Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

In Plain Sight

by digby

When are Americans going to take the neocons seriously?

I’m not talking about the Republican party here or the movement conservatives. I’m speaking specifically of the group that can be called the true neocons of the era: The PNAC signatories and their supporters throughout the rightwing think tank intelligensia.

I’ve been writing about these guys online from practically the first moment I went online back in the 90’s. My friends thought I was a tin-foil nutter and at times, I thought I was too. The sheer grandiosity of their scheme was awesome.

Despite a reputation for Straussian opacity, the truth is that they have always made their plans known. There is no mystery about what they are about. To a shocking degree they have successfully promoted their agenda within the Republican establishment for the last two decades. And in the last six years we have seen them act without hesitation to opportunistically advance their strategic goals, regardless of the price.

These guys have been around for a long time, but I honestly never thought they would ever be granted the kind of power they would need to do what they sought to do.

How foolish of me.

Today, Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, one of the many scholars and experts whe were consistently right about Iraq (and ignored by the media and the punditocisy even today) writes:

Neocons Resurrect Plans For Regional War In The Middle East

In 1996, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser (all later senior officials in the Bush administration) had a plan for how to destroy Hezbollah: Invade Iraq. They wrote a report to the newly elected Likud government in Israel calling for “a clean break” with the policies of negotiating with the Palestinians and trading land for peace.

The problem could be solved “if Israel seized the strategic initiative along it northern borders by engaging Hizballah (sic), Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon.” The key, they said, was to “focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.” They called for “reestablishing the principle of preemption.” They promised that the successes of these wars could be used to launch campaigns against Iran, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, reshaping “the strategic balance in the Middle East profoundly.”

Now, with the U.S. bogged down in Iraq, with Bush losing control of world events, and with the threats to national security growing worse, no one could possibly still believe this plan, could they? Think again.

William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, is still pushing this radical vision. He now uses the excuse of Hezbollah terrorist attacks — what he calls “Iran’s Proxy War” — to push the United States deeper into a regional war against Iran and Syria:

We might consider countering this act of Iranian aggression with a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. Why wait? Does anyone think a nuclear Iran can be contained? That the current regime will negotiate in good faith? It would be easier to act sooner rather than later. Yes, there would be repercussions — and they would be healthy ones, showing a strong America that has rejected further appeasement.

Perle has already weighed in in a June 25 Washington Post editorial decrying Bush’s “ignominious retreat” on Iran. He, too, wants war. Newt Gingrich on Meet the Press this Sunday said we were already in World War III and that the US needed to take direct action against North Korea and Iran. Less well known pundits have flooded cable news and talk radio this weekend beating the war drums. Meanwhile, David Wurmser is ensconced in Vice-President Cheney’s office, and his neoconservative colleague Elliot Abrams (the convicted Iran-Contra felon who urged war with Iraq in a 1998 letter to President Bill Clinton) directs Middle East policy on the National Security Council staff.

The neoconservatives are now hoping to use the Israeli-Lebanon conflict as the trigger to launch a U.S. war against Syria, Iran or both. These profoundly dangerous policies have to be exposed and stopped before they do even more harm to U.S. national security then they already have.

We will never know for sure all the reasons we found ourselves in this mess. There are many moving parts in the Bush administration. But you have to admit, if you step back and look, the neocon faction, of all the others, have had their way almost unimpeded. And no amount of failure in real terms has slowed their pace.

They are very adept at taking advantage of circumstances to advance their goals. prior to 9/11 Islamic fundamentalism was a footnote in their plans. They had arranged their “threat matrix” around China and “Rogue States” (hence the fully formed plan for Iraq before the smoke had even cleared.) But they had always known that they needed a galvanizing crisis to put the nation on the war footing needed to carry out their vision. They were agile enough to adopt the GWOT when it presented itself and they have been agile enough to take advantage of new circumstances to advance their goals ever since.

