Lies Have Consequences pt.2

2002. jexster - 12/10/2004 12:59:12 AM

The Hacks of George DuhBya and Their Night of Long Knives


BAD INTELLIGENCE....Dana Priest reports today that a CIA case officer is charging that he was harrassed and then fired because he refused to falsify reporting on Iraqi WMD:

The operative, who remains under cover, asserts in a lawsuit made public yesterday that a co-worker warned him in 2001 "that CIA management planned to 'get him' for his role in reporting intelligence contrary to official CIA dogma."

2003. jexster - 12/10/2004 12:22:30 PM

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A cleric with links to Iran leads the candidate list of a powerful coalition of Iraq (news - web sites)'s mainstream Shiite Muslim groups for next month's election, an aide said Friday. The list also includes former Pentagon (news - web sites) favorite Ahmad Chalabi and some followers of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.



Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim — the head of Iraq's largest Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution — would stand to take a central position in the assembly that will create Iraq's next government and constitution, if the coalition takes most of the parliament seats in the Jan. 30 vote.

2004. wonkers2 - 12/10/2004 5:38:22 PM

Thanks to Sistani, Iraq may end up part of Iran. Worst case scenario. That was one of the reasons Bush I left Saddam Hussein in power, as I recall. We wanted a counter-weight to Iraq in the region.

2005. jexster - 12/10/2004 5:41:40 PM

First they have to make it through the winter...


If THIS don't beat all..

US Officials Sound Alarm over IRAQI Fuel Crisis

2006. concerned - 12/10/2004 5:50:42 PM

Re. 2003 -

Hmmm. He doesn't look like he'd chase non-Muslim kids down the street with a scimitar in his hand.

2007. jexster - 12/10/2004 10:27:53 PM

Mind your manners...Bush is depending on that fella..


The Face of Bush's Democratic Revolution!

Operation IraQi Freedom dontcha know

2008. wonkers2 - 12/10/2004 10:41:49 PM

Nothing that another 100,000 U. S. troops couldn't fix.

2009. clydefo - 12/10/2004 11:29:20 PM

Thanks to Sistani, Iraq may end up part of Iran...
2004. wonkers2

Isn’t Iraq like Yugoslavia; a glommed-together country, trying to revert to the old divisions? Is there any stopping it?

2010. jexster - 12/12/2004 11:45:34 AM

As far as consequences are concerned

A Year After Saddam's Capture, Iraq's Rebels Fight On


2 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Iraq Fighting

2011. jexster - 12/12/2004 11:54:06 AM

Daily KOS - Friedman STILL Doesn't Get It!

In tomorrow's New York Times, Tom Friedman restarts his sniping at NATO, the EU and the Arab League for not helping enough in Iraq.
Friedman Says

Is it so much to ask that each NATO country contribute 100 soldiers for a long weekend to advance the prospect of Iraqi elections? Heck, I'll throw in the air fare myself. I have so many frequent-flier miles, I could even fly over a few hundred soldiers from European Union countries that aren't in NATO.
Wait a minute, did I say European Union? Do you know how many trees have been cut down to publish studies about the European Defense Initiative - the E.U.'s quest to build a military force independent of NATO and America? Whole forests have been devoted to studies of E.D.I. So I was thinking: What does E.D.I. stand for today, if not for sending 500 E.U. soldiers to Iraq for a long weekend so that Iraqis might begin to create the first real bottom-up democracy in the Arab League?

Wait a minute, did I say Arab League? The Arab League has been sniping at the U.S. from the minute it toppled Saddam's tyranny, constantly barking that the Iraqi government there was not representative. Well now we're trying to help elect one that would be the most representative in the Arab world, and what is the Arab League doing? Virtually nothing. Why couldn't it offer to send some Arab and Muslim soldiers to protect polling places in the Sunni towns of Iraq?

2012. jexster - 12/12/2004 11:54:19 AM

Friedman still doesn't get it. No one, but no one, trusts the Bush Administration on anything. BushCo is malevolent, untrustworthy and incompetent. Consider for a moment the risks involved in cooperating with BushCo? They remain as high as ever. Especially in the surroundings of a controversial election that is sure to fuel considerable violence. And what are the potential rewards? A successful election in Iraq? And this guarantees what exactly?

Kerry said it during the Election, and people dismissed it, but it was true. Kerry could have done things Bush can't do. We have no friends. We have no respect. We have no influence. Again, has Friedman slept through the past two years?

2013. jexster - 12/12/2004 11:01:47 PM

BAGHDAD, Iraq - American warplanes pounded Fallujah with missiles Sunday as insurgents fought running battles with coalition forces in the volatile western Iraqi city. The U.S. military said two troops died in separate incidents.


Private Eightball: Personally, I think, uh... they don't really want to be involved in this war. You know, I mean... they sort of took away our freedom and gave it to the, to the gookers, you know. But they don't want it. They'd rather be alive than free, I guess. Poor dumb bastards.

2014. robertjayb - 12/12/2004 11:09:53 PM

How should we lie? Let us count the ways...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 - (NYTimes) -- The Pentagon is engaged in bitter, high-level debate over how far it can and should go in managing or manipulating information to influence opinion abroad, senior Defense Department civilians and military officers say.

Such missions, if approved, could take the deceptive techniques endorsed for use on the battlefield to confuse an adversary and adopt them for covert propaganda campaigns aimed at neutral and even allied nations.

Critics of the proposals say such deceptive missions could shatter the Pentagon's credibility, leaving the American public and a world audience skeptical of anything the Defense Department and military say - a repeat of the credibility gap that roiled America during the Vietnam War.

2015. robertjayb - 12/12/2004 11:32:11 PM

Osama search tougher than expected...(NYTimes)

Hunting for Osama bin Laden, the C.I.A. established a series of small, covert bases in the rugged mountain frontier of northwest Pakistan in late 2003. Mr. bin Laden, the terrorist leader, was being sheltered there by local tribesmen and foreign militants, the agency had concluded, and controlled a group of handpicked operatives dedicated to attacking the United States.

But since the bases opened, the C.I.A. officers stationed there have been strictly supervised by Pakistani officials, who have limited their ability to operate and have escorted them wherever they travel in the Pakistani border region. As a result, it has been virtually impossible for the Americans to gather intelligence effectively, say several officials familiar with the operation who would only speak anonymously.

2016. jexster - 12/13/2004 11:22:10 AM

Osama Bin Forgotten and Bush-sheriff done lost the scent..

2017. jexster - 12/13/2004 11:25:06 AM

After all, Il Duce Bush had The Evil Saddam and his Mushroom Cloud's to worry about..



BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A suicide car bomber killed at least seven Iraqis outside Baghdad's government compound on Monday, a year to the day since U.S. forces captured Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).



Nineteen were wounded, four seriously, civilian hospital staff said. The U.S. military said no U.S. soldiers were hurt in a bombing claimed by al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

2018. wonkers2 - 12/13/2004 8:12:44 PM

As might be expected, Pakistan denies there are any CIA or other U.S. bases in Pakistan.

2019. jexster - 12/14/2004 11:08:44 AM

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide car bomber killed seven people when he struck a checkpoint at Baghdad's Green Zone early Tuesday, the second attack in two days at the district that houses Iraq (news - web sites)'s interim government and the U.S. Embassy, officials said.






Meanwhile, Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said the trial of some of Iraq's former Baath Party leaders will begin next week. He didn't say if Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) would be among them.


Many members of the former regime have been in jail for more than a year, and few have been able to meet with counsel.

2020. jexster - 12/14/2004 3:45:33 PM

Coalition of the Wilting

WARSAW (AFP) - Poland plans to cut the size of its force in the US-led coalition in Iraq (news - web sites) from 2,400 troops to 1,700 in mid-February, Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski announced.

Poland was a key US ally in the war which toppled Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and is now the third largest contributor of soldiers to Iraq after the United States and Britain, commanding a multinational division of some 6,500 troops, including 2,400 Poles, within the US-led coalition.


Seventeen Poles -- 13 military and four civilians -- have been killed there since the Polish deployment in August 2003. A Polish woman also spent three weeks as a hostage in Iraq before being freed in mid-November.


Polish officials have indicated they want to end the unpopular troop deployment, starting at the end of January after the Iraqi election.


"The presence of Polish soldiers during the election campaign and during the elections in Iraq will be maintained at the current level of 2,400," Szmajdzinski said.


"The withdrawal and the arrival of the new replacement troops will take place only during the first half of February," he added.

2021. jexster - 12/14/2004 4:03:48 PM

The Bush Social Security Scam - Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Administration officials have been downplaying the significance of the $2 trillion in transition costs required by some individual accounts plans, by comparing that cost to the unfunded liability in Social Security over an infinite time horizon, which totals more than $10 trillion. For example, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan responded recently to a question about how the White House would pay for the $2 trillion transition cost by arguing “It’s a savings, because the cost is $10 trillion of doing nothing, and this will actually be a savings from that cost of doing nothing.”[2]

This argument is misleading...

2022. jexster - 12/14/2004 5:44:26 PM

MUSHROOM CLOUDS OF METHANE
Fool me a thousand times?

REAL PROBLEMS vs. FAKE PROBLEMS....Here's a question for all you policy wonks out there: why is George Bush spending all his political energy on trying to privatize Social Security? Is Social Security really the most important problem we have right now? Is it even the most important entitlement program we have right now?

2023. wonkers2 - 12/14/2004 6:09:25 PM

Great minds! Message # 5273 in thread 388

2024. wonkers2 - 12/14/2004 6:12:13 PM

Message # 5273 in thread 38

2025. wonkers2 - 12/14/2004 6:26:49 PM

Message # 5723 in thread 38 Sorry! If there's a way to screw up a link I'll find it!

2026. lemwalker - 12/14/2004 8:53:24 PM

Have worried that Iraq would be Syracuse. Now that it has been announced that the Air Force will assume much of the resupply duty, am worried it may be Stalingrad.

2027. arkymalarky - 12/14/2004 9:07:50 PM

Hey Lem!

What do you mean?

2028. jexster - 12/14/2004 10:38:33 PM

Syracuse
War: Peloponnesian Wars

Date: 415 b.c. - 413 b.c.
Location: Syracuse, Sicily, Italy [Sicily]
Outcome: Syracusan victory over the Athenians Decisive battle

Principal
Commanders: Athenian: Demosthenes
Athenian: Nicias
Sparta: Gylippus

Overview: Led by Nicias, a large Athenian army of about 25,000 troops landed near Syracuse in Sicily in the fall of 415 bc. Their goal was to expand the Athenian empire and to deprive Sparta of a supply source by conquering Syracuse. The Athenians built a double wall around Syracuse and laid siege. The Syracusans were close to surrendering when a small advance force of 2,000 men led by the Spartan Gylippus arrived. Gylippus was able to know the Athenians off balance with a series of raids and the building of counter walls. In the spring of 413 bc. Demosthenes arrived with Athenian reinforcements. Demosthenes led a large scale assault that was repulsed. After the Syracusans destroyed many of the Athenian ships, the Athenians attempted to escape inland. Eventually the Athenians were forced to surrender and Demosthenes and Nicias were both executed. The defeat at Syracuse marked the beginning of the end of the dominance of Athens.

2029. jexster - 12/14/2004 10:40:39 PM

Think Luftwaffe, 6th Army, Field Marshall von Paulus


The Battle of Stalingrad
1942

2030. lemwalker - 12/14/2004 10:49:32 PM

Even knowing history you are often doomed to repeat it. Especially if your part is listed as 'with a cast of thousands',(i.e.,billions).

2031. jexster - 12/14/2004 11:52:45 PM

Arky the final piece of the puzzle..

WASHINGTON - The Air Force is making more cargo flights over Iraq (news - web sites) to keep Army transport trucks off the country's dangerous roads, accepting the increased risk to planes and added cost to reduce the threat on the ground, officials said Tuesday.

2032. jexster - 12/15/2004 10:24:34 AM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Marines fired a pistol in a mock execution involving four young Iraqi looters and shocked another Iraqi detainee with an electric transformer until he "danced," a document made public on Tuesday showed.



The June 16 U.S. Navy (news - web sites) document detailed 10 "substantiated" incidents of detainee abuse in Iraq (news - web sites) involving 24 Marines dating back to May 2003. The Marine Corps said 13 Marines were convicted in courts-martial stemming from the incidents, getting prison sentences of up to 15 months.




We remind them of Saddam

No wonder they love us so!

2033. robertjayb - 12/15/2004 11:37:30 AM

(Houston Chronicle)

2034. jexster - 12/15/2004 2:56:27 PM

Heart Breaker...Love Taker

2035. robertjayb - 12/15/2004 3:07:10 PM

Yes, things are going well...Not a shot was fired...

SAMARRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Gunmen overran a police station in the northern Iraqi city of Samarra on Wednesday and seized weapons and ammunition, witnesses said.

Ten weeks after U.S. forces mounted a major operation to wrest the city from Sunni insurgents, about 10 gunmen surrounded the central Imam Hadi station, held up the officers and took their rifles, said a policeman who was among those robbed.

The gunmen left the scene without firing a shot, he said.

2036. jexster - 12/16/2004 11:09:04 AM

900 American Kids Have Lost Parents Because Bush Lied

2037. concerned - 12/17/2004 12:45:46 AM

Say, jexster - wasn't one of the 'consequences' you envisioned when you named this thread Bush losing the 2004 election...?

Ooops.

2038. Ronski - 12/17/2004 1:28:28 AM

jexster,

What is your point, exactly?

Would it have been better to leave Saddam, who murdered countless of his own citizens, in power?

The hit-and-run stuff is fine, but I, having returned to The Mote, with the electioneering behind us, ask what are you trying to say?

I know you are a thoughtful person who rejects superficial analysis, since you explained, for example, that the Cato Institute's material is too skimpy for you to bother with, so I am awaiting some analysis of the Bush Middle East policy that explains how the American left-of- center would have preferred to deal with Saddam and the various pathologies of the Middle East and the Muslim world as they involve and threaten the U.S.

Reminder: I didn't vote for Bush.

Please lay out your plans for dealing with Islamist terrorism, or tell me, perhaps, that you agree with Michael Moore that there is no additional terror threat.

2039. jayackroyd - 12/17/2004 2:03:33 AM

Ronski--

Saddam was clearly a side issue on the "war on terror," or as you better put it, Islamist terrorism. You can say that he was worth pursuing anyway, but there are a lot of people being oppressed, and it's hard to say why it was a good idea to pick his government out. You can argue that the sanctions were doing more harm than good, and something had to be done beyond that--but the something did not necessarily entail the wholesale killing of Iraqi civilians.

I'm coming to believe that the US has done a fine job of stemming Islamist terrorism--that the Afghan intervention deprived the most active group of state assets, and that the various intelligence and law enforcement operations have crippled the organizations.

Nothing has happened in the US. Little has happened outside of Iraq; stuff in Iraq, to my mind, doesn't count anymore than the sharpshooters at Lexington count. (Not to say I want those guys to win, but they are not advancing an Islamist agenda.)

My plan for dealing with the Islamist agenda would entail removing their "justifications"--forcing Israel to deal with the Palestinians, pressuring the Saudis to stop funding fundie crazies and to work toward a representative government--and to pursue the actual bad guys with vigor. There are a hundred and thirty thousand troops not pursuing the actual bad guys. That's a bad thing.

2040. alistairconnor - 12/17/2004 5:49:45 AM

Ronski : Please lay out your plans for dealing with Islamist terrorism, or tell me, perhaps, that you agree with Michael Moore that there is no additional terror threat.

I find it difficult to believe that any thinking person can, at the end of 2004, believe that toppling Saddam was a positive step in reducing Islamist terrorism, as you seem to imply. Can you expand on your thinking here?

Would it have been better to leave Saddam, who murdered countless of his own citizens, in power?

So, for you, the war in Iraq is justified by the fact that it put Saddam out of business. I can see three possible paths of reasoning :

* you think it's good in absolute terms, regardless of the consequences;
* you believe that Iraqis are objectively better off now than they were at the end of Saddam's reign;
* although you recognise that Iraqis are considerably worse off now than at the end of Saddam's reign, you believe that there is a reasonable chance that they will be better off in the reasonably near future, than they would have been if Saddam had not been toppled by a military intervention?

[footnote : the US intervention has caused "countless" Iraqi deaths; the US is demonstrably determined to prevent their being counted.]

2041. PelleNilsson - 12/17/2004 7:17:59 AM

It would be interesting to see a serious scholarly study of why the aftermath of the invasion went so disastrously wrong. My own top four:

• Allowing the looting.
  
  
• Dismissing the army.
  
  
• Not using Iraqi labour and technicians for the reconstruction.
  
  
• General disrespect of the civilian population.

2042. thoughtful - 12/17/2004 8:34:50 AM

Ronski, Watch it! There's only one thoughtful™ in these thar threads and jex ain't her.

2043. wonkers2 - 12/17/2004 9:28:55 AM

Add failing to have enough troops of the right kind to secure the country and its borders.

2044. Wombat - 12/17/2004 11:22:50 AM

Ronski:

Saddam had been a sponsor of terrorism for decades. The vast bulk of Iraqi state-sponsored terrorism was directed at...Iran. In terms of terrorism that directly threatened US interests, Iran was/is a far greater threat.

2045. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/17/2004 11:47:23 AM

Wombat- poppycock! You confuse Saddam's local despotism and destructive coercion with Ossama's/Al Queda's global terror appeal to all Muslims for vengeance against the western interests that they feel is at the root of their problems -- perceived or otherwise.

And since when is fueling the fires of rampant recruitment of indignant jihadies, in the US's interest?

2046. jexster - 12/17/2004 11:56:58 AM

Stop him before he lies again..

Seems little Georgie's up to his old tricks...again

This time he's lying, one an hour it seems about his plan to kill Social Security...

The other day he trotted out a "real mom" to pitch the scam...


Turns out the "real mom" is a real right wing lobbyist who's made a real career out of trying to wipe out your social security

Josh Marshall slammed the NyT for playing the story as Bush fed it to them...now they've decided to do some REAL work..

I think they call it journalism but it has been so long..

Read all about it

2047. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/17/2004 11:59:17 AM

2048. thoughtful - 12/17/2004 12:21:59 PM

Reminded me of that great free marketeer, Reagan, who during the '87 stock market crash, calmed everyone's fears by pointing to the SEC, the FDIC, and all those other FDR social safety net programs instituted post depression. And the great communicator managed to do it with a straight face!!!

2049. jexster - 12/17/2004 3:09:12 PM

href=http://www.redding.com/redd/nw_local/article/0,2232,REDD_17533_3403316,00.html>Sen. Feinstein Blasts U.S. Policies in Iraq

Current U.S. policies in Iraq could lead to civil war and require an American troop presence in the country for decades, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein told a Redding audience Wednesday. The solution, she said, is to ensure that all factions are given a voice in their government when elections are held next month. In the meantime, more U.S. troops are needed to flush out and fight insurgents, she said

2050. jexster - 12/17/2004 3:20:57 PM

Keepin Track of Bush's Hacks

Well the rats ARE scurryin away from IraQ. As the new election approaches three most likely scenarios from best to worst...

1. Sistani's sectarian Shiite slate takes control kicks US out...

2. Sistanti's group wins..civil war

3. Elections fall apart..civil war

A real Ace of Spades WIN-WIN

2051. jexster - 12/17/2004 3:21:49 PM

Sen. Coleman gets word from HQ, turns his attention to Rumsfeld, though needlessly to say, with kid gloves for now. "Coleman says he needs more information before deciding if Rumsfeld should be held accountable for the lack of armor on military vehicles."

-- Josh Marshall

Trent Lott has returned the Bush Bitch Slap of 2 years ago..Dump Dummy!

McCain shows his loyalty too

2052. wonkers2 - 12/17/2004 5:08:22 PM

The lack of armor on vehicles is the least of Rumsfield's problems.

2053. Ronski - 12/17/2004 8:22:12 PM

jay,

I agree that removing justifications for Islamist terror (not to mention constant Arab whining about everything) would be a very good idea. I hope Bush, not to mention Sharon, will pursue this.

As for making the removal of Saddam a priority, the main reason, left unstated by the Administration but pretty clear to anyone who bothered to look, was to establish a democracy in the Arab world. It had the added benefits of removing a potential threat to the region for good, the removal of any WMD still there (and just about everyone thought there was some), and quieting the fears in Washington that Saddam was losing his grip anyway and that what came next might be worse.

Now, whether this works out in the end remains to be seen. But I think it was worth taking a chance.

2054. jexster - 12/17/2004 9:56:54 PM

Dummy's His Kinda Guy

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House gave a new vote of confidence on Friday to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld amid growing criticism of him from members of President Bush (news - web sites)'s own Republican Party.

2055. jexster - 12/17/2004 9:57:39 PM

the main reason, left unstated by the Administration but pretty clear to anyone who bothered to look


Look at what?

2056. jexster - 12/17/2004 9:59:04 PM

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun."
— From: Mao Tse-Tung Problems of War and Strategy

2057. jexster - 12/17/2004 10:02:53 PM

"Justice ought to be fair"

_ Emperor of Morons

2058. jexster - 12/17/2004 10:06:29 PM

Wonk...armor plate has nothing to do with it...that incident was only a trigger.

There has been a steady and growing drumbeat among traditional conservatives against this folly from the start.

Now the Neocon's excuse du jour war is falling apart is obvious to everyone, not just left wingers and PaleoCons.

It is every warmonger for himself.

2059. jexster - 12/17/2004 10:46:05 PM

Between Iraq and a Hard Place
Christian Science Monitor.

A bad situation for U.S. troops is made worse by desertions, resignations, lawsuits and refusals to go on dangerous missions.

National Guard enlistments down by more than 30%.

Who are the idiot 70%?

2060. Ronski - 12/17/2004 11:09:35 PM

Patriots.

You wouldn't recognize them if you fucked them.

Or they fucked you, as is more likely.

2063. wonkers2 - 12/18/2004 8:53:47 AM

The best article I've seen on who the liars are, why they lied and the possible consequences of their continuing to lie. Depressing outlook. "Secret Intelligence and the 'War on Terror' by Thomas Powers

2064. Wombat - 12/18/2004 9:16:50 AM

Ronski:

If the Bush Administration was truly interested in supporting Democracy in the Middle East, they would have exploited the opening with Iran that 9/11 provided. Iran is much further along in developing a working Democracy than Iraq, is non-Arab, and occupies a more strategic postiion in the region than does Iraq.

Wiz: Facts don't lie, although your eyes may. Iraq under Saddam sponsored terrorism. However, since the bulk of it was against Iran, I don't see the US going to war over it, do you?

2065. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/18/2004 9:38:38 AM

Wombat- Maybe I didn't make myself clear, because I can't see how your response relates to what I said.

My point was that Saddam's terrorism was quite different than Al Qaeda's in terms of their effects on American security interests.

Bush stirred up a huge hornet's nest because he had a vendetta with a bee from different and smaller hive.

Maybe I misunderstood your point.

2066. jayackroyd - 12/18/2004 10:41:28 AM

2053


Ronski--

I failed in conveying a nuance that I think is important. I do not believe that the US policies in Israel and Saudi Arabia are justifications for Islamist terror. I believe that those issues have propaganda. This is not about US foreign policy. It is about the success, or perhaps pervasiveness is a better word, of American secular, commercial, inclusionary culture. The same battle is happening here, as the Christian equivalent of the Islamists try to stuff gays back into the closet and chain women back to the stove.

I diagree completely that democratization was a goal in the war on Iraq. The establishment of a compliant client state was the goal. Rumsfeld himself said that some election results would not be permitted. Nor, if the US were concerned with democracy would it be constructing military bases. In my view, the reasons for the war were that DOD wanted reliable bases, the neocons wanted to remove a threat to Israel and Rove wanted to run a campaign with a wartime president. State was thrown its UN sop.

Finally, while it's true there was widespread agreement in September that there were WMD in Iraq, it was clear in the following March that there were no nukes, that nothing chemical or biological had been found, and that there might be none of the latter. The UN inspectors proposed a plan to prove that negative, and then the US promptly booted them out. WMD was a pretext, not a reason.

2067. jayackroyd - 12/18/2004 10:43:48 AM

propaganda = propaganda value.

I also happen to think we should fix those things anyway.

2068. jexster - 12/18/2004 11:38:04 AM

IraQi Occupation: Slipping into Candor

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Dec. 17 - With the candidates' lists closed and Iraq seemingly set on an irreversible course toward elections on Jan. 30, a senior Western official with decades of Middle East experience cast about Friday for the kind of optimistic forecast that the United States and its allies have offered at every important juncture in 20 turbulent months since the toppling of Saddam Hussein.

The election, the official said, was the most ambitious democratic exercise ever attempted in an Arab country, one in which 14 million eligible Iraqis will choose from more than 7,700 candidates seeking seats in a provisional national assembly, 18 provincial councils and a regional Kurdish parliament. He invited comparisons with a clumsily rigged referendum two years ago, when Mr. Hussein declared himself re-elected president with 100 percent of his countrymen's 12 million votes.



Later, the official, guarded by the anonymity commonly demanded when reporters are briefed in the Green Zone command compound here, slipped momentarily into a more candid assessment...

2069. jexster - 12/18/2004 11:52:26 AM

the only sign in the capital of an impending election have been giant posters showing the country's most powerful Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and his recent decree declaring it a religious duty for all Shiites to vote.....The early election favorite, many Iraqis believe, is a coalition of Shiite religious parties, the United Iraqi Alliance, that announced its slate last week. That group, led by men who forged strong ties to Iran's ruling ayatollahs during long exile under Mr. Hussein


Send in the B/C 04 Ground Team for some Shock and Awe!

2070. jexster - 12/18/2004 11:54:05 AM

Bush Love menas never having to say you're sorry.

2071. jexster - 12/18/2004 11:56:46 AM

the Communist Party is the first to have had a big election rally in Baghdad, with 2000 persons attending (the party was virtually destroyed by Saddam Hussein but had once been a substantial force in Iraqi politics)

Juan Cole

2072. robertjayb - 12/18/2004 4:06:35 PM

Scented candles would be a pleasant and practical Christmas gift for Riverbend.

2073. Ronski - 12/18/2004 6:50:31 PM

Wombat,

Because Iran is non-Arab, its democratization, while very desirable, would not have the same effect on the Arab world as would Iraq's (or possibly Palestine's).

There are particular reasons for focusing on Iraq, and reasons for not yet engaging Iran, though I expect that will happen too.

2074. Ronski - 12/18/2004 6:57:28 PM

The establishment of a compliant client state was the goal. Rumsfeld himself said that some election results would not be permitted.

Jay,

There's no question that Iraq will not be permitted to elect a hostile Islamist or hostile nationalist government. And the Administration expects that because Iraq will elect a moderate, friendly government, the U.S. will either operate or have access to bases there.

Whether this works out or blows up in their faces remains to be seen. But I am cautiously optimistic, as the saying goes.

And if we're going to list all the goals of the Iraq operation, I think one of them, and I said this a long time ago, was for Bush to correct both of his father's mistakes, raising taxes and leaving Iraq in the hands of a hostile lunatic.

He's met both those goals.

2075. Marc-Albert - 12/18/2004 7:11:27 PM

Saddam was many things but not a lunatic.

2076. Max Macks - 12/18/2004 7:44:02 PM

So now the US is in the hands of a lunatic!

...this thought just came to mind when reading
the last post.

2077. wonkers2 - 12/18/2004 8:04:02 PM

Arguably leaving Sadaam in power was not a mistake but rather a very smart move. Ditto for raising taxes unless you look at issues from a purely political perspective.

2078. wonkers2 - 12/18/2004 8:42:44 PM

I'd be interested in your reaction to the Thomas Powers article linked above in #2063.

2079. jayackroyd - 12/18/2004 11:30:49 PM

was for Bush to correct both of his father's mistakes, raising taxes and leaving Iraq in the hands of a hostile lunatic.

On the former, you cannot reduce the size of government without reducing spending. There is no indication that Bush has any plans of doing so. Even his proposed SS reforms will increase the size of government. On the latter, leaving Saddam there was, as Clinton has remarked, the price for the formation of the coalition. It strikes me that a war that achieved its aims without costing the American taxpayer much of anything is more praiseworthy than a war that has not attained its aims and looks to cost a very great deal of money. Things may get better, but the trend is certainly not in the "better" direction. And we're building those bases without any democratic government authorizing it. The US has done its best to install puppets, and label them elected officials. No wonder Bush and Putin see eye to eye.

2080. Wombat - 12/19/2004 7:28:00 AM

Ronski:

Assuming elections are held, the most likely result will be a Shiite majority that will be closely tied to Iran and its policies. It will certainly be hostile to US interests. The only allies the US has in Iraq are the Kurds, and they are not strong enough to rule Iraq, democratically or no.

2081. wonkers2 - 12/19/2004 10:42:07 AM

We all need to distinguish between wise and good public policy and good politics. Bush seems to consider only about good politics. Fortunately there are several influential Republicans who care about good public policy.

2082. judithathome - 12/19/2004 12:55:32 PM

I wish the administration flunkies who appeared on all the Sunday morning gasbag shows would realize the title of this thread speaks the truth. They were all in rare form this morning, especially Andy Card and Richard Perle.

Up is down and lies are truth and everything is hunky-dory. Assholes, all of them.

2083. wonkers2 - 12/19/2004 1:20:03 PM

Richard Perle is one of the biggest liars and crooks in DC.

2084. robertjayb - 12/19/2004 1:45:56 PM

Well, things are going really well, don't you see...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Car bombs rocked Iraq's two holiest Shiite cities Sunday, killing at least 62 people and wounding more than 120, while in downtown Baghdad dozens of gunmen carried out a brazen ambush on car, pulling out three election officials and executing them on the pavement in the middle of morning traffic.

The bombs exploded an hour apart. First, a suicide blast ripped through parked minibuses at the entrance to the Karbala bus station. Then a car bomb shattered a central square in Najaf, crowded with residents watching a funeral procession. The city police chief and provincial governor were among the group but were not hurt.

2085. wonkers2 - 12/19/2004 2:01:42 PM

Civil war in Iraq!

2086. jexster - 12/19/2004 10:17:09 PM

"Hold onto God's law and don't scatter"
Holy Qu'ran




In downtown Baghdad, dozens of gunmen carried out a brazen ambush on a car, pulling out three election officials and executing them on the pavement in the middle of morning traffic.


At Least 64 Dead as Rebels Strike in 3 Iraqi Cities



The Americans seem to have gotten them­selves into an intractable mess in Iraq. They must now choose between a historical debacle if they hang on and a temporary setback if they let go.

"We cannot leave Iraq before it is stabilized," declared a former CIA officer. But to maintain a prolonged foreign occupation of Iraq is to destabilize it only further. Once the invader departs, there will no doubt be a civil war, which will accelerate the dismemberment of the nation, giving rise to a fundamentalist regime, which will make at least some people miss the era of Saddam.

On the other hand, if the occupation persists, one can foresee a multifaceted terrorist es­calation eating away at U.S. forces and aggravating ethnic and religious divisions Regis Debray 9/5/03

2087. robertjayb - 12/20/2004 1:48:22 AM

War on the cheap...(Bob Herbert, NYTimes)

From the earliest planning stages until now, the war in Iraq has been a tragic exercise in official incompetence. The original rationale for the war was wrong. The intelligence was wrong. The estimates of required troop strength were wrong. The war hawks' guesses about the response of the Iraqi people were wrong. The cost estimates were wrong, and on and on.

Nevertheless the troops have fought valiantly, and the price paid by many has been horrific. They all deserve better than the bad faith and shoddy treatment they are receiving from the highest officials of their government.

2088. jexster - 12/20/2004 12:34:54 PM

Ya know there was a REASON Dumbsfeld shook hands with Saddam, a reason Reagan and Bush I let him "gas his own people."

Obe Juan Cole
Funerals for 67 Dead Draw Thousands
Fears of Instability Spreading

Thousands of mourners came out in Najaf Monday to attend funerals for the 54 dead in that city from a massive bombing on Sunday. Emotions ran high, but key Shiite leaders seemed aware that the terrorism was intended to derail the upcoming elections, by producing large-scale Shiite-Sunni violence. AP reported, ' ``These operations aim at driving the Shiites away from the political process and toward acts of revenge to undermine the national unity,'' said Jalal Eddin al-Sagheer, an official with the leading Shiite political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution. ``The whole issue has to do with elections.'' '



The Financial Times correspondents William Wallis and Mark Huband draw attention to yet another worrying possibility. The Saudis are concerned that volunteers who went to fight in Iraq are getting serious training and becoming battle-hardened, and that they may in future turn their new-found skills against the kingdom itself. They write, ' "The big trend for the coming 20 years will be the Iraqi jihad veterans. They are being seen as the extreme threat for the coming period. One key challenge is to establish who they are and where they are going, in order to make sure that the same mistake is not made as was made with the Arab Afghan veterans who fought against the Soviet Union," the senior European intelligence official said. '



posted by Juan @ 12/20/2004 10:04:12 AM

2089. jexster - 12/20/2004 12:36:08 PM

Saddam was less than a "side issue" in the struggle to contain Islamic radicalism..

His Mukhbarat and his gas were a restraining influence

2090. jexster - 12/20/2004 12:37:37 PM

and not only the gas..Why do you think he went on that mosque building binge in his final years?

It wasn't because the Prophet (His Name be Praised!) came to him in a vision

2091. jexster - 12/20/2004 12:46:27 PM

Ein Totaller Reinfall
Saudis Fear Growing Numbers of Battle Hardened IraQi Jihadists The Financial Times

Let's roll ...Stay the Course..Mission Accomplished

Anyone seen his roadmap?

2092. Max Macks - 12/20/2004 4:27:14 PM

Like many others my vote for Kerry was more
a vote AGAINST Bush and Cheney than enthusism
for Kerry.
I have heard that Kerry was told he HAD to say he would
continue the war on Iraq.
When he began talking about what a better commander
he would be , I began to dislike him.

And I doubt that Kerry could have done
much to change the direction of this country.
Until the Democrats can gain control of
at least one of the 2 houses in Congress,
there ain't much hope for a change .

I was almost glad to see Bush elected,
As I thought maybe with a couple of more
years of the Bush Gang some of the stupid
people who voted for him will realize
the mistake they made.

2093. arkymalarky - 12/20/2004 8:07:13 PM

I've thought some along those lines--as opposed to Kerry winning and being labeled a failure because of the Republican majority in both houses. If I had to choose I'd rather have at least one Democratic majority house in '06 than a Democratic president in '04. If Dems can't do that, they're in deeper trouble than I thought.

2094. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/20/2004 8:11:39 PM

2095. jexster - 12/20/2004 10:11:56 PM

No doubt Mad One..a source of much consternation for those of us in the Lies and Incompetence Camp

2096. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/20/2004 11:16:16 PM

Mad One? Me?

2097. robertjayb - 12/21/2004 1:08:58 PM

Tick-tock on the Mosul attack:

By JEREMY REDMON
Richmond Times-Dispatch

December 21, 2004, 12:38 PM EST

FORWARD OPERATING BASE MAREZ, Iraq -- It was a brilliant, sunny day with blue skies and warmer than usual weather in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

Hundreds of U.S. soldiers had just sat down for lunch in their giant chow hall tent.

It was about noon Tuesday when insurgents hit their tent with a suspected rocket attack, killing 24 people, including two soldiers from the Richmond-based 276th Engineer Battalion. Sixty-four people were reported wounded; civilians may have been among them. (In Washington, one Pentagon official told The Associated Press the death was 22; another military official said it was around 20.)

The force of the explosions knocked soldiers off their feet and out of their seats. A fireball enveloped the top of the tent, and shrapnel sprayed into the men.

2098. jexster - 12/22/2004 7:15:15 AM

Mosul Base Attacks Worry Military Experts

April 2003, as the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was ending, the Pentagon projected in a formal planning effort that the U.S. military occupation of the country would end this month.

Instead, December 2004 brought one of the deadliest single incidents of the war for U.S. forces. ...

If anti-American violence does hit a new level, pressure is likely to increase on the Bush administration to either boost the U.S. military presence in Iraq or find a fast way to get out.



"This combination of evidence indicates a good probability that the attack was well-planned and professionally executed," Sepp said.

A byproduct of such a strike is that it tends to drive a wedge between U.S. personnel and the Iraqis who work on the base. "I think that this tells us first that our base facilities are totally infiltrated by insiders who are passing the word on when and where we are most vulnerable to attack," said retired Marine Col. Edward Badolato, a security expert.

"This sure isn't playing out like I thought it would," said retired Marine Lt. Col. Jay Stout, author of a book about the 1991 Persian Gulf War against Iraq, in which he fought. He said he is no longer confident about what the U.S. strategy in Iraq should be.

"We have few choices: We can maintain the status quo while trying to build an Iraqi government that will survive, we can get the hell out now and leave them to kill themselves, or we can adopt a more brutal and repressive stance."

His choice? "I don't know the right answer -- I gave up guessing a few months ago."

We've stood tall against the Evil-Doers. We've follwed the roadmap. We've stay the course, right into a cul-de-sac

2099. jexster - 12/22/2004 7:25:46 AM

Leave No Bush Hack Behind

From the above, one military expert had a different view>...

Not all experts were pessimistic. Retired Army Col. John Antal said he expects more spectacular attacks in the coming weeks, but mainly because "the enemy is on the ropes and desperate to stop the elections."


Now where have I heard THAT before?


How many times?

2100. jexster - 12/22/2004 8:08:36 AM

When the history of this miserable war is written...

On War #97
December 21, 2004

Little Stalingrad

By William S. Lind



According to people who have been there, Fallujah is not a very big city. You can walk across it in half an hour. Yet when the history of this miserable war is written, I suspect it may loom large. Like Stalingrad, it will mark the point where the war turned against the invader.

You may recall that the U.S. Marine commanders on scene declared some weeks ago that the battle was won and Fallujah was ours. It now appears they were Panglossading through reality, in a way that seems universal among American generals. Fighting still continues in Fallujah. Far from fleeing, resistance fighters are now infiltrating back into the city. Sectors we have “pacified” spring back to life in IED attacks and ambushes. There is talk about letting a few civilians return to Fallujah’s ruins, but only under conditions that would make normal civilian life impossible.

Of course, Fallujah itself was largely destroyed in the American assault. The American military did the only thing a Second Generation military can do: it put firepower on targets. 2GW armed services are one-trick ponies: they only have one act, and they perform it regardless of whether it fits the circumstances or not. In Fourth Generation war, the usual result is what has happened in Fallujah: a moral victory for the other side. As Colonel Boyd argued, and as this column has pointed out time and time again, the moral level of war is the most powerful, the physical level the least powerful.

2101. jexster - 12/22/2004 8:10:00 AM

Correspondent Patrick Cockburn, who is in Iraq, reports another result of Fallujah:

just at the moment that the U.S. troops were moving into Fallujah, suddenly, most of Mosul – a city in the north, which is at least five or six times the size of Falluja – fell to the insurgents… This is far more important in some ways that what’s happened in Falluja.

Not only did most of the insurgents leave Fallujah before our assault, they realized that if we had concentrated in Fallujah, we had left openings elsewhere. They took full advantage of those openings. It is perhaps time to ask which side has the better commanders?

Stalingrad is now seen as one of history’s great defeats. But in fact, the Germans had largely won in Stalingrad on the tactical level, before they were outflanked and encircled operationally, then defeated strategically.

