Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Another Moment of Clarity

by digby

The conflict in the mideast has always had a certain kabuki element. In the past when these situations would flare up, Israel would take an agrressive action to demonstrate that it wasn’t a pushover and the US would step in like a Dutch uncle and reluctantly pull the pissed off Israelis back. In a dangerous part of the world, these face-saving kabukis can prevent things from hurtling out of control while allowing each side to stage a little bloodletting. It’s an ugly, ugly business, but ultimately it has managed to help keep this volatile region from hurtling out of control. The “honest broker” thing may have always been phony, but sometimes a phony “honest broker” is all you need.

This time, the US has abandoned that role and they are letting Israel off the leash to do some real damage before they “step in.” Via Atrios I see that Bush thinks he’s smarter than everyone else on this:

When hostilities have broken out in the past, the usual U.S. response has been an immediate and public bout of diplomacy aimed at a cease-fire, in the hopes of ensuring that the crisis would not escalate. This week, however, even in the face of growing international demands, the White House has studiously avoided any hint of impatience with Israel. While making it plain it wants civilian casualties limited, the administration is also content to see the Israelis inflict the maximum damage possible on Hezbollah.

As the president’s position is described by White House officials, Bush associates and outside Middle East experts, Bush believes that the status quo — the presence in a sovereign country of a militant group with missiles capable of hitting a U.S. ally — is unacceptable.

The U.S. position also reflects Bush’s deepening belief that Israel is central to the broader campaign against terrorists and represents a shift away from a more traditional view that the United States plays an “honest broker’s” role in the Middle East.

In the administration’s view, the new conflict is not just a crisis to be managed. It is also an opportunity to seriously degrade a big threat in the region, just as Bush believes he is doing in Iraq. Israel’s crippling of Hezbollah, officials also hope, would complete the work of building a functioning democracy in Lebanon and send a strong message to the Syrian and Iranian backers of Hezbollah.

“The president believes that unless you address the root causes of the violence that has afflicted the Middle East, you cannot forge a lasting peace,” said White House counselor Dan Bartlett. “He mourns the loss of every life. Yet out of this tragic development, he believes a moment of clarity has arrived.”

One former senior administration official said Bush is only emboldened by the pressure from U.N. officials and European leaders to lead a call for a cease-fire. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan demanded yesterday that the fighting in Lebanon stop.

“He thinks he is playing in a longer-term game than the tacticians,” said the former official, who spoke anonymously so he could discuss his views candidly. “The tacticians would say: ‘Get an immediate cease-fire. Deal first with the humanitarian factors.’ The president would say: ‘You have an opportunity to really grind down Hezbollah. Let’s take it, even if there are other serious consequences that will have to be managed.’ “

They are now officially crazy.

I haven’t bought into all the 1914 stuff that’s been going around, but I’m heading that way. It will be sheer luck if we avoid serious consequences from letting these dimwit megalomaniacs loose on the world.

It seems like a good time to remind people of our vaunted leader’s history. I’m speaking, of course, of Dick Cheney. (I won’t bother with Junior– he’s a foreign policy ventriloquist dummy.)

From Frances Fitzgerald in the NY Review of Books:

In “A World Transformed,” the memoir that he and Bush senior published in 1998, [Brent] Scowcroft makes it clear that while all Bush senior’s top advisers had different perspectives, the fundamental division lay between Defense Secretary Richard Cheney and everyone else. By his account, and by those of others in the administration, Cheney never trusted Gorbachev. In 1989 Cheney maintained that Gorbachev’s reforms were largely cosmetic and that, rather than engage with the Soviet leader, the US should stand firm and keep up cold war pressures.

In September 1991 Cheney argued that the administration should take measures to speed the breakup of the Soviet Union—even at the risk of encouraging violence and incurring long-term Russian hostility. He opposed the idea, which originated with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Colin Powell, that the US should withdraw its tactical nuclear weapons from Europe and South Korea. As a part of the preparations for the Gulf War he asked Powell for a study on how small nuclear weapons might be used against Iraqi troops in the desert.

