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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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Saturday, 19 November 2005

Topic: For policy wonks...

Saturdays: Who's Listening?

You have to be a real political junkie to listen, each Saturday morning, to the president's weekly radio address, and even more of one to list to the weekly response form whatever Democrat draws the short straw. News radio, out here in Los Angeles, is dead on Saturday. One all news station (KNX) drops the two addresses somewhere in the four-hour call-in food show, between recipes. The headline news station (KFWB) may give a one-sentence summary, and that's a short sentence. The progressive station (KTLK) runs infomercials for miracle cures, and gets to its regular programming later in the day. The many right-wing talk stations prefer their own rants. No one listens. Why either the White House or the opposition bothers at all is a question.

There are a lot of people dying in Iraq - bombs taking out ninety or a hundred Shiite folks Friday, and thirty or forty more Saturday. And Saturday we lost five more of our people. This is not going well. It'd be nice to know what each side says about this, in a concise weekly summary.

Well, someone listens. Apparently, the Saturday address from the president was a compressed version of the speech he gave the day before to our troops in Korea, where he happened to be at the time. The text is here - stay the course, we'll stand down when the Iraqis stand up, we will fight until we win. We will not "cut and run" as suggested by that nice but deluded old congressman from Pennsylvania.

We'll win this.

Josh Marshall here -
The real problem though - and this becomes clear listening to the president, and increasingly from his supporters - is that the president no longer has any coherent idea of what the war he's fighting amounts to or what victory would look like.

He says we'll fight it out to victory or that "as Iraqis stand up, we will stand down." But it's been a really long time since I've heard any coherent plan for what we're trying to do besides slogans like this.

If we're honest I think what the president is saying is this: We're going to stay in Iraq until the place calms down and we can leave with a sense that we've accomplished something.

Isn't that basically the idea?

We're not going to leave as long as the place is a slaughterhouse and a total mess because leaving then will look like we couldn't accomplish what we wanted to accomplish and got run out and thus, in whatever sense, got beat.

I think perceptions of national power and 'credibility' actually mean something. But a sensible fear of losing either was a good reason not to get into this situation in the first place.

And I don't see where, at the moment, we have any real or coherent strategy for calming the place down - either a military strategy or a political one….

So at the moment, there's not even a reasoned fight between staying in and getting out. Getting out is the only coherent strategy or approach on the table. That doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. But it is clear and definable. On the other hand, there is the president, who hasn't put forward any concrete description of what our goals are or any coherent (let alone, a good plan) plan for accomplishing them. Under President Bush's leadership, in Iraq, we've become the national embodiment of the eternal Mr. Micawber, always waiting "for something to turn up."
Armando over at Daily Kos here -
What pretty words from a perfect fool.

First, he believes a Constitution overwhelmingly disapproved by the Sunni, the very group fueling the Iraqi insurgency, is the solution to the political problems in Iraq. If he truly believes this, what more can one say? There can be no hope until there is true sober judgment, not this nonsense offered by Bush.

Second, is he still clinging to this ridiculous idea that the United States is NOT the focus of hatred in the Arab world? Does he believe that he is democratizing the Middle East? Delusion. Sheer delusion. Again, this is simply not the view of a man who has a freaking clue.

… Does Bush even know what is going on? Who can have any confidence in this Administration on Iraq? It becomes virtually impossible to even discuss the relative merits of alternate strategies when the Bush Administration is involved.

This is the worst President and worst Administration in the history of the nation. The situation would be near impossible to manage for the best of Presidents and Administrations. When we are governed by the worst, it is little wonder that folks like John Murtha advocate withdrawal as soon as is practicable.
So these two listened. Maybe it was best to sleep in, then run errands. The divide is deep. Nothing is changing.

Posted by Alan at 17:20 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
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Friday, 18 November 2005

Topic: Breaking News

Acrimony: More than a Nasty, Sometimes Personal Debate

As mentioned in Things Coming to a Head, in third volume of the CS Lewis "Perelandra" trilogy, That Hideous Strength (1945), one of the characters says this -
If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family - anything you like - at a given point in its history, you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow room and contrasts weren't quite so sharp; and that there's going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous. Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse: the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing. The whole thing is sorting itself out all the time, coming to a point, getting sharper and harder.
And that's where we are now. The week ended with an extraordinary house session, full of anger and shouting, as "the possibilities of even apparent neutrality" just about disappeared.

Oh, a minor note, in the upcoming New Yorker, Adam Gopnik, that fellow who wrote Paris to the Moon, has a detailed assessment of CS Lewis. There's a lot out there on Lewis right now, due no doubt to the upcoming release of the Disney film version of the Narnia books.

But that's beside the point.

The news shows had all the clips, and anyone could watch on C-SPAN the house session that was "spirited" far beyond anything Tony Blair faces at Question Time in the House of Commons, and only just a bit shy of the fistfights and chair-throwing you see now and then in the Taiwanese legislature. And it was so early nineteenth century.

This was the setting, as Associated Press reports it -

House GOP Seeks Quick Veto of Iraq Pullout
Liz Sidoti, Friday, November 18, 2005
House Republicans maneuvered for swift rejection Friday of any notion of immediately pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq, sparking a nasty, sometimes personal debate over the war following a Democratic lawmaker's own call for withdrawal.

Just a day after Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., stoked the surging political firestorm over President Bush's Iraq policies by calling for a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, Republicans brought a measure to the House floor urging that the pullout begin immediately.

With the symbolic vote, Republicans were hoping to place Democrats in an unappealing position - either supporting a withdrawal that critics said would be precipitous or opposing it and angering voters who want an end to the conflict. They were also hoping the vote could restore GOP momentum on an issue - the war - that has seen plummeting public support in recent weeks.

"We want to make sure that we support our troops that are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will not retreat," Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., said of the nonbinding resolution.

Furious Democrats accused the GOP of orchestrating a political stunt and changing the meaning of the proposal by Murtha, who has said a smooth withdrawal would take six months. Democrats said they planned to counter by voting against the GOP provision en masse.
In short, Murtha offered a proposal for getting out, as soon as "practicable" (six months, he figured), with a plan for assuring stability in the area and this and that. The Republicans took his proposal, rewrote it to say we get out immediately, and said, okay; let's vote on THAT!

The Democrats said that wasn't the same thing at all. The Republicans said yes, it was, or what Murtha "really" meant.

No he didn't! Yes he did!

Shouting and much gavel-banging followed, with folks jumping out their seats and rushing around.

Who are YOU to rewrite what he proposed and call it his! Well, that's what her REALLY proposed! No it isn't! Yes it IS!

Here's the difference. You decide.

