Month: July 2005

Juan Cole and His Bad Week

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by Charles

The reason I seldom read Gloom Juan Cole and his weblog Malformed Informed Comment is because he subscribes to the Immutable Laws of Gilliard, described below the fold.  His problem, though a smart and knowledgeable fellow, is that he’s so blindered and shackled to his ideology that he’s prone to whopping mistakes and misjudgments.  His downtalking the Iraqi election last January was one example, and his entries this past week are the latest outbreak.

So obvious and glaring were his recent errors that even a dKos diarist took Cole to task.  Martin Kramer busted Cole on both his wrong interpretation of history and his duplicitousness, both here and in a follow-up here.  It’s one thing for a semi-anonymous sweatpant-wearing blogger to be so blatantly wrong and pettyminded, but it’s another thing altogether for a prominent professor of Middle East studies and Chairman of the Middle East Studies Association to be so.  Dare I say that Cole was being McCarthyesque by getting personal and calling for oppo research against Kramer?

Tony Badran of Across the Bay starts here and follows up here, here, here, here and here.  Ouch.  All in all, a bad week for the academic.

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The Nature of This Beast Part II

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by Charles

Continuing the journey from Part I, a piece by Philip Ball titled Is Terrorism the Next Format for War? points to research which claims that "terrorist patterns of attack might be the natural endpoint for all modern armed conflicts."

Ongoing wars in Iraq and Colombia, which had quite different causes and began as very different kinds of conflict, are developing a characteristic signature of long-term terrorist activity, say economist Mike Spagat of Royal Holloway, University of London, and his co-workers.

They have found that the death statistics in both of these conflicts are converging on a particular mathematical pattern. This pattern is shared by fatality counts from terrorist attacks in countries that are not major industrialized nations.

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Music Open Thread

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I’m a big fan of the Depeche Mode sound-alike band Cause & Effect.  For a number of years I’ve had a song, Illumination which I thought was Cause & Effect.  It is one of my favorite songs, but I’ve recently discovered it was really performed by a group called "Red Flag".  Anyone know anything about … Read more

Tied Directly to Al Qaeda?

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This is an interesting story: Officials tell ABC News the London bombers have been connected to an al Qaeda plot planned two years ago in the Pakistani city of Lahore. The laptop computer of Naeem Noor Khan, a captured al Qaeda leader, contained plans for a coordinated series of attacks on the London subway system, … Read more

Come To Scenic Niger!

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by hilzoy

Having made my views on the Plame/Rove matter as clear as I can for the moment, and not feeling particularly inclined to let myself get distracted by the various charges and counter-charges against Joe Wilson, I thought I might mention instead one aspect of the whole thing that has always struck me as really funny, namely, this:

“On July 12, two days before Novak’s column, a Post reporter was told by an administration official that the White House had not paid attention to the former ambassador’s CIA-sponsored trip to Niger because it was set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction.”

A boondoggle. To Niger. If you know anything about Niger, these words alone should have sent you into gales of laughter. — Don’t get me wrong: I would love to go to Niger. If anyone is in the business of setting up trips to Niger, please consider me. But I’m odd. It’s not just that I love to travel, and I’m generally up for anything. It’s not even that I’m a birder, though that helps: there are not many places on earth so godforsaken that they don’t have interesting birds. The important thing about me, in this context, is that I decided long ago that caring about comfort interfered with too many interesting things, and so I just wasn’t going to do it. (Although, as time goes on, even I am beginning to draw the line at hotels with wall-to-wall carpeting that has been left to fester and rot for over, oh, forty years or so.) If I cared about comfort, I would not want to go to Niger. It’s that simple.

Getting there is no fun. Travelocity tells me that to fly from JFK to Niamey takes over 38 hours (via London and Paris), but, oddly, only a little over 20 coming back (via Ouagadougou, Casablanca, and Paris). I once took a 38 hour trip (Maputo to LA), and it was not a pleasant experience. The trip to Niamey I looked up costs $4655, but I think that in Wilson’s case, the CIA sprang for that.

