Dedicated to the proposition. . .

2003-06-04T23:25:00.000-04:00

More Oppression from the regulatory state

This report reveals a heinous abuse of confidence

The world's largest funeral services company and two employees were charged with felonies on Thursday over human remains that were dug up and dumped in the woods to make room at an overcrowded Florida cemetery

I can imagine the horror when families discover that their loved ones remains are dumped in the woods. The Rand faction of the political debate would have you believe that the market is the solution to all ills, that regulations is wrong vel non. But plainly the market is of limited value to redress abuses like this one, and the criminal system has to supplement and supplant where the market cannot

2003-06-04T23:18:00.000-04:00

Look Who's Talking

Rep. Mark Foley, an announced candidate for the US Senate to replace Bob Graham, is concerned about a whispering campaign regarding a fact known for years - Foley is gay

Foley blamed Democratic activists for spreading the rumor to try to derail his campaign and rounded up prominent Republicans to support him.
"Liberal Democratic activists have reached new levels of hypocrisy," U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said in a statement. "The underhanded rumormongering campaign they've launched against Mark Foley is despicable."

Let’s see, it long before the primary - there is no Democratic candidate as yet (presuming Graham does not run), and Foley is the Republican Dark Horse to Bill McCollum and Karl Rove’s rumored favorite, Mel Martinez, both of whom are intimately tried to the Religious Right. And we are to believe these scurrilous attacks originated from Democrats?

2003-06-04T23:15:00.000-04:00

When you put it that way

The NY Review of Books frames the Iraqi action in a manner that is not troublesome in realpolitik, but does undermine the moral case for war

None of these cases entailed "regime change." To limit a state's sovereignty by collective intervention against its government's assault on human rights is one thing; to forcibly remove a government and replace it with one more acceptable to the interveners is a far more radical attack on sovereignty.

Humanitarian benefits aside, we were replacing a government with one we prefer better, by force. That’s a moral hazard, even if other (Iraqi citizens) wanted regime change for their own more defensible reasons.

2003-05-05T21:02:00.000-04:00

Is the U.S. tilting towards the Shiites?

Had that thought this evening that is almost too preposterous to seriously contemplate, though the more I ponder it, the more it yields to some kind of bizarre logic.

Consider: We originally supported Sadaam in the 80s as a bulwark against the Shiite Iranians, who were then the foe d'jour, having kidnapped our embassy employees and murdered 241 Marines in Lebanon. The Sunnis we could deal with, having cut a peace deal with Egypt and nurtured stable alliances with the Gulf States, principally Saudi Arabia.

Heck, a big part of Sadaam's causus belli with Kuwait was their insistence that Iraq repay loans make by Kuwait after the Iraq-Iran War tilted in favor of the Iranains. Kuwait and ther other Gulf States feared a Shiite state on their border, and Sadaam was all that stood in the way of that fear. All the Gulf states poined up to Iraq for defense costs; Kuwait was one of the few to insist on repayment, for which they were repaid by temporarily becoming the 19th province. I digress.

The Soviet debacle in Afghanistan showed us the power of the Sunni Mujahideen, which, in a classic case of blowback, was eventually aimed at us, finally through 9/11. Though the Shiites were formerly considered the Islamic "fundamentalists", suddenly they seemed like mere Pentacostalists, speaking in tongues and other rhapsodic ecstasies, while the Wahabbi brand of Sunni fundamentalism was a classic Tim McVeigh. Plus, the Wahabbis took this umma stuff far more seriously than the Shiites, which had taken it too seriously for our tastes. And they had petrodollars.

But still the longstanding relationship with the Saudis seemed too solid to question. Bandar bin Sultan's largesse had reached many pockets, and our bases there seemed irreplaceable as part of the forward deployment doctrine.

But now that feared Shiite republic, or at least a federal Shiite province, is ready to be established on the Saudi doorstep. And at least one of the Bush Adminisrtations- the Pentagon one, seems not to care. Heck, they even installed a Shiite, albeit a Westernized one, Ahmed Chalabi, as their guy in Iraq. And sympathy for the Saudis' plight is in short supply these days, not to mention the fact that we finally have some other options for forward deployment.

We know that at least some at the Pentagon fantasize about invading the Saudi peninsula, but that would be too much even for this taboo breaking crowd, given their "ally" status. So we tolerate what was unthinkable - a Shiite presence on the border. In the past, Shiites were considered to destabilizing to the Saudis' Shiite minority. Now we look at it like mob goons do to the one store on the block that doesn't pay protection - "be a damn shame if a fire broke out here next week."

At least that's what it looks like. And it is playing with fire, as Shiites who aren't named Chalabi are hardly fans of American exceptionalims, other than the "Great Satan" variety. On the other hand, Hezbollah, the Shiite "terrorist" group, does generally confine itself to military targets. In any event, this preposterous idea will likely be disproven shortly, though I haven't seen the evidence of yet.

2003-05-05T14:09:00.000-04:00

A piece in TNR this week (subscription required), details the new coordinated smear campaign against Tom Daschle. As a Catholic, I was particularly outraged by this tidbit:

Then there was the case of the purloined letter. In mid-April, The Weekly Standard was tipped off to a letter sent to Daschle by his local bishop telling him he should no longer identify himself as a Catholic because his political positions—on abortion, primarily are at odds with Church policy. Once again, the conservative political-media machine began firing on all cylinders: From the Standard's website, the story made its way to the Drudge Report; minutes later, Limbaugh was ranting about it on the air. Daschle aides suspect the source was not the bishop himself but Kenyon Gleason, a longtime aide to the bishop who is also a South Dakota Republican activist—and who appeared to be the same "Kenyon G." listed as a backer of a new Daschle-bashing website in the state. (Oddly, the name abruptly disappeared from the website this week.)

So now the offices of the successors of the Apostles have become no more than outposts for the Republican Party Opposition Operations, with Diocesan employees combining their duties to their flock, including Sen. Daschle, with their service to the Republican Party, that of the preferential option for the wealthy and powerful, leaking confidential letters (which Gleason likely instigated the drafting of) for calculated political gain. Christ told us that you cannot serve God and mammon. Methinks we know who Mr. Gleason is serving.

Some other tidbits from the TNR piece of more interest to secular readers:

"[W]e propose to destroy Daschle's credibility" and "ultimately help end his public career" declares the memo, which fell into the hands of giddy Daschle operatives (and whose existence was first reported by Roll Call this week). The campaign will require "a stiletto, not a sledgehammer," the memo explains, and therefore the slashing will be subtly executed "through humor." Soliciting donations of nearly $1 million for TV and billboard ads, the memo previews a campaign featuring two folksy characters, Del and Hurley, who will muse about their simple lives—and Washington tax policy—in an archetypal small-town barbershop. The ads will convey a "low-key, 'Hee-Haw'-like rural tone," continues the document, which describes the men as "speak[ing] in subdued monotones with a slightly detectable hint of a Scandinavian accent. They show almost no emotion." Think of Fargo retooled by Karl Rove and you get the idea.

