Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Nutty Buddy

by digby

I had read excerpts of Fred Barnes’ column describing his meeting with the president and fellow conservative sycpophants, but I didn’t get a chance to read the whole thing until today. The codpiece is full to bursting even as the mind is shrinking.

Inside the Oval Office President Bush gives journalists a “heads up” about the mid-term elections, among other things.
[That’s the real headline, I swear — d]

WE NOW KNOW WHY the Bush administration hasn’t made the capture of Osama bin Laden a paramount goal of the war on terror. Emphasis on bin Laden doesn’t fit with the administration’s strategy for combating terrorism. Here’s how President Bush explained this Tuesday: “This thing about . . . let’s put 100,000 of our special forces stomping through Pakistan in order to find bin Laden is just simply not the strategy that will work.”

Rather, Bush says there’s a better way to stay on offense against terrorists. “The way you win the war on terror,” Bush said, “is to find people [who are terrorists] and get them to give you information about what their buddies are fixing to do.” In a speech last week, the president explained how this had worked–starting with the arrest and interrogation of 9/11 planner Khalid Sheik Muhammad–to break up a terrorist operation that was planning post-9/11 attacks on America.

“It’s really important at this stage . . . to be thinking about how to institutionalize courses of action that will enable future presidents to gain the information necessary to prevent attack,” he said. This, presumably, would include the use of secret prisons, tough but legal interrogation techniques, a ban on lawsuits against interrogators, electronic eavesdropping, and monitoring of bank transfers, among other measures.

Bush talked about his strategy in the fight against Islamic jihadists in a 95-minute session in the Oval Office with seven journalists. At the outset of the interview, which occurred the morning after his speech to the nation on the fifth anniversary of 9/11, Bush declared: “I’ve never been more convinced that the decisions I made are the right decisions.”

Barnes is so in the tank for Bush that he’s grown gills, so I wouldn’t expect even the tiniest bit of skepticism from him. But I assume he’s accurately reporting what the president said. And he’s reporting that Bush’s plan to combat terrorism is to institutionalize torture, warrentless spying on his own citizens, indefinite detention, secret prisons, warrantless monitoring of bank transfers and legal immunity for those who carry out those tasks.

What do you suppose such “institutions” usually characterize?

He’s also consciously conflating “rogue states” and terrorists, and failing to draw the proper distinctions at the same time, just as he’s done from the beginning. He does not think, for instance, that it’s important to “decapitate” the head of al Qaeda, yet “decapitating” Saddam Hussein made the world safer.

I’m sure I don’t need to point out how wrong both of those suppositions are. Bin Laden continuing to elude the vast power of the US only makes him stronger — and deposing Saddam uselessly destabilized the world in ways that we haven’t even been able to fully discern yet. (What we know now is that we have precipitated a civil war in Iraq and empowered Iran — not bad for government work.)

This also brings up something I found somewhat hilarious in his press conference the other day:

Q Thank you, Mr. President. Earlier this week, you told a group of journalists that you thought the idea of sending special forces to Pakistan to hunt down bin Laden was a strategy that would not work.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

Q Now, recently you’ve also —

THE PRESIDENT: Because, first of all, Pakistan is a sovereign nation.

Q Well, recently you’ve also described bin Laden as a sort of modern day Hitler or Mussolini. And I’m wondering why, if you can explain why you think it’s a bad idea to send more resources to hunt down bin Laden, wherever he is?

THE PRESIDENT: We are, Richard. Thank you. Thanks for asking the question. They were asking me about somebody’s report, well, special forces here — Pakistan — if he is in Pakistan, as this person thought he might be, who is asking the question — Pakistan is a sovereign nation. In order for us to send thousands of troops into a sovereign nation, we’ve got to be invited by the government of Pakistan.

I know. I know…

Barnes continues:

Bush said it’s difficult for many people to understand how serious the terrorist threat is. “It’s impossible for someone to have grown up in the 50s and 60s to envision a conflict with people that just kill mercilessly, using techniques that are kind of foreign to modern warfare. But it’s real. I’m telling you, it’s real.”

I grew up in the 1960’s doing nuclear war drills in school. My next door neighbors in Wichita, Kansas had a bomb shelter in their back yard. On October 22, 1962 the president of United States went on television and told the American people that we were on the brink of nuclear war — and we were. If he thinks that is somehow less frightening than bunch of suicde bombers and nutballs with box cutters, he truly is stupid.

This was what a president sounds like when he is dealing with a real and imminent existential threat:

I call upon Chairman Khrushchev to halt and eliminate this clandestine, reckless, and provocative threat to world peace and to stable relations between our two nations. I call upon him further to abandon this course of world domination, and to join in an historic effort to end the perilous arms race and to transform the history of man. He has an opportunity now to move the world back from the abyss of destruction by returning to his government’s own words that it had no need to station missiles outside its own territory, and withdrawing these weapons from Cuba by refraining from any action which will widen or deepen the present crisis, and then by participating in a search for peaceful and permanent solutions.