What do you find when you arrive? Sand, mostly. About 80% of Niger is the Sahara desert. If you google-image Niger, you will find a lot of photos of SUVs up to their axles in sand in the middle of a trackless waste, with titles like “and this is our off-road vehicle, stuck in the sand!” It’s normally bone-dry, and getting worse because of desertification, about which the Lonely Planet Guide writes: “The ratio of desert to semi-desert is ever increasing, and there is a danger that the country may, one day, disappear under a blanket of sand.” These days they are having not only a drought but a plague of locusts. I don’t know whether Niger was having a drought when Joe Wilson went there, although, as a friend of mine asked me over dinner, in the Sahara, how could you tell?

Even without drought and locusts, Niger is desperately poor. According to the World Bank (Table 1.1), Niger’s GDP was $200/year in 2003; alarmingly, there were ten countries that were even worse off. On the Human Development Index (pdf), which measures quality of life more generally, it’s second to last, just ahead of Sierra Leone.

Second to last in the world. Think about it. According to the World Bank, life expectancy is 46.4 years (and that’s without a serious AIDS problem); more than one in seven infants die; more than one in four children die by five; and the adult literacy rate is around 18%. That’s not just poor; that’s a disaster.

Beyond the fold, I will post pictures, so that you can see where Jetsetting Joe Wilson got to go for free. (DaveC: this warning is for you.)

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Good Things

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I’m with the Blogfather — this is big news: In a striking finding, predominantly Muslim populations in a sampling of six North African, Middle East and Asian countries are shared to "a considerable degree" Western nations’ concerns about Islamic extremism, the survey found. Many in those Muslim nations see it as threat to their own … Read more

Plame is as Plame does.

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by von Jim Lindgren, at Volokh, does a creditable job of assessing the vagaries and problems for both sides of the Plame game.  If all you’ve been reading is the left’s outrage and conspiracy theories on the right, Lindgren’s balanced piece (albeit from an admittedly right-leaning perspective) is highly recommended. Indeed, I’ve been harsh on … Read more

Minor Factual Point (Also Contains Open Thread)

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by hilzoy I was reading the Volokh Conspiracy when I saw this: “As the Washington Post reported: “According to the former Niger mining minister, Wilson told his CIA contacts, Iraq tried to buy 400 tons of uranium in 1998.” So Wilson had found evidence that tended to confirm the substance of the sentence in Bush’s … Read more

Cancer in Britain’s Muslim Village

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by Charles

Last Friday, Tom Friedman outlined the challenges awaiting western countries, and more so their resident Muslim populations:

So this is a critical moment. We must do all we can to limit the civilizational fallout from this bombing. But this is not going to be easy. Why? Because unlike after 9/11, there is no obvious, easy target to retaliate against for bombings like those in London. There are no obvious terrorist headquarters and training camps in Afghanistan that we can hit with cruise missiles. The Al Qaeda threat has metastasized and become franchised. It is no longer vertical, something that we can punch in the face. It is now horizontal, flat and widely distributed, operating through the Internet and tiny cells.

Because there is no obvious target to retaliate against, and because there are not enough police to police every opening in an open society, either the Muslim world begins to really restrain, inhibit and denounce its own extremists – if it turns out that they are behind the London bombings – or the West is going to do it for them. And the West will do it in a rough, crude way – by simply shutting them out, denying them visas and making every Muslim in its midst guilty until proven innocent.

And because I think that would be a disaster, it is essential that the Muslim world wake up to the fact that it has a jihadist death cult in its midst. If it does not fight that death cult, that cancer, within its own body politic, it is going to infect Muslim-Western relations everywhere. Only the Muslim world can root out that death cult. It takes a village.

What do I mean? I mean that the greatest restraint on human behavior is never a policeman or a border guard. The greatest restraint on human behavior is what a culture and a religion deem shameful. It is what the village and its religious and political elders say is wrong or not allowed. Many people said Palestinian suicide bombing was the spontaneous reaction of frustrated Palestinian youth. But when Palestinians decided that it was in their interest to have a cease-fire with Israel, those bombings stopped cold. The village said enough was enough.

The Muslim village has been derelict in condemning the madness of jihadist attacks. When Salman Rushdie wrote a controversial novel involving the prophet Muhammad, he was sentenced to death by the leader of Iran. To this day – to this day – no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden.

