Today, U.S. and Iraqi forces launched what some are calling the largest Iraq air assault since 2003.
At today's White House press conference, Scott McClellan said the Operation Swarmer was initiated by commanders in the theater of war, and not by anyone in the administration. Mister Bush apparently knew about it, but he didn't order it.
At the same press conference, McClellan also said, "We have a clear strategy for winning in Iraq," but neither he nor anyone else in the administration have clearly explained what that strategy is, or what exactly "winning" consists of.
#
The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll says 61 percent of Americans disapprove of Mister Bush's handling of the war, 51 percent say the overthrow of Hussein hasn't been worth it, and 57 percent are "less confident" that the war will end successfully. It's not clear whom those 57 percent are less confident than, but it's a good bet they're less confident that the likes of Scott McClellan seem to be.
I'll be interested to see who the 57 percent are less confident that if this Operation Swarmer turns out to be another bust.
#
On MSNBC, Congressman Jim Saxton (R-New Jersey) says Operation Swarmer was launched on a "mature level of intelligence." I'm never sure what "mature intelligence" means. More often than not, as we've seen in the countless air strikes "just missed" getting the bad guys they targeted, "mature intelligence" seems to mean "old intelligence."
But whatever Congressman Saxton meant in using the term, one has to wonder if the intelligence that prompted Operation Swarmer was any more or less mature than the intelligence that launch Operation Iraqi Freedom.
The new National Security Strategy is on the streets. It isn't posted at the White House web site yet, but word on the street is that the administration is insisting on sticking with its policy of preemptive deterrence. Preemptive deterrence involves striking an enemy before he has an opportunity to act against us. To do that requires knowledge of the enemy's intentions and capabilities, which requires intelligence.
But as the march to the Iraq invasion illustrated, the intelligence behind preemptive deterrence doesn't have to be accurate. It just has to be "darn good enough" to support actions that we couldn't otherwise justify.
There's no telling just yet how darn good the intelligence behind Operation Swarm was. But if it turns out to have been bad, it won't be Mister Bush's fault, because he didn't order the operation, he just knew about it.
When do you think they told him? When he was working out with Condi?
It sounds like even Mister Bush is getting tired of this pesky old war.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
Thomas Sowell: an Orwellian Classic
Thomas Sowell is an economist, a writer, and one of the most high profile conservative commentators in America today. He's also a master of the rhetorical formula that's been honed to a fine edge over the past decade or so by the extreme right: a formula that includes classic propaganda techniques like bandwagoning, fear and hate mongering, transfer, glittering generalities, demonizing, narrowcasting, omission, strawman, scapegoating, scholarly appearance, limited choices, and misinformation.
I ran across a commentary of Sowell's from last December titled "The Media's War" that epitomizes his techniques. The title of the article itself sends the subliminal message that the media, not the administration or the military, were responsible for launching the invasion of Iraq and its subsequent mishandling. The first two paragraphs expand on this this theme.
As we mentioned at the top, Sowell knows a thing or two about "formulas," and accusing his opposition of having a formula is a key component of his. He states that enemy losses are not "news" when in fact they are reported regularly, and as the events of the last two years in Iraq plainly illustrate, the enemy's strength has done anything but "decline."
Sowell moves on to the reporting of casualties.
No, Tom, no one ever believed any war could be fought without deaths on both sides. That's why we shouldn't engage in war without sufficient reason and necessity. Without reason and necessity for a war, the deaths it causes are neither necessary nor reasonable. And high casualty numbers in previous wars don't make lower casualty numbers in a later war "okay." Especially when that war was initiated on fuzzy pretexts.
But to hear Sowell tell it, real men who fight real wars take real casualties. URRAH! What's with all this sissified hand wringing over 2,000 measly war deaths?
On the objectives of the Iraq War, Sowell writes:
Maybe the mainstream media doesn't mention our objectives in Iraq because the political and military leaders running it have never plainly stated what they actually are. What are the media supposed to do? Make up war aims? If the media tells the truth, that we invaded Iraq in order to protect "our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil," and that, as the Project for the New America Century stated in September of 2000, "the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the regime of Saddam Hussein," Sowell would simply turn around and do what he's doing now. Blame the media for making the war "unwinnable and unbearable."
Sowell has an interesting take on attrition in warfare.
This news is featured in the media. What Sowell doesn't mention is that it is marginally relevant. Killing ten of the enemy for every one of your losses is a counterproductive measure of effectiveness when the very act of killing terrorists aids the enemy in recruiting more of them. Wresting a town from the terrorists doesn't do a rat's whisker worth of good when we leave and turn it back over to them. But according to Sowell, recognizing these things isn't facing reality, it's "doom-saying."
