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Photos and text, unless otherwise noted, Copyright © 2003,2004,2005,2006 - Alan M. Pavlik
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Consider:

"It is better to be drunk with loss and to beat the ground, than to let the deeper things gradually escape."

- I. Compton-Burnett, letter to Francis King (1969)

"Cynical realism – it is the intelligent man’s best excuse for doing nothing in an intolerable situation."

- Aldous Huxley, "Time Must Have a Stop"







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Sunday, 11 April 2004

Topic: For policy wonks...

The policy of preemption discussed here....

Over at the Washington Times see Political fusillades by Walter Williams....

His point?
Fighting terrorism as well as rogue dictators requires a policy of pre-emption. During the 1930s, there should have been a pre-emptive strike on Nazi Germany. If Britain and France had the guts to do that, 60 million lives lost in World War II might have been spared. After World War II, when we held a monopoly on nuclear weapons, we should have told the Soviet Union that if it started making nuclear weapons we'd bomb its facilities. We would have avoided Soviet adventurism and trillions of dollars fighting a Cold War. Today, we should give axis-of-evil member North Korea notice to destroy its nuclear weapons or we'll do it for them.
And a riposte from the irreverent Digby over at Hullabaloo:
Well, it would be nice if our intelligence services could find their way out of a paper bag and provide us with, you know, real information about threats before we go around blowing shit up, but why sweat the small stuff?

I do like this new crystal ball theory of history, though. Just think, if France and Britain had pre-emptively "struck" Germany they could have prevented WWII. If we had pre-emptively "struck" the Soviets we could have prevented the Cold War. And presumably if the British had pre-emptively invaded France they could have prevented the Napoleonic Wars, too. But, I have to suppose that by "strike" he means some kind of magical incantation that paralyzes the population, because otherwise he's talking about starting wars and that usually means that those who are "struck," strike back. Which also means that unless you are willing to nuke the population or occupy it with an iron hand indefinitely, a war is going to result when somebody strikes. He apparently thinks that's fine it's just best if we do the starting.

But, not to worry. I think he also believes that the world will be so impressed by our ability to accurately foretell who is and isn't a threat that they'll just take our word for it and capitulate before we are forced to get really ugly. America is omnipotent and the sooner everybody gets with the program the safer they'll all be. That's what our great success in Iraq is all about. And it's working beautifully.
No one is playing nice these days....

Posted by Alan at 10:19 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Sunday, 11 April 2004 10:27 PDT home

Saturday, 10 April 2004

Topic: Iraq

But I really liked the David Lean movie....

A Report on Mesopotamia By Ex.-Lieut.-Col. T.E. Lawrence ["Lawrence of Arabia"], August 22, 1920, Sunday Times (UK).

The link is here. The text is this:
The people of England have been led in Mesopotamia into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques are belated, insincere, incomplete. Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster.

The sins of commission are those of the British civil authorities in Mesopotamia (especially of three 'colonels') who were given a free hand by London. They are controlled from no Department of State, but from the empty space which divides the Foreign Office from te India Office. They availed themselves of the necessary discretion of war-time to carry over their dangerous independence into times of peace. They contest every suggestion of real self- government sent them from home. A recent proclamation about autonomy circulated with unction from Baghdad was drafted and published out there in a hurry, to forestall a more liberal statement in preparation in London, 'Self-determination papers' favourable to England were extorted in Mesopotamia in 1919 by official pressure, by aeroplane demonstrations, by deportations to India.

The Cabinet cannot disclaim all responsibility. They receive little more news than the public: they should have insisted on more, and better. They have sent draft after draft of reinforcements, without enquiry. When conditions became too bad to endure longer, they decided to send out as High commissioner the original author of the present system, with a conciliatory message to the Arabs that his heart and policy have completely changed.

Yet our published policy has not changed, and does not need changing. It is that there has been a deplorable contrast between our profession and our practice. We said we went to Mesopotamia to defeat Turkey. We said we stayed to deliver the Arabs from the oppression of the Turkish Government, and to make available for the world its resources of corn and oil. We spent nearly a million men and nearly a thousand million of money to these ends. This year we are spending ninety-two thousand men and fifty millions of money on the same objects.