This is the person who is playing a longer game than the tacticians, not Little Bushie. And he is playing a long game. His sharklike, relentless, predatory concentration on achieving long held goals no matter what the current circumstances is quite awesome to behold. The problem is that he’s nuts.

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Heckuva Job Neggie

by digby

So apparently John “Death Squad” Negroponte has decided that rather than take the risk of information being leaked, the CIA just won’t compile National Intelligence Estimates anymore. Ken Silverstein at Harper’s blog reports that ever since the last NIE on Iraq was rejected by the Bush administration back in 2004 (for being “too negative”) they haven’t bothered to write another one.

Apparently, they want to keep the president from having to deal with bad news:

“What do you call the situation in Iraq right now?” asked one person familiar with the situation. “The analysts know that it’s a civil war, but there’s a feeling at the top that [using that term] will complicate matters.” Negroponte, said another source regarding the potential impact of a pessimistic assessment, “doesn’t want the president to have to deal with that.”

Especially going into an election.

And heaven forbid that the president of the United States be aware that his lovely little war is turning into a living nightmare:

Iraqi leaders have all but given up on holding the country together and, just two months after forming a national unity government, talk in private of “black days” of civil war ahead.

Signalling a dramatic abandonment of the U.S.-backed project for Iraq, there is even talk among them of pre-empting the worst bloodshed by agreeing to an east-west division of Baghdad into Shi’ite and Sunni Muslim zones, senior officials told Reuters.

Tens of thousands have already fled homes on either side.

“Iraq as a political project is finished,” one senior government official said — anonymously because the coalition under Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki remains committed in public to the U.S.-sponsored constitution that preserves Iraq’s unity.

One highly placed source even spoke of busying himself on government projects, despite a sense of their futility, only as a way to fight his growing depression over his nation’s future.

“The parties have moved to Plan B,” the senior official said, saying Sunni, ethnic Kurdish and majority Shi’ite blocs were looking at ways to divide power and resources and to solve the conundrum of Baghdad’s mixed population of seven million.

“There is serious talk of Baghdad being divided into east and west,” he said. “We are extremely worried.”

On the eve of the first meeting of a National Reconciliation Commission and before Maliki meets President George W. Bush in Washington next week, other senior politicians also said they were close to giving up on hopes of preserving the 80-year-old, multi-ethnic, religiously mixed state in its present form.

“The situation is terrifying and black,” said Rida Jawad al -Takki, a senior member of parliament from Maliki’s dominant Shi’ite Alliance bloc, and one of the few officials from all the main factions willing to speak publicly on the issue.

“We have received information of a plan to divide Baghdad. The government is incapable of solving the situation,” he said.

As sectarian violence has mounted to claim perhaps 100 lives a day and tens of thousands flee their homes, a senior official from the once dominant Sunni minority concurred: “Everyone knows the situation is very bad,” he said. “I’m not optimistic.”

The spectacle in Lebanon has taken over the popular imagination and the attention of the media. But it really should be noted that while the death and destruction is significant — and a widening war is a frightening consequence of what’s happening there — 100 people a day are now being killed in Iraq. Many more are being wounded. There are now tens of thousands of refugees. It’s turning into a bloodbath.

I know it would be wrong to worry the president’s beautiful mind with such ugliness, but perhaps the congress ought to get off its ass and demand a comprehensive analysis of the situation from the US Intelligence community anyway. Just for the heck of it.

And by the way, are any of the national reporters covering the Lieberman-Lamont race asking old Joe whether he still thinks there is a lot of “progress” being made there? I know that the bad language we bloggers use is a much more important issue, but this does seem like a logical question that someone might think is worth asking.