If we look at Fallujah through that lens, the parallels become clearer. It is not certain we will ever fully control Fallujah, just as the Germans never took full control of Stalingrad. Nevertheless, we will claim a tactical victory.

Operationally, Fallujah, like Stalingrad, proved to be a trap. It led us to concentrate so many of our few combat troops in one place that the insurgency was able to make major gains in other, more important places. It again drew a glaring contrast between how America fights – by pouring in firepower – and the stated aim of the American invasion of Iraq, liberating the Iraqi people. You cannot liberate people by destroying their homes, their jobs and their cities.

2102. jexster - 12/22/2004 8:10:11 AM

If operational art is the art of linking tactical actions to strategic goals, American generals have once again shown the world that they have no operational skill – a situation that is typical of a Second Generation military. (It may be useful to remember that the American military failed operationally in the first Gulf War as well; Saddam’s’ Republican Guard escaped 7th Corps’ slow, inept attempt at operational encirclement.)


After the first Marine assault on Fallujah in April – an assault that was wisely abandoned, since it threatened to set off a nationwide uprising against the occupation – Pat Buchanan said that Fallujah will probably mark the high water line of neo-con imperialism. I think the outcome of the second battle of Fallujah will confirm that prescient assessment. Just as Stalingrad marked the turning point in Fall Barbarossa, so Fallujah will go down in history as the “tipping point” in America’s Last Crusade.

NB: This will be the last column for this year, though sadly not for this war. Let me close by wishing a hearty “Bah! Humbug” to fellow Realists everywhere.

2103. jexster - 12/22/2004 2:26:07 PM

Louis Lapham's Notebook 12.04 Harpers

An American presidential election is a movie, usually a bad movie, but the American publc likes bad movies..

If we know nothing else of the Bush Administration, we know that it doesn't hesitate to cheat and steal and lie. Its family values are those of the Corleone and Soprano families, and thus in line not only with the heartland values of 19th century American frontier but also with the predatory modus operandi of our 21st century business corporations....

2104. Ms. No - 12/22/2004 2:41:36 PM

Jex,

I don't know if this is the proper place for this link but I felt it ought to go somewhere. It's a bit old -- August of this year --- but I missed it the first time around and figured others might have as well.

Connie Rice: Top 10 'Taboo' Things Said about Baghdad

2105. jexster - 12/22/2004 2:48:34 PM

Coalition of the Defaulting:
Force majeured - Construction Firm Drops Iraq Contract



WASHINGTON - An international construction company has pulled out of its contract to rebuild Iraq (news - web sites)'s transportation systems, deciding it was too dangerous to stay, a spokesman for the U.S.-led reconstruction effort said Wednesday.


Contrack International Inc. led a coalition of firms working on a $325 million contract to rebuild Iraq's roads, bridges and railways. Contrack withdrew from that contract last month after a surge in attacks on reconstruction efforts, said Lt. Col. Eric Schnaible of the Pentagon (news - web sites)'s Project and Contract Office in Baghdad.


"It's hard to do construction in a place where people are shooting at you or intimidating your work force," Schnaible said in a telephone interview. "It's a challenge across the country."

2106. jexster - 12/22/2004 2:50:56 PM

Ms. No this place is about anything that strikes the fancy....life is a lie and lies have consequences

Condi is one of my very favorite crack ho's

2107. Ms. No - 12/22/2004 2:56:13 PM

I figured you'd appreciate it!

2108. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 12/22/2004 4:38:05 PM

Jexster, I thought this might be of interest wrt the topic at hand:

Background: If you have seen a clip of Goebbels speaking, it is likely the conclusion to this speech, taken from Riefenstahl's film of the 1934 rally, Triumph des Willens. Goebbels gave a speech each year at the Nuremberg Rally, often focusing on propaganda. Here he presents Nazi propaganda as the model for the rest of the world, calling it the "backgroud music" to government policy.


. . . There are no parliamentary parties in Germany any longer. How could we have overcome them had we not waged an educational campaign for years that persuaded people of their weaknesses, harms and disadvantages? Their final elimination was only the result of what the people had already realized. Our propaganda weakened these parties. Based on that, they could be eliminated by legal act. Joseph Goebbels

2109. concerned - 12/22/2004 6:16:59 PM

Re. 2101 -

And now all that remains to happen is for the coalition troops to be done in by one of those terrible Iraqi winters....?

Gimme a break.

2110. judithathome - 12/22/2004 7:55:52 PM

You think they are any more prepared for a dreadful winter than they are for battle with unarmored vehicles?

2111. robertjayb - 12/22/2004 11:15:29 PM

Cordesman reports on Vietnam-style Iraq "fantasyland"

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is facing increasingly deadly attacks in Iraq because, as in the Vietnam war, it failed to honestly assess facts on the ground, according to a new think tank report.

The report, prepared by Anthony Cordesman, senior fellow of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said administration spokesmen had appeared to live "in a fantasyland" when giving accounts of events in Iraq.

Cordesman, a former Pentagon official who has made several trips to Iraq, said Iraqi spies were a serious threat to U.S. operations and that there was no evidence insurgent numbers were declining despite vigorous U.S. and Iraqi counterattacks.

2112. Wombat - 12/23/2004 10:32:47 AM

Ironically, if the Mosul attack was a suicide bomber, it was a good thing that the mess tent had not yet been replaced by a bunker. The effect of an explosion in a confined space would have been even more horrific than it was in a tent.

Bernie Kerik: Given the speed of his downward employment trajectory, I fully expect to find him selling hot dogs from a cart in Washington Square when I am up in New York next week.

2113. jexster - 12/23/2004 1:35:46 PM

That was a stellar choice by the WarLord and we're to believe HE is gonna protect us from the Evil Doers?

This country just gets curiouser and curiouser..


Have fun in NyC..fine time to be there

2114. jexster - 12/23/2004 1:36:24 PM

WoW...Triumph of the Will..one of my all time favorites!

2115. jexster - 12/23/2004 1:46:29 PM

Robt thanks for the heads up

The Developing IraQi Insurgency: Status Report EOY CSIS, Cordesman

As the Marine said in the WaPo article..three choices..

1. maintain the status quo while trying to build an Iraqi government that will survive,
2. we can get the hell out now and leave them to kill themselves,
3. we can adopt a more brutal and repressive stance.

2116. jexster - 12/23/2004 2:15:08 PM

Denial as a Method of Counter-Insurgency Warfare: The Bush Doctrine

More broadly, the US did not react effectively as it became clear during the fall and winter of 2003 that the Iraqi people did not want Coalition forces to perform security and police missions as the post war insurgency steadily gathered momentum. The US minimized the insurgent and criminal threat and exaggerated the popular support for US and Coalition efforts.
.
The US assumed for the first year after the fall of Saddam Hussein that it was dealing with a limited number of insurgents that Coalition forces would defeat well before the election. It did not see the threat level that would emerge if it did not provide jobs or pensions for Iraqi career officers, or co-opt them into the nation building effort. It was slow to see that some form of transition payments were necessary for the young Iraqi soldiers that faced massive, nation-wide employment. As late as the spring of 2004, the US still failed to acknowledge the true scale of the insurgent threat and the extent to
which popular resentment of Coalition forces would rise if it did not act immediately to rebuild a convincing mix of Iraqi military and security forces.


The US failed to establish the proper political conditions to reduce Iraqi popular resentment of the Coalition forces and create the political climate that would ease the task of replacing them with effective Iraqi forces. ..



2117. jexster - 12/23/2004 2:15:20 PM

As a result, the US failed to come to grips with the Iraqi insurgency during the first year of US occupation in virtually every important dimension.

It was slow to react to the growth of the insurgency in Iraq, to admit it was largely domestic in character, and to
admit it had significant popular support. For all of 2003, and most of the first half of 2004, it referred to the attackers as terrorists, kept issuing estimates that they could not number more than 5,000, and claimed they were a mixture of outsider elements and diehard former regime loyalists (FRLs). It largely ignored the warnings provided by Iraqi opinion polls, and claimed that its political, economic, and security efforts were either successful or would soon become so. In short, it failed to honestly assess the facts on the ground in a manner reminiscent of Vietnam.

As late as July 2004, the Administration’s senior spokesmen still seemed to live in a fantasyland in terms of their public announcements, perception of the growing Iraqi hostility to the use of Coalition forces, and the size of the threat.

2118. jexster - 12/23/2004 2:27:27 PM

“This is far graver than Vietnam. There wasn't as much at stake strategically, though in both cases we mindlessly went ahead with the war that was not constructive for US aims. But now we're in a region far more volatile, and we're in much worse shape with our allies."

Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret .)
Former Director, National Security Agency
Senior Fellow, The Hudson Institute

2119. jexster - 12/23/2004 5:03:47 PM

On War #96

Election Ju-ju

By William S. Lind

If we find African ju-ju funny, why do we fail to see the humor in the American Establishment’s equally firm belief in ju-ju? They call their ju-ju “ee-lek-shuns.” Take a “state” with no functional institutions, a “government” that is a gang of rip-off artists and foreign hirelings, more religious and clan divisions than Arkansas and Fourth Generation war spreading like crabgrass. All you have to do is hold “ee-lek-shuns,” and Presto!, a real state emerges. Peace reigns triumphant, American troops can go home and secular democracy has converted another flea-bitten, fly-blown Third World hellhole into Switzerland.

Election ju-ju is supposed to work its magic in Iraq in late January. What is actually likely to happen?

The elections will go forward, because Ayatollah Sistani demands they go forward. He has put together a unified Shiite candidate list, which is guaranteed to win. That in turn will give us the Islamic Republic of Iraq, on a model different from Iran’s, but like Iran representing the Shiite branch of Islam.

What is the chance that Sistani can recreate a real state in Iraq? Unfortunately, not very good.


If ... – Sistani cuts a deal with the Sunni insurgents and he orders all American forces out – there is a chance, just a chance, he might be able to re-establish the state in Iraq. That state will not be an American friend, much less the American satellite that was the neo-cons’ objective in starting this war. But any state in Iraq (including Saddam’s) is better than what remains the more likely outcome, Iraq’s descent into a condition of permanent stateless disorder.

2120. jexster - 12/23/2004 5:03:57 PM

Regis Debray 9/5/03:

We cannot leave Iraq before it is stabilized," declared a former CIA officer. But to maintain a prolonged foreign occupation of Iraq is to destabilize it only further. Once the invader departs, there will no doubt be a civil war, which will accelerate the dismemberment of the nation, giving rise to a fundamentalist regime, which will make at least some people miss the era of Saddam.

2121. jexster - 12/24/2004 12:17:22 PM

Slipping into Darkness: Growing Gas and Electricity Shortages Bedevil Iraqis and Add to Burgeoning Despair
Silver Lining: One car bomber ran out of Fuel

2122. jexster - 12/24/2004 2:30:01 PM

A Merry Crimmus to the Bungling Butcher
Huge Explosiion Rips Western Baghdad
Fireball in the Sky Marks Dumbsfeld's Departure

2123. Wombat - 12/24/2004 3:56:15 PM

Add a country to the "Coalition of the Willing!" Mighty Armenia is sending 4,600..uh no, 460...umm well, 46 soldiers to Iraq! A tipping point?

2124. jexster - 12/25/2004 11:10:15 AM

Over one year ago, I said that Bush had lost the war in IraQ over the summer of 2003.


Well Merry Christmas to all..

The official US Army Historian suggests I was right - again:

A copy of Wilson's study as presented at Cornell University in October was obtained by The Washington Post.


As a result of the failure to produce a plan, Wilson asserts, the U.S. military lost the dominant position in Iraq in the summer of 2003 and has been scrambling to recover ever since.

2125. jexster - 12/25/2004 11:20:40 AM

Longing for the Good Ole Days?

For the first time in as long as even the old women could remember, Iraqi Christians prepared for the Christmas holiday with heart-thumping sadness and dread.


Fear Grips Christmas Eve Christians in Bush's Iraq

2126. jexster - 12/25/2004 11:21:23 AM

NOTHING accomplished

2127. jexster - 12/25/2004 12:11:13 PM

Be sure not to miss today's NyT Brooks column ("The Hookie Awards")...NOT

But the Brooks Forum comments are worthwhile...particarly this from one smart mofo

The Brookie Awards

Today the Washington Post carries an item in which the official US Army historian of the IraQ war flatly states that the Bush Regime HAD NO PLAN and as a result the US has been losing the war since summer 2003 and is in peril of losing it altogether (more than a chance, perhaps a likelihood). http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24 [...]

The Brookie Award goes to all those neocon and fellow traveling flaks who for the past year and a half have been spouting non-sense about victories in Iraq and "sea changes" in favor of US interests in the middle east, bold enough even to proclaim George Bush "visionary"

Watching these idiots would be amusing were it not for the fact that by sitting around and telling themselves how brilliant and insightful they've been, they actually manage to convince themselves, and most dangerously, those still in power who are responsible for the biggest strategic blunder in modern US history.



Thanks to the likes of David Brooks tens of thousands have been slaughtered, hundreds of billions lost, tens of thousands more maimed, the power and prestige of the US immeasurably weakened, ALL FOR LESS THAN NOTHING while these foul clowns fiddle and pat themselves on the back.



The First Annual Brookie..to its namesake

2128. jexster - 12/25/2004 12:12:55 PM

crimmus toys everywhere!

2129. jexster - 12/25/2004 4:14:01 PM

Prepare the helicopter skids...


Rumsfeld: Iraqis Must Defeat Insurgency - 2 hours ago

2130. robertjayb - 12/25/2004 7:52:56 PM

Isn't this the war that was going to pay for itself?

BAGHDAD (AFP) - US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) is expected to seek authorisation for spending of an additional 80 billion dollars in Iraq (news - web sites), the head of a visiting congressional delegation said.

"In early February, there will be ... a supplemental appropriation in addition to the 2006 budget for defence submitted to Congress," Jim Kolbe, Republican congressman from Arizona, told reporters.


He estimated the extra funding to range between 75 to 80 billion dollars.
............................................................

Kolbe is chairman of the foreign operations subcommittee of the House of Representatives appropriations committee, which is responsible for deciding how money is spent on supporting foreign governments and operations.

2131. jexster - 12/26/2004 11:40:49 AM

Getting Beyond the Bush Fascist Coordinated Media
4 Ways to Find Out What's REALLY Happening in IraQ

2132. robertjayb - 12/26/2004 6:05:40 PM

The AP says here that the Mosul mess tent bomber entered the compound through a hole in a fence.

What? A hole in a freakin' fence?

Umpty billion dollars and the fences are no damn good? With Brown & Root on the taxpayer teat, big-time?

Scream, cry, or vomit. Take your choice.

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A video posted by an Iraqi insurgent group Sunday purported to show last week's suicide attack at a U.S. base in Mosul, with a fireball rising from a white tent. The group claimed that the bomber slipped into the base through a hole in the fence during a guard change.

The footage showed a black-garbed gunman wearing an explosives belt around his body -- apparently the suicide bomber, identified in the tape as Abu Omar al-Mosuli -- bidding farewell to his comrades. The video gives no further details about the bomber beyond his name.

2133. jexster - 12/26/2004 7:54:26 PM

Kevin Drum
GETTING IT WRONG - A supernatural ability to choose the precisely wrong course

....Do we really have to continue reading about George Bush's criminal incompetence for four more years? Apparently so:

The Bush administration is talking to Iraqi leaders about guaranteeing Sunni Arabs a certain number of ministries or high-level jobs in the future Iraqi government if, as is widely predicted, Sunni candidates fail to do well in Iraq's elections.

...."There's some flexibility in approaching this problem," said an administration official. "There's a willingness to play with the end result - not changing the numbers, but maybe guaranteeing that a certain number of seats go to Sunni areas even if their candidates did not receive a certain percentage of the vote."

2134. jexster - 12/27/2004 2:25:45 PM

2135. jexster - 12/28/2004 3:39:52 PM

At Least 43 Dead As Insurgents Deal Powerful Pre-Election Blow to "IraQ" Security Forces

"It is up to the Iraqis to defeat the insurgents" Donald Duck Dumsfeld

2136. robertjayb - 12/30/2004 3:35:59 PM

Mission not quite accomplished...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- By key measures of the level of insurgent violence against American forces in Iraq, numbers of dead, wounded and insurgent attacks, the situation has grown worse since summer.

While those numbers don't tell the full story of the conflict in Iraq, they suggest insurgents are growing more proficient, even as the size of the U.S. force increases and U.S. commanders succeed in soliciting more help from ordinary Iraqis.

2137. thoughtful - 12/30/2004 5:38:49 PM

From Donald Goldsmith in letter to nyt editor:

Can the Bush administration really be proposing that the new Iraqi parliament include some Sunnis who fail to win seats in the Jan 30 election?

Where did the govt get this notion of granting victory in an election that has not actually been won? And isn't this subtlety of the democratic process likely to elude the understanding of those to whom Pres Bush proudly proclaims that 'freedom is on the march'?

2138. thoughtful - 12/30/2004 5:43:31 PM

From Adrian Kuzminski letter to nyt editor:

Anthony H. Cordesman believes that the US 'can win in Iraq only through offensive action' in 'vulnerable areas.' At the same time, he insists that the US 'cannot possibly achieve its political goals...unless Iraqis are treated as partners.'

It's hard to see how a war of aggression in violation of international law against a country of radically different culture that posed no known threat to the US can ever hope to turn its citizens into partners in realizing American political goals -- except for those collaborators benefiting from our occupation. When will this madness stop?

2139. jexster - 12/30/2004 8:13:15 PM

Absolutely not....it has been quite clear from before the beginning that an aggressor nation and occupier, a non-Muslim occupier, could never impose its will much less its political hegemony on Iraq.

People do not like to be invaded and occupied...a big DUH but a point apparently still lost on the Imperium and their dwindling number of apologists.


What is encouraging though is discussion, just beginning to emerge, that instead of being the Great Liberator and Facilitator of Freedom and Democracy, the Imperialist Forces are the Great Obstacle and following that Real World epiphany, the inexorable conclusion that it is time for the Great Liberator to take his show home.

Zbigniew Brezhinski was the first prominent observer that I know of to call for US withdrawal and that in April...

Slowly others are daring to use the "W" word..


See for example Stuart Spencer, Iraq'd who argues persuasively that the best course, perhaps the only course, to stability and legitimacy for the new IraQi govt is to give Bush his marching orders.

Time for these colors to run

2140. jexster - 12/30/2004 8:20:31 PM

Growing Insurgency Takes Its Toll on US Troops

The prospects in Iraq are grim," Dan Goure, an analyst at the private Lexington Institute think tank in Washington, said Thursday.

2141. jexster - 12/30/2004 9:10:01 PM

Iraq'd - Phase Two

From The Evolution of War: The Fourth Generation

LtCol Thomas X. Hammes

Marine Corps Gazette

As the first practitioner to write extensively about insurgency, Mao, like Clausewitz, understood war is fundamentally a "political" undertaking. However, he went much further than Clausewitz in his definition stating:


Our job is not merely to recite our political program to the people … (we must) transform the political mobilization for the war into a regular movement. This is a matter of the first magnitude on which the victory primarily depends.


Mao further exhorted that:

… political mobilization is the most fundamental condition for winning the war.

Mao believed that political strength is the primary requirement in war and is decidedly more important than military prowess. This is a fundamental shift from the third generation concept that victory is won primarily through military superiority to the fourth generation concept of defeating the enemy primarily through political action. Only after establishing the overriding political nature of insurgency did he outline his famous three phases for the successful conduct of insurgency:

Phase I, The Strategic Defensive: The insurgents will concentrate primarily on building political strength, Military action will be limited to harassment attacks and selected, politically motivated assassinations.

Phase II, The Strategic Stalemate: The insurgents gain strength and consolidate control of base areas. They begin to actively administer some portions of the contested area. Military activity increases as dictated by political requirements.


2142. jexster - 12/30/2004 9:10:14 PM


Phase III, The Strategic Offensive: Only after the correlation of forces has shifted decisively in their favor do the insurgents commit their regular forces in the final offensive against the government.

2143. jexster - 12/30/2004 9:13:00 PM

"The prospects in Iraq are grim," Dan Goure, an analyst at the private Lexington Institute think tank in Washington, said Thursday. He assessed the conflict as a standoff, with no clear indication that either side will achieve victory in the coming year.


"Neither side can truly come to grips with the other so far and defeat them," Goure said.

2144. jexster - 12/30/2004 9:58:15 PM

While much of Clausewitz' On War has been rendered obsolete by the enormous changes in the world, his admonition to national leaders remains more important than ever. Clausewitz wrote:

The first, the supreme, the most far reaching act of judgment that the statesman and commander have to make is to establish by that test the kind of war on which they are embarking; neither mistaking it for, nor trying to turn it into, something that is alien to its nature.

2145. jexster - 12/30/2004 10:17:38 PM

The Sling, The Stone, and the Moron from Texas


12/30/04 Comment #535: Werther Report - 4GW & Riddles of Culture. As T.X. Hammes argues in The Sling and the Stone, 4GW began to take shape in the 1920s, and its roots go back to the dawn of history. Dr. Werther explains why it is just now becoming the dominant form of warfare.

2146. jexster - 12/30/2004 10:57:30 PM

D-N-I.net's recently posted briefing on Iraq as a case study of Fourth Generation Warfare, or 4GW [1] should be mandatory reading for the men who rule the United States. It is long past time: the twenty-one months that have elapsed between the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, and the present quagmire nearly equal the period between the landing on Tarawa and the surrender at Tokyo Bay — or Gettysburg and Appomattox Werther

Powerpoint ...

2147. jexster - 12/31/2004 12:55:29 PM

Comment #535

One of the oldest ideas in military strategy is that a military operation ought to threaten alternative objectives. The idea is to place one's adversary on the horns of dilemma, where choosing how to respond to one line of attack makes him vulnerable to another line of attack. The quandary increases his uncertainty and magnifies the internal friction in his OODA loop. This mental state can devolve into paralysis and even collapse if he feels he is under a menacing strain that forces him to act before he can sort out his options.

The United States went to war in Iraq ostensibly because —

Mr. Bush asserted repeatedly that Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction posed a clear and present danger to the United States,

the Bush Administration insinuated repeatedly, without explicitly asserting, that Saddam was somehow involved with the 9-11 attack,


2148. jexster - 12/31/2004 12:56:05 PM

the Bush Administration asserted Saddam might give his weapons of mass destruction to terrorist allies who could then attack the United States with even more destructive effects than on 9-11,

Mr. Bush said he had a vision that United States could make Iraq into a beacon of democracy that would transform the politics of the Middle East, thereby insinuating it would put in place conditions that would enable a resolution to Israel's Palestinian Question.

The first three goals are now forgotten and, of course, any ambition to control Iraq's oil was never mentioned. The Bush Administration has now pinned its grand-strategic goal for the entire war in Iraq on his vision of a friendly democratic Iraq transforming the confrontational dynamics of the entire Middle East and, by implication, setting the conditions for resolving the Palestinian Question, and thereby enabling an outbreak of peace and a graceful military exit for the United States.

But this overarching vision has insensibly mutated into a military strategy aimed at a single unambiguous objective: EXIT via the Iraqization of the American War.

2149. jexster - 12/31/2004 12:56:37 PM


It is the same objective we failed to achieve in Viet Nam — namely Vietnamization — which evolved once the political elite understood victory as originally conceived was a elusive dream.

That Iraqi exit strategy rests on two clear contingent assumptions: The first is the idea of building up Iraqi defense forces powerful enough to do what the US military forces manifestly can not do — bring security to the Iraqi people. Once this is achieved, the second assumption is that the Iraqis will, under the benign tutelage of the United States (the very country the Iraqi people hold responsible for their current state of insecurity and impoverishment), build a strong, pro-western, democratic government with institutions that are honest enough — and capable enough — to bring stability and a realistic promise of prosperity to the Iraqi people.

2150. jexster - 12/31/2004 1:02:13 PM




In theory, this enabling sequence will generate within the Iraqi people a vested interested in maintaining a friendly, western-oriented democracy which will create a kind of political force field that will somehow transform the corrupt authoritarian governments of Middle East, thereby bringing peace to the region, including Palestine.

In short, the theory of Iraqization is based on a top-down theory of transformation made possible by what some public school boards might now call intelligent design ... except in this case, the United States is playing the role of a God with the arching wisdom needed to create a new intelligently-designed "whole" out of the disparate cultures of ancient parts. An implicit assumption is that these disparate "parts" will submit to an ahistorical rearrangement because their culture is so weak, that they lack sufficient independent will to evolve their culture along their own pathway.



2151. jexster - 12/31/2004 1:02:23 PM

Iraqization — like its failed antecedent, Vietnamization — is also a contingent strategy. Like the design of its failed predecessor, success in the first goal — building up security forces — is a necessary pre-condition for success in the second goal.

This kind of clear linear thinking may look great in a PowerPoint briefing in the Hall of Mirrors that is Versailles on the Potomac; it may sound great in the sound-byte-addicted echo chamber of the mass media (you know, the one that bought into the now forgotten "shock and awe" theory that technology would make this war a cakewalk); or it may get an "A" in yet another vapid business school case study. But in a real war, one's adversary has a free will that reacts unpredictably, albeit in a way that is shaped in part by his history and his culture.

2152. jexster - 12/31/2004 1:05:08 PM

Even worse, the culture-free, design-like linear clarity of the Iraqization strategy makes it the opposite of an ambiguous strategy. This makes it easier for a determined adversary to create an ambiguous menace to the not-so-intelligent designer's OODA loop. That is because our strategy's contingent nature presents our adversary with clearly marked multiple entry points, and this makes it easier for him to gain and retain the initiative by threatening multiple objectives with hit and run attacks:

2153. robertjayb - 12/31/2004 1:05:52 PM

The Top Ten War Profiteers listed by the Center for Corporate Responsibility and reported by Guerrilla News Network.

Halliburton ranks seventh.

2154. jexster - 12/31/2004 1:06:05 PM

For example, our adversaries can attack the more distant contingent goal by increasing general insecurity. They can attack the Iraqi people directly, concentrating attacks on American sympathizers, who will be portrayed as Quislings and dupes. Innocent Iraqis will be killed in such attacks, but these casualties will be seen by many Iraqis as the "collateral damage" required to expel the occupier. Or our adversaries can attack US forces, in the hopes of triggering a heavy-handed "search and destroy" reaction by the US forces, thereby punishing innocent Iraqis. But, because the attacker is an outsider, this is likely to be seen a collective punishment by some, if not many, ordinary Iraqis, notwithstanding our protestations about the inevitability of collateral damage. Either ambition magnifies the people's insecurity — the leveling of Falluja to "break the back" of the insurrection being a case in point.

The enemy can also attack the nearer pre-condition by hitting the Iraq security forces directly — as we have seen in the numerous individual assassinations or by larger hit-and-run attacks on police stations in cities like Mosul and Baghdad, while the United States is focused elsewhere — again Falluja being a case in point.




2155. jexster - 12/31/2004 1:06:27 PM

And the enemy can attack the Iraqi security forces indirectly by infiltrating moles into the Iraqi security forces and the support contractors employing Iraqis — which is now relatively easy, in part, because the United States has destroyed pre-existing security institutions like the Iraqi Army and, thanks to Mr. Cheney "reforms" made while he was Secretary of Defense, our forces have become more dependent on vulnerable contractor services in its logistics tail. Such indirect attacks will enable our adversaries to use Iraqi forces and Iraqis who are employed by contractors as a vehicles for gathering intelligence about and/or attacking US forces. Not only does this latter kind of attack increase the cost of "staying the course" for the United States, it also weakens our OODA loops by building up mistrust between American forces and our supposed allies in the Iraqi population.



From our adversary's point of view, all of these attack objectives are likely to increase the pressure to delay Iraqization of the American war. But continued Americanization of the war pushes the first goal (the pre-condition of strengthening Iraqi forces) further into the future, makes Iraqization more problematic, while generating recruits for the insurgency. This makes any movement toward the second goal (establishing democracy), like the January elections, look more and more artificial to the Iraqi people — witness Mr. Colin Powell's recent suggestion that it might be appropriate to set up quotas for Sunni representation in the new government even if they do not vote in large enough numbers to justify that representation.



2156. jexster - 12/31/2004 1:06:38 PM

In short, the contingent strategy of Iraqizing the War gives the adversary TIME to attract sympathizers and ratchet up his cycle of escalating hit-and-run offensive operations. And mounting destruction and chaos makes TIME more costly to America by further alienating other nations, particularly the important democracies of Western Europe, and because mounting American casualties will insensibly increase popular discontent and widen those divisions on the home front which were created in the first place by the misrepresentations used by the Administration to justify the war (the first three reasons).

2157. jexster - 12/31/2004 1:21:39 PM

It is not just the "isolated incidents" at Abu Ghraib that weaken America's moral case in these matters. Most of the 300,000 inhabitants of Fallujah now dwell in tent cities in the desert. The press reports that in order to return, they will have to undergo retina scans and DNA sampling. Once resettled in Fallujah, they may only leave their houses (assuming they haven't been destroyed) if they wear large visible identification showing their street addresses. [2] Werther


And the Idiot yammers about Osama's "dark vision"?

2158. robertjayb - 12/31/2004 5:53:30 PM

buahiea reject torture...what great people

WASHINGTON, Dec. 31 - The Justice Department has broadened its definition of torture, significantly retreating from an August 2002 memorandum that defined torture extremely narrowly and said President Bush could ignore domestic and international prohibitions against torture in the name of national security.

The new definition was contained in a memorandum posted on the department's Web site late Thursday with no public announcement. It comes one week before the Senate Judiciary Committee is to question Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel and nominee for attorney general, about his role in formulating legal policies that critics have said led to the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

2159. jexster - 1/1/2005 3:15:53 PM

Once upon a time in AmeriKa, land of the Old Glorified Moron:

"Once upon a time, it might have been America's worst nightmare that there was a religious fundamentalist government installed in Baghdad that had a close synergy with Iran," Morrow said. "But now I think it's not America's worst nightmare. America's worst nightmare is being locked into a Sunni insurgency that never ends and results in the continued loss of American lives."

2160. jexster - 1/1/2005 3:21:05 PM

Saddam We Hardly Knew Ye!




"We cannot leave Iraq before it is stabilized," declared a former CIA officer. But to maintain a prolonged foreign occupation of Iraq is to destabilize it only further. Once the invader departs, there will no doubt be a civil war, which will accelerate the dismemberment of the nation, giving rise to a fundamentalist regime, which will make at least some people miss the era of Saddam.

2161. robertjayb - 1/3/2005 10:44:03 PM

Riverbend has electric new year, scopes the elections...

Can you just imagine what our history books are going to look like 20 years from now?

"The first democratic elections were held in Iraq on January 29, 2005 under the ever-watchful collective eye of the occupation forces, headed by the United States of America. Troops in tanks watched as swarms of warm, fuzzy Iraqis headed for the ballot boxes to select one of the American-approved candidates..."

It won't look good.

There are several problems. The first is the fact that, technically, we don't know the candidates.
.................................................

American politicians seem to be very confident that Iraq is going to come out of these elections with a secular government. How is that going to happen when many Shia Iraqis are being driven to vote with various fatwas from Sistani and gang?

Sistani and some others of Iranian inclination came out with fatwas claiming that non-voters will burn in the hottest fires of the underworld for an eternity if they don't vote (I'm wondering- was this a fatwa borrowed from right-wing Bushies during the American elections?)**. So someone fuelled with a scorching fatwa like that one- how will they vote? Secular? Yeah, right.

**Riverbend knows her bushies...

2162. jexster - 1/3/2005 10:45:12 PM

January 17, 2005 issue
The American Conservative



A Time for Leaving

American security and Iraqi stability depend on a prompt handover.

by William R. Polk


From childhood, we Americans are deluged with slogans. We often select our breakfast food, our soap, and our toothpaste by jingles and catchphrases rather than by reading the labels. So we fall easily into accepting evocative expressions in place of analysis even when it comes to national security. Our parents were sold on the slogan that the First World War was the “war to end all wars,” ... We went into Vietnam fearing the “domino effect,” .. We were rushed into the war in Iraq by the assertion that little, poor, remote Iraq was at the point of attacking mighty America, and now we are bogged down there allegedly by a ragtag faction of Ba’athist diehards.

Seldom do we hear hard-headed analysis of what is happening, what is possible, what the alternatives are, how much each will cost in lives, treasure, prestige, and security. When I was the member of the U.S. State Department’s Policy Planning Council responsible for the Middle East, I had the duty to try to understand the reality in the problems we then faced, to comprehend the forces at work, and to identify what could be done. Now as a private citizen, I ask: what is the reality of Iraq, what do we face there, and what can we do?

2163. jexster - 1/3/2005 10:45:52 PM

....

In such a program, inevitably, there will be setbacks and shortfalls, but they can be partly filled by international organizations. The steps will not be easy; Iraqis will disagree over timing, personnel, and rewards, while giving the process a chance will require a rare degree of American political courage. But, and this is the crucial matter, any other course of action would be far worse for both America and Iraq. The safety and health of American society as well as Iraqi society requires that this policy be implemented intelligently, determinedly—and soon.


––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
A former member of the U.S. State Department’s Policy Planning Council, William R. Polk was responsible for the Middle East. He has been a professor of history at the University of Chicago and Founding Director of its Center for Middle Eastern Studies. He is now senior director of the W.P. Carey Foundation.

2164. jexster - 1/4/2005 1:11:33 PM

Staying the Course for the Last Full Measure..

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Gunmen killed Baghdad's governor in Iraq (news - web sites)'s highest-profile assassination in eight months and a suicide bomber killed 11 people at a police checkpoint on Tuesday in an escalating campaign to wreck the Jan. 30 election.





The shooting of Governor Ali al-Haidri in a roadside ambush showed insurgents' power to strike at the heart of the governing class, raising fresh doubts as to whether security forces can protect politicians and voters as the ballot draws near.


A group led by al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, behind most of the bloodiest attacks since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, claimed responsibility for the assassination, saying its fighters had struck down a "tyrant and American agent."

2165. jexster - 1/4/2005 2:29:23 PM

Two of interest from the Obe Juan...



Some readers asked me why I was so against partitioning Iraq or Are Three Bush Shit Canapes Really Easier to Swallow Than One Huge Shit Sandwich?

Carnage Continues, Allawi Develops Irritable Bowel Syndrome

General Muhammad Abdullah Shahwani, head of Iraqi intelligence, estimated on Monday that the force strength of the guerrilla insurgency was about 200,000 men. My own estimate had been 100,000. The US military used to say 5,000, then started saying 20,000- 25,000, but frankly I don't think they have any idea. My colleague, military historian Tom Collier, suggested at a panel we were on that you can usually safely triple the US military estimate of the numbers of the enemy in a guerrilla conflict.

But Shahwani's estimate would make a lot of sense. Surely it is obvious that the US is at least evenly matched with the guerrillas for person-power, and maybe outgunned. The US assault on Fallujah may as well not have been mounted for all the dent it has made in the guerrilla war. If you can put 3,000 guerrillas out of commission and capture a major base and that makes no difference, then you are not dealing with a force of 25,000, now are you?

Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem Shaalan has started talking about the possiblity of postponing the elections scheduled for January 30 if a way can be found to convince Sunni Arabs to participate at a slightly later date. This is the first time I can remember a high-up member of the Allawi clique talking like this, and it shows they are afraid of something.



posted by Juan @ 1/4/2005 02:35:21 A

2166. jexster - 1/4/2005 2:50:56 PM

Iraq'd: 200,000 Insurgents?

2167. jexster - 1/4/2005 3:54:50 PM

Crumbling faster than a Bush war justification...




Baghdad Governor Is Slain, and Five U.S. Troops Are Killed
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
and DAVID E. SANGER
The steady violence prompted Iraq's interim president to urge the U.N. to look into whether Iraq should hold Jan. 30 elections

2168. clydefo - 1/4/2005 7:54:50 PM

“Exit strategy”
?????????
Does Bush intend to “exit” Iraq?

2169. jexster - 1/4/2005 8:51:28 PM

Bush don't have a clue except for what they put on the cue card..

But I am pretty sure "they" don't have either a clue or an exit strategery either...

2170. Max Macks - 1/5/2005 8:41:56 PM

I have asked in other forums but have not gotten an answer.

Just what are these much publicized elections in Iraq electing? I mean Iraq does not have a Congress or a Parliment.

I know that the guerillas mainly want the US army of occupation out of Iraq.
and they obviously dont want this election...

Can someone here tell me that they THINK
the guerillas want besides the US out of Iraq?

2171. Max Macks - 1/5/2005 8:46:53 PM

jexter who is the Obe Juan that you quote in post 2165?

I smiled when I read that post.
thinking of Rumsfeld or some one of the Bush Gang
saying there was just a small number of
insurgents that would soon be elimated by the US army

and also trying to get us to believe that these
guerilla fighters are Saddam Hussain supporters.

2172. Max Macks - 1/5/2005 8:47:52 PM

jexter , ignore my last post
I just went to the link and found out who Obe Juan is.

2173. wonkers2 - 1/5/2005 11:05:08 PM

Max, have you ever caught Da Ali G show?

2174. jexster - 1/6/2005 2:48:20 AM

For all those Old Glorified Crusaders Against Evil Doers, how does it make your tiresome red-white-and-blue bones feel to see the pathetic spectacle of the World's Most Powerful Military bogged down against a rag tag bunch of "freedom fighters", with 2/3 of its combat capabilty committed to fighting a war against a third rate military power, and all for NOTHING?


Well it don't sit well with the CIC of the Army Reserves either and I guaran-damn-tee ya, that nary a rogue state nor Evil Doers anywhere is losing any sleep over the fetid fulminations of the Big Bad Bush..



The head of the Army Reserve has sent a sharply worded memo to other military leaders expressing "deepening concern" about the continued readiness of his troops, who have been used heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan, and warning that his branch of 200,000 soldiers "is rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force."

UNFIT FOR COMMAND - Bush Broke It, We Pay for It

2175. jexster - 1/6/2005 10:21:17 AM

On War #98
January 4, 2005

Jena

William S. Lind

As OHL regulations require, on New Year’s Day I picked up my 1918 telephone and called my reporting senior, Kaiser Wilhelm II. Of course, he already knows what’s going on down here – he’s seen it before – but he usually shares a bit of the view from Potsdam with me, and that can be interesting.

“So, how’s the new Liman von Sanders doing?” His Majesty enquired, referring to my position as Royal Prussian Military Advisor to the U.S. Marine Corps.

“I feel like a Jesuit among the Iroquois, Majestaet,” I replied. “If the ideal army has German generals, Turkish infantry and American logistics, what I’ve got to work with has American infantry, German logistics and Turkish generals. Liman von Sanders at least got an occasional Zeppelin to support him. All I can look forward to is the V-22 ‘Albatross’, which will be easier to shoot down than any Zeppelin.”

“Well, things are better up here,” the Kaiser replied. “I’m just about to commission our latest Mackensen-class battlecruiser. What a splendid ship!”

“So there are battlecruisers in Heaven?” I asked.

“How could it be Heaven without battlecruisers?” His Majesty replied.

“Good point. If I may be so bold, what does Your Majesty foresee for the Americans in Iraq in 2005?”

“Jena.”

“That bad?” I asked. Jena was the battle where Napoleon beat the pants off the Prussian Army in 1806.

