Month: October 2004

After the Election: Iraq Reality Coming Home to Roost

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Via a thought-provoking diary by Spin Doctor on Tacitus
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Freedom may be on the march in Iraq, but it’s very likely about to hit a serious pothole. Regardless of who wins the White House this week, what’s waiting for him to deal with in Iraq is no Inaugural Ball. From Newsweek:

And so the bloody battles of the Iraq war—which never quite ended—are about to start up again in full force. Much depends on the new offensive. If it succeeds, it could mark a turning point toward Iraqi security and stability. If it fails, then the American president will find himself in a deepening quagmire on Inauguration Day. The Fallujah offensive “is going to be extremely significant,” says one U.S. official involved in the planning. “It’s an attempt to tighten the circle around the most problematic areas and isolate these insurgents.” But it will also be “the first major test” of the new Iraqi security forces since the debacle in April, says Michael Eisenstadt, an Iraq expert at the Washington Institute. Their performance, he says, will “provide a key early indicator of the long-term prospects for U.S. success in Iraq.”

For months the American people have heard, from one side, promises to “stay the course” in Iraq (George W. Bush); and from the other side, equally vague plans for gradual withdrawal (John Kerry). Both plans depend heavily on building significant Iraqi forces to take over security. But the truth is, neither party is fully reckoning with the reality of Iraq—which is that the insurgents, by most accounts, are winning. Even Secretary of State Colin Powell, a former general who stays in touch with the Joint Chiefs, has acknowledged this privately to friends in recent weeks, NEWSWEEK has learned. The insurgents have effectively created a reign of terror throughout the country, killing thousands, driving Iraqi elites and technocrats into exile and scaring foreigners out. “Things are getting really bad,” a senior Iraqi official in interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi’s government told NEWSWEEK last week. “The initiative is in [the insurgents’] hands right now. This approach of being lenient and accommodating has really backfired. They see this as weakness.” (emphasis mine)

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Endorsement

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It has been absolutely clear since my first post that I would vote for the Democratic nominee for President. I would guess most of you also made up your own minds long ago—I would be a little upset with you if you hadn’t. But this is almost certainly the most important election in my life to date, and I find I can’t keep my mouth shut.

I’ve never been able to figure out George W. Bush. I couldn’t figure him out in the 2000 campaign. Here was this man who proclaimed his own compassion, who spoke of his Christian faith with all apparent sincerity—and presided over the Texas capital punishment system, a well-oiled execution assembly line that makes a mockery of equal protection of the law, the right to counsel, and due process of law, and which has probably killed at least one innocent person.

This is the quotation that explains the Bush administration for me, better than any other:

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made”–The Great Gatsby

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I Was Wrong

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Apparently I was wrong about Osama being dead. I’m not sure he references anything super-current, but I can’t imagine Al Qaeda would have held on to a video for 2 years after he was dead. So I suspect he is alive after all. How is this for a crazy denial of responsibility though–9/11 was apparently … Read more

Arnold’s Seed Bears Unacceptable, er, Fruit

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I love a good insult. I’m a bit thicked skinned about them so long as I’m free to fight back with the drunken-sailor language that rolls quite naturally off my tonuge. Given license to let loose, I even enjoy a good gutter-level war of words. I’ve had exchanges in the streets of New York that would make Howard Stern blush. But, as with everything in life, there are times and places such actions are inappropriate.

Back when Arnold Schwarzenegger mocked the California legislators who wouldn’t pass his budget as “girlie men,” I understood the uproar among some folks in the gay community, but never really felt it myself. (In fact, if anyone should have been insulted by that it was women, who in my experience are just as tough negotiators as men and don’t deserve the slur.) Even his RNC taunt to not be “economic girlie men” was more embarassing (must he run every one-liner his writers hand him into the ground?) than insulting.

Of course Arnold’s overall record on gay rights comes into play here, buying him some benefit of doubt that he wasn’t slurring the gay community (again, not everyone will agree with me here), but Arnold’s words may have had an unfortunate side-effect in that they lowered the bar of acceptable rhetoric.