I pity these poor idiots who are so desperate for meaning in their lives that they are trying to turn Islamic extremism into a threat on that scale. Apparently, since it isn’t they are just going to try to make it so.

The aburdity of his statement that people who grew up in the 50’s and 60’s can’t understand this kind of threat should send chills down people’s spines, however. This is the president of the United States not some moist, bobby soxer who’s desperate to be that nurse kissing the handsome sailor in the famous VE Day picture. We need leaders who are clear eyed about threats to our country and fashion appropriate responses.

Barnes continues:

Bush dismissed as cynical the charge that he hasn’t asked the American people to accept sacrifices as American soldiers fight against terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere. “You know what the definition of sacrifice is for a lot of people” who question him about the lack of sacrifice? “How come you didn’t raise taxes? That’s what that means as far as I’m concerned . . . If we had raised taxes to create a sense of sacrifice, it would have caused even greater sacrifice because I believe raising taxes in a recession would cause the economy to get even worse.”

I don’t know what he thinks he’s saying here, but he’s said it more than once. Evidently he’s persuaded himself that by cutting taxes, he’s asked the American people to sacrifice. Or something. It’s completely incoherent.

The truth is that he hasn’t asked anyone for a sacrifice (except the poor soldiers) because he’s waiting to get out of office so somebody else can give the country the bad news and be blamed for it. That’s how Republicans govern. And until Democrats learn to hang this stuff around their necks they will continue to get away with it.

The president said he is not isolated in the White House. “I know exactly what’s in the news,” he said. “I listen to a lot of people. I’ve got smart people around me. And they can march right in here–this Oval Office can be slightly intimidating, but I’ve got people here who can fight through the aura and say, ‘I think you’re wrong. I think you’re right.'”

Bullshit:

It’s a standing joke among the president’s top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States, or, as he is known in West Wing jargon, POTUS…it is not clear what President Bush does read or watch, aside from the occasional biography and an hour or two of ESPN here and there. Bush can be petulant about dissent; he equates disagreement with disloyalty. After five years in office, he is surrounded largely by people who agree with him. Bush can ask tough questions, but it’s mostly a one-way street. Most presidents keep a devil’s advocate around. Lyndon Johnson had George Ball on Vietnam; President Ronald Reagan and Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, grudgingly listened to the arguments of Budget Director Richard Darman, who told them what they didn’t wish to hear: that they would have to raise taxes. When Hurricane Katrina struck, it appears there was no one to tell President Bush the plain truth.

He won’t stand for dissent, it’s quite obvious. Instead, grey eminences like Dick Cheney play all kinds of mind games to get him to do something he doesn’t understand. He is a spoiled, stupid stubborn little brat — a dauphin terror who does not lead but rather succumbs to whichever appeal to his vanity sounds good. He is a disaster.

In the midterm election on November 7, Bush predicted Democrats won’t win either the House or the Senate. “I believe these elections will come down to two things: one, firm belief that in order to win the war on terror there must be a comprehensive strategy that recognizes this war is being fought on more than one front, and, two, the economy.” Bush said the price of gasoline, which has been falling rapidly, is one of the “interesting indicators” that the press should watch carefully. “Just giving you a heads up,” he added.

I guess he told them to “turn on the spigot.”

This guy doesn’t just sound thick and slow any more. He increasingly sounds completely nuts.

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Tortured Compromise

by digby

The outlines of the torture debate kabuki emerged this morning with the interviews with John McCain and Stephen Hadley on This Week. It is actually quite straightforward. McCain was very optimistic they could reach a compromise and Hadley said that the three conditions for compromise are this:

1. they must be able to keep the program (which is, of course, entirely up to Junior who stomped his little feet until he turned blue at his press conference, threatening to allow terrorists to kill us all in our beds if he doesn’t get his way.) It’s entirely within his power to “keep the program.”

2. they must give their intelligence professionals “clear guidelines” with congressional support. In other words they need some sort of bill that says the congress supports the president’s CIA interrogation program. (Perhaps Bush can lead a little cheer.)”Clear guidelines” means nothing. What they are seeking is exactly opposite of “clear guidelines. So, basically, they simply have to assert that they’ve got them and they’ve got them. Check.

3. they must find a way to do this by accomodating McCain’s desire that they not “amend” Article III. McCain has already set forth how they will do this:

McCain and the other GOP senators have indicated they would be willing to amend domestic U.S. law, especially the War Crimes Act, to permit at least some “enhanced” CIA techniques. They are also willing to pass legislation that would deny many rights to detainees at Guantánamo Bay and allow them to be held indefinitely.

Bush has always said that he wanted to “clarify” Article III and I predict that they will soon have a breakthrough that says they have found a way to do just that — by amending the War Crimes Act.

