Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

We Have Always Been At War With Terror

by digby

Billmon brings up something that’s been bugging me for a while. When, exactly, did George W. Bush officially make the US an ally of the Sunnis in a quest to crush the Shi’a crescent? Was it before or after we took down Saddam Hussein, who (with our help) kept the Shi’a in his own country thoroughly repressed and fought the Shi’a in Iran to a bitter standstill over the course of a bloody decade? Between the purple fingers and the cedar revolution babes I guess I lost track of which “terrorists” we like and which ones we don’t.

Billmon says:

The Daily Telegraph explains what we’ve been fighting for these past five years:

White House aides have said they consider the Lebanon crisis to be a “leadership moment” for Mr Bush and an opportunity to proceed with his post-September 11 plan to reshape the Middle East by building Sunni Arab opposition to Shi’a terrorism. Yesterday Mr Bush cited the role of Iran and Syria in providing help to Hezbollah. (emphasis added)

The question is whether this astonishing statement is the product of bad writing, the slack-jawed stupidity of the Telegraph’s Washington correspondent, or a deliberate Eastasia/Eurasia switch by our fun-loving Orwellians in the Cheney administration.

If it’s just bad writing or stupidity – if the phrase “building Sunni Arab opposition to Shi’a terrorism” doesn’t actually modify “post-September 11 plan,” but instead is just another way of pretending that Shrub is capable of the kind of leadership that has its “moments,” then the sentence is only unintentionally hysterical. However, given the current situation on the ground (all 18 zillion square miles of it) it may well be precisely the lie it appears to be, to wit: that fighting “Shi’a terrorism” was the point of Shrub’s post-9/11 master plan all along.

It may just bad writing from the Daily Telegraph in this case, but it’s certainly indicative of the themes we’ve been hearing from right wingers over the last couple of weeks, not to mention the Israelis themselves. Billmon excerpts this astonishing quote in a different post:

An adviser to Israeli Defence Minister Amir Peretz told The Observer: ‘We are finally going to fight Hizbollah on the ground. The Israeli people are ready for this, and the Sunni Muslim world also expects us to fight Shia fundamentalism. We are going to deliver.’

Manichewitz tastes a little bit like kool-aid, but it’s still a mistake to drink too much of it. It’s hard to believe that any Israeli has actually bought into that absurd rationale, but maybe they have. To put it mildly, it’s a really big mistake to think that just because Washington is assuring them that the “arab moderates” are on their side that their people agree.

The truth is, I don’t think it matters a damn anymore which “terrorists” we are fighting today or what the goals allegedly are. This is the GWOT and the enemies of “non-terror” are whomever is deemed “terrible” today. It’s irrelevant that the terrorists we were supposed to be fighting yesterday are now our allies against the terrorist we are fighting today. It’s all good.

And the press has signed on without even a second thought. Here’s Newsweak:

While Washington was sleeping the night before, yet another corner of the Middle East had erupted into violence, after Hizbullah launched a deadly ambush on an Israeli patrol. The summit, which was supposed to focus on Iran’s nukes and Russia’s democracy, had just been hijacked by the war on terror

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So you see, we have always been at War with Terror. (Or, at least Israel has been, since its inception.)

The US managed somehow, against the best efforts of Karl Rove, to separate the Iraq war from the broader “War on Terror.” It looks as though they are taking another crack at it and are now trying to conflate every problem in the mideast with its alleged fight against terrorism. This, I believe, is purely for domestic political consideration. It must be, because it is completely incoherent on the substance: we simply cannot be “fightin’ terrorism” as allies of the Israelis and Sunni muslims against the Shiites while we occupy Iraq and say we are promoting democracy. The mind reels at the cognitive dissonance embodied in that statement.