Our government is worse than the old Turkish system. They kept fourteen thousand local conscripts embodied, and killed a yearly average of two hundred Arabs in maintaining peace. We keep ninety thousand men, with aeroplanes, armoured cars, gunboats, and armoured trains. We have killed about ten thousand Arabs in this rising this summer. We cannot hope to maintain such an average: it is a poor country, sparsely peopled; but Abd el Hamid would applaud his masters, if he saw us working. We are told the object of the rising was political, we are not told what the local people want. It may be what the Cabinet has promised them. A Minister in the House of Lords said that we must have so many troops because the local people will not enlist. On Friday the Government announce the death of some local levies defending their British officers, and say that the services of these men have not yet been sufficiently recognized because they are too few (adding the characteristic Baghdad touch that they are men of bad character). There are seven thousand of them, just half the old Turkish force of occupation. Properly officered and distributed, they would relieve half our army there. Cromer controlled Egypt's six million people with five thousand British troops; Colonel Wilson fails to control Mesopotamia's three million people with ninety thousand troops.

We have not reached the limit of our military commitments. Four weeks ago the staff in Mesopotamia drew up a memorandum asking for four more divisions. I believe it was forwarded to the War Office, which has now sent three brigades from India. If the North-West Frontier cannot be further denuded, where is the balance to come from? Meanwhile, our unfortunate troops, Indian and British, under hard conditions of climate and supply, are policing an immense area, paying dearly every day in lives for the wilfully wrong policy of the civil administration in Baghdad. General Dyer was relieved of his command in India for a much smaller error, but the responsibility in this case is not on the Army, which has acted only at the request of the civil authorities. The War Office has made every effort to reduce our forces, but the decisions of the Cabinet have been against them.

The Government in Baghdad have been hanging Arabs in that town for political offences, which they call rebellion. The Arabs are not at war with us. Are these illegal executions to provoke the Arabs to reprisals on the three hundred British prisoners they hold? And, if so, is it that their punishment may be more severe, or is it to persuade our other troops to fight to the last?

We say we are in Mesopotamia to develop it for the benefit of the world. All experts say that the labour supply is the ruling factor in its development. How far will the killing of ten thousand villagers and townspeople this summer hinder the production of wheat, cotton, and oil? How long will we permit millions of pounds, thousands of Imperial troops, and tens of thousands of Arabs to be sacrificed on behalf of colonial administration which can benefit nobody but its administrators?
I came across this at COUNTERSPIN CENTRAL under the title HISTORY BOMB.

Yep.

Posted by Alan at 11:39 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
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Friday, 9 April 2004

Topic: Iraq

George Bush and Nuremberg (Really)

George Paine over at WARBLOGGING has a long post in which he argues some points of international law.

Being a military guy Paine opens covering how our top general in Iraq is now letting everyone know he doesn't intend to be the fall guy for there not being enough troops in theater right now to hold down the insurrection or whatever it is there now. He's been letting it be known that any of his subordinates who ask for more troops will get them - or at least the request will go up the chain.

Well, that's one way to end your career. Everyone knows that. General Eric Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff, testifying before Congress said that "several hundred thousand soldiers" would likely be needed for the occupation of Iraq. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz publicly called Shinseki's estimate of troop requirements "wildly off the mark." Then Wolfowitz's boss, Donald Rumsfeld, publicly announced Shinseki's replacement - a year before Shinseki was scheduled to retire. Surprise, Eric! Not subtle.

So we were told last year that right about now we'd only need 30,000 troops in Iraq because they'd love having us there.

Well, we were told lots of things.

As Paine notes:
They also said we'd be greeted as liberators. They also said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They also insinuated that Iraq had attacked the United States on September 11. They also stated, without reserve, that Iraq was working hand-in-hand with al-Qaeda. They stated that Iraq had attempted to procure uranium from Africa.

All of these statements were false. Patently false. They were lies, half-truths and (perhaps) self-delusions. But whatever their root, they all have one thing in common: none of them were true.

Instead America, the great pillar of democracy, attacked a nation that had done nothing to harm it. Instead America launched an unprovoked invasion of a sovereign foreign nation roughly halfway around the world. It did so without the approval of the United Nations, and without an imminent threat to defend against.
Well, we did. That's that.

But here's Paine's point about international law:
As such, America invaded Iraq illegally.

I have written about the Nuremberg Principles more than once, but I will write about them once more. The Principles, drawn up primarily by this United States, formed the legal basis for the prosecution of Nazi war criminals in the aftermath of World War II. The Principles have now become the bedrock of international humanitarian law, having been adopted as law by the U.N. International Law Commission in 1950.