Meanwhile, the titular president of the United States says something so stupid, even for him, that it’s crystal clear that the administration cannot effectively stop these people. From Ezra:

A live mic at the G8 Summit caught Tony Blair and George Bush talking privately about the conflict in Lebanon. Given the relative opacity of Bush’s thoughts on the situation, the frank discussion offered a fair amount of insight and a couple nuggets of news, including that he was going to send Condi to the region (or possibly the UN — but she’s going somewhere to deal with this), that he blamed neither Israel nor Lebanon for the violence, and that “the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it’s over.”

That’s a big deal: Bush believes it within the Syrian government’s power to calm the conflict. Theoretically, that should have major implications for American diplomacy and, possibly, policy.

(Ezra says “theoretically” because the focus of the event has been on the fact that Bush said “shit.”) But think about this. Bush is at a meeting of the world’s most powerful leaders and he says, off the cuff, something that betrays such a misunderstanding of the situation that it’s clear he hasn’t even been properly briefed. Condi, too, has been incoherent. So who’s really running the show?

I think we all know his name is Dick Cheney, original signatory of the PNAC and the man who stated baldly that he came into office with ideas about executive power and America’s place as a sole superpower that he’s been percolating since the late 70’s. Cheney has been playing a long game, much longer than anyone else in the administration. Like a shark, he is single minded, focused and relentless. By his standards, and the standards of his multi-national corporate and neocon theorist patrons, he has been tremendously successful so far. They do not see the dangers staring them in the face, or if they do they truly believe the risk (and the blood and money) are worth it. They have no doubts.

It’s tempting to write them off as a bunch of kooks, but it is their kooky vision that is right now playing out in the mid-east. It’s not that they are necessarily directing it, to be sure. But they are always prepared to take advantage of circumstances that advance it. And like all historical leaders of aMarch of Folly they believe, despite all evidence to the contrary, that everything will turn out ok in the end.

Update: Via John Amato and Arthur Silber, I see that Rush Limbaugh is priming the base for the rapture. He’s gotcher Strauss for ya, right here.

This plays perfectly into Karl’s plan as well, by the way. Beating the war drum is the only card he’s really got to play — national security and foreign policy are the only issues in which the Republicans are even pulling close to the Dems in the polls. How serendipitous death and destruction always are for Republicans.

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Tribes Without Borders

by poputonian

Recently, Bubba was in Aspen and had this to say about why the US should remain in Iraq, for however long it takes:

“Once you break the eggs, you have the responsibility to make an omelet.”

I’m not sure how much he believes that versus how much he’s rationalizing for the wife’s war vote, but an omelet for a metaphor is an interesting one. A bloody interesting one, unfortunately.

From the NYT today:

In an About-Face, Sunnis Want U.S. to Remain in Iraq

As sectarian violence soars, many Sunni Arab political and religious leaders once staunchly opposed to the American presence here are now saying they need American troops to protect them from the rampages of Shiite militias and Shiite-run government forces.

The pleas from the Sunni Arab leaders have been growing in intensity since an eruption of sectarian bloodletting in February, but they have reached a new pitch in recent days as Shiite militiamen have brazenly shot dead groups of Sunni civilians in broad daylight in Baghdad and other mixed areas of central Iraq.

The Sunnis also view the Americans as a “bulwark against Iranian actions here,” a senior American diplomat said. Sunni politicians have made their viewpoints known to the Americans
through informal discussions in recent weeks.

The Sunni Arab leaders say they have no newfound love for the Americans. Many say they still sympathize with the insurgency and despise the Bush administration and the fact that the invasion has helped strengthen the power of neighboring Iran, which backs the ruling Shiite parties.

And then this from the Times Online:

What worries the rulers of Sunni Arab countries is that, as their citizens watch satellite television images of the destruction wrought by Israel on Lebanon, sympathy will grow for Hezbollah, regarded by many Arabs — Sunni and Shia alike — as the only credible political and military force willing to match words with actions by taking on the might of Israel’s military force.

Perhaps that is why President Mubarak of Egypt, who has little taste for Hezbollah, admitted yesterday that “Israel will not be victorious in the current conflict”. He said: “Israel should stop the killing of defenceless Lebanese civilians.”