Unfortunately, while the nutty rhetoric must have the rest of the world wondering who put the acid in the sweet mint tea, here in the US it makes perfect sense. We’re fightin’ em over there — whoever those Ayrab/Jews/terrorists are — so we don’t have to fight ’em over here. Don’t worry your pretty little heads about the details — here’s a tax cut, go out and buy one of those big screen Teevees and watch you some American idol. Republicans will keep you safe from all of ’em.

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Oh Goody

Just when you thought our long national erection might be ending:

Panasonic to offer $70,000 plasma TV for ChristmasChristmas is less than half a year away and some of us may already setting up their wish list for their parents and spouses. If you are looking for something different this year, ditch that Porsche and consider the world’s largest plasma HDTV.

(Alternate titles included Oh Woody, The Rapture Will Be Televised, and The True Meaning of Christmas. )

Birth Pangs

by digby

My electricity has been iffy all afternoon, but I was able to check in over at FDL for a bit to see what Mr Soros had to say. I brought up the Condi Rice “birth pang” comment in passing and one of the commenters pointed out that it’s actually Rapture talk, if you can believe that.

I checked it out and over at the Rapture Forum they’ve been talking about the “birth pangs” of Armageddon ever since 9/11.

Having told His disciples which characteristics would not indicate the end of the age, Jesus turned to the questions themselves; He begins with the third one about the sign that would mark the end of the age (Matthew 24: 7-8; Mark 13:8; Luke 21:10-11).

According to all three Gospels, the sign of the end of the age is said to be when nation shall rise up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. This act will be coupled with famines and earthquakes in various places, which Messiah clearly stated would be the beginning of travail.

The term travail means “birth-pang,” referring to the series of birth-pangs that a woman undergoes before giving birth. The prophets pictured the last days as a series of birth-pangs before the birth of the new Messianic Age. Yeshua is saying that the beginning of travail (the first birth-pang and the sign that the end of the age has begun) is when nation rises against nation and kingdom against kingdom.

This is Condi’s quote:

“What we’re seeing here … are the birth pangs of a new Middle East and whatever we do, we have to be certain that we are pushing forward to the new Middle East, not going back to the old one.”

Aside from the unbelievable arrogance of that statement, which is virtually designed to piss off just about everyone in the region, this “birth-pang” characterization struck me a bizarre when I heard it. It seemed like an odd image to evoke under the circumstances and I didn’t quite understand what she was referring to since the “democracy baby” she and her unofficial husband call Iraq is dying a violent death before it is even born.

Now I get it. Members of the Bush administration have been speaking in code to the Christian fundamentalists for years. In fact, they’ve been praised for their innovation by the mainstream press. From “culture of life” to “Dred Scott” to “wonder working power” the administration is often talking above the mainstream discourse directly to its Christian Right base.

The only explanations for employing such language at a time like this are that the Secretary of State of the United States is a flipped out fundamentalist herself — or Karl Rove is deeply involved in the diplomatic language Rice is employing in order to stimulate their base. I lean toward the second (Karl’s legacy depends upon his holding the congress this fall) but I wouldn’t rule out the first.

Either way, it’s unbelievably inappropriate for the top diplomat of the US to be using coded Christian fundamentalist language to discuss this, of all topics. What is wrong with these people?

Civilian Continuum

by digby

Ward Churchill:

[I]f what the combat teams did to the WTC and the Pentagon can be understood as acts of war – and they can – then the same is true of every US “overflight’ of Iraqi territory since day one. The first acts of war during the current millennium thus occurred on its very first day, and were carried out by U.S. aviators acting under orders from their then-commander-in-chief, Bill Clinton. The most that can honestly be said of those involved on September 11 is that they finally responded in kind to some of what this country has dispensed to their people as a matter of course.

That they waited so long to do so is, notwithstanding the 1993 action at the WTC, more than anything a testament to their patience and restraint.

They did not license themselves to “target innocent civilians.”

There is simply no argument to be made that the Pentagon personnel killed on September 11 fill that bill. The building and those inside comprised military targets, pure and simple.

