, which is, in case you've just tuned in, a shade more hawkish than Dr. Strangelove. Nevertheless, the risks of not toeing the line are significant, since running afoul of these guys seems to be the kiss of death for American politicians. That's why Barack Obama is taking such great pains to convince them that despite appearances to the contrary, he's a friend of Israel:
These guys are lunatics, but they're influential lunatics. Which makes them dangerous, for Israel and the US. Monday, March 19, 2007 The More Things Change...From "Cards On The Table", Time Magazine, May 5, 1967:
Monday, March 19, 2007 The More They Stay The SameFrom "What Withdrawal Would Really Mean", Time Magazine, October 24, 1969:
10,647 American soldiers were killed in action in Viet Nam after this article appeared. 46,880 American soldiers were wounded in action in Viet Nam after this article appeared. Sunday, March 18, 2007 Semi-TransparentSomehow I missed this, but US Senators Carl Levin and Lindsay Graham watched Khalid Sheikh Muhhamad's Combatant Status Review Tribunal hearing last weekend on closed-circuit television in an adjoining room. It doesn't quite raise the hearings to the level of a legal proceeding (the accused was not allowed a lawyer, and the press was not permitted). But the fact that that there were witnesses who were neither uniformed military officers nor members of the Bush administration is the most reassuring thing I've read about them to date. Sunday, March 18, 2007 That Was QuickAfter Khalid Sheikh Muhhamad confessed last weekend to being responsible for a long list of crimes, ranging from the 9/11 attacks to the murder of reporter Daniel Pearl, some people speculated that he might be adding ballast to his own already sinking ship in order to cover for other guilty parties. Today the AP reported that the lawyer for Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the British-born extremist convicted and sentenced to death in 2002 by Pakistan for Pearl's murder, will be seeking an appeal based on Muhhamad's confession. Sunday, March 18, 2007 Well DoneI go away for the weekend, and what happens? Regular reader and commenter Gerald Scorse goes and gets an article published in the Baltimore Chronicle & Sentinel. Give it a read, it's good stuff. Friday, March 16, 2007 Loves Me, Loves Me NotWaPo:
Friday, March 16, 2007 Something's Got To GiveThe NY Times ran an article on the problematic legal implications of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad's wide-ranging confession in particular, and the Combatant Status Review Tribunal hearings in general. Here's John Yoo, formerly the Bush administration's legal guru on torture and the Geneva Conventions, defending them both:
In other words, we can't realistically hold a fair trial and deprive the suspects of their right to remain silent. So obviously, it's the fair trial that goes. Which in turn raises the question of just how you deprive someone of their right to remain silent without resorting to torture. Friday, March 16, 2007 De-Redacted TranscriptsI read through the redacted transcript of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad's Combatant Status Review Tribunal hearing pretty closely when it was released two days ago, to write up this post, as well as this one. So I was surprised to read on ABC's The Blotter yesterday that he had confessed to beheading reporter Daniel Pearl:
Because in the version I'd read, while he'd mentioned Pearl in his rambling closing remarks, he had by no means taken responsibility for his murder. For a moment I wondered whether my memory was serving correctly, or if I could have possibly read past a quote like that. Until I found this in the NY Times article on his hearing:
The mystery was cleared up when I went to double check the transcript and found this notation next to the link: New - Transcript of CSRT (KSM) Hearing (Revised as of 3/15/2007). And sure enough, when I clicked through, the written statement Muhammad filed with the tribunal now read as quoted in The Blotter above. Noah Shachtman's got a lengthy rundown of some of the debate surrounding the credibility of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad's confession over on his Danger Room blog. After all, it's to be expected that an international terrorist might engage in misinformation, both to cover the tracks of the guilty parties, but also to inflate the impact of his image. But when a heavily redacted transcript of a quasi-legal proceeding is later revised, it raises the question of potential abuse of the proceedings for purposes of misinformation by the US government. Which is the very reason that most critics of the tribunals have argued for more transparent proceedings based on the legal principles of the American judicial tradition. I emphasize that I am not advancing a moral equivalency argument. There's no comparison between Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and the US government. It's apples and oranges. But this is Public Relations 101. To try these guys in a Court of Star Chamber only provides propaganda fodder for our enemies by creating martyred heroes, and emboldens them as much if not more than domestic opposition to the Iraq War might. That we're repeating the same mistake mere months after the Saddam Hussein execution debacle is inexcusable. Update: According to the NY Times, the military blamed the original redaction of the Pearl confession on the need to notify the family. I'm skeptical, if only for the fact that the hearing took place on Saturday, March 10th while the the original transcript wasn't released until Wednesday, March 14th. Friday, March 16, 2007 If You Can't Walk The WalkAs you might have gathered, I've discovered an entertaining new hobby: Scouring government reports for egregious examples of idiocy and/or hypocrisy. Happily, there's no shortage of either. To be fair, though, there are also plenty of examples of sound reasoning and insightful analysis. Take the most recent (although obviously dated) National Security Strategy issued by the Bush administration in February 2006. There's a pretty solid rundown of some of the myths and realities surrounding the causes of terrorism:
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