Principle VI of the Nuremberg Principles lists three categories of crimes "punishable as crimes under international law". The first of these categories, "Crimes against peace," is where we shall focus. The first definition of a crime against peace states that it is a crime against peace to participate in the:

Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances

The term "war of aggression" is very important. A war of aggression is defined as a war which is not in response to an armed attack or a threatened impending attack (in other words an armed attack that is about to occur). It has become increasingly obvious -- indeed, it was obvious in March of last year and before -- that Iraq was never an imminent threat to the United States. Donald Rumsfeld himself has in fact denied ever even suggesting that Iraq was an imminent threat....

Given the fact that Iraq was never an imminent threat to the United States, and clearly did not participate in an armed attack against the United States, there was only one way in which the invasion of Iraq could be considered a non-aggressive war: a request from the United Nations Security Council to the United States asking it to use force to enforce UNSC resolutions.

No such request was made.

As such, the invasion of Iraq was "aggressive war", considered a "crime against peace" under the Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal, which were themselves drafted by the United States of America. Everyone who participated in the planning, preperation, initiation or waging of the most recent war against Iraq is guilty of a crime against peace.

They are all guilty. President Bush, Secretary Rumsfeld, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz, Dr. Condi Rice, Vice President Cheney, Deputy Secretary Bolton and even Secretary Powell are all guilty. Guilty of crimes against peace.

But that is all academic and political. A president of the United States will not be tried for crimes against peace in our lifetimes. Neither will his staff. What is not academic, however, is the resistance in Iraq.
Yeah, well, what does this legal stuff matter?

Paine is right. No one is going to prep-walk Bush to jail or anything.

So what do we do now?

Options:
... It would be easy now to call for an immediate withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq. It would be easy to say that this is an illegal war, an illegal occupation, that our troops are dying and being killed, that morality and law are not on our side. It would be easy to cut and leave, to leave Iraq behind.

But just as there was an obligation not to invade and occupy Iraq, there is now an obligation placed upon the United States by international law to remain and finish the job. There is an obligation to restore order to Iraq, to give the Iraqi people self-determination. Just as we did in Germany, just as we did in Japan.

The conflict between these two moral and legal obligations cannot be clearer. On one hand our occupation is illegal and immoral, on the other hand ending the occupation without Iraqi self-determination and stability is illegal and immoral.

If it were clear that a majority of Iraqis supported the resistance and wanted Americans to leave immediately the solution would once again be clear -- we should leave immediately, as that is the wish of the Iraqi people. Likewise, if it were clear that a majority of Iraqis wanted us to stick around and "finish the job", the solution would be clear -- put down the "rebellion" and get on with the business of building an Iraqi government.
Yeah, but neither is exactly clear right now, is it?

More and more it seems many Iraqis want us out. Do all of them want us out? A majority? Hard to tell. Is what has happened this week the start of a war of resistance, or just an anomaly - the work of some few really bad people?

Some read it one way; others read it the opposite way.

And no one can say for certain - there are no hard facts, no statistics, no polling, and no focus groups... just shooting. So it's all opinion, muddled by anger and political theory and self-righteousness on either side of the question.

Whether we violated international laws (stuff we wrote ourselves) is kind of moot now.

What the locals want is not, however, moot at all, is it?

But whom do you believe about what Iraqis want - with all the shouting and posturing there, and back here?

Trust Bush-Wolfowitz-Cheney-Rumsfeld? We stay and finish the job.

Trust young al-Sadr? We leave and let them have their own country the way they want it.

Trust Ahmed Al Chilabi, the exile we are grooming to run the place - that the guy who cannot step one foot into Jordon or Switzerland given he was convicted of embezzling three hundred million from the Petra Bank he founded in Jordon a few decades ago and sentenced in abstentia to twenty years - the guy who gave us all the false information about weapons of mass destruction (we paid him for it too) and said he was proud he misled us, for the greater good? Yeah, right.

If this were a labor dispute someone would step in and call for a "cooling off period." But it is not a labor dispute. It seems to be either an illegal and oppressive occupation, or a noble and selfless attempt at liberation. It sort of depends on your point of view.

Doesn't matter now. No one is going to step in. So we will fight on. Thanks, George.

Posted by Alan at 21:41 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Friday, 9 April 2004 21:47 PDT home


Topic: Bush

You want rice with that?

The big event this week was Condoleezza Rice's sworn public testimony to the 9-11 Commission. I didn't watch much of it, as it began at six in the morning out here. I wasn't in the mood.

