Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Rolling Democracy and Other Illusions

Junior’s government is hurtling out of control and I don’t know who is going to stop them. This is truly unbelievable:

Rumsfeld sent two memos to Bush calling for the United States to “support those Iraqis who share the president’s objectives for a free Iraq” and arguing that Iraqi and Kurdish expatriates, with some experience of democracy, are better equipped to take over the country than Iraqis living under Hussein.

[…]

Sources confirmed that the memos probably would be discussed in the next day or two by Bush, Vice President Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell and CIA Director George J. Tenet. But they cautioned that the ideas expressed by Rumsfeld were more in the form of suggestions than fixed plans. The sources said Rumsfeld had not specified how authority would be divided between the exile leaders and the U.S. postwar administration.

A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on the memos, saying, “We have nothing for you on that.”

Even if there were agreement on the advisability of a U.S.-installed interim Iraqi authority, its composition probably would be disputed. The Pentagon’s civilian leadership and other prominent hawks close to the administration have long supported Ahmed Chalabi, the leader of the Iraqi National Congress.

Chalabi is particularly close to former CIA director R. James Woolsey, whom Rumsfeld has proposed for a prominent position in postwar Iraq, and Richard Perle, a key Pentagon adviser. He is also backed by a group of influential Republican senators, including Sam Brownback of Kansas, Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, Jon Kyl and John McCain of Arizona and Norm Coleman of Minnesota, who this week wrote a letter to Bush asking him to clear “roadblocks within the State Department” for increased funding of Chalabi’s group.

In public comments last month, Perle suggested that installing Chalabi in power in Baghdad would alleviate any Muslim fears of U.S. imperialist aims. It would also improve the chances for resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Perle said, because “Chalabi and his people have confirmed that they want a real peace process, and that they would recognize the state of Israel.”

Can anyone think of a move more likely to create a total middle east meltdown than to instll a puppet government and then recognize Israel right off the bat? And, call me crazy, but I don’t remember the recognition of Israel as being one of the 412 ever changing reasons set forth for going after Saddam these last few months. For those of you who do not understand how important this is to certain neocon nutballs, please spare me the accusations of being anti-semitic. It is simply a fact that many of the neocon claque have concentrated a huge amount of their time and energy on Israeli politics and are very closely aligned with the Likud party. Their hard-on to invade Iraq, which goes back many years, is intrinsically tied to that issue. And, just as they are putting Americans into more danger at home, their puerile, simple minded world view is actually going to make things much, much worse in the middle east, and that includes Israel. If I were Israeli, I would want these guys as far away from me as possible. It would only make my country even less secure than it already is.

And, I must ask again, why wasn’t a post war plan finalized and approved before we invaded, particularly since they assumed we were going to win within the first 2 or 3 days? It’s not like Saddam had actually launched one of his non-existent nuclear armed drone planes. We actually did have the time to present Junior with a coloring book version of various plans and let him play pin the tail on the donkey. It’s amazing that we are surrounding Baghdad and nobody knows exactly what constitutes victory or what we plan to do once we declare it.

It’s looking as if, in true EnronBush style, we’ll just keep scrambling and scrambling, covering up one mistake after another, digging deeper and deeper until the whole damned thing just falls apart.

Meanwhile, over on Daily Kos, there are a number of exceptional posts today by his pinch hitters Billmon and Steve Gilliard. In particular, I was struck by Steve’s post asking “who is the president?” I have also been taken aback by the fact that the actual illegitimate president is wearing cute little jackets and cheerleading before adoring military crowds while the functional illegitimate president, the secretary of defense, is threatening the entire middle east and setting up an amateurish and dazzlingly foolish post war government in Iraq without any real authority to do so. WTF?

We all know that Junior is incapable of holding a real press conference and answering questions with

anything other than repetitive, programmed bumper sticker phrases, but he should be worried that Rummy is running out of control and making policy on the fly. Particularly since that policy is absurd and dangerous. As Gilliard points out:

The PNAC Cabal are the most naive people to run US foriegn policy since Woodrow Wilson sailed to Paris in 1919. The expectation that the INC exiles can run anything in Iraq is as amusing as the Cuban-American Foundation being allowed to run a post-Castro Cuba. I always figured the Angolan vets would meet them at the dock and send them packing. So that was never serious.