Emphases mine.  The United Kingdom is afflicted with this Islamist cancer, and the transit terrorist bombings are but the latest manifestation.  Last year, I wrote about reports which asserted that ancestral Britons have a case of Islamophobia, but it’s also apparent that large numbers of Muslims have a case of Anglophobia.  In a joint poll of 500 Muslims by the Guardian and ICM:

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Sometimes, I just feel like homiciding myself

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Long-time readers of this blog* will know that I’m not a fan of Fox News’ exceedingly silly use of "homicide bomber" when it means "suicide bomber."  Turns out that I’m in good company — Eugene Volokh has spent the last few days demolishing the trope.  (See here.)  Today, Best Of The Web picks up the … Read more

Rove And Plame 3: Spin On, Republicans; Spin On!

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by hilzoy

After being caught a bit off guard on Monday, Republicans spent yesterday and (so far) today mounting their response to Karl Rove’s outing of Valerie Plame. As I noted earlier, there are some situations that it’s really hard to spin, and this is plainly one of them. I mean: how exactly do you explain the fact that one of the President’s senior advisors outed an undercover CIA agent to discredit her husband, and that the President was so unconcerned about this that he has, to date, done nothing in response? (Though yesterday we learned, via poor Scott McClellan, that the President still has confidence in Rove. I guess outing CIA operatives just isn’t that big a deal to him. And today he said this: “”I also will not prejudge the investigation based on media reports.” Newsflash, Mr. President: unlike most of the rest of us, you don’t have to rely on the media. You could just say: Karl, would you step into my office for a moment?, and decide for yourself.)

Still, I give the GOP an A for effort. Here are some of their talking points:

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The Nature of This Beast Part I

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by Charles

Von and Norm Geras formed an effective tag team in outlining the nature of our enemy and the barbaric lengths they will go, and it got me to thinking about the nature of this beast, i.e., the war.  In the Times of London, Paul Wilkinson–Chairman of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St Andrews University–gave a fair description of what we’re up against:

It astonishes me that there are still so many commentators who seem oblivious to the key facts about the al-Qaeda network. They do not realise that it is not simply like any other terrorist group: it is in a league of its own for ruthlessness and cruelty. Some have even tried to write the obituary of the al-Qaeda network, but it has adapted and morphed since 2001.

The al-Qaeda network is the only terrorist organisation which has both the motivation and the capability to carry out coordinated mass casualty attacks of this kind. This is a major difference between the al-Qaeda network and traditional terrorist groups. The latter, as Brian Jenkins so aptly put it, wanted “a lot of people watching rather than a lot of people dead”.

Al-Qaeda has the most widely dispersed network in the history of modern terrorism. It still has global reach, with a presence in an estimated 65 countries. Its decentralised network makes it particularly hard to suppress: it is a true hydra.

Moreover, unlike more traditional groups, it is actively pursuing materials and expertise to make unconventional weapons, such as chemical devices and radioactive isotopes to create radiological dispersal devices. They were experimenting with chemical weapons in their bases in Afghanistan under the shelter of the Taleban regime, and several al-Qaeda plots to use dirty bombs have been thwarted.

(Pig lard update below the fold)

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The Oliver North Effect.

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I don’t know whether Rove committed a crime in l’affair Plame.  (In fact, I rather suspect that he didn’t.)  But this defense of Rove in The Wall Street Journal is ridiculous:

Democrats and most of the Beltway press corps are baying for Karl Rove’s head over his role in exposing a case of CIA nepotism involving Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame. On the contrary, we’d say the White House political guru deserves a prize–perhaps the next iteration of the "Truth-Telling" award that The Nation magazine bestowed upon Mr. Wilson before the Senate Intelligence Committee exposed him as a fraud.

For Mr. Rove is turning out to be the real "whistleblower" in this whole sorry pseudo-scandal. He’s the one who warned Time’s Matthew Cooper and other reporters to be wary of Mr. Wilson’s credibility. He’s the one who told the press the truth that Mr. Wilson had been recommended for the CIA consulting gig by his wife, not by Vice President Dick Cheney as Mr. Wilson was asserting on the airwaves. In short, Mr. Rove provided important background so Americans could understand that Mr. Wilson wasn’t a whistleblower but was a partisan trying to discredit the Iraq War in an election campaign. Thank you, Mr. Rove. …

Either the law matters or it doesn’t.  The WSJ has decided that it doesn’t in this case — though, strangely, it doesn’t come out against the covert agent law generally.  Maybe it’s saving that for its next editorial, where it’ll write that Rove deserves the same kudos as Martin Luther King or Gandhi for disobeying an unjust law in the service of the greater good — here, the fundamental right to discredit a political opponent.

