Tangled Webs

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

O'Hanlon/Pollack Follow-Up

We had another instance of the steno media eating up a story on Iraq without any critical examination. The subject is the op-ed (emphasis on opinion) in yesterdays WaPo by supposedly "harsh war critics" O'Hanlon and Pollack. I think Greenwald (via Atrios)sums it up pretty well.

I spent yesterday and today reading through virtually all of the writings and interviews of these two Brookings geniuses over the past four years concerning Iraq. There is no coherence or consistency to anything they say. It shifts constantly. They say whatever they need to say at the moment to justify the war for which they bear responsibility. It is exactly like reading through the writings of Bill Kristol, Tom Friedman and every other individual who flamboyantly supported this disaster and -- motivated solely by salvaging their own reputations -- are desperate to find some method to argue that they were right.

Go read the Think Progress link above. Out of nine major media appearances, there was minor scrutiny of the op-ed in ONE.

Proof

HA!

I have proof that I was right in my assertion:

Political Wire:

"As I understood Obama's statement, he's either going to invite to Washington or meet somewhere else the head of Cuba, who would be Castro, and the head of Iran, who is Ahmadinejad. That's quite a crew. I don't know that I would want to meet with them. Some people you just don’t meet with if they're going to use that to propagate their own propaganda. I thought Hillary Clinton was on the right side of that."

-- Rudy Giuliani, quoted by New York magazine, on the "mini-feud" between the Obama and Clinton campaigns.

See! If Rudy disagrees with Obama, Obama MUST be right .....

American Empire

William Arkin writes a follow-up to yesterdays terrific column on the arms deal the U.S. and it's Middle Eastern "allies". The man makes total sense. But is anyone listening? I think you know the answer:

But does anyone really imagine Saudi Arabia using its fighter jets in sustained long-range attacks? Can anyone see Egypt and Kuwait fighting side-by-side in a land war against Iran?

I didn't think so. The reality, and the problem, is that this deal paints a picture of an American Empire [my empasis]-- a military alliance of like-minded Arab states, a permanent U.S. military presence in the region, a focus on a monolithic enemy (Iran) -- while ignoring the roots of instability that exist in countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The Bush administration officially unveiled its $20 billion arms package for Saudi Arabia and the five other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states of Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates yesterday, along with a 10-year, $43 billion military aid package for Israel and Egypt.

In describing the arms package, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that the U.S. hoped to increase the "interoperability" among U.S. allies in the Middle East to confront the threat of radicalism. Interoperability is a Pentagon-invented buzzword that means the ability of different militaries to operate and communicate together. It is also a word that gives away the formality of what the Bush administration is attempting to build.

The new alliance, we are told, will "counter" Iran's supposed growing influence and strength in the region. "There isn't a doubt that Iran constitutes the single most important ... strategic challenge to the United States and to the kind of the Middle East that we want to see," Rice said yesterday.

Iran "supports everything that the rest of the world is trying to defend against," Nicholas Burns, undersecretary of state for political affairs, told The Post.

The Israeli government says it has no objections to the arms sales, evidently so mesmerized by this new Middle East alliance against Iran -- Israel's No. 1 strategic enemy -- that it is unable to see the long-term implications of what a new alliance symbolizes to the Arab street: an American Empire.

Iran may be a problem, but building a military alliance to counter it only makes the problem worse. Focusing our moderate allies on conventional war-making and military pomp diverts their attention from the domestic political troubles and internal dissatisfactions that are at the root of their own instability. Even more, it accentuates those dissatisfactions by signaling to the conspiracy-minded and agnostics that the United States is in command.

...

But how does a mountain of military equipment help reform? Are we just heading for a replay of late 1970's Iran, where we supply arms and support the "moderate" and even autocratic oil-selling, cappuccino-swilling, pro-Western regimes while revolution and terrorism build in the background?

When in the world are these people going to get it. The majority of the Middle East street sees the U.S. as the enemy, not Iran. By overblowing the Iranian threat and by militarizing the Middle East into a kind of cold war stance, we are further creating the monster. Remember Iran and the shah? Or how about Iraq? The proposed strategy has worked out so well so far, I think we should do more.

Finally. You know what's the kicker? I don't have a whole lot of confidence that, given our oil dependence, Democrats can see the region any differently.