Never mind the rank dishonesty of the ad. (The estate tax only touches inheritances above $2 million per couple, and Daschle has voted to exempt all estates below $7 million per couple—a fortune that Del is unlikely to have amassed unless his barbershop is located atop a diamond mine.) Though it's clear from the memo that real South Dakotans will have had almost nothing to do with these ads, the memo advises, "The effort must be ... putatively based in South Dakota (to avoid the dismissive 'outsider' label routinely attached to such efforts in the past)." To this end, a front group has been "designed precisely to meet these criteria": The Rushmore Policy Council, an outfit so small it has no website or local telephone listing. The group exists, in other words, to put a phony local veneer on the GOP's efforts to ruin its number-one enemy.

2003-05-05T14:07:00.000-04:00

Two other pieces in TNR (again subscription required) highlight the key role of the WHO and domestic organizations in checking the spread of SARS and other infectious diseases. Unfortunately, the tide of rhetorical attacks against all things government threaten to undermine this needed cooperation, a point Jerome Groopman underscores in a related context reviewing an FDA history:

It was Theodore Roosevelt who set out to civilize capitalism in the marketplace of food and drugs. Like many in the Republican Party and in his social class, Roosevelt began as a laissez-faire advocate who opposed governmental meddling in most corners of the public realm. But Samuel Gompers succeeded in opening his eyes. As a young state legislator, Roosevelt was invited by Gompers to witness the deep misery of Manhattan's tenements. There was something inherently wrong, Roosevelt concluded, in how the poor and the vulnerable were blithely exploited by the rich and the powerful. Seeing himself as a combative man of action, Roosevelt decided that unregulated capitalism was really a form of bullying. "This became a principle for Roosevelt in many affairs of government: free commerce was essential, but it would come to nothing, worse than nothing, if the rules of enterprise favored one group and bullied another," Hilts writes. "Roosevelt liked to speak of the nation in a grand way, as if it had a single character, which he wanted to shape. He came to feel that not only enterprise but also fairness was required if toughness of spirit was not to slacken into laziness or arrogance. Roosevelt, an enthusiast of business and an admirer of progress, feared that the streak of unfairness he sometimes saw displayed in nineteenth-century capitalism, in its harshness and self-concern, would be the unmaking of the whole American enterprise."

Each president since Roosevelt was forced to balance the powerful interests of business with the public welfare, at least until the thalidomide debacle in 1959—a catastrophe of unparalleled proportion—finally fixed clinical science as the centerpiece of federal regulation. Prior to that disaster, drug companies could test experimental therapies by simply sending them out to doctors for use, without organized clinical trials comparing the drug with a placebo or standard therapy.

Yet the road of rational regulation did not run smoothly. Hilts attributes the detours and the obstacles to the growing power of conservatives who weakened the FDA. Like their forebears in the nineteenth century, Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich harbored a deep suspicion of federal interference in commerce. Once again, industry successfully lobbied government officials to limit the FDA's power, with disastrous consequences. Consider only the example of Reye's syndrome, for which children who have a viral infection such as influenza or chicken pox and take aspirin are at risk. About a week after the viral infection, they experience nausea and vomiting; a range of changes in cognitive function from amnesia to lethargy to coma; and liver failure. The syndrome has a death rate of some twenty percent. Among the survivors, about one-third have permanent mental retardation or seizure disorders.

Several studies, including those by the Centers for Disease Control, gave support to the link between aspirin therapy for the flu or chicken pox and Reye's syndrome. But the companies that manufactured aspirin intervened. They succeeded in squelching negative reports by the CDC and physician organizations, and they lobbied the Office of Management and Budget to cancel regulatory measures that affected the prescription of aspirin to children with these viral infections. Hilts also shows how pharmaceutical companies such as Bayer funded a front organization, the American Reye's Syndrome Association, which tried to directly target parents, suggesting that they diagnose the syndrome themselves and then tell their doctors how to diagnose it. All of this was done to prevent a decline in profit. "The instructions in the brochure were an elaborate ruse," Hilts writes. "They said that no one knew the cause of Reye's and listed an array of possible causes, including 'genetic factors ... pesticides, chemical wastes, afla-toxins, etc., and medications used to control vomiting and fever such as antiemetics, aspirin and acetaminophen.'"

That last bit was particularly deceptive, because it diverted parents away from the proper treatment for fevers. The brochure went on to give a long explanation of what to look for in order to diagnose your child; it also said that the disease was impossible to rule out or to confirm without a blood test. It asserted that "since many doctors are not familiar with RS, and the symptoms can be mistaken for meningitis, encephalitis, diabetes, poisoning, or especially in older children and adults, drug overdose, it is important to remind them about Reye's." The aspirin makers began to broadcast ads that began by declaring: "Stay tuned for a medical bulletin on Reye's syndrome." The subsequent message declared that the cause of Reye's was unknown, and aspirin was never mentioned. Hilts estimates that the watered-down warnings about aspirin that finally emerged could account for the deaths of some 113 children during the period from November, 1981 to November, 1983.

2003-05-05T14:06:00.000-04:00

I rarely find common cause with any sentiment of the Nation, but William Greider has a strong social justice piece that highlights the vulnerabilities of the genuine successes of the Progressive era under today’s toxic right-wing rhetoric

George W. Bush, properly understood, represents the third and most powerful wave in the right's long-running assault on the governing order created by twentieth-century liberalism. The first wave was Ronald Reagan, whose election in 1980 allowed movement conservatives finally to attain governing power (their flame was first lit by Barry Goldwater back in 1964). Reagan unfurled many bold ideological banners for right-wing reform and established the political viability of enacting regressive tax cuts, but he accomplished very little reordering of government, much less shrinking of it. The second wave was Newt Gingrich, whose capture of the House majority in 1994 gave Republicans control of Congress for the first time in two generations. Despite some landmark victories like welfare reform, Gingrich flamed out quickly, a zealous revolutionary ineffective as legislative leader.

George Bush II may be as shallow as he appears, but his presidency represents a far more formidable challenge than either Reagan or Gingrich. His potential does not emanate from an amiable personality (Al Gore, remember, outpolled him in 2000) or even the sky-high ratings generated by 9/11 and war. Bush's governing strength is anchored in the long, hard-driving movement of the right that now owns all three branches of the federal government. Its unified ranks allow him to govern aggressively, despite slender GOP majorities in the House and Senate and the public's general indifference to the right's domestic program.