And all over the country the word will go forth that the Republicans in the US Senate stood up to the unpopular George W. Bush — Sing Hallalujah! They are tough on terrorists and moral to boot! We can all vote Republican again with a clear conscience — accountability and oversight have arrived thanks to St. John McCain the Anointed One.

Aside from the obvious electoral benefits of this kabuki dance, I also suspect the administration’s substantive goal all along was to stage a public fight on torture in order to get the congress to compromise on all the military tribunal issues. They got their cornpone tool Huckelberry Graham to eliminate judicial review and habeas corpus, and all they need now is to force the kewl mavericks to give up their requirement that terrorists be allowed access to the evidence against them and they will have codified their Gitmo gulag. Excellent work.

Update: The main reason I know this is kabuki is more than just instinct. It’s because crap like this gives away the game:

Another irony lies in the fact that the congressional rules for interrogations that the Bush administration now seeks to embrace in the new legislation — the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005 — were vigorously opposed by the White House before their adoption by Congress. Bush disliked them so much that when he signed the law Dec. 30, he appended a statement objecting to some of its provisions and explicitly reserved his right to interpret them “in a manner consistent” with his constitutional authorities as president and commander in chief.

In another twist, the principal Republican lawmakers responsible for the Detainee Treatment Act — Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) — said last year that they meant the law to set a minimum, humane standard of treatment for detainees held by both the Defense Department and the CIA. But they now are telling colleagues it would be a bad law for the CIA to follow in the future because its language would slight international treaty obligations.

A retired intelligence professional who said he has discussed the matter at length with colleagues said the predominant view at the agency is that McCain — who made clear in congressional debate last year that he disapproved of what the CIA was doing — was surprised to learn later that the Detainee Treatment Act did not put a stop to it.

All those “twists” and “ironies” and the picture of a naive, hoodwinked St John the Anointed just don’t pass the smell test.

I have no doubt that McCain and Bush will stand together, all smiles, at a bill signing ceremony some time in the not too distant future. And then the president will issue a signing statement designed to cover his ass and everyone elses ass and John McCain will run for president as the man who saved America’s soul.

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Catching Up And The Doctrine Of The Good

by tristero

Two points to add to Digby’s post on the sheer stupidity, Republcian cronyism and cynicism that operated within the CPA:

1. This story is not news. I recall hearing within months of the invasion that the main qualification for service in CPA was obeisance to the Sun King of Crawford. What is news is the prominence that an influential member of the media is providing for this story. In an election season no less. But the fact that this wasn’t discussed when it was happening should remind us all of how completely the media was co-opted when it mattered the most, when robust reporting could have made a difference.

Not that by the time of the CPA much difference could be possible. The moment the invasion started, a blunder of historical proportions was set in motion. The rest is weary detail and a Euphrates of blood.

As glad as I am that these stories are finally getting wide, prominent coverage, I would be a lot happier if the press would report aggressively and, most importantly, report in a prominent way in real time on the current pack of lies about Iran and the Bush administration’s plans for war. While readers of this blog are informed enough to know that war with Iran is a very real possibility unless there is a significant shift of power in Congress this fall, it seems to be falling under the radar of most Americans.

Time to beat the drums, loudly.

2. Perhaps the most difficult thing for normals like you and I to understand is the myth that “The Good Person can do no wrong” to which rightwing nuts, especially the religious, are so prone. But it is quite real. When Bush nominated Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court, a woman with absolutely no legitimate qualifications for such an intellectually demanding job, he defended her by insisting on her Goodness. And had she been found to be truly Good by the extreme right, she would be sitting on the court right now, in way, way, way over her head. But it wasn’t her lack of qualifications that doomed Miers. It was that, to the right, she wasn’t Good – she was a feminist who probably had objections to poor women using coathangers and lye for abortion.

To the right, if you are Good, then you simply cannot, by definition, do wrong. So, when you’re looking to fill a position of authority, you don’t look for the most qualified in terms of experience. You look for the person who is the most Good. Since being a “Christian” means you’re Good, since being a Republican loyal to Bush means you’re Good, that is far more important than Arab language skills. Because what does it matter if you can speak the language if you’re not Good? By definition your decisions are Bad!

Therefore, from the Bush administration’s standpoint, they truly believed they were hiring the best people possible to bring Iraq rapidly to its feet. Yes, of course, it was cynical politicking. But it was also, at the same time and without contradiction, utterly sincere.

And therefore, not only must Republicans be routed from Congress this fall, but Americans must fight a constant battle to ensure that in the future, these lunatics lose even more influence over the American government and never regain the presidency.

[Update: See Billmon for more info in the well-titled The RNC Branch Office on the Tigris. ht Nell and Hamletta in comments.]

[Update: Atrios makes the important point that it’s not just the notion of The Good that drives the rightwing, or cynicism but also a full disconnect with reality and genuine sociopathy. Agreed.]