Do you?

The News Under The Radar

Lest you begin to believe the hype from the wise ones of Washington, here's an excerpt of the real news from Iraq ..... just one day of it:

Police found 25 bodies in the streets on Monday, victims of sectarian death squads.

Reuters summarizes political violence on Monday:

' BAGHDAD - A car bomb killed six people and wounded 31 in al-Tayaran Square in a mainly Shi'ite area of central Baghdad, police said.

FALLUJA - Three U.S. soldiers were killed in combat operations in western Anbar province on Thursday, the U.S. military said.

NEAR BALAD - A suicide fuel truck bomb targeting an Iraqi army and police checkpoint killed four people and wounded six near the town of Balad, 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, on Sunday, police said.

BALAD - A car bomb targeting a police patrol killed one policeman and wounded six others in Balad on Sunday, police said. . .

ISKANDARIYA - Three people were killed and two wounded in a fight between two Shi'ite and Sunni tribes on Sunday in Iskandariya, 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, police said.

Just because our crack media industry isn't reporting it, doesn't mean it isn't going on. I read this summary at Juan Cole's site every .... single .... day. Some of the days are more, some less, but never peaceful.

North American Union

It's coming. Joe has a good post all about it here. Be sure to click on the video.

Monday, July 30, 2007

Falafel Day! It Only Comes Once A Year

In the interest of keeping TG readers informed, and in the interests of doing whatever I can to piss of Bill O'Reilly or his minions, I thought I would propogate this picture:

Yes ladies and germs, that's the offending picture that set off Bill "falafel" O'Reilly to start a war with Daily Kos. This line from the lawsuit is my personal favorite.

Command. Control

Swopa has the explanation for all of us about Supreme John Roberts and his seizure. Makes perfect sense to me:

Needlenose's highly unreliable off-the-record sources report that the cause was an inadvertent power surge in Edwards' bionic command-and-control system, following the implantation of a new battery in Dick Cheney's pacemaker over the weekend.

Shit Sandwich

That's what Atrios calls it and I have to agree. It made it to ABC News tonight, and it's all a crock. But ABC had, oh .... maybe .... 30 seconds on it. And Martha Raddatz, again, took her 10 seconds to put things in perspective. After the jump, you can see the facts:

Copied in full from Think Progress:

In today’s New York Times, Brookings analysts Michael O’Hanlon and Kenneth Pollack praise the Bush administration’s progress in Iraq, writing that “we are finally getting somewhere in Iraq, at least in military terms.” O’Hanlon and Pollack bill themselves “as two analysts who have harshly criticized the Bush administration’s miserable handling of Iraq.”

Today, the media parroted the O’Hanlon and Pollack’s inaccurate self-characterization. Fox News called O’Hanlon a “guy who’s been quite critical of this administration’s handling of the Iraq.” CNN called Pollack a “a vocal critic of the administration’s handling of the war.”
The media are ignoring the two men’s records. Pollack authored a pre-war book, which he described as “the case for invading Iraq.” Similarly, prior to the invasion, O’Hanlon predicted “a rapid and decisive” victory.

ThinkProgress has put together a sampling of O’Hanlon and Pollack’s “vocal criticisms” of Bush:

O’Hanlon:

But despite this week’s proof that war is not always easy, the invasion is not going badly. As President Bush said at his news conference yesterday, “Coalition forces are advancing day by day in steady progress against the enemy.” Here’s why things are going well and why they will soon go even better. [New York Times, 3/28/03]

And now we’re talking about a crisis that may require much more rapid response in Iraq, if we decide to go to war. We’ve got to go to war by March, I think, if we’re going to use the good weather. [Fox News, 1/3/03]

But the Iraqis we met were nonetheless grateful for the defeat of Saddam and passionate about their country’s future. Their enthusiasm, and their desire to work together with U.S. and other coalition forces, warmed the heart of this former Peace Corps volunteer. Maybe that is why, on balance, I couldn’t help but leave the country with a real, if guarded and cautious, feeling of optimism. [Brookings, 9/30/03]

The United States and coalition partners would win any future war to overthrow Saddam Hussein in a rapid and decisive fashion. This will not be another Vietnam or another Korea. [O’Hanlon, 9/25/02]