Indeed, this reader looks forward to learning from the WSJ what other laws are unjust because they interfere with my ability to discredit a political opponent.  I’d suggest libel and slander laws as obviously vulnerable; surely, others are as well. Also, it’d be nice to know how many WSJ board members are required to approve a violation of the law.  A bare majority?  Two thirds?  One?  Inquiring minds, and all.

(It’s hard to believe that I’m on the same side as these idiots.)

UPDATE:  John Cole is, again, doing the yeoman’s work of the Plame Game, separating the legit disputes from the stupid and the silly.  See here, and then here.

UPDATE 2:  I’d be remiss if I didn’t also link to a member of the tinfoil hat gang:  here’s Preston’s take.  So far as I can tell, Preston’s claim is that Miller has decided to sit in jail for the next five or six months in order to embarrass Rove.  Or maybe it’s because Miller fears a non-existent prosecution under 50 U.S.C. 421 (it doesn’t apply to her).  Or maybe Wilson actually blew his wife’s cover (JPod seems to favor this "theory," which, so far as I can tell, is based on nothing).  It’s kinda unclear, because, well, Preston doesn’t really concern himself with nuances like the "facts" or "the law" or "common sense". 

Thank God no serious person is linking this guy.  I mean, it’d be mighty embarrassing if, say, you were a respected law professor and somehow ended up endorsing this idiocy on your blog.

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Grandma Kimi

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My Japanese grandmother died on July 5th, but my Grandpa Yosh left notifications to some people in the church who didn’t realize my part of the family didn’t know, so I was not notified until yesterday.  As a result I missed the memorial, which is sad for me though of course memorials are for the living so I can find my own way.  In any case I’m going to repost (below the fold for those who don’t need the non-political stuff) a Thanksgiving post about her which I wrote a while ago.

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The British Seem To Have Cracked The Case

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by hilzoy From the Times of London: “Police have identified three of four bombers who killed at least 52 people during the London rush hour on Thursday after the men were caught on CCTV and personal documents were found at scenes of the explosions. Strong forensic evidence suggests that at least one of the bombers … Read more

Ugh

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I’m incredibly unthrilled to see that Oliver Stone is going to be making the first big Hollywood reaction to 9/11.  "It’s an exploration of heroism in our country — but is international at the same time in its humanity," said Stone, who won best director Academy Awards for his war epics "Born On the Fourth … Read more

A Campaign We Can All Support

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by hilzoy Are you as tired of the endless TV coverage of Missing White Women as I am? Annoyed when in a world full of actual news, CNN (or whichever network you watch) decides that it must — must, I tell you — not only cover some completely trivial motion filed in the latest case … Read more

Scott McClellan Sacrifices His Few Remaining Shreds Of Dignity For Unworthy Boss

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by hilzoy

Today, the White House press corps finally deigned to notice the fact that Karl Rove has been named as one of the people who outed Valerie Plame. The White House hasn’t put up a transcript of the relevant press briefing yet, but ThinkProgress has one here, and Crooks and Liars has video. I’d feel sorry for Scott McClellan if I weren’t so puzzled by the question: how does he look himself in the mirror, knowing that saying these ridiculous things is his life’s work?

“QUESTION: Does the president stand by his pledge to fire anyone involved in a leak of the name of a CIA operative?

MCCLELLAN: I appreciate your question. I think your question is being asked related to some reports that are in reference to an ongoing criminal investigation. The criminal investigation that you reference is something that continues at this point. And as I’ve previously stated, while that investigation is ongoing, the White House is not going to comment on it. The president directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation. And as part of cooperating fully with the investigation, we made a decision that we weren’t going to comment on it while it is ongoing.

QUESTION: I actually wasn’t talking about any investigation. But in June of 2004, the president said that he would fire anybody who was involved in this leak to the press about information. I just wanted to know: Is that still his position?

MCCLELLAN: Yes, but this question is coming up in the context of this ongoing investigation, and that’s why I said that our policy continues to be that we’re not going to get into commenting on an ongoing criminal investigation from this podium. The prosecutors overseeing the investigation had expressed a preference to us that one way to help the investigation is not to be commenting on it from this podium. And so that’s why we are not going to get into commenting on it while it is an ongoing investigation — or questions related to it.