This is an excellent observation. These guys live in a tight little echo chamber of reinforcing delusions, enhanced by their own sense of victimhood. The movement conservatives operate on the same principles as “exiles” which explains their frantic determination to check off every item on their agenda at record speed. They feel as if they were exiled by a virtual coup for 8 years when Clinton illegitimately seized power and they will never let that happen again. It’s why they hated Clinton with the same fervor that the right wing Cubans hate Castro and it’s why the “exiled” Iraqis hold such a place in the hearts of the neocon armchair warriors. They all believed they were unfairly denied their rightful positions as leaders.

What is so frightening about our new spokesman-in-chief is that his threats don’t scare anyone. The Iranians and Syrians don’t care, the Turks laugh at him, yet he keeps blustering. Rumsfeld is the Chainsaw Al Dunlop of international affairs. Dunlop was a CEO who had the reputation of firing people and cutting costs until he ruined Sunbeam. [He also turned out to be a crook, surprise. ed]

Rumsfeld and his deputies may think they’re running the world, but the surprise they’re going to get is due directly to their naivety about the Middle East. Tilting towards Israel? Are they kidding? Yes, the Shia clerics will agree to that. Just before issuing the fatwa to kill every American and their Iraqi quisling allies. Think car bombs are a problem now? Just wait………..

And, oh please, somebody explain to me how they can even dream of getting away with this shit, as reported in the Washington Post:

“The objective is not necessarily to take buildings or occupy areas,” said a senior military officer involved in endgame planning. “It’s the people. It’s getting them to accept the fact that the regime is gone. That’s the essence of the thing. It’s not going to be a geographic piece.”

The timing of declaring victory is important in military and psychological terms, and would be up to the president after a recommendation from military advisers. The administration is set on intimidating Iraqi leaders and seizing power, yet it would risk its credibility by declaring itself in charge while significant resistance remains.

Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday that Baghdad, the Iraqi capital, would not need to be under U.S. control for the administration to establish an interim Iraqi administration. When Baghdad is isolated from the rest of the country, he said, the city is “almost irrelevant.”

But, but…what about holding Saddam and his regime accountable with war crimes trials? Not to mention shutting down all those al Qaeda cells hiding in Baghdad? And, how can we say we have “liberated” the fucking country if we haven’t “liberated” the 5 million people in the biggest city? And, most importantly, what about the vast cache of WMD he’s keeping in his underwear drawer? Don’t we need to “control” the whole country to be sure they are all accounted for? Wasn’t that the whole goddamned point?

It really is a bloody pageant. If we say we’ve won, then we have won. If fighting goes on for the next 10 years and we are forced to have tens of thousands of soldiers on the ground getting blown to bits by suicide bombers, we will still be the “victors” because we say we are the victors. But, hey, it worked in Florida, didn’t it? Call yourself a victor and everyone, even the U.S. Supreme Court, will stand for your right not to be “irreparably harmed” by any assertion that you aren’t. Good strategy.

If this is a recipe for democracy then I’m afraid we’d all better get ready here at home for a suspension of elections. After all, we have now reached the point where the Republicans are explicitly telling the Democrats to refrain from even putting up a candidate while we are at “war” (which James Woolsey says he doesn’t expect to last quite as long as the cold war, thank goodness.) Via Atrios Marc Racicot said yesterday, in response to a call for “regime change at home” by John Kerry:

“Senator Kerry crossed a grave line when he dared to suggest the replacement of America’s commander-in- chief at a time when America is at war…”

And finally, this piece in the NY Times struck me as being right on the money. The starry eyed neocons seem to be under the illusion that all Arabs and Persians are of the same frame of mind as the American founding fathers in 1776; that our notions of liberty and democracy are as clear and compelling to the average Iraqi worker as they are to the guest list at the AEI Christmas party. This is just stupid.

To Imagine Iraq After Saddam Hussein, You Must Think Like an Iraqi

We are running seriously off the track and somebody besides a bunch of blogging nobodies has got to start speaking up. Kerry made a good start and if he refuses to back down may give some of the others the will to speak up as well. If they don’t, we’re in trouble.

Blowhard Mussolini

On CNN just now Tom DeLay told Judy Woodruff that Wesley Clark is a “blowdried Napoleon.” Look for that phrase to be repeated.

Delay said that Clark was running for president and using his job at CNN to undermine the war for political purposes. He claimed that he (Delay) gets briefed every day and knows a lot more about battle planning than any ex-General.

