Quaint and Obsolete

According to Reuters the administration sent chief leg breaker Alberto Gonzalez to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to rally support for renewal of the Patriot Act.

"The tools in the reauthorization of the Patriot Act are very important to the success of the Department of Justice in protecting this country," Gonzales told reporters after meeting with lawmakers.

'Berto must not have looked at the 9/11 commission's report card on the administration's efforts over the past four years at making America safer: 1 A, 12 Bs, 9 Cs, 12 Ds, 5 Fs and 2 incompletes. A C- average. It doesn't appear the Patriot Act has done us a whole lot of good.

In arguing the need for the Patriot Act's renewal, Gonzales trotted out an old administration meme: it's necessary to fight our "new kind of war" against a "new kind of enemy." Mister Bush's echo chamberlains have beating the "new war" drum ever since 9/11, claiming that our war on terror is "new" because it involves culture, religion, ideology, asymmetric threats, terror, insurgency, law enforcement, and a host of other things that have, in actuality, been inherent aspects of warfare since Sun Tzu was a buck sergeant. There's nothing about our "war on terror" that the Greek general Thucydides didn't write about in 400B.C. in his History of the Peloponnesian War--and none of it was new then either.

But one wouldn't expect the Rovewellians to let a little thing like history get in their way. They're too busy accusing their critics of rewriting it.

Richard Hooker gives us this interesting synopsis of one of Thucydides' passages:

The Melian Controversy [gave] the Athenian reasons for attacking the small island of Melos in 416, making them say bluntly that those who are powerful need have no regard for justice, human rights, or the gods.

Like I said, there's nothing new about our "new" war.

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Speaking of "Torture Guy" Gonzalez, the NYT's Eric Schmitt reports that…

The Army has approved a new, classified set of interrogation methods that may complicate negotiations over legislation proposed by Senator John McCain to bar cruel and inhumane treatment of detainees in American custody, military officials said Tuesday…

…Some military officials said the new guidelines could give the impression that the Army was pushing the limits on legal interrogation at the very moment when Mr. McCain, Republican of Arizona, is involved in intense three-way negotiations with the House and the Bush administration to prohibit the cruel treatment of prisoners.

Here's another example of the administration's consistent practice of fuzzy constitutionality. Article I of the U.S. Constitution specifically gives Congress the power…

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces.

The Constitution makes no provision whatsoever for the executive branch to make rules for land and naval forces, or for the land and naval forces to make their own rules and regulations.

But that surely makes no never mind to administration legal beagles like Gonzales. Gonzales, if you'll recall, is the one who advised Mister Bush that certain provisions of the Geneva Conventions were "quaint" and "obsolete."

He no doubt thinks the same of the fourth, fifth, sixth, and eighth amendments of the Constitution, which would explain why he's so gung-ho on renewing the Patriot Act.

Babbling Bush

Mister Bush, explaining to Brian Williams (exclusively) why he disagrees with Congressman Jack Murtha's plan to redeploy troops from Iraq. Talk of withdrawal…

-- emboldens the insurgents

-- sends the wrong signal to the Iraqis

-- dispirits out troops.

You know: the standard menu of tommyrot.

It's not entirely clear how much bolder the insurgents can get. They seem to strike at will as it is. And anecdotal evidence from our own generals is that our presence in Iraq emboldens them more than our absence would.

Mister Bush might want to quit worrying about what signals he's sending the Iraqis and listening to the signals they're sending him. 80 percent of them want us gone. The interim leaders of the country signed a letter to that effect at the recent Arab League conference.

Dispirit the troops? Excuse me. I'm as big a "support the troops" kind of guy as you're likely to find, but let's get real clear on something. The United States of America doesn't exist to support its military. It's the other way around. It's beyond ludicrous to suggest that Americans should support a war in order to keep its troops happy, or that such a thing would keep the troops happy.

If Mister Bush really wants to keep the troops happy, he'll get off the dime and tell them what he actually wants them to accomplish. Unless, of course, he's afraid to do that because the reason he sent them to Iraq is different from the reason he gave them (and the rest of us) when he sent them there.

In fact, if Mister Bush really wanted to boost the troops' morale, he'd keep his mouth shut, because every time he opens it he reinforces the growing perception that he's a liar, a lunatic, or both.

Carly Tells it Like it Semi-is

Not a soul left in the ready room except this thing at the duty desk that looked like a cross between a field mouse and a wet poodle, which was Carly.

"Where is everybody?" Jack said.

"They're not here, sir."

"I got eyes, Carly. Where did they go?"

"Drinking, probably. That's what they usually do when they don't have to be here, which is most of the time. They were only here this morning because they didn't have a choice. That's a big rule with Captain Otis. Everybody has to show up for quarters and listen to him talk. He likes to talk."

"No?"