Cut to the Kentucky US Senate race between Republican incumbent Jim Bunning and Democratic challenger Daniel Mongiardo. Top state Republicans campaigning for Bunning have been pushing the envelope on acceptable insults, with regards to slurs generally insinuating homosexuality (via Marshall):

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Allies in the War on Terrorism

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One of the key contentions in different outlooks on the War on Terrorism centers around the suggestion that it is in every civilized nation’s best interest to control terrorism. This outlook is part of the intellectual framework that lets Kerry suggest that greatly helpful allies would have been available if only the President were better … Read more

Still More Missing Weapons

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Knight-Ridder has a new story out about looting of weapons depots in Iraq. It’s worth reading in its entirety. A few excerpts: “The more than 320 tons of missing Iraqi high explosives at center stage in the U.S. presidential election are only a fraction of the weapons-related material that’s disappeared in Iraq since the U.S.-led … Read more

More on the Sudan

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I’m not sure how I missed this when looking into the last post on the Sudan. Apparently Syria has been involved in testing chemical weapons on civilians in the Sudan. It makes the European denial of genocide look completely crass.

Al Qaqaa Update

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ABC News, via Josh Marshall: “Barrels inside the Al-Qaqaa facility appear on videotape shot by ABC television affiliate KSTP of St. Paul, Minn., which had a crew embedded with the 101st Airborne Division when it passed through Al-Qaqaa on April 18, 2003 — nine days after Baghdad fell. Experts who have studied the images say … Read more

Wrong, Mr. Mayor.

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Speaking about the tons of explosives missing from al Qaqaa, Rudy Giuliani said the following on the Today Show: “The president was cautious. The president was prudent. The president did what a commander in chief should do. And no matter how much you try to blame it on the president, the actual responsibility for it … Read more

Realism, and the Reality-based Community

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I fashion myself a foreign policy realist — the words of Snowcroft, Lugar, and Biden are most resonant in my ears. My support for the Iraq War was accordingly cautious, my trust in our infallibility nonexistant, and my hopes for a quickie democracy in Iraq close to nil. When WMD were not found in Iraq, … Read more

he said, He said

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I’m not comfortable with all the God talk taking place this election. Fearing the consequences of seeming too secular, all kinds of pols are increasingly wearing their religion on their sleeves. As The Nation reported recently, it’s become important to acknowledge that God is now a integral part of our election process, if only because Democrats are alarmed at how the Republicans are winning by doing so:

At last month’s Democratic convention, few words were uttered more frequently than the one that seems to roll most easily off the tongue of George W. Bush: faith. “Let me say it plainly,” announced John Kerry in his acceptance speech. “In this campaign, we welcome people of faith.” John Edwards thanked his parents, Wallace and Bobbie, for instilling in him an appreciation of “faith” from an early age. Barack Obama declared that Kerry “understands the ideals of community, faith and service,” and added, to those who think only Republicans turn to religion for inspiration, “We worship an awesome God in the blue states.”

That Democrats are eager to propagate this message is not surprising. The United States is, after all, an astoundingly religious country. And in recent decades, Americans who take their religion seriously have been flocking to the GOP in numbers that have left Democratic strategists alarmed. Back in 1992, voters who told exit pollsters they attend prayer services on a frequent basis supported George H.W. Bush over Bill Clinton by a margin of 14 percent. Eight years later, in 2000, those same voters backed George W. Bush over Al Gore by 20 percent. In the 2002 Congressional elections, the religiously devout also favored Republicans by 20 percent, prompting Trinity College religion professor Mark Silk to observe, “Never before in American history have churches been tied so directly to one political party.”

I guess most of my personal discomfort with this comes from my own very strict religious upbringing. God knows what’s in your heart, I was taught, and there are few things more sure to enrage Him than false prophecy. Exploiting His name in any context is extremely dangerous. So much so, that it’s best never to even approach it. Hence our reticence to wear our religion on our sleeve in my family. It’s respect and fear that causes us to believe God’s will shouldn’t be reduced to slogans for bumper stickers, T-shirts, or campaign speeches (as if one understood God’s will well enough to boil it down into a sound bite). It’s also tacky, but that’s another thread.