These broad objectives may sound reactionary and destructive (in historical terms they are), but hard-right conservatives see themselves as liberating reformers, not destroyers, who are rescuing old American virtues of self-reliance and individual autonomy from the clutches of collective action and "statist" left-wingers.

As for the last observation that hard-right conservatives see themselves as “liberating reformers”, no doubt that is true as a matter of self-perception. Lincoln observed that “liberation” is a matter of perspective, and predicted the worldview of those that seek to enjoy the feast of the throats of their “lessers” that they feel they have earned:

"The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act....Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty."

2003-05-05T14:05:00.000-04:00

Don’t miss the newest trading cards - Holy Cards

2003-05-05T14:04:00.000-04:00

Gerecht weighs in on the “awe” factor that I think is a cogent analysis, if a bit unsettling in its moral implications. Essentially, the Iraqi campaign was intended to cow potential adversaries. The moral distinction lies in the fact that none of these adversaries, certainly not Iraq, presented what First Amendment jurisprudence would call a “clear and present danger.” Instead, it seems we wanted to ensure they never got the idea to, and wouldn’t if they were assured that we reserved the right to change regimes as deemed necessary in our discretion

These hopes collapsed as soon as American soldiers easily captured Baghdad's international airport and began sending armored columns into the center of the capital. CNN's reporting on the "Arab street" relayed quite matter-of-factly the coffeehouse glumness throughout the region. Al Jazeera delivered the same depressing "say-it-ain't-so" message, giving hope to its viewers only through prognostications about the growing anti-Americanism of liberated Iraq. Everywhere anti-American demonstrations evaporated. (It should be said that Al Jazeera, CNN, and the BBC, which have all given prominence to Iraqi sentiments critical of the United States, may in the end be right about the developing power of anti-Americanism in Iraq, but the alacrity of this reporting in such a large country even before Saddam's fall was, to say the least, forward-leaning.)

Awe of American power is, of course, a perishable commodity, both inside Iraq and, perhaps more important, elsewhere in the Middle East. Washington can certainly diminish the respect and acquiescence its military victory has gained by using its power unwisely or, more likely, failing to use its power when it should. Middle Eastern regimes, especially clerical Iran's, will no doubt challenge America's place in Iraq, especially if American efforts to establish liberal democracy are seen to be serious. Under the Bush administration, the restoration of American awe in the Middle East is now inextricably linked to the expansion of liberal values.

2003-05-05T14:00:00.000-04:00

Brad DeLong confirms Galileo

N. Gregory Mankiw (1998), Principles of Economics (New York: Dryden: 0030982383).
Thinking Like an Economist: Why Economists Disagree: Charlatans and Cranks:
pp. 29-30:

An example of fad economics occurred in 1980, when a small group fo economists advised presidential candidate Ronald Reagan that an across-the-board cut in income tax rates would raise tax revenue. They argued that if people could keep a higher fraction of their income, people would work harder to earn more income. Even though tax rates would be lower, income would raise by so much, they claimed, that tax revenue would rise. Almost all professional economists, including most of those who supported Reagan's proposal to cut taxes, viewed this outcome as too optimistic. Lower tax rates might encourage people to work harder, and this extra effort would offset the direct effects of lower tax rates to some extent. But there was no credible evidence that work effort would rise by enough to caues tax revenues to rise in the face of lower tax rates. George Bush, also a presidential candidate in 1980, agreed with most of the professional economists: He called this idea "voodoo economics." Nonetheless, the argument was appealing to Reagan, and it shaped the 1980 presidential campaign and the economic policies of the 1980s.... Congress passes the cut in tax rates... but the tax cut did not cause tax revenue to rise... tax revenue fell... government began a long period of deficit spending... largest peacetime increase in the government debt in U.S. history. Fads can make experts seem less united than the actually are... when the economics profession appears in disarray, you should ask whether the disagreement is real or manufactured... [by] some snake-oil salesman who is trying to sell a miracle cure...

2003-05-05T13:58:00.000-04:00

The humanitarian side of issues that have been reported only from the political process. The battle over aid distribution has been argued solely from who has the “right” - the US or some other group of nations, to deliver aid to the Iraqis. Rarely has the debate focused on what is the best delivery medium for the Iraqis in whose name the war was fought.

Our Sunday Visitor

A top official of Caritas Internationalis, the umbrella association of Catholic relief agencies, recently called on coalition forces to turn over coordination of humanitarian programs to the United Nations as quickly as possible.
Caritas secretary general Duncan MacLaren pointed to recent chaotic scenes of relief distributions in southern Iraq, where American soldiers hurled provisions off trucks in what amounted to food riots. The soldiers fired shots in the air to keep order, and relief officials say the aid wound up going to the swiftest and strongest, not necessarily the neediest.
"For us, it undermines the dignity of people," MacLaren told Catholic News Service. "And that’s the difference between a real humanitarian organization that cares for people and a ‘hearts and minds’ operation, which this is, which frankly is for a political purpose and really doesn’t have either the dignity or the well-being of the people at the center."

2003-05-05T13:55:00.000-04:00

Sid Vicious reminds us of a dark episode in history, in which the least capable leader - Tom DeLay, elevates partisan concerns over national security, or to use the current formulation, hates the troops for electoral gain. Washington Monthly

On April 28, the House of Representatives voted a resolution on the air war in the Balkans. Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) had assured the White House that he could secure a majority in favor, but the true power within the Republican Party unmasked Hastert once again as a figurehead. Republican whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) ensured that there would be no positive vote for President Clinton. The final vote in the House was a carefully stage-managed tie, 213-213. "Shame! Shame!" chanted the Democrats in unison. But DeLay gloated. He saw Kosovo as "act two of impeachment," according to Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.). DeLay believed, as he told Republicans, "When the sun rises following the election of 2000, I think we will control both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue because of it." "I don't respect the president, but I don't agree with the president, either," he explained on NBC's "Meet the Press" on May 16.

2003-05-05T13:53:00.000-04:00

More tax dissembling from the President. Oddly enough, it’s still reported, despite the fact that the only newsworthy item on this issue would be if the President began to tell the truth:

"Some members of Congress support tax relief but say my proposal is too big," Bush said in his Saturday radio address. "Since they already agree that tax relief creates jobs, it doesn't make sense to provide less tax relief and, therefore, create fewer jobs."
But few economists would argue that tax policy is so straightforward. Taken to its extreme, Joel Slemrod, a tax economist at the University of Michigan, said that Bush's argument would support eliminating taxes altogether for the sake of job creation.
"Logically, the statement that more tax cuts are better is certainly wrong," Slemrod said.
Asked to evaluate Bush's new argument, one Republican economist with close administration ties quipped, "I suppose it matters whether you think economics matters."

