Iraq, Iran and the Two Year, 24/7 Media Campaign

While political junkies have enjoyed the extended pre-season for Election 2008, most voters say that the debates and other campaign activities so far have been annoying and a waste of time. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 56% of Likely Voters hold that view while only 29% say the campaign so far has been interesting and informative.
Rasmussen Reports, 09/19/07

Political advertising is now the major means by which candidates for the presidency communicate their messages to voters. As a conduit of this advertising, television attracts both more candidate dollars and more audience attention than radio or print.
Dr Kathleen Hall Jamieson, Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. 5/19/2004

National cable networks sold 301 ad units between January and Sept. 2, 2007. That compares with a mere 19 units sold over a 15-month period during the last presidential cycle-January 2003 to March 2004.... All told, at least $2.7 billion in political ad spending is expected to flood in the doors of media companies before election day in November 2008... That would represent a $1 billion bump above spending during the 2004 presidential election cycle.
Janet Stilson, MediaWeek, 10/15/2007

Judging from the information in the above quotes "the media" is benefiting greatly from the early start to the 2008 campaign season. Watching the 24-Hour cable news networks it's obvious they are relying on the the presidential race to provide material for the many hours of programming they need to fill. FoxNews, MSNBC and CNN have all hosted debates that they promoted heavily and all I think rebroadcast their debate(s) at least once with commercials. On their regular programming: Fox & Friends, Joe Scarborough, CNN'S American Morning, Tucker Carlson, Wolf Blitzer, Keith Olbermann, etc. there are interviews with some of the candidates a few days before or after the debate, discussions with partisan pundits regarding every minor issue that might affect the campaign as well as pre and post-debate comments. So far the only good thing to come out of this intense coverage is more exposure for the lesser known, but interesting candidates especially, Ron Paul, but also Mike Gravel and Dennis Kucinich. Ron Paul has raised in excess of $5 million during the last quarter and has sparked a growing grassroots campaign. His online "Speeches and Statements" , especially those on Iraq, are worthwhile reading. (Too bad he's a Libertarian/Republican and not a conservative Democrat, maybe along the lines of Harry Reid who is a pro-life Democrat but at least his heart is in the right place.)

Yesterday on one of CNN's Sunday morning shows the pundits were speculating on the current status of the presidential race and the "accelerated campaign season", is I think what they called it, without exploring their possible complicity in it. Of course, there are other factors at play, for instance, the Republican candidates' desperation to win despite the odds being against them and the longer the campaign season, the more time unknowns like Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee have to build up their name recognition. Romney has already spent millions on TV ads and the election is still over a year away. And Hillary Clinton needed time to overcome the deepseated mistrust if not outright dislike of many Democratic and Independent voters. Another factor is the Iraq War: the anti-war voters are anxious to make sure whoever they elect will end the war but sadly enough an end to the war seems as unlikely as ever no matter who we vote for, Dem or Rep. At the last Democratic debate, the lead candidates backed away from earlier promises to end the war as soon as they took office.

Coincidentally Republicans are now pushing for military intervention in Iran. One wonders if they have completely lost their minds or are just trying to back their feeble attempts at diplomacy with the threat of a limited nuclear strike. Or even more cynical are they trying to draw attention away from the war in Iraq and provide themselves an opportunity for a successful military action in Iran? Are they that nuts?

MSNBC online reprinted a London-based Financial Times article which stated that Iran had replaced Iraq as the "hot" issue for U.S. voters. The article quoted Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter's national security adviser and one of the most, in my opinion, clear-sighted critics of Bush's foreign policy, as saying: "There has been an effort to change the subject. It is not so much that Iraq has been replaced by Iran as that the Bush administration has successfully broadened the Iraq debate to include Iran."

This view no doubt favors the Republicans who have alot more to lose than the Democrats if the Iraq war continues to be an issue throughout the campaign season. Though no other news outlets have voiced this opinion so directly they are covering the Iran issue extensively which allows the Republican candidates to shift the dialogue away from Iraq and lets them talk tough militarily which apparently appeals to Republican voters. But I hope that the majority of U.S. voters aren't going to be fooled by this neocon slight-of-hand to take their attention away from the "hot" war in Iraq and direct it onto the currently "cold" war in Iran which may, in reality, only be a political opportunity for the Republicans to save face in light of their failure in Iraq. Unfortunately at this point in time we ordinary citizens have little power to influence either the existing conflict or the one that might exist at any moment.

But if Bush/Cheney are serious how do they plan to deal with Iran politically if we actually bomb them? Do they really expect that some sort of military victory over Iran will make the Iraq fiasco seem somehow worth it? Iran is no Iraq. With the escalating tough talk and new economic sanctions against Iran we seem to be going down the same path as we did before we invaded Iraq. One gets the impression that even if Bush's real aim in Iraq was to try to create a democratic, U.S.-friendly regime, if that wasn't possible, he would settle for weakening the country to the point where it was no longer a threat to the U.S. or its friends in the Middle East. If we try the same tactic in Iran the result will make the fiasco in Iraq look like a success story. When we invaded Iraq in 2003 the country had suffered under very oppressive U.N. economic sanctions ever since the first Gulf War -- over a decade. If Bush plans to bomb Iran before he leaves office the sanctions won't have been in effect long enough to have done much as far as weakening the country. There is no way we can attack Iran and not expect them to retaliate in some way. If we are fighting the war on terror in order to protect the "homeland" from being attacked, bombing Iran is not the best way to prevent that from happening.

Whatever scenario actually becomes reality, as the extended campaign season grinds on it becomes clear that our troops and innocent civilians are caught up in the high stakes fight over the U.S. Presidency. The Republicans are not going to give up without a tooth and nail fight to the finish and they obviously don't care who they sacrifice in their effort to win the election. In what comes off as a desperate attempt to appeal to their base and therefore have a better chance of winning their party's nomination, all of the Republican candidates except for Ron Paul are eager to tell anyone who asks that they are all for bombing Iran and staying in Iraq as long as it takes "to win" the war. And Hillary Clinton, gambling that she has the Democratic nomination all but sewn up is trying to appeal to the Independent swing vote by acting like hawk: voting for sanctions against Iran and pulling back on her promise to redeploy troops out of Iraq.

We and the media are so focused on the election that we seem to have forgotten that lives are being lost in Iraq every day as we listen to the campaign rhetoric that may be completely abandoned by whichever candidate is ultimately elected. The 2008 Presidential race has turned into a two year campaign for a four (possibly eight) year job (and some of the contenders are still on the government payroll while running for President full-time). Would this lengthy campaigning be possible without the 24-hour news media to provide an outlet for ads, debates and partisan punditry? Probably not, but part of the problem is that we are allowing it to happen.

The Racism of Torture in Iraq and the War on Terror

In two separate legal opinions written in 2005, the Justice Department authorized the C.I.A. to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

The memorandums were written just months after a Justice Department opinion in December 2004 declared torture "abhorrent."

Administration officials have confirmed the existence of the classified opinions, but will not make them public, saying only that they approved techniques that were "tough, safe, necessary and lawful."
NYTimes, 10/05/07

In this new war, which is an unprecedented war, facing an enemy unlike we've ever faced before, sometimes -- oftentimes the best information that you get is from the terrorists themselves. They know where the other terrorists are hiding and what the other terrorists are planning. And to win the war on terror we must be able to detain them, interrogate them, question them, and when appropriate, prosecute them -- in America -- when we capture them here in America and on battlefields around the world. The policy of the United States is not to torture. The President has not authorized it, he will not authorize it.
Dana Perino, 10/04/2007

The movie "The Lives of Others", which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006, is about the Stasi, the secret police of the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the former East Germany, and the vast network of citizens they coerced to spy and inform on one another. They primarily monitored people who they suspected might be disloyal to, were plotting against or were trying to leave the GDR. The film deals in part with how the Stasi blackmailed and forced people into turning against their loved ones and friends. What it doesn't get into is that many people also gave false information to save themselves or to simply to discredit enemies. People weren't necessarily tortured: sometimes just the prospect of detention or imprisonment alone is enough to frighten some of us. It's hard to imagine what any of us would do if we were actually threatened with actual physical torture or with death.

For me the prospect is frightening and I can't imagine that I would be especially courageous. I would probably be so terrified I would sell out my best friends and admit to anything true or not. I would probably say whatever I thought would save me. The idea that the average human would be able to withhold any information under the threat of torture is absurd and something that happens more often in Hollywood movies: the superhuman hero who can withstand torture and courageously not give up his country or fellow soldiers. In real life even the most courageous crack. John McCain admitted to twice providing information to the Vietnamese after being tortured.