RELIGIOUS DIVIDE

IRAN 89% Shia 9% Sunni

PALESTINIANS 5% Shia 90% Sunni

IRAQ 65% Shia 20% Sunni

LEBANON 40% Shia 20% Sunni

SYRIA 15% Shia 74% Sunni

So take away the artificial borders, and what are you left with?

Team Shia
Syria (military leadership)
Hezbollah
Hamas
Iran
Iraq (backed by US troops)
Team Israeli

Israel
The Bush administration ‘Murica
Joe Lieberman (waterboy)

Team Sunni

Saudi Arabia
Hamas
Iraq Insurgency (protected by US troops)
Palestine
Syria (the people)

Where do the other players fit, and exactly how does all this play out? You’ve got majorities and minorities in each jurisdiction; and the big prize is the oil. And what about bin Laden?An opinion piece in the Chicago Tribune said this a while back:

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.

What do you think? Is there a one percent chance?
UPDATED

UPDATE II – for Syria

The One Percent Doctrine: Part One

by tristero

One of the most remarkable things about Run Suskind’s remarkable new book, The One Percent Doctrine, is what he omits. The book focuses a good deal on Tenet’s role in the post 9/11 period and is loaded with serious new indictments of the Bush administration’s incompetence. But Suskind’s book, at least for me is just as relevant to understanding the pre-9/11 Bush administration.

Let’s start – I hope to write a series of posts on this terrific book and urge all of you to buy and read it – with the one percent doctrine itself. It’s November, 2001 in the Situation Room, during a meeting with Cheney, Rice, Tenet, and a CIA briefer. They are reviewing some of the new intelligence. Suskind writes (p.61):

Cheney sat for a moment, saying nothing. “We have to deal with this threat is a way we haven’t yet defined,” he said, almost to himself. “With a low-probability, high-impact event like this….I’m frankly not sure how we engage. We’re going to have to look at it in a completely different way…

“If there’s a one percent chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response,” Cheney said. He paused to assess his declaration. “It’s not about our analysis, or finding a preponderance of evidence,” he added. “It’s about our response.”

So now spoken, it stood: a standard of action that would frame events and responses from the administration for years to come. The Cheney Doctrine. Even if there’s just a one percent chance of the unimaginable coming due, act as if it’s a certainty. It’s not about “our analysis,” as Cheney said. It’s about “our response.” This doctrine – the one percent solution – divided what had largely been indivisible in the conduct of American foreign policy: analysis and action. Justified or not, fact-based or not, “our response” is what matters. As to “evidence,” the bar was set so low that the word itself almost didn’t apply. If there was even a one percent chance of terrorists getting a weapon of mass destruction – and there has been a small probability of such an occurrence for some time – the United States must now act as if it were a certainty. This was a mandate of extraordinary breadth. Everyone sat for a moment, rolling it over in their minds, sketching the implications.

The one-percent doctrine, the Cheney Doctrine. From here, Suskind will immediately begin detailing all the incredibly bad decisions that immediately followed from its acceptance. If there’s even a one-percent chance that, say, an Iraqi agent met Atta in Prague, treat it as a certainty…and respond.

Since Suskind only reports on events post 9/11, he lets readers draw their own conclusions. Most importantly he doesn’t mention, but he surely realizes, that during the summer of 2001, and the spring before that, the highest levels of the Bush administration treated a high-probability, high-impact event – an imminent al Qaeda terrorist attack in the US – as if it had a one percent chance of occurring and did nothing. In Bush’s words (page 2) to a CIA briefer that August who interrupted his vacation to impress upon Bush how serious the threat was,

“All right, you’ve covered your ass, now.”

Let’s look a little closer at how “one percent thinking” may inform Bush administration behavior from the getgo. In fact, contrary to what Cheney asserts, it’s pretty clear that a one-percent doctrine was in place from Day One of the Bush administration. And, while focusing on threats they had been told were highly improbable (such as Saddam funding WMD terrorist attacks against the US), they missed the highly probable, going so far as to marginalize, deliberately, many of those who were warning them the loudest about imminent al Qaeda attacks (John O’Neill and Richard Clarke are only two of the most prominent).