O’REILLY: Mr. O’Hanlon, what do you think? Any doubt about going to war with Saddam?
O’HANLON: Not much doubt. [Fox News’s The O’Reilly Factor, 2/28/03]

Rather than force a showdown with Mr. Bush this winter and spring, Congress should give his surge strategy a chance — while preparing for the real fight this fall. [Wall Street Journal, 3/1/07]

Pollack:

What should the United States do about Iraq? Hawks are wrong to think the problem is desperately urgent or connected to terrorism, but right to see the prospect of a nuclear-armed Saddam Hussein as so worrisome that it requires drastic action. … The United States has no choice left but to invade Iraq itself and eliminate the current regime. [Foreign Affairs, March/April 2002]

Given Mr. Hussein’s history of catastrophic miscalculations and his faith that nuclear weapons can deter not him but us, there is every reason to believe that the question is not one of war or no war, but rather war now or war later–a war without nuclear weapons or a war with them. [New York Times, 9/26/02]

FOX HOST: What about nuclear? What’s his — how long before he’ll have it?
POLLACK: I think the best estimates are that he probably will take four to six years, unless he can buy fissile material on the black market. If he can get it on the black market, it’s probably a matter of months. [Fox News’s On The Record With Greta Van Susteren, 9/30/02]

I think it’s very important that the president receive a very clear statement of support by the Congress, by the representatives of the American people. What we’re embarking on is potentially a very big military operation, and what’s more, the military operation itself might be the easiest part of what we’re doing. [NPR, 10/2/02]

Increasingly, the option that makes the most sense is for the United States to launch a full-scale invasion, eradicate Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, and rebuild Iraq as a prosperous and stable society-for the good of the United States, the Iraqi people, and the entire region. [The Threatening Storm, 2002]

Given Saddam Hussein’s current behavior, his track record, his aspirations and his terrifying beliefs about the utility of nuclear weapons, it would be reckless for us to assume that he can be deterred. Yes, we must weigh the costs of a war with Iraq today, but on the other side of the balance we must place the cost of a war with a nuclear-armed Iraq tomorrow. [New York Times, 2/21/03]

[T]he president’s plan is almost certainly the last chance to stabilize Iraq. It is the last chance to save Iraq would probably be a more accurate way to put it. [Brookings, 1/29/07]

Indeed, that is a large shit sandwich. Now be prepared for Joe Lieberman and every other Republican to be pointing to the editorial piece (as if it's a news piece) proclaiming that the surge is working!

And the beat goes on and on and on and on .....

FBI - Government Official Division

I think it's time for the FBI to open a new investigative division .... one dedicated totally to investigating elected officials:

Think Progess:

“Federal law enforcement agents are currently searching the Girdwood home of Alaska U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, an FBI agent said. ‘All I can say is that agents from the FBI and IRS are currently conducting a search at that residence,’ said Dave Heller, the assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Anchorage office. The search began this afternoon, he said. It’s the only such search warrant currently being served, he said.”

Obviously Democrats have their share of corruption. But it sure seems like an exclusive franchise of Republicans of late.

O'Reilly/Kos War

I haven't really been following this all that closely. Bill O'Reilly is such a clown it's hard to take anything from him seriously. But it looks like a war is raging between O'Reilly and Daily Kos. A stupid war, but if you're interested you can read about it here.

Recess

I happen to catch this picture of one of Iraq's parliamentary members right after their recess for a summer break:

Hey. DUDE! No hurry. Have a margarita on me ....

Clement Watch

Still waiting ....

Donna Leinwand writes in USA Today: "Any decision to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Attorney General Alberto Gonzales for allegedly lying to Congress rests with his subordinate, Solicitor General Paul Clement, who has few rules to guide him."
Hope Yen writes for the Associated Press: "Attorney General Alberto Gonzales must quickly clarify apparent contradictions in his testimony about warrantless spying or risk a possible perjury investigation, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said yesterday.
"'This is going to have a devastating effect on law enforcement throughout the country if it's not cleared up,' said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, a Vermont Democrat."

Still waiting ......

A Great Place To Work

Here's an example of "sustainable security". Try just going to work:

BAGHDAD — The colonel pulls his Mercedes into the parking lot of the drab, 11-story concrete building, scanning the scene for suspicious cars.