Murtha's resolution:
Whereas Congress and the American People have not been shown clear, measurable progress toward establishment of stable and improving security in Iraq or of a stable and improving economy in Iraq, both of which are essential to "promote the emergence of a democratic government";

Whereas additional stabilization in Iraq by U, S. military forces cannot be achieved without the deployment of hundreds of thousands of additional U S. troops, which in turn cannot be achieved without a military draft;

Whereas more than $277 billion has been appropriated by the United States Congress to prosecute U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan;
Whereas, as of the drafting of this resolution, 2,079 U.S. troops have been killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom;

Whereas U.S. forces have become the target of the insurgency,

Whereas, according to recent polls, over 80% of the Iraqi people want U.S. forces out of Iraq;

Whereas polls also indicate that 45% of the Iraqi people feel that the attacks on U.S. forces are justified;

Whereas, due to the foregoing, Congress finds it evident that continuing U.S. military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the people of Iraq, or the Persian Gulf Region, which were cited in Public Law 107-243 as justification for undertaking such action;

Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That:

Section 1. The deployment of United States forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and the forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date.

Section 2. A quick-reaction U.S. force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S Marines shall be deployed in the region.

Section 3 The United States of America shall pursue security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy.
Here is the "rewrite" - the full and complete Republican version of the Murtha resolution:
RESOLUTION

Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.

Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately.
The Republican position is, of course, their rewrite is what all Americans knew Murtha really meant, and what all the opponents of Bush were really, really saying all along, no matter what the actual words here were - and they'd call this guy's bluff and force all these critics of Bush and the war either to admit that is what they really wanted, by voting for this, or by voting against it give their full support to a war that may go on for as long as it goes on, or until the commander-in-chief, not anyone else, says we've won. They'd force them to call for immediate withdrawal, and expose them as cowards, or force them into a vote of complete and unquestioning confidence in the president.

It's one or the other. There's no middle ground.

The Democrats said it was a false choice, and voting for something no one proposed. The Republicans said, no, it wasn't - this is what you really are saying even if you won't admit it - so say either Bush has always been right and made no mistakes, ever, or that you want to give up like cowardly dogs - there are only two alternatives, either vote for what we know you are really saying, or for against it, admitting Bush has always been right. Put up or shut up.

One Democrat in a clip - they didn't identify him - asked why the Republicans were doing this. We just want to talk about what we should do about this war. It's our job.

He was shouted down.

Now this all may strike you as cheap, theatrical, and rather stupid. It may offend your sense of logic. You may think it's childish. But the Republicans are counting on most Americans saying, "AH HA! - Now we see who is cowardly and hates America and hates our troops - This reveals ALL!"

We'll see if that happens. Glancing at the immediate reaction on the web, the right side is saying this is brilliant and exposes the cowards for what they are, and the left side is pretty pissed.

Were any minds changed? Probably not.

But people on both sides are pretty angry.

This was an interesting house session.

There was Jean Schmidt, Republican from Ohio, the newest member of the house, having just narrowly won her seat in a nasty fight with Paul Hackett, a fellow who fought in Iraq and is, of all things, a Democrat. (That race was discussed in these pages here and here - she's a nasty piece of work.)

At one point in this whole mess she told the house of a phone call she received from a Marine colonel.

"He asked me to send Congress a message - stay the course. He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message - that cowards cut and run, Marines never do."

Martha was a Marine for thirty-seven years. He reenlisted to fight in Vietnam. He has two Purple Hearts and a Bronze Star. Three years ago, he won the Semper Fidelis Award of the Marine Corps Foundation, the highest honor the Marines can confer.

She called him a coward and not much of a Marine.

She's the daughter of a well-known local banker - a guy who owned Indianapolis racecar teams on the side. She's married to an investment counselor. She has a twenty-seven-year-old daughter. She's a leader of Right to Life of Greater Cincinnati. She should know?

But that's when it got good. A bunch of Democrats booed and shouted her down. Harold Ford (Tennessee) charged across the chamber's center aisle screaming that Republicans were making an uncalled-for personal attack. Marty Meehan (Massachusetts) was yelling, "You guys are pathetic. Pathetic!" Everything came to a standstill. They turned off the microphones for ten minutes after this -
The Speaker Pro Tempore: The house will be in order. The house will be in order. The house will be in order. The house will be in order. The house will be in order. The gentlelady will suspend. And the clerk will report her words. All members will suspend. The gentleman from Arkansas has demanded that the gentlelady's words be taken down. The clerk will report the gentlelady's words.

The Speaker Pro Tempore: The house will be in order. Members, please take seats. The gentlelady from Ohio.

Ms. Schmidt: Mr. Speaker, my remarks were not directed at any member of the House and I did not intend to suggest that they applied to any member. Most especially the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania. I therefore ask for unanimous consent that my words be withdrawn.

The Speaker Pro Tempore: Without objection. The gentlelady's words will be withdrawn.
Well, she didn't want to be censured. House rules do not allow members "to impugn the integrity" of any other members.

She's new. She doesn't need that. So she took it back.

But one assumes she got a kick out of being referred to as "the gentlelady from Ohio." That's a laugh.

Conservative but perpetually cantankerous pro-war pundit Andrew Sullivan adds this -
She later withdrew her remarks from the record. But those words linger as a reminder of what these Republicans have become. ... Every time you think these Republicans can sink no lower, even after their vile smears against Kerry's service last year, they keep going. They make me sick to my stomach.

Why not the Murtha proposal? Here's what strikes me as the salient question right now. Why won't the Republicans force a vote on the Murtha proposal - a phased withdrawal over six months - rather than "immediate" withdrawal? If the GOP wants to demonstrate a backbone on the war, let them force that vote. I'd passionately vote it down, if I were a Congressman.

But the GOP's proposal is again not a sign of strength. It's a straw man: as cheap and tawdry as the current GOP leadership.

Let me add something more. How pathetic is the credibility of a commander-in-chief that while he is abroad, all hell breaks loose on the war he is allegedly waging?

Bush has lost the country on this.

It's not the media's fault, not the Democrats', not the military's. It's Bush's, and his sad excuse for a defense secretary.
Yeah, that's about it.

And by late evening the Democratic leader, Pelosi, was suggested everyone on their side vote for the damned fake proposal. It doesn't matter. One suspect she knows they've won something big here. There's a sort of "stench of desperation" on the Bush side now. Let it ripen.

Heck, you might as well be the adult in the situation.

And readers might want to check out this in the latest Newsweek from Christopher Dickey, on why Murtha may just be right.

It opens with him chatting with Paul Wolfowitz in Paris, "over a glass of Champagne and under the eyes of raging priests on a vast Old Testament tapestry." Where's that? A venue out of my league, of course - and later he says they chatted again at the cocktail party after a World Bank conference in the ornate reception room of a grand palais, which he doesn't identify.

But once you get past the settings you learn the prime theorist who gave us this war doesn't have much to say about it now. He pulls an Edith Piaf - no regrets - but also he won't talk about things now, other that to say, "I think there shouldn't have been an occupation."

What? It seems Wolfowitz always thought that Ahmad Chalabi should run post-invasion Iraq. And he may yet. Whatever.