And here's Sowell's take on the false Iraq/World War II analogy:
It takes an utter ignorance of history not to know that Sowell is utterly rewriting it. In World War II, unlike Iraq, the U.S. and its allies actually had a comprehensive post-hostilities plan. Post war Nazi resistance was nowhere near the magnitude of the insurgency and civil strife we have seen in Iraq, and the reason nobody suggested we abandon Germany was the Soviet Union.
Sowell has a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago, and is a senior fellow of the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University. You'd think someone of his academic credentials would have outgrown name calling by now, but no. He likes some derisive labels so much that he uses them more than once.
Doom-saying politicians. Doom sayers. Doom-saying politicians. Foolish. Irresponsible politicians and the media.
The irresponsible politicians Sowell refers to are the ones who want a timetable for pulling out of Iraq, not the irresponsible politicians who got us there in the first place. And the irresponsible media, well, they're the media who don't support the irresponsible war with cheap propaganda tricks the way the media Sowell works for do.
You know what I say to that, Tom? Same to you, only more of it!
I ran across a commentary of Sowell's from last December titled "The Media's War" that epitomizes his techniques. The title of the article itself sends the subliminal message that the media, not the administration or the military, were responsible for launching the invasion of Iraq and its subsequent mishandling. The first two paragraphs expand on this this theme.
The media seem to have come up with a formula that would make any war in history unwinnable and unbearable: They simply emphasize the enemy's victories and our losses.
Losses suffered by the enemy are not news, no matter how large, how persistent, or how clearly they indicate the enemy's declining strength.
As we mentioned at the top, Sowell knows a thing or two about "formulas," and accusing his opposition of having a formula is a key component of his. He states that enemy losses are not "news" when in fact they are reported regularly, and as the events of the last two years in Iraq plainly illustrate, the enemy's strength has done anything but "decline."
Sowell moves on to the reporting of casualties.
Has anyone ever believed that any war could be fought without deaths on both sides? Every death is a tragedy to the individual killed and to his loved ones. But is there anything about American casualty rates in Iraq that makes them more severe than casualty rates in any other war we have fought?
… The Marines lost more than 5,000 men taking one island in the Pacific during a three-month period in World War II. In the Civil War, the Confederates lost 5,000 men in one battle in one day…
…The two-thousandth death [in Iraq] was similarly anticipated almost impatiently in the media and then made another big splash. But does media hype make 2,000 wartime fatalities in more than two years unusual?
No, Tom, no one ever believed any war could be fought without deaths on both sides. That's why we shouldn't engage in war without sufficient reason and necessity. Without reason and necessity for a war, the deaths it causes are neither necessary nor reasonable. And high casualty numbers in previous wars don't make lower casualty numbers in a later war "okay." Especially when that war was initiated on fuzzy pretexts.
But to hear Sowell tell it, real men who fight real wars take real casualties. URRAH! What's with all this sissified hand wringing over 2,000 measly war deaths?
On the objectives of the Iraq War, Sowell writes:
Neither our troops nor the terrorists are in Iraq just to be killed. Both have objectives. But any objectives we achieve get short shrift in the mainstream media, if they are mentioned at all.
Maybe the mainstream media doesn't mention our objectives in Iraq because the political and military leaders running it have never plainly stated what they actually are. What are the media supposed to do? Make up war aims? If the media tells the truth, that we invaded Iraq in order to protect "our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil," and that, as the Project for the New America Century stated in September of 2000, "the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the regime of Saddam Hussein," Sowell would simply turn around and do what he's doing now. Blame the media for making the war "unwinnable and unbearable."
Sowell has an interesting take on attrition in warfare.
Our troops can kill ten times as many of the enemy as they kill and it just isn't news worth featuring, if it is mentioned at all, in much of the media. No matter how many towns are wrested from the control of the terrorists by American or Iraqi troops, it just isn't front-page news like the casualty reports or even the doom-saying of some politicians.
This news is featured in the media. What Sowell doesn't mention is that it is marginally relevant. Killing ten of the enemy for every one of your losses is a counterproductive measure of effectiveness when the very act of killing terrorists aids the enemy in recruiting more of them. Wresting a town from the terrorists doesn't do a rat's whisker worth of good when we leave and turn it back over to them. But according to Sowell, recognizing these things isn't facing reality, it's "doom-saying."
And here's Sowell's take on the false Iraq/World War II analogy:
Utter ignorance of history enables any war with any casualties to be depicted in the media as an unmitigated disaster.
Even after Nazi Germany surrendered at the end of World War II, die-hard Nazi guerrilla units terrorized and assassinated both German officials and German civilians who cooperated with Allied occupation authorities.
But nobody suggested that we abandon the country. Nobody was foolish enough to think that you could say in advance when you would pull out or that you should encourage your enemies by announcing a timetable.
It takes an utter ignorance of history not to know that Sowell is utterly rewriting it. In World War II, unlike Iraq, the U.S. and its allies actually had a comprehensive post-hostilities plan. Post war Nazi resistance was nowhere near the magnitude of the insurgency and civil strife we have seen in Iraq, and the reason nobody suggested we abandon Germany was the Soviet Union.