QUESTION: Scott, if I could point out: Contradictory to that statement, on September 29th of 2003, while the investigation was ongoing, you clearly commented on it. You were the first one to have said that if anybody from the White House was involved, they would be fired. And then, on June 10th of 2004, at Sea Island Plantation, in the midst of this investigation, when the president made his comments that, yes, he would fire anybody from the White House who was involved, so why have you commented on this during the process of the investigation in the past, but now you’ve suddenly drawn a curtain around it under the statement of, We’re not going to comment on an ongoing investigation?

MCCLELLAN: Again, John, I appreciate the question. I know you want to get to the bottom of this. No one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the president of the United States.
And I think the way to be most helpful is to not get into commenting on it while it is an ongoing investigation. And that’s something that the people overseeing the investigation have expressed a preference that we follow. And that’s why we’re continuing to follow that approach and that policy. Now, I remember very well what was previously said. And, at some point, I will be glad to talk about it, but not until after the investigation is complete.”

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Diary of a Sick Mind

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by Charles

Joseph Edward Duncan III, the previously convicted sex offender who was arrested for kidnapping two young children (and murdering one of them) and suspected of bludgeoning to death their mother, older brother and mother’s boyfriend, had a weblog according to this report by Associated Press.

Convicted sex offender Joseph Edward Duncan III spent months on the Internet documenting his internal struggle over right vs. wrong. Then, four days before two Idaho children he is accused of kidnapping disappeared, he wrote: "The demons have taken over."

It was one of the last entries in Duncan’s Weblog before the 42-year-old North Dakota man was arrested and charged this week with two kidnapping counts. Authorities believe he took 9-year-old Dylan Groene and 8-year-old Shasta Groene from their Idaho home shortly before their 13-year-old brother, mother and her boyfriend were bludgeoned to death May 16. Police say Duncan also is a suspect in the killings.

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For Shame

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Brian Boitano would probably clean up after his dog.  I have recently come across an interesting case of what some bloggers are calling cybershaming (see also here).  The gist of the story is: It began in a subway train with a girl whose dog made a mess on the train floor. When nearby elders told … Read more

Rove And Plame, Take 2

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by hilzoy

Newsweek reports (h/t rilkefan):

“It was 11:07 on a Friday morning, July 11, 2003, and Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper was tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy. “Subject: Rove/P&C,” (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. “Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation …” Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, “please don’t source this to rove or even WH [White House]” and suggested another reporter check with the CIA. (…)

In a brief conversation with Rove, Cooper asked what to make of the flap over Wilson’s criticisms. NEWSWEEK obtained a copy of the e-mail that Cooper sent his bureau chief after speaking to Rove. (The e-mail was authenticated by a source intimately familiar with Time’s editorial handling of the Wilson story, but who has asked not to be identified because of the magazine’s corporate decision not to disclose its contents.) Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a “big warning” not to “get too far out on Wilson.” Rove told Cooper that Wilson’s trip had not been authorized by “DCIA”—CIA Director George Tenet—or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, “it was, KR said, wilson’s wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip.” Wilson’s wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division. (Cooper later included the essence of what Rove told him in an online story.) The e-mail characterizing the conversation continues: “not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there’s still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger … “

Nothing in the Cooper e-mail suggests that Rove used Plame’s name or knew she was a covert operative. Nonetheless, it is significant that Rove was speaking to Cooper before Novak’s column appeared; in other words, before Plame’s identity had been published. Fitzgerald has been looking for evidence that Rove spoke to other reporters as well. “Karl Rove has shared with Fitzgerald all the information he has about any potentially relevant contacts he has had with any reporters, including Matt Cooper,” Luskin told NEWSWEEK.

A source close to Rove, who declined to be identified because he did not wish to run afoul of the prosecutor or government investigators, added that there was “absolutely no inconsistency” between Cooper’s e-mail and what Rove has testified to during his three grand-jury appearances in the case. “A fair reading of the e-mail makes clear that the information conveyed was not part of an organized effort to disclose Plame’s identity, but was an effort to discourage Time from publishing things that turned out to be false,” the source said, referring to claims in circulation at the time that Cheney and high-level CIA officials arranged for Wilson’s trip to Africa.”