During the Spanish Inquisition (15th to 19th century) torture was not only a means to get information but also a means of intimidation. If one person was tortured for having the "wrong" religion others would be frighten into renouncing that religion and adopting the one that wouldn't get them tortured. And in the GDR one of the functions of the Stasi was to frighten and intimidate people into following the policies of the state; the persecution of individuals was in part a means to that end.

That the U.S. is naive enough to think that any information that they are getting as a result of torture is more important than the extreme amount of bad faith that they are generating in the Islamic world is pathetic. Or could it be that the U.S. is intentionally using torture to intimidate the Islamic world? Our government hasn't exactly gone out of their way to convince the Iraqis that the torture at Abu Ghraib, the misdeeds of Blackwater and what amounts to home invasions by U.S. soldiers have been especially abhorrent to them. These are the type of tactics used to scare and intimidate people into following the rules of an oppressive state. Unfortunately (or fortunately), it is not a tactic that always works. In fact, I think it is only a tactic that works if there is a large, well-entrenched and organized military force oppressing a weak and mostly unarmed populace. And even then it isn't a particularly effective long term tactic. Whenever a group of people is oppressed there is a huge danger of creating an enemy that will remember the injustice for generations.

If I remember correctly, some of the most successful conquerors of the ancient past, for instance in South America, absorbed the people they conquered into their empire through intermarriage and commerce using economic and cultural incentives to gain the favor and goodwill of former enemies. And one reason that in the past the U.S. has been so well thought of around the world is that immigrants from around the world have come here and found success and peace that was not possible in their country of origin. You do not make friends by bombing and torturing a person's family. You do not gain favor by being as much of a tyrant as the regime you depose.

The CIA has utilized and researched torture for decades. Why it is only becoming really controversial now is due to a large extent to the unpopularity of the war in Iraq and because of the abusive treatment of innocent prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. If the U.S. government had managed to restrict the use of torture to known terrorists like al Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed most of us might have turned a blind eye, but there has clearly been a pattern of abusive treatment of prisoners after 9/11 starting in Afghanistan. The Bush administration seems to have a blood lust that they don't comprehend is not shared by the majority of us. In the past the CIA has simply lied about their use of torture. However in this digital age, when pictures and videos can be easily and widely distributed, the CIA is having much more difficulty keeping their activities secret.

I was watching CNN this morning while I was writing this and they ran a piece on lynching narrated by Rick Sanchez. It included a brief history and the great Billy Holiday song about lynching, "Strange Fruit". It had very graphic pictures, mostly from the early 20th Century, of African-Americans who had been hung by the neck until they were dead. Anyone who didn't understand the significance of the nooses found recently on high school and college campuses should after seeing this. Like torture, lynching, in part because it was often done very publicly, had a far-reaching effect as a form of intimidation not to mention terror.

Bush has said many times since 9/11, that his actions are necessary to "save innocent lives" and to prevent another attack on the "homeland". This reference to 9/11 still strikes a chord with many people and many are still so fearful of the terrorist threat, that they don't stop to think that killing and torturing innocent Iraqis and Afghanis to save innocent American lives isn't right and is certainly not the Christian thing to do. And they also don't stop to think that there might be a racial or religious basis for our lack of interest in their innocent lives.

Iraq Catch-22: the Insanity

“The incoming Democratic Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, and other Democrats are ruling out any effort by members of their party to have Congress cut off funds for U.S. military operations in Iraq. Proponents of such a move say any funds lawmakers approve when Democrats assume control of Congress in January should be used to bring U.S. troops home." Dan Robinson VOA News 12/06/06

“The framers expected Congress to keep the president on an especially short leash on military matters. The Constitution authorizes Congress to appropriate money for an army, but prohibits appropriations for longer than two years. [Alexander] Hamilton explained that the limitation prevented Congress from vesting ‘in the executive department permanent funds for the support of an army, if they were even incautious enough to be willing to repose in it so improper a confidence.’” Adam Cohen NYTimes 7/23/07

"To date, there has been absolutely no concerted campaign by Democrats or even by the major media-focused antiwar organizations in Washington to educate the public on why Congress using its power of the purse is the responsible way to end the war. No, everyone inside the 50-square mile radius of Washington, D.C. - politicians, activists, reporters, pundits, everyone - wants us to believe that Democrats are just Innocent Bystanders, that they have no power to do anything, and that, in fact, the Constitution does not include Article 1, Section 9 specifically stating 'No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law.'" David Sirota 9/26/07

“Specifically, Senate Democrats whine about not having 60 votes to pass Iraq-related legislation. They pretend they are innocent bystanders with no means to act, and some anti-war groups give the charade credence by echoing these excuses. Yet, if properly pressured, those Democrats might be able to muster 41 votes to stop war funding bills.” David Sirota 9/29/07

In my last post I talked about how the Minority in the Senate is usually the party that instigates filibusters. I was thinking later that was probably because the Majority party typically tries not to allow any legislation to reach the floor of the Senate that they aren't interested in voting for. I believe the Republicans were notorious for doing this while they held the Congressional majority they recently lost and the Democrats complained bitterly -- for good reason. The party in power sets the calendar for what matters get heard on the Senate floor and legislation only finds its way before the Senate if the Majority allows it. The Democrats have claimed that in a spirit of bipartisanship they will not play the same kind of hardball in this regard as the Republicans did when they were in power.

Sirota brings up the point that even if the Democrats are going to allow Iraq funding to be voted on they could still filibuster it. With 41 votes the Democrats could threaten to filibuster any Iraq legislation and stop a cloture vote from passing in the Senate. Cloture is typically invoked when one party threatens to filibuster. Once invoked cloture requires 60 votes to pass. If the Democrats could manage to vote as a block (as the Republicans seem to be able to do pretty well) 41 votes would prevent the remaining 59 from passing cloture.

One of the excuses some Democrats, most notably Sen. Biden, have used for not voting against Iraq spending is that they are afraid that the lack of funding might endanger the troops. The problem with that argument is is that not removing U.S. troops from Iraq also endangers them. This "catch-22" situation creates a stalemate between the Democrats who are for immediate or quick redeployment of the troops, like Sen. Byrd and Sen. Feingold, for example, and those who seem to be backing away from redeployment in the near future most notably, Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama. Unfortunately, for those of us who believe that redeploying the troops out of Iraq sooner rather than later is the better option, this stalemate prevents that from happening any time soon.

According to Joseph Heller's 1961 novel of the same name “'Catch-22' is a provision in army regulations; it stipulates that a soldier's request to be relieved from active duty can be accepted only if he is mentally unfit to fight. Any soldier, however, who has the sense to ask to be spared the horrors of war is obviously mentally sound, and therefore must stay to fight." (The American Heritage New Dictionary)

People have applied the Catch-22 reference to Iraq for a variety of issues including: Abu Ghraib, the 2002 Iraq War resolution, financial support for Iraqis.

But I think it is most aptly applied to the war itself as Ada Calhoun said in her 09/21/07 blog:

"Is pulling out of Iraq the right thing to do? Well, no. Is staying a good idea? Certainly not. All that's left is to pick the lesser of two great evils, and to never forget that George "What Me, Worry?" Bush got us into this hideous Catch-22. He has the blood of tens of thousands of innocent civilians and thousands of American troops on his hands. May he go down in history as the worst president we've ever had and may someday we be forgiven for allowing him to take power and wreak havoc."

And if I may add, referring back to the origin of the term Catch-22 the fact that the Bush-Cheney group seems so intent on fighting the war in Iraq for the sake of fighting in Iraq with no believable reason given is an example of their insanity. The current reasons (forget WMD) include the usual: we have to support the troops (by forcing them to fight an apparently unnecessary war), or we have to protect the Iraqi people (by helping to destroy their country), or that we are fighting al Qaeda (who or what is exactly al Qaeda in Iraq?). Or the latest because we need to attack Iran, meaning we need to legitimize the current Proxy War: U.S. for the Sunni (who are also al Qaeda in Iraq?); Iran for the Shi'a (who are also the current Iraqi government?). For these bizarre and contradictory excuses alone their sanity should be called into question.