Dickey -
So the big mistake in Mesopotamia, it would seem, was not following the grand plans of the best and the brightest who took us to war there in 2003. Others failed, not they. And maybe the armchair war-lovers of the Bush administration really believe this. Ideologues see the world through different lenses than ordinary people. From their perches in government or academe, they like to imagine themselves riding the waves of great historical forces. Faced with criticism, they point fingers at their enemies like Old Testament prophets and call down the wrath of heaven.

But there's no reason the rest of us should delude ourselves, which is one reason, I suspect, that Democratic Congressman John Murtha, a retired Marine colonel and long-time friend of the U.S. military on the Hill, spoke yesterday with such unfettered outrage. ...
The discussion of Murtha that follows is detailed, and leads to this -
The Bush administration no longer sets the agenda in Iraq, in fact, and hasn't for at least two years. The watershed came in November 2003 when there was a dramatic spike in U.S. casualties and Washington suddenly scrambled together a policy for transferring sovereignty back to Iraqis instead of pocketing it indefinitely for the Pentagon and the oil companies, as originally intended. The American invasion, which was supposed to be proactive, has led to an occupation that is entirely reactive, and it's clear - or ought to be - that the castles in the air constructed by Wolfowitz and his friends have been blown away by facts on the ground.

President Bush showed hopeful signs of pragmatism earlier this year, but no longer. His speeches over the last week, with Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld singing backup, attack critics for rewriting the history that they have tried to invent. What's the bottom line of what Bush is saying now? That we are now in Iraq and have to stay the course because ? the terrorists want us there. As the White House transcript puts it, "Our goal is to defeat the terrorists and their allies at the heart of their power, so we will defeat the enemy in Iraq." But - the terrorists we're fighting now didn't have any power in Iraq until our invasion. Ideologues like to fight ideologues, so they tend to miss details like that.
So we stay, and we stay because we went there?

It like you decide to walk down this road, to get somewhere you really want to be. But after a long, long time you discover you've been walking down the wrong road. You cannot get there on this road. But you've walked for so very many miles on this particular road, and pressed on through the blisters and pain and all the rest. You've put so much into it. Going back to where you started would be really hard - retracing your steps would take as much time and effort as you've spent already. And if you go back, what if the next road you choose is also the wrong one? And maybe, just maybe, by some miracle, on this wrong road you'll get to where you wanted to be. You never know. It could happen. Or maybe you'll get to someplace that will be, maybe, something like where you wanted to be - not exactly where you wanted to be, but something like it. So you keep walking. You keep a positive attitude - can't be a defeatist after all.

This is all something like that, not the Beckett play about waiting, but the one about walking he didn't get around to writing. This time Tom Stoppard can write the dialog.

- "We've traveled too far, and our momentum has taken over; we move idly towards eternity, without possibility of reprieve or hope of explanation"

- "All your life you live so close to truth it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye. And when something nudges it into outline, it's like being ambushed by a grotesque."

- "Life is a gamble, at terrible odds - if it was a bet you wouldn't take it."

Something like that...

Posted by Alan at 21:25 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Friday, 18 November 2005 21:50 PST home

Thursday, 17 November 2005

Topic: Chasing the Zeitgeist

Opportunists: Things Coming to a Head

In third volume of the CS Lewis "Perelandra" trilogy, That Hideous Strength (1945), one of the characters say this -
If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family - anything you like - at a given point in its history, you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow room and contrasts weren't quite so sharp; and that there's going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous. Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse: the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing. The whole thing is sorting itself out all the time, coming to a point, getting sharper and harder.
And that's where we are now. You can learn about the CS Lewis book here, if you're into theological science fiction, but the passage came to mind thinking about events at the end of the day, Thursday, November 17 - a day full of "the possibilities of even apparent neutrality" diminishing real fast.

The national dialog - if there is such a thing, some ongoing discussion of who we are, what we stand for, and what we should do about threats and risk, about those among us in trouble, about what we should or should not build and all the rest - is getting sharper, as in more pointed, as in nasty. The administration is clearly on the ropes, and elsewhere in the pages there are notes on the plummeting polls - massive disapproval and mistrust, with over two-thirds of us thinking the country is going in the wrong direction.

That last poll question is intentionally ambiguous, and used in most polls. It measures discomfort, and doesn't have anything to do with what we should be doing or not doing. It measures the level of "not this" - the sense that something is very wrong, without naming it. It doesn't specify the war is bothering people - the reason we waged it always changing and the execution of our occupation and creating a government we'd like there not going that well - or the high price of gasoline and heating oil, or seeing New Orleans effectively be wiped off the map while the federal government held back and almost criminally bumbled around, or tax policy or low job growth or pension funds going under or the world thinking we're clueless bullies and turning on us - or anything else. It's not all the Republican scandals either - Frist under investigation and DeLay indicted and incompetent cronies in key job exposed. That's part of it - minor notes, grace notes as they say in music. It's rather a sense that something is fundamentally wrong, or really, many things are wrong.

That this distress centers on the war is a matter of the war, with the daily toll of dead Americans and chaos in the world (the bombing in Amman didn't help at all), being the best hook on which to hang all the anxiety. Free-floating anxiety makes people crazy. The war, as a place to ground that anxiety, is quite useful. You can focus. This is making us safer? This is showing what we stand for and what our values really are? This is a reason our kids should face death? This will make the world respect us, when it seems now no one even fears us? This is a reason to give up any number of our traditional rights regarding privacy, and some freedoms? This was something we had to do - the threat was real and no one but us and the Brits understood the real truth?

There's no real anti-war movement like the one that we had in the late sixties. Michael Moore and Cindy Sheehan are not a movement. No one is burning draft cards - we don't have one. No one is forming a human ring around the Pentagon and singing Country Joe and the Fish songs. Jane Fonda? Those days are long gone.

What we have now is more dangerous and powerful, perhaps because it is disorganized and leaderless. There's a massive amount of basic discomfort out there, and the questions seem to arise naturally. So whom do you blame for this shift in the zeitgeist?

The press seems to be following, and reporting things they never reported before - inconsistencies, lies (or at least deceptions) - catching a ride on national mood. You don't grab readers and viewers, and maintain you ability to sell ad space and stay in business, offering a product no one wants. They wanted Michael Jackson on trial. They wanted wall-to-wall coverage of the missing attractive young white woman of the week. They wanted Anderson Cooper, angry, ripping into politicians in New Orleans. Now they want this. You cannot blame the press of these low poll numbers. In many ways each component of the broadcast and cable media is just one more business, providing what folks want and hoping they'll sit through the ads between the news items. Print journalism needs circulation. That's what you sell your advertisers, the folks who pay for it all. These guys are not opposing the administration. They're riding the wave.

You could blame the Democrats for the low polls numbers, but that's a joke. They're massively disorganized, as usual, and having trouble riding the wave. Some can't even find a surfboard. Some can't even find the beach. Hillary Clinton is pro-war, Howard Dean is anti-war, and array of others fall in-between the two, or outside the whole issue, watching and wondering what to say.