He would have been one too if all the negroes and wetbacks hadn’t ruined his chances by taking all the good slots in Nam. So, he spent the time huffing D-Con and puking in the hot tub, pre-requisites for assuming power in Dubya era Republican politics.

More Perles of Wisdom

Speaking of Perle, why do they send him all over the world to alienate every single one of our allies in the most rude and condescending way possible? It must be part of their cunning plan or they would tell him to shut his pie hole and stop doing things like this:

OTTAWA, April 3 (Reuters) – An influential adviser to the U.S. administration used an interview published on Thursday to write off Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien as “a lame duck” who was giving support to Saddam Hussein, and said Ottawa would pay a price for not sending troops to Iraq.

The comments by Richard Perle were the strongest attack yet by Washington on Chretien and underline how seriously relations between the world’s two largest trading partners have deteriorated in recent months.

Officials say the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush is irate over Canada’s refusal to send troops to Iraq and a series of anti-American comments by members of Chretien’s ruling Liberal Party.

Perle, a prominent neoconservative who sits on the Pentagon’s influential Defense Policy Board, told the right-wing National Post newspaper that Washington felt Chretien — who plans to step down in February 2004 — was being irresponsible.

“The Prime Minister is a lame duck. So that may help explain the failure to appreciate the disappointment that would be caused not only by the Canadian government policy on Iraq, but by the cacophony of criticism — much of it ill-informed and much of it simply name-calling,” he said.

“There is simply no other way to describe the positions of some countries — not many, but some countries — which is to lend far more support to Saddam Hussein’s regime than they may have intended by the positions they have taken.”

According to the Post, Perle said the White House was looking forward to dealing with Chretien’s replacement. One member of Chretien’s cabinet said Bush had failed as a statesman while one Liberal legislator said she now hated the “damned Americans” and called them “bastards”.

[…]

Seriously, this continuing modus operandi of publicly proclaiming to the world that our policy is “my way or the highway” and that we will punish any country that dares to defy us is starting to get completely out of hand. I never thought William Kristol was completely blind and stupid, but apparently he is. If he weren’t he’d put a stop to Perle. He’s the only one who can.

Quisling Chalabi

I may have been too hasty in believing that the government had no plan. Wolfie of Arabia and his cohorts most certainly did have a plan, one that they had on the drawing board for many years. Barbara Bodine, by the way, was the choice of the State Department and the Pentagon hawks don’t want her near their little fiefdom. (Of course, she is a piece of work in her own right…) It is still unclear whether she will be part of the occupation. The problem, as usual, is that the government has more than one plan and it remains for President Junior to make a decision as to which faction he’s going to favor today. I hear he’s feeling testy so who knows which way the wind is going to blow.

If today’s reports are to be believed, it is quite interesting that while the GOP congress has decided to give the State Department the purse strings, the Pentagon is still calling the shots on the post war planning. This promises to be another battle royale for the soul ‘o Dubya, and the ongoing and endless quest for control of American foreign policy. If the congress takes a stand as well, this could get very interesting.

Joe Conason has more to say about the post-war occupation cock-up and points to

Wolfowitz of Arabia

It is simply inexplicable that the U.S. Government doesn’t already have a plan in place for the Iraqi occupation. Why is this being done on the fly? Didn’t anybody in the administration have the job of putting a scheme together before we launched the invasion? (And, isn’t Wolfowitz stretched just a little bit thin?)

I am hard pressed to name even one thing this administration has done without screwing it up. Gawd help us. If the occupation goes as badly as the planning for it, I pity eveyone involved. This is an embarrassment.

KUWAIT, April 2 — Along a promenade of beachside villas, several hundred American government officials — from well-worn former generals to fresh young aid workers — are working at their laptops, inventing flow charts and examining maps of Iraq in what has become Potomac on the Persian Gulf.

This is the nucleus of the Bush administration’s new Iraqi government. One of the faraway masters, in the minds of many here, is someone known fondly, or not so fondly — depending on one’s political orientation — as Wolfowitz of Arabia.

The reference, of course, is to Paul D. Wolfowitz, the undersecretary of defense, who has dispatched some of his protégés here to prepare key Baghdad ministries for American management.

Mr. Wolfowitz is also passing judgment on others assigned here, making the transitory Potomac here as divisive and political as the permanent one at home, some participants say.