Katrina Queen Of The Desert

by digby

Atrios links to another lengthy part of this fascinating article but I think the lede is worth excerpting too. Before there was Katrina, there was the CPA:

After the fall of Saddam Hussein’s government in April 2003, the opportunity to participate in the U.S.-led effort to reconstruct Iraq attracted all manner of Americans — restless professionals, Arabic-speaking academics, development specialists and war-zone adventurers. But before they could go to Baghdad, they had to get past Jim O’Beirne’s office in the Pentagon.

To pass muster with O’Beirne, a political appointee who screens prospective political appointees for Defense Department posts, applicants didn’t need to be experts in the Middle East or in post-conflict reconstruction. What they needed to be was a member of the Republican Party.

O’Beirne’s staff posed blunt questions about domestic politics: Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Do you support the way the president is fighting the war on terror? Two people who sought jobs with the U.S. occupation authority said they were even asked their views on Roe v. Wade .

Many of those chosen by O’Beirne’s office to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which ran Iraq’s government from April 2003 to June 2004, lacked vital skills and experience. A 24-year-old who had never worked in finance — but had applied for a White House job — was sent to reopen Baghdad’s stock exchange. The daughter of a prominent neoconservative commentator and a recent graduate from an evangelical university for home-schooled children were tapped to manage Iraq’s $13 billion budget, even though they didn’t have a background in accounting.

The decision to send the loyal and the willing instead of the best and the brightest is now regarded by many people involved in the 3 1/2 -year effort to stabilize and rebuild Iraq as one of the Bush administration’s gravest errors. Many of those selected because of their political fidelity spent their time trying to impose a conservative agenda on the postwar occupation that sidetracked more important reconstruction efforts and squandered goodwill among the Iraqi people.

The CPA had the power to enact laws, print currency, collect taxes, deploy police and spend Iraq’s oil revenue. It had more than 1,500 employees in Baghdad at its height, working under America’s viceroy in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, but never released a public roster of its entire staff.

Interviews with scores of former CPA personnel over the past two years depict an organization that was dominated — and ultimately hobbled — by administration ideologues.

“We didn’t tap — and it should have started from the White House on down — just didn’t tap the right people to do this job,” said Frederick Smith, who served as the deputy director of the CPA’s Washington office. “It was a tough, tough job. Instead we got people who went out there because of their political leanings.”

(Jim O’Beirne, by the way, is the husband of wingnut welfare queen Kate O’Beirne, naturally. There’s never more than one degree of separation between these taxpayer scam artists.)

The Republicans are telling us that they should be re-elected because the Democrats aren’t serious about national security and only they can be trusted to keep the terrorists from killing us in our beds.

But the way the administration went about creating the CPA illustrates everything you need to know about the childlike sciolism of these so-called grown-ups. They insisted on invading a well contained country of 25 million people, ripped its society to shreds, and then put a bunch of low level cronies and inexperienced schoolkids in charge of creating a Club for Growth wet dream in the desert. And they spent billions and billions of dollars failing to do anything but lay the groundwork for civil war. I don’t know if it’s possible to screw up on a grander scale than that.

Here’s the question for the American people. Let’s, for the sake of argument, say that you don’t like Democrats. You have the vague feeling in the pit of your stomach that they just don’t have the cojones to do “what needs to be done.” You can’t get over the feeling that they aren’t serious enough.

But if you are a thoughtful person of any political persuasion who is concerned about national security or the economy, you simply cannot read that story above and have even the slightest faith that such people can be trusted to continue to run the government with no oversight.

The question is not whether the Democrats have a better plan to correct these grievous errors or whether they are hard enough to deal with hard issues. The question is how anyone could think Democrats could possibly be worse than an administration that ordered the US government to eschew all expertise and give billions of taxpayer dollars to inexperienced Republican functionaries to rebuild a foreign country from the ground up? Considering the stakes in all this, I don’t see how anyone can think it’s a good idea to let these people continue unchecked. They screw up everything they touch and they never, ever, learn from their mistakes.

I find it very hard to believe that anyone who isn’t a purely faith-based voter can read this story in the Washington Post and come away believing that the Republicans are capable of running any government, much less the government of the most powerful country in the world. They are like children playing Risk and Monopoly.

If anyone thinks that political considerations will keep people like this from making more huge, irrevocable, catastrophic strategic blunders are kidding themselves. They are capable of anything. That’s not hyperbole. Read the article and then bookmark it. We’re going to need it to send to journalists and members of the press over the next few weeks to remind them about GOP “seriousness.”

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First As Tragedy, Then As Farce Worse Tragedy

by tristero

Via Atrios via Josh comes this reminder that there really is something terribly wrong both with the leaders of the US for thinking like this and with the people in this country who let them get away with it:

U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials say Bush political appointees and hard-liners on Capitol Hill have tried recently to portray Iran’s nuclear program as more advanced than it is and to exaggerate Tehran’s role in Hezbollah’s attack on Israel in mid-July. [Heard that one before.]