“That bad,” His Majesty confirmed. “You know, we didn’t lose at Jena because we were no longer the army of Frederick the Great. We lost because we were still the army of Frederick the Great, but war had changed. The Americans in Iraq have the same problem. They seem unable to adapt to a new kind of war.”

2176. jexster - 1/6/2005 10:21:58 AM

“Majestaet, Jena was not merely a defeat, it was a rout. Are you saying the Americans risk a rout in Iraq? If so, I have to tell you that no one in Washington can foresee such a possibility.”

“No one in Berlin could imagine my fleet would mutiny in 1918, but it happened. Unless the American government pulls out, a rout is in the cards. The Americans don’t know how to fight the kind of war they now find themselves in, so the situation won’t get better. The present mess can’t sustain itself. So there is only one way for the war to go, and that is for the American position to get worse. And it will get worse at an accelerating pace. Where do you think that leads?”

“To a rout where the Americans have to fight their way out, if they can.”

“Exactly. And I will tell you that is coming sooner than any of your Turkish generals can imagine.”

“Majestaet, Prussia’s defeat at Jena led to real military reform. Does the prospect of an American rout in Iraq have a similar silver lining? Will it finally force the American military to move from Second Generation war to the Third Generation, with at least a serious attempt to come to grips with the Fourth?”

“Well, we’re not supposed to give away too much, you know,” His Majesty replied. “But you are aware that the American Military Reform Movement of the late 1970s and 1980s was a response to the defeat in Vietnam. I think it is safe to say that the defeat in Iraq will create a new movement for military reform in America. Whether that will succeed or not, I will have to leave for time to unveil. Let me just say that the more dramatic the American defeat is, the stronger the demand will be for genuine reform.”

2177. jexster - 1/6/2005 10:22:15 AM

“And routs tend to be dramatic,” I added.

“Indeed. And now I must excuse myself, as my train for Wilhelmshaven is about to depart. Wait until you see the Mackensens yourself! Come Der Tag, they’ll give those old Queen Elizabeth’s a drubbing they won’t forget!”

“Even though the Queens have fifteen-inch guns and the Mackensens have only 13.5 inch?” I asked the Kaiser.

“Machts nichts,” His Majesty replied. “You see, the British still leave the anti-flash doors to their magazines open. Closing them would interfere with tea time.”

“There will always be an England, Majestaet.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” the Kaiser replied as he hung up.

2178. Wombat - 1/6/2005 10:31:18 AM

The British left antiflash baffles off their warships so they could increase their rate of fire. For that matter, the Germans didn't install them until 1915, after the battlecruiser Seydlitz was almost blown up by a flash fire in one of its turrets at Dogger Bank.

2179. jayackroyd - 1/6/2005 11:44:13 AM

Max--

The Iraq's are electing an assembly to create a constitution, essentially. I've come to believe that the administration is right--hold the elections, hell or high water. I don't know how the US would respond if the constitution bans the presence of foreign military bases, but, hey, that's democracy in action.

2180. wonkers2 - 1/6/2005 11:50:10 AM

Welcome back, Jay. Long time no see.

2181. jayackroyd - 1/6/2005 11:55:04 AM

I've been lurking. I'm kinda feeling like it's all been said, more than a few times, and that I don't have anything new to add.

2182. wonkers2 - 1/6/2005 12:32:23 PM

Most of us aren't deterred by that!

2183. Max Macks - 1/6/2005 2:53:20 PM

Message # 273

wonkers I never even heard of the DA Ali G
show. Is it something on Cable TV?

2184. judithathome - 1/6/2005 3:01:47 PM

Yes, Max...and I don't think it's your type of show.

2185. jayackroyd - 1/6/2005 3:06:55 PM

I rented it, didn't really find it as hilarious as expected.

2186. jexster - 1/6/2005 3:16:07 PM

Mad Man..Obe Juan is a direct descendant by adoption of the Prophet and prequel to Obe Juan Kanobe and professor of S.Asian History at Michigan and probably the single most knowledgeable and informative commentator on things in that region, esp Iraq and Der Juden frage


His site is in butter bar...and the elections are for a parliament cum constituent assembly. It will decide its own life and that of the Executive Branch it picks while it writes a constitution

2187. robertjayb - 1/6/2005 3:16:10 PM

By all means. Have the elections, get out pronto and declare the adventure a glorious success. Medals all around. Just like Grenada.

2188. Max Macks - 1/6/2005 4:28:19 PM

robertjay.
I have had the same thought. I way for Bush to get out of the mess he made.

Were it not for the oil the Bush Gang would be
more likely to do that.

2189. jexster - 1/6/2005 4:35:29 PM

I think that's absolutely the only course available now and the longer we wait before we do it, the worse we are going to make the situation

Now in our National Terrorized Psychosis, we have been unable to hear this option discussed until now even though that has been an obvious policy option there has been no debate and I daresay ZERO policy study given this by our elected terrorizers, beltway prussians, and assorted WarLords.

Even Obe Juan, His Name Be Praised falls into the Trap of No Exit, a self-fullfilling prophecy, Sartre-esque even...

things go on like this the real question won't be whether you could hold elections but rather whether the members of the new government could be kept alive.

That is another problem with just having the US summarily pull out. The neo-Baath and Salafi guerrillas could and would just kill the members of the existing government, in preparation for making a Sunni Arab coup. That really would provoke a civil war.


Note how the trap works..things are bad so we can't leave. So they get worse...they're bad..can't leave.

The other policy alernative is never explored indeed threshold question is never asked: Is the US occupation an obstacle to stability?

Sort of puts policy in a straight jacket because obviously it assumes a negative answer to the question, would everyone be better off if we left without even letting it be asked


At least now, the obvious question won't get you a media charge of treason

2190. wonkers2 - 1/6/2005 5:13:17 PM

Da Ali G show, not The Da Ali G show. Max, I think you might well find da show funny. In fact I confess that I have been suspecting you of having watched the show and employing some of Ali's humor here in the Mote!

I have seen only two or three episodes, not enough to tire of Ali G's rather unique brand of humor. Another favorite of mine is "Curb Your Enthusiasm" which does tire one a bit after watching a bunch of repetitive variations of the same gag. This may also be true of Ali G. This hasn't happened yet with me.

2191. jexster - 1/6/2005 9:39:08 PM

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Seven U.S. Soldiers Die in Vain in Attack Near Baghdad




BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Seven U.S. soldiers were killed on Thursday when their Bradley Fighting Vehicle hit an explosive device on a road in northwestern Baghdad, the U.S. military said in a statement.





The group was on a routine security patrol

2192. jexster - 1/6/2005 9:42:49 PM

Those Bradley fighting vehicles SUCK. I was on the Hill when the Pentagon sold those piles of junk to the Congress.

The selling point - they could thrive in a heavy conventional or tactical nuclear environment in Europe

God Bless AmeriKa
God Save the Pentagon

2193. jexster - 1/6/2005 9:57:51 PM

Borat from Kazakhstan goes to Nashville to learn American country music...

In a bar, he debuts his first hit..

"In My Country There is a Problem"

V.1 about transport

V.2

In my country there is problem
And the problem is the Jew
They take everybody money
and they never give it back

Refrain
Throw the Jew down the well
So my country can be free
Grab him by the horns
And we will have a big party!


The crowd really warmed up by v.3

When you see the Jew comin
You must be careful of his dick
Grab him by his money
and I tell you what to do...

Throw the Jew Down the well..

Get the picture?

2194. thoughtful - 1/7/2005 9:26:49 AM

Bush Drug Video Broke Law

The Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said on Thursday that the Bush administration violated federal law by producing and distributing television news segments about the effects of drug use among young people.

The accountability office said the videos "constitute covert propaganda" because the government was not identified as the source of the materials, which were distributed by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. They were broadcast by nearly 300 television stations and reached 22 million households, the office said...

In May the office found that the Bush administration had violated the same law by producing television news segments that portrayed the new Medicare law as a boon to the elderly.

2195. wonkers2 - 1/7/2005 10:15:39 AM

I saw the Ali G Borat/Kazakhstan episode, and could hardly believe my eyes and ears. Especially when the participants began to join in singing the chorus. Very revealing. The veneer of civilization is pretty thin. You would have thought at least one would have attacked Ali or at least walked out.

2196. thoughtful - 1/7/2005 10:33:09 AM

I heard this a.m. that sri lanka is accepting tsunami aid money from israel but refusing to let any jews into the country to help with the recovery effort.

2197. jexster - 1/7/2005 12:53:12 PM

Resolutions For The Damned
A new year, a Bush-gutted, storm-ravaged world and you in need of some juicy, heartfelt pledges
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

This is the year.

No, really. This is the it. This is the year you resolve to let it all hang out and lick the fingertips of the divine and stop holding back and stop quivering with unchecked anticipation/dread as you realize that, if you care a whit for self-definition and spiritual nuance and hot wet intelligence and deep karmic color in this tsunami-hammered, Bush-ravaged world, you are desperately needed right now. It's true.

Alas, many are dejected. Many of the blue or Democratic or progressive or open-minded persuasion are understandably heading into 2005 feeling a bit out of sorts, depressed and bitter and angry and still just a little appalled at the apparent widespread fear-induced ignorance of a country that somehow re-elected the worst president in U.S. history. Yes, still.

Well, buck up, jacko. It could be worse. You could be Michael Jackson. Or Janet Jackson. Or Tito. You could be Anne Coulter or Bill O'Reilly or Trent Lott, people whose souls have become so infested with rat dung that their third eye is brown. See? Feel better already ....

(click here to read the rest)

2198. jexster - 1/7/2005 1:49:49 PM

Res Ipsa Loquitur

• General: Key Iraq areas unsafe for vote - ChiTrib
  
  
• Bush calls Iraq elections historic in bid to counter doubters - AFP
  
  
• The Nelson Report, a respected newsletter, reports that Mr. Bush has made it clear to his subordinates that he doesn't want to hear bad news about Iraq.) - Krugman
  
  

2199. jexster - 1/7/2005 2:39:43 PM

There will always be an England Wombat..don't worry


Bloody Ships

By

David K. Hurst

"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today..." remarked Admiral David Beatty to his Flag Captain. Beatty was commander of the Battle Cruiser Fleet at Jutland, and his cool comment belied the scale of the catastrophe. It was 4.26 pm on May 31, 1916 and from the upper bridge of the battle-cruiser Lion he had just seen her sister ship, Queen Mary, disappear in a shattering blast as both main magazines exploded. Twenty minutes earlier another battle-cruiser, the Indefatigable, had vanished in a sheet of smoke and flame and, although Beatty did not know it at the time, the Lion herself had narrowly missed a similar fate only by flooding her Q turret magazine with sea water.

At the Battle of Jutland, the greatest sea battle of all time, the British Navy would lose three battle-cruisers carrying over three thousand men in less than three hours. It was not bad luck, it was bad management: the result of the Navy's inability to manage a complex system from design through to execution. For the roots of the disaster lay in the design of the ships over a decade earlier. Thus the problem was systemic and Beatty's puzzled comment represents one of the more dramatic instances of the bewildered reaction of a CEO to symptoms of systemic problems in the field.

2200. jexster - 1/7/2005 2:40:06 PM

Battle-cruisers like the Lion were the pride of the Navy. Known affectionately as the "big cats", they were armed almost as heavily as battleships and could reach speeds of over 27 knots. In the pursuit of speed and firepower, however, protection had to suffer and the battle-cruisers had only thinly-armoured decks. Their speed, their designers thought, would keep them out of trouble. Their thin armour and emphasis on speed created an aura of risk-taking and, not unlike our modern day astronauts, the sailors who served on them enjoyed high status.

The compromises designed into the battle-cruisers were compounded by modifications made to them to accommodate the Navy's peacetime gunnery practices. Managers usually try to optimize the variables that they can measure most easily, and the Navy was no exception. They had developed a cult of rapid fire, for rate of fire was easily measured and as a "benchmark" it allowed intense gunnery competition among all ships and squadrons in the fleet. In their efforts to feed the guns with charges from the magazines, however, gun crews began to eliminate the anti-flash baffles that slowed the process. At first they left the flash doors open but over time, as word spread about the performance benefits of the practice, some were removed completely. Protection is hard to test in peacetime and no one realized that the battle-cruisers were now dangerously vulnerable. If a shell were to penetrate the main turret armour, the resulting explosion was likely to flash down the ammunition hoist to the main cordite stores in the magazines below.

But the Greater Armadillo Empire is headed to Davy Jones' Locker

2201. jexster - 1/7/2005 3:12:56 PM

I'll make it simple for any Moronic Foreign Legionnaires who might be lurking...








Welcome to the REAL World

2202. judithathome - 1/7/2005 6:20:31 PM

White House Uses Taxpayer Money to Push Its Agenda

Seeking to build support among black families for its education reform law, the Bush administration paid a prominent black pundit $240,000 to promote the law on his nationally syndicated television show and to urge other black journalists to do the same.

2203. wonkers2 - 1/7/2005 10:45:24 PM

Prominent black lawn jockey!

2204. robertjayb - 1/9/2005 1:36:55 AM

Bush to follow Moties' Iraq prescription...(Maureen Dowd)

The president prides himself on being a pig-headed guy. He is determined to win in Iraq even if he is not winning in Iraq.

So get ready for a Mohammedan mountain of spin defining victory down. Come what may - civil war over oil, Iranian-style fatwas du jour or men on prayer rugs reciting the Koran all day on the Iraqi TV network our own geniuses created - this administration will call it a triumph.

2205. jexster - 1/9/2005 9:59:01 AM

Bush Links Fate to Ayatollah's Election
Believes That Jan. 30 Election Will Set Off Democratic Chain Reaction

Larry Diamond, who served as a senior adviser for Bush's Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq last year, said in an interview that by insisting on holding elections in Iraq this month Bush would "grease the slide to civil war."


"He's a very stubborn man," Diamond said, "and there's a fine line between Churchillian resolve and self-defeating obstinacy, and I think he's going over the line on this."


Stubborn man? Just like those stubborn retards who bag groceries at Safeway.

Stubborn man? Polite for MORON - At least they've the good sense to wear bicycle crash helmets when walking.

2206. jexster - 1/9/2005 9:59:15 AM

As the article points out,Bush in November 2003 (HOW MANY MONTHS AFTER HIS MISERABLE LITTLE WAR BEGAN?) made the NeoCon Democratic Domino his signature policy, "rhetorically"

Pfc.Joel K. Brattain 21, Army..Died for the Moron's Rhetoric



?Joel K. Brattain was an avid snowboarder who left the slopes of Lake Tahoe to meet a new challenge: becoming a paratrooper in the Army. "Joel's motto was 'go big or go home,'" said his father, Gary Brattain. Pfc. Brattain, 21, of Santa Ana, Calif., died March 13 after an explosive struck his military vehicle in Baghdad. He was based at Fort Bragg, N.C. Brattain enlisted in March 2003 after graduating high school and moving to Lake Tahoe to focus on snowboarding, his father said. He deployed to Iraq in January. He wanted to give something back to his country, his family said. "He loved this country and he believed in what we were doing," said his brother Kris Brattain, 27. "I'm the older brother but he'll be my hero for the rest of life." Survivors also include his mother, six siblings and his wife.



"Stubborn Man"?


Con man.

Didn't realize that you needed a crash helmet after 11/2 did ya?

IraN Plays Role in IraQ Vote

2207. jexster - 1/9/2005 10:00:09 AM

Stubborn Man Oh lOrd

2208. jexster - 1/9/2005 3:48:15 PM

I was glancing over an article in the coffee shop about Newt's new book and his aspirations to be PRESIDENT in which he laid into Paul Bremmer and George Tenet. What he said about them is of absolutley no importance. THAT he's so shamelessly scapegoating these BUSH MEDAL OF FREEDOM winners is a sign....

The Bush Medal of Freedom, The Sign of Jonah

I suspect Tommy Franks is next up The military types been quietly dissin him at least since since Tora Bora if not West Point days.

2209. jexster - 1/9/2005 4:28:34 PM

By Robert I think she's got it!

It is a lesson never learned: Matters of state and the heart that start with a lie rarely end well

Cept I think the Iraqis will assist with walking papers.

2210. jexster - 1/9/2005 9:00:06 PM

BAGHDAD, Jan. 9 -- In another significant blow to Iraq's upcoming elections, the entire 13-member electoral commission in the volatile province of Anbar, west of the capital, resigned after being threatened by insurgents, a regional newspaper reported Sunday.

Saad Abdul-Aziz Rawi, the head of the commission, told the newspaper that it was "impossible to hold elections" in the province, which is dominated by Sunni Muslims and where insurgent attacks already have prevented voter registration. The province includes the restive cities of Fallujah and Ramadi.

"They are kidding themselves," Rawi said about officials hopeful that the elections, set for Jan. 30, could take place in Anbar.

An Iraqi interviewed at the commission's office said the members had resigned and had gone into hiding.

2211. jexster - 1/9/2005 10:26:55 PM

Weapons of Mass Delusion - Living the Lies, Staying the Course on the Bush Roadmap to Hell

Since President Bush's now infamous proclamation aboard the USS Lincoln on May 1, 2003, 1,242 US troops have died. Since then, a pattern has emerged. With each new major development--hailed by the President as a decisive step toward freedom--conditions deteriorate further.

"The administration has suggested that Iraq would move closer to stability as it reached one milestone after another," wrote Richard Stevenson in The New York Times. ....

Take a look at the actual record of Bush's faith-based war

2212. robertjayb - 1/9/2005 11:33:30 PM

We gotta get outta this place...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 9 - Three weeks before the election in Iraq, conversation has started bubbling up in Congress, in the Pentagon and some days even in the White House about when and how American forces might begin to disengage in Iraq.

So far it is mostly talk, not planning. The only thing resembling a formal map to the exit door is a series of Pentagon contingency plans for events after the Jan. 30 elections. But a senior administration official warned over the weekend against reading too much into that, saying "the Pentagon has plans for everything," from the outbreak of war in Korea to relief missions in Africa.

The rumblings about disengagement have grown distinctly louder as members of Congress return from their districts after the winter recess, and as military officers try to game out how Sunni Arabs and Shiites might react to the election results. The annual drafting of the budget is a reminder that the American presence in Iraq is costing nearly $4.5 billion a month and putting huge strains on the military. And White House officials contemplate the political costs of a second term possibly dominated by a nightly accounting of continuing casualties.

Whole lotta karma coming down...

2213. robertjayb - 1/10/2005 1:00:52 AM

The scent of fear...Bob Herbert (NYTimes)

Something's got to give. The nation's locked in a war that's going badly. The military is strained to the breaking point. And it's looking more and more like the amateur hour in the places that are supposed to provide leadership in perilous times - the Pentagon and the White House.

2214. jexster - 1/10/2005 2:28:31 PM

Imperial Duck Turns Up Lame - Next in Recipie - Duck Flambe

Obe Juan:

The Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS) met on Saturday with 8 officials of the US embassy. Its leader, Harith al-Dhari, offered to end the Sunni Arab organization's call for a boycott of the elections if the US would set a definite timetable for withdrawal of its troops from Iraq.

Al-Hayat says that the AMS now says it will accept a Shiite government if it results from the elections, as long as the latter negotiates a firm deadline for the withdrawal of US troops. AMS said that its disagreements with Shiite Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani were "merely differences of opinion."

Abdul Salam al-Kubaisi, the number two man in the Association of Muslim Scholars, said that it would be desirable for his organization's leadership to meet with Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani so as to reduce the degree of sectarian tension.

Al-Kubaisi also said that AMS would seek a follow-up meeting with the US officials.

I take all this to suggest that the Sunni Arab Iraqis see the withdrawal of US troops as their first and most important priority, coming even before the reestablishment of Sunni Arab political primacy. I also suspect that a withdrawal timetable is something that all Iraqis would like to see (though it is problematic; such timetables in Palestine and India in the late 1940s arguably contributed to the massive violence and Partition in the two British imperial possessions. When the local people sense that the imperial power is a lame duck, they lose all fear of it; and its very withdrawal creates new political opportunities that some will want to seize violently).

2215. jexster - 1/10/2005 2:30:46 PM

Robt..forwarded to the DLC that NyT piece and the 88% item (ever hear that one on the news? Story was out 1/6) with this comment:

Time for the Democratic Party to show they have a pair...Withdrawal from IraQ should have been TOPIC A long ago, certainly before 11/2, certainly NOT a subject broached by Brent Scowcroft and Congresspersons just back with an earful from their constitutents Beltway-itis and castration...the Twin Plagues of our party

To win an election the Party needs to stop treating them as Survivor contests - combat by soundbite and klieg light

Ideas matter, cowardice matters more

2216. jexster - 1/10/2005 2:43:24 PM

Operation IraQi Freedom(!!!!)
The Living Lie
Obe Juan:

Newsweek reports that the US Pentagon is considering an El Salvador strategy in Iraq, of forming Iraqi Special Forces units to engage the Iraqi guerrillas. In Central America, this sort of policy produced death squads that killed leftists (and sometimes nuns) indiscriminately. If the US is seriously thinking of reintroducing death squads into Iraq (they used to be called Saddam Fedayeen; are they now to be Wolfowitz Fedayeen?), then it really is time to try to get the US Department of Defense back out of Iraq before it completely ruins the country. The Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz/Feith notion of dealing with some terrorists in Fallujah was to displace and damage the entire city (notably not a tactic the British used against the IRA in Belfast, but then the Irish are at least Europeans). If the DoD now introduces death squads, it is likely the prelude to a military coup (Iraqi Special Operations troops who have a license to kill would have an advantage in plotting a take-over of the country.)

2217. Max Macks - 1/10/2005 4:26:45 PM

wonkers

I tried to do that trick of going to your earlier post
where you think I listen or watch the Ali G show

I never heard of it except here

Is it on the radio or TV if you have Cable ?(which I dont)

2218. jexster - 1/10/2005 4:32:42 PM

Its HBO cable MM

2219. Max Macks - 1/10/2005 7:15:02 PM

In the last election I voted more against Bush
than I did FOR Kerry,

I was told that Kerry was told he had to say he would
continue the Bush war in Iraq if he was elected.

I said and wrote that the reasons that he said he
gave for opposing the war in Vietnam

were the same reasons of those who are against
the Bush War today.
viz. the Government lied and 2) the war cannot
be won.

Now when I say the US should just pull it's troops
out of Iraq NOW,, I am told..oh if they did
then chaos will result , duh , ? what do you
call the mess there now if not chaos

2220. Max Macks - 1/10/2005 7:17:42 PM

Message # 2213

Wow so the NY Times is no longer afraid
to have stuff like this written and printed.

2221. wonkers2 - 1/10/2005 9:52:25 PM

Max, my comment regarding Ali G arose from the fact that his format is to ask lots of questions as is sometimes the case with you. Also, he is a devilishly clever guy.

2222. jexster - 1/10/2005 11:34:29 PM

From the News-They-Don't-Tell-Bush Dept.
Coalition of the Bailing

1. There Goes the Ukraine - Das Vidanya

2. There Goes Rep. Howard Coble (R-NC)






U.S. Rep. Howard Coble, dean of the state's congressional delegation and an avowedly strong supporter of President Bush, says it's time for the United States to consider withdrawing from war-ravaged Iraq.

Coble, a Republican from Greensboro, is one of the first members of Congress -- Republican or Democrat -- to say publicly that the United States should consider a pullout.

The 10-term congressman, head of the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, said he is "fed up with picking up the newspaper and reading that we've lost another five or 10 of our young men and women in Iraq." [...]


Coble said that if he had known there was no post-invasion strategy at the time of the vote on the war-powers resolution he would have "insisted that we keep our powder dry while we do some probing and planning."

Ahh, all that was needed were a few questions and a little TRUTH

2223. jexster - 1/10/2005 11:36:56 PM

UR right Madman...and I think happily others are coming to the same realization..that "chaos" theory is just blindered bullshit...it chokes off serious consideration of US options which are moving quickly from very slim to none

That's the point Polk, I think most clearly made, in Buchanan's American Conservative.

2224. jexster - 1/11/2005 11:37:55 AM

Yesterday, an "IMPROVISED EXPLOSIVE DEVICE" blew up another Bradley...the second in as many days..

Good thing the "GI General's" fighting vehicle never had to go toe-to-toe with the Rooskies!


From FAS:

The mission of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle [BFV] is to provide mobile protected transport of an infantry squad to critical points on the battlefield and to perform cavalry scout missions. The BFVS will also provide overwatching fires to support dismounted infantry and to suppress or defeat enemy tanks and other fighting vehicles. The Bradley Fighting Vehicle is a fully armored, fully tracked vehicle designed to carry Mechanized Infantry into close contact with the enemy. It possesses sufficient cross-country mobility to keep up with the Abrams Main Battle Tank, medium and long-range firepower capable of defeating any vehicle on the battlefield, and is adequately armored to protect the crew from artillery and small arms threats. During World War II, the vehicle's namesake, General Omar Bradley, was known as the "GI General".


By the end of 1994 the Army had produced a total of 6,724 Bradleys, 4,641 in the M2 Infantry configuration and 2,083 in the M3 Cavalry configuration. ...3,053 A2 "high survivability" vehicles.

2225. jexster - 1/11/2005 11:45:58 AM

From Juan Cole in the News They Don't Tell Bush Room:

It is noteworthy that the democratically elected president Viktor Yushchenko vowed to withdraw the troops from Iraq, which had been sent there by the authoritarian previous government against the will of the Ukrainian people, presumably in search of patronage from Washington. Sending troops to support the US occupation of Iraq has been almost universally unpopular with actual publics, and it is unlikely that any of the foreign contingents in Bush's "coalition of the willing" could stay there if it depended on a popular referendum.

2226. alistairconnor - 1/11/2005 11:49:48 AM

Christmas in Falluja, as told for the Guardian by an Iraqi doctor.

2227. jexster - 1/11/2005 12:11:21 PM

The New Contours of American Militarism Juan Cole

2228. jexster - 1/11/2005 1:33:26 PM

IraQ: The Devastion
The invasion of Iraq was just a preview of the untold misery and destruction to come under U.S. occupation


The devastation of Iraq? Where do I start? After working 7 of the last 12 months in Iraq, I'm still overwhelmed by even the thought of trying to describe this.

The illegal war and occupation of Iraq was waged for three reasons, according to the Bush administration. First for weapons of mass destruction, which have yet to be found. Second, because the regime of Saddam Hussein had links to al Qaeda, which Mr. Bush has personally admitted have never been proven. The third reason – embedded in the very name of the invasion, Operation Iraqi Freedom – was to liberate the Iraqi people.

So Iraq is now a liberated country.

I've been in liberated Baghdad and environs on and off for 12 months, including being inside Fallujah during the April siege and having warning shots fired over my head more than once by soldiers. I've traveled in the south, north, and extensively around central Iraq. What I saw in the first months of 2004, however, when it was easier for a foreign reporter to travel the country, offered a powerful – even predictive – taste of the horrors to come in the rest of the year (and undoubtedly in 2005 as well). It's worth returning to the now forgotten first half of last year and remembering just how terrible things were for Iraqis even relatively early in our occupation of their country.

2229. jexster - 1/11/2005 1:51:35 PM

The Death Squad Option
Faced with an intractable insurgency in Iraq, the Pentagon is returning to its bad old ways. Remember El Salvador?

2230. jexster - 1/11/2005 2:12:56 PM

AC -
Good thing Johns-Hopkins/Lancet left Fallujah out of the equation

2231. Max Macks - 1/11/2005 6:20:49 PM

wonkers2 - I have myself noticed that I ask a lot of questions. Perhaps more here because of the high
calibre of intelligence with the people here(LOL?)

2232. Max Macks - 1/11/2005 6:26:33 PM

Jexter what is FAS ?-- the source of the info in
post 2224

I saw in TV in yesterdays news that one of those
Bradley's had been blown up by the guerillas
and I was surprised that they could be .

Whats your guess as to where the guerillas in Iraq
are getting their weapons?
I can't imagine that there are still enough to be
had in those secret caches of weapons left by Saddham.

2233. jexster - 1/11/2005 6:39:39 PM

But it is clear that by completely destroying this Sunni city, with the help of a mostly Shia National Guard, the US military has fanned the seeds of a civil war that is definitely coming. If there are elections now and the Shia win, that war is certain. The people I spoke to had no plans to vote. No one I met in those five days had a ballot paper.

2234. jexster - 1/11/2005 6:44:09 PM

Max

Federation of American Scientists

Has descriptions and tech info of all weapons systems

2235. jexster - 1/11/2005 6:48:02 PM

Once, when a foreign journalist, an Irish guy, asked me whether I was Shia or Sunni - the way the Irish do because they have that thing about the IRA - I said I was Sushi. My father is Sunni and my mother is Shia. I never cared about these things. Now, after Falluja, it matters.

2236. jexster - 1/11/2005 6:50:10 PM

And I haven't the foggiest where those weapons are coming from. The standard line is that the country is awash in them and that surely is so but no doubt they are coming into the country from all over.

2237. concerned - 1/11/2005 7:10:14 PM

"Lies Have Consequences"

And Mary Mapes can tell all about them. Hopefully, she won't.

2238. jexster - 1/11/2005 10:21:39 PM

Bush's Kind of Democrat
Allawi group slips cash to reporters
Financial Times



The electoral group headed by Iyad Allawi, the interim Iraqi prime minister, on Monday handed out cash to journalists to ensure coverage of its press conferences in a throwback to Ba'athist-era patronage ahead of parliamentary elections on January 30.


After a meeting held by Mr Allawi's campaign alliance in west Baghdad, reporters, most of whom were from the Arabic-language press, were invited upstairs where each was offered a "gift" of a $100 bill contained in an envelope.

Many of the journalists accepted the cash - about equivalent to half the starting monthly salary for a reporter at an Iraqi newspaper - and one jokingly recalled how Saddam Hussein's regime had also lavished perks on favoured reporters.

Giving gifts to journalists is common in many of the Middle East's authoritarian regimes, although reporters at the conference said the practice was not yet widespread in postwar Iraq.

2239. jexster - 1/11/2005 10:29:13 PM

BUSH'S FAKE TAX REFORM.
Bait And ...

2240. PelleNilsson - 1/12/2005 2:50:28 AM

When in a conspiratorial mood I sometimes think that the administration's insistance that elections must go ahead despite the deteriorating security is the result of a Plan concocted with Sistani. So there will be elections and the myriad problems and irregularities will be glossed over. A new government will be formed which will be recognized by the US as legitimate and representative of the Iraqi people. This government will then demand that all foreign troops leave the country. Voila! An exit strategy has been formed.

2241. thoughtful - 1/12/2005 8:35:18 AM

would that it were so.

I suspect we'll be in iraq for years to come yet.

2242. jexster - 1/12/2005 11:22:07 AM

Juan Cole:

Jordan's ambassador to the US, Karim Kawar, is among the few officials in the region or in Washington to admit the truth: The January 30 elections in Iraq have no real validity. He estiamtes that 40% of the country won't be able to vote.

An election in which the names of the candidates in the various lists are still not known 18 days before the polls open is a sick joke, not an election. What could it possibly mean, to vote for anonymous politicians? And note that they are anonymous because otherwise the guerrillas would kill them. Again, I think the election has to go forward, but I just don't expect much from it. The resulting government will be of questionable legitimacy, and the guerrilla war will if anything intensify. The elections are like all the other Wizard of Oz spectacles put on by the Bush administration in Iraq since April 9, 2003 -- the appointment of Garner, the appointment of Bremer, the appointment of an Interim Governing Council, the capture of Saddam, the "transition to sovereignty," etc., etc. Each of these was supposed to be some magical turning point and the beginning of sunshine and rainbows, and instead the situation has deteriorated every single month for the past nearly two years.

2243. jexster - 1/12/2005 11:36:30 AM

The other day I read where leaflets had begun appearing in a couple of small Shiite towns.."Snipers will be on duty on Election Day"

Giving new meaning to "poll watchers".

Let's hope that idea doesn't catch fire. The outlook is already grim enuf:

An unreleased State Department study of last month summarized by AFP last Thursday found that:

Only 32 percent of Sunni Muslims are "very likely" to vote.

Among Shiites, 87 percent said they are "very likely" to vote.

Only 12 percent of Sunni Arabs consider the elections "legitimate."

Only 12 percent of Sunni Arabs think the elections will be completely fair.

52 percent of Shiites think the elections will be completely fair.

61% of Sunni Arabs are very concerned about their family's safety.

24% of Shiites are very concerned about their family's safety.

Among Shiites, 76% would boycott if a figure such as Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani told them to.

Only 32 percent of Sunni Arabs said they would boycott simply because a religious figure asked them to.

88% of Sunnis would stay home if they felt voting would put them in danger.

38% of Shiites say they would stay home if their are threats of violence against polling stations.

2244. jexster - 1/12/2005 11:51:47 AM

Spencer Ackerman, Iraq'd:

Many have e-mailed to complain about the negative tone of IRAQ'D. If any Iraqi political figure is willing to match half my monthly salary, that can change in an instant.

2245. thoughtful - 1/12/2005 2:31:14 PM

more bush lies on soc sec, from delong's site on nutting at cbs marketwatch

Bush: "The problem is, is that times have changed since 1935. Then, most women did not work outside the house, and the average life expectancy was about 60 years old -- which for a guy 58 years old, must have been a little discouraging. Today, Americans, fortunately, are living longer and longer. I mean, we're living way beyond 60 years old, and most women are working outside the house. Things have shifted." The facts: According to the SSA, the life expectancy for a 65-year-old man in 1940 was 76.9 years. Today, a man aged 65 can be expected to live to 81. Most of the increase in life expectancy in the past half century has been for infants, not for the elderly. The increase in the percentage of women working outside the home has boosted Social Security's resources, rather than depleted them. Today, many women who worked receive a widow's pension rather than their own earned benefits. All the payroll taxes they paid are funding someone else's retirement.

2246. robertjayb - 1/12/2005 2:49:27 PM

Always phony WMD hunt finally abandoned

(TIMESonline)---The fruitless hunt for Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction has come to an end, the White House confirmed today.



Officials with the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), the body established to find the very weapons which justified the war, have reported that no weapons have been found.

In fact - contrary to the intelligence that President Bush and Tony Blair conveyed to their respective nations in making the case for invading Iraq - Saddam did not have the capability to make WMDs since 1991, the inspectors found.

2247. robertjayb - 1/12/2005 2:57:53 PM

29% of Brits okay with war...

(TIMES online)---SUPPORT in Britain for the Iraq war has fallen to a record low, although by a two-to-one majority the public believes that the elections for an Iraqi assembly should go ahead this month, according to a Populus poll for The Times.

The poll, undertaken over the weekend, shows that fewer than three people in ten (29 per cent) now believe that the war was the right thing to do. This comes after daily reports of the murder of Iraqi leaders and the killing of dozens of members of the security forces.

2248. alistairConnor - 1/12/2005 5:25:51 PM

The fruitless hunt for Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction has come to an end, the White House confirmed today.

Not with a bang, but with a whimper.

I'm confuuuuused... Where, oh were are Pincher Martin, 109, Ace of Spades... they explained things so well.

2249. jexster - 1/12/2005 7:13:31 PM

2250. jexster - 1/12/2005 7:14:35 PM

2251. Magoseph - 1/12/2005 7:14:58 PM

Hey, Jex!

2252. jexster - 1/12/2005 8:11:06 PM

hardee har har..

And I thought CA recall was bad..

Iraqi Election Lists
105 - VOTE FOR NO MORE THAN ONE

2253. jexster - 1/12/2005 8:52:28 PM

I'm confuuuuused... Where, oh were are Pincher Martin, 109, Ace of Spades... they explained things so well.


Here's a good bet!

Britain's small band of occupation cheerleaders, who comprehensively lost the argument about the war, are now taking refuge in self-righteous denunciations of the Iraqi resistance, the very forces they helped bring into being by supporting the unprovoked invasion of an independent state.

This election could plunge Iraq further into the abyss

Rigged polls held under foreign occupation have a notorious pedigree

2254. robertjayb - 1/12/2005 11:51:29 PM

Faith-based White House kills anti-torture bill...

WASHINGTON, Jan. 12 - At the urging of the White House, Congressional leaders scrapped a legislative measure last month that would have imposed new restrictions on the use of extreme interrogation measures by American intelligence officers, Congressional officials say.

The defeat of the proposal affects one of the most obscure arenas of the war on terrorism, involving the Central Intelligence Agency's secret detention and interrogation of top terror leaders like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and about three dozen other senior members of Al Qaeda and its offshoots.

The Senate had approved the new restrictions, by a 96-to-2 vote, as part of the intelligence reform legislation. They would have explicitly extended to intelligence officers a prohibition against torture or inhumane treatment, and would have required the C.I.A. as well as the Pentagon to report to Congress about the methods they were using.

2255. thoughtful - 1/13/2005 9:44:57 AM

Reality: irrelevant
Spin: essential

latest spin on iraq vote

With just over two weeks until the Iraqi elections, the United States is lowering its expectations for both the turnout and the results of the vote, increasingly emphasizing other steps over the next year as more important to Iraq's political transformation, according to U.S. officials....

"I would . . . really encourage people not to focus on numbers, which in themselves don't have any meaning, but to look on the outcome and to look at the government that will be the product of these elections," a senior administration official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity at a White House briefing yesterday....

2256. jexster - 1/13/2005 11:46:45 AM

Bush Can't Spin Lies Fast Enough,,,


BAGHDAD (AFP) - An aide to Iraq (news - web sites)'s top Shiite cleric has been murdered barely a fortnight before elections the Shiites are tipped to win, while gunmen seized a Turkish businessman and killed seven Iraqis outside a Baghdad hotel.

As the country prepared for its first free and fair polls in half a century despite the relentess bloodshed across the country, US-led forces stepped up operations against insurgents, rounding up almost 50 suspects.


Washington said it had wrapped up a fruitless hunt for weapons of mass destruction, which was the main justification for the March 2003 war against Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s old regime.


An aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, his son and four bodyguards were murdered Wednesday night after they left prayers in the lawless Sunni-majority town of Salman Pak, southeast of the capital, an official at Sistani's office in the holy city of Najaf said Thursday

2257. jexster - 1/13/2005 11:48:46 AM

Falling like Flies
53 Iraqi Parties Withdraw from Elections

2258. jexster - 1/13/2005 12:00:00 PM

The Third Baath Coup? Juan Cole

As long-time readers know, I have long held a position similar to that enunciated by former weapons inspector Scott Ritter's assessment that the lion's share of violence in Iraq is the work of Baathist military intelligence and military gone underground, and that the tendency to blame everything on Zarqawi and a handful of foreigners is a propaganda move that suits both the Baath mukhabarat and the Bush administration. AP correspondent in Baghdad, Borzou Daragahi, makes much the same argument....By Baath I don't necessarily mean committed ideological Baathists, but the party was how they were formed politically, along with networks of clientelage based in the Sunni Arab heartland.

The Baath has been systematically killing members of the new political class. This is visible at the provincial level. The governors of Diyala and Baghdad provinces have recently been killed. The killing and kidnapping of members of the provincial governing councils go virtually unremarked in the US press but are legion

For this reason, I fear I think the US is stuck in Iraq. Sistani clearly fears a Sunni Arab coup, as well, and this is one reason he has not acted forcefully to end the military occupation, which he deeply dislikes.

Is the Neo-Baath Coup scenario one that the US could live with?

