Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Bending The GWOT

by digby

In a preview at Arthur’s of an upcoming post about Alan Dershowitz’s suggestion that we civilized westerners develop a new way of defining collective punishment so as to be able to kill civilians with impunity, I noted this quote from an Israeli official:

Mr Ramon – a close confidant of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert – said “everyone understands that a victory for Hezbollah is a victory for world terror”.

“World terror” huh? How convenient for all of us then that the Israelis are fightin’ ’em over there so we don’t have to fight ’em over here. No wonder we rushed in those delayed missiles. We can’t let “world terror” win fergawdsake!

It’s in such nonsensical talk that we see the logic of the GWOT brought home in all its magnificent horror. People are fighting “world terror” everywhere — except where they aren’t.

Michael Hirsh has written an article in Newsweek about this topic and examines why this conflation of the threat of al Qaeda with a Global War on Terror first created the insurgency in Iraq and now threatens to set the entire mid-east on fire:

What’s sad is that the “war on terror” began as a fairly straightforward affair. Al Qaeda hit us. Then we went after Al Qaeda. The enemy was clear, and the evidence against Al Qaeda was solid: there was a decade’s worth of fatwas, of declarations of war, monitored conversations and bin Laden’s own monstrous bragging, on videotape, about how the World Trade Center collapse had far exceeded his expectations. We had a lot of support around the world in pursuit of our mission to hunt these men down, kill them or capture them and do with them as we pleased.

But inexorably, month by month, the Bush administration broadened the war on terror to include ever more peoples and countries, especially Saddam’s Iraq, relying on thinner and thinner evidence to do so. And what began as a hunt for a relatively contained group of self-declared murderers like bin Laden became a feckless dragnet of tens of thousands of hapless Arab victims like the sons of the hostel owner in Samarra, the vast majority of whom had nothing to do with Al Qaeda or terror, just as Saddam had little to do with Al Qaeda, just as the Iraqi insurgency had little to do with Al Qaeda (at least at the start), just as Hizbullah has nothing to do with Al Qaeda. And as the war broadened beyond reason, and the world questioned the legitimacy of the enterprise, our friends dropped away. Worse, we have found ourselves making enemies in the Islamic world faster than we could round them up or kill them.

Yes, the war against Al Qaeda called for a stretching and changing of the rules. We had to be ruthless with the maniacs who struck us on 9/11. But for that very reason, it required that we be very precise in identifying the enemy. Just the opposite occurred. “You can’t distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror,” President Bush declared on Sept. 25, 2002, as he made the case for the Iraq invasion. This was the kind of thing Bush often repeated as he sought to wheel the nation 90 degrees, in the middle of the fight against Al Qaeda, toward Iraq. The truth was quite the contrary: not only could you distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam, it was imperative that you do so, that you wage this fight with precision analysis as much as precision weaponry. We could not afford to let our soldiers see all military-age men as potential enemies.

Today, more from the muddled strategic thinking of the Bush administration than the actual threat from Al Qaeda, the “war on terror” has become an Orwellian nightmare: an ill-defined war without prospect of end. We are now nearly five years into a war against a group that was said to contain no more then 500 to 1,000 terrorists at the start (in case anyone’s counting, 1,776 days have now passed since 9/11; that is more than a full year longer than the time between Pearl Harbor and the surrender of Japan, which was 1,347 days). The war just grows and grows. And now Lebanon, too, is part of it.

This is the Bush Doctrine at work. He said it explicitly:

We’ve sent a message that is understood throughout the world: if you harbor a terrorist, if you support a terrorist, if you feed a terrorist, you’re just as guilty as the terrorists.

It didn’t take much to extrapolate from that that anyone who lived near a “terrorist” or worked along side a “terrorist” or who even looked like a “terrorist” was just as guilty as a terrorist. Alan Dershowitz has recently expanded on that notion by saying that those who do not fight against the terrorists in their midst, or flee their homes if terrorists are among them, must also share the blame for these terrorists’ actions.

The only thing that was left out of all this was a definition of terrorism.**

Hirsh points out in his article how this played out during the first years of the occupation of Iraq, a country we were ostensibly liberating from — you guessed it — terror:

Reading “Fiasco,” Thomas Ricks’s devastating new book about the Iraq war, brought back memories for me. Memories of going on night raids in Samarra in January 2004, in the heart of the Sunni Triangle, with the Fourth Infantry Division units that Ricks describes. During these raids, confused young Americans would burst into Iraqi homes, overturn beds, dump out drawers, and summarily arrest all military-age men—actions that made them unwitting recruits for the insurgency.