The problem is the questions that have come up about the war are widespread and free-floating. The press echoes them, and this amplifies them, a few opportunistic politicians decide it's safe to rephrase them (and hope to appear courageous doing so), but the questions are embedded in the "general public" now.

What to do?

Starting with the president's Veterans Day speech, and followed by speeches over the few days (see Parting Shot: Did so! Did Not! Did So! Did Not!), you mount a "conceptual attack."

Anyone who argues we lied to you about why we had to got to war is "rewriting history" and a coward.

By mid-week, the vice president was chiming in, as the BBC summarizes here -
The vice-president called the Democrats "opportunists" who were peddling "cynical and pernicious falsehoods" to gain political advantage while US soldiers died in Iraq.

"The president and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory or their backbone - but we're not going to sit by and let them rewrite history," he said.
But he's got it wrong. It's not the Democrats. It's a whole lot of people with reasonable good memories. Much more than half the public smells a rat. They remember what was said. And that of course means the Democrats actually are being opportunistic. If folks feel this way, they'll go with that.

One writer puts it this way -
After watching Bush smear and trash all opponents for two and a half years, the American people have pretty much had enough. But for all the talk we hear about how brilliant Bush's spin team is, they have one fatal flaw - they believe that the more they talk, the more people will come around to their point of view.
Duncan Black adds this -
I actually don't think this is Bush's spin team. I think this is Bush. This is "I won this election so I'm all grown up now and I get to do the presidenting my way and I'm the president and I know what's best and if other people disagree it's because they're stupid and I need to keep explaining until they're smart." It comes out of Bush's unwavering belief in his own rightness.
Now, as of a new poll Thursday, November 17, thirty-four percent of the public has the same unwavering belief in this guy's rightness.

And that's were, as Doctor Dimble, the character in that CS Lewis novel, had it right. "The whole thing is sorting itself out all the time, coming to a point, getting sharper and harder."

As in this - Hawkish Democrat Calls for Iraq Pullout (Liz Sidoti, Associated Press, Thursday, November 17, 2005) -
One of Congress' most hawkish Democrats called Thursday for an immediate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, sparking bitter and personal salvos from both sides in a growing Capitol Hill uproar over President Bush's war policies.

"It's time to bring them home," said Rep. John Murtha, a decorated Korean War and Vietnam combat veteran, choking back tears during remarks to reporters. "Our military has accomplished its mission and done its duty."

The comments by the Pennsylvania lawmaker, who has spent three decades in the House, hold particular weight because he is close to many military commanders and has enormous credibility with his colleagues on defense issues. He voted for the war in 2002, and remains the top Democrat on the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.

"Our troops have become the primary target of the insurgency. They are united against U.S. forces and we have become a catalyst for violence," he said.
Well, yeah. It's pretty obvious we have, with this war, made things worse, in a lot of ways, and staying there is fueling a resistance, and creating generations of angry people who are learning how to make really effective bombs. It's madness. Why not cut the bullshit?

Is it pretty obvious? The administration continues channeling the late Graucho Marx - "Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?" To matter how many times you say it, is still sounds absurd.

Of course the Republicans said Murtha's position was really "abandonment and surrender" - and said he and folks like him were playing politics with the war and recklessly pushing a "cut and run" strategy. AP quotes House Speaker Dennis Hastert - "They want us to retreat. They want us to wave the white flag of surrender to the terrorists of the world." And California's suave David Dreier - "It would be an absolute mistake and a real insult to the lives that have been lost." Hey! Remember that one from Vietnam days? So many have died if we get out now that will mean they died for nothing, so let's send more troops, even if the reason for it all is gone, because we don't want the families of those who've died to think their folks died for nothing, and since there is nothing, more dying will be something? oh heck, you remember the argument.

Anyway, Murtha pulled this off two days after the senate, controlled by the Republicans, defeated that Democratic thing to force Bush to lay out a timetable for withdrawal - but demanded progress reports and said they'd kind of like to see next year that "conditions are created for the phased withdrawal," pretty please.

Murtha cut to the chase. Get all the troops out in six months.

Of course no one has the balls to agree with him. Other Democrats are running for cover - they say they love the guy be we just can't do this. They'd like to be reelected, and they'd rather avoid the "abandonment and surrender" onus. It's an image thing. The Democrats are the wimps, remember? Have to change that rap.

Murtha doesn't give a damn about image. So Vice President Dick Cheney says that Democrats are spouting "one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges" about the Bush administration's use of intelligence before the war?

He says this: "I like guys who've never been there that criticize us who've been there. I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and send people to war, and then don't like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done."

And as for Bush? "I resent the fact, on Veterans Day, he criticized Democrats for criticizing them."

Who's he to talk? Well, he has his Bronze Star and two Purple Hearts, and retired from the Marine Corps reserves as a colonel in 1990 - after 37 years as a Marine. He's known as an authority on national security - he's been there thirty-seven years and used to be trusted, before this. He voted for this war. Enthusiastically.

AP says he's known "as a friend and champion of officers at the Pentagon and in the war zone," and it's "widely believed in Congress that Murtha often speaks for those in uniform and could be echoing what U.S. commanders in the field and in the Pentagon are saying privately about the conflict."

California's Duncan Hunter, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, says that cannot be so - "This falloff of support among Democratic ranks is not shared by the war-fighting forces. It's not shared by our troops."

But two or three times a year Murtha travels to Iraq - to assess the war on the ground - and we're told he often visits wounded troops in hospitals here, and he sometimes just calls up generals to get firsthand accounts of this and that.

Who are you going to believe? There's no direct evidence. The Republicans, and specifically Bush and Cheney, have been saying, "Trust us." Have they ever been wrong?

Ah well. Decide.

The whole Murtha address is here, and opens with this -
The war in Iraq is not going as advertised. It is a flawed policy wrapped in illusion. The American public is way ahead of us. The United States and coalition troops have done all they can in Iraq, but it is time for a change in direction. Our military is suffering. The future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interest of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf Region.
And the rest is tightly reasoned, with supporting evidence.

But note he says, "The American public is way ahead of us."

People know when they're being conned. He too is riding the wave. And, he says, just doing his job -
Because we in Congress are charged with sending our sons and daughters into battle, it is our responsibility, our OBLIGATION to speak out for them. That's why I am speaking out.

Our military has done everything that has been asked of them, the U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. IT IS TIME TO BRING THEM HOME.
Oh my, this is causing no end of controversy.

Over at the Washington Monthly Kevin Drum suggests this may be a Walter Cronkite moment -
My prediction: we've already started to see this, but I think Republicans are about to crumble. Pressure is going to mount on the White House to use the December elections as an excuse to declare victory and go home, fueled by equal parts disgust over Dick Cheney's lobbying for the right to torture; unease even among Republicans that the president wasn't honest during the marketing of the war; lack of progress on the ground in Iraq; Congress reasserting its independence of the executive; a genuine belief that the American presence has become counterproductive; and raw electoral fear, what with midterm elections looming in less than a year.