2259. jexster - 1/13/2005 12:24:32 PM

WASHINGTON - The torture of detainees at Iraq (news - web sites)'s Abu Ghraib prison and the treatment of those held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, dealt a blow to the United States' credibility as the world's leader on human rights and the fight against terrorism, a human rights group said Thursday.


"When most governments breach international human rights and humanitarian law, they commit a violation," New York-based Human Rights Watch said in its annual report of human rights developments in 60 countries.


"When a government as dominant and influential as the United States openly defies that law and seeks to justify its defiance, it also undermines the law itself and invites others to do the same."


The group urged the Bush administration to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate any U.S. officials who participated in, ordered or had command responsibility for torture or mistreatment. It also dismissed the Bush administration's claim that Abu Ghraib prisoner treatment was a problem limited to a few soldiers acting on their own.

2260. jexster - 1/13/2005 1:45:14 PM

TNR Iraq'd -

INTERIORITY COMPLEX: Earlier this month, Chris Nelson's influential Washington newsletter The Nelson Report wrote that President Bush's almost pathologically optimistic Iraq statements were attributable to real information about the country--just information drawn from a pool so restricted as to be unavoidably misleading:

2261. jexster - 1/13/2005 1:45:42 PM

Increasingly, bad news includes that the White House only wants to hear good news. Senior officials warn that efforts to honestly discuss the security situation are personally rebuffed by the President. It isn't clear whether Bush IS being told the truth, but doesn't care to discuss it outside of the Rice/Cheney/Rumsfeld triangle, or if he has placed himself (or been placed?) in a sanitized bubble where aides only tell him the "good news" about school openings, etc. ... Outside the bubble, the uniforms, and U.S. intelligence, are increasingly doubtful. But their views aren't getting through political appointees officially tasked with blocking "dissent."

2262. jexster - 1/13/2005 1:46:12 PM

Much discussion and hypothesizing followed, especially after Bush's brief January 7 press conference. That was when the president managed to intellectually insulate himself from both General Thomas Metz's assessment that there could be no security guarantee in central Iraq for the January 30 election and Brent Scowcroft's assessment that the vote could potentially lead to civil war. Today the Financial Times runs a piece along the lines of Nelson's:

[A]dvisers close to the administration and former officials [are describing] an understanding in the State Department and Pentagon of the depth of the crisis. But, they say, this is not a view accepted by President George W. Bush.

One counterinsurgency expert said Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, had a "brutally accurate" picture of the situation and the potential dangers. But a member of an influential neoconservative policy group, who asked not to be named, said such warnings "stop well short of the president."

He said Mr Rumsfeld, criticised for the conduct of the war, had an interest in hiding the true picture from the president. According to Chas Freeman, former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia and head of the independent Middle East Policy Council, Mr Bush recently asked Mr Powell for his view on the progress of the war. "We're losing," Mr Powell was quoted as saying. Mr Freeman said Mr Bush then asked the secretary of state to leave.

2263. jexster - 1/13/2005 1:46:24 PM

You always have to be skeptical of these sorts of Kremlinology stories and who feeds them. That anonymous "member of an influential neoconservative policy group" pretty clearly has it in for Rumsfeld, for instance; Freeman likes Powell and doesn't like Bush, so is probably inclined to believe rumint about Powell's truth-telling resulting in his banishment from the inner sanctum. Who knows.

But posit for a moment that one day the information bubble--if it exists--bursts and Bush receives a purely pessimistic briefing about Iraqi political and security development. Would it make a difference? Bush has demonstrated again and again that he's a believer in the politics of belief--that stipulating a goal as a fact can create the fact that leads to the goal. When he says freedom is on the march, he thinks that declaration is a crucial component to getting freedom to march. Given that perspective, why should an infusion of disconfirming information impact his policy decisions?

2264. robertjayb - 1/13/2005 6:47:58 PM

(AP)---As of Thursday, Jan. 13, 2005, at least 1,356 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,069 died as a result of hostile action, the Defense Department said. The figures include three military civilians.

2265. jexster - 1/13/2005 9:26:02 PM

Now WHY do I have to go to Merrie Olde Englande to get this? And a Right Wing newspaper to boot!

US Troops Flee to Canada to Avoid IraQ Duty
5,500 Estimated to Have Bailed Since War Began


Jeremy Hinzman "Wrong career choice"

2266. jexster - 1/13/2005 10:58:22 PM

James Baker Joins Growing Withdrawal Chorus

2267. robertjayb - 1/14/2005 1:41:29 AM

Iraq now terror breeding ground...(WaPo)

Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank.

Iraq provides terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills," said David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. "There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries."
.................................................

President Bush has frequently described the Iraq war as an integral part of U.S. efforts to combat terrorism. But the council's report suggests the conflict has also helped terrorists by creating a haven for them in the chaos of war.

(Dana Priest)

2268. alistairconnor - 1/14/2005 6:16:38 AM

I heard on the radio this morning about a suicide-by-cop in California.

19-year-old Marine was on furlough from Falluja. Didn't want to go back.

2269. wonkers2 - 1/14/2005 3:56:50 PM

I have no doubt that "suicide by cop" has and does happen occasionally. But I think also it can be an excuse for trigger happy cops. Moreover, it seems to me it would be an uncertain method of committing suicide. Even though the cop shot to kill, there's no assurance he would succeed in more than wounding the suicidal person.

2270. jexster - 1/14/2005 11:39:46 PM

Absolutely

Barbara Walters: This was our main reason for going in. So now when we read, 'Okay, the search is over,' what do you feel?

"President Bush: Well, like you, I felt like we'd find weapons of mass destruction. Or like many, many here in the United States, many around the world, the United Nations thought he had weapons of mass destruction, and so therefore, one, we need to find out what went wrong in the intelligence gathering. Saddam was dangerous. And . . . the world was safer without him in power.

"Walters: But was it worth it if there were no weapons of mass destruction? Now that we know that that was wrong? Was it worth it?

"Bush: Oh, absolutely."

2271. jexster - 1/14/2005 11:40:00 PM

What would happen if we turned away from the world of political theater to the real world? We would find a study by the National Intelligence Council which is quite alarming about Iraq and the future.

The National Intelligence Council, the think tank of the CIA, has concluded that Iraq has now succeeded Afghanistan as the training ground for professionalized terrorists.

Much of the terrorism in the Middle East in the 1990s and early zeroes has been carried out by fighters who had assembled to defeat the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, got training and became ideologically committed, and then returned to their home countries. The "Afghans" on the streets of Algiers actually wore Afghan clothing (sort of like an American coming back from Scotland and insisting on wearing a kilt), and they joined the vigorous stream of Islamic politics in Algeria. When the generals cancelled the election results of the 1991 parliamentary polls, which the Islamic Salvation Front had won, many Muslim fundamentalists turned radical and got training from the "Afghans." The more radical of them formed the Armed Islamic Group, which joined al-Qaeda in the late 1990s and to which belonged Ahmad Rassam, who tried to blow up Los Angeles Airport for the Millennium Plot. Similar stories could be told about the Afghanistan returnees in Yemen, Indonesia, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and so forth.

So, the likelihood is that Bush's Iraq misadventure will be responsible for terrorism that is blowing up our grandchildren down the line.

Absolutely.

2272. jexster - 1/15/2005 10:00:27 AM

Pelle...there is no conspiracy of the sane, only bedlam...

The Exit Strategery!



What is Iraq'd? Click here to find out.

01.14.05


COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN: My friend Eli Lake reports in today's New York Sun that the Pentagon is building a sophisticated fiber-optic communications network connecting U.S. military bases throughout Iraq. The network, which Eli reports is part of a broader communications system spanning U.S. installations from the United Arab Emirates to Afghanistan, indicates that the military is planning for a long-term occupation. As he quotes Dewey Clarridge, an ex-CIA officer and old-school regime change advocate, "People should get realistic and think in terms of our presence being in Iraq for a generation or until democratic stability in the region is reached."

2273. jexster - 1/15/2005 10:01:57 AM

Now, just because defense planning includes preparation for long-term contingencies, we shouldn't assume political decision-making has settled on a generation-long occupation. When General Anthony Zinni headed up Central Command in the late 1990s, he had plans to invade and occupy Iraq; they didn't mean that either Zinni or President Clinton had decided to take out Saddam Hussein.

2274. jexster - 1/15/2005 10:02:15 AM

But that said, there's clearly a strategic element to this communications network. It indicates that defense planners see a presence in Iraq as part of an effort to project American power throughout what we're now calling the "broader Middle East." And that power-projection posture isn't going away any time soon.

Whether an elected Iraqi government will tolerate permanent or semi-permanent U.S. garrisoning is something we'll know in relatively short order. The early indications--judging from the second plank on the platform of the United Iraqi Alliance ticket that's extremely likely to form the next Iraqi government--are that it won't. It's telling that Iraqi attitudes toward the project don't seem to be much of a factor here: Eli cites a Navy official's somewhat blithe assurance that the network could just as easily be turned over to Iraqi commercial use. The American calculation appears to be that Iraqi leaders will simply recognize a need for at least some form of U.S. occupation indefinitely. And surely some in the Alliance do. But they would do so at their peril, considering Moqtada Al Sadr's positioning to use the occupation as a wedge between the Shia and the Sistani-backed government, to say nothing of the difficulty a Shia government partnering with the occupation will face in attracting Sunnis to join the political process. What's perhaps more alarming is the prospect that the U.S. could view the corrosive relationship between an extended occupation and the legitimacy of an Iraqi government, even an elected one, as a second-order priority--especially if the ostensible objective of that occupation is to achieve what Clarridge calls "democratic stability."

2275. PelleNilsson - 1/15/2005 1:13:17 PM

So far the US has not understood anyting about Iraq or, indeed, the Arab world at large. Assuming that the vote goes ahead, the Shia will quickly reach an accommodation with the Baathists who are leading the insurgents. The US will be asked to go home. Zarqawi and the other useful fools will be superfluous to requirements and will be dealt with accordingly.

2276. jexster - 1/15/2005 2:06:27 PM

Here's the Suicide-by-cop story

In a way, the more interesting item is the Stanislaus County Sheriff's follow up on Friday to the suicide-=by-cop coverage earlier in the week...Just Another Messed Up Mexican Gang Member

Yes indeed, all is not sweetness and enlightenment in CA. Stanislaus County....lots of lower class MexiMigrants and the rest rednecks.

2277. jexster - 1/15/2005 2:13:30 PM

I HOPE so...It seems the rational course anyway..isolate the insurgents from the source of their political power and from the larger Sunni population. Cole isn't so sure..he thinks that the US needs to stick around and by implication that the Shiites will want us to because they fear the Sunnis generally, the Baath-fundie alliance in particular.

When Bush attacked Najaf and Fallujah I, I almost had the feeling that what I had always seen as the long shot to stability, ie some sort of Sunni/Shiite nationalist raprochement was at hand.

Then came the elections....the pedal to the metal..the rubber hit the road - the Shiites knew a fat camel when they saw one and didn't do squat to stop the fall-winter offensives against the Sunnis...

I wonder whether there's too much bad blood

2278. jexster - 1/15/2005 7:46:50 PM

The negativity of this thread topic is beginning to wear..

I have found a new way of looking at the world...

Today's Rapture Ready News - The World Seen Through Fundamentalist Frame

JANUARY 15,2005
Chicoms in chaos
Geopolitical expert Jack Wheeler sees Taiwan war around corner

Earth-shaking fireball said to be sonic boom
Indian air force says fighter plane flying at low altitude responsible

Gays win in Lutheran church policy debate
A task force of the largest U.S. Lutheran denomination wants it to stop enforcing the church's official ban on ordaining homosexuals.

Evolution ruling gets cheers from scientists
Since 2002, Dr. Kenneth Miller has been upset that biology textbooks he has written are slapped with a warning sticker by the time they appear in suburban Atlanta schools. Evolution, the stickers say, is "a theory, not a fact."


2279. jexster - 1/15/2005 7:47:25 PM


FBI Keeping Records on Pre-9/11 Travelers
If you're among the millions of Americans who took airline flights in the months before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the FBI probably knows about it - and possibly where you stayed, whom you traveled with, what credit card you used and even whether you ordered a kosher meal.

ET Visitors: Scientists See High Likelihood
Decades ago, it was physicist Enrico Fermi who pondered the issue of extraterrestrial civilizations with fellow theorists over lunch, generating the famous quip: "Where are they?" That question later became central to debates about the cosmological census count of other star folk and possible extraterrestrial (ET) visitors from afar.

Abbas Set to Become Palestinian Leader
Mahmoud Abbas, who was being sworn in as Palestinian Authority president Saturday, starts the job with a full-blown crisis on his hands: Israel, with apparent U.S. blessing, cut contacts with his government until he reins in militants.

Va. Court Strikes Down Singles Sex Law
The Virginia Supreme Court on Friday struck down an archaic and rarely enforced state law prohibiting sex between unmarried people

2280. jexster - 1/16/2005 12:12:20 PM

Rising Violence and Fear Drive Iraq Campaigners Underground
By DEXTER FILKINS

In large swaths of Iraq, campaigning is done in the shadows by candidates who are often too terrified to say their names.

Our apologies for not mentioning the names of all the candidates," the flier said. "But the security situation is bad, and we have to keep them alive."

"I call it the secret election."


Texas Cornpone Crockery: Nation-building From Scratch
By George W. Bush

2281. jexster - 1/16/2005 12:34:10 PM

Not to worry folks, just another crazy Mexican..nothing to see here..move along please


A Father Transformed by Anguish
Scars Define the Man Who Burned Himself After Son's Death in Iraq


The grave of Alex Arredondo



Lance Cpl.Alexander S. Arredondo
20
Marines
Dead

Alexander Arredondo always saw the glass half-full. He joined the Marines out of a sense of duty, and when others complained about their training, he just smiled and kept working. When Iraqi children threw rocks at American troops, Arredondo tried to change their attitudes. "That's one thing I will say I gave to him: optimism, which is a good thing to have in this life," said his mother, Victoria Foley. Arredondo, 20, of Randolph, Mass., died Aug. 25 in a hostile attack in Najaf. He was based at Camp Pendleton, Calif. His father was so upset upon learning of the death that he climbed into a Marine Corps van and set fire to the vehicle, seriously burning himself. "This is his scream that his child is dead. The war needs to stop," said Melida Arredondo, the fallen Marine's stepmother. She said Alex joined the Marines at the age of 17 to help pay for college. He was in his second tour of duty in Iraq. When he called home hours before his death, he sounded upbeat. "He was ready," Foley said. "He was ready to fight that night. He knew it was going to get rough."

2282. PelleNilsson - 1/16/2005 2:06:52 PM

The negativity of this thread topic is beginning to wear..


A truer sentiment was never expressed.

2283. jexster - 1/16/2005 3:51:17 PM

Prayze Jaysus Pelle...

It's a sign of the Raputur fer sure..

Here's another...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran to help identify potential nuclear, chemical and missile targets, The New Yorker magazine reported Sunday.




The article, by award-winning reporter Seymour Hersh, said the secret missions have been going on at least since last summer with the goal of identifying target information for three dozen or more suspected sites.


Hersh quotes one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon (news - web sites) as saying, "The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible."

2284. jexster - 1/16/2005 4:34:17 PM

Rock the Vote! Into the Mosh Pit



Events conspired to undermine the Iraqi government's attempts to reassure the public that procedures for voting would be secure. Judge Wael Abdul Latif, a Basra notable of Shiite heritage who serves as Federal minister for provincial affairs, announced that severe restrictions would be placed on automobile traffic near polling stations and even within provinces altogether on Election Day. The hope is to prevent Baathist and Salafi fundamentalist guerrillas from using car bombs to kill the voters standing in line at polling places and so wreck turnout.

Unfortunately, car bombs are only one way the guerrillas could attack the thousands of polling sites, which are the ultimate soft target. Guerrillas have successfully used mortar and rocket fire, and machine gun attacks, against guarded facilities, and have even managed to ram car bombs into areas where automobiles had been prohibited.

As if to mock Judge Abdul Latif, Iraqis discovered a raft of dead bodies at various places in the country.

Are you ready to Rapture Pelle?

Be nice and I will arrange your salvation

2285. thoughtful - 1/24/2005 4:06:02 PM

At least clinton is around to keep the record straight.

New Strategy on Social Security

With their push to restructure Social Security off to a rocky start, Bush administration officials have begun citing two Democrats -- former President Bill Clinton and the late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan -- to bolster their claims that the retirement system is in crisis....

In public speeches recently, N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, and White House budget director Joshua B. Bolten, both cited the same passage of a 1998 Clinton speech at Georgetown University.

"This fiscal crisis in Social Security affects every generation," Clinton said in the speech.

But neither Mankiw nor Bolten cited another passage from the same address: "Before we spend a penny on new programs or tax cuts, we should save Social Security first. I think it should be the driving principle . . . Do not have a tax cut. Do not have a spending program that deals with that surplus. Save Social Security first."



It's all in the parsing.

2286. thoughtful - 1/24/2005 4:11:11 PM

Just because you heard them say it doesn't mean they meant it.

The Speech That Wasn't What It Seemed

"White House officials said yesterday that President Bush's soaring inaugural address, in which he declared the goal of ending tyranny around the world, represents no significant shift in U.S. foreign policy but instead was meant as a crystallization and clarification of policies he is pursuing in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East and elsewhere. . . .

"Bush advisers said the speech was the rhetorical institutionalization of the Bush doctrine and reflected the president's deepest convictions about the purposes behind his foreign policies.


What bush actually said:

"Across the generations, we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave," Bush said. "Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time. So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."

You be the judge.

2287. wonkers2 - 1/24/2005 5:51:26 PM

Patrick Moynihan was an unreliable, renegade Nixon Democrat.

2288. Max Macks - 1/24/2005 6:45:28 PM

I was surprised that even Pat Buchanan

and McLaughlin himself think Bush is a nut case,,

As someone said it was interesting that
Bush using the word Freedom about every other
sentence had to have
100 blocks( sic 100 block area) of DC sealed off
and a massive number of Security police

...He looks more and more like a dictator
ion a Banana Republic.

2289. arkymalarky - 1/24/2005 8:07:59 PM

Since we're along for the ride that's the most interesting thing to watch now--how the Republicans act with him.

2290. jexster - 1/24/2005 9:16:35 PM

And what a ride!

Just look what 250 Billion of your hard earned tax dollars (yours and your children's) buys these days...

TD's Second French Revolution

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi authorities routinely torture prisoners, a leading human rights group said Tuesday, citing examples of abuse which will sound all too familiar to those who suffered under Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).




Prisoners have been beaten with cables and hosepipes, and suffered electric shocks to their earlobes and genitals, the U.S.-based group Human Rights Watch said. Some have been starved of food and water and crammed into standing-room only cells.


"The people of Iraq (news - web sites) were promised something better than this after the government of Saddam Hussein fell," said Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the group's Middle East and North Africa division.


"The Iraqi interim government is not keeping its promises to honor and respect basic human rights. Sadly, the Iraqi people continue to suffer from a government that acts with impunity in its treatment of detainees."

2291. jexster - 1/25/2005 3:22:37 AM

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.



Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

2292. jexster - 1/25/2005 2:22:27 PM

Advice for Candidates: 'Do not Reveal your Identity . . . Stay Home as Much as Possible ' PLUS NPR Interview with Twelfth Imam, Obe Juan

Jack Fairweather reports for the Telegraph from Baghdad on a meeting held by the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) that instructs candidates on how to survive the elections. He writes: "The instructions are simple - avoid public places and do not reveal your identity, the cleric advised. Most candidates should stay at home as much as possible, he added."

Security is still so bad in Iraq that guerrillas were able to strike a national guard base near the airport with mortar fire Monday. As a result the air traffic controllers at Baghdad airport turned back both of that day's Royal Jordanian Airlines flights. RJA is the only commercial carrier that flies into Baghdad, last I knew. Ironically, the inability of the planes to land stranded Iraqi Minister of Defense Hazem Shaalan in Amman. When the Minister of Defense can't even fly to his own country because the area around the airport is in flames, you know that is a bad sign. There was no more word Monday about the growing feud between Shaalan and his rival, Ahmad Chalabi. Al-Hayat reported that a Lebanese bank was taking steps to return to Iraq $200 million that Shaalan had transferred there, ostensibly to buy tanks and other heavy armaments. Ash-Sharq al-Awsat reported that Jordanian officials would be very happy to get Chalabi in their custody, so they could sentence him for embezzlement.

2293. jexster - 1/26/2005 2:45:06 PM

Wed Jan 26,11:12 AM ET Top Stories - Reuters


By Matt Spetalnick

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Thirty-one U.S. troops were reported killed in a helicopter crash and five more died in insurgent attacks Wednesday in the deadliest day for American forces since they invaded Iraq (news - web sites) 22 months ago.



Guerrillas also killed 10 Iraqis in a string of bombings and raids Wednesday. President Bush (news - web sites) urged Iraqis to defy the insurgents, who are waging a bloody campaign to disrupt Sunday's landmark election, a cornerstone of U.S. plans.

2294. jexster - 1/26/2005 6:25:37 PM

El CaCa of Arabia Claims a Texan

2295. jexster - 1/26/2005 6:26:05 PM

2296. jexster - 1/26/2005 7:15:34 PM

The Speech Bush Should have Given

BY OBE JUAN COLE, 12th Imam

This is the speech that I wish President Bush had given in fall, 2002, as he was trying to convince Congress to give him the authority to go to war against Iraq.

My fellow Americans:

I want us to go to war against Iraq. But I want us to have our eyes open and be completely realistic.

A war against Iraq will be expensive. It will cost you, the taxpayer, about $300 billion over five years. I know Wolfowitz is telling you Iraq's oil revenues will pay for it all, but that's ridiculous. Iraq only pumps about $10 billion a year worth of oil, and it's going to need that just to run the new government we're putting in. No, we're going to have to pay for it, ourselves. I'm going to ask you for $25 billion, then $80 billion, then another $80 billion. And so on. I'm going to be back to you for money more often than that unemployed relative that you don't like. The cost of the war is going to drive up my already massive budget deficits from about $370 billion to more like $450 billion a year. Just so you understand, I'm going to cut taxes on rich people at the same time that I fight this war. Then I'm going to borrow the money to fight it, and to pay for much of what the government does. And you and your children will be paying off that debt for decades. In the meantime, your dollar isn't going to go as far when you buy something made overseas, since running those kinds of deficits will weaken our currency. (And I've set things up so that most things you buy will be made overseas.) We'll have to keep interest rates higher than they would otherwise have been and keep the economy in the doldrums, because otherwise my war deficits would cause massive inflation.

So I'm going to put you, your children, and your grandchildren deeply in hock to fight this war. I'm going to make it so there won't be a lot of new jobs created, and I'm going to use the excuse of the Federal red ink to cut way back on government services that you depend on. For the super-rich, or as I call them, "my base," this Iraq war thing is truly inspired. We use it to put up the deficit to the point where the Democrats and the more bleeding heart Republicans in Congress can't dare create any new programs to help the middle classes. We all know that the super-rich--about 3 million people in our country of 295 million-- would have to pay for those programs, since they own 45 percent of the privately held wealth. I'm damn sure going to make sure they aren't inconvenienced that way for a good long time to come.

Then, this Iraq War that I want you to authorize as part of the War on Terror is going to be costly in American lives. By the time of my second inaugural, over 1,300 brave women and men of the US armed forces will be dead as a result of this Iraq war, and 10,371 will have been maimed and wounded, many of them for life. America's streets and homeless shelters will likely be flooded, down the line, with some of these wounded vets. They will have problems finding work, with one or two limbs gone and often significant psychological damage. They will have even more trouble keeping any jobs they find. They will be mentally traumatized the rest of their lives by the horror they are going to see, and sometimes commit, in Iraq. But, well we've got a saying in Texas. I think you've got in over in Arkansas, too. You can't make an omelette without . . . you gotta break some eggs to wrassle up some breakfast.

I know Dick Cheney and Condi Rice have gone around scaring your kids with wild talk of Iraqi nukes. I have to confess to you that my CIA director, George Tenet, tells me that the evidence for that kind of thing just doesn't exist. In fact, I have to be frank and say that the Intelligence and Research Division of the State Department doesn't think Saddam has much of anything left even from his chemical weapons program. Maybe he destroyed the stuff and doesn't want to admit it because he's afraid the Shiites and Kurds will rise up against him without it. Anyway, Iraq just doesn't pose any immediate threat to the United States and probably doesn't have anything useful left of their weapons programs of the 1980s.

There also isn't any operational link between a secular Arab nationalist like Saddam and the religious loonies of al-Qaeda. They're scared of one another and hate each other more than each hates us. In fact, I have to be perfectly honest and admit that if we overthrow Saddam's secular Arab nationalist government, Iraq's Sunni Arabs will be disillusioned and full of despair. They are likely to turn to al-Qaeda as an alternative. So, folks, what I'm about to do could deliver 5 million Iraqis into the hands of people who are insisting they join some al-Qaeda offshoot immediately. Or else.

So why do I want to go to war? Look, folks, I'm just not going to tell you. I don't have to tell you. There is little transparency about these things in the executive, because we're running a kind of rump empire out of the president's office. After 20 or 30 years it will all leak out. Until then, you'll just have to trust me.

2297. jexster - 1/27/2005 11:47:01 AM

37 US Troops Dead, Other Americans Wounded
Large numbers of Iraqis Killed, Wounded by Car Bombs at Polling Stations, Party HQs
Bush Reaches to Beat the Saddam Standard

In his appearances on Wednesday, President Bush said that it was a positive that Iraqis are even having elections, since three years ago it would have seemed out of the question.

You know, if all you have to boast about is that you are better than Saddam Hussein, it isn't actually a good sign. Can you imagine what would have happened to the Republican Party if its reply to Kerry's criticisms of last summer had been, "Well, the American Republican Party is a damn sight more progressive than Hitler was." Saddam was overthrown on April 9, 2003. It is 2005, and the US has been running Iraq for nearly two years.

Now the question is, how does the situation in Iraq compare to the Philippines, or India, or Turkey. Answer: It sucks.

There is little security, people are killed daily, there is a massive crime wave, and elections are being held in which most of the candidates cannot be identified for fear of their lives. So the conclusion is that the Bush administration has done a worse job in Iraq than the Congress Party does in India, or the AK Party does in Turkey. That's the standard of comparison once Saddam was gone.

And, by the way, veteran NYT journalist John Burns, who is nobody's fool, told Tina Brown last Friday that he was taken aback when an Iraqi told him recently that he wished Saddam were back. This was an Iraqi who really had been delighted at the American invasion. So Bush should drop the cute sound bite about being better than Saddam.

2298. jexster - 1/27/2005 11:57:30 AM

On War 100 - Coming Unglued
The Collapse of the Bush Military Doctrine "funnier than fighting Frenchmen or drowning cats"

by William Lind


As I pondered what theme would be appropriate for this 100th "On War", one of Colonel John Boyd’s favorite phrases popped into my mind: “coming unglued.” As the column’s primary purpose is to view events through the prism of Fourth Generation war, and 4GW is both a sign and a further cause of many things “coming unglued,” the phrase seemed apt.

Nowhere is it more so than with regard to America’s grand folly in Iraq, where our invasion destroyed a state and created in its place a vast new breeding ground for Fourth Generation forces. In an interview with The Associated Press in December, 2004, the European Union’s counterterrorism coordinator, Gijs de Vries, said, “There are some who have gone to Iraq (from Europe), as indeed there have been youngsters from outside Europe, from Arab countries, who have gone there to receive military training.” We invaded Afghanistan to eliminate terrorist training camps, then created new terrorist training camps by invading Iraq.

On the ground in Iraq, America’s war is coming unglued. Most of the soldiers and Marines I’ve talked to who have recently returned say the situation is much worse than American newspapers report. Evidence of that came last December, as the U.S. moved to shift its resupply efforts from ground to air. Why? Because the Iraqi resistance controls so many of the roads, including the road from Baghdad’s Green Zone to the airport. “They have had a growing understanding that where they can affect us is in the logistics flow,” said Central Command’s Lt. Gen. Lance Smith. “They have gotten more effective in using IEDs. The enemy is very smart and thinking. It is a thinking enemy. So he changes his tactics and he becomes more effective.”

Do we do the same? Increasingly, it seems not. An article on another of my favorite subjects, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, noted that, “In retrospect, the railroad succeeded largely by making bad decisions and then making corrections.” In Iraq, America has made bad decisions and then not made corrections. That too, Boyd argued, is a mark of coming unglued: paralysis.

2299. PelleNilsson - 1/27/2005 12:08:38 PM

Ute blåser sommarvind
inne spelar William Lind

2300. jexster - 1/27/2005 12:40:46 PM

Unglued
Across Baghdad, Security Is Only an Ideal
By JOHN F. BURNS
Starkly put, Iraq's capital city is not under control, either by the Iraqi interim government or the American military.

2301. jexster - 1/27/2005 12:46:18 PM

Way beyond my online Svenska I fear..

Whatever curse that is, Lind IS after all a conservative republican.

2302. robertjayb - 1/28/2005 5:55:12 PM

Riverbend's water and electricity problems persist...(Baghdad Burning)

And the government doesn't get high marks either:

It's a bit discouraging to watch the current government so uncoordinated. It's like they don't even communicate with each other. It's also somewhat disturbing to know that they can't seem to decide who is a criminal and who isn't. Isn't there some "idiots guide to being a good Vichy government"?

2303. thoughtful - 1/29/2005 2:56:36 PM

what was it i heard on the radio today? someone has a bumper sticker that says George W. Bush for President...
of Iraq!

2304. jexster - 1/30/2005 2:37:41 PM

I'd vote for him


Election Ju-ju (Redux)

By William S. Lind

...

If we find African ju-ju funny, why do we fail to see the humor in the American Establishment’s equally firm belief in ju-ju? They call their ju-ju “ee-lek-shuns.” Take a “state” with no functional institutions, a “government” that is a gang of rip-off artists and foreign hirelings, more religious and clan divisions than Arkansas and Fourth Generation war spreading like crabgrass. All you have to do is hold “ee-lek-shuns,” and Presto!, a real state emerges. Peace reigns triumphant, American troops can go home and secular democracy has converted another flea-bitten, fly-blown Third World hellhole into Switzerland.

Election ju-ju is supposed to work its magic in Iraq in late January. What is actually likely to happen?

The elections will go forward, because Ayatollah Sistani demands they go forward. He has put together a unified Shiite candidate list, which is guaranteed to win. That in turn will give us the Islamic Republic of Iraq, on a model different from Iran’s, but like Iran representing the Shiite branch of Islam.

What is the chance that Sistani can recreate a real state in Iraq? Unfortunately, not very good. First of all, the Sunnis, who are not likely to take meaningful part in the election, will not accept Shiite rule. Contrary to what the Bush administration suggests, I do not believe the Sunni insurgents want to stop the elections. Why? Because a Shiite victory allows them to say to all Sunni Iraqi Arabs, “Now your only choices are to join the resistance or submit to the Shiite heretics.” Enough Sunnis will rally to the resistance, given that choice, that it will emerge from the elections strengthened, not weakened.

That, in turn, points to civil war in Iraq. How will that turn out? If the Kurds join the Shiites in a general offensive against the Sunnis, the Sunnis will probably lose. A Sunni defeat means a vast out-migration of Sunnis from Iraq; many will end up in Europe, where they will strengthen the Islamic invasion of Christendom’s historic heartland. If the Kurds stay out, the Sunnis may be able to defeat the Shiites; there are a lot more Shiites, but the Sunnis are better militarily. However, a Sunni victory is likely to be only a defensive victory; it will not enable Sunnis to re-establish their rule over Shiite Iraq. That in turn suggests partition of Iraq, with a Shiite southern Iraq that would become a de facto province of Iran and a Turkish invasion of Kurdistan to prevent the establishment of an independent Kurdish state.

On the other hand, a Shiite victory over the Sunnis would reverberate throughout the Arab and Islamic worlds. Can the majority Sunnis accept a strategic victory by the despised Shiites, or are other Arab and Islamic forces drawn into what becomes a wider war? One of the great dangers of the war in Iraq has always been potential “spillover effects,” and a Shiite victory might trigger them.

Also, if the Shiites win, can they maintain internal unity or do they also splinter, especially if Ayatollah Sistani dies, of natural causes or otherwise? Just as in religious schism begets schism, so in a Fourth Generation world the breakup of states portends further breakups, in smaller and smaller factions, most of which fight.

Do all these clouds have any silver linings? I can see the possibility of two. First, Ayatollah Sistani, who appears to be not merely clever but wise, may be able to cut a deal with the Sunni insurgents after the elections. In the Arab world, deals are usually possible, and I think he will seek one. The Sunnis for their part need a deal that gives them some access to Iraq’s oil revenues.

The other silver lining is that I believe Sistani will demand American forces leave Iraq. The legitimacy of the new government will depend on its doing so. Sistani has been careful to keep his distance from the Americans, refusing to meet with them, for exactly this reason. Any cooperation with the hated foreign invaders, any contamination by their touch, is utterly delegitimizing. He has to order us out or Shiite loyalties will start to shift to his rival-in-waiting, Muqtada al-Sadr. Sadr has already established his anti-American bona fides by fighting us, twice.

If both of these happen – Sistani cuts a deal with the Sunni insurgents and he orders all American forces out – there is a chance, just a chance, he might be able to re-establish the state in Iraq. That state will not be an American friend, much less the American satellite that was the neo-cons’ objective in starting this war. But any state in Iraq (including Saddam’s) is better than what remains the more likely outcome, Iraq’s descent into a condition of permanent stateless disorder.

2305. jexster - 1/31/2005 1:32:17 PM

WASHINGTON - The U.S. occupation authority in Iraq (news - web sites) was unable to keep track of nearly $9 billion it transferred to government ministries, which lacked financial controls, security, communications and adequate staff, an inspector general has found.



The U.S. officials relied on Iraqi audit agencies to account for the funds but those offices were not even functioning when the funds were transferred between October 2003 and June 2004, according to an audit by a special U.S. inspector general.


The findings were released Sunday by Stuart Bowen Jr., special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction. Bowen issued several reports on the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the U.S. occupation government that ruled Iraq from June 2003 to June 2004.

2306. jexster - 2/1/2005 11:40:34 AM

2307. jexster - 2/1/2005 12:09:00 PM

THE PRINCE OF WONDERLAND

By William Fisher

Good news! The Prince of Darkness has morphed into The Prince of Peace.

Having fixed Iraq, Richard Perle is now ready to advise us on Iran. The former Assistant Defense Secretary in the Reagan Administration, and Neocon darling, appeared on a recent Charlie Rose show on PBS, following his nemesis, Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker magazine.

When Perle appeared, Rose quoted Hersh: “The Neocons believe that if we take out Iranian nuke sites with precision airstrikes, the people will rise up and overthrow the mullahs.”

Perle demurred....

A few years ago, many of those who now serve George W Bush launched their “Project for the New American Century (PNAC)”. Its stars included names like Elliott Abrams, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, James Woolsey, John Bolton, Douglas Feith and, of course, Perle. Its ideology was the proactive assertion of American power in the world. It believed that the kind of rhetoric we heard in the President’s inaugural address was for real.

The PNAC said what America needed was "a new Pearl Harbor.” A wake-up call to arms and manifest destiny. They wrote, they spoke, they circulated policy papers, they lobbied the corridors of Washington power. And absent 9/11, they might all just be doing the same old things. But Usama Bin Laden was the greatest gift the neocons ever got.

Then came Iraq.....


William Fisher has managed economic development programs in the Middle East for the US State Department and the US Agency for International Development, and served in the international affairs area in the Kennedy administration.

2308. jexster - 2/1/2005 12:10:26 PM

Fisher Link Insha'allah

2309. Max Macks - 2/1/2005 4:18:08 PM

Two questions for anyone who reads this.

did the dust storm or insurangent grenades bring
those two helicopters down last week?

2. Have the "insurgents" now been defeated by
the alleged success of the election n Iraq?

2310. wonkers2 - 2/1/2005 5:18:46 PM

Perle is one of the slimiest, evilest people extant on this earth.

2311. jexster - 2/1/2005 8:34:32 PM

Even LOOKS evil!


Better Late Than Never
CIA Rectifying Prewar Estimates on Iraq WMD




WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA (news - web sites) is publishing a series of classified reports revising its prewar intelligence assessments of Iraq (news - web sites)'s weapons of mass destruction, an intelligence official said on Tuesday.

A Jan. 18 report, titled "Iraq: No Large-Scale Chemical Warfare Efforts Since Early 1990s," concludes that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) abandoned major chemical weapons programs after the first Gulf War (news - web sites) in 1991.



The CIA (news - web sites) is publishing a series of classified reports revising its prewar intelligence assessments of Iraq (news - web sites)'s weapons of mass destruction, an intelligence official said on Feb. 1. 2005. A Jan. 18 report, titled 'Iraq: No Large-Scale Chemical Warfare Efforts Since Early 1990s,' concludes that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) abandoned major chemical weapons programs after the first Gulf War (news - web sites) in 1991. Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) holds up a vial that he described as one that could contain anthrax during his presentation on Iraq to the U.N. Security Council Feb. 5, 2003. (Ray Stubblebine/Reuters)

A Jan. 4 CIA report addressed Baghdad's Scud missile and delivery system, while forthcoming reports are expected to revise prewar estimates of Iraq's biological and nuclear capabilities.


The intelligence official, who asked not to be named, said the latest report was not considered a high-level document for review by President Bush (news - web sites).


"This matches up what the assessment was before the war and what the assessment is after the war," the official said. "It takes into account post-war information that was, by definition, not available earlier."


U.S. intelligence claims that Iraq possessed large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was attempting to acquire nuclear capability formed a main justification for the 2003 invasion.


Former CIA Director George Tenet, who resigned last July, told Bush that finding WMD in Iraq would be a "slam dunk" according to journalist Bob Woodward's book "Plan of Attack."


But no WMD have been found in Iraq and U.S. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer is expected this month to issue a final addendum to his September report concluding that prewar Iraq had no such stockpiles.


"The CIA has finally admitted that its WMD estimates were wrong," Rep. Jane Harman (news, bio, voting record) of California, ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said in a statement.


She also called on CIA officials to conduct a vigorous review of intelligence on Iran and North Korea (news - web sites), "where active WMD programs are known to exist."


Bush has branded prewar Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an "axis of evil."


The United States contends that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons.


Tehran denies the charge. But Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites), a main proponent of the Iraq war, stirred concern about possible military action against Iran recently by saying the country tops the administration list of world trouble spots.


The Bush administration is engaged in six-party talks with North Korea, which U.S. officials say could have more than eight nuclear weapons.



White House Porch Monkey

2312. jexster - 2/1/2005 8:39:27 PM

Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell holds up a vial that he described as one that could contain anthrax during his presentation on Iraq to the U.N. Security Council Feb. 5, 2003



The CIA (news - web sites) is publishing a series of classified reports revising its prewar intelligence assessments of Iraq (news - web sites)'s weapons of mass destruction, an intelligence official said on Feb. 1. 2005. A Jan. 18 report, titled 'Iraq: No Large-Scale Chemical Warfare Efforts Since Early 1990s,' concludes that Saddam Hussein abandoned major chemical weapons programs after the first Gulf War in 1991.

2313. arkymalarky - 2/1/2005 9:20:30 PM

Jex?