As for those in the World Trade Center, well, really, let’s get a grip here, shall we? True enough, they were civilians of a sort. But innocent? Gimme a break. They formed a technocratic corps at the very heart of America’s global financial empire, the “mighty engine of profit” to which the military dimension of U.S. policy has always been enslaved and they did so both willingly and knowingly.

Alan Dershowitz:

[T]he recognition that “civilianality” is often a matter of degree, rather than a bright line, should still inform the assessment of casualty figures in wars involving terrorists, paramilitary groups and others who fight without uniforms — or help those who fight without uniforms.

Turning specifically to the current fighting between Israel and Hezbollah and Hamas, the line between Israeli soldiers and civilians is relatively clear. Hezbollah missiles and Hamas rockets target and hit Israeli restaurants, apartment buildings and schools. They are loaded with anti-personnel ball-bearings designed specifically to maximize civilian casualties.

Hezbollah and Hamas militants, on the other hand, are difficult to distinguish from those “civilians” who recruit, finance, harbor and facilitate their terrorism. Nor can women and children always be counted as civilians, as some organizations do. Terrorists increasingly use women and teenagers to play important roles in their attacks.

The Israeli army has given well-publicized notice to civilians to leave those areas of southern Lebanon that have been turned into war zones. Those who voluntarily remain behind have become complicit. Some — those who cannot leave on their own — should be counted among the innocent victims.

If the media were to adopt this “continuum,” it would be informative to learn how many of the “civilian casualties” fall closer to the line of complicity and how many fall closer to the line of innocence.

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Sustainable

by digby

The Bush administration are monsters. That is not hyperbole. There can be no other explanation as to why the secretary of state, the person in charge of American diplomacy, would be so crude and stupid.

From Maureen Dowd:

Condi doesn’t want to talk to Hezbollah or its sponsors, Syria and Iran — “Syria knows what it needs to do,’’ she says with asperity — and she doesn’t want a cease-fire. She wants “a sustainable cease-fire,’’ which means she wants to give the Israelis more time to decimate Hezbollah bunkers with the precision-guided bombs that the Bush administration is racing to deliver.

“I could have gotten on a plane and rushed over and started shuttling, and it wouldn’t have been clear what I was shuttling to do,” she said.

Keep more civilians from being killed? Or at least keep America from being even more despised in the Middle East and around the globe?

Jesus. They don’t even know how to fake it anymore. Isn’t it at least smart to pretend you care about the dying children?

I guess not. These lunatics are still laboring under the false belief that the world is impressed by their macho trash talk and will capitulate just because George W. Bush says boo.

And notice that Rice says “Syria knows what it needs to do” which is apparently a reference to the leader of the free world spitting out that the Syrians need to “stop this shit” between flecks of dinner roll at the G8 conference. Any thought that he wasn’t speaking official US policy has, I think, been put to rest. Dear God. (Juan Cole noted at the time, “I come away from it shaken and trembling.” No kidding.)

Dowd continues:

Condi was as cool as ever in the State Department briefing room yesterday, perfectly groomed in a camel-colored suit with an athletic white stripe. Like her boss, she does not show any sign of tension over the fact that all of their schemes to democratize the Middle East ended up creating more fundamentalism, extremism, terrorism and anti-Americanism. Having ginned up the idea that Al Qaeda was state-sponsored terrorism backed by Saddam, now W. and Condi have to contend with the specter of real state-sponsored terrorism.

Like a professor who has grown so frustrated with one misbehaving student that she turns her focus on another, Condi put aside the sulfurous distraction of Iraq and enthused over the need to make the fragile democracy in Lebanon a centerpiece of the “new Middle East.”

She said that the carnage there represented the “birth pangs of a new Middle East, and whatever we do we have to be certain that we are pushing forward to the new Middle East, not going back to the old one.” Yet everything in the Middle East seems to be reeling backward in a scary way, and neocons are once more mocking W. as a wimp who should blow off the State Department and blow up Syria and Iran.