At the recent Dartmouth debate at least a couple of the Democratic Presidential candidates seemed to get the faintest glint of a deer caught in the headlights stare in their eyes when they were asked about their plans to end the war. Obama began by saying he planned to "drastically" reduce the number of troops and ended by saying "I believe that we should have all our troops out by 2013, but I don't want to make promises not knowing what the situation's going to be three or four years out." And Clinton said "It is very difficult to know what we're going to be inheriting. You know, we do not know, walking into the White House in January 2009, what we're going to find."

I couldn't help wondering if this hesitation has anything to do with the reports in a recent book that a high-level aide for President Bush has been advising or at least attempting to advise Democratic candidates on the Iraq War?

Bush said in an interview included in this new book, The Evangelical President, “If I were a candidate running for president in a complex world that we’re in, I would be asking my national security team to touch base with the White House just to at least listen about plans, thoughts,” he said.

Isn't that interesting. It has been widely reported that Bush, Cheney, their cabinet members and staff had very little regard for any advice they received from their outgoing Clinton counterparts. Too bad that when Bush himself was running for President or that when he became President, before and after 9/11 he didn't listen more carefully to the warnings and advice of the Clinton administration, especially those of then counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke, regarding Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

Bush at the U.N.: Human Rights, Burma, and Iraq

President Bush addressed the General Assembly of the United Nations on Tuesday of this week:

"Sixty years ago, representatives from 16 nations gathered to begin deliberations on a new international bill of rights. The document they produced is called the Universal Declaration of Human Rights -- and it stands as a landmark achievement in the history of human liberty. It opens by recognizing 'the inherent dignity' and the 'equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family' as 'the foundation of freedom, justice, and peace in the world.' And as we gather for this 62nd General Assembly, the standards of the Declaration must guide our work in this world.

Achieving the promise of the Declaration requires confronting long-term threats; it also requires answering the immediate needs of today. The nations in this chamber have our differences, yet there are some areas where we can all agree. When innocent people are trapped in a life of murder and fear, the Declaration is not being upheld."

Got that? “When innocent people are trapped in a life of murder and fear, the Declaration is not being upheld.”

This was his only reference to Iraq:

"Brave citizens in Lebanon and Afghanistan and Iraq have made the choice for democracy -- yet the extremists have responded by targeting them for murder. This is not a show of strength -- it is evidence of fear. And the extremists are doing everything in their power to bring down these young democracies. The people of Lebanon and Afghanistan and Iraq have asked for our help. And every civilized nation has a responsibility to stand with them."

The President also referred to some U.S. policies and programs regarding HIV/AIDS, hunger, malaria and other causes around the world that are generally accepted to be beneficial and he should be credited for his role in those programs.

But he also criticized the countries of Belarus, North Korea, Syria, Iran, Burma [Myanmar], Cuba, Zimbabwe, Sudan and Venezuela [he mentioned Caracas, the capital] for their abuse of human rights, tyranny, repression, etc.

He said that the government of Zimbabwe has forced "millions to flee their homeland" but he failed to mentioned the more than 2 million Iraqis who have had to leave their country because of the war we started. Kenneth Bacon president of Refugees International said that the "United States and its allies sparked the current chaos in Iraq, but they are doing little to ease the humanitarian crisis caused by the current exodus..."

Referring to Burma Bush stated that the "regime is holding more than 1,000 political prisoners -- including Aung San Suu Kyi, whose party was elected overwhelmingly by the Burmese people in 1990." He did not mention the abuses that took place at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad or the fact that app. 25,000 Iraqis are now being "detained" by U.S.-Iraqi forces, including 800 juveniles as young as 11. He also failed to mention that this week Iraq was cited in the Corruption Perceptions Index as one of the most corrupt countries in the world, along with Myanmar (Burma) and Somalia.

Schools, utilities, etc. in Baghdad, Fallujah and other parts of Iraq are barely functioning and the general quality of life is barely tolerable.

I could go on but you get the idea.

How can he, someone who was at least partially responsible for the chaos and humanitarian crisis in Iraq, accuse other countries of human rights abuses? Does he think that just because it isn't happening here in the U.S. but on the other side of the world that it doesn't count? That no one is paying attention?

Is this just another example of a Republican accusing others of what he himself is doing to draw attention away from his bad acts? If he accuses someone else of being against human rights it means that he must be as concerned about human rights as he claims to be? Or is he just pointing out that there are countries whose policies he thinks are worse than his policy in Iraq?

He also said in this address: "The truth is denied by terrorists and extremists who kill the innocent with the aim of imposing their hateful vision on humanity." Isn't he also denying the truth?

Cloture, Payback and the Power of the Purse

"cloture - The only procedure by which the Senate can vote to place a time limit on consideration of a bill or other matter, and thereby overcome a filibuster. "

There's been alot of talk about cloture since the Democrats took over in the Senate. In fact, as of September 19, 2007, there have been 56 cloture votes, 2 less than the previous record of 58, and the number is expected to more than double by the end of this Congressional term in 2008. So what exactly is this cloture? While the 60 votes required to pass cloture are often mentioned in the media, an explanation of what exactly it is have not been. I'm going to attempt to explain briefly the basics of cloture and, in addition, discuss a little bit about how the Democrats can use the "Power of the Purse" to play hardball with the Republicans.

For an example of cloture look at the Reed-Levin amendment which is (was?) a proposed amendment to the Department of Defense spending bill that sets a deadline/timeline for bringing the troops home from Iraq. Back in July of this year the Democrats hoped to vote on the amendment in the Senate. The majority of the Senate Republicans did not want the amendment to pass or to even be voted on so they threatened to filibuster. But they didn't actually filibuster, they just threatened to.

In order to prevent the usual "up or down" Senate vote which requires a simple majority (51 votes if all 100 Senators are voting) the Republicans have been habitually threatening to filibuster in order to block the vote on any bill that they see as being the least bit partisan. As many people have pointed out, anyone who has seen the film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, knows that the traditional filibuster is when Senators, usually those of the minority party, stage endless debate on a bill, amendment etc. in order to block the majority party from voting and passing it.

That was the old-school filibuster. It was used in the 1960's by Southern Democrats to stall the passing of Civil Rights Legislation. A filibuster could last for days or weeks and prevent not only the passing of bills, etc. but also prevent the Senate from conducting any other business.

Over the past thirty years or so there has been a shift towards "procedural agreements" that allow the minority party to just threaten a filibuster to have the same effect as if they actually did filibuster: the filibuster is now more of a virtual concept than an actual event.

How it works is that once the minority party, in this case the Republicans, threaten to filibuster an item up for debate, in this case the Reed-Levin amendment, the majority party, the Democrats, in an effort to not only save themselves from possible round-the-clock sessions but also to allow the Senate to work on other matters, automatically invoke cloture, the Senate procedure that limits debate on an item being considered. If it passes cloture the item can continue through the Senate process, if it doesn't it can be shelved and reconsidered at a later time.

During an old-school filibuster cloture was usually invoked when the majority party thought it had the 60 votes for it to pass. (This is a supermajority of votes meaning that no matter how many senators are voting , 60 votes are required, not just a percentage of the total Senators present.) If they did not have the 60 votes the debate could continue as long as the opponents of the item had the will to keep it going. However, because of the relatively recent procedural agreements that have streamlined the process and also because of the tenuous majority held by the Democrats in the Senate of the 110th Congress, cloture has evolved into a slightly different, largely defensive procedure. For the Democrats cloture has become a routine method of responding to what they view as the Republicans' obstructionist use of the "virtual" filibuster .

So the Republicans threatened to filibuster and Sen. Harry Reid automatically invokes cloture. No fuss no muss: the old-school filibuster is averted and the cloture procedure goes into affect. For one full day after cloture is invoked the matter is set aside. Then on the second day up to 30 hours of debate are conducted and then the cloture vote is held. However, according to a Congressional Research Service report titled "Filibusters and Cloture in the Senate" while there are various standard rules to follow once one a party invokes cloture these rules can be bent to a certain extent if agreed to by mutual consent.

Republicans are threatening to filibuster practically any bill that the Democrats introduce. As a result Sen. Reid has been forced to use cloture as a way to conduct the day-to-day business of the Senate. Most bills introduced by the Democrats are requiring 60 votes instead of a simple majority to be passed. For instance, the Reed-Levin amendment had a chance of passing and becoming part of the defense spending bill with a simple majority (it had 52 of the 60 votes needed for cloture) in which case it could have been sent to President Bush. He would have been forced to veto it if he didn't want it to become law. But rather than have the President be forced to publicly veto a bill that would effectively end the war, and give more publicity to his unwillingness to compromise, the Republicans forced the Democrats to have to get 60 votes for a bill that with 52 possible votes had a chance of passing if it had only needed the usual majority vote of 51%.