2314. jexster - 2/1/2005 10:28:33 PM

Two questions for anyone who reads this.

1. did the dust storm or insurangent grenades bring
those two helicopters down last week?

Who knows. Two things, however, are certain. The Pentagon has followed a policy of understating combat related death and injury, and those Marines would be alive today had Bush not lied.

2. Have the "insurgents" now been defeated by
the alleged success of the election n Iraq?

Probably the reverse. It all depends, as ever, upon Sistani and the Shiite leadership but their challenges have grown larger. First the insurgency has exposed nationwide vulnerablities of a virtually non-existent Iraqi state. Second, the insurgency and jihadist support have grown steadily over the past two years. The election by exposing the underlying ethnic conflict in Iraq has increased insurgent opportunities. Moreover, now that the election is over, the Sadrists, the Shiite insurgents, are serious players especially because it appears that Shiite leadership, fearful for their lives, may be less likely to insist upon a withdrawal timetable.

This strengthens both the Shiite and Sunni jihadists

Sistani's insistence upon an Islamic state is attractive to many of these folks I would imagine but the Shiite leadership is in a serious quandry - continued US presence is counterproductive.

We have as a top US commander conceded, decisively lost the "hearts and minds" battle

2315. alistairconnor - 2/2/2005 6:37:52 AM

Sistani's insistence upon an Islamic state

A lot of people misunderstand this issue.

Instinctively people see Sistani as the equivalent of Khomeini in Iran. He's not. He's exceedingly moderate, and does not seek any sort of religious oversight of government such as they have in Iran.

The paradox is that, although he is immensely respected as a religious and moral authority, he is being asked by his own people to provide political leadership... which, for theological reasons, he is unwilling to do.

Hence the worries about the viability of the Shiite coalition. But there is a good chance that his influence will restrain the zealots who would wish to submit everything and everyone to islam.

2316. jexster - 2/2/2005 12:59:25 PM

Sistani does not favor a rule of the Jurisprudent as in Iraq and is reluctant to have direct clerical involvement. However, he DOES very much want Islamic Law to be the Law of the Land.


A BIG Win for Allah, the Beneificent and Merciful. His Name be praised!

Dhul-Hijjah 22, 1425


Wednesday, February 02, 2005
Religious Shiites claim Victory

Abdul Aziz al-Hakim claimed victory in the Sunday elections for the United Iraqi Alliance, the coalition of religious Shiite parties he leads. And this is what the winners, if they are winners, think of the US:

' "No one welcomes the foreign troops in Iraq. We believe in the ability of Iraqis to run their own issues, including the security issue," Mr Hakim said. "Of course this issue could be brought up by the new government." '

2317. jexster - 2/2/2005 1:00:21 PM

"as in IraN"

Now Bush even has me confused

2318. jexster - 2/2/2005 1:02:29 PM

Guess Bush was right after all. He and the Ancient of Days DO have a special relationship!
Next spin?

I suppose we'll be seeing Bush kiss Sistani's robed ass in the White Palace chirping about all the Liberty Flags he's firmly planted




But set thou thy face to the right Religion before there come from Allah the Day which there is no chance of averting: on that Day shall men be divided (in two). al-Qur'an 30:43

2319. PelleNilsson - 2/2/2005 2:23:38 PM

There is likely to be a reference in the constitution to Islam as the offical religion in Iraq, but there is also likely to be provisions for tolerance of non-Muslims. Sharia law may be mentioned as a "source of guidance" or something like that but there won't be any specifics because there is no single view on its interpretation within Islam. Juan Cole proposed in an earlier comment that family law may be excepted from general law and dealt with according to the customs of each religious group. That is how things were done under the Ottomans (the millet system) and that's how it is done today in Lebanon and, I think, in some other countries in the region.

2320. jexster - 2/2/2005 2:34:54 PM

Insha'allah!

Exactly Why We Waged Aggressive War; Decimated the US Image in the World, Bogged Down the World's Mightiest Armed Force in a Third Rate Quagmire, Killed and Maimed Hundreds of Thousands, Created a Generation of Battle Hardened Jihadi Terrorits, and Ran Up $200 Billion in Debt



Large vote turnout boosts aspirations of religious coalition


Your tax dollars at work..(not to mention your children and grand-children)

2321. jexster - 2/2/2005 2:38:53 PM

CORRECT LINK
Top Shiites push for an Islamic constitution

2322. PelleNilsson - 2/2/2005 3:36:02 PM

You would do better listening to Alistair and me than to those sensationalist reporters and pundits you favour.

2323. wonkers2 - 2/2/2005 6:08:13 PM

Juan Cole is more than a pundit. He's a professor of middle east history at one of our best universities. Of course that doesn't mean he's always right. But it does mean that he offers informed and well considered opinions and commentary.

2324. robertjayb - 2/2/2005 6:59:24 PM

But he wears really ugly and poorly tied neckties with really ugly sport shirts. He is a professor all right. No doubt about it.

2325. jexster - 2/2/2005 7:59:09 PM

Let's Keep the Little Fuck Honest This Time


Three from the Center for Budget & Policy Priorities:

NEW DETAILS FROM THE PRESIDENT TONIGHT ON PRIVATE ACCOUNTS NOT LIKELY TO ANSWER KEY QUESTIONS
by Jason Furman
http://www.cbpp.org/2-2-05socsec.htm 10K
http://www.cbpp.org/2-2-05socsec.pdf 21K, 2pp.

THE ADMINISTRATION’S MISLEADING $600 BILLION ESTIMATE OF THE COST OF WAITING TO ACT ON SOCIAL SECURITY
by David Kamin and Richard Kogan
http://www.cbpp.org/2-2-05bud.htm 20K
http://www.cbpp.org/2-2-05bud.pdf 158K, 4pp.

OVERVIEW OF OTHER SOCIAL SECURITY, TAX CUT, AND DEFICIT ISSUES IN THE STATE OF THE UNION
http://www.cbpp.org/2-2-05socsec3.htm 11K

2326. jexster - 2/2/2005 8:04:19 PM

Which sensationalist reporters and pundits are you talking about Pelle?

Juan Cole?

Has more or less said exactly what Alistair did...actually much more than less...and he has said this repeatedly.

I have never said that the Iraqi Shiites were likely to establish an Iranian style state with this constitution (even though powerful subgroups of Shiites do!). This does not mean however that they do not want an ISLAMIC state.

Alistair is right too that many Americans do not appreciate the difference, but fails to note that most Americans who still support US policy in IraQ would be horrified to learn that Bush's Big Adventure AT BEST promises a stable Islamic state.

2327. jexster - 2/2/2005 8:08:56 PM

The Ayatollahs brought IraQ to this point against the objections of the Occupation Authority...

So what is it that these moderates want?

According to Dr. Cole:

The Shiite earthquake | 1, 2




One disturbing trend in this election was the reinforcement of ethnic political identity. Iraq is a diverse society, but has most often sought forms of politics that deemphasize ethnicity. The price of such an approach, however, has often been authoritarian rule, as under the pan-Arab Baath Party that ruled from 1968 to 2003. In the north of Iraq, Kurds predominate. They do not speak Arabic as their mother tongue but rather an Indo-European language related to Persian (and distantly to English). Their Islam is mystical, traditional and somewhat rural, and most of them are not very interested in the minutiae of religious law. In recent years they have urbanized, as at Kirkuk and Sulaymaniyah, but have developed a relatively liberal approach to Islam and politics. Kurds had long had separatist tendencies and faced severe repression from Baghdad. Under the American no-fly zone of the 1990s, they developed a Kurdistan Regional Assembly, virtually a semiautonomous government, and now fear being reintegrated into Arab Iraq as second-class citizens.

The center-north of Iraq is dominated by Sunni Arabs. Arabs are simply populations that speak Arabic as their native language; they are not a racial category. Sunnis constitute some 90 percent of the Muslims in the world, but are a minority of 20 percent in Iraq. They honor four early "rightly guided" caliphs, or vicars, of the prophet Mohammed and lack a strict clerical hierarchy. Sunni reformists often resemble Protestants in rejecting saint-worship and mediation between God and human beings.

East Baghdad and the south are Shiite Arab territory. Shiites honor the prophet's son-in-law and cousin, Ali, as the rightful successor of Mohammed, and invest the descendants of the prophet with special honor. The Iraqi Shiites do have a clerical hierarchy, at the pinnacle of which is the Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the chief source of religious authority.




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In Iraq, the Sunni Arabs have traditionally predominated, and they have held political power until Jan. 30. During the past three centuries, a conversion movement among tribes in the south has produced a Shiite majority in Iraq. But the Shiites were most often poor, rural and relatively powerless. In the past half-century, many have moved to the cities, gained modern educations, and thrown up religious parties that aim to establish an Islamic republic with a Shiite cast. These parties joined together to form the United Iraqi Alliance.

The UIA appears to have done extremely well in many Iraqi provinces and may well dominate the new Parliament. Because the Sunni Arabs did not come out in force to vote, the Shiite religious vote was magnified. That is, the electoral system is such that parties are seated in Parliament in accordance with their proportion of the national vote. If a party gets 10 percent, it will get about 27 seats. Because of the proportional nature of the election, if one group boycotts, the other groups do even better. The Shiite leadership will try to reach out to the Sunni Arab politicians, including them in the new government and in the constitution-drafting process. But since the Sunnis will have relatively few seats in Parliament, they may be even more sullen than before. Moreover, the politics of the UIA may not be to their liking.

If the United Iraqi Alliance can form a government, probably in coalition with smaller parties, it will almost certainly move in two controversial directions. First, it will seek to implement religious law in the place of civil law for matters of personal status, and possibly in other realms, such as commerce. Islamic law has provisions for matters such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, alimony and so forth. Muslim fundamentalists throughout the world have adopted as one of their main political goals the repeal of civil laws that were most often adopted during or just after the age of European colonialism (roughly from the mid-1700s until the 1960s), and to replace them with a rigid and often medieval interpretation of Islamic law.


• This form of Islamic law (which in other hands can be dynamic and innovative) would typically deny divorced women any inheritance,
  
• give girls half the inheritance received by their brothers,
  
• restrict women's right to initiate divorce, restrict women's appearance in public,
  
• and make the testimony of women in court worth half that of a man.
  

Middle-class Sunni Arabs and educated women, along with most Kurds, would likely strongly resist this initiative. The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, among the main Shiite parties, and Grand Ayatollah Sistani have already telegraphed their desire for this change.

2328. jexster - 2/2/2005 8:14:02 PM

2329. jexster - 2/5/2005 12:13:53 PM

Il Duce?
Not to THESE Conservatives

Reality, it's not just for Democrats any more.

I have mentioned before that when I was a child covering the Senate Floor for Johnston, Lind was Sen Taft's LA for defense issues. I remembered this when he referred to his work for Taft to block the Navy's procurement of a nuclear powered cruiser. He briefed me on his boss's position and plans for the debate

There's no better GOP pedigree that a Taft republican.

Duce? Not To Us

By William S. Lind

[Serious conservatives, men such as Scott McConnell of The American Conservative and economist Paul Craig Roberts, along with such eminent libertarians as Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com and Lew Rockwell, are raising a surprising question: do the war in Iraq and the Bush administration’s desperate attempts to shore up support for that war have a whiff of fascism about them? In the February 14 issue of TAC, McConnell quotes his old history professor at Columbia, Fritz Stern, writing in The New York Times:

Now the word “freedom” has become a newly invoked justification of the occupation of a country that did not attack us, whose people have not greeted our soldiers as liberators…The world knows that all manner of traditional rights associated with freedom are threatened in our own country…the essential element of a democratic society – trust – has been weakened, as secrecy, mendacity and intimidation have become the hallmarks of this administration…Now “freedom” is being emptied of meaning and reduced to a slogan.

To these wise words, Scott McConnell adds his own:

I don’t think there are yet real fascists in the administration, but there is certainly now a constituency for them – hungry to bomb foreigners and smash those Americans who might object. And when there are constituencies, leaders may not be far behind. They could be propelled into power by a populace ever more frustrated that the imperialist war it has supported – generally for the most banal of patriotic reasons – cannot possibly end in victory.

These voices, which should be heard thoughtfully, are pointing to a real danger. Yet I do not think that danger can rightly be labeled “fascism.” Beyond the facts that W. as dictator suggests not so much Hitler or Mussolini as Charlie Chaplin and that the greatest threat to freedom in America is the left’s ideology of cultural Marxism, there is a larger problem: the intellectual core of fascism itself.

Fascism is not merely dictatorship. The core idea of fascism is will as the highest virtue. Fascism sought to drop the whole Judeo-Christian content of Western culture and return to the values of the classical world, where power was the greatest good. (What astonished Greeks and Romans about Christianity was not that it had a Savior who died and rose from the dead; many eastern mystery cults claimed the same. What astonished them was that these Christians’ God said, “I came not to be served, but to serve.”) To fascists, the exercise of power, will, was the supreme moral act.

This was a serious error, because it turned an instrumental value, will, into a substantive value. In reality, will is good or evil depending upon what is willed. By attempting to turn will into a substantive value, fascism destroyed itself: will led to Mussolini’s entry into World War II (had he remained neutral, like Franco, he would probably have survived Hitler’s defeat), to Hitler’s offhand declaration of war on America (even after Pearl Harbor, Roosevelt would have had trouble getting an offensive declaration of war on Germany through Congress) and, ultimately, to the Holocaust: when the Nazis’ original aim of expelling the Jews from Europe became impossible because there was no place to send them, will demanded a Final Solution.

Thankfully, America has a long way to go before “triumph of the will” could become the American creed. The Christians who make up George W. Bush’s political base would gag well before reaching that point; they know their Bible better than that.

I would suggest that, instead of fascism, the danger now facing America is one of the many ills released from that Pandora’s Box, the French Revolution: abstract nationalism. As Burke pointed out, conservative patriotism is very different from the abstract nationalism of “la Patrie.” It is a concrete attachment to our own places: our own valleys or towns, our farms, hills or plains. It is local, it is real and it rightly sees Wal-mart as a far greater threat than tin-pot dictators in Third World countries.

Abstract nationalism, what Martin van Creveld calls “the state as an ideal” in his book The Rise and Decline of the State, has spread widely in America. As conservatives, we need to do a better job of explaining to our fellow citizens why that kind of nationalism is radical, not conservative. But van Creveld’s book also points to the likely fate of such a nationalism: it will crumble after it fails in war.

In Europe, the state as an ideal died in World War I, in the mud at places like the Somme and Verdun. I suspect that the same thing is going to happen here after the American people have to confront the reality of America’s defeat in Iraq. Bush’s wild Wilsonianism is out of time; it is a ghost from an era long past, an illusion that is now sustained only by the public’s trust that somehow, our troops’ unquestionable valor in Iraq will bring victory. When it becomes clear to that public that valor alone is not enough, that a failed strategy brings defeat no matter how courageously soldiers and Marines may fight, the grand illusion will be followed by a profound bitterness and a turning inward. That turning inward could be a good thing for conservatives, if we can lead it toward a restoration of the American republic as a curative for the follies of empire.

There is one not unlikely event that could bring, if not fascism, then a nationalist statism that would destroy American liberty: a terrorist event that caused mass casualties, not the 3,000 dead of 9/11 but 30,000 dead or 300,000 dead. We will devote some thought to that possibility in a future column



2330. jexster - 2/5/2005 1:30:16 PM


Excerpts from Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004).





The United States itself has never been exempt from fascism. Indeed, antidemocratic and xenophobic movements have flourished in America since the Native American party of 1845 and the Know-Nothing Party of the 1850s. … Much more dangerous are movements that employ authentically American themes in ways that resemble fascism functionally. . . . Today a 'politics of resentment' rooted in authentic American piety and nativism sometimes leads to violence against some of the very same 'internal enemies' once targeted by the Nazis, such as homosexuals and defenders of abortion rights. [201]



Of course the United States would have to suffer catastrophic setbacks and polarization for these fringe groups to find powerful allies and enter the mainstream. I half expected to see emerge after 1968 a movement of national reunification, regeneration, and purification directed against hirsute antiwar protesters. black radicals, and 'degenerate' artists. I thought that some of the Vietnam veterans might form analogs to the Freikorps of 1919 Germany or the Italian Arditi, and attack the youths whose demonstrations on the steps of the Pentagon had 'stabbed them in the back.' Fortunately I was wrong (so far). Since September 11, 2001, however, civil liberties have been curtailed to popular acclaim in a patriotic war upon terrorists.



The language and symbols of an authentic American fascism would, of course, have little to do with the original European models. They would have to be as familiar and reassuring to loyal Americans as the language and symbols of the original fascisms were familiar and reassuring to many Italians and Germans, as Orwell suggested. Hitler and Mussolini, after all, had not tried to seem exotic to their fellow citizens. No swastikas in an American fascism, but Stars and Stripes (or Stars and Bars) and Christian crosses. No fascist salute, but mass recitations of the pledge of allegiance. These symbols contain no whiff of fascism in themselves, of course, but an American fascism would transform them into obligatory litmus tests for detecting the internal enemy.



Around such reassuring language and symbols and in the event of some redoubtable setback to national prestige, Americans might support an enterprise of forcible national regeneration, unification, and purification. Its targets would be the First Amendment, separation of Church and State (crèches on the lawns, prayers in the schools), efforts to place controls on gun ownership, desecrations of the flag, unassimilated minorities, artistic license, dissident and unusual behavior of all sorts that could be labeled antinational or decadent. [202]



What is Fascism?



Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. [218]



2331. jexster - 2/7/2005 2:22:53 PM

The Conscience of a Soldier Fighting an Immoral War



HINESVILLE, Ga. — His sergeant called him a coward to his face. His chaplain sent him an e-mail saying he was ashamed of him. His commanders had him formally charged with desertion.

Sgt. Kevin Benderman, who has served one tour of duty in Iraq (news - web sites), is refusing to serve another. When his fellow soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division packed their gear and left nearby Ft. Stewart for Iraq last week, Benderman stayed home. He says he has chosen to follow his conscience — not his commanders.


After 10 years in the Army, Benderman has applied for a discharge as a conscientious objector — a heresy to many in the military at a time when the country is fighting two wars overseas.


Today, Benderman, 40, will attend a military court hearing at Ft. Stewart that will determine whether he will face a court-martial for desertion and failure to report for a unit deployment. He could face up to seven years in prison if convicted.


"War is the greatest form of wrong," Benderman wrote in his seven-page conscientious objector application. "I believe that my moral obligation to humanity is to not allow myself to be a part of this destruction."

In the six months he spent in combat in Iraq in 2003, Benderman said, he was badly shaken by what he witnessed. He saw a young Iraqi girl with her arm horribly burned and blackened, standing helplessly on a roadside as Benderman's convoy rushed past. He saw dogs feasting on civilian corpses that had been dumped into pits. He saw young U.S. soldiers treat war like a video game, he said, with few qualms about killing or the effects of the invasion on ordinary Iraqis.


Benderman said he begged an officer to stop and help the girl, but was told that the unit couldn't spare its limited medical supplies. "I had to look at that little girl, look into her eyes, and in her eyes I saw the TRUTH. I cannot kill," Benderman wrote in his application.


2332. jexster - 2/7/2005 6:27:37 PM

All Glory Be to Obe Juan, servant of Allah's Truth, 12th Imam, who knoweth our questions before we asketh and whose TRUTH sets us free from Bush's Shit...


Holy Icon of Obe Juan the Wise



Monday, February 07, 2005
The Republicans' Iraq and the Islamic Republic of Iraq



The Republican Party spin machine was bouncing around the airwaves like an overloaded washing machine on Sunday attempting to obscure from the American public that they had by their actions managed to install a Shiite religious ruling class in Iraq. The New York Times even lead with a headline, "U.S. Officials Say a Theocratic Iraq Is Unlikely." This headline is probably wrong, but in any case it begs the question of what a "theocracy" is.

If it means a clerically-ruled state, then I agree with Vice President Dick Cheney that a) you have to look at what Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani wants, and b) that Sistani does not want clerics to rule the country as in Iran. But the main goal of political Islam in the past few decades hasn't been clerical rule. It has been the replacement of civil law with shariah or Islamic canon law. This was done by the non-clerical government of Sudan, e.g. And that is where Iraq is headed. The only question is how wideranging the substitution will be. Will it just be personal status law (marriage, divorce, inheritance, alimony, etc.), or will it be in commercial law and other spheres of society?

Even as Cheney was pooh-poohing the notion of Iraqi theocracy, Sistani's close colleague Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Ishaq al-Fayyad said, "We warn officials against a separation of the state and religion." Then Sistani's spokesman came out and said that the Grand Ayatollah Sistani "wants the source of legislation to be Islam."

A lot of Americans believe whatever Cheney says, though I cannot for the life of me understand why, since he lies to them relentlessly. He is the one who tried to link Saddam and al-Qaeda operationally. He even once said he knew exactly where Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were. Most people will only remember that Cheney said there wouldn't be an Iraqi theocracy, but won't bother to actually read the newspapers on Monday to see the news I'm reporting below.

Although George Orwell/ Eric Blair wrote 1984 as an anarcho-syndicalist socialist critique of Stalinism, it is becoming increasingly clear that it was also prophetic about the direction of Late Capitalist societies characterized by corporate media consolidation. In such a society, Cheney can substitute himself for Sistani and speak for Sistani, erasing the real Sistani just as the Republican pundits have erased the real Iraq. "Ignorance is strength."

2333. jexster - 2/7/2005 10:33:54 PM

NBC has the peacock, Fox has Hitler*

From ThinkProgress:

Wallace Whiffs
On Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace had an exclusive interview with Vice President Dick Cheney. For a moment it looked like he might not squander it. Wallace challenged Cheney:

A number of statements that you made in the run-up to the war in Iraq turned out not to be accurate, the administration argues, because of a worldwide intelligence failure. But I just want to ask you something about them.

You said, in the run-up to the war, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. You said we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons, and then clarified that to be “nuclear weapons capability.” You said U.S. forces will be greeted as liberators.

But then Wallace’s Fox News instincts kicked in:

I’m less interested, because I think it’s somewhat plowed ground, what you said and what you knew and all of that. I’m more interested in what you took away from the experience.

In other words, Wallace is saying: I’m not interested in whether you knowingly misled the American people. I’m interested in how you grew as a person from the experience.

Another case closed







* - From Daily Show 2/3, question to expert on how rebranding might help CBS


2334. wabbit - 2/7/2005 11:10:46 PM

2335. thoughtful - 2/9/2005 11:46:51 AM

???

2336. thoughtful - 2/9/2005 11:48:47 AM

From today's wapo:

Medicare Drug Benefit May Cost $1.2 Trillion
Estimate Dwarfs Bush's Original Price Tag

The White House released budget figures yesterday indicating that the new Medicare prescription drug benefit will cost more than $1.2 trillion in the coming decade, a much higher price tag than President Bush suggested when he narrowly won passage of the law in late 2003....

As recently as September, Medicare chief Mark B. McClellan said the new drug package would cost $534 billion over 10 years.

I mean, just how do you get it THAT wrong????

Answer: you don't. Before this administration took over we, and the gopers used to call it LYING!

2337. thoughtful - 2/9/2005 11:57:36 AM

And yet another. So much for the goldwater repubs with keeping the govt out of your wallet and off your back.

Blueprint Calls for Bigger, More Powerful Government
Some Conservatives Express Concern at Agenda

President Bush's second-term agenda would expand not only the size of the federal government but also its influence over the lives of millions of Americans by imposing new national restrictions on high schools, court cases and marriages....

We have moved from devolution, which was just pushing back as much power as possible to the states, back to where government is limited but active," said John Bridgeland, director of Bush's domestic policy council in the first term. Bridgeland and current White House officials see Bush's governing philosophy as a smart way to modernize the government, empower individuals and broaden the appeal of the GOP....

Pence, an influential leader of House conservatives, said 50 Republicans gathered in Baltimore this past week and discussed, among other things, an overwhelming desire to protest the expansion of government by opposing Bush's education plan for high school students.

Far too little, far too late.

As rove's grip on the wh tightens as he's now deputy chief of staff. The gopers will be too scared to not support anything coming out of the white house, even if it is against their beloved gingrich revolution of less govt, eliminating departments like education, and states' rights.

It would be a real hoot if the next go round the dems took up the contract on america as their own mission statement, and won!

2338. jexster - 2/12/2005 2:22:33 PM

It makes you wonder what the point of electing a new government was if the Americans can't keep alive the officials of the old one Juan Cole

A highly placed US official in Baghdad told the Chicago Tribune's Liz Sly that he thought the guerrilla war would go on for many years. As regular readers know, I concur. The old Sunni Arab power elite, mainly Baathists or the officer class, has not reconciled itself to the political ascendancy of the Shiites and Kurds. They still think they can destabilize the country and take back over. I would compare them to the Phalangists, the fascist Maronite Christians in Lebanon, who fought tooth and nail 1975-1989 against recognizing that Christians were no longer a dominant majority in Lebanon. Eventually they had to accept a 50/50 split of seats in parliament (which is generous to the Christians, given that Muslims are now a clear majority). That the Sunni Arab elite might be quicker studies than the Phalangists is possible but a little unlikely.

Likewise, the guerrillas in Iraq have many advantages. They were the managerial class and the officer class, so they have a great deal of organizational know-how. They clearly still have some of the loot the Baathists stole from the Iraqi people, and they know where the missing 250,000 tons of munitions are. If either ran out, there are plenty of Gulf millionnaires who would surreptitiously support a Sunni insurgency against American domination in Iraq. Money is fungible and I don't think their support could be effectively interfered with (do you know how many nouveau riche millionnaires there are in the Gulf?)

2339. PelleNilsson - 2/12/2005 4:23:36 PM

The parallel with the Phalangists is singularly inept.

2340. Magoseph - 2/13/2005 3:20:08 AM

The parallel with the Phalangists is singularly inept.

That is an interesting assertion--would you elaborate more about why you think so?

2341. PelleNilsson - 2/13/2005 12:23:13 PM

The Phalangists, founded in the 1930's by Pierre Gemayel and closely associated with the Maronite church was (as the name suggests) inspired by Italy's fascist movement.

The origins and aims of the Baathist party is very different. It was founded by Michel Aflaq a (nominally) Christian Syrian. It is secular and socialist. Of course both Saddam Hussein and Hafez Assad subverted the original ideas for their own ends but that a professor in Middle East history puts the Baath in the same box as the Phalange is disgraceful.

2342. jexster - 2/13/2005 6:20:14 PM

I hardly see the point of your criticism. You totally, utterly missed Cole's point to no purpose other than to give us a Wikipedia like blurb to show off your knowlege of the Phalangists.

His point, since you missed it, is that the political military positions of the two are similar in two similarly chaotic situations.

I don't really think you missed the point though, Pelle.

I think you just wanted to tell us about Pierre Gemayel and Michel Aflq.

Well thanks for nothing.

2343. jexster - 2/13/2005 6:58:49 PM

Your Tax Dollars Down the Toilet
How Bidniss Gets Done in BushVille

WASHINGTON - U.S. officials in postwar Iraq (news - web sites) paid a contractor by stuffing $2 million worth of crisp bills into his gunnysack and routinely made cash payments around Baghdad from a pickup truck, a former official with the U.S. occupation government says.

2344. jexster - 2/14/2005 11:58:25 AM

Buried on page 8 of today's WaPo, a story that well and truly belongs on page one..

Iraq Winners Allied With Iran Are the Opposite of U.S. Vision

When the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq two years ago, it envisioned a quick handover to handpicked allies in a secular government that would be the antithesis of Iran's theocracy -- potentially even a foil to Tehran's regional ambitions.

But, in one of the greatest ironies of the U.S. intervention, Iraqis instead went to the polls and elected a government with a strong religious base -- and very close ties to the Islamic republic next door. It is the last thing the administration expected from its costly Iraq policy -- $300 billion and counting, U.S. and regional analysts say.


Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld made this very point months ago. The election merely gives form to a prevailing reality.

In the short run, the greatest beneficiary of the war is Israel. The destruction of Iraq has created a situation where, for the first time since the State was founded in 1948, it has no real conventional enemy left within about 600 miles of its borders. If Sharon had any sense he would use this window of opportunity to come to some kind of arrangement with the Palestinians. Whether he will do so, though, remains to be seen.

In the longer run, the greatest beneficiary is likely to be Iran which, without having to lift a finger, has seen its most dangerous enemy ground into the dust. Even before President Bush launched his war against Iraq, the Iranians, feeling surrounded by nuclear-capable American forces on three sides (Afghanistan, the Central Asian Republics, the Persian Gulf), were working as hard as they could to acquire nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles to match. Now that the U.S. has proved it is prepared to fight anybody for no reason at all, they should be forgiven if they redouble their efforts.

2345. jayackroyd - 2/14/2005 12:35:37 PM

I don't get this jexster. The Shiites were successful in forcing the US to keep its word and actually hold elections. There is a process in place that could well lead to an independent and functional Iraqi government. An all out civil war involving the three ethnic factions looks much more unlikely now.

There has always been, at best, tension between the President's references to democracy in the region and the establishment of a reliable Iraqi client state. Myself, I'd be happier with a representative government than with a reliable client state.

I also find the Metternichian balance of power argument archaic and unpersuasive. How can it be a bad thing if there is no more conflict between Iraq and Iran? How can it be a bad thing to have an elected government in Iraq, regardless of whom they align themselves with?

Yes, Israel may not be happy, but I think it's a good thing when Israel is not happy, especially now with the possibility open of an actual peace initiative.

So, while the result is not what the administration wanted, it doesn't seem to me that it is a bad result.

2346. jexster - 2/14/2005 8:24:03 PM

There goes that damn Juan Cole again..pissing on Pelle's parade

WaPo:

the top two winning parties -- which together won more than 70 percent of the vote and are expected to name Iraq's new prime minister and president -- are Iran's closest allies in Iraq.

Thousands of members of the United Iraqi Alliance, a Shiite-dominated slate that won almost half of the 8.5 million votes and will name the prime minister, spent decades in exile in Iran. Most of the militia members in its largest faction were trained in Shiite-dominated Iran.

And the winning Kurdish alliance, whose co-leader Jalal Talabani is the top nominee for president, has roots in a province abutting Iran, which long served as its economic and political lifeline.

"This is a government that will have very good relations with Iran. The Kurdish victory reinforces this conclusion. Talabani is very close to Tehran," said Juan Cole, a University of Michigan expert on Iraq. "In terms of regional geopolitics, this is not the outcome that the United States was hoping for."

Added Rami Khouri, Arab analyst and editor of Beirut's Daily Star: "The idea that the United States would get a quick, stable, prosperous, pro-American and pro-Israel Iraq has not happened. Most of the neoconservative assumptions about what would happen have proven false."

The results have long-term implications. For decades, both Republican and Democratic administrations played Baghdad and Tehran off each other to ensure neither became a regional giant threatening or dominant over U.S. allies, notably Saudi Arabia and the oil-rich Gulf sheikdoms.

But now, Cole said, Iraq and Iran are likely to take similar positions on many issues, from oil prices to U.S. policy on Iran. "If the United States had decided three years ago to bomb Iran, it would have produced joy in Baghdad," he added. "Now it might produce strong protests from Baghdad."

2347. jexster - 2/14/2005 8:30:44 PM

Hey I am happy with a stable religious Shiite state too - at this point. I think a client state is not only unachievable, never has been in fact but that in trying we have created infinitely more trouble...

The point is however, we invaded IraQ, tied down and pretty well exhausted our ground combat forces, created instability in the region, spent 300 billion, damaged US prestige and credibility beyond any near term repair and made Iran the geopolitical dominant in the region..

Oh and along the way, armed and established an Islamic State with close ties to Tehran (assuming the outside chance that we can achieve any stable state at all)

This is not rocket science..I said the very same thing in August 2003 on Freidman's NyT thread..hell..avoiding this very scenario is why Rumsfeld shook Saddam's hand and why Bush I let Saddam massacre the Shiites in GWI

2348. jexster - 2/14/2005 8:31:53 PM

That we are looking at, hoping for, the best of a very bad range of possibilities says it all

2349. jayackroyd - 2/15/2005 11:08:06 AM

2347

It won't be an Islamic state, jexster. And the elections meant something. We may find that this does more to undermine the Iranian Islamists than Saddam ever did.

Look, I opposed this war. But if it turns out that the result is an elected government in Iraq, I can't say I'm unhappy about that. What will be interesting is to see what happens if this elected government requests the US to remove all its forces, including those on the putative permanent bases.

2350. PelleNilsson - 2/15/2005 11:32:27 AM

I feel that too much is being made of the Shia factor when it comes to future Iran-Iraq relations. The traditional Persian-Arab rivalry will certainly come into play as well.

2351. jexster - 2/15/2005 12:27:31 PM

Yea we will see about that won't we...time will tell Jay.

The UIA is pretty damn clear and Sistani can throw that country into malestrom of civil war with one fatwa. His position is very clear.

The Kurds don't want it but the Kurds also want the oil in Kirkuk and Kurdistan.

The Shiites are opposed to both.

Now either stalemate and civil war or Islamic Republic.

That's the choice


That's why I say, Islamic Republic is the long shot and BEST outcome....

As for the Shiite/Iran connection, sure too much is made of it, especially by Sunnis like King Abdullah but to say that some make too much is not to say that there is nothing there...

2352. jexster - 2/15/2005 12:31:08 PM

To think even for a moment that the majority UIA is going to let go its number one priority, an Islamic state is just a bit wishful..



Ibrahim Jaafari, UIA/Dawa candidate for PM, on Iran:

' I personally look at Iran as part of the geographical entourage of Iraq and a friendly state which stood by Iraq's side in time of crisis: It harbored Iraqis when Saddam Hussein killed, displaced and harmed many of them. It is a state like all Iraq's other neighbors, which has common interests with us. I look forward to seeing Iraq's relations with Iran and all its other neighboring countries rise to the level of advanced countries. But in return, I expect all neighboring countries to refrain from interfering in our sovereignty like we do not interfere in theirs.

Some are trying to disturb such relations with Iran, although there is a consensus within the Iraqi interim government on the need to improve ties with Iran and all other neighboring countries and to set up a common strategy with them. In case of any interference, we should address that neighbor openly and start a dialogue instead of resorting to a media war. '

2353. jexster - 2/15/2005 12:32:34 PM

There can be no question, no dispute that the War on IraQ has enhanced Iran's geopolitical position, so much so, I would say, that it is now the dominant power in the region

2354. jexster - 2/15/2005 12:37:55 PM

If you want to know which way the wind is blowing in Iraq, there is no more accurate weather vane than that old whore, Ahmed Chalabi who dumped his Neocon patrons, probably spied for Iran, and is now a member of the Assembly.

Running for PM?

2355. jexster - 2/15/2005 12:38:59 PM

What in the hell did we get for our money, our blood, not to mention theirs?

2356. jexster - 2/15/2005 2:48:08 PM

Two and only two RealWorld outcomes Jay..

Chaos...likely
Islamic Republic of Iraq....long shot

Just as I said it was in August 2003 to whines and handwringing on the Tom Friedman discussion thread...

Stanley Reed of Business Week points out that a UIA-dominated Iraq is likely to move toward implementation of Islamic law, even if not toward clerical rule. One question is whether the Dawa Party tradition of thinking about economics, exemplified in the Our Economy of Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr (d. 1980), will be implemented versus Washington's laissez-faire dreams. In any case, most movements of political Islam have been interested in implementing Islamic law, not in clerical rule. That was the program in the Sudan, for instance, and is what the United Action Council (mainly the Jama'at-i Islami) is going for in the Northwest Frontier Province in Pakistan. This direction seems to be the one Iraq is now taking.

The chorus from people like Senator Frisk that the failure of the United Iraqi Alliance (the Shiite religious parties) to gain 51 percent would require them to compromise and may benefit Iyad Allawi was nonsensical even on Sunday, and is now shown to be entirely untrue.

The UIA has in the end received 51 percent of seats in parliament, because of the electoral method being used, which added percentages from parties that did not quite pass the threshold for being seated to the parties that did, in a sort of second round. Second, the UIA may still be able to pick up some allies from small Shiite parties that ran separately but have similar goals (they are more theocratic than the UIA)-- which suggests that they may actually have 52 or 53 percent.

Allawi is irrelevant, since it is easier and more of a sure thing for the UIA to ally with the Kurds, who bring another 24 percent (more, now) into the coalition. They do not need to throw Allawi a bone to get the Kurds, they need to throw the Kurds some bones.

So Allawi is out of the running, at least if parliamentary politics is the game being played here. Were the Kurds to prove too intransigent, I suppose the UIA could try to cobble together 66 percent with Allawi and several tiny parties like the Communists. But they would still be unlikely to give away the prime minister post

2357. PelleNilsson - 2/15/2005 3:24:35 PM

Now either stalemate and civil war or Islamic Republic.

That's the choice

I don't think the choice is as stark as that. But this is the typical punditry mode of analysis. Take a highly complex situation with many imponderables and boil it down to a simple dichotomy which can be presented as a catchy oneliner.

2358. thoughtful - 2/15/2005 5:18:38 PM

Why not? It works for the Bushies

Social Security is in crisis!
We need personal accounts to save it!

Health care is in crisis!
We need tort reform to save it!

In fact, I think one of the big failures of the dems, epitomized by kerry, is their inability to boil complex problems down to catchy slogans. Everyone on both sides knew exactly what 'flip flop' meant. It stuck. Bush won.

2359. PelleNilsson - 2/16/2005 10:27:07 AM

You are talking about politicians who are trying to sell their message. I am talking about (presumed) experts who have been asked to, or have taken upon themselves, to look at complex situations and help us understand what is going on now and what may happen in the future. I get upset when they produce oversimplified opnions which are then sucked up and echoed by naifs like jexter.

2360. jexster - 2/16/2005 12:42:29 PM

Oh boy..oh joy..Pelle learned a new word

Jaafari: "Islam to be Source of Legislation"


It really is simple Pelle.

The religious Shiite parties are the largest, most politically powerful entity in IraQ. They are the only actor able to provide a stable government, and that is a long shot.

Islamic State or chaos.

Just that simple.

Al-Dawa campaigned vigorously for the presidency to go to Ibrahim Jaafari, but that so far largely ceremonial post seems likely to go instead to Jalal Talabani of the Kurdish Alliance. Since al-Dawa was denied the presidency, they really wanted the prime ministership. Abdul Mahdi's candidacy, moreover, may have been damaged by his close working relationship with the Americans and his advocacy of privatizing the petroleum industry. For most of the SCIRI and Dawa politicians, getting control of the state-owned petroleum industry would be an important part of their victory, and they would hardly want a PM who wanted to just give it away to some new economic mafia.

If this speculation turns out to be correct, Jaafari's victory over Abdul Mahdi may be the second largest Bush defeat after that of interim PM Allawi.

USA Today called Jaafari a "secularist," by which it apparently means that he wears Western business suits and is married to a physician. He is not a secularist. He is the leader of an old-time revolutionary Shiite party that has for 48 years worked toward an Islamic republic in Iraq.

2361. jexster - 2/16/2005 12:45:39 PM

The only caveat in dicussing the shape of the IraQi government is, as I have pointed out before, that there is no state in the first place.