I also think the Rove/Cheney/Bush counterattack is going to backfire. Congressional Republicans are looking for cover right now, and I don't think they believe that a ferocious partisan attack from the White House is what they need right now. The public is looking for answers, not administration attack dogs on the evening news every day, but this particular White House doesn't know any other way. It's going to cost them.
And he notices this comment over at the hyper-conservative National Review -
As I listened to it, I could feel the ground shift. Murtha, as you know, is not a Pelosi-style Chardonnay Democrat; he's a crusty retired career Marine who reminds me of the kinds of beer-slugging Democrats we used to have before the cultural left took over the party.

From where I sit, conservatives would be fools not to take this man seriously.
Note also Republican Senator Hagel is a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations saying this -
The Bush Administration must understand that each American has a right to question our policies in Iraq and should not be demonized for disagreeing with them. Suggesting that to challenge or criticize policy is undermining and hurting our troops is not democracy nor what this country has stood for, for over 200 years

... Vietnam was a national tragedy partly because members of Congress failed their country, remained silent and lacked the courage to challenge the administrations in power until it was too late. Some of us who went through that nightmare have an obligation to the 58,000 Americans who died in Vietnam to not let that happen again. To question your government is not unpatriotic - to not question your government is unpatriotic. America owes its men and women in uniform a policy worthy of their sacrifices.
So some smart-ass reporter asks the president, while he's in Korea for whatever it is he's doing there, whether he agrees with Senator Hegel, or the Vice president. The answer was quick - the vice president.

Tim Grieve here -
Lines are drawn, sides are taken. Stand with the president or stand accused of turning your back on the troops stuck fighting his war. "Our people in uniform have been subjected to these cynical and pernicious falsehoods day in and day out," Cheney said yesterday. "American soldiers and Marines are out there every day in dangerous conditions and desert temperatures - conducting raids, training Iraqi forces, countering attacks, seizing weapons, and capturing killers - and back home a few opportunists are suggesting they were sent into battle for a lie."

But it's not a "few opportunists" who are making that suggestion. It's a majority of the American people. In a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, 57 percent of those asked said they believe that the president "deliberately misled people to make the case for war." In a recent Newsweek poll, 52 percent said they think Cheney deliberately "misused or manipulated" prewar intelligence.

"Us against them" works when there's a lot of "us" and not so many "them." But that's not how it is anymore. Bush and Cheney can circle the wagons and point their fingers at those on the outside. But it's small group inside the circle now, a much larger and still growing one outside. A substantial majority of the American people now believe that George W. Bush lied about the reasons for war.

Keep forcing the country to take sides, Mr. President, and someone is going to be marginalized in the process. It isn't going to be them.
Who needs an anti-war movement? We got one, without the funky music and hippies.

And the press is tagging along, adding what they can, as in this from Knight-Ridder - In Challenging War's Critics, Administration Tinkers With Truth - a point-by-point analysis of just who's telling the truth and who is rewriting history, with what is asserted, what is the context, and what are the facts. The facts are biased against the administration. And this is one of those rare news articles containing, and the end of the he-said, she-said stuff, looks at what was said by one side and says, flat-out, "This isn't true." They actually use those words! Damn.

For the very pretentious elitists - Trahison des clercs ("The Treason of Clerks") is the principal work (1927) of the French writer Julien Benda (1867-1956). The 'clerks' in question are the educated members of Benda's own generation, especially in France and Italy; their 'treason' was their failure to stand firm for Enlightenment ideals ('knowledge values') against the rising tide of nationalism and irrationalism ('action values'). In a more general way it is the kind of treason committed wherever dangerous fads are not being exposed and denounced by the educated class.

The press represents the clerks in this case - so no more treason?

Other evidence that things are changing?

House Democrats Defeat Spending Bill
Jim Abrams - Associated Press - Thursday, November 17, 2005; 3:17 PM
Legislation to fund many of the nation's health, education and social programs went down to a startling defeat in the House Thursday, led by Democrats who said cuts in the bill hurt some of America's neediest people.

The 224-209 vote against the $142.5 billion spending bill disrupted plans by Republican leaders to finish up work on this year's spending bills and cast doubt on whether they would have the votes to pass a major budget-cutting bill also on the day's agenda.

Democrats, unanimous in opposing the legislation, said it included the first cut in education funding in a decade and slashed spending for several health care programs. "It betrays our nation's values and its future," said House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer of Maryland. "It is neither compassionate, conservative nor wise."

... Twenty-two Republicans voted against the measure, many of them moderates who also are swing votes on the budget-cutting legislation.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., said one factor in the bill's defeat was the drop in the president's popularity and his inability to maintain unity among the GOP ranks.

... The vote was "a tremendous defeat" for the Republicans, said House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. "It had the wrong priorities."
Someone thinks not ending food stamps and helping the poor have heat in their homes this winter might be a good thing? Citizens shouldn't die? How odd. The whole thing is that folks should take personal responsibility and anyone who is poor has chosen to be poor isn't selling these days?

And Michael Crowley got this email from one of the Democrats in the fray -
The defeat was embarrassing in more than one respect. First, they lost. Second, they looked hapless while losing. Rather than stopping the bleeding, they held the vote open for a long time, but had a twenty-vote deficit. Very few of those votes were budging. To make the effort to hold the vote open and then to lose looks exceptionally weak.

The reasons for voting against it were pretty obvious. Massive cuts in popular education programs. Cuts in home heating assistance while prices are skyrocketing. And the list goes on. Moderate Republicans could get away with these votes when the President was doing well, but they can't now. Instead of making them take fewer of these votes, the wackos on the right are making them take more. They are pissed that the leadership isn't stepping in and saving them...

Now think about this: one of the very next votes scheduled for today is the Republican budget cutting bill that had to be pulled from the floor [last week] for lack of votes. The moderates have been whipsawed by the leadership and cajoled (dropping the ANWR provision), and they won't budge. The mood must be very sour over there.
No doubt.

And in the other house, this, the same day - Legislation Renewing Patriot Act Stalls -
Legislation reauthorizing the Patriot Act stalled Thursday as lawmakers worked to satisfy senators upset by the elimination of some civil liberties protections.

Negotiators had worked for days to develop an acceptable compromise and presented a draft to senators and representatives late Wednesday.

But senators on the negotiating committee have yet to agree to the compromise, aware that six Republicans and Democrats are threatening to block the final version of the bill when it comes to the full Senate.

"If further changes are not made, we will work to stop this bill from becoming law," the six wrote the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence committees.
The want a requirement that the government inform targets of a "sneak and peek" search warrant within seven days to thirty days - and those are the warrants that allow police to conduct secret searches of people's homes or businesses and inform them later. The want to have a rule that requires judicial review when authorities use the Patriot Act law to search financial, medical, library, school and other records. They want seven-year limits on rules on wiretapping, obtaining business records under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and standards for monitoring "lone wolf" terrorists who may be operating independent of a foreign agent or power. And they want a new requirement that the Justice Department report to Congress annually on its use of national security letters - secret requests for the phone, business and Internet records of ordinary people.