[…]

The overall boss of this Iraqi government-in-waiting, an operation that has been endowed with the Washington-speak title “Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance,” is retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner…

Arrayed below General Garner is a group of former army officers, former and present American ambassadors, aid bureaucrats who give themselves away by their many-pocketed khaki jackets, a smattering of State Department officials, several British officials and a cluster known as the “true believers.”

[…]

Fairly predictably, State Department officials say, the Pentagon deemed the most senior State Department appointees as unsuitable for the enterprise, even though one of them, Timothy Carney, a former ambassador to Sudan, was invited to come here by Mr. Wolfowitz.

[…]

The politics of the Potomac aside, some of the officials acknowledge they have been handed complex jobs, the real complexity of which will not be known until they know how the war ends.

If there is a surrender by the Iraqi forces and Saddam Hussein is toppled, their jobs will be easier, they say. There could be a messier ending: perhaps some kind of festering war, with outbursts of urban fighting, that would make the Americans’ jobs much more precarious.

Another complexity is the role of the Iraqi exile groups that the Bush administration has been courting.

The State Department and the Pentagon hold profound differences on this question, and advocates in the administration say, a definition of the role of the exiles still awaits a decision by President Bush and his senior foreign policy advisers.

Ahmad Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress, has made it clear that he would not be satisfied with just an advisory position. The State Department has made clear it would prefer a diminished role for Mr. Chalabi. In recent days Mr. Chalabi has said through spokesmen that he wants the formation of a provisional government in which he would be a leading figure. In this he has backing in the Pentagon.

“The decision on the new political class in Iraq is very hot. It has yet to be made in Washington,” said one member of the Garner team here.

[…]

Many of the officials here rushed to Kuwait City in the belief they would be sent almost immediately to Baghdad. Now that the war has gone longer than they were led to expect, there is a lot of cooling of heels, and time for reading. Few of these people are Iraqi experts. But some have come armed with books and articles on the history of Iraq. The chapters on the mistakes of British rule are well underlined.

Well, gosh. What would be happening if we had already won the war under the rosy scenario? It sounds like they have absolutely no idea what they are going to do, yet.

There is no excuse for not planning this adequately before this war. They had months to work out plans for every contingency and have a team in place ready to go. Instead, they are infighting between State and Defense on this, as with everything else in Bush foreign policy.

When does this become the big story? The Pentagon and the State Department have been at each other’s throats since the beginning of Bush’s term. All the ups and downs of the past year with diplomacy and the UN and the alienation of our allies and the erratic and inconsistent lead-up to this war have been the result of the two factions of the Bush foreign policy team fighting for dominance.

Our vaunted Commander in Chief obviously cannot manage his way out of a paper bag. He has no control over his people and is drawn back and forth depending on who he talks to on a given day. His administration is incoherent because he is incoherent.

This occupation is going to be a trainwreck.

Bye, Bye, Bodine

I haven’t seen any play of this article from today’s NY Times. I think Rummy’s in trouble. The GOP congress refused to let him have a blank check on how the 75billion will be spent. And, now they’ve taken away the reconstruction project.

It’s a sad day when you have to depend on the Republican congress to hold back the megalomaniacal neocons, but it’s all we’ve got.

Three weeks before the war in Iraq began, Bush administration officials based their plans for reconstructing the country on what they called a “major assumption” — that military operations would end in 30 days, according to briefing documents circulated in the White House.

But now, some senior administraton officials involved in making plans for aiding the Iraqi people, rebuilding the country and creating a new government say that that assumption appears overly optimistic. They say that the American military will likely need to retain tight control over the country for longer than they anticipated.

[…]

Even as the plans are debated and rewritten, however, bureaucratic battles are breaking out over who will control the new government and the aid effort.

State Department officials, speaking on condition that they not be named, complain that the Pentagon is seeking greater control over the roster of American officials who will be appointed as liaisons to oversee the operation of major Iraqi ministries.

Several former ambassadors with long experience in the Mideast, including Barbara Bodine, the former ambassador to Yemen; Robin Raphel, the vice president of National Defense University; and Kenton Keith, a former ambassador to Qatar, were in line for key appointments under Jay Garner, a former general who will be directing the reconstruction effort. But their names have been pulled back.