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The Logic of Rebellion

by poputonian

Fear of an ecclesiastical conspiracy against American liberties, latent among nonconformists through all of colonial history, thus erupted into public controversy at the very same time that the first impact of new British policy in civil affairs was being felt. And though it was, in an obvious sense, a limited fear (for large parts of the population identified themselves with the Anglican Church and were not easily convinced that liberty was being threatened by a plot of the Churchmen) it nevertheless had a profound indirect effect everywhere, for it drew into public discussion — evoked in specific form — the general conviction of eighteenth-century Englishmen that the conjoining of “temporal and spiritual tyranny” was, in John Adams’ words, an event totally “calamitous to human liberty” yet an event that in the mere nature of things perpetually threatened. For, as David Hume had explained, “in all ages of the world priests have been enemies to liberty … Liberty of thinking and of expressing our thoughts is always fatal to priestly power … and by an infallible connection which prevails among all kinds of liberty, this privilege can never be enjoyed … but in free government. Hence … all princes that have aimed at despotic power [Bush, Rove] have known of what importance it was to gain the established clergy, as the clergy, on their part, have show a great facility in entering into the views of such princes.”
Excerpted from The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967) by Bernard Bailyn; winner of the Bancroft Prize in American History and a Pulitzer in History; p. 97, chapter titled The Logic of Rebellion.

“new … policy in civil affairs’ … “gain the established clergy” … “despots”

Moral Boundaries

by digby

“This bill would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others. It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect, so I vetoed it.”

Jesus H. Christ.

BAGHDAD, 20 July (IRIN) – The Iraqi government says it is worried about increasing sectarian violence in the country, following statistics released by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) stating that nearly 6,000 civilians were killed in May and June alone.

“Sectarian violence in Iraq is increasing and day after day more bodies are being found countrywide after suffering serious torture,” says Lt. Col. Abdel-Kareem Hassan, a senior official in the Ministry of Interior. “The numbers presented by UNAMI has just confirmed this is reality and also increases fear among the local population.

“We [the government] have to act fast in holding talks with insurgents and the reconciliation plan should be put in practice to prevent more innocent civilians from dying due to the lack of security.”

According to the UNAMI report, insurgent, militia and terrorist attacks continued unabated in many parts of Iraq, especially in Baghdad and in the central and western regions.

“A total of 5,818 civilians were reportedly killed and at least 5,762 wounded during May and June 2006,” the report stated. “Killings, kidnappings and torture remain widespread. Fear resulting from these and other crimes continued to increase internal displacement and outflows of Iraqis to neighbouring countries.”

In the first six months of the year, 14,338 people were killed, the report added. The statistics were compiled with help from the Ministry of Health.

The Ministry of Health says that more than 50,000 people have been killed “in a brutal way” since April 2003. “All these bodies were unrecognisable and suffered serious torture,” says Safa’a Yehia, senior official in the Ministry of Heath. “What is more shocking is that this included women and children. We have reached a serious deterioration in conditions and instead of an improvement of this sectarian violence, the death toll is rising without control.”

I guess it’s a good thing the Bridegroom is coming shortly so that we can finally sort out where all these moral boundaries really are. I need some divine guidance because I’m terribly confused.

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What Government Minders Don’t Understand

In response to the Empire post below, the Government Minder assigned to Hullabaloo made this comment regarding Arab reaction to the Israel/Hezbollah conflict :

“The assertion that Americans are turning isolationist, as evidenced by this poll on the Israel/Lebanon conflict, is an overly broad interpretation. Look at the recent emergency meeting of the Arab League; half its member nations were critical of Hezzbollah instead of a uniform condemnation of Israel. That split is historic and unprecedented.”

Is it?

Here are some additional scraps from that Chicago Trib op-ed piece written in 2005 by E.W. Chamberlain III, a retired Army colonel. It provides some elucidation on the topic. The title of the op-ed was Prediction.