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Anatomy of a Spin

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Ahh. I see. When first reports regarding the missing 377 tons of high-grade explosives turn out to be, well, possibly lacking in nuance — i.e., false, or at least incomplete — then the 377 tons of high-grade explosives in fact never were the story at all. (Per Sullivan.) Well, then. Moving on. In fact, no … Read more

My World Tilts On Its Axis

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The heavens have rolled up like a scroll; mountains have melted like mist; the sun has risen in the west; the rivers run uphill; the seas have turned to blood; the lion has lain down with the lamb; and the stars are falling like summer showers. But in a good way. The Red Sox have … Read more

Arafat In Critical Condition

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HaAretz: “Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat was fighting for his life as of Wednesday night, after his condition deteriorated sharply on Wednesday evening, officials in Arafat’s office told Israeli security officials. Arafat, 75, lost consciousness Wednesday evening, and a team of Jordanian doctors, headed by his personal neurologist, Ashraf Kurdi, was urgently summoned to join … Read more

Securing WMD Sites In Iraq

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Today’s Boston Globe has an editorial by Peter Galbraith on the kinds of failures that let WMD sites be looted after our invasion of Iraq. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Galbraith, he was one of the first people to publicize Saddam Hussein’s Anfal campaign against the Kurds in 1988, and wrote the … Read more

Wrong, Mr. President.

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George W. Bush has finally said something about the 377 tons of missing explosives from al Qaqaa: “Now the senator is making wild charges about missing explosives when his top foreign policy adviser admits, quote, ‘we do not know the facts.’ Think about that. The senator’s denigrating the action of our troops and commanders in … Read more

The problem with …

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… good writers is that they sometimes feel that they don’t have to make an argument. They just have to make their sentences pretty enough and the world will swoon. Such it is with Lileks, who is a great writer. His blasts Andrew Sullivan for Sullivan’s endorsement of Kerry, and it reads like a shotgun … Read more

Three down, one to go

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I don’t believe in decades-old curses that were magically discovered by sportswriters in 1986 and whose most popular versions get most of the facts wrong. I don’t believe in jinxes either. Hell, I’m not even a real Red Sox fan–1986 was a very good year for me. I can still recite most of the Mets’ … Read more

Let me add ….

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… that Gentle Sebastian* is far too kind to Matthew Yglesias. You don’t want to see the end-driven world that Matt seems to prefer (ruled by Godwin’s law in at bottom, it turns out). The means matter — and more to the point, perhaps, process matters. Indeed, it’s not too wild to say that democracy … Read more

Uniting Iraq by Trying Hussein

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Regardless of who wins here next Tuesday, we’ll still have at least 2 1/2 months before elections in Iraq during which time plenty needs to be done to stablize that country. Security for the voting locations is a big concern, but there’s also the question of the Iraqis’ mindset. Will they unite behind the winners or will they pull back into camps that left to simmer will eventually boil over into a civil war? And what can the US do to promote the former outcome?

The Washington Post’s Anne Applebaum suggests one thing that might help unite Iraqis is a very public, very open trial of Saddam Hussein. This may not happen easily though:

Clearly there are some in the new Iraqi leadership who would prefer not to hold a trial at all, or at least not one involving lawyers, presentation of evidence and national debate. While visiting the United States last month, Allawi several times stated his preference for a fast trial, and a fast execution, possibly as soon as this month. It’s not hard to guess why: A short trial would let a lot of senior Baathists off the hook, would consolidate former opponents of Hussein behind Allawi, and would dispense with the whole thorny problem of “guilt” altogether. Although it seems the American government has so far persuaded him not to go that route, Allawi has embroiled the ongoing investigations and preparation in controversy by effectively removing Salem Chalabi, the Iraqi exile lawyer who set up the tribunal last winter.

What Applebaum and others argue, however, is that not having the trial may be feeding the insurgency, as least by not providing a unifying alternative dialog:

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Democracy–Instrumentality or Inherently Worthwhile

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Matthew Yglesias says something pretty frightening while mentioning a concept well worth dicsussing: The people who I want voting are the people who will vote for John Kerry. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! Democracy has an instrumental value and there’s no fact of the matter about what really is and is not a … Read more

A Modest Proposal

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The American Prospect has just posted an article by Kenneth Baer, about a question I hadn’t considered before: what should George W. Bush do, professionally, if he loses the election? Moved, no doubt, by a burning desire to be of assistance, Baer has come up with the perfect answer: “like all confused job seekers, Bush … Read more

One liners, Election Round-Robbin’ Style

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Now, it seems, is as good a time to get our cards on the table. Not to waver, Cuomo-style. (Or “Hamlet-style” for the Romeo+Juliet under-25 set.) Not to analyze. Not to add, subtract, account, or discourse. Not, especially, to caveat or bemoan or argue. But simply to state, pith-like, our choices.