However, Republican efforts have no real effect beyond obstructing the business of the Senate since for any Democratic backed-bill to over-ride a Presidential Veto and actually pass into law, it would require a two-thirds vote of both houses of Congress which is very unlikely to happen with or without filibustering or cloture. So in effect the Republicans are trying to make the Democrats look as bad as possible: "Those Democrats can't even get a bill passed let alone send one to the President", etc.

And even if there is a possibility that the Democrats might manage to get a bill passed, the Bush Administration complains. Over the weekend, in his radio address, the President complained about the State Children's Health Insurance Program, which Congress will be having final votes on this week, saying that the "Democrats in Congress have decided to pass a bill they know will be vetoed". What he doesn't say is that the only reason the bill made it past a cloture vote earlier this year was because Republicans contributed to the necessary 60 votes.

However, the Democrats do have at least one possible way of getting around the Republican filibuster roadblock. The so-called, "power of the purse". Wolf Blitzer asked Hilary Clinton about it yesterday on this Sunday show. She very conveniently was able to say that she had voted against the Iraq spending bill last May. That's true but she voted against it knowing that it was going to pass.

There was no Republican threat to filibuster that bill. But it was the Democrats who allowed it to come up for a vote in the first place. They didn't have to. That is what is behind the power of the purse. The Democrats are in power in Congress. And because they are in power they control which bills are put on the calendar and sent to the floor for debate and possible vote. They don't even have to put the bills that fund the Iraq War on the calendar.

Senator Biden and other Democratic members of the House and Senate have said that they do not want to halt funding because they feel it might endanger the troops. Haven't they heard of negotiation? Isn't that what they do in Congress? Threatening to cut off funding doesn't mean they actually have to cut off all funding (though to be honest alot of us would prefer they did). The Republicans might be a little more agreeable to reducing troop strength if the Democrats threatened to not allow any funding at all.

Also the next time the Republicans threaten to filibuster an Iraq spending bill. Let them. And I don't mean the 30 hour filibuster on the Reed-Levin amendment that Reid forced back in July after he had invoked cloture. I mean, forget the cloture vote and force the Republicans to hold an old-school filibuster. If they feel so strongly about the Iraq War force them to fight for it on the floor of the Senate.

In my last post I discussed a little bit about how the Republicans play a kind of hardball that the Democrats are maybe too principled to get into. But maybe this is their chance to play. Sure the Republicans are going to accuse the Democrats of endangering the troops. But aren't they already doing that? Whatever the Democrats do the Republicans are going to spin it to make the Democrats look bad. They might as well do exactly what they promised to do to get elected and to hell with how the Republicans spin it. As for the press, they are criticizing the Democrats more for not delivering on their campaign promises than for anything else.

Let the Republicans cry foul. So what! What have Democrats got to lose? Are they afraid of some kind of Republican retribution down the line? What could the Republicans do that they haven't already? Remember how they went after the Clintons before, during and after Bill was President? Come on, isn't it time that maybe the Democrats indulged in a little payback? And it wouldn't be the kind of self-serving payback that the Republicans are known for, it would be payback in service of a very good cause.

Bush Betrayed Us; Has Petraeus?

Gen. Petraeus is one of the few in the military establishment who really seems to get the idea that might is not always right. Like retired Gen. Wesley Clark I really do think that Petraeus understands the military adage by Karl von Clausewitz that war is an extension of politics. (I interpret this to mean that war should not be an end in and of itself but used in conjunction with diplomacy and employed only when diplomacy and peaceful forms of politics fail.) I think that Petraeus is a very capable person and has a very clear idea of the political role he is playing but he is only as good as the policy he is required to implement. I get the feeling that he sincerely believes he can improve the situation in Iraq but on the whole his assessment of the threat of al Qaeda in Iraq doesn't really add up. There continues to be obvious political motivation for our military and diplomatic efforts in Iraq that cannot be overlooked.

Judging from Petraeus’ testimony in Congress, he believes as the Bush Administration has stated that his primary goal is leading the fight against al Qaeda in Iraq [AQI]. However according to a U.S. intelligence report that came out in July 2007: "al Qaeda in Iraq is responsible for 15 percent of the attacks in the country, often the most deadly. Sunni insurgents are blamed for 70 percent of attacks, and Shiite militias 15 percent. Shiite attacks, however, have sharply increased and are now probably higher than 15 percent." Other government sources have indicated that AQI is responsible for 8 percent or less of the the violent attacks in the county.

It seems unreasonable that we are expending so much effort in an attempt to contain what amounts to a fraction of the problem which is mostly Shia and Sunni sectarian violence and infighting -- not AQI terrorism. And it lends credence to the argument that AQI is not the huge threat to the security of the U.S. homeland" as has been claimed by Bush ("We are fighting them in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here”). And currently, as Petraeus himself has outlined in the hearings, many of the Sunni factions in Iraq dislike AQI and are fighting against them effectively. Why do they need us? It's obvious that AQI is only an excuse for our continued presence in Iraq.

As I wrote in my post of September 9, Petraeus has said that he felt that Fallujah was an example of U.S. success, this despite it being largely destroyed in our attempts to get "al Qaeda" out of the city. And in fact only when local Sunni militias decided to rout al Qaeda from the city in late 2006 was there any real success in fighting AQI there. And in today's hearing Petraeus cited the successful tactics of local Sunnis in continuing to secure the city including using gated communities secured by concrete barriers and armed guards. While Fallujah may be more peaceful that it was in past months it still sounds like a city under siege.

Petraeus seemed to be using Fallujah as an example of what could be done elsewhere. Unfortunately, this type of success is very temporary and in no way takes the place of real stability.

During yesterday's hearing Ambassador Crocker outlined his program to try to reach out to the radical elements of both Sunni and Shia who he thought might be open to reconciliation. And Petraeus added that "you reconcile with your enemies not your friends." It all sounds great in a hearing room, but as one senator said he wished Petraeus had been in charge after the war ended in 2003 but that now in 2007 it might be too late for these diplomatic efforts to be effective.

It is too late especially when the State Department and even the Department of Defense seem to be continuing their hands off approach in regards to Iraq at least in public. It would be another blunder in a series of horrendous blunders to actually expect these two men to clean up Iraq on their own without more public support from Secretaries Rice and Gates.

Is the Bush Administration purposefully trying to minimize it's involvement with the decisions made on the ground in Iraq? Or is it a result of a lame duck government that is in chaos? Both. There is chaos in the government: Rumsfled, Gonzales , Rove, Libby, and other lesser figures have been forced to resign and there have been reports of infighting between the Cheney and the non-Cheney factions in the Bush Administration that have hampered decision-making within the administration. And as outlined in several books (Hubris, Emerald City, etc.) the Iraq War was bungled in part because Washington sent to Iraq people like J. Paul Bremer who were given "a free hand" in doing whatever they felt was necessary to run Iraq without having to answer to the State Department or DOD.

On the other hand, despite the chaos in the White House and the continued appearance of ambivalence regarding what Petraeus and Crocker actually do in Iraq, I get the sense that the White House now has an over-arching political purpose in Iraq that was missing in the past. While Petraeus and Crocker are more honest than past bosses in Iraq they are still toeing the Bush party line. They would not have been put in charge if their loyalty was in question. As a result I do not believe that they have introduced any real change in how the Iraq War is being fought. Are they being set up as scapegoats? I don't think so.

The feeling I get from the past couple days of hearings is that the military and diplomatic information is not the real story. The real story is purely political. This was discussed to some extent last night on Keith Olbermann. Olbermann also speculated reluctantly that some Senate Democrats might be prolonging the war so that it would still be a viable issue for the 2008 elections. That is a horrible possibility. But similarly on the Republican side I think what is going on is that Petraeus has been employed to portray the war in the most positive light possible to allow the U.S., as many have been speculating for months, to slowly leave Iraq and claim success in the process. He's planning on a troop reduction that will be completed just in time for the Democratic and Republican Conventions in late summer 2008. This good news might allow the Republicans to claim that they are in the process of leaving Iraq and minimize to an extent the Democrats ability to use the war as an election issue.