Much has been said about it, and written. Sigh.

Typical is Eleanor Clift in this piece - No Apologies - a web-only item on MSNBC. The subheading is this: "Condi never expressed remorse during her 9/11 testimony. And Bush can't bring himself to admit he was wrong about Iraq. Welcome to a quagmire."

Yeah, yeah.

Here's the opening:
April 9 - It would have been nice to hear an apology or even some remorse from Condoleezza Rice. But that's not this administration's style. She stuck to the party line that President Bush did all he could before 9/11, a position that is not supported by the facts.

Rice appeared rattled when Watergate prosecutor Richard Ben-Veniste confronted her with the title of the presidential daily briefing (PDB) forwarded to Bush at his Crawford ranch on Aug. 6, 2001: "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." Rice called it "historical information based on old reporting" that did not warn of new attacks. Ben-Veniste countered that it established a pattern of suspicious activities and challenged the administration to declassify the memo so the American people could decided its relevance for themselves.

The exchange is reminiscent of the country music song "My Lyin' Eyes," where the cuckolded husband has to decide whether he believes what he sees or what he's being told. Even if the memo is a rundown of bin Laden's greatest hits, it arrived in the midst of a summer when terror czar Richard Clarke and others in the intelligence community were warning the White House something big was about to happen. Even if Rice's explanation is legitimate, keeping the memo from the public and the press gives the impression the administration is hiding something.
No kidding. John Stewart on "The Daily Show" was better - with just his facial expressions.

But somewhat later Clift gets to the bigger issue - the present and not the past -
This is the week Iraq spun out of control. And where is Bush? He's on a weeklong spring break at his ranch. He seems increasingly disengaged. Perhaps behind the scenes he's calling Rumsfeld and demanding to know what's going on.

When he finds out, he owes the country an explanation, and not just a speech, a full-blown news conference where he engages the press and lays out what is happening. The Iraqi people are supposed to be our friends. We liberated them. Why are they fighting us? And, Mr. President, it's not enough to say, "They don't love freedom."
Isn't this a bit of belaboring the obvious?

Over at the blog "Sadly, No" we get to the real core of the matter with this on "Moral Clarity." That's the real issue. Bush never changes his mind, and has expained, over and over, he acts based on his "gut reaction." One must be very careful mixing pretzels and fried pork rinds.
Much has been made of Bush's vaunted Moral Clarity?.

Once the First Gut forms its impressions, it doesn't need the guidance of a moral compass, or to be checked against reality with elitist crap like facts, disagreeable intel or even newspapers. Bush intentionally surrounds himself with sycophants who find creative ways to corroborate what the God-endorsed First Gut "feels" about complex situations. The ones who can no longer do so without becoming unethical or wilfully incompetent are termed "disloyal" and thrown to the fire-breathing BushCo attack machine. For all their concern about cultural decency, isn't it remarkable that this morally perfected administration has such difficulty simply being decent to others? (I don't mean understanding or, Heaven forfend, kind -- just not behaving like mindlessly vicious jerks.)

Any criticism or "disloyalty" to the First Gut, when taken outside the inner circle to threaten the sacred Presidential Image, mobilizes every skill and resource the administration can muster faster than news of, say, impending terrorist attacks. (Contrast how BushCo flopped around like uncoordinated buffoons for months when it was a mere case of terror warnings, but coalesced into an efficient well-oiled machine when Job One was tearing down rogue critics like Paul O'Neill, Joseph Wilson or Richard Clarke, among others.) Maintaining image is something they know and respect. Objectively weighing intelligence ... not so much.

The Preznit's vaunted Moral Clarity? is largely smoke and mirrors. It's the work of more resources applied towards image than real leadership and governance, exaggerated by an echo chamber that attaches heroism to distinctly unheroic qualities: disengagement, lack of objective analysis, an almost comical inability to accept responsibility or be accountable for his and their actions, and a con man's slippery avoidance of unscripted, unchoreographed public appearances.
Yes, of course this is over the top. A bit too true, but over the top....

And we also get some thoughts on the season:
As Easter Week coincides with many other traditions' time of moral reckoning and this being Good Friday, billions the world over do recalibrate their moral compasses by weighing their shortcomings and repenting.

Except George.

