Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

The American Death Star

Mary over at the Watch (which has a whole bunch of great posts up) sent me this analysis from Stratfor by Dr. George Friedman on the Big Picture. Their belief is that the rationale for invasion can be reduced to 2 simple premises:

1. To transform the psychology of the Islamic world, which had perceived the United States as in essence weak and unwilling to take risks to achieve its ends.

2. To use Iraq as a strategic base of operations from which to confront Islamic regimes that are either incapable of or unwilling to deny al Qaeda and other Islamist groups access to enabling resources.

The first is really just a way to demonstrate the basic logic of the Bush Doctrine and it comes down to a rather cultish worship of Machiavelli. (Check out Michael Ledeen’s onanistic writings on the subject.) You know the line:

My view is that it is desirable to be both loved

and feared; but it is difficult to achieve both and,

if one of them has to be lacking, it is much safer

to be feared than loved.

[…]

Nevertheless, a ruler must make himself feared

in such a way that, even if he does not become

loved, he does not become hated. For it is

perfectly possible to be feared without incurring

hatred. And this can always be achieved if he

refrains from laying hands on the property of his

citizens and subjects.

I’m at a loss as to how this can possibly fit in with the Straussian views of the conservative Virtuecrats, but I guess it all just boils down to team sports or something. The more I delve into the philosophical foundations of the Bush Doctrine and those who support it the more incoherent it is. Christians for Machiavelli. Now that’s some intellectual gymnastics.

I suppose it is of a piece with a government that openly embraces fear and power as a policy while using the rhetoric of liberty and religion to sell it. This kind of cognitive dissonance is so pervasive that you have to give them credit for their superhuman ability to keep their heads from exploding.

Anyway, the Stratfor report takes a whack at examining the psychology of those we believe we can cow with our vast military prowess:

The simplistic idea that resentment of the United States will generate effective action by Arabs misses a crucial point. Two scales are at work here: the radicalism scale and the hope scale. On the radicalism scale, the level of radicalism and anti-Americanism in the Arab world has been off the chart for months. Increasing the level would be difficult. However, radicalism by itself does not lead to action. There must also be hope — a sense that there are weaknesses in the U.S. position that can be exploited, that there is some possibility of victory, however distant. So long as the hope scale tends toward hopelessness, radicalism can be intense.

The United States was prepared to allow the radicalism scale to go deep into the danger zone, but Washington has been trying to keep the hope scale deeply in the green zone. Israel’s failure after 1967 was inherent in its position: The Israelis depended heavily on outsiders for national security. The Arab perception was that the Israelis could be attacked by splitting them from their patrons. This sense of vulnerability led to an active response to defeat. .

It goes on to say that the US must now work to avoid projecting a sense of vulnerability and suggests that in order to ultimately prevail it must reduce the hatred. The hatred will cause us to lose control of Iraq and that loss of control will lead to a perception of vulnerability.

I agree that the administration believes all this, but it remains inexplicable to me. Yes, al Qaeda uses the “Americans are a bunch of pussies” rhetoric in their recruitment videos. And, they do harbor the illusion that they single handedly brought down the Soviets (a trait they share with the neocons.) But, does anyone believe that this invasion of Iraq has somehow made us seem invulnerable to anybody but a bunch of stupid Americans who missed the point of Star Wars?

Terrorists don’t have to defeat the mighty US military to win. These people already know that all it takes is a handful of fanatics killing American civilians on American soil to provoke our government into acting like a rabid dog by wildly undertaking reckless adventures abroad, invoking totalitarian measures at home and spending more and more of our money on warmaking capability. We could theoretically scare all the tinhorn dictators in the world into cowering like a bunch battered Democratic Senators before our mighty sword, but it is an extremely strange reading of psychology that says you can frighten suicide bombers.

But, the neocons think that terrorists are just agents of rogue states so they don’t spend a lot of time second guessing their decade old plan to rule the world. But even by their own logic, I fail to see how aggressive bellicosity toward Syria even before the bullets have stopped flying in Iraq is going to accomplish their goal of being both feared and loved.