This fact, needless to say, makes what would otherwise be reasonable discussion of parliamentary horse-trading, just a bit off key if not absurd

2362. jexster - 2/16/2005 12:49:21 PM

The other wildcard here, next to the Kurdish Alliance, the most powerful grassroots actor in Iraq - The Association of Muslim Scholars, a hardline Sunni group, held a meeting Tuesday at the Umm al-Qura Mosque in Baghdad, where they demanded a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops. They were joined by an ex-Baathist and a representative of the nationalist Shiite leader, Muqtada al-Sadr. The groups that boycotted or were excluded from the elections have said that such a timetable is a precondition for their participation in the political process.


George W. Bush, First Bitch of the Islamic Republic of Iraq


If we're lucky

2363. jexster - 2/16/2005 12:51:50 PM

Cole:

Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi welcomed the outcome of the Iraqi elections, which Iran considers legitimate. Kharrazi was clearly pleased that the Shiites of Iraq, denied their rights as the majority for the past 83 years, had finally come to power. He also praised the democratic aspect of the elections. Kharrazi is close to mildly reformist President Muhammad Khatami, and the praise of Iraqi democracy is a dig at the clerical hardliners who hijacked the Iranian electoral process in February 2003 by excluding thousands of reformist candidates from running by wielding an ideological litmus test.

2364. jexster - 2/16/2005 12:54:02 PM

And well pleased they should be having contributed significantly to the campaign...

Show me the money Pelle and I'll show an Iranian and perhaps even Ahmed Chalabi, an Iranian spy...

If I am naive, what do you call the NeoCon idiots who licked Chalabi's ass and got us into this mess?

2365. jexster - 2/16/2005 3:29:44 PM

Let's Play Truth or Consequnces

Will the real naif, please stand up...

Rumsfeld voices scant confidence in intelligence estimates on Iraq insurgency

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused to estimate the size of the insurgency facing US and Iraqi forces in Iraq, telling members of Congress the numbers were classified, and that he did not have much confidence in them in any case.


The land combat strength of the US is indefinitely bogged down trying to salvage a state that the US caused to fail, with the neo-Jacobin nutters and Wilsonian namby-pambies hoping against hope that an Ayatollah will save them.


Now, who opposed this folly?

Who indeed is the Moron here?

The answer Pelle, is very very simple.

Even you should be able to get it right.

2366. jexster - 2/16/2005 3:59:07 PM

This is about right...William Lind calls it "election ju-ju", here, "the purple finger"

The Iraqi people gave America the biggest 'thank you' in the best way we could have hoped for." Reading this election analysis from Betsy Hart, a columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service, I found myself thinking about my late grandmother. Half blind and a menace behind the wheel of her Chevrolet, she adamantly refused to surrender her car keys. She was convinced that everywhere she drove (flattening the house pets of Philadelphia along the way) people were waving and smiling at her. "They are so friendly!" We had to break the bad news. "They aren't waving with their whole hand, Grandma – just with their middle finger."

So it is with Betsy Hart and the other near-sighted election observers: They think the Iraqi people have finally sent America those long-awaited flowers and candies, when Iraq's voters just gave them the (purple) finger

2367. jexster - 2/16/2005 7:13:35 PM

IraQ Feeds International Jihadist Terror - CIA

2368. jexster - 2/16/2005 8:23:14 PM

They don't call them "militias". Militias are illegal in IraQ.

They're "pop-ups" and they're popping up all over the place

[TNR]

2369. jexster - 2/17/2005 11:27:15 AM

Bloody, Baffled Bunglers


The insurgency in Iraq continues to baffle the U.S. military and intelligence communities, and the U.S. occupation has become a potent recruiting tool for al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, top U.S. national security officials told Congress yesterday.

2370. jexster - 2/17/2005 11:43:20 AM

Flattened Iraq
By Tom Engelhardt


In October 2003, the TV series Frontline did a show from Iraq, "Truth, War, and Consequences," that featured a remarkable scene shot the previous April, not long after American troops arrived in Baghdad. A group of GIs have captured some Iraqis whom they accuse of stealing wood. As an instant punishment in the "Wild West" of that moment, they simply run their tank over the Iraqis' car. First the tank climbs forward over the car's body, then does it again in reverse, two sustained blows that turn the vehicle into something like a metal pancake. (GI: "We try to stop them from looting, and they don't understand, so we take their car and we crush it, the United States Army tankers. That's what you get when you loot.") One of the Iraqis later says to an interviewer simply: "I am a taxi driver. The car was my livelihood."

The scene stuck in my head and, when I was trying to imagine how Iraq might be described today, I thought of that car again -- this time in a ditch at the side of an Iraqi highway. An election has, of course, just occurred in Iraq which amounted to two massive presences and a massive absence, accounting for the three major Iraqi communities -- Kurd, Shiite, and Sunni. At the same time, much American celebration and self-congratulation (from our media as well as the Bush administration) took place over that success. And the election was indeed a striking statement of some sort.

It was as if representatives of two of those Iraqi communities suddenly appeared at the roadside in a generous mood, banged that crushed car back into some crude shape, lifted it onto the road, and pointed it in the direction they wanted to go. Soon after, a group of squabbling, none-too-savory drivers appear, eager to get into the windowless, still broken vehicle. The only problem is that, barring a miracle, it won't take them anywhere. And even if it did, representatives of the third community, feeling none too generous of spirit, have already set up a series of roadblocks and ambushes, just a few hundred yards down the highway.

Put another way -- and we desperately need a little perspective at the moment --here we are just a month short of two years after the Bush administration launched its triumphant invasion against a fifth-rate military with a nonexistent air force and no effective air defenses, in a tattered country already run into the ground by a combination of endless war, a tyrant's whims, and international sanctions. After all this time, the election aside, the actual condition of the country and its people may in most ways have worsened.

2371. jexster - 2/17/2005 11:43:54 AM

toys

2372. jexster - 2/17/2005 11:58:57 AM

In any case, soon a new government is to take… well, the normal word here would be "power," but that's not a word to be used idly in this situation. There are at present, as far as can be told, just about none of the normal institutions of civil government left to take over in Baghdad. [My point EXACTLY]All Iraqi ministries have American advisers in them. The Iraqi armed forces that the new government might command seem to consist of only about 5,000 functional troops, no heavy arms, and no air force. The strength of the Kurdish vote and the lack of a Sunni one look sure to create a weak coalition of some sort in Baghdad where all the legislators will be targeted by assassins. The Bush administration is deeply embedded in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone where a $1-2 billion new embassy is to be built; its 120,000 or more troops are bunkered into up to 14 massive, "permanent" military bases, also known as "enduring camps"; its CIA contingent is probably the largest in the world; its officials are openly talking about American troops remaining in Iraq at or near present levels at least through 2007;






All in all, the Bush administration holds power of a sort -- through a kind of brute force that has yet to bring Iraq to heel -- and shows no sign of having the slightest desire to give up on its Iraqi holdings (no matter the inside-the-Beltway mutterings about "withdrawal"). This is the true face of American "democracy" and "freedom" in Iraq; but then again, for the Bush administration, "democracy," now raised to the very heights in its global morality play, has just taken over the role WMD once played, as Paul Wolfowitz so famously put it, as "the one issue that everyone could agree on," every other explanation for invasion, occupation, and insurgency having been swept off the table. (As a translator for journalist Christian Parenti commented: "Ah, the freedom. Look, we have the gas-line freedom, the looting freedom, the killing freedom, the rape freedom, the hash-smoking freedom. I don't know what to do with all this freedom.")

2373. jexster - 2/17/2005 12:07:27 PM

Dilip Hiro: IraQ's Electoral Cul-de-Sac


If ever there was a case for applying the Newsom Rule, IraQ is it...

Do not listen to the President of the United States

Europe doesn't

When will Americans learn?

2374. jexster - 2/17/2005 12:13:42 PM

Hiro:

The Role of Islam

A year ago, when the interim constitution was being drafted by the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) under the supervision of Paul Bremer, the chief administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the issue of Islam and the state proved contentious. When IGC President Muhsin Abdul Hamid proposed making the Sharia "the primary basis" of law in the interim constitution, Bremer threatened to veto the document. (The Sharia is a compendium of the Koran and the Hadith, Sayings and Doings of Prophet Muhammad.) In the end, IGC members compromised by describing the Sharia as "a main source" of Iraqi legislation.

Following the recent poll, Shiite religious leaders staked out a demand. On February 6, a spokesman for Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Ishaq al Fayad, said, "All of the ulema [clergy] and marja [religious leaders], and the majority of the Iraqi people want the National Assembly to make Islam the [sole] source of legislation in the permanent constitution and to reject any law that is contrary to Islam." Sistani backed the statement. A week later, Hussein Shahristani, a leader of the UIA, the winner of 51% of the National Assembly seats, repeated the demand.

2375. jexster - 2/17/2005 12:17:29 PM

Islamic state or chaos...simple

and don't forget the Kurds!!

I haven't...the US press has...

and I will say again..NONE of this was unforseeable on March 17, 2003..none of it

intoxicated by their electoral success, Iraqi Kurdish leaders are likely to turn a deaf ear to the concerns of Turkey or the fears of their ethnic Arab and Turkmen neighbors. So there is trouble brewing ahead within Iraq on ethnic lines -- Kurds versus Arabs and Turkmen -- that threatens to spill over into adjoining Turkey. In other words, Bush's much trumpeted electoral turning point is likely to bring in its train even more severe problems than existed before.

2376. jexster - 2/19/2005 3:23:14 PM

With a weak coalition facing likely paralysis or unpalatable compromise in the face of athe 2/3 supermajority to pass the constitution, the provinces will hold what little political power there is to be had in the failed state that Bush made....and Allah done real well in the provinces!

Juan Cole:

In a startling development to which the Western press is paying little attention, the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq has won the provincial governments in 8 of the 18 provinces in the country, including Baghdad. Over-all Shiite lists won 11 of the 18. Sadrists won Wasit and Maysam, and perhaps one other. Dawa doesn't appear to have run well at the provincial level. The Kurds won several of the northern provinces, including Ta'mim (where Kirkuk is) and Ninevah. The Iraqi Islamic Party won Anbar province, even though it withdrew from the elections. (It couldn't properly withdraw because the ballots had already been printed.) But only 2 percent of the residents of Anbar voted, so the IIP victory doesn't mean much.

George W. Bush - First Bitch of the Islamic Republic of IraQ



2377. jexster - 2/19/2005 3:23:43 PM

2378. jexster - 2/19/2005 3:56:22 PM

Wir Haben Ein Kurden Frage

Iraq'd:


DAMN, IT FEELS GOOD TO BE A PESH MERGA: It's a measure of Kurdish geopolitical sophistication that Massoud Barzani of the Kurdistan Democratic Party chose to float Kurdish aspirations for the future in The New York Times. Lesser politicians give speeches. Barzani wants the world's powerful to pay attention over their morning coffee. The official Kurdish position that "their push for federalism is nothing more than an attempt to maintain the status quo," as the Times' Edward Wong writes, is transparently false. Barzani described to Wong a situation whereby Irbil redraws the map of Kurdistan to include one of the chief revenue-driving cities in the country, Kirkuk, and then tells Baghdad how much revenue it can collect from their newly enlarged autonomous region. (I don't mean to suggest that Arab-Kurdish disputes over the multi-contested city are principally economic, but they're not not economic.) The Shia reaction? "We advise the Kurds to be more Iraqi," a senior SCIRI official told Wong. In that spirit, I might as well advise this guy to convert to Judaism.

Right now it's good to be Massoud Barzani. He surely knows Kurdistan can't get everything he spelled out in today's paper. That's probably why he so readily agreed to support his longtime rival, Jalal Talabani, for president of Iraq, where he'll negotiate on behalf of the Kurds. No matter what Talabani brings back, it can't possibly satisfy a population where nearly a third of the population signed a petition advocating independence. What's more, what Talabani does bring back most likely will be overshadowed in terms of emotional resonance to what's likely to take place in Nineva province (home of Mosul) and Tamim province (home of Kirkuk). As AFP reports:


With their absolute majority [in Nineva and Tamim], the Kurds will be able to take decisions at the provincial level without needing to consult fellow Arab and Turkmen council members, raising fears of possible armed confrontation.

Those decisions will include establishing the Kurdish-ness of these provinces or their key components, setting the stage for their inclusion in autonomous Kurdistan. Here Talabani will be in the position of safeguarding (or not) the creation of demographic facts as they unfold away from Baghdad. And that should, in turn, strengthen his hand considerably around the table--which, I imagine, is why as a pure political calculation the very canny Talabani sees leading the negotiations as being in his interest, notwithstanding the potential benefits to his rival. He may see Shia occupying a weaker position going into the constitutional drafting than it may appear to others. While the Kurds can't get everything, pushing them too far runs the risk of having them walk out of the governing coalition, frustrating the Shia ambition to exercise political supremacy over a majority-Shia country. And in Tamim and Nineva, the Kurds are set to tell the Shia that, painful as it may be to see Mosul and Kirkuk fall into the Kurdish sphere of influence, they can do this the easy way or the hard way.

There's also the ugly way. How the Shia will react if pushed like this is an open question. There's the added factor that the more they give the Kurds, the more they jeopardize their ability to draw the Sunnis into the process--to say nothing of how their own constituents view relinquishing (to whatever degree) Arab ties to Mosul and Kirkuk. It could be that the Shia use the issue of greater Kurdistan as an opportunity to prove their "Arab" bona fides. On top of all that, Obe Juan Cole (His Name Be Praised!) translates an Al Hayat story reporting that the United Iraqi Alliance has secured the entry of the extremely aggrieved and anti-Kurdish Turkmen National Front into the governing coalition. Their three seats aren't going to strengthen the Shia in any significant way, but they could serve to reinforce discomfort about what the Kurds are trying to accomplish. (The experience of how the Kurds tipped the ethnic and political balance in Tamim suggests that the inclusion of Turkmen and Kurds in the same coalition is less auspicious than it seems.)

All of these issues are combustible, but over the last two years the Kurds have proven themselves considerably able to raise the heat without reaching the boiling point. Right now, the Kurds are holding an impressively strong hand. How many times in history has that happened?

2379. jexster - 2/19/2005 4:00:30 PM

Begs the question, since everyone is wise to the wily Kurd and his malicious lies, what cred does any threat to bail have when Kurdistan is the worst kept secret in Kirkuk?


We need a Final Solution to the Kurdish Question...or we'll be stuck in the rat hole for another decade.

2380. jexster - 2/19/2005 5:24:49 PM

Eternal Vigilance - The Fascist Watch

The American Conservative is on a tear!



The Radical Son

In a world aflame with war and terrorism, George W. Bush’s second inaugural address was a match flung onto an oil slick. By the time his 17-minute peroration reached midpoint, it was clear that was his intention:

Because we have acted in the great liberating tradition of this nation, tens of millions have achieved their freedom. And as hope kindles hope, millions more will find it. By our efforts we have lit a fire as well, a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power; it burns those who fight its progress. And one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world.

“A fire in the mind”—such a felicitous phrase. It aptly and succinctly describes the feverish mental state of our neoconservative policymakers, who set out to build an empire in the Middle East and now, with this speech, clearly envision much more. It also describes the mental state of some of the characters in Dostoyevsky’s The Possessed (or The Devils), from which the fiery metaphor is taken. Michael Barone pointed out the allusion in his U.S. News column, wherein he described Dostoyevsky’s work as “a novel about a provincial town inspired by new revolutionary ideas. After a turbulent literary evening, a fire breaks out, and one townsman says, ‘The fire is in the minds of men, not in the roofs of buildings.’”


Well, not quite. The novel is about a group of revolutionaries who plot the destruction of a small provincial town—and, by extension, the whole of Russia and of human civilization. The intricate plot involves the governor of the province, who is continually beset by his wife and her liberal intellectual friends: they take up fashionably radical ideas almost, it seems, just to show him up as a bore. Members of this devilish clique have insinuated themselves into the higher social circles and, Rasputin-like, have bewitched the governor’s wife and high society in general, all the while plotting and scheming behind the scenes. The governor is subtly provoked into cracking down on rebellious workers, the rabble rises up in the midst of a bizarre fete given by the governor’s vacuous wife, and the town is burned to the ground. The scene from which Bush’s fiery call to arms is taken finds the narrator discovering the governor in the midst of this chaotic scene, gesticulating and shouting at a building consumed by the blaze:

‘It’s all incendiarism! It’s nihilism! If anything is burning, it’s nihilism!’ I heard almost with horror; and though there was nothing to be surprised at, yet actual madness, when one sees it, always gives one a shock.

Peggy Noonan found the speech “startling.. This, she averred “is the kind of sentence that makes you wonder if this White House did not… have a case of what I have called in the past ‘mission inebriation.’ A sense that there are few legitimate boundaries to the desires born in the goodness of their good hearts.”

Drunk with power, flush with Pyrrhic victories, and convinced that they are on the right side of history, the “mission inebriation” that bedevils this administration is Ms. Noonan’s polite way of describing megalomania. The defining characteristic of what Ryn calls the “imperialistic personality” is a monumental conceit: it is the same will to dominate that drove the Jacobins, the Bolsheviks, and the 19th-century followers of the nihilist Sergei Nechaev, upon whom the author of The Possessed modeled his characters. That American policymakers will likely end up like Dostoyevsky’s revolutionary conspirators —increasingly committed to state terrorism in pursuit of some utopian vision—seems horribly and tragically inevitable.

2381. jexster - 2/19/2005 5:35:44 PM

And with good reason...

Fascism is alive and well in the Temple of Bush


Popular CPAC Poster

As top GOP stars lined up for the annual cattle call..

Among the believers




At the Conservative Political Action Conference, where rabid Bush-worshippers learn that liberals hate America and that we really did find WMD in Iraq

A small but growing number of conservatives are beginning to notice the brown shirts....



In January, Paul Craig Roberts, assistant secretary of the treasury during the Reagan administration and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal's far-right editorial page, published a damning column in the progressive Z Magazine about fascist tendencies in the conservative movement. "In the ranks of the new conservatives, however, I see and experience much hate. It comes to me in violently worded, ignorant and irrational emails from self-professed conservatives who literally worship George Bush," he wrote. "Even Christians have fallen into idolatry. There appears to be a large number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George Bush … Like Brownshirts, the new conservatives take personally any criticism of their leader and his policies. To be a critic is to be an enemy."

2382. jexster - 2/19/2005 11:55:37 PM

Bumbling, Bungling, Stumbling -Dumb,Armed, Dangerous

The Appalling Stupidity of George W. Bush - First Bitch of the Shiite Ulema

Target: Tehran?


By placing Iran on the Axis of Evil, Bush made an enemy of a would-be ally

Indeed, immediately after the invasion of Iraq, the neocons, led by ex-CIA spook Reuel Gerecht, Iran-Contra alumnus Michael Ledeen, and war profiteer Richard Perle, were arguing that Iran should be targeted next for a regime change. Inside the administration, Rumsfeld and Feith were advancing those ideas, suggesting that unlike Iraq, the transformation of Iran could take place peacefully through diplomatic pressure.

“The neocons have this fantasy that they are going to groom this Iranian Lech Walesa, that NED [National Endowment for Democracy] will fund an Iranian ‘Solidarity’ and before you know it the Iranian Islamic regime, like the Polish Communist government, will implode,” a State Department official told me over lunch in March 2004. “They really believe that Iraq will become democratic and serve as a shining model to the Iranian reformers, the so-called domino effect in action, and we are going to have a bunch of pro-American and Internet-surfing Shi’ites in charge in Baghdad and Tehran, the Cool Mullahs.”

Like the weapons-for-hostages (“we brought you a cake”) plan cooked up by Ledeen and the neocons, the search for an Iranian Walesa and his band of singing ayatollahs has proved to be another pita in the sky. It was Iraq under American occupation, and not Iran, that was imploding and turning into an awful mess while the mullahs, and not the reformers, gained the upper hand in Iran’s recent parliamentary elections.

2383. jexster - 2/20/2005 11:50:31 AM

Too long to post but if you've a TNR online subscription..


liberalism's pragmatic superiority wouldn't matter to a true ideological conservative any more than news about the medical benefits of pork (to pick an imaginary example) would cause a strictly observant Jew to begin eating ham sandwiches. But, if you have no particular a priori preference about the size of government and care only about tangible outcomes, then liberalism's aversion to dogma makes it superior as a practical governing philosophy.

onservatives don't always dwell on their first principles because those principles have little use in converting unbelievers. But they pop up from time to time, especially when conservative factual claims come under stress.

Take, for instance, the current debate over privatizing Social Security. Los Angeles Times Editorial Page Editor Michael Kinsley has argued that privatization cannot increase national wealth--an argument that, if true, would undermine the idea's central rationale. A recent National Review editorial implicitly accepted the thrust of Kinsley's argument and proceeded to gamely offer up some possible second- and third-order benefits that privatization could produce. (People might be induced to save a bit more, and maybe higher debt would discourage spending.) Seemingly unpersuaded by its own reasoning, the editorial righted itself by declaring that "reducing dependence on Washington is a worthy goal in its own right."

Likewise, conservative columnist George F. Will conceded not long ago that, contrary to the claims of privatization advocates, Social Security does not face a financing crisis. But Will declared his support for privatization anyway



THE ANTI-DOGMA DOGMA.
Fact Finders
by Jonathan Chait

That goes a long way towards understanding why Bush as Superman posters sell like hotcakes at CPAC

2384. jexster - 2/20/2005 2:17:45 PM

Allah save us from Bush Worshipping Neo-Fascists, enraptured evangelicals, the Ghost of Woodrow Wilson, Tom Friedman, and all other fellow traveling Swedes and Wombats..

Leave our country now
Hassan Juma'a Awad - The Guardian

We lived through dark days under Saddam Hussein's dictatorship. When the regime fell, people wanted a new life: a life without shackles and terror; a life where we could rebuild our country and enjoy its natural wealth. Instead, our communities have been attacked with chemicals and cluster bombs, and our people tortured, raped and killed in our homes.

Saddam's secret police used to creep over the roofs into our homes at night; occupation troops now break down our doors in broad daylight. The media do not show even a fraction of the devastation that has engulfed Iraq.


Bush and Blair should remember that those who voted in last month's elections in Iraq are as hostile to the occupation as those who boycotted them. Those who claim to represent the Iraqi working class while calling for the occupation to stay a bit longer, due to "fears of civil war", are in fact speaking only for themselves and the minority of Iraqis whose interests are dependent on the occupation.

We don't want a timetable - this is a stalling tactic. We will solve our own problems. We are Iraqis, we know our country and we can take care of ourselves. We have the means, the skills and resources to rebuild and create our own democratic society.

· Hassan Juma'a Awad is general secretary of Iraq's Southern Oil Company Union and president of the Basra Oil Workers' Union

2386. PelleNilsson - 2/21/2005 2:50:01 AM

I deleted my #2385 which was due to a mistake.

2387. jayackroyd - 2/21/2005 9:56:18 AM

Thanks.

2388. concerned - 2/21/2005 10:41:36 AM

re 2384 -

Take that, Pelle and Wombat, you Bush-worshipping neo-fascists!

2389. jexster - 2/21/2005 11:56:26 AM

If you saw the Discovery Times special on IKEA you'd know what I am talking about

2390. jexster - 2/21/2005 11:57:58 AM

Lookin good in that Brown Shirt TD....up for guard duty?


Prison Uprising Exposes New Risks to Empire

2391. jexster - 2/21/2005 12:02:27 PM

Sturbannfuerher Ingvar Kamprad's the name, Fascist mind control is his game...

I knew I was on to something and thanks to Pelle, we are slopwly but surely exposing the real face of Swede Evil

2392. jexster - 2/21/2005 12:20:32 PM

Via Obe Juan..

Mark Hosenball of Newsweek reports that Iran is attempting to place its assets in key ministry posts in Iraq. The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Al-Da'wa Party, both old-time revolutionary Shiite organizations, were in exile in Tehran in the 1980s and after, and it is not impossible that some members were recruited by Iranian intelligence.


SCRI - 11 out of 18 provinces. It ain't rocket science. It ain't even International Relations 101

2393. jexster - 2/21/2005 12:34:15 PM

Insurgents Wage Precise Attacks on Baghdad Fuel
By JAMES GLANZ

The new attack patterns reveal that the insurgents have a deep understanding of the Iraqi capital's infrastructure network.

2394. jexster - 2/21/2005 12:39:25 PM

Bush Negotiating With Terrorists!

The US military has established back-channel negotiations with some of the leaders of the Sunni Arab guerrilla war, according to Time magazine. Earlier on, the US had refused such negotiations.

Ahmad Chalabi was clearly angered by these talks, and said on US television on Sunday that the new Iraqi army would not be bound by such negotiations conducted by the US. Chalabi, who is running for prime minister, has a history of advocating punitive measures against former mebers of the Baath Party Obe Juan Cole

2395. PelleNilsson - 2/21/2005 2:28:56 PM

Kamprad did indeed flirt (or worse) with the Swedish Nazis.

2396. jexster - 2/21/2005 7:36:06 PM

It was an interesting bit..I have to admit...obviously approved by Kampvard and his biographer but they couldn't hide all the shit...some was obvious..

They played the Nazi thing as "Kampvard's demons" and they teased through about 1/2 the show capping the story line with Kampvard's Konfession


I've never been to IKEA...and after seeing the insides I don't think I will not because of the Nazi thing..hell I can't say I might not have joined up....it is such a CULT!

2397. jexster - 2/21/2005 8:08:48 PM

IraQ Was a More "Target Rich" Environment

KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan (news - web sites) remains one of the world's least-developed countries, the United Nations (news - web sites) said Monday, warning that the nation which harbored al-Qaida terrorists until 2001 could fail again unless more is done to lift it from poverty.



In a new report examining Afghans' security, welfare and ability to control their own lives, the world body ranked the country 173rd out of 178 surveyed, with only five states in sub-Saharan Africa faring worse.

2398. wonkers2 - 2/22/2005 7:41:25 AM

Ikea provides good taste and value. Ingvar Kamprad

2399. jexster - 2/22/2005 11:31:34 AM

Wire services reported that ' Twenty-two people including four US soldiers have...The guerrillas struck all over the center-north of the country, from Baghdad to Mosul.

Guerrillas detonated a bomb in Baghdad Monday near a US medical helicopter, killing 3 US troops and wounding 8.

Iraq, in short, continues to be a godawful mess, with no real security on the major roads. As I suggested in January, the anonymous elections have not had a significant impact on the guerrilla war.

posted by Juan

2400. jexster - 2/22/2005 11:33:39 AM

Do you know Kamprad has his own version of Mein Kampf/Thoughts of Chairman Ingvard?


Do you know that every IKEA has the same rat-in-the-maze "consumer experience"?

That is Swedish World Domination Thought Control Wonk.

Enter IKEA at your own risk

2401. jexster - 2/22/2005 12:48:21 PM

Here ya go Jay..

Breaking News: Jaafari PM Candidate for UIA

Well, the United Iraqi Alliance held its internal vote among the 140 party members who got seated in parliament, and just announced that Ibrahim Jaafari has won against Ahmad Chalabi. Jaafari's victory is not a surprise, since he was backed by the two core parties in the UIA, the Dawa Party and the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

Nic Robertson at CNN is saying that Jaafari was seen as a more unifying figure. You could interpret that statement in a lot of ways, but it is certainly true that Jaafari has a rhetoric of inclusion that stretches even to the people of Fallujah, whereas Chalabi wanted to punish all the Sunni Arabs who had had anything to do with the Baath Party (a lot of them).

The Dawa Party was founded in 1958 or so, with the aim of establishing an Islamic state in Iraq (and as an alternative to Communism, with its atheist workers' paradise). That it is now supplying the prime minister of the country under American auspices is among the more startling developments of our time.

2402. PelleNilsson - 2/22/2005 1:03:12 PM

You would have preferred Chalabi?

2403. jexster - 2/22/2005 2:11:36 PM

Hell no. I would have prefered Saddam or Ingvard

Actually, I would have preferred going to fight the Jihadists where they were, not where they are now, where they were, and where they still are!

U.N. report puts Afghanistan near last in world
'The fragile nation could easily tumble back into chaos'


Now the All Highest Warlord seems to have fixed his gaze on Russia....


He looked into Pooty Poot's soul as I recall..

I have to cut him some slack..being the Crusader Against Tyranny, the POTUS and God's Annointed is as He said "very hard work"

2404. PelleNilsson - 2/22/2005 2:17:39 PM

Despite the problems, Afghanistan has shown remarkable progress in the three years since the U.S.-led war in 2001, the report said. More than 54 percent of school-age children are enrolled in school, including 4 million high school students. The economy is making great strides, with growth of 16 percent in nondrug gross domestic product in 2003 and predicted growth of 10 to 12 percent annually for the next decade.

2405. thoughtful - 2/22/2005 2:51:21 PM

via delong's site

Matthew Yglesias: Closet Tolerants: Via Julie Saltman... the early days of the Bush 2000 campaign in which, among other things, George W. says he's not going to 'kick gays' for political advantage.... What's so especially disgusting about the president's opportunistic deployment of gay-bashing for political purposes is that, by all accounts and evidence, he doesn't believe a word of it... they're 'closet tolerants' who know perfectly well that what they're doing is wrong. When I meet people who, out of sincere conviction (usually religious) believe homosexuality is sinful and that public policy ought to be deployed to prevent this sinful behavior, I disagree with them, but understand that this sort of deep moral disagreement rooted in faith is a part of life.... When you see someone who knows perfectly well that the view he's adopted for political purposes is wrong, but who adopts it anyway out of cyncial thirst for power, well, then, that's just disgusting.

2406. jayackroyd - 2/22/2005 7:44:09 PM

2401

I'm fine with that, Jex. I don't believe that it is in the US interests to seek a client state. I think the US is much better served by having a representative government that has regular elections. IMO, it's extremely short-sighted of the Iranians to pursue a result that suits them. The election is way more important than the result. The risk is that there won't be another election, but al Sistani has staked his whole position on the importance of free and opn elections.

I think is an unequivocally positive development, and hope that the next stage holds as well.

2407. jexster - 2/22/2005 9:44:00 PM

I am fine with it too.

The fantasy of a client state died long ago, except I fear among those who count.

But hold your horsies..NyT reports that Allawi is trying to make common cause with the Kurds to deprive the Shiites of the PM job..

Civil war anyone?

2408. jexster - 2/22/2005 9:45:55 PM

And all this over control of a non-existent state.

Sheesh



Anyway, this is timely or not so timely..

Best seller in Turkey..

Metal Storm


Book about war with U.S. touches nerve in Turkey
Bestseller even read in high places

2409. jexster - 2/22/2005 9:55:28 PM

HE NEVER RECOVERED FROM THOSE ADS RUN BY INTELLIGENCE FABRICATION VETERANS FOR TRUTH:

I believe I have a majority of votes on my side right now. ... I'm in there.

--Ahmed Chalabi on ABC's This Week discussing his chances for the United Iraqi Alliance to nominate him as prime minister, Sunday


Interim Vice President Ibrahim al-Jaafari was chosen as the Shiite ticket's candidate for prime minister Tuesday after Ahmed Chalabi dropped his bid, senior alliance officials said. ... Chalabi said he dropped out of the race "for the unity of the alliance."

-- Associated Press, today


Iraq'd

2410. jexster - 2/22/2005 10:04:42 PM

GWB - Fooling Alot of People Alot of the Time

(ThinkProgress)

It seems the Bush administration’s campaign of [PDF]misinformation and innuendo in the days before the invasion of Iraq resonated deeply with the American people. According to a new poll conducted by Harris:

– 47 percent believe that Saddam Hussein helped plan and support the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001 (up six percentage points from November).

– 44 percent actually believe that several of the hijackers who attacked the U.S. on September 11 were Iraqis (up significantly from 37% in November).

– 36 percent believe that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded (down slightly from 38% in November).

2411. jexster - 2/23/2005 8:06:26 PM

Thanks be to Allah (His Name Be Praised!) and congratulations to Twelfth Imam Obe Juan Cole on being voted Best Expert Blog 2004 and for Best Post

If America were Iraq, What would it be Like?

2412. thoughtful - 2/24/2005 11:18:02 AM

Hypocrisy, thy name is goper. Courtesy of Frank Rich


Cheering Mr. Upton on is the Parents Television Council, the e-mail factory that Mediaweek magazine credits with as much as 99.9 percent of all indecency complaints to the F.C.C. in 2004. It is also quite a little fount of salacious entertainment in its own right. On its Web site, the organization's tireless "entertainment analysts" compile a list of every naughty word used on television and invite visitors to "Watch the Worst TV Clip of the Week." An archive of past clips - helpfully labeled individually by sin ("gratuitous teen sex," "necrophilia") - is there for your pleasure, with no requirement for the credit card number or membership fee that porn Internet sites use as a roadblock for children.

2413. thoughtful - 2/24/2005 11:40:37 AM

and It's gay people and teenagers being denied potentially life-saving sex education who ultimately are the real victims of the larger agenda of the decency crusaders, which is not to clean up show business, a doomed mission, but to realize the more attainable goal of enlisting the government to marginalize and punish those who don't adhere to their "moral values."

2414. jexster - 2/24/2005 2:00:14 PM

The Booming Business of Jihad
A meeting with a Syrian-born extremist in Baghdad reveals a fluid and effective insurgency which relies on the excesses of the U.S. occupation to attract recruits.

2415. jexster - 2/24/2005 8:50:45 PM

Viva La Revolución Anaranjada!
Ukraine PM Fulfills Campaign Promise - Pulls All Troops
Poland Cuts 1/3 in Attempt to Assuage Domestic Opposition

2416. jexster - 2/24/2005 9:59:32 PM

Tale of US attack hits mark in Turkey
The book begins with a US attack on Turkish troops in Iraq


US warplanes relentlessly pound Istanbul and Ankara, killing hundreds, while the rest of the country is in flames: Washington has just launched operation Metal Storm against its former ally, Turkey.

2417. jexster - 2/24/2005 10:02:49 PM

If you think that's some meaningless fad, consider

- Red Storm Rising
- The Sum of All Fears ..Clancy books NOT the movie

and that inane movie box office hit about The Cuban/Nicaraguan invasion of the US..name imminently forgettable...

Obviously the best seller plays to Turkish public emotions...

and so another ally bites the dust

2418. jexster - 2/24/2005 10:03:19 PM

and 2 more US soldiers did too today..died for nothing

2419. jexster - 2/25/2005 11:08:30 AM

LA TIMES COMMENTARY
The Downside of Democracy
What if the U.S. doesn't like what the voters like in the Mideast and beyond?
By Juan Cole

.

With the emergence of Shiite physician Ibrahim Jafari as the leading candidate for Iraqi prime minister earlier this week, the contradictions of Bush administration policy in the Middle East have become even clearer than they were before...

2420. jexster - 2/25/2005 11:13:30 AM

Well, now that Fallujah is liberated (i.e. wrecked and empty), residents of Ramadi are now beginning to flee in fear that they might get equally liberated. It is not clear how much liberation Iraqi cities (or ex-cities) can stand.

2421. robertjayb - 2/25/2005 2:08:26 PM

But General, Dubya Bin Lyin won this war.

ORGUN, Afghanistan (AP) -- Taliban and al-Qaida insurgents remain a grave threat to Afghanistan, a senior U.S. general told The Associated Press on Friday, warning against cutting the strength of the U.S.-led coalition so long as neither Afghan nor NATO forces are ready to fill the breach.

Maj. Gen. Eric Olson said he was concerned that American policy-makers will seize on an apparent drop in militant attacks to cut the 18,000-strong coalition -- about 17,000 of whom are Americans -- to ease the pressure on American forces stretched by their deployment in Iraq.

2422. robertjayb - 2/25/2005 2:37:30 PM

General Olson must not be expecting a third star.

2423. robertjayb - 2/25/2005 2:45:46 PM

It's just one damned thing after another...(NYTimes)

TIKRIT, Iraq, Feb. 25 - Three American soldiers were killed and eight were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded about 12 miles north of Baghdad today, the United States military said.

The fatalities, in Tarmiya, were first reported by a spokeswoman for the First Cavalry Division in Baghdad, and by a spokeswoman for the Third Infantry Division, Sgt. First Class Dinette Flores.
................................................

Today's explosion follows a wave of attacks by insurgents across central and northern Iraq on Thursday, leaving at least 25 people dead and dozens wounded, less than a week after two days of suicide attacks left more than 70 people dead.
................................................

Some of the attacks on Thursday raised the specter of sectarian civil violence, as did the violence last Friday and Saturday, when insurgents repeatedly attacked Shiite pilgrims during major religious celebrations. In the insurgent stronghold of Iskandariya, south of the capital, a suicide car bomber blew himself up in front of the office of a prominent Shiite political party, killing at least five people, including three police officers and a child, The Associated Press reported, citing government officials.

2424. jexster - 2/26/2005 4:30:45 AM

Bush's Legacy to the Iraqi People...


Top U.S. General Sees Lasting Iraq Insurgency

Time to declare victory and leave

Now may we have our candy and flowers?

2425. jexster - 2/28/2005 8:25:29 AM

ATTENTION EDITORS:VISUAL COVERAGE OF SCENE OF DEATH AND INJURY A video image shows Iraqis preparing to remove the injured and dead in a market, south of Baghdad, February 28, 2005. A suicide bomber detonated a car near a crowded marketplace south of Baghdad on Monday, killing 115 people and wounding 148 in the single bloodiest attack in Iraq (news - web sites) since the fall of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites). REUTERS/Reuters/TV

2426. robertjayb - 2/28/2005 11:43:33 AM

Better put a hold on the order for candy and flowers.

2427. jayackroyd - 2/28/2005 11:47:17 AM

toys.

2428. thoughtful - 2/28/2005 11:58:44 AM

Bush Chutzpah to talk about democracy and the rule of law in light of 'extraordinary rendition'.

President Bush spent much of last week lecturing other nations about freedom, democracy and the rule of law. It was a breathtaking display of chutzpah. He seemed to me like a judge who starves his children and then sits on the bench to hear child abuse cases. In Brussels Mr. Bush said he planned to remind Russian President Vladimir Putin that democracies are based on, among other things, "the rule of law and the respect for human rights and human dignity."

Someone should tell that to Maher Arar and his family.

Mr. Arar was the victim of an American policy that is known as extraordinary rendition. That's a euphemism. What it means is that the United States seizes individuals, presumably terror suspects, and sends them off without even a nod in the direction of due process to countries known to practice torture.



Where's the outrage?

Where are those gopers who have a strong libertarian streak? Is it not bad enough that the dems have no backbone to stand up to the bushies? Where are they?

2429. jexster - 3/1/2005 11:14:26 AM

This Guy Knows Bullshit When He Sees It!

Montana Governor Isn't Cowed by Bush


WASHINGTON — President Bush (news - web sites) often quips that the aura of the White House intimidates visitors, leaving would-be critics to express only niceties.



But the presidential mansion — and its current occupant — apparently did not have that effect Monday on Montana's new governor, who made some sharp comments after Bush tried to promote his Social Security (news - web sites) overhaul to a group of governors consumed by other matters.


A no-nonsense rancher and wheat farmer who took office six weeks ago in a Republican state, Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer likened the president's pitch to a magic show trick featuring a rabbit in a hat.


He also compared it to a bull auction hawking lousy studs.


"I was watching the governors around the room," said Schweitzer, comparing the group to potential livestock buyers who assess the wares and express their intentions with head-nods or nose-crinkles.


"I was seeing more of this," he said, crinkling his nose as if detecting a foul odor, "than I was of this," he said, nodding his head. "I didn't see a lot of buyers in the room."