Having inadvertently built up Iran with his failures in Iraq, W. is eager now to send Iran a shock-and-awe message through Israel.

I honestly think that last is part of what’s motivating the warmongers. As with their last epic failure, Vietnam, they believe their hands have been tied by a bunch of liberal generals and a pansy-ass populace who refuse to let them fight the way they need to fight. They see the Israelis as their personal Rottweilers and they want to let them off the chain.

The Israelis should ask themselves if they really want to do George W. Bush’s dirty work for him. I continue to suspect they did not expect that the US would give them the green light on this (it is insane, after all) and now they have no face saving way out. America did not do its job and now things are deteriorating beyond anyone’s control.

But, you know, we didn’t want to waste time with a cease fire that might not last longer than nine or ten months. Hey, all those kids might as well die today as next year, right?

Of course, it could also just be politics. It often is. The bridegroom is a-comin’ and the warmongers are chomping at the bit. The election is right around the corner and the Republican base is dying for WWIII. Well, not dying exactly. Somebody else is doing that. They are in the throes of le petit mort — a different thing entirely.

And I can’t help but be reminded of this:

“God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.”

Update: Here’s another “clarifying moment” for everyone:

President Bush Saturday again blamed Hezbollah for the crisis but said responsibility must also be shared by Syria and Iran, which support and provide weapons to the militant Shiite Muslim political and military organization. “Their actions threaten the entire Middle East and stand in the way of resolving the current crisis and bringing lasting peace to this troubled region,” he said in his weekly radio address from his ranch in Crawford, Tex.

[…]

Bush said again that the United States is pressuring Israel to use care “to protect innocent lives and is concerned that the warfare is putting Lebanon’s democratic government in peril.

They sure have a funny way of making that point:

The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.

The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said. Its disclosure threatens to anger Arab governments and others because of the appearance that the United States is actively aiding the Israeli bombing campaign in a way that could be compared to Iran’s efforts to arm and resupply Hezbollah.

Yah think?

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I’m Not Ready To Make Nice

by digby

Rush:

The Democratic Party today is assumed to be — well, it’s not assumed to be. The Democratic Party today is oriented around one thing — aside from its hatred of Bush — oriented around its anti-war position. The Democrat base is pure anti-war, and that’s why Lieberman is in trouble. It is such a powerful base or perceived to be by other Democrats, that Democrats like Hillary and others, John Kerry said, (paraphrasing) “If Lieberman loses, I’m not supporting him. I must support my party. My party stood behind me. I always be a Democrat,” and Hillary has pretty much said the same thing. Barbara Boxer however is in trouble, so-called.

There is a little tremor in Rush’s description of the “powerful” Democratic base (he realizes it and tries to amend his statement.)The opposition actually has him rattled for the first time in recent memory.

Unfortunately a good part of the Dem establishment is not just rattled but virtually hysterical. Ezra wrote this today:

I had it out the other night with a very pro-Lieberman writer who, it came clear to me, believed the entire concept of a primary challenge against Lieberman a simply illegitimate form of opposition. Lieberman, as a Democratic incumbent, had a claim on his party’s nomination and his Senate seat that couldn’t be challenged by a bunch of bloggers and a cable television executive named Ned. It was the impudence of the whole thing that so offended.

I’ve really been saddened, in fact, by how often, when I drill down into anti-Lamonter motivations, I find their ideological and electoral motivations mere sandrock obscuring a core rage at this affront to tradition and orderly succession. I didn’t believe this even a few months ago, but I’ve been forced to conclude that what scares folks about Lamont is that he represents an assault on privilege — Joe Lieberman’s, to be sure, but also theirs, no matter what sector of politics they currently represent.

Apparently these comfy Democratic insiders don’t mind the Republicans treating them like neutered farm animals — but I do. I take it personally when a propaganda industry makes millions spreading lies that liberals are terrorists or traitors. Yet the political establishment, including the media, doesn’t seem to think I should care about such things — even as I’ve seen my party and my country degraded and humiliated for years by this virulent strain of rightwing politics.