With respect to the second point, there is some speculation that this saber rattling toward Syria is a sop to Ariel Sharon as an inducement to sign on to the “road map.” On the other hand Richard Perle believes that since we’ve “liberated” 25 million Iraqis, we’ve done our part for the Arabs and the Palestinians can piss up a rope. So, as usual, nobody really knows what the hell they are up to.

Perhaps they actually believe they can force Assad to step down just by saying “boo!” But, if the Stratfor analysis is correct, if he stays in power after all of this in your face rhetoric we must invade Syria or risk being seen as vulnerable. And, if we do that then we will definitely create more hatred. It’s hard to see how they can finesse this one into another “liberation.”

When you open your big mouth and roar at other countries that you “expect” them to do what you tell them – no need for a UN resolution fig leaf or wimpy coalitions in Bush’s Empire –you’ve got to be prepared to back it up. And when you talk tough to a guy whose power rests entirely on his repressive authority you’ve left him no choice but to go down fighting. So, unless Assad humiliates himself and backs down or Bush backs down, thereby making the US appear vulnerable, we are backing ourselves into a corner. It’s very likely that we will be invading Syria.

You can’t fight in here, this is the War Room!

Via Atrios this may be the best article yet about the surreality of Operation Big Swinging Manhood.

Even Kubrick and Southern couldn’t have made this stuff up:

[…]

First it was CNN that replayed my question – the CNN view was, more or less, the liberal media view: a certain hand wringing about whether the media was being used. Then it was Fox, with its extreme, love-it-or-leave-it, approach to the war, which took me apart: I was clearly a potential traitor.

And then it was Rush.

To his audience of 20 million – pro-war, military minded, Bush-centered, media-hating – lily white-Rush laid me out. I was not only a reporter, but one from New York magazine. “New York” resonated. It combined with “media” and suddenly, in the hands of Rush, I was as elitist and as pampered (fortunately nobody mentioned the Ritz) and as dismissive of the concerns of real Americans as, well, Rush’s 20 million assume the media to be. Whereas Rush, that noted foot soldier, represented the military heartland.

What’s more, according to Rush, that great defender of the rights of African-Americans, I was a racist. Duh. A white liberal challenging a black general. It’s a binary world.

And Rush gave out my email address. Almost immediately, the 3,000 emails, full of righteous fury, started to come.

Clearly marked as the rabble-rouser of the get-out-of-Doha movement, I was approached by some enforcer types. The first person was a version of a Graham Greene character. He represented the White House, he said. Wasn’t of the military. Although, he said, he was embedded here (“sleeping with a lot of flatulent officers,” he said). He was incredibly conspiratorial. Smooth but creepy: “If you had to write the memo about media relations, what would be your bullet points?”

The next person to buttonhole me was the Centcom uber-civilian, a thirty-ish Republican operative. He was more full-metal-jacket in his approach (although he was a civilian he was, inexplicably, in uniform – making him, I suppose a sort of para-military figure): “I have a brother who is in a Hummer at the front, so don’t talk to me about too much fucking air-conditioning.” And: “A lot of people don’t like you.” And then: “Don’t fuck with things you don’t understand.” And too: “This is fucking war, asshole.” And finally: “No more questions for you.”

I had been warned.

Read the whole thing

It’s pretty clear who the civilian in uniform is and he’s a real piece ‘o work:

Signaling the high interest in improving the military’s image is the appointment of [Jim] Wilkinson as spokesman for CENTCOM. A veteran White House publicist as well as a Navy Reserve lieutenant, Wilkinson headed the anti-Taliban Coalition Information Center during the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan and was spokesman for the Bush campaign in Miami-Dade County during the Florida recount after the 2000 election.

Wilkinson’s political credentials have aroused journalistic concerns that the Bush administration, not known for its openness, is trying to control the message and use it for re-election purposes in the 2004 campaign.

Buzzflash reported:

…this entire public affairs operation is headed Jim Wilkinson, one of the thugs who protested the Florida recount. Ever the good soldier, (though a civilian, Wilkinson reportedly wears a military desert camouflage uniform to work)…

He is a big believer in freedom of expression, though, so it’s hard to believe he would try to muzzle the press. Why, during the Florida recount CNN reported:

A spokesman for the Bush recount team in Florida said he was there during the exchanges Wednesday and saw no violence or kicking.