In other words, the one-percent doctrine, in force from the beginning of the Bush era, failed to prevent 9/11, as it has failed to make the world any safer since. And it will continue to fail for a very simple reason: The one percent docrtrine is not based on anything resembling consensual reality.

It is hard escaping the conclusion that the Cheney Doctrine, the one percent solution is utterly irrational. Although Suskind probably wouldn’t go this far, I see it as the muddled reasoning of panicked cowards who have no business commanding the most powerful armed forces in the world. Ever.

There’s more, much more. But let’s stop here for now.

[Edited slightly after original posting.]

Unbelievable

by digby

This is such a shocking bit of lazy, bass-ackwards journalism that it requires a deluge of letters to the NY Times. The reporter and the editor should be called on the carpet.

If anyone ever doubted that the press operates from a scripted narrative, here’s your proof.

Update: McJoan at Kos has more on this reporter’s kewl kid proclivities.

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TheirSpace

A bipartisan group of prominent political strategists this past week announced an Internet information venture designed to interact with America’s opinion leaders and serve as an antidote to the right-left clash that typifies political discourse on the Web.

The site, called Hotsoup.com, will debut in October and will be edited by Ron Fournier, former chief political writer for The Associated Press.

Hotsoup is the brainchild of some of the best-known practitioners of partisan politics in Washington, including Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004, and Joe Lockhart, former White House press secretary under President Bill Clinton and a senior adviser to Democratic Sen. John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign.

Despite their political backgrounds and distinct party affiliations, Hotsoup founders said the site will provide a nonpartisan forum not just for politics, but for topics ranging from science to popular culture, from business to current affairs.

The effort is ambitious and risky, using the Internet to create an online social network similar to the popular teenage Web retreat MySpace.com.

Web site aims to be MySpace for politicians

“I Would Leave The Tube In”

by digby

Reason #5677

“You would have kept the tube in?” asked NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert.

Lieberman, a Demcoratic U.S. senator from Connecticut who ran as his party’s vice presidential nominee in 2000, replied, “I would have kept the tube in.”

The exchange began when Russert mentioned Lieberman’s Republican House colleague, Rep. Christopher Shays.

Shays said he believed the GOP would suffer “repercussions” from voting last week to try to get the brain-damaged Florida woman’s feeding tube replaced.

“This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy. … There are going to be repercussions from this vote [on Schiavo’s constitutional rights],” Shays said. “There are a number of people who feel that the government is getting involved in their personal lives in a way that scares them.”

Russert asked Lieberman if he “agreed” with that statement.

“I don’t,” Lieberman said. And though he said Shays’ statement was “a very credible and respectable opinion, the fact is that, though I know a lot of people’s attitude toward the Schiavo case and other matters is affected by their faith and their sense of what religion tells them about morality, ultimately as members of Congress, as judges, as members of the Florida state Legislature, this is a matter of law. And the law exists to express our values.

“I have been saying this in speeches to students about why getting involved in government is so important. I always say the law is where we define the beginning of life and the end of life, and that’s exactly what was going on here,” Lieberman continued.

“And I think as a matter of law, if you go – particularly to the 14th Amendment, [you] can’t be denied due process, have your life or liberty taken without due process of law, that though the Congress’ involvement here was awkward, unconventional, it was justified to give this woman, more than her parents or husband, the opportunity for one more chance before her life was terminated by an act which was sanctioned by a court, by the state.”

Lieberman added, “These are very difficult decisions, but – of course, if you ask me what I would do if I was the Florida Legislature or any state legislature, I’d say that if somebody doesn’t have a living will and the next of kin disagree on whether the person should be kept alive or that is whether food and water should be taken away and her life ended – that really the benefit of the doubt ought to be given to life.”

In conclusion, Lieberman said, “The family member who wants to sustain her life ought to have that right because the judge really doesn’t know, though he heard the facts, one judge, what Terri Schiavo wanted. He made a best guess based on the evidence before him. That’s not enough when you’re talking about aggressively removing food and water to end someone’s life.”

“You would have kept the tube in?” asked NBC’s “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert.

Lieberman replied, “I would have kept the tube in.”