The administration is sticking to its numbers, with some minor adjustments. The White House Council of Economic Advisers calculated in February that the president's full, $726 billion package would create 1.4 million jobs through 2004. The House's trimmed down, $550 billion package would create just over a million jobs, by the White House's calculation. A $350 billion package would create 425,000 fewer jobs, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters last week.

White House economists placed some important caveats on the 1.4 million jobs figure when it was first released. Although the Council of Economic Advisers projected that the original Bush plan would create 510,000 new jobs this year, the employment level, on average, would only be 192,000 jobs higher than it would be without the proposal. And that is in an economy losing 92,000 jobs a month.
A White House paper also cautions that virtually all of the jobs "created" by the package by 2004 would be hiring that would have happened anyway in 2005 through 2007.

2003-05-05T13:52:00.000-04:00

Thank you Elliot Spitzer, for defying the tide of economic terror that has been blessed by the modern ideology

From Uggabugga

2003-04-30T13:38:00.000-04:00

Great prayer from W.E.B. Dubois through Peter Nixon at Sursum Corda (permalink not working)

Give us grace, O God, to dare to do the deed which we well know cries to be done.
Let us not hesitate because of ease, or the words of men's mouths, or our own lives.
Mighty causes are calling us--the freeing of women, the training of children, the putting down of hate and murder and poverty--all these and more.
But they call with voices that mean work and sacrifice and death.
Mercifully grant us, O God, the spirit of Esther, that we may say: I will go unto the King and if I perish, I perish.
Amen.

2003-04-30T13:37:00.000-04:00

Great quote from TNR

Still, one of the lessons of this war is that big things can be done not only for big reasons. The Bush administration is now busy with little reasons. There was certainly something less than Churchillian about the Halliburton and Bechtel contracts.

2003-04-30T12:53:00.000-04:00

TNR has a piece (subscription required) that demonstrates that the Shiites that were must happy to see Sadaam fall are also the most eager to see us leave. They have already filled the power vacuum and asserted dominion over their areas, and it is unlikely that any form of republic or democracy can be effectively imposed over that layer of control.

Any final accounting of the Iraqi war must account for this unintended consequence, since the Shiites were counted on by the neocons to be the Northern Alliance of Iraq (come to think of it, the NA hasn’t exactly bought into our vision of Afghanistan either). Heck, Chalabi is a Shiite - they were our favored group.

While the President will announce tonight that major combat is over, (and will do from the USS Abraham Lincoln - heavy cognitive dissonance), the post-war struggles that will ultimately serve as the measure of the policy have just begun.

2003-04-28T14:25:00.000-04:00

Just as I think the actual raison d' guerre is to awe other Arab nations into abandoning active asymmetrical resistance to American dominance, as discussed here, I think Gregg Easterbrook explains the sub silentio rationale for SDI here:

Stealth drones, G.P.S.-guided smart munitions that hit precisely where aimed; antitank bombs that guide themselves; space-relayed data links that allow individual squad leaders to know exactly where American and opposition forces are during battle — the United States military rolled out all this advanced technology, and more, in its lightning conquest of Iraq. No other military is even close to the United States. The American military is now the strongest the world has ever known, both in absolute terms and relative to other nations; stronger than the Wehrmacht in 1940, stronger than the legions at the height of Roman power. For years to come, no other nation is likely even to try to rival American might.

Which means: the global arms race is over, with the United States the undisputed heavyweight champion. Other nations are not even trying to match American armed force, because they are so far behind they have no chance of catching up. The great-powers arms race, in progress for centuries, has ended with the rest of the world conceding triumph to the United States.

Now only a nuclear state, like, perhaps, North Korea, has any military leverage against the winner.

2003-04-28T12:40:00.000-04:00

Ptolemaic universe repudiated (again)

From Brad DeLong

Corrections & Amplifications:

The President's Council of Economic Advisers estimates that a persistent $100 billion annual increase in the budget deficit would increase long-term interest rates by about 0.3 percentage point. The estimate was given incorrectly as 0.015 percentage point in this article. That figure is the effect of a $100 billion increase in government debt.

2003-04-28T12:29:00.000-04:00

Bob Sommerby tells it like it is

Did Sawyer ever complain about that? Very few of our “journalists” did. And why was it OK to call the president a murderer—but not OK to say what Maines did? Easy! Falwell was slandering President Clinton—and Maines was mildly hammering President Bush. When it came to Clinton, it was all systems go—you could even accuse him of murder! But when it comes to Bush, new rules obtain. Fakers like Sawyer come out of the shadows, clucking their way toward the light.

Fakers like Sawyer hid behind chairs while the previous POTUS was actively slandered. Now she serves as Thought Police when singers diss the current prez. Cowards, fakers, phonies and frauds—“journalists” like Sawyer define a vile age. Remember her session the next time you hear aggrieved parties rail about “liberal bias.”

If anything, Sommerby understates the change in rules, which has long been in evidence, from the toleration of a steady stream of lies (no other word for it) from this Adminsitration in contrast to pure nitpicking of every statement of the former, to newly discovered respect for the privacy of Executive Branch deliberations and civilian control of the military, to Tom DeLay and the Congressional Republicans outright attempts to undermine Pres. Clinton in the Balkans with outrageous statements.

The rules are different, to be sure, partly due to fatigue from eight years of warfare, partly due to fear from the Conintern's attack capability, and partly due to the utter lack of principle from the former attackers. As I have long said, the Right never brakes for irony.

2003-04-27T21:15:00.000-04:00

The preemptive Drudge smearing has begun.

Sid Blumenthal is a hard guy to think well of, unless you contrast him with his adversaries in the war he will write about.

As for the "failed legal action", some context would be in order, if Roger Parloff's famous piece in the now defunct Brill's Content were still avilable. Here's a piece from FindLaw that highlights some of it from a legal point of view

2003-04-27T21:13:00.000-04:00

Dangerous Marxism in today's readings from Acts

Another reason I find fundamentalism/inerrant text/American expectionalism misguided is its lack of context

From Acts 4

As they prayed, the place where they were gathered shook, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. The community of believers was of one heart and mind, and no one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had everything in common. With great power the apostles bore witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great favor was accorded them all. There was no needy person among them, for those who owned property or houses would sell them, bring the proceeds of the sale, and put them at the feet of the apostles, and they were distributed to each according to need.

2003-04-27T14:08:00.000-04:00

Karl Rove is directing Republicans not to comment on Opus-influenced hater Rick Santorum's recent comments.

Any attempt to build a coalition faces the challenges Rove is trying to address - how to retain the support of the fringe haters while appearing sufficiently mainstream. In the case of the former, the concern is that they won't vote or will support a third party narrow appeal issue, which can appeal to inconoclastic extremism. In the case of the latter, the concern is that they will vote for your opponent. Like the Democrats on security, this issue is a big risk for Republicans, beacuse the "swing voters" are already wary of religious hatred and persecution of minorities.