I was driving the other day and the announcer of the pop station I was listening to said that their most requested song was “I’m Not Ready To Make Nice” by the Dixie Chicks. I realized I had never closely listened to it before. As I drove alongside the Pacific Ocean with the windows open and the stereo blasting I think I finally understood — or admitted to myself — that much of this netroots and grassroots energy and emotional committment is coming from the simple fact that we’ve just reached the rope of our ends with these malignant Republican bullies and the people who would protect their privilege rather than stand up.

I think this song expresses how many of us feel after 20 years of a non-stop assault from the right — and the eager capitulation of those who find us a convenient strawman from whom they can distance themselves:

Forgive, sounds good.
Forget, I’m not sure I could.
They say time heals everything,
But I’m still waiting

I’m through, with doubt,
There’s nothing left for me to figure out,
I’ve paid a price, and I’ll keep paying

I’m not ready to make nice,
I’m not ready to back down,
I’m still mad as hell
And I don’t have time
To go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is
You think I should

I know you said
Why can’t you just get over it,
It turned my whole world around
and I kind of like it

I made my bed and I sleep like a baby,
With no regrets and I don’t mind saying,
It’s a sad sad story
That a mother will teach her daughter
that she ought to hate a perfect stranger.
And how in the world
Can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter
Saying that I better
Shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

Forgive, sounds good.
Forget, I’m not sure I could.
They say time heals everything,
But I’m still waiting

Amen.

Did they think we were going to take their shit forever?

Don’t lose your nerve Democrats. I know you hate to be “unseemly” and loathe the idea that anyone will think you are “unreasonable.” I understand that having Rush say you are in thrall to the lunatic left fringe brings on a 60’s flashback that leaves you dripping in a cold sweat. But get a grip on your subconscious fear of being a feeling and breathing human being and recognize that this is a good and necessary thing for your country. (You might even come to “kinda like it” like those Dixie Chicks have.) You don’t have to be neutered farm animals anymore. If you’re ready to take it to them we’re here to get your backs.

In case anyone has forgotten just what it was that Natalie Maines said that caused people to send her death threats it was: “Just so you know, we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.” They are now virtually banned from country radio. Their CD was #1 on the Billboard charts for three weeks and is still selling briskly anyway.

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Huh?

by digby

Italy will host an international conference next week to discuss the possibility of a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon, the Italian government said on Friday.

[…]

An Italian foreign ministry spokesman said neither Syria nor Iran – accused by Israel of sponsoring Hezbollah – had been invited, and no one from Israel was expected to attend for the time being.

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Swippery Swope

by digby

Oh no, not the bunnies….

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ReElect The Fighters

by digby

Last week I wrote regarding the mid-east crisis:

Karl Rove must be very happy this morning. He is convinced that “war” (it doesn’t matter who or why) always accrues to the Republican party’s benefit. And the media agree that when things heat up, they really want the guys with the big swinging members in charge. (For some reason, they are under the misapprehension that the group of chickenhawks running the US government have such endowments.)

I realize that it is somewhat distasteful to discuss this issue with domestic politics in mind. But I can guarantee that the white house is. They view everything through the lens of domestic politics.

There was some disagreement among readers who thought that it is ridiculous to think a widening war could benefit the failed Republicans. I certainly hope that’s true.

But in case anyone thinks they aren’t going to run on their reputation for manly manliness anyway, think again:

Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday pointed to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah as fresh evidence of the ongoing battle against terrorism that underscores the need to keep President Bush’s Republican allies in control of Congress.

“This conflict is a long way from over,” Cheney said at a fundraising appearance for a GOP congressional candidate. “It’s going to be a battle that will last for a very long time. It is absolutely essential that we stay the course.”