Sowell has a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago, and is a senior fellow of the conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University. You'd think someone of his academic credentials would have outgrown name calling by now, but no. He likes some derisive labels so much that he uses them more than once.
Doom-saying politicians. Doom sayers. Doom-saying politicians. Foolish. Irresponsible politicians and the media.
The irresponsible politicians Sowell refers to are the ones who want a timetable for pulling out of Iraq, not the irresponsible politicians who got us there in the first place. And the irresponsible media, well, they're the media who don't support the irresponsible war with cheap propaganda tricks the way the media Sowell works for do.
You know what I say to that, Tom? Same to you, only more of it!
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Mad, Mad, Mad Worldview
It's becoming a consensus that the Bush administration's foreign policy reflects a mad, mad, mad worldview.
Over at HuffPo today, Robert Scheer highlights the dissonance of Mister Bush's war speech from Monday. Even as Bush proclaimed, "By their response over the past two weeks, Iraqis have shown the world that they want a future of freedom and peace," the New York Times reported:
Scheer is a long time Bush critic, but it's not just the "liberal" media figures who are voicing displeasure with the administration's handling of foreign affairs.
On Monday, Michael Scheuer of the Washington Times wrote:
Scheuer somehow manages to blame Bush policy failures on Democrats and Western Europeans, but hey, we're talking about Scheuer here, so go figure.
Conservative luminaries like Bill Kristol, William F. Buckley, and Francis Fukyama have admitted to the failure of the Iraq experiment and attempted to distance themselves from the conduct of the war and, in the case of Fukyama, from the decision to invade.
Iraq isn't the only facet of foreign policy that critics from the left and right alike are condemning. On Tuesday, an event of near-biblical proportions occurred. The Washington Post and the Washington Times agreed that the administration's diplomatic efforts on Iran are doing more harm than good.
Talk about cats and dogs living together.
Resolute, Insane, or Resolutely Insane?
I commented yesterday on the 30-something Generation X "senior" advisers in the National Security Council who don't think the Cold War involved weapons of mass destruction and who say things like, "Arms control, what's that?"
That the NSC has become a juvenile hall suggests that our ship of state is adrift because the South Park kids are at the helm. But I strongly suspect that the kids are driving the ship precisely how the grown ups told them to.
Our seemingly chaotic foreign policy comes into sharp focus when we look at the documents that defined it.
In June of 1997, Bill Kristol, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton and other members of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) called for the United States to return to a "Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity." Key components of this policy were to "increase defense spending significantly" and to maintain "peace and security" in the Middle East.
In January of '98, the PNAC wrote a letter to President Clinton calling for him to remove Saddam Hussein from power by force in order to protect "…our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil…"
In September 2000, PNAC published Rebuilding America's Defenses, the 76 page neoconservative manifesto that revealed their ambition to increase the U.S. military footprint in the Middle East regardless of whether Saddam Hussein remained in power.
The PNACers knew that realizing their goals would take a long time barring some "catastrophic and catalyzing event--like a new Pearl Harbor."
On September 20, 2001, nine days after they got their "Pearl Harbor," the PNAC brain trust sent a letter to Mister Bush, again urging direct military action against Hussein.
Over a four-year period, PNAC's justification for its desired Middle East policy waffled back and forth among Hussein, weapons of mass destruction, peace, oil, Israel, "moderate" Arab states, and terrorism. But its ultimate intentions were clear: to expand the U.S. military and establish a central base of operations in the Gulf region from which America could control the flow of Middle East oil through armed force.
If we consider that those are still the objectives of the Bush foreign policy team, their present day actions make perfect--though frightening--sense. Setbacks in Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Lebanon and elsewhere are just speed bumps on the road to global empire.
If we can lock down control of the Gulf Region's oil, we've got control of everybody: China, Europe, Russia, India--the whole shebang.
The baby boomer neocons and their Gen X protégés still believe they can achieve this dream, and they won't abandon their pursuit of it until somebody stops them. The U.S. judicial branch has limited ability to shape foreign policy. Election year posturing notwithstanding, the GOP controlled Congress won't do anything to curb the administration's foreign ambitions.
If we the people don't vote in a Congress that can stand up to the White House come November, the neoconservative administration will keep going in its chosen direction until it sinks under the burden of its own insatiable appetite for power, dragging the two hundred something year-old noble American experiment down with it.
Over at HuffPo today, Robert Scheer highlights the dissonance of Mister Bush's war speech from Monday. Even as Bush proclaimed, "By their response over the past two weeks, Iraqis have shown the world that they want a future of freedom and peace," the New York Times reported:
In Sadr City, the Shiite section in Baghdad where the terrorist suspects were executed, government forces vanished. The streets are ruled by aggressive teenagers with shiny soccer jerseys and machine guns. They set up roadblocks and poke their heads into cars and detain whomever they want. Mosques blare warnings on loudspeakers for American troops to stay out. Increasingly, the Americans have been doing just that.