The old counterargument is that if you want such limitations you want the terrorists to win and you hate America. That seems to have lots its effectiveness.

The world is changing.

Posted by Alan at 22:38 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Thursday, 17 November 2005 22:44 PST home

Wednesday, 16 November 2005

Topic: Couldn't be so...

Paying Attention: The News is a Target-Rich Environment

And what is a target-rich environment? In March of 2004, that former head anti-terrorism adviser to Clinton then Bush, "counterterrorism expert" Richard Clarke, was all over the place promoting his new book, Against All Enemies - the one that laid out the case that President Bush had ignored warnings about al-Qaeda and after the 9/11 attacks ordered Clarke (and others) to find a link between the attacks and Iraq. There seemed to be none, and Clarke was told to find one.

The most interesting bit of reasoning presented to Clarke came from the Secretary of Defense, as noted here -
As early as Sept. 12, 2001, Clarke says, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld urged bombing Iraq despite repeated assurances from intelligence officials that the threat emanated from Afghanistan.

"Rumsfeld said there aren't any good targets in Afghanistan. And there are lots of good targets in Iraq," Clarke said on Sunday's 60 Minutes. "I said, 'Well, there are lots of good targets in lots of places, but Iraq had nothing to do with it.'"
Yes, Clarke lost his job. He wasn't playing along. But the Rumsfeld argument is odd - you wage a war where you find a target-rich environment, not where you find the enemy. It looks more effective?

Well, the "intelligence officials" were right, but the "shock and awe" short war was impressive - even awesome, as promised. Unfortunately, Clarke was right and we have a bit of a mess on our hands.

Ah well. There were a whole lot of targets.

The mid-week news, Wednesday, November 16, was a similarly target-rich environment. So many things merit a comment, but what really needs some thought?

There's this: Document Says Oil Chiefs Met With Cheney Task Force. The Washington Post breaks the story that when Bush took office the energy policy, devised by the vice president, was written by the head guys in the oil industry, who, funny thing, got all sorts of enormous tax breaks and relief from regulation. So? Cheney refused to say who met with him, and the only news here is that these oily oil guys said they never met with anyone at the White House, ever. They even testified to congress that they never met with anyone at the White House. Now there's proof they did. The only amusing twist is that in their testimony this week to congress the Democrats tried to make these oil executives testify under oath, and the Republican chair of the committee slapped that down, saying it wasn't necessary.

This seems to be a big deal in the news, but is it a big deal? We have Cheney and the oil executives colluding to screw the public and make themselves richer. So? That's the way things work, not to be cynical. They got caught lying. And Cheney, being silent, is letting them twist in the wind. But this is how the world works.

There's no news here. And surprise is quite inappropriate.

And there's this: Torture Alleged at Ministry Site Outside Baghdad - the Shiite government we're getting organized, specifically the Ministry of the Interior, is caught holding a hundred and fifty Sunni guys in a little room, starving them and torturing a good number of them. It's what you do with your enemies. And our troops uncovered this, and our commanders are saying, "The alleged mistreatment of detainees and the inhumane conditions at an Iraqi Ministry of Interior detention facility is very serious, and totally unacceptable." After Abu Ghraib there are multiple layers of irony here. The Sunnis are asking the UN to investigate all this.

There's no news here. And surprise is quite inappropriate. They're learning from us.

That's matched by the lion story:
Army officials said Tuesday that they were looking into claims by two former Iraqi detainees that they had been put into cages holding lions to terrify them during interrogations in 2003. Thahe Mohammed Sabar said in a statement released by the American Civil Liberties Union that soldiers had pushed him and Sherzad Khalid, a friend, into the cage, then pulled them out when a lion moved toward him. Mr. Khalid said soldiers had forced him into the cages after repeatedly asking where to find Saddam Hussein and unconventional weapons.
Secretary of Defense had Rumsfeld called this allegation "far-fetched" (see the AFP wire item here).

Maybe it is. But he sat on the evidence of Abu Ghraib for months.

Surprise would be inappropriate. And there have been a good number of comments about our empire and the Roman Empire and throwing folks to the lions. No one should be surprised by the comparison. Empires do such things. It's just not the Christians this time who get thrown to the lions. It all depends on who's on top.

Match that with this from Associated Press (Katherine Shrader) U.S. Has Detained 83,000 in War on Terror.

That's a big number. And here Andrew Sullivan takes a stab at explaining why the number is so high. -
It is important to recognize that this administration reserves the right to detain anyone, include American citizens, anywhere, for any amount of time, without charge, sometimes without even documentation, and reserves the right to torture them as well. There are now close to 4,000 held without charge for a year. It is past time for the legislature and the courts to fight back and restrain - or at least bring some kind of order and legality - to this astonishing record. If the administration will not grant these prisoners POW status, it must agree to new rules that allow the innocent to be distinguished from the guilty, and to bar torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment for ever.
It must? What planet is he on? Who will fight that battle?

Not to be too cynical here, but this number will startle a few people, some of whom will be angry we've done so much "detaining" to so little effect and violated all the principles of law we say are important, while most will shrug - there are a lot of bad people and sometimes you make mistakes and, heck, we're safe, and no one has locked up any of us or our friends, after all.

The large number is news, but little else. Many will, of course, see this big number as proof we're "winning" whatever it is we're winning. A few of us wonder what we're winning. For some of us this is a sort of loss, and we see what we're losing.

As for what else we're doing, see these three stories, a follow-up to what was mentioned last weekend in these pages (here), that Italian documentary about our alleged use of white phosphorus on civilians in Iraq.

CBC - US official admits phosphorus used as 'weapon' in Iraq - "A spokesman for the US military has admitted that soldiers used white phosphorus as an 'incendiary weapon" while trying to flush out insurgents in the northern Iraqi city of Fallujah last year. 'White phosphorus is a conventional munition. ...'"

That is, we used it, but not on civilians. Most nations say it is not a conventional weapon, but falls in a category with napalm and other stuff that should be forbidden. We refused to sign that part of the Geneva rules.

The BBC reports the Iraqi folks want to know if we used it on civilians, women and children and such, and not just on insurgents or whatever we're calling the bad guys these days - Iraq probes US phosphorus weapons.

They're investigating us? Give them a country and they get all uppity, don't they?

The Washington Post points out our military's use of white phosphorus during operations in Fallujah last year is making its way around the world media, and we're looking bad - 'White Death' Is A Losing Strategy. We win but we lose.

The Post's William Arkin -
I for one am reluctant to pronounce whether the use of white phosphorous for "shake and bake" missions in Fallujah and the evident blundering use of white phosphorous in areas known to be occupied by civilians is illegal. Neither am I buying the State Department's line that the use of white phosphorous in this way - that is, to possibly inflict unnecessary suffering - is not "illegal" use. What I'm sure of is that the use of white phosphorous is not just some insensitive act. It is not just bad PR. It is the ill thought out and panicked use of a weapon in an illegitimate way. It is a representation of a losing strategy.