“I can tell you that simply did not happen,” said Jim Wilkinson.

“What you had was a lot of young volunteers who, frankly, objected to this election being decided behind closed doors, without the media having a full view and without our observers having a full view,” Wilkinson said. “We executed our First Amendment rights in a peaceful manner, with full decorum.”

Yes. Elections these days are so darned “untidy,” aren’t they?

Heads or Tails?

If there was ever any doubt as to the reason why nothing makes sense in this administration this removes it:

With strong and powerful personalities such as Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney at the center of these disputes, the battles are often carried on to the last minute, when Bush makes a decision. Both sides wage spirited fights because, up until the moment Bush tips his hand, they assure themselves that the president shares their point of view.

The process, some officials say, at times verges on dysfunctional, largely because people at the lower levels make decisions without knowing or understanding the actual policy. That in turn can confuse and confound allies and foes as the administration appears to shift tactics from diplomacy toward confrontation, and back again.

No kidding.

That bodes well for this:

Administration officials have told the Israeli government that it is in its interest to allow Abbas to succeed. “We’re talking hard, right now,” an official said, about the steps expected of the Israeli government. A senior Arab official said Arabs will be watching to see whether Israel takes substantive steps such as quickly reducing the number of roadblocks and checkpoints on the West Bank or dismantling some settlements.

Yet Israel has serious concerns about the road map, and officials have indicated they want to renegotiate some aspects, a position that has some sympathy in other parts of the administration.

And this could certainly be a problem:

Asked if the United States was preparing to take some action against Syria, Wolfowitz said, “That’s not a decision the Defense Department makes. That obviously . . . would be a decision for the president and Congress.”

Yet, on the same day as Wolfowitz’s comments, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage told reporters that “in the last several days they have responded quite well to U.S. and coalition warnings and démarches about closing their borders and things of that nature and she has done so.”

While the State Department is not unhappy to have Syria rattled, the rhetoric has begun to alarm some officials, as well as officials in the British government. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is frequently forced to deny in television interviews overseas that the United States has a secret list of countries it plans to attack next

So, what do you think he does? Eeeny meeny miney mo? Rock, paper, scissors?

Good Cop, Bad Cop

I swear I was being facetious when I said back on April 8th:

Saddam’s Ba’ath party probably has some damned good administrators. And police forces, for that matter. Highly experienced. Surely they can be convinced to assume a more benign role in a post-Saddam Iraq. Maybe we don’t have to engage in all that messy “accountability” mucky muck. Particularly when the ungrateful Iraqis are looting all the spoils (that we will just have to replace with our oil profits…)

I honestly did not believe that the United States would actually put Ba’ath Party police back on the streets because well…you know… all that torture, killing, cutting tongues out stuff. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing that would be good for that All American altruistic liberator image to put Saddam’s police apparatus back in place. Call me crazy, but I think some Iraqis might find that a bit disconcerting. Iraq wasn’t called a police state for nothing.

Explaining the decision to encourage the Iraqi police to return, another civil affairs officer, Major David Cooper, said: “An awful lot of these people were police officers first and Ba’athists second. If we can identify those who were not hardline Ba’athists but are hardline Iraqi policemen, we can use them to maintain order. The first thing is to find out who they are and then see if we can work with them. We are not going to put war criminals in positions of authority.”

And to think I was afraid they might be using some of the bad Ba’ath police who did the electrodes on the genitals and raping kids in front of their parents thing that Dubya mentioned about 3,236 times in the last month.

I’m awfully relieved American soldiers can tell so easily which ones are the war criminals and which ones are the good Ba’athists. They probably have a lot of experience negotiating labyrinthine social systems in total chaos. Perhaps they’ll see into their souls.

Oh heck

Officials at the Pentagon have specific concerns about one aspect of the widespread looting — that vandalism of government offices could destroy evidence about weapons of mass destruction.

Wouldn’t you just know it?

Update: All Is Not Lost

Britain and the United States have bypassed the United Nations to establish a secret team of inspectors to resume the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

[…]

The role played by the new inspectors, who set up a base in Kuwait a week before the war began, was disclosed to the Guardian by David Kay, the former head of Unscom, the arms inspections team which left Iraq in 1998 after Iraq accused it of being infiltrated by spies.