Scheer is a long time Bush critic, but it's not just the "liberal" media figures who are voicing displeasure with the administration's handling of foreign affairs.
On Monday, Michael Scheuer of the Washington Times wrote:
These days Osama bin Laden must fear that Muslims will begin to believe the United States is his sponsor, and that Washington is doing all it can to ensure al Qaeda's victory. The foreign-policy performance of the Bush administration since bin Laden's Jan. 19 statement has been a godsend for al Qaeda. So bad for U.S. interests has been Washington's diplomacy that a summary of it falls into what radio host Don Imus calls the "you-couldn't-make-this-up category."
Scheuer somehow manages to blame Bush policy failures on Democrats and Western Europeans, but hey, we're talking about Scheuer here, so go figure.
Conservative luminaries like Bill Kristol, William F. Buckley, and Francis Fukyama have admitted to the failure of the Iraq experiment and attempted to distance themselves from the conduct of the war and, in the case of Fukyama, from the decision to invade.
Iraq isn't the only facet of foreign policy that critics from the left and right alike are condemning. On Tuesday, an event of near-biblical proportions occurred. The Washington Post and the Washington Times agreed that the administration's diplomatic efforts on Iran are doing more harm than good.
Talk about cats and dogs living together.
Resolute, Insane, or Resolutely Insane?
I commented yesterday on the 30-something Generation X "senior" advisers in the National Security Council who don't think the Cold War involved weapons of mass destruction and who say things like, "Arms control, what's that?"
That the NSC has become a juvenile hall suggests that our ship of state is adrift because the South Park kids are at the helm. But I strongly suspect that the kids are driving the ship precisely how the grown ups told them to.
Our seemingly chaotic foreign policy comes into sharp focus when we look at the documents that defined it.
In June of 1997, Bill Kristol, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton and other members of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) called for the United States to return to a "Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity." Key components of this policy were to "increase defense spending significantly" and to maintain "peace and security" in the Middle East.
In January of '98, the PNAC wrote a letter to President Clinton calling for him to remove Saddam Hussein from power by force in order to protect "…our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil…"
In September 2000, PNAC published Rebuilding America's Defenses, the 76 page neoconservative manifesto that revealed their ambition to increase the U.S. military footprint in the Middle East regardless of whether Saddam Hussein remained in power.
[T]he United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the regime of Saddam Hussein.
-- p. 14
The PNACers knew that realizing their goals would take a long time barring some "catastrophic and catalyzing event--like a new Pearl Harbor."
On September 20, 2001, nine days after they got their "Pearl Harbor," the PNAC brain trust sent a letter to Mister Bush, again urging direct military action against Hussein.
[E]ven if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq.
Over a four-year period, PNAC's justification for its desired Middle East policy waffled back and forth among Hussein, weapons of mass destruction, peace, oil, Israel, "moderate" Arab states, and terrorism. But its ultimate intentions were clear: to expand the U.S. military and establish a central base of operations in the Gulf region from which America could control the flow of Middle East oil through armed force.
If we consider that those are still the objectives of the Bush foreign policy team, their present day actions make perfect--though frightening--sense. Setbacks in Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Lebanon and elsewhere are just speed bumps on the road to global empire.
If we can lock down control of the Gulf Region's oil, we've got control of everybody: China, Europe, Russia, India--the whole shebang.
The baby boomer neocons and their Gen X protégés still believe they can achieve this dream, and they won't abandon their pursuit of it until somebody stops them. The U.S. judicial branch has limited ability to shape foreign policy. Election year posturing notwithstanding, the GOP controlled Congress won't do anything to curb the administration's foreign ambitions.
If we the people don't vote in a Congress that can stand up to the White House come November, the neoconservative administration will keep going in its chosen direction until it sinks under the burden of its own insatiable appetite for power, dragging the two hundred something year-old noble American experiment down with it.
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Conservatives Cutting their Losses
I've been saying for some time that the Bush administration couldn't do a better job of playing into Osama bin Laden's strategy if they were doing it on purpose. Apparently Michael Scheuer of Gordon Liddy's beloved Washington Times agrees with me.
What's this? Is "America's Newspaper" turning away from its long-standing support of the extreme right's agenda?
Nah.
It's jumping on the bandwagon the conservative movement is using to distance itself from a failed presidency.
Later in the opinion piece, Scheuer clumps Bush together with "the Democratic Party and its Hollywood masters, and their Western European associates," as if the Democratic Party and Western Europe played the dominant role in forming Bush administration policies.