For American soldiers battling the resistance throughout Iraq, the unspoken rule was that all Iraqis were guilty until proven innocent. Arrests, beatings and sometimes killings were arbitrary, often based on the flimsiest intelligence, and Iraqis had no recourse whatever to justice. Imagine the sense of helpless rage that emerges from this sort of treatment. Apply three years of it and you have one furious, traumatized population. And a country out of control.

In Lebanon today:

“Over here, everybody is the army,” one soldier said. “Everybody is Hezbollah. There’s no kids, women, nothing.”

Another soldier put it plainly: “We’re going to shoot anything we see.”

And so another front in the GWOT is opened.

Hirsh continues:

In strategic terms, the U.S. endorsement of Israel’s retaliation against Hizbullah had some merit at the start, within limits: a Lebanon with an armed Hizbullah in its midst was never going to graduate to real democracy. The Israeli action is also, in a way, a proxy war against Iran and its nuclear program. Reducing Iran’s influence in the region by degrading the power of its principal means of terror (and therefore of retaliation) is in America’s interest, as well. This is the unspoken logic both of the fierce Israeli assault and Bush’s fierce defense of it: “In the back of everyone’s head is Iran looming as a threat over the region,” says one Israeli official.”In the back of everyone’s head is Iran looming as a threat over the region,” says one Israeli official.

But with each errant bomb that kills more Lebanese children, the U.S. position becomes less defensible. By walking in lockstep with the Israelis, we Americans make it impossible for Muslims not to see us as an enemy. And every Muslim official knows, even if Bush does not, that Hizbullah is not identical with Iran but is a client of it, in a relationship not unlike that of the United States and Israel. By making Israel’s war our own we ensure that the Lebanese group and the Tehran mullahs will be even closer allies in the future. We place the Muslims whom we desperately need as allies, like Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, in an impossible position. Maliki, a Shiite, can no longer stand with Bush, as he showed during his tense visit to Washington this week.

I suspect one reason Newt Gingrich and his fellow nutballs are working overtime to get this WWIII business playing in people’s heads is because to Americans the GWOT remains vague and ill-defined. They have yet to sign on to this existential struggle against well — everybody, or at least a bunch of people they don’t even know, forever. Are the French terrorists? They must be because we are supposed to hate them. How about the Mexicans who are invading our borders? Newt keeps bringing up Venezuela as part of our epic struggle against terrorism. And North Korea is a charter member of the Axis ‘o Evil, so we know they are terrorists.

Who are we fighting again?

I suspect that many Americans are now so confused they simply think “they’re all a bunch of terrorists” and wish a pox on all their houses. And with the logic of the GWOT they are all a bunch of terrorists. But then with the logic of the GWOT, we are the biggest terrorists of all.

*** I should add that the idea of creating a legal definiton of “terrorism” was advanced from early days after 9/11 by Wes Clark and others who noted that this elastic definition was a recipe for trouble. It even became an agenda item at the UN Millenium Summit — which was tabled immediately upon John Bolton’s appointment. In keeping with the overall philosophy of the Bush administration, they obviously recognized that the less they are required to conform to recognized legal norms the more they can wage war against “World Terror.”

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Billmon Again

by tristero

Jeez, that guy can write. Magnificent.

One comment. Billmon writes about the disgusting “exterminate all the brutes” mindset, and behavior, of the Israeli army:

This all might be considered normal military behavior for, oh say, a Bosnian Serb militia captain, circa 1991, but when the political and military leaders of an allegedly civilized state start talking this way, something big is going on, and going wrong.

Yes, indeed, something big is going on. It’s the opening skirmishes of a Middle East – wide war, brought to you by the losers who gave the world Iraq 2006.

And brother, is it ever going wrong.

Can an enormous, dreadful, and pointless war be averted? Yes, but it will require an American opposition to Bush willing to speak truth loudly, not a party so terrified of upsetting Americans’ beautiful minds it doesn’t have the courage to put the Iraq war and Bush’s mad behavior front and center.

What Matters To The Media, And What Doesn’t

by tristero

For those who think that things are much better in the mainstream media since the disgraceful selling of the New Product in fall 2002 through March ’03, Media Matters today will set y’all straight. Two reports about television stood out.

Here’s who the tv folks DON’T think are important for you to hear from.

And here’s who they do.