No mention has been made of the new group by ministers or military spokesmen, who have indicated that weapons inspections are carried out by military forces. But the group, headed by Charles Duelfer, a former deputy head of the Unscom weapons inspectors, has travelled extensively in Iraq.

[…]

Mr Kay described the new inspectors as a “robust group of people”. “There are special forces teams that carry out [immediate] inspections. But they are not as technically based as the Kuwait team, who are heavily science-based civilians.”

A spokesman for Mr Blix, Ewen Buchanan, said the US-led team had tried and failed to recruit some of his staff.

Paul Rogers, professor of peace studies at Bradford University, said the existence of the secret team would lead to a major dispute. “You are more likely to find what you want if you do it yourself,” he said. “If this team finds a smoking gun, people will not believe it.”

The disclosure is likely to embarrass British ministers, who are officially committed to allowing Unmovic a role.

Adam Ingram, the armed forces minister, would only say yesterday that Britain and the US had set up a “machinery” for resuming inspections. “It may take some time,” he added.

Whew. That’s a relief.

I don’t know why people wouldn’t believe it if our secret team comes up with a smoking gun. And, anyway, who cares what a bunch of losers think? They thought we couldn’t beat Saddam either and boy are they eating their words today. They’ll eat more words when our special super secret team finds all those WMD’s. At least that’s what Andy and Rummy and Dubya will say. And that’s ALL that matters.

Goodfella

This is so damned nuts that I’m just going to let it speak for itself. Is America really ready for this?

A strong warning to Syria

Barry James/IHT International Herald Tribune

Saturday, April 12, 2003

Perle, a Pentagon adviser, sees more preemption in future

PARIS Richard Perle, one of the chief U.S. ideologists behind the war to oust Saddam Hussein, warned Friday that the United States would be compelled to act if it discovered that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction have been concealed in Syria.

Perle said that if the Bush administration were to learn that Syria had taken possession of such Iraqi weapons, “I’m quite sure that we would have to respond to that.”

“It would be an act of such foolishness on Syria’s part,” he continued, “that it would raise the question of whether Syria could be reasoned with. But I suppose our first approach would be to demand that the Syrians terminate that threat by turning over anything they have come to possess, and failing that I don’t think anyone would rule out the use of any of our full range of capabilities.”

In an interview with editors of the International Herald Tribune, Perle said that the threat posed by terrorists he described as “feverishly” looking for weapons to kill as many Americans as possible obliged the United States to follow a strategy of preemptive war in its own defense.

Asked if this meant it would go after other countries after Iraq, he replied: “If next means who will next experience the 3d Army Division or the 82d Airborne, that’s the wrong question. If the question is who poses a threat that the United States deal with, then that list is well known. It’s Iran. It’s North Korea. It’s Syria. It’s Libya, and I could go on.”

Perle, a Pentagon adviser as a member of the Defense Policy Board, said the point about Afghanistan and now Iraq was that the United States had been put in a position of having to use force to deal with a threat that could not be managed in any other way.

The message to other countries on the list is “give us another way to manage the threat,” he said, adding, “Obviously, our strong preference is always going to be to manage threats by peaceful means, and every one of the countries on the ‘who’s next?’ list is in a position to end the threat by peaceful means.”

“So the message to Syria, to Iran, to North Korea, to Libya should be clear. if we have no alternative, we are prepared to do what is necessary to defend Americans and others. But that doesn’t mean that we are readying the troops for a next military engagement. We are not.”

The former official in Republican administrations said the United States also has “a serious problem” with Saudi Arabia, where he said both private individuals and the government had poured money into extremist organizations.

“This poses such an obvious threat to the United States that it is intolerable that they continue to do this,” he warned.

He said he had no doubt that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

“We will not find them unless we stumble across them,” he said, “until we are able to interview those Iraqis who know where they are. The prospect of inspections may have had the effect of causing the relocation of the weapons and their hiding in a manner that would minimize their discovery, which I believe will turn out to mean burying things underground in inaccessible places.”

He added that the speed of the coalition advance, “may have precluded retrieving and using those weapons in a timely fashion.”