"Yes, he likes to talk, and he almost never has anybody to talk to, because everybody is almost always anyplace but here, because nobody wants to talk to Captain Otis, because they don't like him. I think he gets lonesome."

"Lonesome? He's got you here. On a semi-permanent basis."

"I know. I think he wants to adopt me."

"Lots of skippers feel that way about their ensigns, Carly."

"No. I mean legally adopt me."

"Then why don't you let him? You have anything better to do?"

"I can't let him adopt me because I'm already adopted."

"Oh." Jack didn't mean to be a dick. It just occurred naturally sometimes. "Sorry."

"Don't be," Carly smiled, or whatever it was she was doing with her face. "I set you up for that. I was just pulling your chain. Like I said, I have to think up lots of things to amuse myself, in my function as semi-permanent duty officer."

"I guess."

"I really am adopted, though, and I hope to find my real parents someday. I'm very interested in the field of genealogy. It's one of the things I research to fill the time while I'm on semi-permanent duty. I'd like to find my real parents, if they're anywhere to find. I want to discover what makes me tick."

"It's your ticker, Carly, your heart. Research some anatomy while you're at it."

"I know it's my ticker that makes me tick. I'm very smart."

"I know you're smart. You said that already. I'm sorry to hear it. I hope it gets better soon. Anything else wrong with you I ought to know about?"

"My ticker. I have a broke-dick heart. Like all the broke dick planes we have in the squadron, which is all of them, in spite of Captain Otis's Total Quality Initiatives to fix them."

"What about the flight simulators over in the training building?"

"They're all broke-dick too."

"Then how does the squadron do flight training?"

"It doesn't. That's the other reason nobody's here. I think that's the reason Captain Otis wants to talk to you--"

"How do you know he wants to talk to me?"

"Because he tells me everything. I deduce that's because he doesn't have anybody else to talk to, even his wife, probably. Anyway, I think he thinks you're smart, what with your brilliant service record and everything, and he wants you to come up with a Total Quality way to do flight training without airplanes or flight simulators."

"That'll take a Total Quality Miracle," Jack said.

"I know. That's another reason nobody's here, because Captain Otis is so totally full of shit."

Same Old Dubya Talk

I just caught parts of Mister Bush's latest "support the war" speech in Philadelphia.

Nothing new. More "we will accept nothing less than complete victory" with no explanation of what "complete victory" consists of.

One remark I caught that no one appears to have reported on yet was something like, "The insurgents know they cannot defeat us militarily."

In reality, we have no way of knowing what the insurgents know, or think, or feel. But even if it's true that they "know" they can't defeat us militarily, we know that we can't defeat the insurgents militarily.

So why do we keep trying to do it?

To show our resolve?

As I've said before, getting in a bar fight over a girl shows resolve. Of a sort. Waking up in jail with a bloody nose and two broken ribs shows how stupid you are. Going back to the same bar every Friday night and getting in a fight over the same girl and waking up every Saturday night in the same jail for fear of "losing your nerve" is utter insanity.

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And speaking of utter insanity…

Despite the claims of some nattering noggins in the mainstream media, Mister Bush and his supporters aren't offering us anything more specific than the same "stay the course" mantra they've been feeding us for so long.

Pro-war pundits like Mackubin Thomas Owens, who for so long denied any similarity between Iraq and Vietnam, now warn that Iraq will turn into another Vietnam if we "withdraw precipitously." But the war hawks making this argument conveniently ignore the self apparent reality that the longer Iraq has drug on, the more it resembles Vietnam, and the longer we stay in this Vietnam-like quagmire, the deeper we will sink.

The Big Muddy Euphrates

Cho at ePluribus gives us timeless war commentary from Pete Seeger.

Dog Pile on Murtha

Among the conservative pundits who've jumped on the Jack Murtha dog pile is Professor Mackubin Thomas Owens of the U.S. Naval War College. His article "Defeated by Defeatism: Why Jack Murtha is Wrong" appears at National Review Online. A decade ago, I studied under Mack Owens, and considered him to be one of the very finest professors at the War College. Lamentably, he appears to have devolved into a rank-and-file right wing hatchet man. His article on Murtha reads like the standard menu of cheap Rovewellian tricks.

Owens opens his assault on Murtha by deliberately misquoting him.

As everyone knows, Rep. Jack Murtha (D., Pa.) initiated a fierce debate last Thursday when he launched a scathing attack on Bush's Iraq policy...and called for a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

"Everyone knows" that Murtha called for a "timetable" because Mack Owens and others told them he did. The word "timetable" has become a hand grenade that gets hurled at anyone who opposes the Bush administration's policies, but it does not appear anywhere in Murtha's formal statement to the House of Representatives or in his proposed joint resolution. Professor Owens knows this, and so does every other pro-administration spin merchant who misquoted Murtha for the express purpose of misleading the public.