We may not know who that ‘source close to Rove’ is, but we do learn that one of the people who has been talking to Newsweek is Rove’s lawyer:

“Rove has never publicly acknowledged talking to any reporter about former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife. But last week, his lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed to NEWSWEEK that Rove did—and that Rove was the secret source who, at the request of both Cooper’s lawyer and the prosecutor, gave Cooper permission to testify.”

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Where Is ‘Home’?

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by hilzoy At TPMCafe, Todd Gitlin noticed something bizarre about the President’s weekly radio address yesterday. It is, as you’d expect, largely about the terrorist attacks in London, and says, among other things: “In this dark hour, the people of Great Britain can know that the American people stand with them.” As we do, and … Read more

Is This Really Necessary?

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by hilzoy From the Chicago Tribune, via Freiheit und Wissen, comes news of a new line of greeting cards designed especially for adulterers. “One morning at breakfast, Cathy Gallagher told her husband she wanted to start a line of greeting cards for adulterers. There was a pregnant pause. And then he said, “I think it’s … Read more

In praise of righteous anger

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We do not see a Klansman at a crossburning and wonder whether he might have been provoked by our insistence on integrated schools.  We do not see a neo-Nazi salute, and propose that maybe it is the Jew who should move away.  We do not see the gay man tied to a post in Laramie, … Read more

Terrorist Bombings in London

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by Charles [Multiple updates below.] Today it is London.  BBC: At least two people have been killed and scores injured after three blasts on the Underground network and another on a double-decker bus in London. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said it was "reasonably clear" there had been a series of terrorist attacks. He said … Read more

Genetics And Responsibility

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by hilzoy

The New York Times published a truly dumb article yesterday; and since it’s in my field, I thought I’d write about it. First, an excerpt:

“Although packaged with the glint of modernity, this theory actually draws from something old and wintry – the harsh remedies proposed by John Calvin, predestination’s No. 1 guy. According to Calvin, our fate is determined at first creation. Similar to this, the articles of gene-ism would have us believe that our medical fate is sealed by the genes we receive at conception. Seem a bit grim?

Maybe not. Our unquestioning acceptance of the gene as prime mover has certain distinct – and ultramodern – advantages. Consider: you are no longer responsible for anything. Sound familiar? Once it was the devil. Now it is the gene that made you do it. You are officially off the hook. It isn’t your fault at all. It’s your faulty genes.

It gets even better. Not only is it not your fault, but you actually are a victim, a victim of your own toxic gene pool.

In the Age of Genetics, you no longer have to try to cut out smoking or think twice about gobbling that candy bar in your desk drawer. And forget jogging on a cold morning.

The die was cast long ago, from the moment the parental sperm and egg first integrated their spiraling nucleotides. The resulting package of chromosomes has programmed every step of your life. So sit back, relax and leave the driving to someone else.

But one problem remains: this new world order is at sharp odds with an older theism, that blame can and must be assigned in every human transaction. We have built a vast judicial-industrial complex that offers lawsuits for every need, satisfying varied urges like the wish for fairness or revenge, for getting rich quick or simply getting your due.

This all-blame all-the-time approach applies to much more than determining culpability should a neighbor trip on your lawn and break an arm. It also says that people are responsible for their own health – and illness. It is your fault if you develop cancer or a heart attack because you didn’t eat, think or breathe right. You have allowed the corrosive effect of unresolved anger or stress or poor self-esteem to undermine your health. So if you are sick or miserable or both, it’s your own darned fault.

No wonder we fled.”

It’s amazing: an article that is wrong in almost every particular. Where to begin?

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Overlooked in Bush’s Iraq Speech

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by Charles

Most of the conversations arising from Bush’s speech on Iraq last week dealt with his usage of 9/11, how we’re doing, whether or not we’re losing, troop withdrawal timetables, manpower, sticktuitiveness and so forth.  What received little press or attention were some of his new initiatives.  The following should have been bigger news:

To further prepare Iraqi forces to fight the enemy on their own, we are taking three new steps:

First, we are partnering coalition units with Iraqi units. These coalition-Iraqi teams are conducting operations together in the field. These combined operations are giving Iraqis a chance to experience how the most professional armed forces in the world operate in combat.