Asked if the United States was doomed to follow a policy of preemption alone, Perle replied that it is necessary to restructure the United Nations to take account of security threats that arise within borders rather than are directed across borders.

“There is no doubt that if some of the organizations that are determined to destroy this country could lay their hands on a nuclear weapon they would detonate it, and they would detonate in the most densely populated cities in this country, with a view to killing as many Americans as possible, ” he said. Yet there was nothing in the UN charter authorizing collective preemption to avoid such threats.

“I think the charter could say that the terrorist threat is a threat to all mankind,” Perle said.

Perle said resentment over France’s opposition to the war ran so deep in the United States that he doubted there could ever be a basis for constructive relations between the two governments.

“When you have both the government and the opposition agreed on one thing, which is that they are not sure whether they want Saddam Hussein to win, that is a shocking development and Americans have been shocked. The freedom fries and all the rest is a pretty deeply held sentiment. I am afraid this is not something that is easily patched and cannot be dealt with simply in the normal diplomatic way. because the feeling runs too deep. it’s gone way beyond the diplomats.”

Perle said he had no doubt the world is safer than it was a month ago. “The idea that liberating Iraq would spawn terrorists all over the Muslim world I think will be proven to be wrong, and it will be proven to be wrong by the Iraqis themselves . We are about to learn what life has been like under Saddam Hussein. Even in the tough world we are living in, people are going to be shocked about the depravity and sadism of the Saddam regime.”

Perle said there were good reasons to support the Middle East peace process, but not in a way that suggests the United States has caused damage by the war in Iraq. “The sense that we somehow owe this to the Arab world only diminishes the essential truth about what we’ve done in Iraq,” he said. “We have not damaged Arab interests. We have advanced them by freeing 25 million people from this brutal dictatorship.”

Now I don’t know if this guy is a certifiable psychopath, but he is obviously completely fucking demented. This kind of talk scares the hell out of me now that it’s quite clear that this freak really does speak for the administration.

Ain’t Misbehavin’

Calpundit makes a small point in his post today on Michael Tomasky’s excellent call to arms in The American Prospect. He has said this in so many words a number of times in the ongoing debate about extremism vs. moderation etc.

My problem is with extremist liberals who seem to go out of their way to alienate Middle America — highly public vomit-ins, tree spikings, trips to Baghdad — without ever thinking about what effect this might have on acceptance of the liberal agenda in general.

Every political party has its fringe. In a two party system, the coalition in each is huge and represents a wide range of opinion. There are also always those who will use dramatic and over the top actions in the name of politics. However, they rarely signify with the public unless a concerted propaganda campaign makes it appear that these people represent a mainstream view and then closely ties them to elected politicians.

White supremecists, Christian Reconstructionists, militias, neo-confederates and anti-immigrant bigots represent the extremist fringe of the Republican party and I would suggest that their activities would be far more repulsive to most middle of the road Americans than some theatrical kids at a protest rally — if they heard about them constantly. If there were a non-stop barrage of criticism coming from talk radio and cable television against comments like this, many of Kevin’s ordinary Americans would begin to see these people for the rude, immature bigots they are.

But, the fact is that the only “extremists” who are pointed out and regularly lambasted in the media are from the left. And, it is part of a long standing, organized effort to portray the entire democratic party as being out of the mainstream. Even if we could persuade every single theatrical liberal that it is in the best interest of the liberal agenda to behave in a more politic way, it would not make one bit of difference. They already call Tom Daschle an ultra liberal spawn of Satan and Howie Kurtz says that’s mainstream partisan discourse. If the “extremists” of the left didn’t exist, Rush would just make some up.

The problem for Democrats isn’t our cultural nonconformists who embarrass and disconcert the bourgeoisie. Our problem is the GOP extremists who are now directing the government and buying up the media while dishonestly presenting themselves as moderate middle of the roaders. The Republicans have successfully convinced a lot of people that kooky gay guys “shocking” the straights or removing the word God from the pledge of allegiance are more of a threat to them than a series of expensive unilateral wars while bankrupting the government and discarding the safety net and all consumer protections.