Lieberman grossly misrepresented the legal issues and endorsed the novel conservative theory that a married adult’s parents should have equal say in these situations as his or her spouse — but that doesn’t make him a bad guy, right? And while the vast majority of Americans may have disagreed with this outrageous government intrusion (that he mildly calls “unconventional”) you can’t really hold it against him. He’s a man of integrity with deep religious beliefs. Just like these people:

Randall Terry must have been so pleased.

With all that talk about the law choosing when life begins and ends, how long before Joe switches on abortion? He’s hedging on birth control already. It’s only a matter of time…

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An All-Too-Brief 992 Pages

by tristero

Christmas is coming early this year:

With a worldwide disaster looming just a few years ahead, it is a time of unrestrained corporate greed, false religiosity, moronic fecklessness, and evil intent in high places. No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred.

The sizable cast of characters includes anarchists, balloonists, gamblers, corporate tycoons, drug enthusiasts, innocents and decadents, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, psychics, and stage magicians, spies, detectives, adventuresses, and hired guns. There are cameo appearances by Nikola Tesla, Bela Lugosi, and Groucho Marx.

More Rightwing Rapture

by digby

Jesus’ General posted some excerpts from a freeper thread celebrating the deaths of Lebanese children. The posts are as disturbing as you might imagine. I clicked over to see if there were any protests of this callousness. Surprisingly enough, there are sometimes a few freepers with a slight conscience who step into these psycho-threads and try to pull people back from the brink.

Not this time. It’s one sick comment after the other. Like this:

To quote Tom Quick, Avenger of the Delaware, following dashing the head of an Indian baby on a rock, “From nits come lice”.

and this:

boo friggin hoo.

just eliminating future terrorists IMO.

Between the rapturous arab children death cult and the cult of the rapture, it appears that a significant portion of the American rightwing are decending into some sort of crazed, bloodlust fantasy about events in the middle east. What’s up with this?

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Look Ma …

Think back to when you were young, say five or six, maybe seven; whenever it was that you first learned to ride a bike. Remember how you finally got the hang of it, but things were still a little shaky; and then, SHIT, as you took one hand off the handlebars to wave at someone you lost control of the bike? OK — hold that image in your mind and click here.

Paper Heroes

by digby

James Wolcott makes an observation that in a sane world would not be necessary. In this world it cannot be made enough. He quotes wingnut historian Victor Davis Hanson:

“But we shouldn’t forget that the global village gets back to normal only after a Shane or Marshall Will Cane [sic: Kane] is willing to take on the outlaws alone and save those who can’t or won’t save themselves. So, remember, when, to everyone’s relief, such mavericks put down their six-shooters and ride off into the sunset, the killers often creep back into town.”

Wolcott says:

First of all, it’s embarrassing for a historian of any stature to seal his arguments with Hollywood citations. Alan Ladd’s Shane and Gary Cooper’s marshall in High Noon were fictional heroes whose success in the final showdowns were preordained in the script; their relevance to the policy decisions of a prime minister or president is nil.

I’m reminded of a story I heard about Kirk Gibson after he made his famous home run in the 1988 world series. Some sportswriter asked him if he thought he really was better than Roy Hobbs in “The Natural.” Gibson replied, “Of course I am, Hobbs is a fictional character.”

It seems to me that a lot of people on the right really don’t understand that distinction. I don’t know whether it’s a pathetic attempt to appear “hip” or whether they really think it makes sense.

I understand that people need myths and stories and narrative to understand their world and blah, blah, blah. But this is something else and it’s so pervasive among wingnuts that I have to think they really do forget that movies, books, comics and the like are controlled not by real world events, but the imaginations of those who write them. This Hollywood notion of heroic Uncle Sam fighting for truth and justice permeates the right’s mythology to such an extent that even Condoleeza Rice ends up blurting out things like “how could any German say such a thing after all the United States had done to liberate Germany from Hitler?”

It’s like the country is being run by trekkies.

Update: No offense meant to Trekkies’, merely noting that some of them seem to believe that Star Trek is real rather than fictional. (Not all! Just some.)

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