Having paired Bush with his political opponents, Scheuer goes on to blame the "Democratic Party's Harvard-bred, libertine legal acolytes" for some nonsense having to do with cartoons of Mohammed and a statue of the Virgin Mary submerged in a vat of urine and makes something up about how the Founding Fathers never intended for the First Amendment to allow for blasphemy. I'm not sure how that fits in with the rest of his arguments. Maybe the Times editorial policy requires all op-eds to contain at least one thing that panders to the radical Christian right.
By the time Scheuer and his breed are through, George W. Bush will have helped Franklin Roosevelt create the New Deal and loaned Stalin money to build the Iron Curtain.
Don't get fooled into thinking the ultra-conservatives have "seen the light" when they criticize the Bush administration. They're just trying to cut their losses.
And given Scheuer's snide comment about certain members of Congress aspiring to positions in the Knesset, it seems that at least some conservatives want to kick the Zionists out of their country club.
These days Osama bin Laden must fear that Muslims will begin to believe the United States is his sponsor, and that Washington is doing all it can to ensure al Qaeda's victory. The foreign-policy performance of the Bush administration since bin Laden's Jan. 19 statement has been a godsend for al Qaeda…
…[E]ven before all votes were counted in Palestine, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, the president, the neoconservative pundits, and sundry members of both parties in Congress -- some of whom clearly aspire to be Knesset members -- rejected dealing with the democratically elected Hamas government unless it abandons its pledge to defend Palestine against Israel, presumably a chief reason Palestinians voted for it…
…America, once again, has validated the al Qaeda chief's decade-long and ongoing lesson for Muslims: America supports democracy only if its agents are elected; America will destroy any regime that threatens Israel; America will not allow a country to be ruled by Islamic law unless it has vast oil resources; and, for America, Muslim blood is cheap, it has no qualms about cutting funds used to feed Muslim children.
What's this? Is "America's Newspaper" turning away from its long-standing support of the extreme right's agenda?
Nah.
It's jumping on the bandwagon the conservative movement is using to distance itself from a failed presidency.
Later in the opinion piece, Scheuer clumps Bush together with "the Democratic Party and its Hollywood masters, and their Western European associates," as if the Democratic Party and Western Europe played the dominant role in forming Bush administration policies.
Having paired Bush with his political opponents, Scheuer goes on to blame the "Democratic Party's Harvard-bred, libertine legal acolytes" for some nonsense having to do with cartoons of Mohammed and a statue of the Virgin Mary submerged in a vat of urine and makes something up about how the Founding Fathers never intended for the First Amendment to allow for blasphemy. I'm not sure how that fits in with the rest of his arguments. Maybe the Times editorial policy requires all op-eds to contain at least one thing that panders to the radical Christian right.
By the time Scheuer and his breed are through, George W. Bush will have helped Franklin Roosevelt create the New Deal and loaned Stalin money to build the Iron Curtain.
Don't get fooled into thinking the ultra-conservatives have "seen the light" when they criticize the Bush administration. They're just trying to cut their losses.
And given Scheuer's snide comment about certain members of Congress aspiring to positions in the Knesset, it seems that at least some conservatives want to kick the Zionists out of their country club.
Destiny's Children: Gen X and the NSC
"9/11 changed everything."
-- Dick Cheney
"Not."
-- Anonymous
I'm fond (maybe too fond) of saying that there's nothing about our so-called war on terror that Thucydides didn't write about in his History of the Peloponnesian War in 400 B.C.
That's why I found this article by WaPo's Dafna Linzer somewhat disturbing.
The NSC's Sesame Street Generation
They headed off to college as the Berlin Wall was coming down, were inspired by globalization and came of age with international terrorism. Freed from a constant nuclear standoff as a dominant fact of international life, members of Generation X no longer fear war or upheaval in the global status quo…
…[N]early a dozen thirtysomething aides, breastfed on "Sesame Street" and babysat by "The Brady Bunch," are now shaping those strategies in unexpected ways as senior advisers at the National Security Council, the White House's powerful inner chamber of foreign policy aides with routine access to Bush. This small group of conservative Gen Xers -- members of an age cohort once all but written off as stand-for-nothing underachievers--is the first set of American policymakers truly at home in a unipolar world…
…Is it any wonder that some of the generation's best conservative minds serve a president who has staked his legacy on transforming the Middle East by force of arms?
Let's take a look at the inherent fallacies in the phrase "best conservative minds."
One of these bright young lights is 32-year-old Michael Allen, National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley's special adviser for legislative affairs. Hadley apparently likes to tell sea stories about his years as an arms control negotiator during the cold war. What's Allen's reaction to these history lessons? "We're like 'Arms control, what's that?'" he says.
Um, actually, Michael, "that" would be like, um, the stuff we're trying to do with Iran right now. You remember Iran, don't you? The country with the new meanie president who says crazy stuff? You know--kind of like Iraq only with an "n" at the end of it instead of a "q."