State Department officials say they suspect that some of the more ideological Pentagon officials, including Douglas J. Feith, the undersecretary for policy, are seeking to fill the slots with like-minded former officials who have strong views about what a new Iraq should look like. Some at the Pentagon have pressed for those who have led the charge for the overthrow of Mr. Hussein, including R. James Woolsey, a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

A senior defense official said tonight that the issue was one of timing, not ideology. “The fact of the matter is that the State Department put up their list of qualified candidates before we got together a list of our own,” said the official. “We simply asked that we have some time to broaden the pool of candidates. It is in flux. Everyone’s talents will be used.”

On Capitol Hill, however, even the Republican-controlled appropriations committees of both the House and Senate voted today to take control of reconstruction out of the hands of the Pentagon, and give it to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell.

The committees voted to give the State Department and other agencies authority over the $2.5 billion in post-conflict aid that the Bush administration sought for the Pentagon under an emergency appropriation.

“The secretary of state is the appropriate manager of foreign assistance,” said Representative James Kolbe, an Arizona Republican. “Bottom line: reconstruction is a civilian role.”

Lesson Plan

David Neiwert shares this lovely e-mail making the rounds in Neanderthal circles:

With all of this talk of impending war, many of us will encounter “Peace Activists” who will try and convince us that we must refrain from retaliating against the ones who terrorized us all on September 11, 2001, and those who support terror. These activists may be alone or in a gathering… most of us don’t know how to react to them. When you come upon one of these people, or one of their rallies, here are the proper rules of etiquette:

1. Listen politely while this person explains their views. Strike up a conversation if necessary and look very interested in their ideas. They will tell you how revenge is immoral, and that by attacking the people who did this to us, we will only bring on more violence. They will probably use many arguments, ranging from political to religious to humanitarian.

2. In the middle of their remarks, without any warning, punch them in the nose.

3. When the person gets up off of the ground, they will be very angry and they may try to hit you, so be careful.

4. Very quickly and calmly remind the person that violence only brings about more violence and remind them of their stand on this matter. Tell them if they are really committed to a nonviolent approach to undeserved attacks, they will turn the other cheek and negotiate a solution. Tell them they must lead by example if they really believe what they are saying.

5. Most of them will think for a moment and then agree that you are correct.

6. As soon as they do that, hit them again. Only this time hit them much harder. Square in the nose.

7. Repeat steps 2-5 until the desired results are obtained and the idiot realizes how stupid of an argument he/she is making.

8. There is no difference in an individual attacking an unsuspecting victim or a group of terrorists attacking a nation of people. It is unacceptable and must be dealt with. Perhaps at a high cost.

We owe our military a huge debt for what they are about to do for us and our children. We must support them and our leaders at times like these. We have no choice. We either strike back, VERY HARD, or we will keep getting hit in the nose. Lesson over, class dismissed!

Another example of why homeschooling by idiots is a very bad idea. Let’s make this lesson a little bit more relevant to actual events, shall we?

With all of this talk of impending war, many of us will encounter “Pro-War” patriots who will try and convince us that we can keep America safe by exercising military force against anyone who we think might threaten us in the future. When you come upon one of these people, or one of their rallies, here are the proper rules of etiquette:

1. Listen politely while this fellow explains his views. Strike up a conversation if necessary and look very interested in his ideas. He will say that we will invade any country that even thinks of threatening us. He’ll shake his fist and get in your face. He’ll loudly proclaim that everyone in the crowd agrees with him. When a couple of his friends speak up and say that they really don’t agree, he’ll tell them to piss off and that he never liked them anyway. He will then smugly tell you that this is why working with allies weakens our country and leaves America unable to protect its citizens. He says the US can do anything it damn well pleases.

2. In the middle of his remarks, without any warning, punch him in the nose.

3. When the guy gets up off of the ground, he will be very angry and he will shove you to the ground. But then, for some reason, he’ll run into the crowd and coldcock that creepy guy from your old neighborhood who he beat up at the last rally and left with two broken legs.

4. Because he has been so rude, and his actions are so inexplicable, none of his friends will help him (except his brother-in-law, who works for him.) He’ll shout to his victim’s family (who the victim treats like shit) that he’ll give them money if they’ll help him but blood runs thicker than water. (And they can’t help noticing that he seems awfully interested in their valuable heirloom jewelry.)

5. Meanwhile, you sneak around the corner and lie low while he beats the weakened opponent into the ground. The boys from the old neighborhood get more and more angry that this guy is grabbing at the jewelry and roaring that he’s going to take down everybody they know unless they do what he wants. Gather them around you and tell them to go blow up his car, destroy his place of business and burn down his house.

