Author: digby

Dream Team

Kevin at catch.com finds Instapundit sinking to a new low. Novak and Coulter must be so pleased.

A Madame Zoya Foreign Policy

Via Roger Ailes I found this remarkable example of total incoherence on the Right:

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.

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.

Let Us Pray

Apparently, we should not be overly upset about the casualties in Iraq because there haven’t been as many as in World War II.

One of Instapundit’s readers says:

About 2,500 young men from the Allied nations died on June 6, 1944. 12,000 Americans died in three months’ fighting for Okinawa. While some members of the press (Fox included) might consider themselves honoring the fallen by referring to 12 heroes as “heavy casualties,” they in fact have done a disservice to the concept of sacrifice and a nation’s endurance of it in war. Andrew Sullivan asked us to pray for the Marines in Fallujah; I think we ought to start a prayer with “Dear Lord, please lead members of the press to a doggoned history book. Or Google.”

“Dear Lord, please lead Instapundit’s readers to the chapter on WWII in which it says that Germany declared war on the US, overran most of Europe and invaded Russia and may they read the part where it shows the US was attacked by Japan. After that perhaps they could be led to Google to find out how many casualties were suffered over all in WWII in countries from one end of the globe to the other. May you then remind them that the war we fought then was one of survival, not one of choice based upon lies, bad information and optimistic scenarios — and that the lesson of that war was that wars of aggression would never again be sanctioned by the civilized world. Until now.

Finally, Dear Lord, may you hand them each an apple and an orange and explain to them the difference. Amen.”

Why Do You Hate Civilization So Much?

Thank goodness we finally have somebody dispassionately assessing the situation in Iraq and telling it like it is. You see, when David Brooks isn’t scarfing up mini meals at Red Lobster, our intrepid war correspondent is bravely chatting to people who are “familiar with the region” and they fill him in on the real skinny in Iraq. It’s a coupla opportunistic thugs and some ungrateful punks trying to take advantage of our goodness, that’s all. Lucky for us our leaders are resolved and bold while being cool, bold and resolved:

Most important, leadership in the U.S. is for once cool and resolved. This week I spoke with leading Democrats and Republicans and found a virtual consensus. We’re going to keep the June 30 handover deadline. We’re going to raise troop levels if necessary. We’re going to wait for the holy period to end and crush Sadr. As Joe Lieberman put it, a military offensive will alienate Iraqis, but “the greater risk is [Sadr] will grow into something malevolent.” As Charles Hill, the legendary foreign service officer who now teaches at Yale, observed, “I’ve been pleasantly surprised by the boldness and resolve.”

Nonetheless, yesterday’s defections from the Iraqi Governing Council show that populist pressure on the good guys is getting intense. Maybe it is time to pause, to let passions cool, to let the democrats marshal their forces. If people like Sistani are forced to declare war on the U.S., the gates of hell will open up.

Over the long run, though, the task is unavoidable. Sadr is an enemy of civilization. The terrorists are enemies of civilization. They must be defeated.

Nevah Give Up, Nevah Give In, nevah, nevah, nevah!

(Oh, sorry about that. I just got carried away with Field Marshall Brooks’s gripping call to arms for a minute.)

So, Sadr is an enemy of civilization, now, not just the US. (Or have the two words become synonymous?) Jeez, you used to have to commit genocide or gas your own people or mastermind a huge terrorist act to be an enemy of civilization. Now all you have to do is incite a couple of days of violence in Iraq. If that’s the new definition I have a feeling that the list of enemies of civilization is going to get mighty unwieldy.

These people are going to be liberated, goddamit, whether they like it or not! Civilization depends on it.

Update:

I’m aware that Sadr is a fundamentalist extremist in the mode of the Taliban. He is the last person anyone would want to see in power. But, it is not helpful to simplify this problem by saying that we are dealing with “thugs” or to unnecessarily inflate it to a clash of civilizations.

The problem in Iraq is political. We are witnessing the entirely predictable struggle for power that the US refused to admit would happen and for which they refused to prepare. Our bedfellows, from the likes of Chalabi on the one hand to Bahr Ul Iloom on the other, illustrate that we had no principles in choosing the new leaders of Iraq and the result is that the hothead we marginalized is making use of the anti-Americanism that predictably resulted from a badly run occupation. Kill Sadr tomorrow and he’ll be replaced by somebody just like him. Meanwhile the IGC is coming apart at the seams.