The toll of the war in both lives and treasure are going well beyond what we were promised. The elections in Iraq already are proving themselves to have been merely a vote of the majority for the majority with no room for any meaningful minority voice in the emerging government. Our goal of bringing democracy to Iraq, while worthy, is unattainable. The Shiite clerics won’t stand for it. The clerics, who have taken on the same titles as those used by the Iranian Shiite clerics when they toppled the Shah, have won the elections. The grand titles being used in Iraq right after the elections, “Ayatollah of the Revolutionary Islamic Council,” for example, should have some people in Washington sitting up and taking notice. The Iranians already have visited the newly elected clerics, and it will be but a short time before some agreements between the two countries are formalized. Washington persists in seeing Iraq as, well, full of just Iraqis. Washington doesn’t differentiate between the religious sects in Iraq, nor does it understand that the concept of a state called “Iraq” was arbitrarily devised by the British and the French in the Balfour Declaration at the end of World War I as those two victors divided the spoils of war. People in Iraq and Iran are Shiite first, and Iraqis and Iranians second.
…
The first predictable event was that the Shiites would score an overwhelming victory at the polls in January. This was a no-brainer, because they were the only ones participating. The Sunni political parties had seen the handwriting on the wall and had withdrawn from a contest they could not even hope to win. The Kurds participated in the elections and are participating in the development of the constitution, but this will continue only as long as U.S. forces remain on the ground. Once they are gone, the best the Kurds can hope for is an independent state recognized and supported by the United States in a sea of enemies. The worst they can expect is to be dominated and oppressed by the government in Baghdad, switching one secular dictator for a non-secular one. So much for democracy in Iraq. The insurgency in Iraq is Sunni, which many in Washington have yet to figure out. They are fighting us because we provide a focal point for rallying the Sunni people inside and outside of Iraq. As soon as we leave, the full force of the insurgency will fall upon the Shiite government of Iraq. It already has started. The suicide car bombings that have killed so many Iraqi civilians are mistakenly tagged as terrorist attacks, when in reality they are attacks against Shiites by the Sunni insurgency. If a couple of Americans also get killed, so much the better in their view, but the real target is the Shiite population and the Shiite-dominated government. Probably even before the U.S. withdraws, the “democratically elected” Shiite government in Iraq will be aligned rapidly with Iran and will receive open and massive support. The Saudi Arabian government will continue to support the Sunni insurgency, as it does today, but the support will become open. The Sunni insurgency eventually will lose as the full weight of a Shiite Iraq and a Shiite Iran overwhelms it. Numbers alone, coupled with a real war of attrition that does not discriminate between combatants and noncombatants or follow any rules of engagement, will result in horrific casualties and defeat. This will not be the kinder, gentler, American way of war. This will be an Old Testament conflict with no quarter given.
The remnants of the Sunni insurgency will flee to Saudi Arabia. There they will foment discord because the Saudi royal family did not do enough and allowed the Sunnis to be defeated in Iraq. The royal family will be overthrown in a violent revolution in Saudi Arabia led by Sunni clerics who long have chafed under the pro-Western rule of the House of Saud. The Sunni clerics will emerge as the dominant power in Saudi Arabia. Americans and all other Westerners will be killed or, at best, ejected from Saudi Arabia, which has enough native petrochemical engineers and knowledgeable oil field workers, and can find other non-Westerners to run the oil fields. No Westerner need apply. Of course, we need not fear another attack here at home from Osama bin Laden as all this occurs, because he will have fulfilled his fatwa. The only thing bin Laden ever said he was after was to remove the Westerners from Saudi Arabia, the Land of the Holy Places. This will be done when the clerics assume control of Saudi Arabia. Bin Laden will win the war on terrorism by achieving his goals with our unwitting help.

Anxiety for the established Sunni order? An emerging Shia dominance? Trouble in oil land?
Not only is it understandable, apparently it was predictable.
If only.

So Much For The Indispensible Nation

by digby

Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe the United States should stay out of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, according to a CNN poll conducted and released Wednesday by Opinion Research Corp.

Sixty-five percent of 633 American adults responding to the telephone poll said the United States should not play an active role in attempting to solve the issue.

Yet respondents were much more closely divided on whether they would favor the presence of U.S. ground troops as part of an international peacekeeping force on the border between Israel and Lebanon.

Forty-five percent said they would favor such a measure, and 42 percent said they would oppose it. Thirteen percent had no opinion.

One might assume on first glance that this is incoherent. How can 65% believe that the US should stay out of it while 45% favor sending in peacekeepers? But if you think about it, it likely reflects a natural and healthy reluctance to give the Bush administration permission to pursue some mad plan to fight WWIII, which is what they are hearing from the wingnuts on TV.

The neocons have achieved the opposite of what they set out to achieve. Instead of an empire their failed experiment is turning the American public isolationist. There was a time not so long ago when it would have been assumed that the US would play an active role in solving any serious foreign policy crisis. After the cock-ups of the last few years, people are no longer so sanguine that we will actually help the situation rather than make it worse.