A big part of marketing Bush was creating the perception that he is something he's not - a moderate. He's proven that by consistently nominating truly scary extremists to judgeships and other positions whre their extremism is harder to conceal. That's usally a strategic payoff to that wing that escapes notice. But then you have someone like Santorum reveal what's been discussed behind closed doors, and the larger party has to deal with it.

We'll see. Sullivan, with all his mental illness on other issues, seems determnined to hold the President's feet to the fire on this one. And he doesn't seem susceptible to being quieted by some Rovian threats or intimidation. Of course, Sullivan could hardly have been surprised. Anyone who follows politics knows this brand of seething hatred is both too common on the Right and always simmering just below the surface. So maybe this is just an one for appearances by Sullivan, who is happen to take Monnie cash, meaning he's comfortable with an Opus analog.

2003-04-27T13:56:00.000-04:00

One issue whose political ramifications I have not seen discussed is the fact that executives are protecting their own pensions while failing to contribute to regular exployee pensions funds, and/or demanding paycuts in labor negotiations. As Kinsley noted, the scary thing isn't the illegal acts that are conducted, it's the perfectly legal ones, like this practice.

Yahoo

Companies that contribute to pensions for executives -- while choosing not to fund regular pensions -- aren't breaking any laws. Federal rules require companies to make minimum contributions if their pension plans become excessively underfunded.

This seems to me to be an opportunity to promote our "agenda", perhaps through some legislation to address the above, certainly through some invective from the stump. At least one of out 7 or so candidates should find the ability to articulate the immorality of this practice and the fact that years of poisonous rhetoric have created an atmosphere in which shame does not even prevent it. As William Bennett would say, in a more apropos example, this is the death of outrage.

Unfortunately, though the Wall Street Journal reported this outrage, their editorial page will soon advance some ludicrus and shameful ope-ed on why this is not only moral but virtuous. And many on the Right will be convinced.

2003-04-27T13:34:00.000-04:00

Don't miss Uggbugga's deck of cards

2003-04-27T13:24:00.000-04:00

A Regnery book that won't get written

not to mention an IOC investigation. AP

Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) criminal agents are being diverted from their normal investigative work to provide security and drivers for agency chief Christie Whitman — and getting long lists of do's and don'ts to keep her happy.

EPA agents assigned to investigate environmental crimes have at times been ordered to perform more personal tasks, such as returning a rental car for Whitman's husband after a trip or sitting at a table until the administrator arrived for a restaurant reservation, according to interviews with several EPA senior managers.

The lists of do's and don'ts instruct agents who chauffeur the EPA administrator to ensure they rent only a Lincoln Town Car, tune the radio to smooth jazz or classical music and set the volume low, and keep an eye out for a Starbucks coffee shop or Barnes & Noble book store.

A cowed opposition that is not intent on overthrowing an election and subverting the national interest for their own power also helps

Another Regnery title that will never appear - Katrina Leung

-- Senate investigators in 1996 suspected Leung as being a conduit for secret Chinese government payments to the Republicans, but the committee, headed by former Tennessee Republican Sen. Fred Thompson, dropped the inquiry before a report could be written. "The money came out of Macao," said one former congressional investigator, and "was funneled through Taiwan."

-- At that time, Leung was a key FBI asset under the direction of Smith. UPI's source said that investigators for the Thompson committee "guessed" she was an FBI asset, because the bureau resisted letting her be interviewed.

-- At the same time Smith was supervising Leung, he was also the agent the FBI assigned to one of the key prosecutions of another aspect of the 1996 probe, the secret Chinese payments to the President Bill Clinton/Vice President Al Gore campaign. Smith was assigned to debrief Johnny Chung, who was secretly cooperating with the FBI and admitted feeding $400,000 to the Democratic campaigns. Chung had to be put under protective custody after word of his cooperation leaked to China. He was convicted of bank fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy involving campaign donations. Investigators want to know if Smith let Leung know about Chung's cooperation and she fed it to Beijing.

-- Some Senate investigators suspect that Leung was the Republican opposite number to Chung. She is a major contributor to GOP candidates, including, indirectly through political action groups, the 2000 campaign of President George W. Bush.

-- The disclosure that Leung might have been a double agent is "devastating" to the investigation of secret Chinese campaign contributions to Clinton/Gore, according to a former senior congressional investigator. He said congressional investigators relied on the guidance of FBI agents and "were confident in what we were told by the FBI Director Louis Freeh." Some 150 suspects in the case either fled or avoided prosecution, he said.

Actually, this one might be worth two or three Regnery titles

2003-04-25T21:38:00.000-04:00

Great win by the Rays - Seth McClung and Lance Carter come on strong (also Travis Phelps!), Carl Crawford shows those legs

2003-04-25T21:33:00.000-04:00

Is Eastland saying America was "saved" by the murder of Lincoln?

Weekly Standard

In this piece on the usally enjoyable History Channel and it's upcoming "April 1865", Esatland observes the following:

The documentary covers well the three great events of that month--the fall of Richmond, Lee's retreat and surrender at Appomattox and Lincoln's assassination. But most important of all, it conveys the central point of Winik's book--that events that now appear to us as "inevitable" were anything but that to those who lived through that momentous month.

Of course, he later refers to Lincoln's "greatness".

But then he says

Had America not been saved that month, we wouldn't be where we are today--nor, it bears emphasizing, would history around the world, including in Iraq, have been the same.

Please tell me the Standard has not descended this far

2003-04-25T21:27:00.000-04:00

The flap over Rick Santorum’s candid admission of hatred is easily explainable by Santorum’s affinity, if that’ all it is, for Opus Dei. NCR

American VIPs included Archbishop John Myers of Newark, N.J., a member of Opus Dei’s Priestly Society of the Holy Cross, and U.S. Senator Rick Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania. Santorum told NCR he is not a member of Opus Dei, but an admirer of Escriva.
In contemporary Western debates, this idea of unity between faith and political allegiance often puts Opus Dei-inspired politicians on the right.
Santorum was a forceful champion of this view. He told NCR that a distinction between private religious conviction and public responsibility, enshrined in John Kennedy’s famous speech in 1960 saying he would not take orders from the Catholic church if elected president, has caused “much harm in America.”
“All of us have heard people say, ‘I privately am against abortion, homosexual marriage, stem cell research, cloning. But who am I to decide that it’s not right for somebody else?’ It sounds good,” Santourm said. “But it is the corruption of freedom of conscience.”
Santorum told NCR that he regards George W. Bush as “the first Catholic president of the United States.”
“From economic issues focusing on the poor and social justice, to issues of human life, George Bush is there,” he said. “He has every right to say, ‘I’m where you are if you’re a believing Catholic.’ ”

Opus member and Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Walls was famously quoted last year as saying gays, even celibate ones, should not be ordained. It’s a fascist organization, in the literal sense of the word.