Kinda makes you sick to your stomach, doesn’t it? Now I know there’s a fine line between entertainment and news, but first of all it ain’t *that* fine. Second of all, none of this is entertaining.

Meanwhile, am I the only one who’s noticed the all the shameless puff pieces disguised as reporting on John Bolton, despite the fact that he is universally loathed and has accomplished next to nothing except the impossible, namely to make the US even more of a laughingstock internationally than it already was?

Keeping it Straight

by digby

For those of you who are having trouble keeping track of all the allegiances among the various countries, groups, militias and terrorists in the mid-east, Slate put together a handy dandy interactive Middle East Buddy List

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Chi Sandwich

by digby

Ezra expertly slices and dices TimesSelect:

Wandering through the nation’s op-ed pages is like ambling through a dojo. Each writer has his own particular style, technique, finishing move. There’s Tom Friedman, who rushes in with the Implausible Conversational Anecdote, links it to an Off-Topic Invocation Of World Travels, and finishes you with a Confusing Metaphor From Above. Or there’s Maureen Dowd, who deploys Unfounded Personal Speculation mixed with Confusing Allegories till she’s set up her killing blow: Insinuation of Character Defect. It’s impressive stuff.

The deadliest op-ed columnist, however, is unquestionably David Brooks. He’s the drunken boxer of the opinion page, luring you into a false sense of security with Banal Observations that comfort through Faux Bipartisanship until you’re ready for the Illogical Conservative Conclusion. Today’s column is an archetypal example of the master at work: a series of cogent critiques of Hillary Clinton’s college aid proposals that effortlessly glide through research demonstrating their uselessness, a couple lavish compliments to Clinton and her team, and finally a conclusion that explains the only way to increase college attendance is to encourage two-parent homes, fundamentally reform schools, and increase church-sponsored mentoring programs. Funny thing — this is exactly the rightwing’s agenda! And yet it comes wrapped in such warm bipartisanship and elevated chin stroking that you’d never notice Newt Gingrich silently mouthing along in the background.

And then there’s Krugman who wanders in from the alley and while the other columnists are practicing their qigong he just plants a facer on the opposition.

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Destroy The Village In Order To Save It: Part Deux

by digby

“Our mission and our goal is to have a lasting peace — not a temporary peace, but something that lasts,” said Bush. “We want a sustainable ceasefire. We don’t want something that’s, you know, short term in duration.”

This is the middle east he’s talking about. Apparently somebody has told him that getting a lasting peace there is just a matter of resolve. If only people hadn’t accepted all these temporary ceasefires in the past, everything would have been straightened out by now. (He’s not saying they wouldn’t have gotten their hair mussed…)

I know he’s just an idiot who doesn’t even have the barest grasp of simple logic. But when children are being killed and maimed, you’d think they could at least have the foresight to come up with a talking point that doesn’t make “collateral damage” sound like a moral concept by comparison. This idea that in order to achieve longterm peace you can’t have a temporary ceasefire is gibberish, yes, — but it is immoral too. Apparently, he really doesn’t grasp the fact that during a “short-term” ceasefire actual human beings are not being killed — real people with jobs and homes and lives and everything.

I think that one of the sad consequences of Democrats being so hapless these last few years is that these silly Republicans have gotten it into their heads that the whole world works like the American political system. If you humiliate your enemy enough, they will become like “neutered barnyard animals” who will happily go along with their second class status. But that only works when the other side is comfortable and fat and enjoying the perks of the status quo as much as the victors. In the real world this is a very provocative and dangerous way to try to manage human events. It tends to create hatreds that can’t be mitigated by a nice slice of political pork down the road.

I’ve always been quite fond of this statement by Bush back in 2001, which I think perfectly reflects his temperament:

The American people must understand when I said that we need to be patient, that I meant it. And we’re going to be there for a while. I don’t know the exact moment when we leave, David, but it’s not until the mission is complete. The world must know that this administration will not blink in the face of danger and will not tire when it comes to completing the missions that we said we would do. The world will learn that when the United States is harmed, we will follow through. The world will see that when we put a coalition together that says “Join us,” I mean it. And when I ask others to participate, I mean it.

That’s been working out really well for us, don’t you think?

That was at the zenith of Bush’s post bullhorn power and I don’t think he’s progressed one moment past that point. When you combine it with the neocon obsession with war as the answer for every problem, you get an administration that sees sustained violence as the only way to achieve lasting peace and that the problem in the middle east is that there just hasn’t been enough of it over the years.