Second, we are embedding coalition "transition teams" inside Iraqi units. These teams are made up of coalition officers and noncommissioned officers who live, work and fight together with their Iraqi comrades. Under U.S. command, they are providing battlefield advice and assistance to Iraqi forces during combat operations. Between battles, they are assisting the Iraqis with important skills such as urban combat and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance techniques.

Third, we are working with the Iraqi Ministries of Interior and Defense to improve their capabilities to coordinate anti-terrorist operations. We are helping them develop command and control structures. We are also providing them with civilian and military leadership training, so Iraq’s new leaders can more effectively manage their forces in the fight against terror.

This was something I recommended over a year ago (the first two steps, at least).  I hate to bring up Vietnam when discussing Iraq because I really don’t want to get into a big comparison debate, but the above tactics reflect some of the lessons learned from that lost war.  Commanders in Vietnam adopted a plan similar to the one outlined above but they failed to follow through, foregoing one of many strategies that actually produced beneficial results.  From America in Vietnam by Guenter Lewy:

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Hiatus

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Just a quick note to say Edward_ will be taking a hiatus from ObWi. I don’t want to go into details at the moment (I’m superstitious), but it’s due to good things. I’ll be back in a few months when life settles down a bit. (I’ll be lurking and commenting, but I won’t have time … Read more

Celestial Drops

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by hilzoy

Via Crooks and Liars, a truly amazing story:

“Four years ago, as the state labored to eradicate citrus canker by destroying trees, officials rejected other disease-fighting techniques, saying unproven methods would waste precious time and resources. But for more than six months, the state, at the behest of then-Secretary of State Katherine Harris, did pursue one alternative method — a very alternative method. Researchers worked with a rabbi and a cardiologist to test “Celestial Drops,” promoted as a canker inhibitor because of its “improved fractal design,” “infinite levels of order” and “high energy and low entropy.” But the cure proved useless against canker. That’s because it was water — possibly, mystically blessed water.” “

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Bad News

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by hilzoy A few days ago, I noticed this story: “BRITAIN is coming under sustained pressure from American military chiefs to keep thousands of troops in Iraq – while going ahead with plans to boost the front line against a return to “civil war” in Afghanistan. Tony Blair was warned that war-torn Iraq remains on … Read more

In Which I Am Helpful, And Propose An Idea

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by hilzoy

As I noted in a comment on Charles’ thread, Democrats have offered a number of good ideas about Iraq, starting with the best one of all: don’t do it. None of them have been listened to, and by now, there are very few good options left. However, in a spirit of helpful opposition, I will offer one, which I don’t think has been fully explored. I should say at the outset that I do not particularly like this idea, and that its necessity seems to me to be yet another good reason for not going to war in the first place. However, we have gone to war, and I want us to succeed.

It has been obvious from the outset that if we are to succeed in Iraq, we need to close the borders. We do not need foreign fighters, foreign money, or foreign materiel coming into the country. One part of closing the borders is providing enough troops to cover them, not just in an occasional, whack-a-mole way, but consistently. (And one reason to do provide enough troops is that it would have made other steps less important. Enough troops might, perhaps, have made other steps unnecessary. But that’s moot now.) Of course, we did not send enough troops; and there seems to be little prospect of our being able to send them now, with our army already stretched to the breaking point and recruiting a serious problem. But another part, not that I particularly like saying this, is securing the cooperation of Iraq’s neighbors. I hope Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are already on board; if not, we should get them on board. I also imagine that Turkey has sealed off the northern border; in any case, though, Sunni Arabs moving through Kurdistan is probably the least our worries. That leaves Iran and Syria. And our dealings with Iran and Syria, on this front, have been inexplicable to me.

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Getting To Yes

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by hilzoy

When Republicans, Charles included,* complain about Democrats’ having no ideas, it is often hard for me to know exactly what they mean. Luckily for me, I don’t have to decide, since it seems to me that on all the remotely plausible interpretations of the claim that Democrats have no ideas, that claim is simply false; while on one interpretation that isn’t plausible, but that sometimes seems to be what Republicans who say this actually mean, it is true but completely predictable. So I’ll just run through them in order.

(Note: none of this will be particularly new to those of you who do, well, read progressive blogs. Lots of people have made lots of good points. Think of me as collecting them in an easy, hopefully readable form, for the delectation of others.)

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