Before reaching for the door handle, he studies the people loitering nearby in hopes he will be able to recognize anyone still there later in the day. He grips his pistol, the trigger cocked, wary of an ambush.

He has arrived at his office.

This is Iraq's Ministry of Interior — the balkanized command center for the nation's police and mirror of the deadly factions that have caused the government here to grind nearly to a halt.

The very language that Americans use to describe government — ministries, departments, agencies — belies the reality here of militias that kill under cover of police uniform and remain above the law. Until recently, one or two Interior Ministry police officers were assassinated each week while arriving or leaving the building, probably by fellow officers, senior police officials say.

That killing has been reduced, but Western diplomats still describe the Interior Ministry building as a "federation of oligarchs." Those who work in the building, like the colonel, liken departments to hostile countries. Survival depends on keeping abreast of shifting factional alliances and turf.

On the second floor is Gen. Mahdi Gharrawi, a former national police commander. Last year, U.S. and Iraqi troops found 1,400 prisoners, mostly Sunnis, at a base he controlled in east Baghdad. Many showed signs of torture. The interior minister blocked an arrest warrant against the general this year, senior Iraqi officials confirmed.

The third- and fifth-floor administrative departments are the domain of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's Islamic Dawa Party, a Shiite group.

The sixth, home to border enforcement and the major crimes unit, belongs to the Badr Organization militia. Its leader, Deputy Minister Ahmed Khafaji, is lauded by some Western officials as an efficient administrator and suspected by others of running secret prisons.

The seventh floor is intelligence, where the Badr Organization and armed Kurdish groups struggle for control.

The ninth floor is shared by the department's inspector general and general counsel, religious Shiites. Their offices have been at the center of efforts to purge the department's remaining Sunni employees. The counsel's predecessor, a Sunni, was killed a year ago.

"They have some bad things on the ninth," says the colonel, a Sunni who, like other ministry officials, spoke on condition of anonymity to guard against retaliation.

...

Partitions divide the building's hallways, and gunmen guard the offices of deputy ministers. Senior police officials march up and down stairs rather than risk an elevator. They walk the halls flanked by bodyguards, wary of armed colleagues.

....

No floor has posed more of a challenge than the seventh, which houses the intelligence division. In theory, the intelligence office should be key to tracking and combating the insurgents who bomb Iraq's streets and marketplaces and attack U.S. soldiers. Instead, the division has been hobbled by a power struggle between two of America's nominal allies in Iraq, the Kurds and the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council.

The fight came to a head earlier this year with a death threat against the Kurdish deputy minister in charge of intelligence, Hussein Ali Kamal. The Kurdish leader, who controls the eastern wing of the floor, was battling for control of the intelligence apparatus with his deputy, a Badr militia commander who dominates the western side.

Damned good thing they don't have a 13th floor.

The article continues on and on. And remember, this is a government office. It's certainly a microcosm of Iraq.

Swell place to work, eh?

Prepare Yourself

The new!, improved!, Iraq plan will be "sustainable security". Whatever the hell that means ......

They could at least change the spokespeople for their new product.

Iraq Soccer Victory

Just so you know, the captain of the Iraqi soccer team wants the U.S. out now.

What's our response? Petraeus says we'll be there through 2009. That's consistent with a Bush strategy of letting Iraq be a Democrats problem and fueling the usual "the Democrats lost the war" rhetoric.

The Real Problem

William Arkin discusses the real downside of an arms deal with Saudi Arabia:

But these arguments are so, well, Old War. There isn't one weapon in the package that will enhance American interests or security -- or Saudi security, for that matter -- and there certainly isn't one that threatens Israel. The real threat is the army of contractors and U.S. service members that will have to go to Saudi Arabia to support the deal. They will just fuel more Arab anger and more terrorism.

....

What comes with the deal, though, is far more subtle trouble: Saudi Arabia has demonstrated over decades that it has no interest in building up its own high-tech arms capabilities. American contractors will train, maintain and even operate the new Saudi equipment. American military personnel will follow. We will buy nothing in terms of security, and we will just put our own people in danger. But most important, we will once again renew the cycle of American penetration into the heart of Islam, one of Osama bin Laden's original and most compelling rallying points. That's why the Saudi deal is so dangerous.

Good points.