Here’re mine:

President: John Kerry, Democrat. I prefer the idiot restrained by a Republican Congress over the incompetent enabled by a Republican Congress; and, yes, I may have to get drunk before I can cast my vote.

As for the provinces (and having successfully made the transition from Chicago and Indiana*):

Governor: Mitch Daniels (with 527’s apparently on the brain, I initially typed “McConnell”. Aaargh.) Republican. Over a dozen years of Democrats in the Governor’s mansion, and all Indiana has to show for it are discarded jobs, determined scandals, and a dirty campaign from a guy who should know better (Kernan, the Democratic nominee). Time for a change.

Senator: Evan Bayh, Democrat. A social moderate, fiscal conservative, and foreign policy hawk. My kind of Democrat: the kind who would’ve been a Republican in Chicago.

Congressperson: The libertarian — either the one who’s running as a Libertarian, or the former one who’s running as a Republican. But let’s face it: The race is a lock for Julia Carson (D-Indianapolis), despite her heart troubles. (Indeed, it’s such a lock that I’m considering running as a liberal Republican the next time ’round . . . .)

State Representative: In a race between a guy named Mort Large and another named David Orentlicher, I may pencil in a vote for a “Large Orentlicher.” Failing that, I’m tempted to vote for Orentlicher, the incumbant and Democrat, if only because Orentlicher seems a decent enough chap and Large hasn’t yet given me a reason to change my mind.

So, have at it. This is your “it’s a free country” open thread.

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Greedy and Greedier

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Fortune magazine is reporting that Bush’s latest tax cut will bring the business community’s “share of the national tax burden to its lowest level in decades”: Economists Alan Auerbach and James Poterba have shown that most of the drop between 1960 and 1985 came from declining corporate profits rather than a falling tax rate. But … Read more

The Day After A Week From Now

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As I watched the talking heads this past Sunday, all I could hear was blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I am saturated, and I really, really wish election day were today and not a week from now. This has been draining. Daniel Drezner asks the question I believe our nation’s best minds should be focussing … Read more

Race

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When I was a young child I was race-unconscious. It wasn’t that I didn’t come into contact with people of other races. It was just that the ‘racial’ component of skin color wasn’t drummed into me by my parents, and it took a long time for a misfit nerd to pick up on the distinctions … Read more

I’m done.

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I’ve been dithering about this for months now, but it’s finally come: I’m not having fun anymore, and I can’t do this if I’m not having fun. So, I’m quitting the blog. The site will remain up until one of my cobloggers can make arrangements to take over the payment schedule. Vaya con Dios. Moe … Read more

But Wait, There’s More…

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To me, one of the more puzzling bits of the media’s coverage of the administration’s preparations for war has always been their failure to follow up on an MSNBC report from last March that between June 2002 and the invasion of Iraq, the administration vetoed plans to strike al Zarqawi’s training camp in northern Iraq on three separate occasions. This report was especially troubling because of what MSNBC claimed were the administration’s reasons for not striking Zarqawi: “Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.” I mean, how exactly would one explain that decision to the family of Nicholas Berg? This story just begged for follow-up, and I have been puzzled as to why no news organizations seemed inclined to investigate it.

Now, however, the Wall Street Journal, that leftist propaganda machine, has filed a story about it. Since it’s behind a subscription wall, I’m going to excerpt some of it below the fold.

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Yawn

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OmiGod, Kerry exaggerated! (Coverage at RedState and Powerline. Curiously, RedState’s coverage somewhat contradicts the Washinton Times’ coverage.) Put me among those who go, well, yawn. Look, most rational folks have factored in the fact (so to speak) that Kerry exaggerates. (Cynical bastards that we are, we suspect most politicians do.) We’ve also factored in that … Read more

Rehnquist hospitalized

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MSNBC is reporting that Supreme Court Chief Justice Rehnquist was hospitalized with thyroid cancer. No other details yet, but I suspect this might energize those who vote for the POTUS with an eye on who gets nominated for SCOTUS.

Why This Defies Belief.

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To address a few of the questions that have been raised about the looting of hundreds of tons of high explosives: Is this just a normal screw-up?? I don’t think so. The fact that this site had been secured by the IAEA means that we knew exactly where it was and what it contained. In … Read more