Such harsh words were surprising coming from Schweitzer, who was elected after building a public image as a non-ideological problem-solver; he even chose a Republican running mate.

Several governors complimented Health and Human Services (news - web sites) Secretary Mike Leavitt, a former Utah governor, as an ally inside the White House on the Medicaid issue.


Not Schweitzer, who likened the secretary to ranch hands who "ride a brand."


"Once they come in and work for your ranch, they toe the company line," Schweitzer said. "He seemed to be riding for the president's brand right now."

2430. jexster - 3/1/2005 11:25:28 AM

Yesterday Senate Finance Committee chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley said Bush's Social Security plan ain't going anywhere unless there is a significant shift in public opinion. This morning's Washington Post reports the White House is telling its allies they have at most six weeks to turn public opinion around.

How big a shift will be necessary to produce a turnaround for Bush? Well, Ruy Teixeira has usefully summarized the latest polls on the subject, and (1) Bush's support level on Social Security is clearly in the high 30s at best, and (2) support for his "plan" drops the more voters hear about it.

I might add that on big changes in American government--and even American life--like this, opposition tends to harden over time, barring some particular change in the environment.

Sure, no one should misunderestimate the ability of the White House to push this thing right up to the gates of delerium, but let's also remember Bush's M.O.--he'll act like he's headed for victory right up to the minute he suddenly decides tax reform or the budget or some other element of the "ownership society" is suddenly more urgent.

He's going to lose this fight, folks, whether or not one or two Democrats in the House or the Senate give him "cover" by offering some sort of deal that neither party will accept.

-- Ed Kilgore

2431. wonkers2 - 3/1/2005 12:15:48 PM

I think Kilgore is right based on the Sandy Levin meeting I attended last week on SS. The mood of the crowd was strongly against privatization. Levin was the calmest person in the room. He's a bright and thoughtful guy.

2432. thoughtful - 3/1/2005 12:28:54 PM

Levin may be bright, but it remains to be seen if he's a thoughtful™ guy. Thoughtful™ is extremely particular.

2433. jexster - 3/1/2005 8:50:12 PM

Neo-conservatism and the American future
Stefan Halper
Jonathan Clarke



Neo-conservatism has created an “axis of disorder” within American governance. But it will not disappear even if its current champions fade from view. A former official in the Nixon, Ford and Reagan administrations and a former British diplomat argue that neo-conservatism is a manifestation of a deeper syndrome that has structural roots in United States history and politics.

2434. jexster - 3/1/2005 9:00:12 PM

Bush’s Choice: Messianism or Pragmatism? Anatol Lieven

2435. jexster - 3/1/2005 10:22:59 PM

Attacking Iran: I Know It Sounds Crazy, But...
By Ray McGovern

"'This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous.'

"(Short pause)

"'And having said that, all options are on the table.'

"Even the White House stenographers felt obliged to note the result: '(Laughter).'"

(The Washington Post's Dan Froomkin on George Bush's February 22 press conference)

For a host of good reasons -- the huge and draining commitment of U.S. forces to Iraq and Iran's ability to stir the Iraqi pot to boiling, for starters -- the notion that the Bush administration would mount a "preemptive" air attack on Iran seems insane. And still more insane if the objective includes overthrowing Iran's government again, as in 1953 -- this time under the rubric of "regime change."

But Bush administration policy toward the Middle East is being run by men -- yes, only men -- who were routinely referred to in high circles in Washington during the 1980s as "the crazies." I can attest to that personally, but one need not take my word for it.


Ray McGovern served as a CIA analyst for 27 years -- from the administration of John F. Kennedy to that of George H. W. Bush. During the early 1980s, he was one of the writers/editors of the President's Daily Brief and briefed it one-on-one to the president's most senior advisers. He also chaired National Intelligence Estimates. In January 2003, he and four former colleagues founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

2436. jexster - 3/3/2005 11:23:36 PM

This Too Shall Pass: After the Spin Cycle, the Washing Machine Stops As Iraqis Haggle Over Government That Doesn't Exist, No Power Even If it Did


Still no Government
Allawi Slams Sistani


Negotiations between the religious Shiite coalition, the United Iraqi Alliance, which has 54 percent of seats in the parliament, have bogged down with the Kurdish Alliance, which has 27 percent, according to the Scotsman. The UIA needs 66% to form a government. In theory, the UIA could call parliament to be seated even without forming a government, since calling a meeting would require only a simple majority.

...

In a recent interview, prospective prime minister Ibrahim Jaafari shows that he is aware of the need to handle issues such as the northern oil city of Kirkuk (claimed by several groups including the Kurds) with great care. But in this interview he manages to avoid saying very much else of substance. He says that the Koran won't be Iraq's only constitution (as in Saudi Arabia), but then no country, including Iran, is really run only according to the Koran. There isn't much law in the Koran, most of which reads to Western eyes rather like the Psalms. He also says that women will be allowed to have high government posts, but he needs to spell out if there will be coeducation in universities and professional schools, and if female physicians will be able to treat males. Gender segregation has the insidious effect of limiting women's opportunities even when they are otherwise qualified.

Allawi is Saddamite to the core...he's got some balls to root around the bazaar trying to cut deals on the camel with the Kurdish Krud..

The choice: Stalemate/Disintegration v. Islamic Republic

Ain't rocket science folks...the Kurds are the equivalent of the Indians who with 275 British officers under Clive eventually made Inja the Star in Victoria's Crown...

din..din..din...

We have a Kurdish Question

2437. jexster - 3/4/2005 10:42:33 AM

Deficits and Deceit
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Four years ago, Alan Greenspan urged Congress to cut taxes, asserting that the federal government was in imminent danger of paying off too much debt.

On Wednesday the Fed chairman warned Congress of the opposite fiscal danger: he asserted that there would be large budget deficits for the foreseeable future, leading to an unsustainable rise in federal debt. But he counseled against reversing the tax cuts, calling instead for cuts in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Does anyone still take Mr. Greenspan's pose as a nonpartisan font of wisdom seriously?

When Mr. Greenspan made his contorted argument for tax cuts back in 2001, his reputation made it hard for many observers to admit the obvious: he was mainly looking for some way to do the Bush administration a political favor. But there's no reason to be taken in by his equally weak, contorted argument against reversing those cuts today.

To put Mr. Greenspan's game of fiscal three-card monte in perspective, remember that the push for Social Security privatization is only part of the right's strategy for dismantling the New Deal and the Great Society. The other big piece of that strategy is the use of tax cuts to "starve the beast."

Until the 1970's conservatives tended to be open about their disdain for Social Security and Medicare. But honesty was bad politics, because voters value those programs.

So conservative intellectuals proposed a bait-and-switch strategy: First, advocate tax cuts, using whatever tactics you think may work - supply-side economics, inflated budget projections, whatever. Then use the resulting deficits to argue for slashing government spending.

And that's the story of the last four years. In 2001, President Bush and Mr. Greenspan justified tax cuts with sunny predictions that the budget would remain comfortably in surplus. But Mr. Bush's advisers knew that the tax cuts would probably cause budget problems, and welcomed the prospect.

In fact, Mr. Bush celebrated the budget's initial slide into deficit. In the summer of 2001 he called plunging federal revenue "incredibly positive news" because it would "put a straitjacket" on federal spending.

To keep that straitjacket on, however, those who sold tax cuts with the assurance that they were easily affordable must convince the public that the cuts can't be reversed now that those assurances have proved false. And Mr. Greenspan has once again tried to come to the president's aid, insisting this week that we should deal with deficits "primarily, if not wholly," by slashing Social Security and Medicare because tax increases would "pose significant risks to economic growth."

Really? America prospered for half a century under a level of federal taxes higher than the one we face today. According to the administration's own estimates, Mr. Bush's second term will see the lowest tax take as a percentage of G.D.P. since the Truman administration. And don't forget that President Clinton's 1993 tax increase ushered in an economic boom. Why, exactly, are tax increases out of the question?

O.K., enough about Mr. Greenspan. The real news is the growing evidence that the political theory behind the Bush tax cuts was as wrong as the economic theory.....

2438. jexster - 3/4/2005 11:06:46 AM

North Beach, SFCA

2439. wonkers2 - 3/4/2005 11:49:04 AM

Greenspan is still trying to please Ayn Rand's ghost. He's a whore for the libertarians.

2440. thoughtful - 3/4/2005 11:55:37 AM

wonks, i don't buy that. Of course, then again, I don't really understand what he's thinking since he, of all people on earth with the exception of the 9 robed ones, reports to absolutely no one and can say what the f he wants.

The reason why i don't buy it is they focused on reason, facts and thinking as opposed to the bush wackos. They focused on getting govt off our backs and out of our bedrooms as opposed to the bush wackos.

After all it was greenspan himself who raised soc sec taxes and the cap on wages decades ago in an attempt to bring the system into actuarial balance...he was part of the machine.

2441. thoughtful - 3/4/2005 11:57:54 AM

I think I'll chalk it up to old age. He's only got 9 mos left. Time for alan to go.

2442. jexster - 3/4/2005 12:10:18 PM

Ayn Rand...such a 60's fad..real popular among some, the old queens circa Stonewall .hey Ronski 'round?

2443. jexster - 3/4/2005 12:19:34 PM

There are those among us who do not believe in the divinity of the Obe Juan...the more the pity for them...for the Day is Near when Allah shall demand an accounting of all of our sins...

Women Fear Losing Rights in the New IraQ, Rights They Had Under Saddam ChiTrib

In a recent interview, prospective prime minister Ibrahim Jaafari shows that he is aware of the need to handle issues such as the northern oil city of Kirkuk (claimed by several groups including the Kurds) with great care. But in this interview he manages to avoid saying very much else of substance. He says that the Koran won't be Iraq's only constitution (as in Saudi Arabia), but then no country, including Iran, is really run only according to the Koran. There isn't much law in the Koran, most of which reads to Western eyes rather like the Psalms. He also says that women will be allowed to have high government posts, but he needs to spell out if there will be coeducation in universities and professional schools, and if female physicians will be able to treat males. Gender segregation has the insidious effect of limiting women's opportunities even when they are otherwise qualified.

posted by Juan @ 3/3/2005 06:13:00 AM

Insurgency Heating Up Again...
3 US Soldiers Killed, Baquba Bombed
Guerrillas take advantage of Parliamentary Gridlock

posted by Juan @ 3/4/2005 06:00:00 AM

2444. wonkers2 - 3/4/2005 2:47:14 PM

thoughtful, my recollection of Greenspan's positions is that they are as close as he could get, realistically, to those of his old idol, Ayn Rand. At the very least her influence strikes me as obvious. Now, of course, Greenspan doesn't go around blowing up buildings a la Howard Roark. he is wily and looks after number one, above all. Maybe it would be fair to charactierise him as an expedient, modified Randian.

2445. thoughtful - 3/4/2005 2:57:50 PM

He's a party animal and very politically savvy which are not things one would attribute to roark. I guess I would think that the most powerful man in the world who would consider himself a thoughtful and rational person wouldn't risk the health of the entire us therefore global financial system on something like a shot at reducing the size of some govt entitlement program. But given his performance both in pushing for the 2001 tax cuts and then this year's pushing for privatizing soc sec, I'm obviously wrong.

The bushies have so succeeded in trashing the reputations of every economist it's been associated with that they can't even find a replacement for CEA chair. (After much search rosen, who was already on the staff, accepted only until sept when he goes back to princeton.) Hard to believe but they are even managing to trash the rep of greenspan...the maestro himself. Quite an accomplishment.

2446. robertjayb - 3/4/2005 4:38:25 PM

Yes, shit happens! But can we go home now?

Italian reporter Giuliana Sgrena has been hurt by US troops firing at a car taking her to Baghdad airport soon after being freed from her kidnappers.

An Italian secret service agent was killed in the shooting at a checkpoint.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi summoned the US ambassador demanding an explanation for what he called "such a serious incident".

The US military in Baghdad confirmed that forces shot at a vehicle and said an investigation had been launched.

2447. robertjayb - 3/4/2005 5:11:42 PM

Grim progress...U.S. troops dying faster...

LynnTheDem, posting in Democratic Underground, did some arithmetic:

It took 295 days to reach the benchmark of 500 U.S. dead soldiers from Iraq.

Date 1/9/2004
Total 500
Interval in days 295

242 days would pass before the next 500 death milestone would be reached, the interval in days reduced by 53.

Date 9/7/2004
Total 1000
Interval in days 242

It's now 177 days since we reached the next 500 death benchmark - 1500. The interval in days reduced by 65 from the previous benchmark and by 118 from the first 500.

Date 2/3/2005
Total 1500
Interval in days 177

2448. robertjayb - 3/4/2005 5:16:07 PM

But there is a plan...

2449. robertjayb - 3/5/2005 12:00:51 PM

The not-so-friendly skies of CIA mystery plane...

(CBS)---60 Minutes has videotaped a secret jet the Central Intelligence Agency is said to be using to deliver terror suspects to countries known for torturing people.

The four-month investigation of the CIA's "rendition" program, the practice of sending suspects to foreign governments for interrogation, also found a man who says he was mistakenly taken on the plane to a jail in Afghanistan where he was mistreated for months.

Correspondent Scott Pelley's report, including the first American interview with Khaled El-Masri, will be broadcast on 60 Minutes, Sunday, March 6, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Tracing the jet through a series of companies and executives that apparently exist only on paper, 60 Minutes was able to videotape the 737 three weeks ago on the runway of Glasgow Airport in Scotland.

The investigation also reveals the plane made at least 600 flights to 40 countries, all of which came after 9/11, including 30 trips to Jordan, 19 to Afghanistan, 17 to Morocco, and 16 to Iraq. The plane also went to Egypt, Libya and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

2450. jexster - 3/5/2005 5:20:25 PM

Talk about out of the frying pan into the fire...Bush claims yet another victim

Freed Italian hostage says US shooting was not justified

2451. jexster - 3/5/2005 5:25:15 PM

The more he sinks the more he lies.

In fact, I'm not even sure 'lying' quite does it justice. He just makes it up as he goes along now....Josh Marshall

2452. jexster - 3/5/2005 5:43:05 PM

Chalabi seeks Anti-American Coalition
Kurds Demand Kirkuk - Cole


Shit hits fan...

2453. jexster - 3/5/2005 9:32:08 PM

In the Name of Allah, merciful and compassionate


it was announced Friday that Ahmad Chalabi, Shiite secularist and head of the Iraqi National Congress, met a few days ago with members of the Association of Muslim Scholars, who had boycotted the political process. He discussed with them "The possibility of beginning the stage of dialogue among those who desire to fight the Occupation." Chalabi said, "We had several meetings with the rebels, and there is a real desire to work and coordinate in order to end the foreign presence in Iraq, which will convince them that there is no necessity to fight." (For more on the demands of the hard line Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars for a US withdrawal, see:

STATEMENT OF THE ANTI-OCCUPATION PATRIOTIC FORCES

2454. jexster - 3/5/2005 10:27:17 PM

The Factory of Jihad: Jihadists Scour Europe for IraQ Fighters

2455. jexster - 3/6/2005 11:05:30 AM

Shiites Rail Against Kurd "Parasites"

2456. jexster - 3/6/2005 3:45:20 PM

Italia Outraged at Hostage Shooting, Agent's Murder

2457. jexster - 3/6/2005 7:44:38 PM

2458. jexster - 3/7/2005 12:09:18 PM

Even as Italy mourns the murder of Nicola Calipari and Italian anger builds, Bulgaria claims one of its own was killed by US troops

2459. jexster - 3/7/2005 1:53:27 PM

Bush Not Worth Dying For

Reuters reports that "The regular Army is 6 percent behind its year-to-date recruiting target, the Reserve is 10 percent behind, and the Guard is 26 percent short." A common question from potential recruits is whether they will be deployed. (Almost certainly). Measures such as stop-loss and keeping servicemen and -women in the military 18 months beyond what they signed up for, and recalling discharged soldiers, have proven unpopular with potential recruits, understandably enough. But I think the figures show something more significant, which is that the American public increasingly thinks Mr. Bush's wars are not worth their lives. When, after September 11, he said "Let's roll!", the enthusiasm was palpable. But Bush squandered that enthusiasm on a gotten-up war that the public has increasingly decided is not worth it (see Sunday's entry on recent polling). As the Cato Institute points out (at the end of the Reuters piece above), the likely ending to this story, if the Bush administration continues its praetorian ways, is a national draft. And if it happens, I think it will change the dynamics of domestic politics enormously.

2460. jexster - 3/7/2005 1:54:10 PM

You and what army Georgie?

2461. jexster - 3/7/2005 2:49:37 PM

Living Room War

You fight. We consume.

Great minds...me and the American fucking Conservative magazine

2462. jexster - 3/7/2005 3:17:41 PM

The Stillborn Empire
By Patrick J. Buchanan
America as the “New Rome”—of the late fourth century

2463. Jenerator - 3/7/2005 4:22:35 PM

So, what did happen with that journalist? I heard that the SUV she was being driven in was rushing the police barricades at the airport (a place of insurgency), not slowing down, ignoring warning signs and ignoring warning shots.

If this is what happened, why would anyone be suprised that someone got hurt?

2464. Jenerator - 3/7/2005 4:23:30 PM

If that's what happened, I ammore suprised that only one person was killed.

2465. wonkers2 - 3/7/2005 5:10:25 PM

Jen, I was in your home state last week--Sugar Land/Houston. Only there for 2 days and didn't really get a feel for the city. It did seem quite prosperous. But spread out all over hell's half acre.

2466. wonkers2 - 3/7/2005 5:12:33 PM

Sorry! I guess the above is in the wrong thread. Feel free to move it to the Cafe so that we aren't slapped on our fingers by Pelle.

2467. Jenerator - 3/7/2005 5:27:22 PM

Wonkers,

I haven't spent much time in Houston. I don't like it that there are no zoning laws. A gas station can be next to a stripbar next to an Pharmacists next to a park next to a Whataburger next to a daycare facility.

2468. jexster - 3/7/2005 6:17:39 PM

No shit Jen...you wanna join Jexies I hate Houston Club?

My brother..poor bastardl...I pity his children

2469. jexster - 3/7/2005 6:19:39 PM

See Wonk you could have visited my brother & his family...

They used to live in Sugar Land..moved up the Farm to Market a piece..(actually Texas 6) to the ever growing exurb expanse of Missouri City..

Robert feels my pain

2470. jexster - 3/7/2005 6:27:43 PM

THIS does it...

The American Conservative's GLOWING review of Anatol Lieven's America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism

I am enlisting in the Buchanan Brigade!!

2471. jexster - 3/8/2005 11:40:49 AM

Le Monde: United Iraqi Alliance Cleric "US Troops OUT of IraQ!

2472. jexster - 3/8/2005 11:50:03 AM

Is Bush Desperate, Stupid or Both?



Demonstrators shout anti America slogans as they wave Lebanese flags and hold portraits of Syrian President Bashar Assad, right, Lebanese president Emile Lahoud and slain former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in a central Beirut square, Lebanon, Tuesday March 8, 2005. Tens of thousands of pro-Syrian protesters gathered,dwarfing previous anti-Syrian protests.

2473. jexster - 3/8/2005 12:19:26 PM

Whose Side Are We On Georgie?

"Freedom will prevail in Lebanon," President Bush declared today. "The American people are on your side."

2474. PelleNilsson - 3/8/2005 1:45:12 PM

And what does that tell you?

2475. jexster - 3/8/2005 2:12:19 PM

Tells me that I should try to read more by Prof. Hassan Abu Kahlil

Tells me that it is more likely than ever that the Mossad off'ed Hariri...Iraq is going badly, the PALS are calling Sharon's bluff, and the neocon/Likud response in such circumstances - More violence

2476. jexster - 3/8/2005 2:14:40 PM

Tells me also that Bush has completed the Arc of Shiite Power

Tells me the Middle East is going to blow

2477. PelleNilsson - 3/8/2005 3:14:13 PM

A single demonstration in Beirut sure tells you an awful lot. What it tells me, so far, is that organization matters.

But please explain why it is "more likely than ever that the Mossad off'ed Hariri", a pragmatic entrepreneur cum poltician who most probably would have jumped at the chance of settling things with the Israelis had he been given a chance to do so.

2478. robertjayb - 3/8/2005 4:40:31 PM

No need gettin' folks all upset...just do it in the dark.(Salon premium)

It's widely known that on the eve of the Iraq invasion in 2003, the Bush administration moved to enforce a ban on photographs of caskets arriving at Dover, or at any other military bases. But few realize that it seems to be pursuing the same strategy with the wounded, who are far more numerous. Since 9/11, the Pentagon's Transportation Command has medevaced 24,772 patients from battlefields, mostly from Iraq. But two years after the invasion of Iraq, images of wounded troops arriving in the United States are almost as hard to find as pictures of caskets from Dover. That's because all the transport is done literally in the dark, and in most cases, photos are banned.

2479. Jenerator - 3/8/2005 5:32:17 PM

I can't say that I hate Houston because of the zoning, I just didn't like that aspect of it.

It is a very prosperous city and it's close to Galveston!;-)

2480. arkymalarky - 3/8/2005 6:00:23 PM

I don't like Houston at all, but I've only been a handful of times.

2481. jexster - 3/8/2005 7:16:36 PM

Galveston!!!!


I love you Texicans..my brother goes there and to South Padre island..

I guess that'll have to pass for a beach..




We're Goin to Surf City, Here We Come...

Two girls for every boy...

2482. jexster - 3/8/2005 7:20:31 PM

Huntington State Beach,
Surf City USA



Mavericks Beach
San Mateo County CA

2483. jexster - 3/8/2005 8:38:11 PM

Video Shows U.S. Soldiers in 'Ramadi Madness' Abuse

2484. jexster - 3/8/2005 9:44:00 PM

Either the landlord will die or the dog


Israeli Government Promoting West Bank Settlement Expansion
Program Violates Its Own Laws and International Mandates

The roadmap has a dead end.
The Mossad killed Hariri

And Bush demands Syria leave Lebanon by May.

2485. robertjayb - 3/9/2005 12:31:18 AM

Riverbend writes about the Italian journalist, bad behavior by national guardsmen, and new officials (You want a rabbit?) in Baghdad Burning.

2486. jexster - 3/9/2005 11:16:22 AM

"Ramadi Madness" Video Excerpts - Palm Beach Post

2487. jexster - 3/9/2005 11:25:29 AM

I was looking at this report of Major Isaiah Wilson, official US army historian, which concluded that the US military lost control of Iraq by June, 2003, and has never regained control, and may well lose the guerrilla war. Then someone alerted me to an item about Paul Wolfowitz, who bears significant responsibility for the errors to which Wilson draws attention....

Awful Crap from Wolfowitz

2488. jexster - 3/9/2005 11:34:37 AM

US annuls visa for Lebanese politician who regretted Wolfowitz survived

BEIRUT, Nov 19, 2003 (AFP)

A leading Lebanese politician said Wednesday his US visa had been annulled after he expressed regret that US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was unhurt in a Baghdad rocket attack.

Walid Jumblatt, an MP who is leader of Lebanon's Druze community, told AFP he had "received from the US embassy in Beirut a letter saying that the visa -- valid until 2007 -- has been cancelled" . . .

According to a letter sent by the US State Department to Jumblatt and published by Al-Mostaqbal newspaper, the visa was withdrawn as it "cannot be given to a foreigner who uses a privileged position to express his support for terrorist activity, tries to convince others of such support or supports a terrorist organisation."

On October 27, Jumblatt described Wolfowitz as a "microbe" in comments that were described as "unacceptable" by the United States but were not condemned by the Lebanese government.

2489. jexster - 3/9/2005 11:37:25 AM

7) Hold onto your underpants, Jeff Jarvis: When I asked Wolfowitz who he read outside of official channels that he found particularly profitable, he reeled off the names of a bunch of Iraqi blogs. I asked him if he read Juan Cole. He made a munched up face like his sushi had gone bad. He said that yes, he had read him, but did not do so much, because of all the—I forget his exact words, but I’m thinking “awful crap” –through which he had to slog in order to get the information that Cole presented. I said I thought it would be useful since even if one disagrees, Cole certainly knows what he’s talking about, and his view is closer to the rest of the world’s than are those published in the MSM. He made another bad sushi face.

2490. jexster - 3/9/2005 2:42:51 PM

Just about when, at the time, I said they had...


Army Report: US Lost Control in IraQ Three Months After Invasion

2491. thoughtful - 3/9/2005 3:12:39 PM

Couldn't sleep the other night so flipped on c-span and there was a panel at the bar assn (ny?) suggesting legislative efforts they can expect from the bushies. On the panel was william ginsberg. Someone asked a question about the libertarian branch of the party and he responded as if he was asked about aliens. Not only can they not tolerate those who disagree with them, they can't countenance any disagreement within their own party.

Keep it up, and with the help of a popular program like soc sec, their tent will get very small indeed. Now that they've demonized the dems, there's no one else to turn to but to eat their own.

2492. concerned - 3/9/2005 4:47:19 PM

OMG! I never thought I'd see the day that the Independent, the rag that's keeping Robert Fisk's journalistic career on life support, would admit the possibility that GWB knows what he's doing in the Mideast. Did you, jex?

2493. concerned - 3/9/2005 4:48:23 PM

OMG! I never thought I'd see the day that the Independent, the rag that's keeping Robert Fisk's journalistic career on life support, would admit the possibility that GWB knows what he's doing in the Mideast. Did you, jex?

2494. concerned - 3/9/2005 4:49:16 PM

OMG! I never thought I'd see the day that the Independent, the rag that's keeping Robert Fisk's journalistic career on life support, would admit the possibility that GWB knows what he's doing in the Mideast. Did you, jex?

2495. concerned - 3/9/2005 4:49:43 PM

Stupid Internet server tricks again. Sorry.

2496. concerned - 3/9/2005 4:49:44 PM

Stupid Internet server tricks again. Sorry.

2497. robertjayb - 3/9/2005 4:57:50 PM

That's okay, concerned. You're just excited.

2498. robertjayb - 3/10/2005 9:47:45 AM

More blood to Negroponte's credit...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- U.S. troops who mistakenly killed an Italian intelligence agent last week on the road to Baghdad's airport were part of extra security provided by the U.S. Army to protect U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte, a U.S. official said Thursday.

Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari was killed March 4 when U.S. troops opened fire on a car carrying him and Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, who had just been freed from insurgents.

``The mobile patrol was there to enhance security because Ambassador Negroponte was expected through,'' U.S. Embassy spokesman Robert Callahan said, confirming reports in Italian media. The newspaper La Repubblica reported Wednesday that the checkpoint had been ``set up to protect the passage of Ambassador Negroponte.''

2499. robertjayb - 3/10/2005 7:36:46 PM

Riverbend on Why Ahmed Chalabi should get the Nobel Peace Prize...

2500. jexster - 3/10/2005 9:02:26 PM

The answer is no TD.

Next dumb question....

2501. jexster - 3/10/2005 9:04:48 PM

Message # 2473

2502. jexster - 3/10/2005 9:30:12 PM

Bush & Senate Select Committee on Intel Conspire to Cover Up Bush Iraq Lies

THE BACK BURNER: Last July, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released a 511-page report into how the intelligence community erroneously assessed Saddam Hussein's nonexistent weapons of mass production programs and relationship to Al Qaeda. However, it wasn't complete. Committee members opted to defer inquiry into the politically hazardous questions of how accurately the Bush administration represented the intelligence it possessed on Iraq to the Congress and the public and how appropriately administration policymakers influenced the assessment and presentation of intelligence products within the government until after the November election. Liberals especially have been waiting with bated breath ever since.

Today, Pat Roberts, the Senate intelligence committee chairman, told everyone not to bother. "It's basically on the back burner," Roberts said after a speech on intelligence reform at the Woodrow Wilson Center. "The bottom line is that [the administration] believed the intelligence, and the intelligence was wrong." Some might dispute that characterization, as former CIA Director George Tenet did last year when he told the Senate Armed Services Committee--on which Roberts also serves--that "when I believed that somebody was misconstruing intelligence, I said something about it."

Besides, Roberts added, the "WMD Commission in March will lay it all out." That would be the commission President Bush appointed last February to deflect political heat on the Iraq intelligence debacle--and which doesn't look at policymakers' role in either intelligence production or public representation....

2503. jexster - 3/10/2005 9:44:43 PM

Shoot Anything That Flies, Claim Everything That Falls

Validation - Think Progress

President Bush is “in a buoyant mood, aides said, seeing the recent moves as vindicating his expansive vision [in the Middle East]. ‘He feels validation,’ said one aide.”

Hmm…

Palestinian Elections

TIME: In Washington, many think the growing democracy movement in the Middle East comes from President Bush’s pressure.

ABBAS: I don’t think that we made democracy because President Bush pushed us. We decided that we should have a democratic process, and we did it without any pressure.

Iraqi Elections

The White House “resisted the idea of holding elections [in January] and only succumbed under pressure from Iraq’s most powerful cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.” Iraq expert Juan Cole charges, “It was Sistani who demanded one-person, one-vote elections. So to the extent it’s a victory, it’s a victory for Iraqis. The Americans were maneuvered into having to go along with it.”

Protests in Lebanon


In Lebanon, “opposition leaders say they have consciously imitated the popular uprising in Ukraine,” not Iraq.

Maybe Hizbollah was inspired...

2504. jexster - 3/10/2005 9:47:08 PM

OMG! I never thought I'd see the day that the Independent, the rag that's keeping Robert Fisk's journalistic career on life support,...

Guess who's on the by-line?

2505. jexster - 3/11/2005 1:31:34 PM

The Less Than Superpower - You and What Army Dept.
IraQ War Causes Pentagon to Rethink Strategy, Force Structure, Meaning of Life

WASHINGTON — The war in Iraq (news - web sites) is forcing top Pentagon (news - web sites) planners to rethink several key assumptions about the use of military power and has called into question the vision set out nearly four years ago that the armed forces can win wars and keep the peace with small numbers of fast-moving, lightly armed troops.

2506. jexster - 3/11/2005 1:48:15 PM

[I]nstead of seizing this moment, the Clinton/Gore administration has squandered it. We have seen a steady erosion of American power and an unsteady exercise of American influence.

Our military is low on parts, pay and morale.

If called on by the commander-in-chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report ... Not ready for duty, sir. Commander Howdy Doody, 8/3/00

2507. jexster - 3/11/2005 2:02:51 PM

End of the Bush 30-day Shock and Awe Specials


"Our enemy's metric is protracting conflicts to 3,000 days or more," he said. "Prolonged insurgency, death by a thousand cuts, is their answer to 'shock and awe.' "

2508. jexster - 3/12/2005 12:35:23 AM

Bush's "pat on the back" for Lebanon and Palestine is probably the most telling index of what deep shit he knows he is in..constantly spin for domestic consumption even though the facts do not support it and more importantly, it is counterproductive "on the ground"

Be that as it may...it is time that Congress put a big red "canceled" on the Free Pass to Georgie's GI Joe phantasms...Behind Kerry's lame "I voted against it before I voted for it" is his failure to press for this the first time around...THAT not the goof ball comment is the real problem

Congress Should Tell Bush That the Iraq Quagmire Can’t Succeed
No More Iraq War Money without Clear Exit Strategy

Note: This alert is from Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan (USN, ret.), who served in combat in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam and commanded the North Atlantic fleet. We are thankful for his depth of experience and his insight as he guides TrueMajorityACTION’s national security policies.

Dear John,

When Congress refused to continue funding the Vietnam War, that spelled the end of the U.S. campaign there. Based on thoughtful analysis by both conservative and progressive analysts, this alert is the first step in the process of getting out of Iraq.

Next week, the House of Representatives will vote on the president's request for $82 billion to pay for the ongoing military occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. That’s a lot of money. It is enough to feed the world’s starving people for five years or more, and would save the lives of millions of kids.[1] Aside from how that money could be better spent, a toll continues to be taken on the Iraqi people, our own service members, and America's image throughout the world.

Yet even as the quagmire in Iraq worsens, Bush continues to refuse to (1) specify when we will exit the country and (2) make clear that America will not establish permanent military bases there.

If you are a TrueMajorityACTION member and you’d like to send a message (text below) to your representatives urging them to oppose the supplemental bill for Iraq unless an exit plan is included, just click "Reply" and "Send" in your email program to send your message. If this was forwarded to you or you’d like to customize the message to your congresspeople, click here:

http://www.truemajorityACTION.org/Iraqexit

Proud to be working with you,

Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan (USN, ret.)

2509. jexster - 3/12/2005 12:37:17 AM

Fuck Bush

2510. jexster - 3/12/2005 12:53:44 AM

We are not alone in our concerns.

Senator Edward Kennedy said in an address in January, "At least twelve thousand American troops, and probably more, should leave immediately to send a signal about our intention. America's goal should be to complete the drawdown as early as possible in 2006."
Carter administration national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski said: "I do not think we can stay in Iraq in the fashion we're in now... If it cannot be changed drastically, it should be terminated." He also confirmed that it would take 500,000 troops, $500 billion, and the resumption of the military draft to ensure adequate security in Iraq.[2]

Conservative military analysts increasingly urge an end to the occupation.

"We have failed. The issue is how high a price we’re going to pay... Less, by getting out sooner, or more, by getting out later," said retired army lieutenant general and former director of the National Security Agency William E. Odom.[3]

In a detailed plan for a careful withdrawal published in the respected journal Foreign Affairs, Edward Luttwak, a national security counselor to former President Reagan, writes that the "...best strategy for the United States is disengagement. This would call for careful planning and scheduling of the withdrawal of U.S. forces from much of the country."[4]

"Our large, direct presence has fueled the Iraq insurgency as much as it has suppressed it," said Michael Vickers, longtime senior Central Intelligence Agency official.[5]
"The end of the foreign occupation will seriously undermine the terrorists' claims that their acts of violence against Iraqis are somehow serving the interests of Iraq," according to the article "Exiting Iraq," which was published by the conservative Cato Institute.

Moreover, "The occupation is counterproductive in the fight against radical Islamic terrorists and actually increases support for Osama bin Laden in Muslim communities not previously disposed to support his radical interpretation of Islam... Staying on the current course, looking at the trends, is not going to work." [6]

2511. wonkers2 - 3/12/2005 8:03:40 AM

Impeach Bush!

2512. jexster - 3/12/2005 11:40:35 AM

As Ayatollahs bitch slap Bush from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean, TD, we pause

Remembering Arguments Made 1,500 Deaths Ago

So let's see, who thinks Bush knows what the fuck he's doing in the Middle East?

Well of course there's David Brooks and the Usual Suspects at WSJ, Weakly Std, Fox and other hangers on with Bush Fascist Propaganda Machine & Worship Club..

You

and Robert Fisk

2513. jexster - 3/12/2005 12:34:36 PM

Portugese Foreign Minister Insults Hitler

He would have insulted Mussolini too or Franco..Bush is truly a comic book fascist sui generis

LISBON (Reuters) - Jose Socrates was sworn in as Portugal's prime minister on Saturday vowing to keep friendly ties with the United States despite naming a foreign minister who has compared President Bush (news - web sites) to Adolf Hitler.

2514. jayackroyd - 3/12/2005 3:47:08 PM

Juan Cole cites Le Monde:

Permanent American bases in Iraq? The question seems so incongruous to His Most Austere "Eminence Abdul Aziz Al-Hakim," (as the leader of the Shiite party which won the January 30 elections identifies himself on his visiting card) that he almost bursts out laughing. "Ha! Ha! No. No one in Iraq desires the establishment of permanent foreign bases on our land. The United Nations Security Council resolutions are clear: it will be up to the elected Iraqi government, when the time comes, to give those forces a specific departure date. As soon as possible."

I've said before that I believed the real goals of the administration in entering this war were 1)Improve Israeli security 2) establish permanent bases in Iraq and leaving Saudi Arabia in the process.

A Shiite led government with ties to Iran pretty much demolishes both those goals. Since all the stated ones were fake and false, it's hard to overstate what a disaster this intervention has been.

2515. wonkers2 - 3/12/2005 9:48:14 PM

Weren't we supporting Sadaam Hussein under Regan and Bush I with a strategy of playing him off against Iran? Then, as I recall, April Glaspie, U.S. ambassador to Iraq, gave Sadaam the green light to invade Kuwait. Or at least she didn't tell him absolutely no when he let her in on his plan.

2516. jexster - 3/13/2005 7:40:21 PM

Mess-O-Potamia: Bush Left Weapons Sites Unguarded - Tons of Machinery Including Nuke Use Looted


BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 12 - In the weeks after Baghdad fell in April 2003, looters systematically dismantled and removed tons of machinery from Saddam Hussein's most important weapons installations, including some with high-precision equipment capable of making parts for nuclear arms, a senior Iraqi official said this week in the government's first extensive comments on the looting.

The Iraqi official, Sami al-Araji, the deputy minister of industry, said it appeared that a highly organized operation had pinpointed specific plants in search of valuable equipment, some of which could be used for both military and civilian applications, and carted the machinery away.



The threat posed by these types of facilities was cited by the Bush administration as a reason for invading Iraq, but the installations were left largely unguarded by allied forces in the chaotic months after the invasion

Dr. Araji's statements came just a week after a United Nations agency disclosed that approximately 90 important sites in Iraq had been looted or razed in that period.

2517. jexster - 3/13/2005 8:25:04 PM

Flattened Fallujah, Tent City, Awaits Compensation

Al-Zaman/ AFP: The Iraqi government has yet to pay out any compensation to the inhabitants of Fallujah from the funds dedicated to the rebuilding of the city, which was assaulted by the US Marines and Iraqi forces beginning last November 8 in order to root out guerrillas who were thought to dominate it. Most of its buildings and homes were damaged, such that most of its former residents still live in the hills southwest of the city in tents erected hastily in the wilderness. The Iraqi government had established committees to identify damaged buildings and to survey the damage in preparation for the payment of monetary compensation that would allow rebuilding.

Basil Mahmud Hamid, the engineer who heads the local committee for rebuilding the city said that the survey committee will finalize its identification of damaged buildings on Sunday. He said the payments will be made as soon as the survey is completed. Informed sources told al-Zaman that mines and unexploded ordinance are slowing down the survey work.

Liqa' Fahd (25), cradling her two-month-old as she gazed at what was left of her home, said, "I lost my husband, my house, and everything beautiful in my life. I have nothing left but this little plot of land and this humble tent." She explained that her husband had not escaped with her because he was the treasurer of an Islamic endowment in the city and responsible for its funds. "Since that time I have lost contact with him, and have not found his name either on the list of the dead or on that of the missing."

Muhammad Fahd al-Hitawi, 38, has erected a tent above the ruins of his house, and lives there with his ten children. He said he was waiting for compensation so that he could rebuild. His house, which had measured 671 square meters (yards), was mere rubble.

Almost all the 300,000 inhabitants of the city fled during the attack. On 11 January, the UN High Commission for Refugees said, as summarized by AFSC:



' Approximately 85,000 residents have passed through Fallujah’s checkpoints as of January 9. However, only 3,000 to 8,000 people remain in the city overnight, due to the harsh conditions that include a lack of adequate shelter, electricity, water, and health care, as well as curfews and restrictions on movement. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that only 40 percent of the population in the city is receiving assistance.