Owens follows his first volley with a cheap shot below the waterline:

Murtha has been a critic of U.S. policy in Iraq for some time despite his vote to authorize the war… Murtha supported Howard Dean as DNC chairman and joined Nancy Pelosi in May 2004 in labeling the war "un-winnable."

But there is no need to attempt to discredit Murtha this way.

Oh really, Professor? Then why did you just attempt it?

Next comes the obligatory allusion to the Vietnam disaster:

…if the United States were to take Murtha's advice, the outcome would be precisely the opposite of what he desires. He only needs to recall what happened in Vietnam.

It's remarkable how the war hawks denied any similarity between Iraq and Vietnam until it became convenient to equate them. In a National Review Online article from 2003, Owens wrote:

I am officially sick of the constant claims of reporters and politicians that Iraq is becoming a rerun of the Vietnam "quagmire." These people don’t know what they are talking about. They remind me of the old adage that it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt. The fact is that there is little similarity between Iraq and Vietnam. Indeed, there is little comparison between the real Vietnam War and the facile description of it that we get from critics of the Iraq operation.

So who doesn't know what they're talking about now? Professor Owens or the "critics of the Iraq operation?"

And no broadside against Murtha would be complete without the ubiquitous reference to his sentimentality and a backhand to the "liberal media."

…it is very clear that Murtha has been moved by the soldiers he has visited who have been wounded in the war and by the plight of those who have lost loved ones in Iraq. But those of us who respect his grasp of military affairs expect him, unlike members of the press, to be able to place casualties in strategic context.

This is about as original as original sin. Any Naval War College student who put this passage in a term paper without citing Fox News would be expelled for plagiarism.

But more to the point is Owens' snide inference that Murtha was pandering to the liberal press. Even more specious is the suggestion that Murtha--or anyone--is incapable of both mourning our war casualties and placing them in "strategic context."

Owens' article is rife with emotionally evocative mantras: "domestic defeatism," "cut and run," "dishonor," "shame," "betray," "abandon." One expects this sort of childish rhetoric from Ann Coulter, but not from a distinguished professor of national security studies.

In all, "Defeated by Defeatism" is pseudo-academic advocacy that publications like the National Review so often pass off for genuine scholarly analysis. I'm sorry to see that someone of Mack Owens' remarkable intellect and talent has stooped to writing it.

No News is Good News

Not enough good news being reported… Not enough good news being reported… Not enough good news being reported… Not enough good news being reported… Not enough good news being reported… Not enough good news being reported… Not enough good news being reported… Not enough good news being reported… Not enough good news being reported… Not enough good news being reported… Not enough good news being reported… Not enough good news being reported… Not enough good news being reported… Not enough good news being reported…

Not enough good news to report that can make up for the bad news.

Chris Matthews and his like are so impressed that Mister Bush is admitting--inferring, at least--that "mistakes have been made" in our Iraq escapade. Great news, Chris. I understand that Donald Rumsfeld is privately admitting we're in the middle of a full blown insurgency.

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Of course the mainstream media's coverage of the "war" has been moronic. But that doesn’t make it much different from the coverage of anything else. Witness the furor over the air marshal incident yesterday. Nothing I've heard or read in the mainstream so far indicates the marshals did anything except exactly what they were supposed to do, and yet the cable clones are falling all over themselves trying to "create" a story that the marshals messed up.

But boy, let Mister Bush and Uncle Dick and Ron say "Not enough good news being reported" and the media roll over like puppies wanting their tummies scratched.

If Chris Matthews gets much more apologetic for the media, he's going to confess to single-handedly cooking the intelligence on Iraq himself. Heck, give him enough time and he'll reveal that he's actually Judith Miller in disguise.

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One of the media's biggest sins lately has been allowing the Iraq debate to turn into a "limited choice" argument. "Fair and balanced" means equal time for all the idiots to shout invictive laden talking points at each other. It's either "stay the course" or "cut and run," when the range of suitable options lie somewhere in between.

For all the initial GOP criticism of Jack Murtha's plan for Iraq (and the Democrats' distancing from it, Murtha is, in fact, making more sense, and offering more concrete proposals than anyone else.

Murtha's use of "immediate redeployment" was unfortunate choice of terminology. In military speak, it means something quite a bit different that "immediate withdrawal." He's actually talking about an orderly, secure withdrawal that would last in the neighborhood of 6 months. Be that as it may, Murtha has persisted in putting out his message despite the smear campaign he's been subjected to.

If you haven't read his full statement, I highly recommend that you do so here.

As Murtha puts it:

Our military has done everything that has been asked of them, the U.S. can not accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. IT IS TIME TO BRING THEM HOME.

Chris Matthews: Falling in Love with Mister Bush

Chris Matthews is practically playing with himself, he's so excited that Mister Bush identified three factions in the Iraq insurgency.