2003-04-25T21:18:00.000-04:00

This piece from ABC News raised some eyebrows, and justifiably so. In it, the Administration officials admit that they deliberately exaggerated the Iraqi threat as a pretext for war:

Officials inside government and advisers outside told ABCNEWS the administration emphasized the danger of Saddam's weapons to gain the legal justification for war from the United Nations and to stress the danger at home to Americans.
"We were not lying," said one official. "But it was just a matter of emphasis."
Officials now say they may not find hundreds of tons of mustard and nerve agents and maybe not thousands of liters of anthrax and other toxins. But U.S. forces will find some, they say. On Thursday, President Bush raised the possibility for the first time that any such Iraqi weapons were destroyed before or during the war.
If weapons of mass destruction were not the primary reason for war, what was? Here's the answer officials and advisers gave ABCNEWS.

Actually, I saw more in the article worth discussing than simply the Administration's tendency to lie, which no one should be surprised about by now. The quotes confirm the rationale I had begun to suspect -that we needed to send a message and make an example. to "awe" the Arabs, as Reul Marc Gerecht would say even before the phrase "Shock and Awe" became known. That at least makes the war plausibly defensible as an exercise in national interest, if not international approval. A moral justification for war is hard to find by this justification.

The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks changed everything, including the Bush administration's thinking about the Middle East — and not just Saddam Hussein.
Senior officials decided that unless action was taken, the Middle East would continue to be a breeding ground for terrorists. Officials feared that young Arabs, angry about their lives and without hope, would always looking for someone to hate — and that someone would always be Israel and the United States.
History will judge the United States, the official said, by whether this war marked the beginning of the end for the terrorists who hate America.

But the author is largely correct. If the crushing of a nascent threat is confirmed, history will grant grudging approval, or at least equivalency to historical trends

2003-04-25T21:04:00.000-04:00

The political misuse of Catholic Magisterial teaching by the Right, including the Right within the Church, is a constant source of irritation. I have long considered this tactic truly sinful, as it exploits belief for pure secular gain.

My Church possesses a body of rich teaching that doesn’t fall neatly on the side of either political party, as evidenced by Faithful Citizenship. Basically, Church teachings line up with the Republicans on abortion and vouchers, but the rest would comfortably serve part of the Democrat agenda, especially the Church’s preferential option for the poor and vulnerable, which is the opposite of the Republican agenda, which sinfully favors the wealthy and powerful. To be fair, abortion definitely is the highest priority in Catholic “political teaching”, but it’s not the only one, nor does it have a veto effect over all other teachings, though you wouldn’t know that from the cynical calculations of the Right’s operatives.

Here’s an example. In last week’s Daily Standard, a web adjunct of the Weekly Standard, which used to be a reputable publication, J. Bottum accuses Tom Daschle of moral incoherency because of the abortion issue. Actually, he’s reporting what he heard Daschle’s Bishop, Robert Carlson, has said in a letter. I don’t know Bishop Carlson by reputation, but I have my suspicion based on this account that he is from the Santorum wing of the Church that is serving an agenda other than the Divine’s.

In any event, if the nation’s Bishops wanted to begin telling every Catholic politician that deviates from Church teaching in his/her platform, fair enough. It might not be overly practical, but it would smack of principle rather than partisanship. But these sort of accusations of deviation from orthodoxy only seems to beset Democrats, and only on abortion. As Bottum notes, those that wish to use the Magisterium as a partisan club worthy of Roveism got a new weapon, or so they think, in Cardinal Ratzinger’s recent Donctrinal Note, which tells Catholics they must abide by Church teaching in public life. Again, not a partisan statement in itself.

But as John Allen shows, this cognitive and spiritual dissonance can cut both ways, though it never does. Allen conducts a respectful interview with Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge here (Must scroll down), a faithful Catholic. But as he notes, Administration policy is not exactly a model of consistency in applying Magisterial teaching.

Some excerpts:

In general, Thompson said, he cannot base political choices exclusively on positions taken by the Catholic Church.
“I have to minister to the needs of all Americans, not just Catholics,” he said. “I have to minister to the needs of citizens, the majority of whom are not believers in the Catholic Church. I can’t do my job, carrying out the policies of this administration and previous administrations, by solely relying on Catholic teachings.”

He also commented on the clash between Bush and the pope over the war.
“If I had my druthers, I would rather have had the pope on my side,” Thompson said. “But we have much better information than the pope about what’s going on inside Iraq and what would happen in the rest of the Middle East.”
“The pope is concerned about innocent children and citizens, and so are we,” Thompson said. “We can show with empirical evidence and data that we have saved men, women and children from torture, from rapes and murders, in Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said.

He also seemed a committed Catholic, but one unwilling to take direction at the policy level from church authorities, whose good intentions he feels are not always matched by convincing information or argument.

Catholics in the Bush administration have been walking that fine line a lot lately.

True, but they never seem to face condemnation from their Bishops or snide remarks from small men like Bottum

2003-04-25T20:22:00.000-04:00

The Correlation continues:

A prominent Republican fund-raiser who once said former President Bill Clinton was "a lawbreaker and a terrible example to our nation's young people" pleaded guilty yesterday in Baltimore Circuit Court to production of child pornography.

2003-04-25T20:15:00.000-04:00

CNN again caught slanting the news to obtain access without revealing to its viewers

The essence of Jordan's reply to Kurtz was that he didn't understand the fuss because he had received clearance in advance. According to a CNN transcript of the program, he said: "I went to the Pentagon myself several times before the war started and met with important people there and said, for instance, at CNN, 'Here are the generals we're thinking of retaining to advise us on the air and off about the war.' And we got a big thumbs-up on all of them. That was important."
Important in what respect? CNN viewers were not about to learn, for time had run out. "OK, we've got to leave it there," said Kurtz.

2003-04-02T18:26:00.000-05:00

Just a feeling, but I suddenly feel like Sadaam's regime will fall by the end of the weekend, if not sooner. Then we will learn if our strategic goals remain attainable.