The struggle’s outcome could have profound implications for U.S. policy.

President Bush, who addresses the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, has said he prefers diplomacy to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon [And the moon is made of green cheese.], but he hasn’t ruled out using military force.

Several former U.S. defense officials who maintain close ties to the Pentagon say they’ve been told that plans for airstrikes – if Bush deems them necessary – are being updated. [To include nukes, I wonder?]

[snip]

The International Atomic Energy Agency complained in an unusual letter made public on Thursday that a House intelligence committee report on Iran contains “erroneous, misleading and unsubstantiated information.”

A top official of the IAEA, which conducts nuclear inspections in Iran and elsewhere, wrote that the report exaggerated advances Tehran has made in enriching uranium, which can be used to fuel nuclear arms if made pure enough. The official, Vilmos Cserveny, said the report also falsely claimed that IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei had removed an inspector from Iran for being too aggressive.

Cserveny’s letter was addressed to intelligence committee chairman Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich.

Hoekstra spokesman Jamal Ware said that the reference to weapons-grade uranium in the report was in a photo caption [where it would stand out like it was, heh, radioactive], but that the report makes clear elsewhere that Iran has not yet achieved that capability.

[Snip, in which the article asserts that most experts agree that Iran is, unlike Iraq, actively seeking nuclear weapons technology.]

The dispute was a virtual rerun of the months before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, when ElBaradei and his agency questioned claims that Saddam Hussein was aggressively seeking nuclear weapons. Some top U.S. officials sought to discredit ElBaradei, although the IAEA’s assessment proved correct.

The IAEA’s written protest, dated Tuesday, was echoed privately by U.S. intelligence analysts, who saw the House report as an attempt to discredit the CIA and other agencies on Iran.

Some officials at the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the State Department said they’re concerned that the offices of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney may be receiving a stream of questionable information that originates with Iranian exiles, including a discredited arms dealer, Manucher Ghorbanifar, who played a role in the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal.

Officials at all three agencies said they suspect that the dubious information may include claims that Iran directed Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, to kidnap two Israeli soldiers in July; that Iran’s nuclear program is moving faster than generally believed; and that the Iranian people are eager to join foreign efforts to overthrow their theocratic rulers.

The officials said there is no reliable intelligence to support any of those assertions and some that contradicts all three.

The officials said they fear a replay of the administration’s mishandling of what turned out to be bogus information from Iraqi exiles in the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, documented earlier this month in a Senate intelligence committee report.

But they said this time, intelligence analysts and others are more forcefully challenging claims they believe to be false or questionable.

“There’s no question that people are less afraid to speak up after what happened in Iraq,” said one intelligence official. “There’s less of an inclination to let Cheney and Rumsfeld run free.” [We’ll see how successful they are.]

[Snip]

“That is outright manipulation of information to suggest a predetermined policy,” Murray [retired CIA station chief] said.

I’d like to point out the bogosity of how this “debate” is played out in the press and in the rightwing media (I know, I know, but there is still at least a token difference between the two). And that is framing this as the Bush administration versus The Left.

Since when are retired ex-CIA station chiefs part of The Left? Since when are generals at the Joint Chiefs level, who are fighting the use of nukes as forcefully as they can communists? They’re not, in any description of reality that would attract a rational consensus. And that is something to bear in mind:

The political crisis in America today is not betwen the Left and the Right, but between a numerically small but extremely dangerous, very wealthy, well-connected, and powerful cabal of extreme rightwing radicals and the rest of the country.

At the moment, the cabal’s wealth and connections are all but impervious, give or take an Abramoff or two. But their power, that’s a different story, that’s where you and I come in. We have to vote. Yes, it’s quite conceivable that Bush will ignore Congress and launch an invasion or nuclear assault on Iran despite a hostile Democratically controlled Congress that forbids it. But at least we can help elect that Congress and, if he ignores their wishes, make the point even more explicit to the unconvinced that we are no longer living in anything remotely resembling a working democracy.

Hullabaloo Reads Carnegie

by tristero

Following up on a previous post, I counted more than 10 people willing to read Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions by Iranian author Shahram Chubin. Unless I missed them, none of our prolifically commenting rightwing colleagues signed up. I will take their failure to participate as a sign of their utter lack of serious interest in views that contradict their own fantasies.* We are talking 244 pages here, not Atlas Shrugged, fer crissakes.

So I have ordered the book. When it arrives, I’ll suggest a time period in which to finish each chapter or section which I think is reasonable, given that all of us are busy, and a time at to discuss the section. I’ll also try to reach Shahram Chubin or someone else at Carnegie to see about answering questions we have.

I do hope that all of you who agreed will follow through and order the book, primarily because I think it will help all of us understand the situation in Iran a little better, as most people whatever their politics agree it is a very serious one. As mentioned, Carnegie has done excellent work in the past and although I don’t know Chubin’s work, I think the fact that Carnegie chose to publish it means we’ll find it a very helpful place to focus our attempts to understand some of what’s going on with Iran.