U.S. military forces have the most stringent legal rules, the most aggressive internal lawyer class, the most constraining rules of engagement with regard to the laws of war and civilian casualties - even under the shoot-em-first-ask-questions-later Bush administration. Those rules are scrupulously followed, as long as everything is going well and the chain of command is strong and in control.

When the chain of command breaks down and military formations turn into a mob, Abu Ghraib's result. When forces are frustrated by sandstorms or suicide bombers and pressured by the boss to move quicker, the incentive to unload with firebombs or cluster bombs or to be a little lighter on the trigger results, even if these might not otherwise be the preferred munitions or the preferred methods, because, as we all know, we are not just trying to win in a conventional military way in Iraq, we are also trying to win the peace.

When soldiers and commanders are discouraged and following a losing strategy, "taking" Fallujah, let's say, not for the first or second or even third time; when they are trying to use "psychology," that is, demoralize the enemy, then it is not enough to just defeat them. That is where shake and bake comes in, the desire to do something in a different way, to "shock and awe" the opposition, to sow chaos.

In a deliberate war, in choreographed fighting, in a well-managed and well-conceived affair, precision rules. Precision is more effective and the more precise it is, the less collateral damage and angst that is produced. The enemy is not inadvertently emboldened by an ill-conceived attempt at demoralization; people are not confused about what the United States stands for. I've never read an article that says that a 2,000 lb. laser-guided bomb - or a bullet for that matter - is "illegal."

But to the critics of white phosphorous and the U.S. military, I say: When have you ever been happy when the United States has only employed precision, when it has been scrupulously "legal" in the conduct of its military operations? To suggest that white phosphorus is illegal or illegitimate suggests that you are willing to accept that some use of military force and some weapons are perfectly legal. It is to say that there are laws of war, that fighting and the military enterprise can be honorable and just. I never hear this from certain quarters, and the inability to give credit where credit is due undermines any efforts to encourage the U.S. military - and the rest of the world - to systematize and strengthen constraints on weapons and methods of warfare that no longer accord with the public's conscience.

In Fallujah, the Army employed a terribly ill conceived method for using white phosphorous, evidently interested only in the immediate tactical gain and its felicitous shake and bake fun. Higher-level commanders were either absent or oblivious to the larger issues. They did not impose order and encourage precision. They should be held accountable. They won't.
That's pretty good. And it seems also an indictment of the whole effort - doing what is immediately "effective" and emotionally gratifying, ignoring the overall aim.

The whole war is a series of stunning tactical victories and one big, miserable strategic defeat.

Last month in Afghanistan we burned and desecrated the bodies of some bad guys, to make the locals mad and do something stupid to our immediate on-the-ground advantage (discussed here). Same thing. In the moment that tactic, or any tactic, has its advantage. In the long run? What do we gain?

Win the battle - lose the war.

We win, and create three of four generations of very angry people, the kind who might find their way over here years from now and do just what we say we are fighting to end.

So just what are we doing? It's hard to believe Cheney and the neoconservatives want a new century of terror. But they are setting that up.

Well, they're in charge. This is what we will deal with.

There is, of course, other news.

There's this - Broadcast Chief Violated Laws, Inquiry Says - the hyper-Republican who had been recently appointed to run the Corporation for Public Broadcasting resigned under pressure, and it seems he broke a whole lot of federal laws in his effort to purge public television of its leftist, pro-science, anti-Bush slant. He may have not liked Big Bird and snarky British humor shows. He may have wanted more evangelical geology shows. Whatever. He got rid of Bill Moyers and brought in the Wall Street Journal editorial board. But he was taking orders from the White House and hiring Rove's folks outside the system and skimming funds and who knows what.

Again, there's no news here. And surprise is quite inappropriate. He just got caught. Everyone knew what was going on. Of course that he wasn't sly enough to cover his tracks is a news story. You'd expect he'd be competent at that. The point is no to leave no trail. He did.

Of course the big mid-week story in the political world was this - Woodward Was Told Of Plame More Than Two Years Ago - in the in the investigation of who leaked the name of the undercover CIA agent in anger at her husband's revealing the whole Saddam-is-buying-nuclear-bomb-stuff in Africa was a farce, it seems Bob Woodward of Watergate fame, super-reporter, was being roped into the smear effort way before the name was revealed. He kind of forgot to mention it and testified to the grand jury just days ago. And the whole story shifts now, somehow.

We'll all see how this pans out. His source, it seems, was Steven Hadley, now National Security Advisor. Or this may bring down the vice president. Who knows?

Wait for all the facts. This may be a big deal, or not. A good comment is here, one of many at the Hullabaloo site. Much of what is out there is about how the press works. Of course this guy argues the CIA woman was taken down because she was hot on the trial of a plot, in the White House, to steal nuclear stuff around the world and plant it in Iraq to "prove" Saddam has a nuclear bomb program (scroll down to the 11 November entry). It didn't have to do with the husband at all - these guys were working on planting evidence. Whatever. We shall see.

There is, of course, other news - money stuff. The government is running short. We have this war. We cut taxes. There were those hurricanes.

So, N.Y. to Lose $125 Million in 9/11 Aid - firefighters and police and emergency workers ill from breathing ash and burnt human flesh way back when are out of luck. We're out of money. On the other hand there's this - 'Bridge to nowhere' stripped from US funding bill - the mandatory funding for two controversial bridge projects in Alaska - including that widely ridiculed "bridge to nowhere" (for fifty people) has been cut. Senator Stevens of Alaska said he would resign if these awful people took away his bridge, or he'd hold his breath until he turned blue - one of those. We'll see what he does, but that 875 million will go elsewhere.

Other items of note?

There's this -

We Still Don't Have a Plan
What has everybody been doing for three years?
Fred Kaplan - Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2005, at 4:51 PM ET - SLATE.COM
It is becoming increasingly clear that President George W. Bush and his top advisers lack not only a strategy for fighting the war in Iraq but - more disturbing -any idea of how to devise one.

The latest, most jaw-dropping evidence ...
And he goes into what the Wall Street Journal reports. It's not nice. And he reports on the latest book all the generals are reading, Lewis Sorley's A Better War - the new strategy is "clear and hold," abandoning the "search and destroy" strategy we used up to now. And he explains why that won't work.

And that leads us to "the ultimate source of the problem": -
Rumsfeld and most of the others who planned the war thought the battlefield phase would be the only phase; contrary to advice from the CIA and the State Department's regional specialists (whom the White House and Pentagon brusquely ignored), they truly believed that the aftermath wouldn't be a problem. Saddam would be ousted, freedom would be rung, flowers and candies would be flung, Ahmad Chalabi and his militia would ascend to power, and our troops would be home by Christmas, if not by the Fourth of July.