6. When he sees his car explode and turns around looking alarmed and confused, sidle up from behind and hit him again, only harder.

7. Repeat steps 2-6 until the desired results are obtained and the idiot realizes that if you are going to fight back, it’s smart to fight the real enemy instead of invading a country that had nothing to do with attacking you. Keep doing it until he understands that it is stupid and counterproductive to rally everyone in the neighborhood to hate him with the same fervor as his attacker just so he can prove how tough he is.

8. There is no difference between an individual using the excuse of an unwarranted attack to attack someone who had nothing to do with it and a country using the excuse of a terrorist attack to invade a country that had nothing to do with it. It is unacceptable and results in a loss of moral authority, credibility and necessary allies in the fight against the real enemy.

We owe our military respect and must hope for as little bloodshed as possible in the current circumstances. But we must do everything in our power to vote out this administration so that these brave Americans are not asked to lay their lives on the line for a bunch of ivory tower think tank intellectuals who have always been much too willing to sacrifice others to fulfill their own dreams of imperial greatness. We either fight back VERY HARD and put these people out of power, or we will keep getting hit in the nose. Lesson over. Class dismissed!

NEWS RELEASE – April 1, 2003

Rengery Publishing wishes to announce publication on May 1, 2003, of the title:

“Brothers In Arms”

A novel of neocon love

by Lynn Cheney

In her first novel,”Sisters” Lynn Cheney gave us the sensual tale of Sophie Dymond, a beautiful, strong-willed widow who leaves New York to investigate her sister’s death in Wyoming, and finds herself in a world where wives were led to despise the marriage act and prostitutes pandered to husbands’ hungers . . . where the relationship between women and men became a kind of guerrilla warfare in which women were forced to band together for the strength they needed and at times for the love they wanted.

Now comes a story that blows the lid off the elite world of neocon think tanks and supply side salons. “Brothers In Arms” is a mid-life coming of age story about two young neocon hawks, Dick and Dick, who avoid the Vietnam war and spend the rest of their lives trying to prove their manhood. Married to high achieving women, superior in every way to their husbands, the two friends remain close, depending upon each other to reinforce their views of the world and reassure each other of their masculine prowess by saying “fuck” and driving drunk. In midlife, the boys attain the highest reaches of power and find that all the years of striving and conniving have left them feeling empty and unfulfilled. Whether it’s launching WWIII or bankrupting the federal government they can attain no satisfaction and no peace.

Until one night, desolate and lonely, they finally reach for one another in desperation and need to discover the love that dare not speak its name…

Full details are to be found at this Amazon listing

Wing-nuts Launch “Decapitation” Campaign Against Clark

When Coulter and Limbaugh both launch character assassinations on the same day, you know the word has gone forth. The Republicans are worried about General Wesley Clark. Rush says:

Wesley Clark Looks Really Bad

March 28, 2003

One of the Democratic Party’s supposed rising stars has been former NATO General Wesley Clark. After a recent appearance on Meet the Press, many Democrats salivated over Clark as “our Colin Powell.” CNN hired General Clark to use the occasion of the war as a platform for his presumed 2004 presidential bid. That was his strategy – and according to the London Spectator, it’s backfired.

“So much for the Democrats’ hope that retired general Wesley Clark was going to be their Colin Powell. ‘He’s more Benedict Arnold than anything else if you believe the mail we’ve been getting here,’ says the Democratic National Committee staffer, who only a month ago was touting Wesley Clark as his party’s answer to the military star power lined up with the Republicans.” They say Clark has pretty much peed away his chances on TV by bemoaning the Pentagon and General Tommy Franks for their strategy in the opening days of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

“While several other senior retired military men have made critical comments about the ongoing fighting, such as Barry McCaffrey – another former Clinton era official – Clark has by far been the most vocal critic of this administration. ‘It just looks really bad that he’s knocking the troops and the way we’re executing this war,’ said the staffer at the Democratic National Committee. ‘He’s taking hits everywhere – on TV and the newspapers, talk radio. People are furious at Wesley Clark. We can’t fund-raise off performances like this!'”

I have to laugh at that last part! “The only presidential candidate that would probably want to be seen with him right now is Howard Dean,” said this DNC informant. Prior to crashing and burning at CNN, the DNC had pegged the chief of the Kosovo campaign “for political stardom.” He even visited New Hampshire in his pre-presidential bid. Now the Democrats want him gone, because he’s so negative about the war effort it’s turning off the American people. This is great, folks. The Democrats thought Wesley Clark would be their Colin Powell, but he turned out to be their second George B. McClellan.