As we survey the situation tonight, it seems as if the Bush administration is living in an alternate universe. In a week, after Israel has “defanged” Hezbollah, Condi is slated to fly in and sing kumbaaya. Either that or we are going to officially begin WWIII. Or Armageddon is imminent — oh happy day, the Bridegroom is on his way. These are what the big thinkers on the right are offering us right now. Of those choices the Bush administration has, so far, opted for the first scenario. They are going to wait until the Israelis shoot all the bad guys and then they’ll ride in and hold a town meeting.

David Ignatius wrote today:

There is an attitude among policymakers in the United States and Israel that I would call “Prospero’s temptation,” after the wizard of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.” Prospero thinks that with his magic powers he can do anything — subdue the wild Caliban and the other denizens of his haunted island and bend them to his purposes. This temptation was evident in Ariel Sharon’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982; it was clear in America’s 2003 invasion of Iraq. In each case, Israel and America were encouraged by their Arab allies to think that they could alter the fundamentals in a way that the Arabs themselves could not. You can hear echoes of that same thinking today, as Israeli analysts talk of how the Sunni nations — Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan — are privately thanking them for breaking Shiite power.

I’m not sure why anyone is surprised by this:

”We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

That is what’s known as magical thinking and it is the hallmark of this administration. Again, maybe the public really has the right of this. We’ve seen ample evidence over the last six years that these are not the people you want in charge during a crisis.

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To The Right Of Trent Lott

by digby

Ben Adler over at TAPPED asks why Ben Nelson is being given a pass on his morally repugnant vote against stem cell research today. I honestly can’t answer that. I and others often make the argument that Red State Senators have to answer to their conservative constituents, so they must be given latitude. But this vote is odd because, as Adler points out, even Trent Lott voted for it. And according to this article, 70% of Nebraskans are in favor of stem cell research:

Statewide poll shows support for fetal cell research
courtesy of Nebraskans for Research

Findings of a statewide poll released today shows more than two-thirds (70 percent) of Nebraska registered voters support fetal cell research at UNMC. Nearly three-quarters of the registered voters contacted also indicated support for embryonic stem cell research should it be conducted in the future at the University of Nebraska. The poll was commissioned by Nebraskans for Research (NFR).

“After two-and-a-half years of public debate, voters in Nebraska have reached a consensus on this research — they support it overwhelmingly,” said Sanford M. Goodman, volunteer executive director for NFR, “and they favor a continued state role in it.”

“I am very pleased that the majority of Nebraskans understand and value the stem cell research that is carried out by the world-class research teams at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. It is most gratifying to me and all the other researchers at UNMC, that the people who pay the bills, the taxpayers, understand and acknowledge that we are responsible stewards of the public trust.”
Thomas Rosenquist, Ph.D., vice chancellor for research

The poll, conducted from June 20-23 by Decision Research, Inc., also found that 66 percent of voters think the Nebraska Unicameral should continue to allow fetal cell research to be conducted at state facilities using state funds. Only one quarter of the voters would support a ban in Nebraska on such research and resulting treatments.

It’s honsestly quite hard to believe that any Democrat would vote against stem cell research because of their own personal beliefs — it’s way outside the mainstream and you have to wonder why such a person would run as a Democrat in the first place (although when you look at Nelson’s record it’s hard to find a good reason for him to be a Democrat at all, frankly.)

Does anyone out there from Nebraska know what to make of this particular vote?

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Heckuva Job Karen

by digby

Isn’t Karen Hughes the undersecretary of state for Public Diplomacy? Wouldn’t you think someone in that position would at least appear in public once in a while? Or at least when the midle east is blowing up and public diplomacy might be called for?

From John Brown:

In recent days, Karen Hughes, Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, whose job is to explain US policy abroad, has remained silent. The Spinstress of the Decider, known for her garrulity and love of being in front of a camera, has chosen to be out of the media limelight. With many in the Arab world blaming the United States for the situation in the Middle East, she has said nothing about American goals in the region. Gone, at least for now, are her vapid proclamations about US “transformational public diplomacy.” Nor has she uttered another saccharine word about the need to foster common interests and values throughout the world. And – surprise! – she has not gone on another so-called “listening tour” in the Middle East.