2003-04-02T13:34:00.000-05:00

Kevin Drum exposes more of the fundamental dishonesty that comes from being William Kristol

THOSE MARGINAL REPUBLICANS....Matt Yglesias says Bill Kristol is full of shit. Matt bases this on the same paragraph that I also picked out as crap when I first read his latest article in the Weekly Standard:
Parts of the Republican party, and of the conservative movement, fell into a similar trap in the late 1990s, hating Bill Clinton more than Slobodan Milosevic. But this wing of the GOP and conservatism lost in an intra-party and intra-movement struggle, and has now been marginalized——Pat Buchanan is no longer a Republican, and his magazine these days makes common cause with Norman Mailer and Gore Vidal.
Pat Buchanan has been a marginal figure in the Republican party (and out of it) for more than decade. The foaming-at-the-mouth Clinton haters, on the other hand, are still with us, and worse than ever. I mean, Kristol does occasionally read best-selling authors Ann Coulter, Dinesh D'Souza, and Sean Hannity, doesn't he? And surely he sometimes listens to talk show superstars Rush Limbaugh, Oliver North, and Michael Savage. And he's heard of the Heritage Foundation and the Scaife Foundation, right?
Oh, and did I mention Tom DeLay and Dan Burton? No? Consider them mentioned.
Kristol actually has a point to make about the dangers of falling so deeply into wild-eyed hatred mode that it actually hurts your cause. But when he implies that Clinton hatred —— and rabid hatred of liberals in general —— was purged from the Republican party when Pat Buchanan left —— well, it is to laugh.

Nice try Bill, but false. But I still rate you over the Sullivans and Coulters - they’re the journalistic Fedayeen. Kristol and the Weekly Standard are the Republican Guard

2003-04-02T13:33:00.000-05:00

What Peter Arnett did was inexcusable and unforgivable. I saw only a bit of what he said, and what he said in that excerpt was substantively defensible (at least as to the war), if all-advised.

But giving an official interview and stating that he had been given free run is over the line. He has to know that Iraq tightly controls journalists and has expelled many, and forces sympathetic coverage. Assuming he persoanlly hasn’t been subject to that treatment, he still has an obligation to be truthful in creating the larger picture. More significantly, if he indeed is permitted to report without oversight or censorship by the Ministry of Information, that in itself evidences how the Iraqis perceive his reporting, and how biased it is. The Ministry is not animated by a civil libertarian ethos.

The other irritating aspect of this story is that it gives so much ammunition to the small minded Right, which is most of them, in their search for media bogeymen. Finally they have a legitimate target, and can generalize from Arnett to froth their ignorant Fox faithful

Cronkite has it right

2003-04-02T13:32:00.000-05:00

Fred Barnes again is the public voice for the WH Republican Guard, here

As chummy as Bush and Blair are, prospects for agreement on the U.N. and Middle East are poor. Bush feels beholden to Blair, but gratitude has its limits. Until now, Blair has faithfully followed the advice of Winston Churchill that the British government should "never get separated from the Americans." But his closeness to Bush has led to sneering accusations that he's become Bush's "poodle." For Blair, once the war in Iraq is won, a little separation

Late Friday I watched the House of Commons questioning, and there is no doubt that Blair stated that the President promised him he would go to the UN for rebuilding and pursue the Palestinian peace process. Barnes’ words are carefully chosen, but he seems to be saying that the Administration, at least some of them, are not fully intending to honor that promise.

We have already seen how some in the Administration attempted to betray Presidential promises to Blair before. If these promises are broken, it will be hard to have any allies in the future

2003-04-02T13:30:00.000-05:00

Proof that it wasn't us?

The head of Baghdad's air defences has been sacked by Saddam Hussein over last week's explosions in two market places in the city, according to intelligence reports given to Tony Blair yesterday.
Downing Street claimed that Saddam dismissed his own cousin, Musahim Saab al-Tikriti, because air defence missiles had been failing to hit their targets and falling back on Baghdad. According to the intelligence reports presented to the Prime Minister before yesterday's meeting of the War Cabinet, Saddam has recalled a retired officer, Shahin Yasin Muhammad al-Takriti, to take over Baghdad's air defences.

Though I want to believe this, not sure it makes sense, for two reasons:

1) Do AA missiles pack that much explosive power?, and

2) Why would Sadaam be unhappy - those explosions have been the most successful aspect of his war effort, which is really a propaganda effort

Agree with other assessments that a HARM missile was the likely culprit

2003-04-02T13:28:00.000-05:00

From TNR, Fox has found its equal

Speaking to USA Today on March 24, Lieutenant Joshua Rushing, Central Command's liaison to the station, said, "I think [Al Jazeera is] as fair and balanced as a lot of our coverage in the United States. ... I think in terms of the higher principles of journalism, they are just like the 24-hour news stations in the U.S." (Guess who now wishes he'd kept his mouth shut.)

2003-04-02T13:27:00.000-05:00

Potential threat to strategic goals

From WaPo

Army Special Forces teams operating around Najaf said today that Fedayeen militiamen are converting the Tomb of Ali into a central stronghold, firing rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and automatic weapons from the narrow alleys and neighborhoods around the shrine, which is also adjacent to a market. "It's a rabbit warren," one commander said.
Rooting Iraqi defenders from the shrine is a difficult tactical problem as well as an enormous political challenge, and senior officers worry that the operation foreshadows fights in the many urban areas leading to Baghdad. Commanders so far have tried to minimize collateral damage, although the number of civilian casualties in Najaf -- a city of more than half a million -- is unknown

Damage to the Shrine would likely negate any chance of Shiite acceptance from what I have read. That means hostility and attacks in the aftermath.

One other point from that article - our officer corps speaking in Just War terms

Col. Ben Hodges, commander of the 1st Brigade of the 101st, gestured with his field glasses toward the smoking trees below the escarpment in the middle distance. "We are under no time pressure. . . . There are villages in that wood line, so we can't be indiscriminate. But I'm probably pushing it more than I would have two weeks ago."

One question from the same piece - it refers to an Iraqi Mechanized Division moving to reinforce. I thought movement meant exposure to air power.

2003-04-02T13:25:00.000-05:00

Good point from Mickey

The neocons have a bad habit of trying to thuggishly suppress annoying journalism with withering bursts of ad hominem fire.

2003-04-02T13:24:00.000-05:00

Go Rays - Carl Crawford’s walk-off - hope springs eternal. Thanks Lou (game two of the series ended less hopefully)

2003-04-02T13:23:00.000-05:00

Have we descended deeper, or is this a hoax?

They may be the ones facing danger on the battlefield, but US soldiers in Iraq are being asked to pray for President George W Bush.
Thousands of marines have been given a pamphlet called "A Christian's Duty," a mini prayer book which includes a tear-out section to be mailed to the White House pledging the soldier who sends it in has been praying for Bush.
"I have committed to pray for you, your family, your staff and our troops during this time of uncertainty and tumult. May God's peace be your guide," says the pledge, according to a journalist embedded with coalition forces.
The pamphlet, produced by a group called In Touch Ministries, offers a daily prayer to be made for the US president, a born-again Christian who likes to invoke his God in speeches.
Sunday's is "Pray that the President and his advisers will seek God and his wisdom daily and not rely on their own understanding".
Monday's reads "Pray that the President and his advisers will be strong and courageous to do what is right regardless of critics".