Also on Olbermann last night, John Dean stated that the Democrats are not able to play political hard ball as well as the Republicans and that is one reason why they are having difficulty in getting their way, especially in the Senate. I think that is probably true. Playing hard ball like the Republicans usually involves lying, obfuscating, misrepresenting reality, throwing friends under the bus and worst of all sacrificing innocent lives for their political agenda. One reason why many of us are Democrats is because we don't want to play that kind of hard ball.

I Love Code Pink!

Not that I always agree with them, but I love seeing and/or hearing their noisy anti-war protests on global TV. Today Code Pinkers are out in force at the Petraeus-Crocker Senate Hearings. Code Pink Rules!

And as I think I mentioned in an earlier post, with the Democrats now in charge of the Senate protesters are actually allowed into the hearings. And so far today, only the noisy protesters are being hauled out. They are allowing the quiet but obviously Code Pink members to stay in the room. Looks like the plan is to have a series of disruptions throughout the hearing. Great tactic!

Let me repeat, I Love Code Pink!

Let Iran Fight al Qaeda in Iraq So We Don't Have To

"Don't try to storm the doors, wait until they open." The 9/11 hijackers took recognizance flights on commercial airlines prior to 9/11/2001 and determined that about 15 minutes into each flight the cockpit door was opened either by one of the cockpit crew or by a stewardess. So the plan was to get into the cockpit when one of the crew opened the door. (from History Channel show re 9/11 Commission report)

In a way, the same strategy of taking full advantage of its enemy's weakness is being employed in Iraq on a much larger scale. When the U.S. bungled their occupation of Iraq and allowed the country to unravel and deteriorate into chaos, "al Qaeda" saw their chance to get a foothold in the country. And now the Bush administration in a classic example of turning one's failure into an asset, is using the "al Qaeda" presence in Iraq as an excuse to remain there indefinitely. And also seemingly an excuse to ignore the real problems and issues that are helping to prolong the chaos. “Al Qaeda” is only a small part of the problem in Iraq.

The Republicans are still talking about winning in Iraq. Today on FOX News Newt Gringrich said: "If we were to lose in Iraq it would be a disaster." Well we have lost and it is a disaster. And I think the main reason we lost was because not only did we not have a plan for the occupation, we did not have a plan for the real war. Bush kept saying that the war in Iraq was part of the war on terrorism. But obviously the war in Iraq for the United States and it's coalition from the beginning was a war against Iraqis who did not want us in Iraq. What was our real reason for invading Iraq? Were we fighting in hopes of controlling Iraqi oil? Were we fighting in hopes of creating a U.S. satellite state that we could use as a base to invade Iran? (Didn't they think that the Shi'as in Iraq might not like us invading another Shi'a country?) Or maybe just preventing Iran from exerting influence over Iraq? Whatever it was, the excuse that we were fighting the war on terror, Saddam and WMD now seems catastrophically pitiful.

We need to begin to interpret the war in Iraq in a more realistic context. One problem is that like Vietnam the U.S. cannot always tell who is on their side and who is the enemy. And the problem is even worse in Iraq because there is more than one side. In Vietnam there was just the North Vietnamese. In Iraq there are the radical Sunnis, the radical Shi'a and to a lesser extent "Al Qaeda" and various factions of those groups who are not only fighting us but one another.

The Bush Admin is still using the excuse that they are fighting "al Qaeda" in Iraq and once they get "al Qaeda" under control then it will be safe environment for the Iraqi's to develop their government. "Al Qaeda" is not the problem! The problem is the Sunni and Shia don't get along and don't trust one another primarily because under Saddam the Sunnis oppressed the Shi'a. To put it simplistically the Shi'a are afraid the Sunnis and their Ba'ath party will once again take control of Iraq and the Sunnis are afraid that they might be victims of retribution if the Shi'a are in power. This is the main reason for the current political stalemate and inaction of the elected government in Iraq. This stalemate is not going to be affected by our fighting a war on terror in Iraq. Terrorism is not the real issue in Iraq, the issue now is how to bring the warring factions together. I don't think the U.S. has enough (or any) good will left with the people of Iraq to be of any use in making this reconciliation occur.

We have lost in our attempt to bring Iraq under our influence. We have to accept that it is not going to happen. I think that at least we need to redeploy as John Murtha suggested almost 2 years ago, to bases outside Iraq and only intervene if it becomes necessary. Necessary, at this point, to do what I'm not sure. I could say to prevent ethnic cleansing but that's already happened. I could say to protect the country's infrastructure but that has already been severely compromised if not destroyed in Baghdad, Fallujah and elsewhere. I'm not sure that there's much left to save the Iraqi's from that we haven't already allowed to happen. The excuse often used for our remaining is to prevent the chaos that will occur if we leave. Chaos has already happened. We have not only been unable to stop chaos we have caused chaos.

Fallujah is a sad example of our not only ignoring the chaos we have caused but also having the gall to call it an example of our "success". In 2004 the U.S. bombed Fallujah destroying at least 10,000 of the city's 39,000 homes and at least two-thirds of the city's 300,000 inhabitants were forced to leave. Last week General Petraeus walked through Fallujah with CBS' Katie Couric and she asked him: "You say Fallujah is a real success story. What turned it around?" How could a city of app. 300,000 people roughly the size of Cincinnati being bombed to the point where half the city was left without electricity and running water and one quarter of homes destroyed be deemed a success? After the war officially "ended" in March of 2003 Fallujah was largely unscathed. If we had managed to secure the town before we destroyed it in our quest to rout out "al Qaeda" and in the process kill thousands of its residents I think we might have been allowed to call it a success story. I respect General Petraeus but I think the glare of TV lights and camera have compromised his ability to access reality honestly.

On CNN today Rick Barton of the Center for Strategic & International Studies who assisted the Iraq Study Group said in regard to the Iraq War that we need to acknowledge the "stalemate in Washington and the dead end in Iraq." Or it works vice versa just as well -- the stalemate in Iraq and the dead end in Washington.

We need to accept the fact that we have lost in Iraq and that our continued involvement there is not going to make the situation better. We invaded Iraq and managed to destabilize the country. We are not going to be able to re-stabilize the country without destroying it as we destroyed Fallujah. At this point I'm not sure that any chaos that is created by our leaving can be that much worse than the chaos that we have already created.

Newt Gringrich also said today that "Iraq is less dangerous than in 2001." I'm not sure how in any way Iraq is less dangerous now. Tens if not hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens have been killed since we invaded their country in 2003, many more than would have died if Saddam were allowed to remain in power. Shi'as may be in some ways better off politically but they are in more danger now than when Saddam was in power.

Will our leaving force the government of Iraq to turn to Iran for support? Probably. But then they can fight "al Qaeda" in Iraq so we don't have to.

Cheney's Conspiracy Theory II: Iran

Did Cheney really believe that Saddam and al Qaeda conspired to attack the U.S. on 9/11 or was it just a conspiracy theory he came up to convince the majority of the U.S. on the necessity of the Iraq War?

As recently as April 5, 2007, "Cheney contended that al-Qaeda was operating in Iraq before the March 2003 invasion led by U.S. forces and that terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was leading the Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda." But that "[o]thers in al-Qaeda planned the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks." Though, he has apparently backed off from previous assertions that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks, he is still clinging to the notion that has now been disproved by every agency and group that has investigated the connection(except the one run by ardent neocon Feith) that al Qaeda was nonetheless active in Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion.

In my post of May 19, 2007, "Cheney's Conspiracy Theory", I wrote that perhaps Cheney really fell for the possibility that there was collusion between Saddam and al Qaeda prior to 9/11. It's possible his belief that Iraq was part of terrorist conspiracy plus his paranoia/fear that our democracy was seriously in danger might have led him to push for the invasion of Iraq. And I think there really is a possibility that Cheney and other neocons feel they are on a mission to protect the U.S. way of life as well as "our interests" in the Middle East, meaning Israel and Iraqi oil. And if their friends, Big Oil, get rich in the process, so be it -- then there will be more money for donations to get Republican candidates elected and to further the neocon agenda of expanding U.S. business interests and "morality" around the world.

There has also been some talk about a neocon Middle East domino theory , sort of a reverse of the Vietnam Era domino theory, which contends that if the U.S. manages to create a democracy in Iraq then democracy will spread to the surrounding countries. Well, communism didn't spread throughout Southeast Asia when we lost the Vietnam War and right now anyway, western-style democracy doesn't appear to be on the verge of spreading anywhere in the Middle East.