He doesn't apologize for stuff because Moral Clarity? means never having to say you're sorry. If you support him, you don't have to apologize either. Republican politicians or pundits bust their buttons with pride when the Preznit "doesn't back down", sticks to a reckless self-defeating course, or "isn't apologizing", especially when insulting the UN or dealing with those effete Frenchies. Despite badly needing international help in Iraq and on his own War on Terror and Stuff, the more shabbily he treated real allies who doubted The Word of George -- sorry, Eritrea but I'm thinking outside the fig leaf -- the more his boorish base liked it. The mainstream media dutifully cooperates with maintaining this horrifying approach to complex issues. The President isn't backing down ... the President isn't apologizing ... the President is resolute ... The President is sticking to his guns. ...

Today, as the hooded penitents make the last leg of their journey to atonement, we remember that even Christ atoned for his sins. Jesus -- a model Christian, a good observant Jew, a revered prophet to Muslims, an earthbound Bodhisatva to Buddhists and Hindus, Paganity's sacrificial lamb -- faced his moral struggles, as we all do in the material world, as all divine beings made flesh do in the material world.

It's the continual struggle between the needs of the flesh and the sublime pull of spirit required in every religious tradition. In religious Christian language, it's passion, which means "suffering" or more specifically, struggle (just as compassion means to suffer/struggle along with another), or crusade, literally, to bear the cross. Muslims call the daily struggle to be a better person jihad. In German, the word is kampf, now inextricably associated with a doctrine devoid of the constant weighing and recalibration that should accompany the daily, very human struggle even divinely inspired beings endure to be better humans (never mind full-fledged deities.) Jesus never considered himself so perfected -- so possessed of Moral Clarity? -- to stone a sinner, and his last moment of life on earth was one of doubt and weighing. He suffered, struggled, atoned and was redeemed.

Only God-appointed Preznits and his fervent disciples never apologize, never recalibrate, never examine their actions in the light of new facts and evolving wisdom. That would be backing down or worse, look like backing down. Wishy washy. Murky. Simply being Morally Clear excuses whatever wrong they engage in, whether it's lying, extortion, bribery, stealing their opponents' private correspondence, covering up wrongdoing and vitally needed health information, and inflicting massive death and chaos on people who posed no threat.
And on it goes. Click the link if you want to read it all.

Well, the nice thing about web logs (blogs) is you can lay it all out.

Posted by Alan at 18:40 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
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Topic: For policy wonks...

Iraq and Hollywood

Just in on the wires -

Sony Takes on 'Enemies' for Clarke Book
Fri Apr 9, 2004 08:07 PM ET
LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Sony Pictures has optioned film rights to counterterrorism expert Richard Clarke's controversial best seller "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror."
Really. Honest. The link will take you to the whole story.

I was skeptical that this was movie material. But then I read this amazing review....

Clarke's Hot Book Best Beach Reading Since Ludlum, Proust
Robert Sam Anson, The New York Observer
Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, by Richard A. Clarke. Free Press, 304 pages, $27.

If you're reading these words, you could probably use a hobby.

What's left to say, after all, about Richard Clarke's book? Anyone not living in a cave the last few weeks knows the headlines (Condi unconscious; Dubya dopey; Rummy and his neocon pals Saddam-obsessed). And everyone knows how the story turns out, not least the principal villain--an actual cave-dweller.

So, unless Architectural Digest is about to drop by and the designer bookshelf needs filling, why give another boost to Barnes and Noble's bottom line?

Here are 10 good reasons, none of which have anything to do with what you've seen on the tube and read in the papers.
A great review, and by the way -
5. Reveals thousands wasted hiring Naomi Wolf.

Apart from the Supreme Court, the principal reason Al Gore isn't President today is George W. Bush's successful portrayal of him as a wuss. Naomi Wolf, you'll recall, was recruited to counter that image by clothing the then Vice-President in earth tones, the better to make him seem an "Alpha Male." Turns out, Mr. Gore already was; Florida voters just didn't know it. History might have been infinitely cheerier had they been privy to the following 1993 Oval Office meeting.

To the horror of White House counsel Lloyd Cutler, Mr. Clarke was recommending to the President an "extraordinary rendition"--spook-talk for snatching a terrorist without benefit of legal nicety--and Mr. Clinton was still chewing his fingernails, when Mr. Gore, fresh off a plane from South Africa, walked in:

"Clinton recapped the arguments on both sides for Gore: Lloyd says this. Dick says that. Gore laughed and said, `That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass.'"

They tried. Not for the last time, they failed.
True? Who knows? Go read the review.

Posted by Alan at 18:14 PDT | Post Comment | Permalink
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