Most of the Saudi population is anti-American and the royal family sits on a civil tenderbox that has the lid sealed with petrodollars. More American "globalization" is the last thing that's needed in an Arab country just now. But don't look to American political leaders to understand that, nor the Saudi leaders for that matter.

Sunday, July 29, 2007

Republican Watch

Digby and Yglesias take a stab at diagnosing the problems in Washington. Inevitably they get to Republican Watch ....

Here's Digby quoting Yglesias

As Matt Yglesias wrote here:
Much of the crisis in Washington today boils down precisely to the congressional GOP's unwillingness not so much to "do the right thing" but unwillingness to even be petty and power-hungry; their decision to see their job as backstopping the president come what may rather than to jealously horde[sic] the powers of their own offices.
This is why our institutions are failing. The founders never counted on politicians "doing the right thing." Profiles in courage are always in short supply and no government can depend upon good intentions. But they did assume that they would, at least, want to preserve their own careers and constitutional prerogatives. The modern Republicans are so committed to their party that they will follow their 28% president over the cliff, and that is a mindset we haven't seen since the civil war.

This is the nut of my Republican watch.

And I keep watching.

Republicans weren't thoroughly clean when it came to getting rid of tricky Dick, but in the end they did come through to save their own rearends. This bunch, indeed, looks to be willing to go over the cliff. And as is pointed out in the above post, ultimately the electorate has to thoroughly repudiate the current Republican totalitarian fiefdom at the ballot box .... and keep dumping them until they get the picture. If this doesn't happen, the Republic is in danger. The polls make me optimistic. But I'm also holding my breath.

Let's hope voters send a simple message in 2008:

Seeya! Wouldn't wannabeya. Don't let that electoral door hit you in the ass on the way out.

The State of Iraq

With my brief hiatus last week, I haven't been keeping abreast of events in Iraq like normal. I'm now catching up, and it's not pleasant ....

Swopa, who has done great blogging on the Iraq war, has a very nice summary post of recent events. It's a very good read if you want more detail.

The short version is that there are a couple of significant events unfolding. First, al Maliki let it leak that he and Petraeus are not exactly good friends. It seems that Maliki would like to put pressure on the U.S. to remove the general. Of course the Bush family needs Petraeus to have any hope of a fig leaf come September.

Why does is Maliki balking at Petraeus? Well, it seems that the new American strategy is the arm every Sunni that asks for a weapon or a uniform. In our neverending fight against the ghost army of al Qaeda and in an attempt to win friends and influence enemies by buying them off, the American military has apparently decided to join the Sunni side of the war to counter-balance Iranian influence. Of course the Maliki government is mainly Shiite and Iran leaning and thus not real happy at having Sunni's given arms, uniforms and training by Americans.

The final piece of the puzzle was the announcement of a quite large arms deal with Saudi Arabia. Swopa is of the opinion that the Saudi's have laid down the law to the Bush family. The shift in the direction to "team Sunni" is the result.

Of course this strategy can't end well. But no strategy will end well for Iraq and the region. The Shiite/Sunni war, at some level, is inevitable. The question continues to be how many American lives will be lost in "fixing" the unfixable.

GDP

The first release of last quarters GDP was a healthy appearing 3.4%. So why didn't the stock market cheer?

Take a look at the details. Particularly note the "blue" area of the contribution to GDP, consumer spending:

If the consumer continues to pull back, GDP going forward will be under pressure. So while the headline number was pretty good, the devil is in the details. Given that recently consumers have made of 2/3 of the economy, there is real recession concerns in the report.

Gasbag Edition

This is yet another chapter of "what Digby said":

Excerpt:

On the Stephanopoulos bobble head roundtable this morning, Cokie Roberts raised the baton and started the drumbeat: the Democrats risk moving waaaaay too far to the left and that is going to be a biiiiig problem for them "just like it was in Vietnam." Yes, she said it out loud. And David Gergen agreed whole heartedly.

Does anyone recall these gasbags saying that Bush was moving so far to the right with his monarchic, fundamentalist, shock and awe presidency that it was going to be a biiiig problem for them? I must have missed all those warnings. Now that he's at 28% and the conservatives are on the run after having proven that there really is a limit to how far the crazed radical wingnuts can go, they are still warning about the Democrats moving too far to the left. These people have not had an original thought in 40 years.

Even 40 years may be charitable. As they say, go read the whole thing.

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