One more thing. Here’s the link to Cirincione on Fresh Air.

*The common rightwing retort to refusing to look at the facts of a situation is something like, “Hey buddy, you may have time to sip a latte and read a book, but I gotta work for a living, loser.” To which one can only reply, I gotta work for a living, too but I also happen to be an American citizen. It is an obligation of each and every American to stay informed on important issues facing our country. so we can vote responsibly for our representatives. Furthermore, I don’t drink lattes. Have t’watch the cholesterol, y’know. I prefer expresso or coffee American style, brewed dark, with a little 2% in it, no sugar, although what my preference in caffeinated beverages has to do with my politics or authenticity as an American is a little obscure to me.

Charles Krauthammer Gets It

by tristero

Exactly right:

Then there is the larger danger of permitting nuclear weapons to be acquired by religious fanatics seized with an eschatological belief in the imminent apocalypse and in their own divine duty to hasten the End of Days.

If ever there was an argument for voting against Republicans and other rightwing lunatics, this is it. We should all take this to heart.

Oh…But wait a minute…Did I possibly misread this? Hmmm…Maybe he’s not talking about Bush. Could he mean Iran? Here’s the next sentence:

The mullahs are infinitely more likely to use these weapons than anyone in the history of the nuclear age.

Oh, now I get it. He’s using “the mullahs” metaphorically, meaning the “top banannas” in the government, meaning “the White House.” Seriously, who else could Krauthammer be referring to? After all, since the US is the only country actually to use nuclear weapons, it’s surely “infinitely more likely” to use them again than a country that doesn’t have them and which experts believe is 10 years away from getting them.

ht, The Anonymous Liberal

“You’re Looking Beautiful Today, Dave”

by digby

Here is Bush getting pissed off at David Gregory for suggesting that North Korea or other countries might adopt Bush’s new way of dealing with the Geneva Conventions — “interpret” them however it suits them and change them at will. Bush seems to think that would be just great.

Dave? He’s back!

QUESTION: Sorry, I’ve got to get disentangled.

BUSH: Would you like me to go to somebody else, here, till you get…

(LAUGHTER)

QUESTION: Sorry.

BUSH: Well, take your time, please.

(LAUGHTER)

QUESTION: I really apologize for that. Anyway…

BUSH: I must say, having gone through those gyrations, you’re looking beautiful today, Dave.

(LAUGHTER)

QUESTION: Thank you very much.

Mr. President, critics of your proposed bill on interrogation rules say there’s another important test. These critics include John McCain, who you’ve mentioned several times this morning.

And that test is this: If a CIA officer, paramilitary or special operations soldier from the United States were captured in Iran or North Korea and they were roughed up and those governments said, “Well, they were interrogated in accordance with our interpretation of the Geneva Conventions,” and then they were put on trial and they were convicted based on secret evidence that they were not able to see, how would you react to that as commander in chief?

BUSH: My reaction is, is that if the nations such as those you name adopted the standards within the Detainee Detention Act, the world would be better. That’s my reaction.

We’re trying to clarify law. We’re trying to set high standards, not ambiguous standards.

And let me just repeat: We can debate this issue all we want, but the practical matter is, if our professionals don’t have clear standards in the law, the program is not going to go forward.

You cannot ask a young intelligence officer to violate the law. And they’re not going to. They — let me finish please — they will not violate the law.

You can ask this question all you want, but the bottom line is — and the American people have got to understand this — that this program won’t go forward if there’s vague standards applied like those in Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention. It’s just not going to go forward.

You can’t ask a young professional on the front line of protecting this country to violate law.

Now, I know they say they’re not going to prosecute them. Think about that, you know. “Go ahead and violate it, we won’t prosecute you.” These people aren’t going to do that.

Now, we can justify anything you want and bring up this example or that example. I’m just telling you the bottom line. And that’s why this debate is important and it’s a vital debate.

Now, perhaps, some in Congress don’t think the program is important. That’s fine. I don’t know if they do or don’t.

I think it’s vital and I have the obligation to make sure that our professionals who I would ask to go conduct interrogations to find out what might be happening or who might be coming to this country — I got to give them the tools they need, and that is clear law.

QUESTION: This is an important point, and I think it…

BUSH: The point I just made is the most important point, and that is the program is not going forward.

You can give a hypothetical about North Korea or any other country. The point is that the program is not going to go forward if our professionals do not have clarity in the law.

And the best way to provide clarity in the law is to make sure the Detainee Treatment Act is the crux of the law. That’s how we define Common Article 3. And it sets a good standard for the countries that you just talked about.

Next man?

QUESTION: But wait a second. I think this is an important point.

BUSH: I know you think it’s an important point.

QUESTION: But, sir, with respect, if other countries interpret the Geneva Conventions as they see fit, as they see fit, you’re saying that you’d be OK with that?