It’s as if “1984” were true, except that Big Brother is a hulking, braindead thug.

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Cakewalk

by digby

Via Laura Rozen I found this startling foreign policy index from the Democratic Policy Committee. Rozen and Democracy Arsenal highlighted a few of the items pertaining to Iraq:

Number of Iraqis who had access to potable water before invasion: 13 million

Number of Iraqis who have access to potable water, according to the April 2006 SIGIR report: 8 million

Number of Iraqi physicians registered prior to the invasion: 34,000

Number of Iraqi physicians who have been murdered or fled the country since the invasion: 14,000

Infant mortality rate in Iraq: (Middle East average is 37, sub-Saharan Africa average is 105): 102

Average number of daily attacks by insurgents in June 2004: 45
Average number of daily attacks by insurgents in June 2006: 90

Rank of Iraq on the “failed states” index: 4

Rank of Afghanistan on the “failed states” index: 10

Rank of Iraq among all nations as a training ground for terrorists:1

The last we heard from Joe Lieberman, (who isn’t talking about foreign policy on the campaign trail, apparently) was that there was tremendous progress being made in Iraq, especially on the political front. Here’s the index on the political situation:

Amount requested by the President in his Fiscal Year 2007 budget for democracy promotion in Iraq: 0

Percent of Iraqis who say they are optimistic about their future: 30 percent

According to a recent World Public Opinion poll, percent of Iraqis who approve of a timeline for U.S. withdrawal: 70 percent

Degree of corruption in Iraq on the Transparency International 2005 Corruption Perceptions Index (on a scale of 0-10, with 0 representing “highly corrupt” and 10 representing “highly clean”): 2.2

Number of corruption cases that have been filed since the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity was established in 2004: 1,400

Approximate number of Iraqi families internally displaced as of February 2006 (prior to February 22 bombing of Shiite shrine in Samarra): 3,000

Approximate number of Iraqi families internally displaced as of June 2006, according to Iraq’s Ministry of Displacement and Migration: 21,731 or 130,386 people

Number of Iraqi civilians killed in May, according to data from the Iraqi Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue: 2,669

Number of Iraqi civilians killed in June, according to data from the Iraqi Health Ministry and the Baghdad morgue: 3,149

Civilian death toll in Iraq in June 2006: 100 per day

Rank of Iraq in Minority Rights Group International’s list of peoples most under threat from persecution, discrimination, and mass killing: 1

The number of passports issued in the past ten months, according to the U.S. Committee for Refugees:2 million

Percent of Iraq’s professional class that has left the country since late 2003:40 percent

You have to wonder what it would have looked like if it were going badly.

Update: The Poorman has a post up about one of those displaced Iraqis — a catblogger named Raghda, whose family finally gave up and left the country.

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When Will They Ever Learn?

by tristero

When the present batch of Democratic consultants finally give up the ghost – that is, part this world for the next, ie. croak – it is my fervent wish that they be consigned a special space in hell where they’ll be forced to watch unto eternity these Ed Sullivan shows with all the Beatles performances removed. I seen the shows recently so I realize that is an extremely cruel fate to wish on anyone. They deserve it.

Consider this small but important indicator of the continuing disaster that is national Democratic strategy:

Democrats plan to press for a minimum wage increase and “tough, smart” national security in their final push to wrest power from the Republicans in the November elections.

Something missing, boys and girls? Like the Iraq war, perhaps? Or the awful economy?

And guess what? When you avoid a subject, no matter what it is, you leave the field wide open for Republicans – who are so fluent in Newspeak by now that they don’t even hesitate a beat – to define the playing field for you:

Danny Diaz, a Republican National Committee spokesman, said: “It is both ironic and amusing that Democrats believe they are making a final argument to the American people, while being incapable of deciding how much to raise taxes on working families or how quickly to retreat from Iraq.”

Trying arguing from those premises.

And that, in the opinion of the Dems’ most lavishly compensated advice-peddlers, is the problem. You can’t, so it’s best to avoid the subject. Nevermind that avoiding talk about a war that’s costing the mothers of American soliders thousands of their children’s lives – and for no purpose whatsoever – is just about the worst thing you could possibly do if you were trying to convince someone you were a serious alternative to Republican incompetence. Nevermind that avoiding talk on insisting that the Paris Hiltons and Dick Cheneys of America pay their fair share is simply insane. Better to avoid these subjects altogether than taking the effort to set a level playing field for these subjects. That would take work.