Another of these 100 watt bulbs is 36-year-old Meghan O'Sullivan, the deputy national security adviser for Iraq and Afghanistan. "You have to think about what are the defining features of the age we live in," she says. "For me, that's American primacy, globalization, terrorism and WMD, which is why we do what we do. This wasn't applicable during the Cold War."
Is that so, Meghan? Let's see. What was America trying to gain over the Soviets during the Cold War? It was "primacy," wasn't it? And when do you think globalization started? I bet your grandpa owned a Toyota or two. (No, come to think of it, your grandpa was probably a Mercedes man.) Terrorism is a whole lot older than your grandpa, but I bet he remembers who helped Osama bin Laden form his al Qaeda terrorist group to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. And all those nuclear thingies we and the Soviets had pointed at each other, were they weapons of totally massive destruction or what?
#
To paraphrase Mark Twain, history doesn't repeat itself, but it sure rhymes a lot. Understanding history won't give you all the answers, but ignorance of history is a sure fire recipe for repeating its disasters.
The "best young conservative minds" shaping policy today have no memory of Vietnam. That was something their poor friends' dads fought. The first Gulf War was a reality TV show.
What little history they know they learned from their mentors, the Dick Cheney generation of neoconservatives who had better things to do than fight in Vietnam, who wrote the script of the first Gulf War, and who literally invented a history to justify the second one.
X Generation neoconservatives have no grasp of reality. They think it's something they can cook up in a think tank. As one White House aide told NYT's Ron Suskind in 2004, "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
In other words, the Brady Bunch of young Republicans forming U.S. security policy think they're gods.
And as Second City TV's Count Floyd would say, Scary, huh kids?
Oh. I forgot. The little rascals in the National Security Council don't remember Second City TV. That was, like, pre-iPod, right?
Monday, March 13, 2006
The Gang that Couldn't Talk Straight
Yesterday, six bombs exploded in the Sadr City section of Baghdad. An Interior Ministry official and other witnesses reported that the explosions killed 46 people and wounded more than 200 others. Shiite militiamen took to the streets.
The bombings took place after leaders of Iraq's major political blocs met to discuss forming a government for the first time.
Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, said at a news conference, "I think the situation is such that there's a degree of vacuum in authority."
Khalilzad makes big bucks to come up with gems like that.
Meanwhile, back in the United States, politicians and pundits invaded the Sunday talk shows to argue over whether Iraq has broken out into civil war.
#
Today, NYT's Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor describe the infighting among generals and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over the initial "dash to Baghdad." From the sound of things, the operation had all the earmarks of a Mack Sennett production.
Tommy Franks, the general in charge of Central Command, got mad as a hatter when Lieutenant General William Wallace, commander of the Army's V Corps, told reporters he needed to delay his advance on Baghdad to suppress the threat of an attack from the rear by Fedayeen paramilitary forces. Franks called Lieutenant General David D. McKiernan, who commanded allied land forces, and warned that he might relieve Wallace from command of V Corps. McKiernan flew to meet Franks at his headquarters in Qatar and talked him out of firing Wallace.
Still, Franks couldn't see what Wallace was so worried about. The force to his rear was just the Fedayeen, after all. As far as Franks and Donald Rumsfeld were concerned, the Fedayeen were just "speed bumps on the way to Baghdad."
Wallace told reporters, " "The enemy we're fighting is a bit different than the one we war-gamed against, because of these paramilitary forces. We knew they were here, but we did not know how they would fight." Wallace stated that because of the paramilitary threat the war might take longer than military planners had forecast.
Wallace must have taken his crystal ball with him into combat.
Wallace's remarks to reporters put Franks through the roof again, because he had promised Rumsfeld that his forces might take Baghdad in a matter of a few weeks.
Rumsfeld and his advisers--who included former House Speaker Newt Gingrich--got bent out of shape, and sent out a memo criticizing Wallace and other Army generals for being "risk averse."
Franks flew to McKiernan's headquarters in Kuwait and chewed everybody out.
As U.S. forces closed on Baghdad, Rumsfeld decided not to deploy the First Cavalry Division.
McKiernan wasn't happy about the decision, but didn't protest.
Three years later, senior officers assert that canceling the division was a mistake. Retired Army General Jack Keane says, "The Baathist insurgency surprised us and we had not developed a comprehensive option for dealing with this possibility, one that would have included more military police, civil affairs units, interrogators, interpreters and Special Operations forces… If we had planned for an insurgency, we probably would have deployed the First Cavalry Division and it would have assisted greatly with the initial occupation."
#
Today, Mister Bush and other administration luminaries will launch yet another campaign to garner support for their woebegone war in Iraq. It's difficult to predict what they'll say, but you can bet dollars to donuts on the two things they definitely won't say: why we invaded Iraq and what we hoped to gain by it.