We have to recognize that the other side will demonize us no matter what we actually do so there is no margin in trying to tailor our image. The other side won’t let that happen. We have to depend upon our ideas and our candidates making a better case. And we have to finally go after the other side with everything in our arsenal. Worrying about our own extremists instead of exposing theirs is playing into their hands.

edited slightly for clarity

Shanghai Surprise

This is too rich. The FBI “handler” of Johnny Chung in the hysterical Chi-Com fundraising scandals in the late 90’s turns out to have been sleeping with a Chinese double agent – and well known Republican fundraiser – for many years.

If you have forgotten the sad and tawdry story of Johnny Chung, let me remind you what all the breast beating was about:

MARGARET WARNER: Last year, Senator Fred Thompson, Chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, opened his investigation of campaign fund-raising abuses…

[…]

…but the hearings ended last October without establishing a Chinese government connection to various illegal contributions made during the 1996 election season.

Then, last Friday, The New York Times reported that Justice Department investigators believe they have established such a link, based on testimony provided by California businessman Johnny Chung. Chung, who made hundreds of thousands of dollars in questionable contributions to the Democratic National Committee, began cooperating with the Justice Department after pleading guilty to campaign-related bank and tax fraud charges in March. Chung reportedly told investigators that a significant portion of his 1996 contributions came from China’s People’s Liberation Army by way of Liu Chao-Ying, a lieutenant colonel who also is a top executive of Beijing’s state-owned aerospace company, China Aerospace. That same year, the Clinton administration was making it easier for American commercial satellites to be launched by Chinese rockets–a move that benefitted Liu’s company. Such launchings had been tightly restricted in the past out of concern that they would give China access to technology that could be used for military purposes.

The Justice Department is also investigating whether the administration’s decision was influenced by domestic campaign contributions from executives of two American aerospace companies that had been lobbying to get the restrictions eased–Loral Space Communications and Hughes Electronics. Loral Chairman Bernard Schwartz gave the Democrats more than $600,000 before the ’96 elections, making him the party’s largest single contributor that year. President Clinton insisted that contributions had not influenced the decision to let China launch American satellites.

Remember now? Clinton had supposedly knowingly taken money from the Chi-Coms and two aerospace companies and then, acting as the Communist agent we always knew he was, eased regulations allowing the sale of extremely sensitive satellite secrets to his comrades. It was, of course, never even slightly proven that anybody in the White House had the slightest idea that the money Chung donated came from Chinese sources, the money was returned immediately upon hearing that it may have been, and all the scandal really managed to do was nail some low hanging fruit for violations unrelated to the screaming headlines charging espionage and treason. The investigation of Loral and Hughes continued but it was determined that the easing of restrictions had nothing to do with the kind of sensitive information the companies were suspected of sharing with Beijing.

Fast forward to March 28th of this year as we entered Operation Neocon Wetdream:

While he led an influential Pentagon advisory board, Richard N. Perle advised a major American satellite maker, Loral Space and Communications, as it faced government accusations that it improperly transferred rocket technology to China, administration officials said today.Officials at the State Department said that the senior official considering how to resolve the rocket matter, Assistant Secretary Lincoln P. Bloomfield Jr., was contacted by Mr. Perle once or twice in the second half of 2001 on behalf of the company.

At the time, Mr. Bloomfield, who heads the State Department’s bureau of political-military affairs, and other officials were investigating accusations that Loral turned over expertise that significantly improved the reliability of China’s nuclear missiles…

“We have an office, our political-military office, led by Assistant Secretary Linc Bloomfield, who did receive queries from Mr. Perle,” Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said in response to a question during an interview today. “And quite appropriate, since Richard was, I guess, authorized for Loral to ask. In conducting our regular business I know that Linc and members of Linc’s staff did have conversations with Richard Perle. We would do that with anybody who is authorized to call and ask of such matters.”

Mr. Perle said this afternoon that he was retained by Loral seven months before his appointment by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to head the Defense Policy Board and was given a one-time retainer at the outset of his work. “I was retained by Loral in January 2001 to assist the company in assessing its dispute with the government concerning transfers of technology to the Chinese, to recommend approaches to settling that dispute including new security arrangements to assure against any further technology leakage,” he said. “At no time did I urge any government official to settle the case.”

He said any conversations he may have had with Mr. Bloomfield or his staff “related to the licensing” of other Loral satellites for the Chinese and that he was “not compensated by the company in connection with that activity.”