What should the Dems have done? Made Iraq and tax breaks for the Scaifes and the Ahmansons the central issues or at least define them clearly and loudly and long before the Republicans. Instead, they will now face an uphill rhetorical battle trying to counteract Republican rhetoric. And the Republicans will repeat Diaz’s crap until Democrats won’t be able to avoid it.

Will the Dems win either house or both in November? Let’s put it this way: if they do (and God help us if Republicans continue their assault on the fabric of American government unopposed), it will be because the Republicans couldn’t hide any longer how dangerously awful they are. Democratic victories will come in spite of their best efforts to remain powerless. And Republicans will easily reverse any Democratic wins in ’08.

Why? Please. How much effort do you think it will it take a Republican propaganda machine that comes up with lines like “how quickly to retreat from Iraq” to blame Democrats for anything that goes wrong in the next two years if Dems actually control a house or two of Congress? Talk about cakewalks! (Well to be literate, “pieces of cake,” cakewalks are dances.)

Now there are responsible people, for example Sean Wilentz in this important article in The New Yorker, who apparently feel the march into fascism hasn’t progressed to the point where they’re all but irreversible. I disagree. The assault on American values and institutions has been so thorough and relentless over the past 6 years they cannot be effectively counteracted simply by wresting temporary control of a house of Congress, especially if that control is won by avoiding talking about the important things that are going on. Think of all the extremist judges and bureaucrats Bush has placed in power. Think of all the good people who fled the CIA in the past few years. Sorry, Sean, I love your new book but I think you’ve misunderestimated the extent of the damage.

It’s now generally accepted, once again and hallelujah for that, that avoiding reality is a Really Bad Thing and that Bushism is premised on avoiding reality. However, an opposition strategy that fails to confront head-on the disasters of Iraq, Afghanistan, the tax breaks for the wealthy, and the increasingly fascist nature of mainstream Republicanism is also entirely divorced from reality. If anything, it is even more so in some ways. And just like Bushism, it is doomed to spectacular failure.

Here’s hoping I’m wrong. But I’m afraid I’m not. The pity of it all is that if mainstream Democrats would simply ditch the consultants and speak the truth, it would be utterly persuasive. There are some good people there – Kerry, Pelosi, Obama, Dean, Reid, Clark – and feel free to substitute/add others, they’re are dozens of great politicians in the Dem party. But the campaign advice they are getting is just godawful.

And thus, eternal Ed Sullivan without the Beatles, without Elvis, without Buddy Holly – man, do they have it coming. There will be no mercy.

[UPDATE: As Atrios sez, Democrats should read this.]

Who Needs Arab Language Specialists, Anyway?

by tristero

The Iraq war’s forgotten, and in Iran the official language is Persian so this guy’s totally expendable:

A decorated sergeant and Arabic language specialist was dismissed from the U.S. Army under the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy, though he says he never told his superiors he was gay and his accuser was never identified.

Narrowing The Debate

by tristero

One further point in re: Digby’s post on the neocons’ alarm that Rice is misleading Bush into accepting diplomatic rather than military approaches to Iran, Hizbollah, NoKo, etc. On the face of it, the notion that Bush is seriously pursuing diplomacy is laughable. Rice surely is incompetent, but there is no possible way anything she says or does will prevent Bush from waging further war in the Middle East.

The airing of the neocon nutjobs’ views at this time has a different purpose. It is part of a blatant attempt to define the limits of acceptable discourse on Israel/Hizbollah so that the only sensible position – an immediate halt by Israel of all hostilities and a withdrawal from Lebanon – is framed as so far left as to be beyond the pale of serious discussion. The Bush/Rice position – let’s not too be too hasty about asking Israel to stop killing UN observers and Lebanese civilians – looks in comparison as the path of sober moderation, a compromise between the views of all serious observers.

Just as in 2002, there is a deliberate attempt to marginalize anyone in the reality-based community. And once again, the views of those to the right on Israel get defined as the reasonable center so the extreme right – Perle and Gingrich – are reframed merely as to the right and worthy of attention. In the process, genuine moderates are swept off to a far left corner. You want Israel to withdraw now? Forget it. Did you just mention Edward Said? Come on, get real.

Assuming no new terrorist attacks in the US, it is arguable whether again recasting the moderate/right center as far left will work as well as it did for drumming up support for the lunatic notion of invading Iraq. But it may confuse folks long enough for Bush to feel he has the “support of the people” to attack Iran. And that is all that is needed.