Why is Ms. Hughes silent? One can only speculate about this, as answers are not forthcoming from the State Department, whom I contacted in preparation for this piece. A Mr. Justin Wilson said “right” when I noted that Ms. Hughes had said nothing on the situation in the Middle East, then transferred me to an employee whose answering machine said he was out of the office until July 24. I am still waiting, at this writing, for answers to the two messages I have left to other State functionaries. Silence reigns. Talk about ’round-the-clock public diplomacy, rapid reaction to breaking events! There seems to be, in Ms. Hughes’s shop, no sense of urgency to the public-diplomacy dimension of the situation in the Middle East.

Maybe she’s busy handling the Katrina … er… Beirut evacuation.

It appears that the last anyone has heard of Karen was back on June 26th when she gave a speech to the US-Arab Economic Forum in Houston. It was very inspiring:

Our opponents want closed minds. They say their way or no way. Death to anyone who disagrees with them, no matter what faith or what religion. Together we must confront the violent extremists and their ideology of tyranny and hate. They seek to portray the West as in conflict with Islam, because that’s the window into which they recruit. They can only flourish in environments that foster anger and misunderstanding. Yet their world view is wrong. Islam is a part of America. As an American government official, I represent almost seven million American Muslims who live and work and practice their faith freely here in our country. Together we must undermine the extremists by providing platforms for debate, by empowering mainstream voices of tolerance and inclusion, and by demonstrating our respect for Muslim cultures and contributions to our society and to world society.

And as soon as she picks up her messages, she’s going to get right on that.

Brown continues:

[M]aybe what’s really behind Ms. Hughes’s taciturnity is that the administration has decided, as it did so efficiently during Bush’s first term, to stay “on message” – the message being, in the case of US policy toward Israel’s military actions in Gaza and Lebanon, practically no message at all, except that Israel can do just about everything that it wants to “defend itself.”

One of the most intelligent commentators on the Middle East, Marc Lynch, puts it this way in his blog: “American public diplomacy has been virtually invisible on [Israel’s actions in Gaza and Lebanon], at a time when it is more urgently needed than ever. I can understand this – you have to have a policy if you want to try to explain or defend it, and right now the Bush administration doesn’t seem to have any policy at all beyond supporting Israel and issuing calls for ‘restraint,’ which Israel promptly and publicly rejects. And what administration official wants to subject him or herself to tough Arab questioning on live TV right now?”

But really, let’s think about this. Do we really want someone like Karen Hughes out there sticking her large foot in her mouth? Look what happened when Junior was let off his leash for five minutes. Even Condi Rice, who thinks that any thought the US might have contributed to current unrest with our ill-fated Iraq invasion is “grotesque,” tends to make things worse. Maybe it’s actually better not to have the Bush grown-up team in public. This is serious business.

How much is Karen getting paid, do you think? More than Brownie? Seriously, he was a screw-up, but he showed up at least. Karen has completely taken a powder. Does she have an important PTA meeting or something? A long planned river rafting trip?

Where in the world is Karen Hughes?

Update: According the TPM Mucraker, this criticism of the Katrina …. er… Beirut evacuation is all wet. The state department is in touch with the 25,000 or so Americans in Lebanon via their web site. Yeah, I know.

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May I Puke?
by poputonian
Would it be a violation of human dignity if someone dropped a five-hundred pound laser bomb on your head? I thought so.

This must be the most ironic statement in history:

“Like all Americans, I believe our Nation must vigorously pursue the tremendous possibilities that science offers to cure disease and improve the lives of millions. Yet, as science brings us ever closer to unlocking the secrets of human biology, it also offers temptations to manipulate human life and violate human dignity. Our conscience and history as a Nation demand that we resist this temptation. With the right scientific techniques and the right policies, we can achieve scientific progress while living up to our ethical responsibilities.”

George W. Bush, July 19, 2006 veto statement.

What a sick and confused bastard.