BUSH: I am saying that I would hope that they would adopt the same standards we adopt; and that by clarifying Article 3 we make it stronger, we make it clearer, we make it definite.

And I will tell you again, you can ask every hypothetical you want, but the American people have got to know the facts.

And the bottom line is simple: If Congress passes a law that does not clarify the rules — if they do not do that, the program’s not going forward.

QUESTION: This will not endanger U.S. troops in your…

BUSH: Next man?

QUESTION: This will not endanger…

BUSH: David, next man please. Thank you.

He was angry and petulant throughout this press conference but especially in that exchange. He seemed to be truly pissed at McCain et al.

However, I must say that I’m so jaded about those so-called independent Republicans, particularly Huckelberry and McCain, that I have a strong feeling that this is some sort of Kabuki. Huck, especially, has never once failed to validate my belief that he is a phony little prick, pretending to be a moderating influence when he’s really just an egomaniac. (Besides, if there’s one member of congress who is subject to Rovemail, it’s him. I just don’t see him bucking the president on something that’s important to him.)

I think Bush is making a lot of noise about this right now because that’s how he hopes to keep the House on track to pass his bill. If that happens then he’s in a much stronger position to negotiate with the Senate — and I think they know that too. The compromise may already be being worked out. It may even be the case that they’ve decided to have the president “lose” so that a few Republicans can be seen as voting against him. It’s the smart play although I don’t know if Bush’s ego will allow him to do something like that.

I don’t believe for a minute that the CIA interrogators are going to feel constrained from torture of these “high value” secret prisoners because of the Geneva Conventions. They never have before and if they do feel constrained they’ll just “render” the prisoner to the prisoner’s home country for a little homegrown waterboarding. (For all we know they have bin Laden in thumbscrews as we speak.) The underlying issue is the congress legalizing the president’s prerogative to change the definition of the Geneva Conventions.

Marty Lederman, expounding on that, also points out that the major issue was always with the military torture and humiliation regime in the battlefield and Guantanamo and there seems to have been some “clarification” of that already. Therefore, there is no good reason to even be having this debate and many, many excellent reasons not to.

Powell is right about one thing, “the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism.” Actually it isn’t beginning to doubt it, it sees us as downright immoral. If you want to talk about rhetoric that’s dangerous to the war effort, the president of the United States loudly and angrily proclaiming that he expects the congress to legalize this thing — and unilaterally “redefine” the Geneva Conventions”in the process would qualify. People around the world tend to see that as somewhat arrogant.

There is a major reason why Bush is trying to work the country into a frenzy of inchoate fear right now, even beyond the necessities of the upcoming election. The only way he can justify his torture regime and destruction of the Bill of Rights is to create a boogeyman so heinous that the rules that stood this country in good stead throughout its history and even in fighting WWII and the Cold War are no longer adequate. In fact, this enemy must be frightening beyond all previous human experienc so that we will have no choice but to loosen up other taboos as well.

There’s one nation of Iran and, you know, a bunch of nations like us trying to, kind of, head in the same direction. And my concern is that, you know, they’ll stall; they’ll try to wait us out.

So part of my objective in New York [at next week’s UN address] is to remind people that’s stalling shouldn’t be allowed. In other words, we need to move the process. And they need to understand we’re firm in our commitment and that if they try to drag their feet or, you know, get us to look the other way, that we won’t do that; that we’re firmly committed in our desire to send a common signal to the Iranian regime.

I hesitate to mention what product he’s in such a hurry to roll out this time.

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Saddamites On The Rise

by digby

I noticed that after Bush belligerantly defended torture, he went on to describe Iraq as not being in a civil war using the term “Saddamist” to describe the people who are causing the trouble.

He’s been listening to Joe Lieberman and The Committee For Present Danger whose primary advice recently was to change the way we talk about the Iraq war to characterize it as a resurgent Saddam fedayeen trying to recapture the government.

This was their number one recommendation in its recent Iraq paper:

* Define the threat to stability to include Saddam Fedayeen insurgents, in addition to al-Qaeda in Iraq and its jihadi allies:

Keep your ears open for this latest slogan. They’re rolling out a new marketing campaign.

And, yes, the craziest grown-ups are still in charge.

*** Also, it seems that Rove has decided that having Bush blabbering incessantly on TV will result in their keeping the congress in the fall. Think it’ll work?

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Carnegie Endowment On Iran

by tristero

One of the most remarkable things about that most remarkable of periods in recent American history, 2002/2003, was that the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published paper after paper, sat for interview after interview, held seminar after seminar, about the dangers of pre-emptive unilateralism (PU) in general and conquering Iraq in particular – and nobody listened despite the fact that they got it nearly exactly right.