[…]

The government accused Loral of providing Chinese officials with confidential materials from an American panel that investigated the February 1996 crash of a Loral satellite, which was built for Intelsat, the international consortium, and was launched by a Chinese Long March rocket.

The inquiry into Loral and other companies resulted in restrictions that have prevented the industry from seeking new business with China.

[…]

… people involved in the case have said Mr. Perle was retained on the instructions of Mr. Schwartz, who came under criticism by some Republicans during the Clinton administration for being one of the largest political donors to Democrats.

Mr. Schwartz retained a prominent team to defend the company in the investigation. Among those who worked on the matter were Douglas J. Feith, who is now under secretary of defense for policy. Mr. Feith is also an old friend and former colleague of Mr. Perle. When Mr. Perle was an assistant defense secretary in the Reagan administration, Mr. Feith was his special counsel.

And now we find that one of the FBI agents who was heavily involved in the Chi-Com fundraising scandal was also heavily involved sexually with a Chinese double agent who also happened to be a well known Republican fundraiser. Meanwhile, the company that was portrayed as a treasonous Chi-Com front for Bill Clinton and his commie brethren hires a bunch of neocon heavyweights in the Defense Department to get it out of its mess.

Oh congressional committees, where art thou? Anybody? No treason? What about the “smell test?” As Senator Specter (R-Gasbag) said at the time, “… these matters may be coincidences, but they raise an unsavory inference and ought to be investigated.”

Offers They Can’t Refuse

Chris Anderson has some criticisms of my newfound friends, the neocons. He says:

This is a foreign policy in which America’s primary role is that of a protection racket. People can go about there business, just so long as they don’t do anything that we don’t like. Then they better watch out! Look what we did to Sadaam!

And I say, what’s wrong with that? There is a lot wrong with the Mafia, as we all know, but they did bring order to unruly neighborhoods by selling their protection. We too will bring order to the world by laying out the rules under which nations may behave and then taking only the resources we absolutely need to maintain our hegemony. If they fail to behave (or give us these small tokens of respect) we will have to make an example of them. This is the very essence of the Pax Americana. Sometimes a little “knuckles de sandwich” is the price ‘o freedom, my friends.

Ich Bin Ein Neoconer

“In removing the terror regime from Iraq, we send a very clear message to all groups that operate by means of terror and violence against the innocent. The United States and our coalition partners are showing that we have the capacity and the will to wage war on terror-and to win decisively.” Vice President Cheney 4/9/03

Ok. I’m a convert. I have been studying the neoconservative movement for some time and thought them to be little more than crass imperialists who couched their will to power in a delusion born of discarded leftist radicalism. But, after seeing the American flag draped over the statue of Saddam’s ugly mug, the cheering people getting their first “whiff ‘o freedom” I now know that all that talk of weapons of mass destruction and support for al Qaeda was just a clever ruse by the Bush administration to convince wimpy Americans to support the first in a series of wars against those who operate by means of terror and violence against the innocent. I now believe, like most Americans and good people everywhere, that it doesn’t matter if Saddam had WMD or supported terrorists. It was never about that.

It has now been established that America boldly defied the cowardly Europeans and the perfidious United Nations and put its own blood and treasure on the line for purely altruistic reasons — the liberation of a repressed people from a cruel and heartless dictator and all that talk of threats to ourselves were forced upon us by cynics who refuse to see that we are a country that operates solely out of humanitarian concern.

You see, Americans have also been liberated today.

We are liberated from the restraints of Realpolitik, the need to consider issues of stability, economic interests or the outmoded concept of the “sovereignty” of nations. No longer will ideology or politics or “strategic interests” play a part in our foreign policy calculations. It will not be necessary for our government to set forth thinly veiled rationales for our actions, paying lip service to silly notions of international law that only serve to protect the guilty. We will not have to provide evidence that the United States or an “ally” (whatever that is) is itself threatened and therefore we are operating out of self-defense. We have openly declared ourselves liberators of oppressed people everywhere. We will use our vast military power to back up President Bush’s words in his State of the Union speech:

“America is a strong nation, and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the liberty of strangers.

Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America’s gift to the world, it is God’s gift to humanity.”