Actually, I'm not convinced that creating an Iraqi democracy was really part of the neocon plan or maybe it was just a best case scenario that didn't pan out. The real priority was to retain, apparently at any cost, a strong and preferably controlling presence in Iraq. The level of U.S. incompetence in "post-war" Iraq was too great to not have been, if not part of the plan, at least an acceptable outcome. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit, but I think it's possible that one reason why so many key civilian positions in Iraq have been filled by loyal Bush supporters is because it is more important that whatever happens there follows their long-range agenda than it is to create a stable and peaceful Iraq.

This scenario fits in with the theory that neocons are seeking "maximum chaos and instability in the Middle East in order to justify long-term US occupation of the region." And this theory, at least in terms of how long we plan to be in Iraq, gained more believability when on June 17, 2007, General Petraeus told Fox News in regards to Iraq that "typically, I think historically, counterinsurgency operations have gone at least nine or 10 years."

In addition the U.S. is building a large, well actually huge, U.S. Embassy complex in Baghdad that will encompass 104 acres on the bank of the Tigris River inside the Green Zone. "Original cost estimates," for the project, "ranged over $1 billion." State Department officials have openly admitted that the size of the embassy is due to the expectation of continued U.S. military presence in Iraq for many years to come.

So is the Bush Administration trying to destabilize the Middle East?

Recently there have been new accusations that Iran may be funding all of the conflicts in the region. According to the NY Times on June 15, 2007, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's diplomatic efforts are currently the official policy of the President and Vice President despite the fact that the "few remaining hawks" in the administration are "pressing for greater consideration of military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities". And as Patrick Buchanan pointed out on June 18, 2007, in an article titled "War With Iran? On The Escalator To A Third Middle East Confrontation", various recent accusations made by Senator Joe Lieberman, Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns, and General Petraeus taken together assert that Iran is providing arms, training, and funds to opposition forces in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and Afghanistan.

Are these guys part of the plan to convince us that we need to lay waste to Iran as we have to Iraq and Afghanistan?

Seymour Hersh in his March 05, 2007 New Yorker article "The Redirection" quotes the Vice President:

On Fox News on January 14th, Cheney warned of the possibility, in a few years, “of a nuclear-armed Iran, astride the world’s supply of oil, able to affect adversely the global economy, prepared to use terrorist organizations and/or their nuclear weapons to threaten their neighbors and others around the world.” He also said, “If you go and talk with the Gulf states or if you talk with the Saudis or if you talk with the Israelis or the Jordanians, the entire region is worried… . The threat Iran represents is growing.”

Cheney made the following remarks to troops on May 11, 2007, aboard the U.S.S. Stennis in the Persian Gulf:

We'll stand with our friends in opposing extremism and strategic threats. We'll disrupt attacks on our own forces. We'll continue bringing relief to those who suffer, and delivering justice to the enemies of freedom. And we'll stand with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating this region. These are important duties, and they must all be done at the same time.

And he had this exchange on Fox News on May 14, 2007, with Bret Baier:

THE VICE PRESIDENT: We are confident that there are a number of senior al Qaeda officials in Iran and they've been there since the spring of '03. About the time that we launched operations into Iraq, the Iranians rounded up a number of al Qaeda individuals and placed them under house arrest and they're still there.

We think obviously there are other elements that are responsible for overall leadership of al Qaeda, specifically Osama bin Laden, Zawahiri. They are not in Iran, but there are some senior officials in Iran. They've been held there for some time. But activities they've been engaged in, I'm really not at liberty to discuss.

QUESTION: But clearly they're there and operating?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: We know they're there, and I don't want to go beyond that.

Will the next threat be that Iran is funding al Qaeda? Or are Cheney and friends just trying to get us to swallow a new conspiracy theory? This one replacing the nuclear WMD of Iraq with those of Iran.


Links

Vice President's Remarks at the United States Military Academy Commencement
West Point, New York, May 26, 2007

The Colossus of Baghdad
Commentary: Wonders of the imperial world.
By Tom Engelhardt, May 29, 2007

Iran: The Next Neocon Target
by Ron Paul, April 5, 2006

New U.S. Embassy in Baghdad Evokes Suburbia
By Christopher Hawthorne, June 18, 2007

Irrational Luxury in Baghdad
By Hanady Kader, June 18, 2007

The Long War: A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Protracted Conflict—and Defeat
By Michael Vlahos, September o5, 2006

Republican Candidates abandon Bush

When I was watching the latest Republican debate on CNN last night I thought it was pathetic that these candidates fell over one another to distance themselves from the President. All of these candidates have more or less loyally stood by the president, despite his questionable competency, up until very recently. And now, rather suddenly they are more than willing to throw him under the bus to make themselves look more competent than he. Personally, it makes me very wary when people can change their loyalties so easily.

Following the lead of Peggy Noonan, conservatives and the Republican candidates are voicing stronger public opposition to Bush's policies, particularly on Iraq and immigration, than ever before. The candidates are obviously attempting to appeal to the 65% percent of Americans who no longer have faith in the President's ability to run the country.

Now that the they, in the long lead up to the 2008 Presidential election, are almost unanimously turning against Bush and his handling of the war, I think we are also seeing the beginnings of attempts to foist the blame or at least part of it onto the Democrats.

During the June 3, Democratic debate Hillary said: "This is George Bush's war. He is responsible for this war. He started the war. He mismanaged the war. He escalated the war. And he refuses to end the war."

McCain replied to this remark during last night's debate: "'When Senator Clinton says this is Mr. Bush's war, President Bush's war,' she is wrong, he said. 'When President Clinton was in power, I didn't say Bosnia was President Clinton's war,' the Arizona senator said. 'Presidents don't lose wars. Political parties don't lose wars. Nations lose wars,' he added." Earlier in the debate, he also harshly criticized the handling of the war saying: "I'm going to give you a little straight talk. This war was very badly mismanaged for a long time. And Americans have made great sacrifices, some of which were unnecessary because of this management of the war -- mismanagement of this conflict".

Seems like he's trying to spread the blame around. McCain said that nations lose wars not presidents or political parties and also that war was badly mismanaged without saying who exactly was responsible. Sounds like the groundwork is being laid to begin shifting some of the blame for the Iraq war onto the Democrats. The Republicans have trouble taking responsibility for their actions.

While I'm reluctant to say that the Democrats are more honest than the Republicans, I think that that the Democrats, at least those of the last 30 years or so, are less likely to lie about things like military intelligence, aid to hurricane victims, voting irregularities, etc. than the Republicans. The Republicans, since Bush No. 1 anyway, in general have no shame when it comes to spinning reality, no matter how badly they have behaved or lied, so that they will seem blameless or close to blameless whenever anything goes wrong.

Historically there is little doubt that Hillary's statement about Iraq war was true. It has been well documented that several Bush insiders including Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bolton, Perle, etc. had been urging for a return to Iraq for many years. It has also been well-documented in several books (Fiasco, Hubris, Cobra II, etc.) that Bush knowingly provided false and misleading evidence to justify the invasion of Iraq.

And while to an extent McCain does have a point in that Hillary was rather gung-ho in the lead up to war (outlined well by conservative columnist Kathleen Parker) it's hard to get around the now documented fact that Bush, Cheney, Tenet, etc. made every effort possible, including providing false evidence, to convince the public and Congress that Saddam Hussein had to be taken out no matter the cost. They used the fear and terror that resulted from 9/11 and a campaign of misinformation to convince the majority of the public that Saddam was responsible for 9/11.

It's probably true that Hillary's early position about the war had more to do with appealing to her constituents and the majority of the the public than it did with any deep conviction on her part one way or the other. But isn't that what the Republican Candidates are doing now? Only she never threw the leader of her party under a bus or supported his war even after it became obvious it was going horribly wrong. McCain last night spoke in favor of the current surge in Iraq: "I believe we have a strategy which can succeed ...."

Noonan Abandoning Bush for Romney?

In my last post I wrote about how Bush, Rove, Cheney, etc., were doing their best to divide the Democratic Party, it was just speculation -- who knows whether it's true or not. However, what seems to be very true is Bush's unintentional alienation of his own party. In fact, he has managed to alienate his own party at least as successfully as the Democratic leadership did theirs last week with their weak stance on the Iraq troop spending bill. Seems like he forgot who he was talking too last Tuesday when many of the party faithful took exception to these remarks regarding his immigration bill:

"This reform is complex. There's a lot of emotions around this issue. Convictions run deep. Those determined to find fault with this bill will always be able to look at a narrow slice of it and find something they don't like. If you want to kill the bill, if you don't want to do what's right for America, you can pick one little aspect out of it, you can use it to frighten people. Or you can show leadership and solve this problem once and for all, so the people who wear the uniform in this crowd can do the job we expect them to do. Now is the time for comprehensive immigration reform. Now is the time for members of both political parties to stand up and show courage, and take a leadership role and do what's right for America."