Apology To Marc Lynch And Some Others

by tristero

In a previous post, I questioned the credentials of the members of the Foreign Affairs roundtable on “What to do in Iraq.” Some members of that panel clearly are qualified, eminently so, to have an opinion appear under the auspices of the journal that promotes itself, by way of a quote, as “The Bible of Foreign Policy Thinking.”

In particular, Marc Lynch of Abu Aardvark wrote to Hullabaloo: “…in addition to being a liberal blogger (www.abuaardvark.com), I do speak and read Arabic, write about al-Jazeera and the Arab media all the time, and published an op- ed opposing war with Iraq in the Christian Science Monitor in July 2002.” Marc’s clearly one of the Serious People who knows what he’s talking about when it comes to Iraq; his opinions on the mess in Iraq are invaluable. Marc, a full and complete apology. I haven’t read your blog in anthing resembling a regular fashion and that has been truly my serious loss.

And I’d like to apologize to other panel members who have garnered high-level credentials similar to Marc’s. Your comments, too, were helpful, even if I disagreed with them…no especially if I disagreed with them.

Indeed, Digby’s right: It could have been worse, much worse. And one should count one’s blessings that Gingrich wasn’t involved. As panels go, it sure beats the Sunday blarney-fests handsdown when it comes to gravitas. That said, I wonder if that says more about how alarmingly poor public serious discourse on foreign policy has become. Yes, I’m grateful that a panel under Foreign Affairs’ auspices wasn’t entirely dominated by utterly unqualified right-wing ideologues living in a fantasy-world and even had some real experts on it. And that’s rather sad, to settle for the mediocre.

I still can’t help but wonder how why there were no Muslims included in the roundtable. Imagine, for a moment, a roundtable discussion of “What to do about Israel” with, say, Prince Bandar, the editor of the Danish newspaper that printed the anti-Muslim cartoons, Cardinal Egan of New York, James Wallis, Arianna Huffington, and anyone else you can think of who might have an opinion about Israel. Except for Israelis or American Jews.

Similarly, the exclusion of women and people of color is utterly shocking, but not because of some notion of “political correctness.” Let’s be clear about this: when expertise is involved, I simply want to hear from qualified experts and if none of them are men (or women), I couldn’t care less. But genuine expertise wasn’t one of the major prerequisites for this panel. There was some other standard that trumped genuine knowledge because some of the panel members – not all – could only have reached their opinions from studying secondary sources. They’d never been to Iraq, or they couldn’t even speak the language, some had had minimal if any contact with the culture or government policies, and so on. So that does raise the question as to what was the standard for choosing roundtablers. And being white, being male, and not being Muslim – those criteria suddenly seem to loom very large in how Foreign Affairs came to make their choice.

As I mentioned in the original post, I’m not saying the people on the panel were stupid. I’m sure that even the least expert member follows the news from Iraq more than the average lay reader. But if I am to learn something I don’t already know about Iraq, and I mean really learn something, then I need to hear from an entire panel of experts. Period. As good as some of the panelists were, as great as some others were, that’s not good enough by half. We’re living through a rather difficult time, after all; simply being smart, verbal or having your heart in the right place should not qualify you for inclusion at such a level.

Which brings up one further point. I would be the last person to claim that I have unique expertise in any aspect of foreign policy. I’m smart, I read a lot, I’ve talked to a lot of people who are experts, but I don’t. Here’s the thing: my lack of genuine knowledge wouldn’t prevent me from participating in the next Foreign Affairs roundtable on, say, “What To Do In Tuva.” Why not? I like throat-singing quite a bit and I can find Tuva on a map. I’m sure I could read enough in a month to know whatever I’d need to perform admirably in a roundtable. That may be good enough for Tuvan/American relations – although I doubt it. That’s not good enough for Iraq.

So I fully apologize to the experts on the Foreign Affairs panel. At the same time, I cannot urge Foreign Affairs and other similar institutions to provide the rest of us not merely with intelligent people, but with knowledgeable people, and only deeply knowledgeable people, who can help the rest of us understand an extremely complex world situation. A situation that – partly because of the lack of expertise in high places – seems poised on the edge of a precipice.