Sunni insurgents. Former Baathists. Foreign fighters.

Yeah, Chris. The rest of us have known that for, like, two years. We're supposed to get all gushy because Mister Bush is just now figuring that out?

Yeah, Right

Given the Bush administration's track record, we shouldn't be surprised that even as our Dominatrix of State was telling the world that America doesn't render individuals to other countries for the purpose of torturing them, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against George Tenet and other members of the CIA on behalf of Khaled el-Masri. Masri, you may recall, is the Lebanese born German citizen who claimed he was kidnapped on suspicion of being an al Qaeda operative and taken to a prison in Afthanistan. Here's how James Meek of The Guardian relates el-Masri's story:

On the evening of January 23, he was handcuffed, blindfolded, put in a car and told he was going to Germany. He was driven to a place where he heard the sound of a plane, then heard the voice of one of the Macedonians saying he would have a medical examination.

"I heard the door being closed," says el-Masri. "And then they beat me from all sides, from everywhere, with hands and feet. With knives or scissors they took away my clothes. In silence. The beating, I think, was just to humiliate me, to hurt me, to make me afraid, to make me silent. They stripped me naked. I was terrified. They tried to take off my pants. I tried to stop them so they beat me again. And when I was naked I heard a camera." El-Masri breaks down as he recalls the moment when the men carried out an intrusive anal search.

He was dressed in a nappy, a short-sleeved, short-legged suit and a belt. His feet were shackled and his hands were chained to the belt. His ears were plugged and ear defenders placed over them and a clip put on his nose. A hood was put over his blindfold. With his arms raised painfully high behind his back, he was driven to an aircraft where he was thrown down on to a bare metal floor, chained and bound, and given an injection. He was dimly aware of a landing and takeoff and a second injection before the plane landed again and he was put into the boot of a car.

El-Masri arrived in what he later found to be his cell by being pushed violently against the wall, thrown to the floor, having feet placed on his head and his back and having his chains removed. The cell was to be his home for the next four months. From the graffiti on the wall - in Arabic script, but not Arabic - and the Afghan dress of the guards, he deduced that he was in Afghanistan. There was nothing in the cell except a blanket, a filthy plastic mat and a bottle of tainted water so vile that the memory of it makes him literally gag.

El-Masri soon discovered that the prison, though technically Afghan, was run from behind the scenes by the US. His first encounter with an American was with a masked individual who spoke English with what el-Masri believes was an American accent. He had a Palestinian translator. The American took a blood sample and photographed el-Masri naked again.

The Bush administration: making us all proud to be Americans.

Or was these just the rogue actions of a few more bad apples?

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Mister Bush himself, talking before the Council of Foreign Relations today, starting off with 9/11-Pearl Harbor analogies. Wow. How did his speech writers ever come up with that one? "Freedom's cause." "Courage and determination." "Firm resolve."

"Like the generation before us, we're taking the fight to those who attacked us?"

Good Gosh, he's still trying to convince people Hussein was involved with 9/11.

More "fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here" talk. Our goal is victory.

"We're working with the Iraqis." Like the policemen who let themselves get blown up in their own station the other day?

Somebody tell me this man isn't really the president of the United States.

Blather, rinse, repeat. Same talking points, same audience.

Holy cow, Mister Bush himself just quoted Joe Lieberman, who is rapidly becoming the administration's leading echo chamberlains.

"Cut and run." "Complete our mission." "Strong ally."

"Free societies are peaceful societies." I reckon that's why free societies don't invade other countries on false premises.

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Forty or so minutes of glittering generalities, bandwagoning, attacking straw men, scapegoating, appeals to emotion, labeling, and just about every other propaganda trick in the book.

Not a single tangible leg of strategy on how we'll achieve this "complete victory," or what complete victory consists of.

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Chris Matthews and Dick Gregory on MSNBC, analyzing the speech. Brother. Those two couldn’t name all the colors in a box of crayons.

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Joe Lieberman. There's a guy you want to listen to on matters of national security. He's been in politics since he got out of Yale Law school. His big claim to fame on his web site bio is that he:

…was the Senate's leading champion of legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security to better protect the nation from terrorist attacks.

Now there's something to be proud of.

You can't help but wonder how much of Lieberman's pro-Bush talk lately is payback for the BRAC commission letting him keep his submarine base in Connecticut.

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And now for something slightly different…

MSNBC's big survey question today: should the White House season's greeting cards read "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays?"

No doubt they'll have Chris Matthews and Dave Gregory back on later in the day to analyze those poll results.

Cheney Greeted as Liberator at Fort Drum

These speeches given to a captive military audience just reached a new level of cheese. The part of the audience behind Cheney (so the cameras can see them) don't have anything to sit on.

That's one way to ensure a standing ovation, eh?