Our President was clearly chosen by God to be his instrument. We are going to free the world. This, then, truly is moral clarity.

To that end I would like to suggest that the following nations be considered for invasion immediately.

We should start with almost all countries in the middle east (except Israel, which is as devoted to freedom as we are.) Every single regime needs to be changed. We have a small fraction of the troops we will eventually need already in the area and I think it would be a grave mistake to do as Bush’s father did and leave the innocent people of the region in the clutches of what can only be deemed repressive violent governments. We must not repeat the mistakes of 1991.

We can give them warning, as the neocons and the defense department are now doing, but it simply must be backed up with a willingness to invade when a given deadline for reform and/or exile has passed. Only cynical naysayers could object now that we’ve established our sterling motives for invading Iraq.

And, even if they do — so what? This is about bringing freedom to oppressed people everywhere. We cannot let outmoded notions of casus belli stand in the way of our crusade.

Our “ally” Turkey, for instance, is a known violent repressor of its Kurdish population and is documented to employ torture tactics against innocent people. The most frequently reported methods included severe beatings, blindfolding, suspension by the arms or wrists, electric shocks, sexual abuse, and food and sleep deprivation. Many Kurdish politicians have “disappeared” and political prisoners are numerous. Extrajudicial executions are common.

There is no excuse for this. We must liberate the Turkish people from the yoke of its government’s use of terror and violence against innocent people.

Every other country in the region is guilty of even worse. No political freedom, no democracy, torture, extrajudicial executions, repression of women and ethnic minorities. The list of crimes that must be stopped is so huge as to be overwhelming. We simply cannot allow this to go on.

And, that’s only the beginning. Countries throughout Africa are in even worse shape. Amnesty International reports, “whether in Angola, Burundi, Central Africa Republic (CAR), Chad, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan or Uganda, thousands of unarmed civilians suffered some of the most egregious human rights violations in Africa — illegal arrests and detention, kidnapping, torture and ill-treatment, rape, murder, “disappearances” — by both government forces and armed opposition groups.”

Is that any less of a horror than that which we saw in Iraq? Are those people any less deserving of liberation? I think not. And through the generosity and altruism that has been released in the American people by their neoconservative leaders, I have little doubt that we will soon begin the planning to bring freedom and democracy to Africa.

There is so much more work to be done, however. Kazakstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Chechnya, Russia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Myanmar, Indonesia, North Korea, Tibet, Nepal, China and many more all have horrific human rights records. We must systematically prepare to take them down.

We will issue warnings, much as we did with Saddam Hussein, but if they do not capitulate before the deadline, we will invade them, depose their despotic rulers, liberate their people and do whatever it takes to build democracy. Our military is unbeatable and our people are willing to do whatever it takes to bring freedom to the oppressed.

John F. Kennedy told us more than 40 years ago:

Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.

Unfortunately he went on to say:

To those old allies whose cultural and spiritual origins we share, we pledge the loyalty of faithful friends. United, there is little we cannot do in a host of cooperative ventures. Divided, there is little we can do—for we dare not meet a powerful challenge at odds and split asunder.

To those new States whom we welcome to the ranks of the free, we pledge our word that one form of colonial control shall not have passed away merely to be replaced by a far more iron tyranny. We shall not always expect to find them supporting our view. But we shall always hope to find them strongly supporting their own freedom—and to remember that, in the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.

[…]

To that world assembly of sovereign states, the United Nations, our last best hope in an age where the instruments of war have far outpaced the instruments of peace, we renew our pledge of support—to prevent it from becoming merely a forum for invective—to strengthen its shield of the new and the weak—and to enlarge the area in which its writ may run.

[…]

So let us begin anew—remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate.

Thankfully, we’ve learned some lessons since that time. Our oldest allies and newly freed states have proved to only be useful to the extent they agree to do exactly as we say and the United Nations is irrelevant. Civility is counterproductive. Threats backed by guns are what works. American sincerity is unquestioned. We do not negotiate.

But, thankfully, the larger point — our commitment to bear any burden for liberty — has now been engaged with all the weight of our vast wealth and power. We are on a crusade for freedom and we will invade, occupy and democratize any country that tries to stop us.

Long live the neocons.

Long live the Pax Americana.