Not only did he infer that opponents to the bill were unpatriotic but cowards as well. The NY Times reported that "Mr. Bush did not mean to impugn anyone’s patriotism, and that he had ad-libbed the line during a passionate address on an issue he holds dear." It was too late and many Republicans who are strongly opposed to his legislation were incensed that he would use the same rhetoric to question their patriotism that he has so often used on the Democrats.

Peggy Noonan spoke for many disillusioned Republicans in her 07/01/07 Wall Street Journal Op-Ed:

"The president has taken to suggesting that opponents of his immigration bill are unpatriotic.... What I came in time to believe is that the great shortcoming of this White House, the great thing it is missing, is simple wisdom. Just wisdom--a sense that they did not invent history, that this moment is not all there is, that man has lived a long time and there are things that are true of him, that maturity is not the same thing as cowardice, that personal loyalty is not a good enough reason to put anyone in charge of anything, that the way it works in politics is a friend becomes a loyalist becomes a hack, and actually at this point in history we don't need hacks. "

She has finally seen the light or at least a glimmer of it.

I first heard about her opinion piece when I was listening to a "progressive" talk radio show where her reaction was discussed but not what exactly had set her off. I assumed it was Iraq, because I guess I naively don't quite understand why the immigration issue is such a big deal (didn't most of us have relatives and/or ancestors who came here from another country?)

Noonan surprisingly admits:

".... that the beginning of my own sense of separation from the Bush administration came in January 2005, when the president declared that it is now the policy of the United States to eradicate tyranny in the world, and that the survival of American liberty is dependent on the liberty of every other nation. This was at once so utopian and so aggressive that it shocked me. For others the beginning of distance might have been Katrina and the incompetence it revealed, or the depth of the mishandling and misjudgments of Iraq."

So for over two years and through one election she kept her doubts to herself and now because of the immigration issue she decides it's time to go public. Thousands of coalition troops, mercenaries, and contract workers have been killed and 100s of thousands of Iraqis; billions of dollars spent and she decides it's immigration that is so horrible that she can no longer give her support to Bush.

Rumor has it that Noonan is planning to go to work for Mitt Romney. Is this the reason she trying to publicly separate herself from the president? She concludes her op-ed with: "Now conservatives and Republicans are going to have to win back their party. They are going to have to break from those who have already broken from them. This will require courage, serious thinking and an ability to do what psychologists used to call letting go. This will be painful, but it's time. It's more than time."

Sounds a little like what Romney is trying to do with his ads like "He cares and he is fearless...", "Tested, Proven...", "Now is the time...", etc. in which he is critical of Bush's over-spending, squandering of military strength, education policy and other shortcomings.

Democrats: Divided but Not Conquered

The so-called anti-war left (Can 60-70% of U.S. citizens really be called "the left"? If only that were true!) are falling into a trap set by the White House. By using one of the oldest tricks in the book of political trickery Bush has managed, for the moment at least, to divide but hopefully not conquer the Democrats. The majority of Americans want the U.S. out of Iraq and right now the Democrats are leading the effort against the President who for whatever reason doesn't seem to be in any hurry to end the war. By vetoing legislation that would end the war sooner in favor of his own that does little but continue the war funding he has effectively turned every American who wants the fighting to stop against the very group who is trying to do just that.

I admit I couldn't believe it when I heard that the Democrats were sending Bush legislation that gave in to his demands. It took me a while to really comprehend what was happening and obviously I wasn't alone. But I slowly realized that as Jonathan Alter said (on Keith Olbermann, I think) the "Democrats disagree over tactics but not the goal" and that "capitulation was unavoidable".

I think the Democrats who voted for bill probably felt that they were better off choosing to fight the battles they had a chance of winning and it was clear they weren't going to win this one. There isn't much hope of forcing Bush to sign a bill that included timelines because:
1) He doesn't want to be seen as giving into the Democrats
2) He wants to keep his options open
3) He wants to divide the Democrats so they will be less effective in ganging up on him.

Agreeing to include a timeline in a bill, even one that was nonbinding would put him in the position of having to answer to the Congress and the media. The press would criticize him now and say he caved into the Democrats just like they are now criticizing the Democrats for caving into Bush. And if, when the time came, the conditions of the deadline were met by the Iraqis and our military, Bush would be in the awkward position of having to either pullout and be seen as doing the bidding of the Democrats or if, as many people believe he wants to stay in Iraq indefinitely, be criticized for not leaving.

However, Bush has realized that while he can avoid caving into the Democrats, he has to at least pretend to give into the polls and public opinion. He did agree to the inclusion of nonbinding benchmarks in the recent legislation; General Petraeus has an unofficial deadline (see April 24, 2007 post ) of September 2007, and now word has it that the White House is preparing a plan, another Plan B, that includes a 50% troop reduction in 2008. And the president in his news conference on Thursday, 05/24/07, admitted that he was implementing some of the recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton (Iran Study Group) report.

By not being beholden to the Democrats and implementing his own plan he can keep his options open but still claim to be following a new direction. He can claim that he's leaving it up to the generals so they won't be at the mercy of a micro-managing Congress. And it's possible, though I have no proof, there was some back room dealing with Republicans who told him that they wouldn't vote with Democrats this time if the he eased up a bit on his hard line war stance and implemented at least part of the Baker Hamilton report.

In addition, Bush doesn't want Democrats to get credit for anything. He's hedging his bets: when pulling out looks like a good thing politically as it does now he wants to be seen as the one engineering the pullout not the Democrats. If and when the pullout looks like a bad thing -- like maybe if the surge is actually successful (which is possible with Petraeus who is very smart and unlike a lot of generals seems to be actually able to translate strategy into a tactical reality that works) he wants to be able to take credit for that as well. This is the way of all successful managers -- to try to take credit for whatever is successful whether it was their idea or not. That's one way the ruthless gain and remain in power.

Bush is trying to make Democrats look bad anyway he can think of. By giving in to them he would be relinquishing to them a certain amount of his own power. By implementing or at least appearing to implement some of the Baker-Hamilton plan it makes him look like he really is, despite criticism to the contrary, willing to compromise and at the same time allows him to criticize the efforts of the Democratic led Congress to end the war.

According to the Washington Post 05/27/07: "Another Senate war bill, expected to be introduced early next month, would adopt the Iraq Study Group recommendations as official policy.... The legislation, which has gained bipartisan backing, would establish conditions for a continued U.S. military presence in Iraq and require specific steps to be taken by the Iraqi government. The list is similar to the benchmarks in the funding bill, but more detailed in its requirements." And in September, Republicans will be re-evaluating their positions on the war when General Petraeus gives his progress report on the Surge. So the Congress will have more opportunities to outwit Bush but it obviously isn't going to be easy without the votes in the Senate to override his veto.

However there is an interesting opinion piece by Larry C. Johnson , Who's On First in Iraq - The Real Plan?, posted 05/24/07 on the Atlantic Free Press website where he discusses two different White House plans for Iraq that were reported on by the Washington Post. Possible infighting in the White House? One can only hope.

Bush's Winds of War

Today in his remarks at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy commencement President Bush conveniently revealed unclassified material regarding al Qaeda that he believes justifies the continued war and bolsters his position on Iraq. The U.S. Military also today released drawings (repeat drawings not photos) that were allegedly found on a computer at an al Qaeda safe house in or near Baghdad that depict various gruesome torture techniques. It would seem the Bush Administration is stepping up its anti-terrorist rhetoric to support its position on the war and its no-compromise attitude toward any troop funding legislation.

However al Qaeda is just one aspect of the problem in Iraq. It is irrational to justify the war based on the activities of actual terrorists like al Qaeda when the major problem in Iraq is the conflict between Sunni and Shi'a who are each engaged in a struggle to make sure that they are not forced into oppressive rule by the other. This violent situation is occurring largely because of our actions after we invaded their country and took over their government.