This isn’t a clash of civilizations. It’s the beginning of another civil war that the US finds itself in the middle of because of a feckless foreign policy. I’m beginning to think that the chickenhawks are simply reliving their youth. Once again they are sitting comfortably at home, cheering from the sidelines, willfully misinterpreting the facts while others die for the cause they support. These are the good old days.

A Beautiful Vacant Mind

President Bush’s August 2001 briefing on terrorism threats, described largely as a historical document, included information from three months earlier that al-Qaida was trying to send operatives into the United States for an explosives attack, according to several people who have seen the memo.

The so-called presidential daily briefing, or PDB, delivered to Bush on Aug. 6, 2001 – a month before the Sept. 11 attacks – said there were various reports that Osama bin Laden had wanted to strike inside the United States as early as 1997 and continuing into the spring of 2001, the sources told The Associated Press.

[…]

The sources said the presidential memo included a series of bullet items that brought Bush through a history of mostly uncorroborated intelligence that cited al-Qaida’s interest in hijacking planes to win the release of Islamic extremists who had been arrested in 1998 and 1999 as well as the travelings of suspected al-Qaida operatives, include some U.S. citizens, in and out of the United States. It suggested al-Qaida might have a support system in place on U.S. soil, the sources said.

The document also included FBI analytical judgments that some al-Qaida activities were consistent with preparation for airline hijackings or other types of attacks, some members of the commission looking into the Sept. 11 attacks said earlier this week.

The second-to-last bullet told the president that there were numerous – at least 70 – terror-related investigations under way by the FBI in 2001 involving matters or people on U.S. soil, the sources said.

And the final bullet told the president of a recent intelligence report indicating al-Qaida operatives were trying to get inside the United States to carry out an attack with explosives, the sources said. There was no specifics about the timing or target, the sources said.

This finally explains why just 5 weeks later, one day after the attacks, Bush dragged Richard Clarke into a room and insisted he investigate Iraq’s possible involvement. You wouldn’t have wanted him to go off half cocked and blame the wrong guy…

Number One With A Bullet

If anyone still doubts that politics has left the realm of reality and entered the world of show business, I would suggest that they tune into “Hardball” where television critic Tom Shales is critiquing Condi Rice’s “performance” yesterday. He rated the hearings for drama and suspense and reviewed the various exchanges between the commissioners and Condi as dramatic scenes and sequences.

Personally, I didn’t think there was enough sex and violence in that show. Thankfully there was the gory Iraq footage of bloodied marines and iraqi civilians later in the day to sate my bloodlust. It’s almost as good as Survivor. And that footage of the Japanese hostages is just super. “Will they be rescued or will the bad guys burn them alive?” Stay tuned….

As for sex, I’m just glad that President Clinton testified in secret immediately after Condi, so we can assume that some press ho will report a breathless account of his “testimony” at some point (they always do.) All I can say is those commissioners emerged later in the day looking downright limp with satisfaction:

HAMILTON: Well, it was fascinating, absolutely fascinating. And I think every commissioner would agree with that. He was exceedingly generous with his time, very candid in his discussions of even the most delicate kinds of relationships … I think the commissioners were all favorably impressed, both Republican and Democrat, and very appreciative of the amount of time that he gave to us.

KEAN: And he was just totally frank — totally frank, totally honest, and forthcoming… he said, “I’ll stay just as long as you all want me to.”

Oooh La La. A 240 minute man.

I can hardly wait for Ashcroft’s testimony next week. Maybe he’ll share some of the naughty bits about the porn investigations and sing a chorus or two of “Let The Ego Soar.”

I love Show Biz.

Follow The Money

As if there wasn’t enough trouble already, Sean-Paul has an interesting item this morning about the shaky state of Iraq’s finances:

Ahead of a deadline for the transfer of power, the Coalition Provisional Authority’s reporting of Iraqi finances falls short of international standards of accounting and transparency, said a report by the Open Society Institute’s Iraq Revenue Watch project. The report, Opening the Books: Transparent Budgeting for Iraq, urges the CPA and the Iraqi Governing Council to make further improvements in accordance with these standards before a new Iraqi government is elected in 2005.

[…]

Iraq’s 2004 budget, produced by the CPA and Iraq’s Ministries of Finance and Planning, is the country’s first full-year financial plan since Saddam Hussein’s removal. However, it lacks key information about state-owned enterprises, financing for sub-national governments, and contingencies that pose significant risks to Iraq’s public purse. There is no contingency planning for what Iraq will do if oil prices fall or exports are disrupted, if hostilities resume, or foreign aid fails to materialize

Well, convicted felon Ahmad Chalabi’s crony Kamil Mubdir al-Kaylani is the minister of finance and his nephew, Ali’Alawi, is the Minister of Trade, so perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised.