Returning residents find a city that has been ravaged. Massive destruction to infrastructure and housing has been reported. It is estimated that 40 percent of the buildings were completely destroyed, 20 percent had major damage, and 40 percent had significant damage. The International Committee of the Red Cross reported on December 23 that three of the city’s water purification plants had been destroyed and the fourth was badly damaged. The water distribution network was destroyed. It will take a long time to restore basic services. '


Hamid Fahd Su'ud, 40, the father of 7 daughters, said, "We now live off charity, since most of the shops and factories in the city are closed." Su'ud lost his son, Omar, while attempting to flee the battles, but has never recovered a body. "I praise God that we have this tent, and all I want is for my son Omar to be alive and being fed."

Iraqi authorities have increased security measures and patrols of the city to prevent the return of the guerrillas and a repeat of what happened in Fallujah.

Cole: Readers often write in for an update on Fallujah. I am sorry to say that there is no Fallujah to update. The city appears to be in ruins and perhaps uninhabitable in the near future. Of 300,000 residents, only about 9,000 seem to have returned, and apparently some of those are living in tents above the ruins of their homes. The rest of the Fallujans are scattered in refugee camps of hastily erected tents at several sites, including one near Habbaniyyah, or are staying with relatives in other cities, including Baghdad.

The scale of this human tragedy-- the dispossession and displacement of 300,000 persons-- is hard to imagine. Unlike the victims of the tsunami who were left homeless, moreover, the Fallujans have witnessed no outpouring of world sympathy. While there were undeniably bad characters in the city, most residents had done nothing wrong and did not deserve to be made object lessons--which was the point Rumsfeld was making with this assault. He hoped to convince Ramadi and Mosul to fall quiet lest the same thing happen to them. He failed, since the second Fallujah campaign threw the Sunni Arab heartland into much more chaos than ever before. People forget how quiet Mosul had been. And, the campaign was the death knell for proper Sunni participation in the Jan. 30 elections (Sunnis, with 20 percent of the population, have only 6 seats in the 275 member parliament).

However much a cliche it might be to say it, the US military really did destroy Fallujah to save it.

posted by Juan @ 3/13/2005 06:17:00 AM

2518. jexster - 3/13/2005 8:32:48 PM

We supported Saddam ..we also supported Syria's occupation of Lebanon..

2519. jexster - 3/13/2005 8:41:50 PM

On Ending Military Occupations in the Middle East

Some Iraqis find it ironic that President Bush called for a withdrawal of foreign troops from Lebanon before the elections, but that elections were held in Iraq under conditions of foreign military occupation. Some quotes from the Knight Ridder story:

"He must have forgotten that his army is occupying Iraq," said Sa'ad Abdul Aziz, 21, an engineering student at Baghdad University. "What about the Republican Palace that they are using as a U.S. embassy?" . . .

"America should get out of Iraq immediately and without conditions, just like it is asking neighboring Syria to withdraw from the Lebanese Republic," said Sheikh Nasir Al-Saidi, imam of a mosque in the restive Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City, in a front-page article Saturday in the newspaper Azzaman. . .

"Everyone in Iraq would like to see foreign troops leave," said Walid al Hilli, of the DAWA Party, which is part of a Shiite coalition that won a majority in the January elections. "But we would like to see the foreign troops leave Iraq when there is enough security inside Iraq, which does not exist now. We're working hard to get Iraqi troops and Iraqi policemen ready to keep security inside Iraq. We don't exactly know the situation in Lebanon. Can the police secure Lebanese cities?"

2520. alistairconnor - 3/14/2005 6:14:28 AM

All this nicey-nicey talk about rebuilding Falluja.

It's a mistake. They should have followed through on their logic, and on historical precedent, and sown it with salt.

2521. jexster - 3/14/2005 12:29:49 PM

AC you're thinkn like a Christian again....I shall alert the Cardinal Archbishop of Lyon(?)

2522. jexster - 3/14/2005 12:33:19 PM

Cole thinks this could get real nasty....thinks there's now a real possibility that escalating Sunni/Shiite violence could draw in outside powers..

Angry Iraqi Shiites Attack Jordanian Embassy, Burn Flag

King AssKisser Abdullah...Amman you have a problem

2523. jexster - 3/14/2005 12:45:34 PM

Baghdad you have a KurdenFrage

Purple Revolution Runs Out of Ink
Shiite-Kurdish Deal Collapses - Juan Cole

Al-Hayat: The Shiite/Kurdish negotiations to form a government before parliament is seated on March 16 have fallen apart, apparently because the Kurds reneged on the deal they had worked out with the United Iraqi Alliance.

Al-Zaman reports that a high Kurdish official said that the process has never been closer to gridlock than now.

AFP said that Kurdish leaders insisted that the agreement reached recently between the Kurds and Shiites "needs reformulation and amendment." A Kurdish delegation will return to Baghdad soon to resume negotiations with the UIA.

Al-Hayat: The issues over which the deal collapsed include the disposition of the oil rich city of Kirkuk, demands that the Kurds have a bigger share of cabinet posts, the retention of the Kurdish paramilitary or peshmergas in the Kurdish regions, retention of a greater share of the petroleum revenues of the north, and the fears of the Kurds that the UIA will attempt to establish a theocracy. The Kurds insist on resolving all these issues in writing before the formation of a government.

....
Ed Wong of the New York Times> describes the ethnic tensions now burning in Kirkuk.

Meanwhile, maneuvering for cabinet positions continues.

BBC World Monitoring says: "Al-Furat publishes on the front page a 100-word report citing Jawad al-Maliki, deputy speaker of the interim National Assembly and member of the United Iraqi Alliance, informing the newspaper that as is the case with other files, the security file has become an Iraqi national file following the elections. He added that there is no veto, whether by the US or others, regarding any candidate for any post in the government, including the security posts. Al-Maliki asserted that he has not been officially nominated for the post of state minister for security affairs."

The US spiked the Iraqi parliamentary process by putting in a provision that a government has to be formed with a 2/3s majority. This provision is a neo-colonial imposition on Iraq. The Iraqi public was never asked about it. And, it is predictably producing gridlock, as the UIA is forced to try to accommodate a party that should be in the opposition in the British system, the Kurdistan Alliance.

Likewise, in France, a simple majority of the National Assembly can dismiss the cabinet. Likewise in India. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the 2/3s super-majority is characteristic of only one nation on earth, i.e. American Iraq. I fear it is functioning in an anti-democratic manner to thwart the will of the majority of Iraqis, who braved great danger to come out and vote.

It is all to the good if the Shiites and Kurds are forced to come to a set of hard compromises. But not everything can be decided at the beginning of the process. Some issues (Kirkuk is a good example) must be decided by a long-term negotiation. I perceive this latest Kurdish demarche to consist in a power play where they grab all sorts of concessions on a short-term basis, just because they are needed to form a government, even though no national consensus has emerged on these issues.

I think there is also a real chance that Iraqis will turn against the idea of democracy if it only produces insecurity, violence, and gridlock.

posted by Juan @ 3/14/2005 06:30:00 AM

2524. jexster - 3/14/2005 2:17:16 PM

Bush NeoCons May Be Crazy But...

their Duce excepted, they are not stupid.

If you follow the Yellow Brick road of logic you will see the Great Bush Democracy Lie revealed...

1. After the collapse of the Bush causus belli, the US suddenly became the Great Champion of Democracy, The Democratic Domino Theory of the Bush NeoCon

2. That theory holds that democracy in IraQ will cause the emergence of US friendly regimes in the region

3. The NeoCon theory also holds that as a first step toward re-establishing US world hegemony, the US must establish a client state in Iraq followed by one in Egypt and Saudi Arabia (Asia next after the ME)

4. The objective of democratically elected US friendly regimes is a contradiction in terms for in fact, as the Wolfowitzes et al were aware, and as all of us are now beginning to discover, the people don't like BushWorld Domination very much.



Therefore, the NeoCons never intended to establish democracy.

Their goal was always US neo-colonial hegemony and as in the past, this will lead to the establishment of despotic oligarchies not democracies..

We didn't send troops to die to
rid Iraq of Saddam; to eliminate grave WMD threats; to stop Iraq from aiding AlQaeda or to establish an Islamic Republic of Iraq

We sent Americans to die to establish US control over Persian gulf states and their oil

Honesty..always the best policy

2525. jexster - 3/14/2005 2:24:51 PM

Either the Landlord Will Die First or the Dog

CAIRO (Reuters) - Palestinian militant leaders said Monday they were ready to offer a formal cease-fire in their campaign against Israel in return for a timetable for Israel to release prisoners and pull out of Palestinian towns.


Reuters Photo



But Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) rejected the idea, saying it meant the militants would not be giving up what he called "the terror option."


Senior Hamas official Mohammad Nazzal said Sharon's response showed he wanted to set Palestinian against Palestinian.


"It's so obvious that Sharon wants to drag the Palestinian authority to clash with the Palestinian factions. He wants a civil war by saying that Palestinian Authority (news - web sites) must crack down on militants," he told Reuters in Cairo

2526. jayackroyd - 3/14/2005 2:31:23 PM

2524

But by taking the rhetoric at face value, and insisting on making it real, Al Sistani outwitted the Bush administration.

2527. jexster - 3/14/2005 2:50:46 PM

Hey ain't that somethin! Wonder if anyone else in the ME might pick up on that....

When Bush raises the bullshit, call the bet

2528. robertjayb - 3/15/2005 10:35:49 AM

Shipping is extra. Didn't you know?

WASHINGTON - Iraq needed fuel. Halliburton Co. was ordered to get it there — quick. So the Houston-based contractor charged the Pentagon $27.5 million to ship $82,100 worth of cooking and heating fuel.

In the latest revelation about the company's oft-criticized performance in Iraq, a Pentagon audit report disclosed Monday showed Halliburton subsidiary KBR spent $82,100 to buy liquefied petroleum gas, better-known as LPG, in Kuwait and then 335 times that number to transport the fuel into violence-ridden Iraq.

Pentagon auditors combing through the company's books were mystified by this charge.

"It is illogical that it would cost $27,514,833 to deliver $82,100 in LPG fuel," officials from the Defense Contract Audit Agency noted in the report.

2529. wonkers2 - 3/15/2005 10:40:32 AM

CROOK ALERT!!!

Excess Fuel Billing by Halliburton in Iraq is put at $108 Million in Audit Here.

2530. wonkers2 - 3/15/2005 10:42:57 AM

In one case Halliburton claimed it had paid more than $27 million to transport liquified petroleum gas it had purchased in Kuwait for just $82,000--a fee the auditors tartly dismissed as "illogical."

2531. wonkers2 - 3/15/2005 10:45:34 AM

The fuels report, by the Defense Contract Audit Agency, was one of nine audits involving a subsidiary of Halliburton, Kellogg, Brown & Root, that were completed in October 2004, in the month before the American presidential elections. But THE ADMINISTRATION HAS KEPT ALL OF THEM CONFIDENTIAL DESPITE REPEATED REQUESTS FROM BOTH rEPUBLICAN AND DEMOCRATIC MEMBERS OF CONGRESS!!!

2532. jexster - 3/15/2005 2:04:42 PM

Yea Wonk, I am with TD on this, who in the hell says Bush doesn't know what he is doing in IraQ


Cole:

Bend over taxpayers here they come again.

Halliburton Over Charges US

Halliburton appears to have charged the US government $27 million to deliver $84,000 worth of fuel to Iraq. Everywhere you dig there are bodies.

The NYT says that Halliburton over-charged the US government $108 million.

2533. wonkers2 - 3/15/2005 7:49:27 PM

Bernie Ebbers was convicted of fraud and 8 other counts today. Other super-star corporate crooks (not all convicted yet) include Enron's Bernie Fastow, Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, Dennis Kozlowski, Frank Quattrone, Richard Scushy, Arthur Anderson, John Rigas of Adelphia, and many others including Martha Stewart whose crime amounted to petty larceny compared to the others. Here's a list of the 100 top corporate criminals of the 1990s. Here.

2534. jexster - 3/15/2005 10:34:05 PM

Well at least Robert Fisk and TD still think Bush knows his ass from his mouth..

Arrivederci Bushita

ROME (Reuters) - Leading U.S. ally Italy said on Tuesday it would start withdrawing its soldiers from Iraq (news - web sites) in September, in a fresh blow to President Bush (news - web sites)'s shrinking coalition.

2535. wonkers2 - 3/16/2005 7:47:19 AM

America's Crook All Stars Here.

2536. thoughtful - 3/16/2005 1:45:51 PM

This was too good not to add here. From today's nyt letters to the editor:

To the Editor:

Re "For Bush, No Boasts, but a Taste of Vindication" (news analysis, March 9): President Bush's assertion that "the advance of democracy leads to peace" is challenged by this: Two years ago, the greatest democracy this world has ever known started a war with a country based on false accusations that the country harbored weapons of mass destruction and had ties with terrorists.

This advance of democracy has claimed the lives of thousands of innocent men, women and children.

Michael Curry
Austin, Tex., March 9, 2005

2537. wonkers2 - 3/16/2005 7:08:44 PM

CROOK ALERT!!

JP Morgan Chase agreed to a $2.1 billion settlement of investor lawsuits claiming the bank failed its duty to investigate WorldCom which it recommended to its clients.

Of course, the bank neither admitted nor denied wrong doing according to the terms of the settlement.

2538. jexster - 3/16/2005 10:09:48 PM

Bush Says Coalition in Iraq Not Crumbling

2539. thoughtful - 3/17/2005 11:36:47 AM

Via delong's site:

Think Progress: "I have not laid out a plan yet, intentionally." --George W. Bush, 3/16/05

VERSUS

"President Bush's plan allows you to make a decision to put your money in a different kind of prudent investment, with the potential for receiving higher pay-outs." --White House press release, "Fact Sheet: Setting the Record Straight," 2/3/05

2540. jexster - 3/17/2005 12:38:02 PM

NPR Taking Issue
By Juan Cole- United States Caught in the Crossfire

“Two years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the guerrilla war waxes and wanes but gives no sign of ending soon. ”

Democracy -- by George?

President Bush and his supporters are taking credit for spreading freedom across the Middle East. Here's why they're wrong.

Juan Cole - Salon- - - - - - - - - - -

2541. jexster - 3/17/2005 12:39:25 PM

NPR Taking Issue

2542. jexster - 3/17/2005 2:06:32 PM

Iraq is on the verge of being the most corrupt environment in the world, according to a new report. Actually, people on the ground in Iraq dealing with economic reconstruction tell me (juan) that it was the most corrupt situation on earth a long time ago.


#2 tries harder!

2543. alistairconnor - 3/18/2005 4:11:33 AM

Good old New Yurrup is bailing too
Bulgaria intends to cut the number of its troops in Iraq in July and to completely pull them out by the end of the year, the defense minister said Thursday.

Where are those mid-west high school trips go to now?

Oh well... there'll always be a Poland... won't there?

2544. wonkers2 - 3/18/2005 7:41:31 AM

CROOK ALERT!!!

Quest Communications' CEO Joe Nacchio Here.

2545. jexster - 3/18/2005 11:43:52 AM

Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia last month in Florida after he was released from military jail. He was among the first soldiers to refuse to return to Iraq.


Un-Volunteering: Troops Improvise to Find Way Out

2546. jexster - 3/18/2005 12:24:14 PM

Of Crackpots and Crooks - How the Wolfowitz NeoCon Scheme To Privatize Iraqi Oil and Destroy OPEC, Destroyed the US in Iraq

Now the Neocons are all becoming Greens and arguing for solar or other forms of power in order to cut down on US oil dependence. This is code for making sure the Arabs cannot use petroleum to influence the US in the Arab-Israeli dispute. I'm all for getting off the carbon-based treadmill. But petroleum has other uses than providing energy, especially petrochemicals, and Arab producers are going to be rich off such uses for decades or centuries.

The story Palast tells isone of crackpotism run wild, and it would be more than tragic if it is what dragged us into the Iraq quagmire.

2547. jexster - 3/18/2005 12:40:42 PM

Support For Purple Revolutionary Codes Blue
WaPo Poll:

The public now says US made a mistake (51 percent), rather than did the right thing (48 percent), in going to war with Iraq. That contrasts starkly with assessements of the Afghan war, where no more than 9 percent thought the war was a mistake and of the Gulf war, where no more than 21 percent thought that war was a mistake. Indeed, besides the Iraq war, only the Vietnam war itself has been assessed by the US public as a mistake in the last half century

* ' [Bush's] approval specifically on Iraq was 75 percent as the main fighting ended [in 2003]; it's 39 percent now, a career low. '

* 70% of Americans say that the level of US casualties in Iraq is "unacceptable."


* 41 percent say the Iraq war has made the US weaker in the world. Only 28 percent say it has made the US stronger. These numbers are a reversal from the year before.

* 2/3s of Americans oppose military action against Iran

2548. jexster - 3/18/2005 7:38:08 PM

The Credit Card Company and Civil Rights Violators Protection Act 2005

March 17, 2005 -- 10:35 AM EST // link // print)
Here are some of the amendments rejected by the House Judiciary Committee at yesterday’s markup of S.256:

- An amendment by John Conyers (D-MI) protecting military personnel from predatory payday lenders;
- An amendment by Mel Watt (D-NC) exempting tuition costs from the expense calculation in the means test;
- An amendment by Adam Schiff (D-CA) protecting people whose bankruptcy is due to identity theft;
- An amendment by Howard Berman (D-CA) protecting bankruptcy filers who file due to medical crises;
- An amendment by Jerry Nadler (D-NY) which would make debts arising from civil rights violations non-dischargable in bankruptcy.

2549. jexster - 3/18/2005 8:26:30 PM

The Growing Refusenik Movement

They can't train you for the reality of Iraq. You can't have a mass grave with dogs eating the people in it'


March 19: Two years after the war began, a growing number of US troops are refusing to return to Iraq.

2550. wonkers2 - 3/18/2005 9:29:13 PM

Of course, they were bought and paid for by the credit card companies.

2551. jexster - 3/18/2005 10:04:14 PM

Even the greatest statesman makes some mistakes. But Wolfowitz is perfectly incompetent. He is the Mozart of ineptitude, the Einstein of incapacity. To be sure, he has his virtues, the foremost of which is consistency. He has been consistently wrong about foreign policy for 30 years.

Mr. Magoo goes to the World Bank

2552. jexster - 3/18/2005 10:09:21 PM

Inadvertently proving that talent always skips a generation, Wolfowitz and his neoconservative allies persuaded Bush to pursue two policies his wiser father had rejected as imprudent: a bid for unilateral world domination and going all the way to Baghdad. By adopting the unilateral hegemony strategy that Wolfowitz favored, the younger Bush alienated most of America's traditional allies and gave credibility to anti-Americans everywhere. By going to Baghdad, as Wolfowitz wanted, the younger Bush exposed the limits of U.S. military power to America's enemies and the world as a whole. That not inconsiderable asset, the mystique of American power, is a casualty of the Iraq war.


As in The Eagle Has Crash Landed

2553. jexster - 3/19/2005 11:04:11 AM

The Eagle Has Crash Landed: Two Years Later, Iraq War Drains Military

Two years after the United States launched a war in Iraq (news - web sites) with a crushing display of power, a guerrilla conflict is grinding away at the resources of the U.S. military and casting uncertainty over the fitness of the all-volunteer force, according to senior military leaders, lawmakers and defense experts.

2554. jexster - 3/19/2005 11:05:35 AM

"What keeps me awake at night is, what will this all-volunteer force look like in 2007?" Gen. Richard A. Cody, Army vice chief of staff,


Pretty much like the rest of us...fucked BigBush Time

2555. jexster - 3/19/2005 4:14:17 PM

Young Iraqis Cast Doubtful Eyes Toward Their Future

2556. jexster - 3/19/2005 6:51:54 PM

I Heard the Voice of Tom DeLay and It Made Me Physically Ill

Like Harry Shearer, I have been reluctant to wade into the Terri Schiavo case, given the comic-book biology and tabloid metaphysics that have dominated media treatment of this poor woman's fate.


But that was before Republicans called Congress into an emergency session this weekend to take jurisdiction over the case away from the Florida courts, and take control of Schiavo's body away from her husband

During a long drive today, while trying to find a basketball broadcast on the boombox that provides radio in my very old car, I happened upon the voice of Tom DeLay pontificating on the Schiavo case, and it made me physically ill. His claim was that what's happening to Schiavo would be illegal if it happened to a dog.

The cynicism and hypocrisy of that line of reasoning is breathtaking, even coming from Tom DeLay. Untold tens of thousands of American families face the same agonizing decision--whether or not to continue mechanical life-support in terminal cases--every year. My own family faced it a few years ago. And very often, the issue is the same as in the Schiavo case: taking out the feeding tube, or continuing it indefinitely.

The only unique thing about this case, of course, is the extended legal battle between Shiavo's husband and parents, and the media notoriety that has made it so ripe for political opportunism.

Do DeLay, his supporters in Congress, and those Men of God so conspicuously on display down in Florida really propose to picket every intensive care unit, nursing home, and hospice in America to ensure that no family facing Schiavo's situation is allowed to let their loved one die? Is Congress really going to legislatively ban natural death so long as some theoretical means is available to continue it? Oh no, says James Sensenbrenner, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and DeLay's prime enabler in this weekend's grandstand play: the "emergency" legislation is "narrowly targeted" and not designed to set a precedent.

In other words, this is pure political exploitation of a private family conflict that's become a media sensation,...



Ed Kilgore

2557. Ronski - 3/19/2005 7:05:55 PM

I have serious problems with the removal of the feeding tube, like so many people, but is Congress going to pass a bill now for or against everyone faced with this sort of agonizing decision? I can see that maybe there is something to be said for making a grand gesture in one, well-publicized case as some kind of transcendent message, but what Congress has done gives me the willies.

2558. jexster - 3/19/2005 8:36:09 PM

This is just a sequel.


Jeb produced the original screenplay.

I think (hope) most people feel as you do.

2559. Ronski - 3/19/2005 8:54:46 PM

Jeb: Possibly dangerous, but possibly doomed.

2560. jexster - 3/20/2005 4:01:35 AM

Don't Trust Us, We're Bushies. We Lie





U.S. Misled Allies About Nuclear Export



In an effort to increase pressure on North Korea (news - web sites), the Bush administration told its Asian allies in briefings earlier this year that Pyongyang had exported nuclear material to Libya. That was a significant new charge, the first allegation that North Korea was helping to create a new nuclear weapons state.






But that is not what U.S. intelligence reported, according to two officials with detailed knowledge of the transaction. North Korea, according to the intelligence, had supplied uranium hexafluoride -- which can be enriched to weapons-grade uranium -- to Pakistan. It was Pakistan, a key U.S. ally with its own nuclear arsenal, that sold the material to Libya. The U.S. government had no evidence, the officials said, that North Korea knew of the second transaction.

2561. jexster - 3/20/2005 10:41:35 AM

Robert Arciola grieves at the funeral for his son, Army Pfc. Michael Anthony Arciola.

2562. jexster - 3/21/2005 11:10:32 AM

Bush’s Napoleon Complex

What the French experience in Spain could teach us about Iraq [The American Conservative]

2563. jexster - 3/21/2005 12:50:38 PM

Iraq Two Years Later

Tom Engelhardt pulls it all together in his essay on the state of affairs in American Iraq. It is a comprehensive and timely meditation, given that we have just passed the 2-year anniversary of the start of the US invasion. Engelhardt's clear-eyed deconstruction of the boosterist myths of devotees of neo-Empire should be widely considered by those who are "rethinking" Bush's policies after the Lebanese demonstrations.

posted by Juan @ 3/21/2005 06:09:00 AM

2564. jexster - 3/22/2005 12:44:51 PM

dlefsmuR

From AmCon's "Bush's Napoleon Complex" analogizing to the French disaster in Spain...

We’ve seen it too, more recently: the Germans fought all too well in World War II but once defeated were quiet as mice under Allied occupation. The Japanese went further in that direction: willing, even eager, to die for the Emperor, more fanatical than any other army in history, they were utterly peaceful after surrender. Of course, Donald Rumsfeld seems to think that those post-World War II occupations were plagued by guerrilla resistance—but then, he also thinks that Iraq is a lot like colonial America: you know, prosperous, bourgeois, literate, British, Protestant, used to self-government and rule of law. Most likely he’s from some other dimension. If only we could get him to say his name backwards.

..

The big question is why these mistakes were made. Napoleon didn’t have much excuse: Spain was France’s next-door neighbor. Their histories had been intertwined for hundreds of years. Plenty of Frenchmen knew Spain, lived in Spain, and spoke Spanish. But Napoleon was probably beginning to suffer from megalomania: he had succeeded to such a tremendous extent that perhaps all things seemed possible.

The Bush administration can always plead ignorance. Certainly few of the players knew much about Iraq, the Middle East, or Islam. Judging from their frequent confused historical references, it seems as if Condi and Rummie really don’t know any history at all. But the administration didn’t check with anyone who did know. In fact, it rejected every form of expert advice. I’m sure someone said “wouldn’t be prudent”—but Bush wasn’t in a mood to listen, and no advice, no intelligence briefing, can trump that.

2565. jexster - 3/22/2005 1:25:19 PM

TNR On Line: Mad Hattar

Bush holds up Jordan as an example of a moderate Arab state. So why is Jordan tossing critics in jail?

2566. thoughtful - 3/22/2005 1:33:33 PM

to answer your question, jex, bush considers that appropriate...just like holding town hall meetings where only devoted fans are allowed, or just like snatching citizens and 'extraordiarily rendering' them to places like syria or egypt to be tortured, or like packing the wh press room with shills, or like running a multi-million dollar propaganda machine. All legitimate parts of doing govt business.

2567. jexster - 3/22/2005 1:51:10 PM

And that is the damned problem now isn't it>?

That is why we are in such a ratfuck in IRaq why indeed Bush foreign policy is in sum the most disastrous since 1812


Because Bush doesn't make policy from factual realities.

He makes policy out of Rove cue cards out of his own domestic spin

2568. jexster - 3/22/2005 1:54:30 PM

VAU. Et egréssus est a fília Sion omnis decor ejus : facti sunt príncipes ejus velut aríetes non inveniéntes páscua : et abiérunt absque fortitúdine ante fáciem subsequéntis.
ZAIN. Recordáta est Jerusalem diérum afflictiónis suæ, et prævaricatiónis ómnium desiderabílium suórum, quæ habúerat a diébus antíquis, cum caderet pópulus ejus in manu hostíli, et non esset auxiliator : vidérunt eam hostes, et derisérunt sábbáta ejus.
HETH. Peccátum peccávit Jerusalem, proptérea instábilis facta est : omnes, qui glorificábant eam, sprevérunt illam, quia vidérunt ignominiam ejus : ipsa autem gemens conversa est retrórsum.
TETH. Sordes ejus in pédibus ejus, nec recordáta est finis sui : depósita est veheménter, non habens consolatórem : vide, Dómine, afflictiónem meam, quóniam erectus est inimícus.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem, convertere ad Dóminum Deum tuum.

VAU. And from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed: her princes are become like harts that find no pasture, and they are gone without strength before the pursuer.
ZAYIN. Jerusalem remembered in the days of her affliction and of her miseries all her pleasant things that she had in the days of old, when her people fell into the hand of the enemy, and none did help her: the adversaries saw her, and did mock at her sabbaths.
HETH. Jerusalem hath grievously sinned; therefore she is removed: all that honoured her despise her, because they have seen her nakedness: yea, she sigheth, and turneth backward.
TETH. Her filthiness is in her skirts; she remembereth not her last end; therefore she came down wonderfully: she had no comforter. O LORD, behold my affliction: for the enemy hath magnified himself.


Jerusalem, Jerusalem, return unto the Lord thy God.

2569. jexster - 3/22/2005 3:21:32 PM

Stop Thieves!

The Nauseating Thermidor of the Gingrich "Revolution":

David Brooks Ventures Into the Dark Heart of Bush/DeLay Crony Capitalist Corruption

2570. jexster - 3/22/2005 3:55:21 PM

From Harry Frankfurt's "On Bullshit" - Essay now republished as a best selling book..

I am sure that Dr. Frankfurt would thank GWB who made it all possible!

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, nor attracted much sustained inquiry.

In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, we have no theory

2571. jexster - 3/22/2005 3:58:41 PM

The "Why" of this thread...

Frankfurt's theory is easy to state. Both the truth-teller and the liar have it in common that they care about the truth. The person who aims at the truth tries to figure out what the world is like and to communicate that to others; the liar attempts to deceive. But by his very attempt to mislead others, the liar betrays his own concern, however perverse, with how things are. As Frankfurt puts it, the truth-teller and the liar are playing opposite sides of the same game.

The bullshitter is in a different game altogether. He simply does not care about the truth or falsity of what he is saying. "The essence of bullshit is not that it is false but that it is phony." Consider this classic from ancient history: "I didn't inhale." I think the utterance was true, but it was bullshit nonetheless. If it had been false, the utterer would have said the same thing. For this reason, those who do not believe the statement also do not get to the heart of the matter when they say that the speaker is lying. In both cases, if what he said was true and if what he said was false, the president was bullshitting--for in neither case would the truth or the falsity of what he was saying have mattered to him. Frankfurt is correct to insist that it is a "fundamental aspect of the essential nature of bullshit" that "although it is produced without concern with the truth, it need not be false. The bullshitter is faking things. But this does not mean that he necessarily gets them wrong."

2572. jexster - 3/22/2005 10:19:49 PM

George Orwell once wrote that every man's life viewed from the inside is a failure. We are tempted to believe that George Kennan, who has died at 101, may have rendered a similar judgment on himself when he left this conscious life. The architect of America's cold war doctrine of containment came long ago to repudiate the poisoned fruits of his inspiration—a divided world, a militarized and cheapened culture, and $12 trillion flushed down the drain. [1]

George F. Kennan, 1904-2005

By Werther*

2573. alistairconnor - 3/23/2005 3:31:35 AM

dlefsmuR! dlefsmuR! dlefsmuR!

ztiwofloW! ztiwofloW! ztiwofloW!

2574. jexster - 3/23/2005 4:28:26 AM

I believe Bush knows what he is doing in Lebanon although not in quite the way that concerned and his new friend Robert Fisk might...

I believe Bush knows Sharon's butt from Miss Laura's snatch hole and is following same wherever he goes.

I believe Sharon and the Mossad murdered Hariri.

Motive + Opportunity

New Lebanon Blast Rocks the Lebanon

PS 29:5

5 The voice of ALLAH breaks the cedars;
the LORD breaks the cedars of Lebanon.

2575. alistairconnor - 3/23/2005 4:38:18 AM

I believe Sharon and the Mossad murdered Hariri.

I believe it was the Lebanese secret services, serving Syrian masters. (If they didn't, then why are they acting like they did?)

I don't see how it serves the interests of Israel to keep the Syrians in Lebanon. Which is the obvious outcome if civil war looks like breaking out again.

2576. jexster - 3/23/2005 4:52:14 AM

What do you mean "acting as they did"?

Leaving?

Well, that now remains to be seen as Civil War rears its ugly head...

Surely though the Syrians did not want to stir the shit in the Lebanon. Surely they did not want 900.000 in the streets either for or against their occupation. Surely they didn't not want anythign that transpired post assassination and while the particulars could not have been forseen, their general outlines surely would have been.

Leaving only two possibilities

Israel

and Juan Cole thinks possibly Al Qaeda.

Sharon's played this card before and has more than enough reason to do so now

2577. alistairconnor - 3/23/2005 5:08:17 AM

Explain Israel's interest in civil war in Lebanon.

First, most obvious consequence : Hezbollah and the more extreme Pals would once more have a free hand to take shots across the border.

2578. alistairconnor - 3/23/2005 5:12:41 AM

For Lebanese/Syrian secret-service motives, and government cover-up, here's a fair summary

Hariri had previously been a fairly pliant ally of the occupier, but had gradually become a troublesome priest.

2579. alistairconnor - 3/23/2005 5:17:36 AM

(From last week)

The once-feared Syrian intelligence agents vanished from Beirut and large parts of Lebanon yesterday, but not before repainting the jail in the basement of their headquarters.

Nice of them.

2580. PelleNilsson - 3/23/2005 9:48:51 AM

There is no reason at all for Israel to have Harriri killed. Israel can only gain from an independent Lebanon and a weakened Syria. And this is the crucial point. Syria is weak. It has no friends, not in the region, nor in the world. Name one country that counts which would stand up for Syria when the shit hits the fan. Its only chance to retain some weight in the ME political process is to hold on to Lebanon. Syria is desperate and in its desperation it committed the gross mistakes of first imposing president Lahoud for a third and unconstitutional period and then of having Hariri blown up.

The Israeli theory is one cooked up by the usual anti-Israelis and propagated by the usual anti-Americans.

Here is a long but interesting and apparently well-researched article about the events that led up to the killing.

From threats to bombs: Hariri's fate

jexster, your attempts to analyse the situation in the ME are consistently wrong. And do you know why? Because you don't analyse those events and, in particular, their possible outcomes on their own merits but on the basis whether they might be good or bad for the Bush administration. Where is the chaos in Iraq you so confidently predicted.? Where is its alternative the theocracy? Lots of noise, little substance.

2581. jayackroyd - 3/23/2005 10:06:38 AM

Because you don't analyse those events and, in particular, their possible outcomes on their own merits but on the basis whether they might be good or bad for the Bush administration.

He's right about that, jex. And it's a more than a little unseemly to root for bad things to happen. I don't happen to credit the administration for the things that are going well in Iraq. I think they are happening despite rather than because of their policy decisions. However, it was Bush's rhetoric wrt democracy that gave al Sistani a foundation for his insistence that elections be held. So even if he didn't mean it (and I don't think he did), he said it, and his saying it has made it possible that a good outcome may arise in Iraq.

2582. jexster - 3/23/2005 11:25:17 AM

Now Ruz: The Three-Fold Convergence of Evil in the Middle East


I would have posted in the RP Thread but a) it is Holy Week and b) Jen is on a roll and c) there is an overarching and sinister political meaning, as we shall soon see.


I am talking now about our KurdenFrage

PS

Al-Zaman says that negotiations were slowed by Now-Ruz, the New Year celebrated by the Kurds (rooted in ancient Iranian Zoroastrianism, this holiday commemorates the spring solstice --usually March 21-- as the beginning of a new year). The Kurds tie their celebration to the legends of the Shahnameh, which tells the story of how in ancient times an evil ruler emerged, Dahhak or Zohak, who overthrew the glorious king Jamshid. Dahhak was a wizard who grew serpents on each of his shoulders, which needed to eat human brain every day. So Dahhak had young men rounded up from the subject populations, and two were sacrificed each day. Dahhak was finally overthrown by a young knight, Faridun, aided by the blacksmith Kaveh, who freed the captured young men on Now-Ruz. The Kurds have a legend that they are descended from those freed prisoners, and they celebrate their manumission on March 21. The story of Jamshid, Dahhak and Faridun is a variation on a widespread Indo-European myth cycle. In the ancient Indian sources the three are the king of the underworld, Yama; the world-serpent, Vrta, and Indra, who slays Vrta. The story is also echoed in the Nordic myth of Thor and the Midgaard serpent (Thor is a composite of Faridun the prince and Kaveh the blacksmith). At some point in Iran, the snake figure was historicized as an evil foreign king who brought drought and had serpents growing from his body, and he was also racialized. Dahhak or Zohak is a clearly Semitic word, whereas Jamshid and Faridun are Indo-Europeans. This development reflects the fights that took place when the Iranian peoples from Anatolia immigrated into Elamite and Assyrian territory in the 800s BC. Assyrians and Babylonians spoke Semitic languages related to Arabic and Hebrew. (Some US newspapers last year reported the struggle of Kaveh with Zohak as a historical event of the 7th century BC!)

The casting of the serpent monster as a Semitic ruler made it easy for Kurds to identify Dahhak with Saddam, and perhaps with the virulent strain of Arab nationalism he represented. You could imagine how Now-Ruz in Kurdistan, with its celebration of doomed enslaved youth being freed from the clutches of the Semitic tyrant-monster, would slow down a political negotiation requiring Kurds to accept once again Arab rule from Baghdad.

In my own view, applying ancient myths to current politics, especially where they have been racialized, is unhealthy. Myths have a positive power if they remain on the level of symbol and archetype. Historicize them, and they become perverted and a source of blind hatred.

2583. jexster - 3/23/2005 11:29:45 AM

Pelle I have no Israeli theory.that is a figment of your imagination..

All I have is a suspect. Actually 3 and of each I systematically ask a very basic question..

Which parties have motive and opportunity?


Perhaps you might like to try your hand at it?

As for "conspiracy theories" we bandi that about quite often don't we?

When it comes to theories about Israel we sure do...

But what about Syria?

Never see the 2 together do we?

You are well conditioned so much so that you seem to have run into another pile of dog shit

jexster, your attempts to analyse the situation in the ME are consistently wrong

2584. jexster - 3/23/2005 11:30:45 AM

administration.


Jay - same invitation.....


I will give each of you until sundown.

2585. jexster - 3/23/2005 11:31:57 AM

Just in case you numb nuts missed it...

2582 was a joke


or was it?

2586. jexster - 3/23/2005 11:36:39 AM

SF Sunset: 6:25 pm

Goteburgian: Thurs 3:25 am

2585 messages here

6752 in Conflicts


and there's a Conflicts archive somewhere I hear....


Knock yourselves out

2587. jexster - 3/23/2005 11:50:46 AM

WOW!

Cyberspace is expanding at the speed of light

Anglicans Online:Original Sin




The Right Reverend Pierre W. Whalon
26 January 2003

After some very angry people crashed several airliners full of people into buildings full of people, there began to appear reports in the media that students on college campuses were beginning to think that the concept of Evil might actually be referring to Something Real, as opposed to being merely a construct of this or that social ideology. After all, no other word seemed to describe that act. The easy relativism through which these young people conceived of the moral order suddenly evaporated.

Whether in fact 9/11 spelled the end of shallow thinking on campuses is debatable. But it did get people thinking about Good and Evil again. Once we start back down that well-traveled road, Christians soon encounter our doctrine of Original Sin.

This teaching is one that has fallen on hard times in our era. In the tradition of the West, inspired mainly by Augustine, original sin is the genetic inheritance of the human race from our first parents, Adam and Eve. Although we are not guilty of it personally, we are guilty of it collectively. As a result of this inheritance, we cannot live without sinning and we must die physically. Baptism is the ordinary remedy for original sin, giving us new life in Christ and power to resist sin, though not canceling either our physical death or our propensity to sin.

Since most people do not believe that A & E were historical figures (talking serpents?), the explanatory power of this doctrine has lessened. Furthermore, Augustine believed that original sin was transmitted in the vitium, sperm, following the science of his day (not disproven until the seventeenth century) that the whole of a person’s genetic inheritance lay in the father’s “seed,” the mother providing only the “fertile soil” in which it quickened into a human being. This led to among other things, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, teaching that by a miracle, Mary did not inherit original sin so as not to transmit it to her son.

All this sounds outlandish to our ears. Sex transmits sin? We must die for a sin we did not commit? And so the doctrine of original sin sounds bizarre as well.

2588. PelleNilsson - 3/23/2005 11:54:46 AM

I will give each of you until sundown.

And what happens if I don't comply? We meet on High Street at noon tomorrow? If so I opt for Gary's part.

By the way, the sun was already down here when you posted.

2589. jexster - 3/23/2005 11:57:22 AM