On January 26, 1998, Bill Kristol, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, Francis Fukyama, Robert Kagan and other members of the neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC) delivered a letter to President Clinton urging him to use military force to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Their stated purpose for the proposed action was to protect "… our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil…"
Two days later, Kristol and Kagan published an article in the New York Times titled "Bombing Iraq Isn't Enough." The piece challenged Clinton to oust Hussein "…using air power and ground forces, and finishing the task left undone in 1991."
In September of 2000, the PNAC published Rebuilding America's Defenses, a manifesto that became the template for the Bush administration's foreign policy. As the document reveals, the neoconservatives' ambitions in the middle east really had little to do with Saddam Hussein at all.
But the neocons realized the road to fulfilling their ambitions was "…likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event--like a new Pearl Harbor."
On September 11, 2001, they got their "Pearl Harbor," and the rest, as they say, is history.
#
The results of a Zogby Poll released on February 28, 2006 indicate that 85 percent of American troops in Iraq think the U.S. mission there is mainly “to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9-11 attacks.” That perception was most likely formed by a non-stop bombardment from the overseas armed forces broadcast networks.
We can't know the exact nature of the pro-war programming our troops in Iraq are listening to, but it probably sounds a lot like what we'll hear from the Bush crew over the next few days.
The bombings took place after leaders of Iraq's major political blocs met to discuss forming a government for the first time.
Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, said at a news conference, "I think the situation is such that there's a degree of vacuum in authority."
Khalilzad makes big bucks to come up with gems like that.
Meanwhile, back in the United States, politicians and pundits invaded the Sunday talk shows to argue over whether Iraq has broken out into civil war.
#
Today, NYT's Michael R. Gordon and Bernard E. Trainor describe the infighting among generals and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld over the initial "dash to Baghdad." From the sound of things, the operation had all the earmarks of a Mack Sennett production.
Tommy Franks, the general in charge of Central Command, got mad as a hatter when Lieutenant General William Wallace, commander of the Army's V Corps, told reporters he needed to delay his advance on Baghdad to suppress the threat of an attack from the rear by Fedayeen paramilitary forces. Franks called Lieutenant General David D. McKiernan, who commanded allied land forces, and warned that he might relieve Wallace from command of V Corps. McKiernan flew to meet Franks at his headquarters in Qatar and talked him out of firing Wallace.
Still, Franks couldn't see what Wallace was so worried about. The force to his rear was just the Fedayeen, after all. As far as Franks and Donald Rumsfeld were concerned, the Fedayeen were just "speed bumps on the way to Baghdad."
Wallace told reporters, " "The enemy we're fighting is a bit different than the one we war-gamed against, because of these paramilitary forces. We knew they were here, but we did not know how they would fight." Wallace stated that because of the paramilitary threat the war might take longer than military planners had forecast.
Wallace must have taken his crystal ball with him into combat.
Wallace's remarks to reporters put Franks through the roof again, because he had promised Rumsfeld that his forces might take Baghdad in a matter of a few weeks.
Rumsfeld and his advisers--who included former House Speaker Newt Gingrich--got bent out of shape, and sent out a memo criticizing Wallace and other Army generals for being "risk averse."
Franks flew to McKiernan's headquarters in Kuwait and chewed everybody out.
As U.S. forces closed on Baghdad, Rumsfeld decided not to deploy the First Cavalry Division.
McKiernan wasn't happy about the decision, but didn't protest.
Three years later, senior officers assert that canceling the division was a mistake. Retired Army General Jack Keane says, "The Baathist insurgency surprised us and we had not developed a comprehensive option for dealing with this possibility, one that would have included more military police, civil affairs units, interrogators, interpreters and Special Operations forces… If we had planned for an insurgency, we probably would have deployed the First Cavalry Division and it would have assisted greatly with the initial occupation."
#
Today, Mister Bush and other administration luminaries will launch yet another campaign to garner support for their woebegone war in Iraq. It's difficult to predict what they'll say, but you can bet dollars to donuts on the two things they definitely won't say: why we invaded Iraq and what we hoped to gain by it.
On January 26, 1998, Bill Kristol, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, Francis Fukyama, Robert Kagan and other members of the neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC) delivered a letter to President Clinton urging him to use military force to remove Saddam Hussein from power. Their stated purpose for the proposed action was to protect "… our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world’s supply of oil…"
Two days later, Kristol and Kagan published an article in the New York Times titled "Bombing Iraq Isn't Enough." The piece challenged Clinton to oust Hussein "…using air power and ground forces, and finishing the task left undone in 1991."
In September of 2000, the PNAC published Rebuilding America's Defenses, a manifesto that became the template for the Bush administration's foreign policy. As the document reveals, the neoconservatives' ambitions in the middle east really had little to do with Saddam Hussein at all.
[T]he United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the regime of Saddam Hussein.
But the neocons realized the road to fulfilling their ambitions was "…likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event--like a new Pearl Harbor."