However, since Ken Lay was unavailable, the CPA installed right wing nut and GOP hack David M. Nummy as the senior advisor to the treasury so it can be asumed that all of the safeguards and transparency we have come to expect from the Bush administration are being employed in the new Iraqi economy. There’s nothing to worry about.

Fool Me Once…

Atrios points out that it’s a little bit cheeky of some people to preface their criticisms of the current situation in Iraq with “as a war supporter” since that designation automatically makes their judgment suspect:

One should not have to have been “pro-war” to be a critic of what’s going on. I’m tired of people prefacing their criticisms with phrases like “as someone who supported this war…” Well, you were wrong. Why should we listen to you now?

Plenty of us knew that this neocon claque was going to screw this thing up and said so at the time. Suddenly realizing that Bush is incompetent and that his advisors are living in a dream world is a year late and 200 billion dollars short.

Who Us?

Here’s an interesting tid bit from my left brain

One of Rice’s answers today caught my attention. She was excusing why the Bush administration hadn’t acted on what she considered a “vague” threat:

…when you cannot tell people where a hijacking might occur under what circumstances I can tell you that I think the best antidote to what happened in that regard would have been many years before to think about what you could do, for instance, to harden cockpits. That would have made a difference. We weren’t going to harden cockpits in the three months that we had a threat spike. [emphasis added]]

[…]

After 9/11, it took the airlines fewer than three months to strengthen the cockpits by adding bars to the doors and other measures. In fact, it took them one month. Airlines were told to do something to secure cockpit doors in early October 2001 and the Transportation Secretary announced on November 9 that all airlines had completed this task.

Granted, it’s unlikely that they would have undertaken this job based upon vague threats, but it certainly was possible to achieve it if they had. And, today we found out that Norm Mineta didn’t even know there was a threat spike.

I realize that the airline industry was dragged into fixing those doors kicking and screaming and short of catastrophe they were unwilling to budge. Regardless, it’s a bit rich that Condi thinks that previous administrations should have done this, but not hers. Sadly for all of us, 9/11 happened on her watch, not theirs, and she was the one getting the highjacking warnings and had the head of CIA and her counterterorism chief running around screaming bloody murder.

Being a wholly owned subsidiary of US Industry made the Bush administration more able to accomplish this task than the previous one. Like Nixon and China, Bush should have been the guy to force the industry to bite the bullet. And it certainly makes you wonder why Condi and Company still haven’t done anything about this:

Even though small commercial aircraft are more likely to be lost in a shoulder-fired missile attack, two of the jet aircraft most familiar to American travelers have proven surprisingly vulnerable: Of the five Boeing 727s and 737s that have been hit by shoulder-launched missiles, three have been shot down, and in one of them 130 people died just after takeoff in Angola.

Despite the demonstrated risk that these missiles pose, no meaningful changes have been made to commercial aircraft design or flight operations to reduce it. While the president and other officials travel on aircraft equipped with countermeasures systems that protect them against a missile attack, most Americans do not. “The threats are real and the countermeasures exist,” a retired government anti-terrorism expert told Salon, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Some of us are perplexed as to why a greater sense of urgency hasn’t been demonstrated in securing our airspace.”

MIA

This has been bugging the hell out of me as well. It’s one thing for Kerry to allow Bush to swing in the wind on the pre-9/11 stuff. Let the widows and the whistleblowers take that on. The less partisanship the better. But, Iraq is something else entirely.

Iraq is a crisis and an ongoing problem and it isn’t enough for it to be seen blowing up on television. Kerry has got to convince people that Bush is the problem and that he can fix it. Instead, he’s acting clueless and disengaged.

I sincerely hope that they are not planning to re-run the 2002 midterm campaign because we will lose again. A tie goes to the codpiece. You can’t ignore national security. Not only is it a more glamorous subject for the news media to cover, it is also a clearer demonstration of presidential leadership. With a war going on, a presidential candidate simply has to meet it head on or look like a sissy even if the other guy is self-destructing.

The Salon article linked above says:

A Kerry spokesman told Salon on Thursday that it’s incumbent on Bush — not Kerry — to address the crisis in Iraq. “What has the president said about this?” the Kerry spokesman asked. “He needs to explain what his policy is, what his plan is to address what’s going on right now. But he’s been down on his ranch in Crawford. The spotlight isn’t on John Kerry. The spotlight needs to be on Bush. He’s the president, and he’s the person who has carved out these policies.”