You think it might be a good idea to listen to them now, given their track record? I mean, sure, Kenneth Pollack is better connected to Big Media, and Bill Kristol has a disarmingly goofy smile, but they were after all wrong, and lots of people died because of their little oops moment. Maybe they’re not exactly the brightest bulbs in the firmament when it comes to foreign policy. And maybe, just maybe, one might pay attention to what Carnegie’s saying right now about Iran. So….

Here’s a book they publish – and lo and behold, it’s by an Iranian – entitled Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions and it looks pretty good. Shall we read it, folks? And that includes our friends on the right who comment here. If 10 of you, including the righties, pledge to read it (and be honest), I’ll contact the Endowment and see if I can get the author or some other spokesperson to answer our questions. (BTW, I’m sure there are plenty of other books to read, but this one is short and current and unusual so feel free to suggest additional reading for people, but I want to stick with this one for a blogread.)

Meanwhile, here’s some commentary I culled from the Carnegie website:

From a paper entitled Crisis in the Middle East, George Perkovich writes:

Iranian leaders risk over-reaching. If Hizbollah is perceived to lose badly (a big if), and Iran cannot come to its rescue, then Iran’s power would be diminished and the wisdom of confronting it, including on the nuclear issue, would be more apparent. And if Sunnis broadly conclude that Hizbollah and its Shiite Iranian patrons, despite the excitement generated by their anti-Israel words and deeds, actually harm Sunni interests, then resistance to Iran’s regional ambitions may become mobilized.

In other words, it will be very difficult to achieve a major defeat of Hezbollah. Indeed, one troubling result of the recent war in South Lebanon is the possibility of a stronger Sunni/Shi’a alliance against Israel. Such an alliance would enhance Iran’s standing in the region. Therefore, one way to resist this is to counterbalance ” the excitement generated by their [Hezbollah’s] anti-Israel words and deeds” by highlighting how much Iran’s ambitions will impinge Sunni interests.

Of course, we could just take the neocons’ advice and just kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out. No Shi’a, no Sunni, no problem. And I can also cure your dandruff by inviting Dick Cheney to join us for our next hunting trip. No head, no dandruff, done. Finis.

Now, here’s Joseph Cirincione:

It’s not just that the officials are saying that everything is still on the table; you can understand officials saying that. It’s beyond that. It’s very reminiscent of the coordinated campaign that we saw before the Iraq war. You have cabinet officials, the president, and the vice president giving major speeches on the subject. They’re labeling Iran the central or main threat. They try to link Iran to the war on terror, even to 9/11 itself, by talking about Iran as the central banker for terrorism, or the main state sponsor for terrorism. Officials have leaked information to the press just in the last couple of weeks that claims that the Iranian nuclear program is further advanced than it really is.

And there seems to be a concerted effort to convey this threat as imminent, without using that word, and that action will soon have to be taken. And, finally, you hear a drumbeat from both the neoconservatives and the Israeli lobby arguing for military action on Iran. None of this is conclusive in and of itself, but together they really present a very ominous picture. And it is now my working hypothesis that at least some members of the administration, including the vice president of the United States, have made up their mind that the preferred option is to strike Iran and that a military strike will destabilize the regime and contribute to their longtime goal of overthrowing the government of Iran.

You really can’t, I guess, comment on how strong the regime in power is in Iran, but it seems like a risky plan.

I believe a military strike would consolidate the hold of the Islamic government, not loosen it. If you want to keep President [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad in power for the next five years, launch a strike on an Iranian facility. There is no doubt in my mind that the Iranian people would rally around the government and would become convinced that what the government has been telling them is true, that the main threat to the Iranian people comes from the United States or the U.S.-Israeli alliance. I can’t think of any more counterproductive move if you have the goal of enabling the Iranian people to choose their own government, than to launch a military strike against Iran now.

What is your analysis of Iran’s nuclear progress so far?

This is the key point. This is where I believe this whole debate should go over the next six months. The Iranian threat is a serious one but it is not an imminent one. Iran does not have a nuclear weapon; it is not going to get a nuclear weapon this year or even this decade. The Iranians are at least ten years away from the ability to enrich uranium either for fuel rods or a nuclear weapon.

You’re sure about that?

Everything we’ve seen indicates that that is in fact the case, and this is the consensus opinion of the U.S. intelligence agencies. We have a national intelligence estimate that was done last year and discussed in the Washington Post in August 2005 that reached the conclusion that Iran is five to ten years away. We’ve had testimony this year from John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, which confirms that U.S. intelligence agencies believe that Iran will not be able to construct a bomb until “sometime in the middle of the next decade.”

Now, what we need to do is declassify that intelligence estimate. Let’s get all the facts out on the table. Let’s examine this evidence in public, as to what Iran’s capabilities are and what various estimates are as to the nuclear timeline. If those intelligence estimates are wrong let’s find out why.

Sounds entirely reasonable to me.

By the way, Cirincione was recently interviewed on Fresh Air about Iran. I couldn’t find the link but if anyone has it, please post in comments.