Cheney’s visit to Tampa helped raise about $200,000 for the campaign of Gus Bilirakis, a state legislator who is running for the Tampa Bay area congressional seat his father is vacating.

“Gus is going to remember that the first order of business is to protect the American people and to support the men and women who defend us in time of war,” Cheney told the audience at a $500-a-ticket fundraising reception. “There’s still hard work ahead in the war on terror.”

Cheney said that as Republicans make their case to voters in the midterm elections, “it’s vital that we keep issues of national security at the top of the agenda.” He faulted Democrats in Congress who have pushed for a timetable for withdrawing Americans from Iraq, saying that would send the wrong message to terrorists.

“If anyone thinks the conflict is over or soon to be over, all they have to do is look at what’s happening in the Middle East today,” he said.

I know it seems ridiculous in light of what we are seing in Iraq that they would think of running on their superior competence in dealing with the middle east. But remember, the Republicans are counting on thirty years of rightwing propaganda to get them over the line again. They expect that many voters will simply fall back into their comfortable understanding of the two parties: the Republicans are tough men who can handle national security and the Democrats are sensitive women who will help you when you need help (if you’re a pathetic loser who actually needs help that is.) The Fighters and the Lovers. This is the paradigm under which we’ve lived for many years and people find it very disconcerting to be asked to relinquish such reflexive internalized beliefs — no matter what they see before them.

I do not know that they can pull it off one more time. We may have finally reached a tipping point. But I’m not counting any chickens.

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Political Capital

by digby

Ezra wonders why war president Bush killed off compassionate conservative president Bush.

I’ve never been entirely convinced by the explanations for why that happened. Bush’s record in Texas and his rhetoric on the campaign trail never suggested the sort of leader that would emerge. September 11 changed him, but it’s not precisely clear why it enabled such an abandonment of the domestic realm. I will, in the interest of debate, offer this thesis, which I find interesting if not convincing. I’ve adapted it from something Grover Norquist said at the Prospect breakfast: He argued that the high poll numbers of 9-11 straitjacketed the administration, leaving them terrified of downward drift. So in their efforts to retain 80 percent approval ratings, they refused to engage in the sort of divisive, unpopular fights needed to actualize their agenda. They just went with the interest groups as the path of least resistance. And by the time they were ready for domestic policies again, they couldn’t afford to split the coalition. Compassionate conservatism died because Bush became popular and wasn’t willing to sacrifice that support for issues beneath War and Peace.

I would argue that there never was a “compassionate conservative” Bush, but a political slogan that was adopted when the face of the party was the slavering beasts of the Gingrich years who shut down the government and impeached a popular president against the will of the people. The game plan was to run Bush as a Republican Clinton without the woody.

And to the extent that they actually believed any of their campaign blather about “soft bigotry of low expectations” and prescription drug coverage, it was only to massage certain constituencies they needed to cobble together a majority — which they didn’t actually manage to do in 2000. Karl was just buying votes like any smart pol does.

Bush, however, always wanted to be a “war president” and knew exactly what he wanted to do with all that political capital:

“He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. “It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade … if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.”

What we didn’t realize is that so much of his agenda had to do with expanding executive power and invading Iraq. Indeed, he probably didn’t realize it either, but he’s the type of personality who undoubtedly found those two agenda items very enticing.

They failed on social security, the big ticket domestic item of the second term, but the reason was that they always overestimated the amount of political capital a “war president” who only won a second term by 51% of the vote actually has. He had plenty of juice after 9/11 but he used it all up on Iraq — and when the WMD didn’t show, most of that evaporated over time.

But the tax cuts, the indiscriminate deregulation, the expansion of executive power (not only through the programs like the illegal wiretapping but through the passage of the Patriot Act as well) can only be considered great successes by the standard he set forth. The reason his “compassionate conservative” agenda wasn’t part of that package is because it was just an campaign ploy to begin with. After 9/11 they made the calculation that he could win by running solely on national security with a smattering of homo-hating. And he did.

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