Bullshit. The spotlight may “need” to be on Bush, but Americans want to know what the alternative thinks is the problem and what he thinks needs to be done. This is a total pussy response and it is simply not good enough. And it isn’t just the campaign flack. Check out Kerry himself on Judy Woodruff yesterday, and note how she used his dramatic line from his congressional testimony against him. It was a terrible moment:

WOODRUFF: …Well, as we know, the would-be presumed Democratic nominee for president, Senator John Kerry, has often criticized the Bush administration for what he says is a unilateral approach in Iraq. I spoke with Senator Kerry just a little while ago and I started by asking for his reaction to Bush advisers who say they are already doing much of what Kerry advocates and that his criticism amounts to what they call phony politics.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KERRY: They’re doing it in such a frankly, inept way, Judy, that they’re not really inviting anybody sufficiently to the table. People don’t want to go to work for Paul Bremer and the provisional authority. What you need to do is have a transfer of authority for the reconstruction and for the transformation of the government to a legitimate international entity. Every day that goes by that this administration has refused to do it has complicated the doing of it. They, in fact, have made it much harder to accomplish what could have been accomplished and should have been accomplished a long time ago. I refuse to accept that logic from them, and I laid out this plan months ago. They’re trying to do it through the backdoor, through almost through the keyhole rather than openly coming forward and acknowledging they need help.

WOODRUFF: So Senator…

KERRY: The Arab countries have an interest…

WOODRUFF: What exactly right now would you do differently?

KERRY: Right now, what I would do differently is, I mean, look, I’m not the president, and I didn’t create this mess so I don’t want to acknowledge a mistake that I haven’t made. The president needs to step up and acknowledge that there are difficulties and that the world needs to be involved and they need to reverse their policy that countries that were not involved in supporting us are not going to be part of the reconstruction.

I mean, that’s a terrible message to send to countries. They need to go to the world and say we’re not going to have an American authority that is — creating this new government. We’re going to have an international authority that will help develop the new government and absent a legitimate effort to globalize this presence, they’re going to continue to have the very problems they have today.

This was predictable, and there are many of us who have said that this is exactly the kind of thing that will happen absent a legitimate kind of international presence.

WOODRUFF: Senator, you said it was a mistake, not your mistake, but you called it a mistake and also said you wouldn’t cut and run. You’ve acknowledged there may need to be more troops. If there were a President Kerry, he might have to send in more troops. I want to ask you the question you asked during the Vietnam war. How do you ask a man and today that would be a man or a woman, to be the last to die for a mistake?

KERRY: Well, the mistake that I’m talking about, Judy, is not the effort to fight and have — not the effort to have a stable Iraq. The mistake is in the way that they are going about it. So I would change the way you’re going about it. I mean again and again, I have said, I laid out with great specificity months ago the steps that they should have taken, and I believe that those people who have been in touch with people in the international community know there is a different and better way to put together an effort that could legitimize a government in Iraq. If we insist on doing this through our provisional government authority, if we insist on being totally in control the way we are today, we’re going to having an impossible time legitimately bringing people to the table.

Just shoot me now. This is going to be a long campaign.

Why can’t he say, “I’m not sure what George W. Bush could do to help the situation other than delay the June 30th date until after the election so that another president can be elected to replace him. Because the problem, Judy, is that nobody in the world believes a thing George W. Bush says anymore and that includes the Iraqis.

If I were in office, we wouldn’t be in the mess because I would never make it a policy to unnecessarily alienate the entire world. Nor would I trust those who only feed me optimistic scenarios. I would never allow our military to operate at anything less than the levels that are needed to achieve the mission, and I would listen to the military experts, not unqualified ideologues like Newt Gingrich, when making those decisions.

I’m afraid, Judy, that George W. Bush has gotten himself into a mess that he cannot resolve because of his previous actions. I trust our military to hang on and do the fine work that they always do. They will do what is necessary to ensure that the country is secure in the short term. But this crisis untimately requires a political solution and George W. Bush has run out of political options. A new president and a fresh start is what’s required to fix this problem. Only then can rebuild the trust of our allies and go back to the drawing board with all the parties and set a proper course for a free and democratic Iraq.”

I’m sure he and others can come up with better langauge. But, the message is that the problem is George W. Bush. When he is replaced a whole range of options become available that are now foreclosed because of the world’s mistrust of his intelligence, his motives, his integrity and his ability.

Or he could ignore it and keep talking about the budget deficit while CNN is showing marines getting picked off by the dozens, live and in color. That looks to me like the campaign equivalent of Junior reading that story about the goat to the second graders while the WTC was collapsing. It doesn’t show leadership. And that’s the theme of this election.