On September 11, 2001, they got their "Pearl Harbor," and the rest, as they say, is history.
#
The results of a Zogby Poll released on February 28, 2006 indicate that 85 percent of American troops in Iraq think the U.S. mission there is mainly “to retaliate for Saddam’s role in the 9-11 attacks.” That perception was most likely formed by a non-stop bombardment from the overseas armed forces broadcast networks.
We can't know the exact nature of the pro-war programming our troops in Iraq are listening to, but it probably sounds a lot like what we'll hear from the Bush crew over the next few days.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Sunday Service
Up now at ePluribus, "Tom Monaghan's Pizza Pilgrimage."
Can Catholic conservative Monaghan remake America in his image and create a new Holy Roman Empire?
Can Catholic conservative Monaghan remake America in his image and create a new Holy Roman Empire?
Sunday Madness
The March Hares in the White House are about to launch another sales campaign. From WaPo's Michael A. Fletcher:
"Better depth, understanding and context" doubtless means saying "nine eleven" twice as much as before. Fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here. No cut and run. Scapegoating and Swift Boating. Total victory.
And the whole cadre of polly cracker cheerleaders echoing the message.
Hit 'em on the left! Hit 'em on the right! Stand up! Stand down! Fight! Fight! Fight!
President Bush plans to begin a series of speeches next week again explaining the administration's strategy for winning the war in Iraq, as the White House returns to a familiar tactic to allay growing public pessimism about the war that has helped keep the president's approval rating near its historic low…
… The president hopes to give "better depth, understanding and context for how the strategy in Iraq is unfolding," a senior White House official said of the planned speeches. Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other Cabinet members will be making speeches on Iraq in advance of the anniversary of the U.S. invasion.
"Better depth, understanding and context" doubtless means saying "nine eleven" twice as much as before. Fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here. No cut and run. Scapegoating and Swift Boating. Total victory.
And the whole cadre of polly cracker cheerleaders echoing the message.
Hit 'em on the left! Hit 'em on the right! Stand up! Stand down! Fight! Fight! Fight!
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Bush Youth Moves Up the Ladder
More March Madness from our favorite administration ever:
Douglas L. Hoelcher has been named as Executive Director for Homeland Security Advisory Committees. According to a Homeland Security press release, Holcher will be Secretary Michael Chertoff's "…primary representative to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, more than 20 departmental boards and commissions, and two presidential committees – the National Infrastructure Advisory Council and the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee."
Assistant Secretary for Policy Stewart Baker says, “Outside perspectives benefit the policy and decision making process, and the administration has named a qualified and talented professional to cultivate these partnerships. Doug will provide strategic counsel to the Secretary and increase overall coordination between department leadership and our homeland security partners, and I look forward to his contributions and counsel.”
Just what are Doug Hoelcher's qualifications to fill such a vital post?
He graduated in 1999 from the University of Iowa with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science. He became deputy White House Liaison in 2001, a job that consisted of assisting in making Mister Bush's travel arrangements. He later moved up to the White House Liaison job itself, at which point he was in charge of making Mister Bush's travel arrangements.
And now he's going to provide "strategic counsel" to the Secretary of Homeland Defense.
I'm sure he'll do a heckuva job.
Douglas L. Hoelcher has been named as Executive Director for Homeland Security Advisory Committees. According to a Homeland Security press release, Holcher will be Secretary Michael Chertoff's "…primary representative to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, more than 20 departmental boards and commissions, and two presidential committees – the National Infrastructure Advisory Council and the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee."
Assistant Secretary for Policy Stewart Baker says, “Outside perspectives benefit the policy and decision making process, and the administration has named a qualified and talented professional to cultivate these partnerships. Doug will provide strategic counsel to the Secretary and increase overall coordination between department leadership and our homeland security partners, and I look forward to his contributions and counsel.”
Just what are Doug Hoelcher's qualifications to fill such a vital post?
He graduated in 1999 from the University of Iowa with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science. He became deputy White House Liaison in 2001, a job that consisted of assisting in making Mister Bush's travel arrangements. He later moved up to the White House Liaison job itself, at which point he was in charge of making Mister Bush's travel arrangements.
And now he's going to provide "strategic counsel" to the Secretary of Homeland Defense.
I'm sure he'll do a heckuva job.
Another Mad Bush World Moment
Pierce Bush has come out swinging for his presidential uncle on the Dubai Ports deal. On MSNBC, Pierce compared our treatment of the UAE to our treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
Pierce didn't explain how he could equate tossing people into internment camps to denying them control of U.S. ports, but it's obvious that he's inherited his uncle's sense of proportion.
Maybe they're grooming Pierce to take Karl Rove's place.
Pierce didn't explain how he could equate tossing people into internment camps to denying them control of U.S. ports, but it's obvious that he's inherited his uncle's sense of proportion.
Maybe they're grooming Pierce to take Karl Rove's place.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)