It has now been recognized by most Democrats and many Republican that debaathification and the disbanding of the army , two actions taken by J. Paul Bremer soon after the official end of the war, added to the chaos and violence that helped create the current conflict in Iraq. Debaathification resulted in the government being essentially dismantled because most civil servants including teachers were members of the Baath Party as a requirement of their jobs not because the were necessarily loyal to Saddam. The disbanding of the military especially without the confiscation weapons, resulted in thousands of armed, able young men being let loose, without jobs and with little possibility of employment which from a security and law enforcement standpoint would be a dangerous situation anywhere in the world. While al Qaeda has become increasingly active in Iraq after we invaded they were not active before; the lack of government, social structure and security that came about after we took over the country allowed al Qaeda to gain a foothold in Iraq.

Bush's remarks today at the United States Coast Guard Academy included the following: "In Iraq, we removed a cruel dictator who harbored terrorists, paid the families of Palestinian suicide bombers, invaded his neighbors, defied the United Nations Security Council, pursued and used weapons of mass destruction." There is no proof that Saddam harbored any terrorists even though Bush has long suggested that Saddam allowed members of al Qaeda to enter Iraq. Saddam did pay families of Palestinian suicide bombers and he did invade Kuwait.

And while Saddam may have on occasion defied the United Nations, the United States itself while not explicitly defying, circumvented the wishes of the U.N. by not seeking a U.N. Security Council vote before invading Iraq. Saddam was being truthful when prior to the Iraq War he told the U.N. that he had complied with their order that he disarm -- we have found no WMD despite the Bush Admin insistence that he had not at the time gotten rid of the weapons. It was the U.S. who came up with questionable evidence, presented by to the U.N. by Colin Powell, that Saddam had not complied. And it was the U.S. who along with Britain didn't seek the approval of the U.N. Security Council before going to war because they knew they would not vote in their favor. In September 2004, then U.N. Secretary Kofi Annan said that the war "was not in conformity with the UN charter from our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal."

What I find most disturbing about the President's rhetoric is that it is almost impossible to determine who and what is a real threat and what threats he is exaggerating or distorting for political effect. He or his representatives have on recent occasions accused Democrats of political theater regarding their opposition to funding the war without accountability and to their inquiry into the U.S. Attorney firings by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. However, the Democrat's political theater is an attempt to bring much needed accountability to the Bush administration while Bush's political theater is about instilling fear with vague threats and not about realistically informing the American people regarding the real world threat from al Qaeda: "Here in America, we're living in the eye of a storm. All around us, dangerous winds are swirling, and these winds could reach our shores at any moment."

By not realistically addressing the terrorist threat he endangers the U.S. even more than actual terrorist could ever hope to: by spending billions of dollar unnecessarily but even worse, by sacrificing the lives of thousands of U.S. troops and by disabling 10's of thousands of others. Not to mention the deaths of possibly 100's of thousands of innocent Iraqis.

It was also announced today that Gen. Petraeus is attempting to implement a new plan of action in Iraq which includes negotiating cease fire plans with those factions which were willing to do so. This is a reasonable plan if it is not too late for it to be implemented. If we manage to quell the violence between the Sunni and Shi'a factions in Iraq -- who are not terrorists but are for the most part legitimate residents of Iraq fighting a civil war -- we can then possibly focus on al Qaeda who have become a strong presence, especially in Diyala, and are a threat to both Sunnis and Shia's as well as to the rest of the Middle East.

Cheney's Conspiracy Theory

While numerous bloggers have mentioned or written about Cheney's paranoia the mainstream press seems to have only hinted at it. I assume, in part, that the press is reluctant to portray the man who until recently has been seen to be the one actually running the country as someone whose conservative outlook is closer to the film Dr. Strangelove than it is to the worldview of Ronald Reagan.

Some bloggers and also a few journalists, pundits, radio show hosts, etc. have suggested that Cheney's move towards the "darkside" is the result of brain damage caused by heart disease and hardening of the arteries. Others have suggested the influence of Lynne Cheney. While I can't really speculate too much about the affect of heart disease on his thinking I can come up with a few thoughts about Lynne Cheney who happens to be a senior fellow at the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute. Since 9/11 she has written articles, speeches and books stressing the importance of our freedom and liberty and how difficult it was for our forefathers to establish freedom and how difficult it has been to keep. The unstated implication being that our liberty and freedom is under some kind of threat from some unnamed foe. This ambiguity is convenient because the reader is forced to supply their own enemy and it could be anyone from Osama bin Laden to the their next door neighbor. She is encouraging paranoia by suggesting the enemies of freedom and liberty could be anywhere and everywhere. Dick Cheney's insistence that we all be subject to possible surveillance, that members of anti-war groups be put on the no-fly lists and other over-the-top security measures are a reflection of his fear/paranoia that the enemy could be any of us.

In her book Telling The Truth: Why Our Culture and Our Country Have Stopped Making Sense--and What We Can Do About It (1996) Lynne Cheney attempted to write a scholarly treatise decrying political correctness and how some people's sense of truth is overly influenced by their political and cultural beliefs. She uses the philosophical concept of relativism to give her biased arguments an intellectual believability. However, she doesn't seem to get that her own beliefs are influenced by her own political and cultural beliefs. As a result, her underlying assumption is that her truth is better and more objective than the truth of anyone who doesn't agree with her. She grants herself the moral authority that history has revealed to be a very dangerous thing that has been used to justify many crusades past and present. Dick Cheney's desire to spread U.S.-style democracy to the world whether they want it or not is really just such a crusade.

Dick Cheney shares her sense of moral authority and exhibits the same trait of believing that he knows what is best and everyone who disagrees with him is somehow wrong. And ironically for someone who's wife wrote a book called Telling the Truth Cheney finds it very easy to tell his own version of truth and to on occasion lie when it suits his purposes. He seems to believe that truth is relative in the sense that it is whatever is convenient for him at the moment. The end justifies the means kind of truth. It's like he believes in his moral authority to such an extent that he believes he is above the truth and is therefore justified in telling lies that the average person would never have the nerve to try to get away with.

There has been quite a bit of blogging and book writing regarding 9/11 conspiracy theories which speculate that the U.S. government had a hand in the attacks but not so much regarding the conspiracy theory that Dick Cheney believes in -- that Saddam was in league with bin Laden. I think his fear/paranoia that Saddam and bin Laden were in cahoots and conspiring together to perpetrate an attack worse than 9/11 led him to, among other actions, throw out the Geneva Conventions and some of our civil liberties in hopes of acquiring intel to stop them.

The left has assumed that Cheney deliberately faked evidence of the conspiracy to justify the invasion of Iraq, however Laurie Mylroie, as reported in the great book Hubris , is a former Harvard instructor who provided the neo-cons with a lot of the misinformation, which she believed to be true, that they used to backup their theory that Saddam was a menace to the world. She writes in her book Bush vs. the Beltway that Mohammed Atta had visited Prague at least once to meet with an Iraqi intelligence agent. This alleged meeting which the CIA now says never took place, was the primary bit of evidence that the Bush Administration used to prove that there was connection between Saddam and al Qaeda. She also hints at the possibility that the Anthrax letters sent in the weeks after 9/11 could have been the result of cooperation between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

I think that Cheney fell hard for the arguments of Mylroie and put together his own shadow intelligence unit at the Pentagon to look over raw intelligence in hopes of proving these theories. Instead of listening to intelligence experts, who he may lost faith in because of their failing to stop 9/11, he decided that the worst case scenario presented by Mylroie was more plausible. And as George Tenet [see May 7 post] has recently said, they were acting on the possibility that Saddam might have WMD not the imminent certainty that he had them. Ron Suskind also wrote in The One Percent Doctrine that Cheney was operating on the theory that if there was even a 1% chance that Saddam had WMD they should proceed as if he actually had them.

It's not hard to understand Cheney's abundance of caution when it came to wanting to make sure there wasn't another 9/11 attack but clearly he lost his perspective and to some extent I really believe his fear became paranoia. This fear/paranoia plus his sense of moral authority led him to believe that he knew better than the U.N. and many of our friends and allies around the world who did not think a war in Iraq was warranted or necessary.

Links

A Face Only a President Could Love
[Cheney Interview]
Todd Purdum June 2006

Protecting our Precious Liberty"
and other writings by Lynne Cheney

The Democrats' Worldview
by Ivo Daalder

A Democratic Foreign Policy?
by G. John Ikenberry

The Spies Who Pushed for War
by Julian Borger

Letter to President Clinton (1998)
from the Project for the New American Century