Sure. Lots of Democratic National Committee staffers talk to rabid right-wing newspapers and give them quotes like “We can’t fund raise off performances like this!” They wouldn’t make something like this up would they? And, how about this patented “put it in the british papers, circulate it to the Scaife funded press and the AM radio terrorists until it makes it into the mainstream press” gambit. The Wurlitzer remembers its favorite tunes.

Kevin Drum wonders why all the hoopla about Clark since we don’t know what his positions are. He’s a believer in just war theory, he’s pro-choice, he’s for affirmative action (he signed a friend of the court brief in the Michigan case). Now, that doesn’t give us any idea about his positions on trade or health care or any of the thousand issues we all care about, but it certainly gives me a good idea of where he stands on the political spectrum.

Unless a Democrat is so outside the mainstream that I think he’s worse than Bush, and I can’t actually think of one who would be, I will vote for the Democrat who has, in my opinion, the best chance of ousting the current administration. I suspect that whoever this is will probably not be channeling my every thought and will likely disagree with me on any number of issues. This is a big country and a big party. Within that party are a number of coalitions that span the center-left continuum. We’d better start negotiating amongst ourselves in a serious strategic way to get a Democrat elected to the presidency. I gave my reasons for thinking Clark can beat Bush in the post below.

It would be great if we could take back the congress, as well, and it is not beyond our grasp in any way. But, a true Democratic governing coalition is going to be much harder because of the red-state conservative Democrats who must function as de-facto Republicans on issues of taxes and national security. These Democrats will be turned into Republicans if we push them too hard which is not going to help our cause.

It is far better to focus on usurping Bush and capturing one branch of government in its entirety. We can take a long term view on this and try to make our consituency grow, but I think our current situation is sufficiently dire that we need to concentrate everything we have on turning back the radical Republican agenda immediately. At this point there are absolutely no checks and balances and it is rapidly hurtling out of control

So, I pick a Democrat who is a 4 Star General because I think he has the best chance to beat Bush if this perpetual war plays out the way the Republicans plan it. If we disagree on matters of funding for Head Start or Gays in the Military, I’m going to live with that.

I know, I know. I’m tired of making those sorts of compromises, too. But, the world is what it is and there’s no use in pretending that this issue of national security is going to fade away in a flood of concern about prescription drug coverage. The Republicans and media who are benefitting from it will not let that happen. So, we’d better face up to reality and try to form a coherent, common sense alternative to the radical path the Republicans are leading us down.

I’ll be writing more about this today. I have been working on a long overdue post on a very interesting survey of the peace marchers in NYC. There are some real surprises and some interesting things to work with if we can get the centrists and the liberals to be pragmatic and form a two pronged strategy.

Iraqis to Gitmo

I thought this might happen. They are thinking of shipping Iraqi paramilitaries to Guantanamo as unlawful combatants.

Suspects are being segregated from enemy prisoners of war, in part because they may have been tormentors of regular army soldiers now being held. The detainees will be treated like POWs, but without official status, until a hearing is held under Article 5 of the Geneva Conventions, officers said.

Such hearings, to be held in Iraq, will determine whether the detainees are released, held as POWs or declared illegal combatants. If they are labeled POWs, they will be held until the end of the war and then released along with other prisoners.

Any who are determined to have used civilians as human shields or otherwise violated the international covenants of war will be declared illegal combatants and sent to Guantanamo Bay or other holding facilities, to be detained with al Qaeda and Taliban fighters captured in Afghanistan, military officers said. “That guy’s going to get the full treatment,” said the senior officer.

Military lawyers said they were trying to decide how to hold the hearings and said they wanted to conduct them as quickly as possible to return any innocents caught up in the roundups to their homes, but they acknowledged they were ill prepared for the venture. “We’re still figuring this out,” said the senior officer, “because we thought we’d have mass surrenders, not this crap.”

I’m relieved that they’ll be able to separate all the innocents so easily before they send the guilty parties to Cuba to live in prison and legal limbo until George W. Bush decides what to do with them.

There is a standard way to deal with people like this. It’s called a war crimes trial. Yes, they get a lawyer and everything. But, it enforces the concept of the rule of law. Apparently, we now find that too inconvenient. I’m sure the captured US POW’s will be delighted to hear it.