The civilian hawks and neocons weren't alone in this shortsightedness. Military leaders were culpable as well. In 2002, the Army and Air Force conducted war games that simulated an invasion of a country resembling Iraq. In both cases, victory was declared with the toppling of the enemy's leader - not with the accomplishment of the larger strategic goals. As the real war began in the spring of 2003, there was no Army field manual on what used to be called "war termination" - i.e., how to end a war and what to do afterward.

By summer, it was clear to many that capturing Baghdad wasn't synonymous with victory. But the mantra within Bush's inner circle, on all matters of high policy, was firm: Never admit mistakes, never alter course. All hell broke loose in Iraq, and our leaders let it. By the time their attitude changed, and they realized the need for concessions to reality, it was in many ways too late. They never forged a coherent new policy, so even their adjustments were fitful and ad hoc.
And so it goes. Win the battle - lose the war. We win, and create three of four generations of very angry people, the kind who might find their way over here years from now and do just what we say we are fighting to end.

But there's good news out there.

Reuters, from Canberra - Harriet the tortoise turns 175 - "One of the world's oldest living animals, Harriet the tortoise, celebrated her 175th birthday on Tuesday - with a pink hibiscus flower cake at her retirement home in northern Australia."

And don't read this.

Posted by Alan at 20:49 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Wednesday, 16 November 2005 20:58 PST home


Topic: Breaking News

Just in From Paris: All's Quiet, But…
Today's news from France, from Ric Erickson, editor of MetropoleParis - an account of the situation on the ground there today, received in Hollywood just after four in the afternoon, well after midnight in Paris. Things are better, and there's a good bit of detail here not on the wires stateside, including news of that pipe-smoking radical environmental activist.

All's Quiet, But…

PARIS - Wednesday, 16 November -

The Assembly National and the Senat voted to continue the 'state of emergency' today, extending its period for three months. The government's party, the UMP, largely supported the measure, with an assist from the more moderate UDF group.

In the Assembly there were 146 votes against the extension and in the Senat 125 voted against it. The Socialists, Communists, Verts and leftist radicals were more than handily outnumbered by right-wing deputies and senators.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy introduced the text for the government in the Senat - at a time when the suburbs have become a lot less turbulent. Although somewhat perplexed, the UDF supported the project.

During the discussion, all speakers praised the conduct of police and firemen during the riots, excepting the Communists.

The vote came after the 20th night of disturbances. Overnight damage has seriously decreased in volume with police reporting 163 vehicles burned and 50 arrests, and no 'major' confrontations against the 11,600 police and gendarmes mobilized.

Deportation proceedings have begun against ten foreigners who have been convicted of taking part in the riots. The leader of the bar in Seine-Saint-Denis has created a group of volunteer defense lawyers to provide legal aid to the foreigners.

Three highly placed members of the government raised the issue of polygamy in France. Gérard Larcher, deputy minister for employment, suggested that multiple marriages by immigrants is a contributing factor of racial discrimination. Extreme right-wing leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, in a press release, echoed the notion.

The anti-racist organizations, the Ligue des Droits de l'Homme and the MRAP, immediately reacted with disgust and anger at the 'hysterical politics.'

The UMP deputy-mayor of Drancy, Jean-Christophe Lagarde, said that it was 'absurd,' adding that problems of parental authority were more often related to mono-parents that to polygamist ones. "More often it is single mothers who find themselves overwhelmed," he said.

Counter-Spies See No Jihad

The French counter-espionage unit is the DST, which, as its title of Direction de la surveillance du territoire suggests, is watching over the territory - but it seldom tells the public what's going on even though we pay the salaries.

In an interview to be published Friday in the magazine 'Valeurs Actuelles' and reported today by AP in Paris, the DST's chief, Pierre de Bousquet, says that it hasn't seen any indication that religious integrists are involved with the riots.

He was quoted as saying that the troubles are not related to any religious influence. He said some of the foreign press was making a big mistake by connecting trouble in France with bombs in London or Madrid.

In contrast he characterized the terrorist menace in France as 'high' and that it was preoccupying. He estimated that there were only a few individuals in France who might be susceptible to participate in terrorism. However he estimated sympathizers to number several hundreds.

__

Four Months for Bové

Tuesday, 15 November -

The appeals court in Toulouse sentenced José Bové to a four months' prison term today for his part in the destruction of a genetically-modified corn field at Menville in the Haut-Garonne department in July of 2004. Seven others received suspended sentences of three months and two months. They were also ordered to pay a total of 97,300 euros in damages to the three companies operating the cornfield.

The court exonerated one defendant because he wasn't physically able to destroy any of the corn. In the original trial, the state declined to charge two hundred others who had taken part in ripping out the plants.

For the moment the judge has not ordered Mr. Bové to be placed in prison, expecting, because of the severe penalty, that he will appeal the sentence.

During the appeal process the state prosecutor did not consider the defendants to be 'delinquents,' and he did not request prison terms, suspended sentences or fines. Instead he asked for one-year suspensions of their 'civic rights' - rights to vote, to be candidates for office.

TV-news suggested that Mr. Bové, by side-stepping this suspension, will likely be a candidate in the presidential election in 2007.

One of the convicted, Toulouse municipal councilman, François Simon, said the sentences were a 'bludgeon stroke' designed to break the movement of the 'voluntary mowers,' as those who oppose the open fields of experimental trans-genetic crops call themselves.

The Green party denounced the sentences, calling on the government to stage a public debate about the wisdom of growing experimental plants in the open air. The Communist Party criticized the sentences and characterized them as 'politically motivated' and intended to criminalize 'syndical action.' The lawyer for the plaintiffs praised the 'courage' of the court.

__

Photo: The light at the end of...



















Photo and Text, Copyright © 2005 - Ric Erickson, MetropoleParis

Editor's Note:

From left-leaning Pacific News Service As Flames Die Down, Young People in France Exhale and Organize - Russell Morse, New America Media, November 16, 2005 -
Tahar Illikoud is a Spanish Algerian who has lived in the suburbs of Paris for 30 years. He, too, is a security guard and has spent the past two weeks away from his family, driving around the neighborhood on his own time, extinguishing fires and talking to the young people in the streets. "The police can't do this. We have to talk to each other, take care of each other."

He shares an insightful observation on Zinedine Zidane, France's most popular soccer star and one of the biggest names in the sport worldwide. "Zidane's parents, his mother, his father come from Algeria but he is treated as French. When he plays, he plays for France and when he wins, France wins. But us, we don't know what we are. I live for France, I work for France and everything I do is for France, not for my home country. The only difference is that I have an Arab face. And at the end we don't know if we are French or if we are strangers."

While the issues of identity and cultural acceptance have been forced to the front, a cohesive response has not. This outburst was a release of frustration, and now people are eager to return to their lives. They want jobs. What is significant is that people have recognized the extent of the frustration in each other. They saw themselves and their own exasperation and anger in the streets, whether they were out there or not.
The whole item is worth a read.

Posted by Alan at 16:46 PST | Post Comment | Permalink
Updated: Wednesday, 16 November 2005 16:52 PST home

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