2003-04-02T13:22:00.000-05:00

If you want to see the difference between soundbite reasoning like Andrew Sullivan’s, and true thoughtfulness and candor like Josh Marshall’s check out this post. The world is often too complex to caricature, but that doesn’t stop those that can argue no other way. Deep challenges must be addressed in depth, but that can be hard to covey in 10 words or less, except for those with a gift like Blair or Clinton

2003-04-02T13:20:00.000-05:00

From Charles Peters of the Washington Monthly , his observation that the settlements are quickly making any true Israeli-Palestinian peace impossible

Another leader sympathetic to the United States, Jordan's foreign minister, Marwan Muasher, recently told the Post's David Ignatius that the best way to stem a post-Iraq renewal of Islamic militancy against the United States is for the Bush administration to show that it is serious about reviving the peace process and halting Israeli settlements on the West Bank. "If you don't deal with settlements quickly, we are approaching the time when a viable Palestinian state isn't possible." Israeli settlements already surround the Arab city of Bethlehem. Bush has done nothing to stop these settlements, although the pace at which they are being established has accelerated under his pal Ariel Sharon. Indeed, Slate's Mickey Kaus writes of the Bush administration, "The Likudniks are really in charge now." The Post's Robert Kaiser reports, "For the first time, a U.S. administration and a Likud government in Israel are pursuing nearly identical policies."

For Bush and Karl Rove, this means they won't need butterfly ballots to carry Florida next time. But for many of their subordinates, like Elliott Abrams, director of Mideast Affairs for the National Security Council, this is not a matter of cynical political calculation but of passionate conviction. His guru, one he shares with Donald Rumsfeld, is Richard Perle, who has urged Israel to repudiate the Oslo peace accords.

If the settlements continue and Israel's armed forces continue to protect them, Palestinians could be reduced to the state of Native Americans in the 19th century, slaughtering some settlers now and then but generally suppressed by the U.S. Army. Already, their circumstances are remarkably similar. "Two Studies Find the Palestinian People Impoverished and the Economy in a Shambles" was the headline over a March 5 report by James Bennet in The New York Times.

2003-04-02T13:18:00.000-05:00

From another Charlie, this one Cook, an analysis that rings true

Over the last few days suggestions have been made that the war plans were largely designed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his staff rather than by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and their planners. While these suggestions have been denied on camera by the top brass, it has been the worst-kept secret in Washington that since he came back to the Pentagon 14 months ago, Rumsfeld felt that the Pentagon was muddled in an antiquated view of war. His early efforts to reform the mammoth department met head-on opposition from generals and admirals and armed service committee members in the House and Senate alike.

Off the record, many current and former Pentagon officials now say the same thing happened in planning for this war -- that the plan reflected his views more than theirs and were based on assumptions of a weak Iraqi army and the government collapsing like a house of cards. Interestingly, as Rumsfeld tried on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" to deflect accusations of his micromanagement of war plans, he said the one thing he did was to overturn a proposal to call up early a National Guard unit from Puerto Rico. The fact that the Defense secretary is even looking at which specific Guard units are being called up would seem to be prima facie evidence of micromanagement.

At this point, Americans seem uncertain who to believe when it comes to the questions of troop strength, the soundness of the plan and who actually drew the plan -- the generals or civilians, a la McNamara. But for now, Americans are inclined to give Bush and his team the benefit of the doubt, and that is not likely to change anytime soon. Should the actual fighting drag on well into the summer, and should U.S. casualties mount, that may well change, but for now, there are no signs of cracking.

There remains the issue of the president's clout on Capitol Hill, and having lost votes on both oil drilling in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and on the cutting of his $726 billion tax cut in half, his enhanced poll numbers do not seem to have translated into victories, at least on the Senate floor. Republicans obviously hope that the war will give Bush the same boost (it was too long to be called a bounce) in popularity that he enjoyed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and that his enhanced stature will translate into strengthened standing on economic and domestic issues.

2003-04-02T13:16:00.000-05:00

Key Krugman column - I told ya so on the California energy crisis being manufactured

For we now know that everything Mr. Cheney said was wrong.

In short, Mr. Cheney and his tough-minded realists were blowing smoke: their report described a fantasy world that bore no relation to reality. How did they get it so wrong?
One answer is that Mr. Cheney made sure that his task force included only like-minded men: as far as we can tell, he didn't consult with anyone except energy executives. So the task force was subject to what military types call "incestuous amplification," defined by Jane's Defense Weekly as "a condition in warfare where one only listens to those who are already in lock-step agreement, reinforcing set beliefs and creating a situation ripe for miscalculation."
Another answer is that Mr. Cheney basically drew his advice about how to end the energy crisis from the very companies creating the crisis, for fun and profit. But was he in on the joke?
We may never know what really went on in the energy task force since the Bush administration has gone to extraordinary lengths to keep us from finding out. At first the nonpartisan General Accounting Office, which is supposed to act as an internal watchdog, seemed determined to pursue the matter. But after the midterm election, according to the newsletter The Hill, Congressional Republicans approached the agency's head and threatened to slash his budget unless he backed off.
And therein lies the broader moral. In the last two years Mr. Cheney and other top officials have gotten it wrong again and again — on energy, on the economy, on the budget. But political muscle has insulated them from any adverse consequences. So they, and the country, don't learn from their mistakes — and the mistakes keep getting bigger.

2003-04-02T13:15:00.000-05:00

Newsweek takes a swipe in the press war, which, if you believe, has even hampered the ability of our political leadership to govern

Last Wednesday, CIA officials gave a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill about the rising tide of anti-Americanism sweeping the Arab world. Particular emphasis was placed on Jordan and Egypt. As agency officials discussed the depth of hatred for U.S. actions, the senators fell silent. There were delicate discussions about the uncertainty, if the war was protracted, of “regime stability.” After the briefing, “there were senators who were ashen-faced,” said one staff member. “They were absolutely depressed.” Much of what the agency briefed would not have been news to any close watcher of the BBC or almost any foreign news broadcast. “But they [the senators] only watch American TV,” said the staffer. Most of the senators had been led to believe that the war would be quick and that the Iraqi populace would be dancing in the streets. It is hard to know the true level of discontent in the Arab world, and whether it can turn into revolution. But an extended and increasingly bloody Iraqi war is a risky way to find out.

2003-04-02T13:14:00.000-05:00

Does the President observe Lenten abstentions? (another way to court the Catholic vote)
From the USA Today, his favorite chronicler of events, which says more than it should

He's being hard on himself; he gave up sweets just before the war began.

A common abstention is forgoing sweets

The President certainly feels the tug of Divine will (from the same article):

Bush believes he was called by God to lead the nation at this time, says Commerce Secretary Don Evans, a close friend who talks with Bush every day.

2003-04-02T13:11:00.000-05:00

Dynamic Scoring is dead

Actually, it was never alive outside the minds of those that conjured it, but confessions are in vogue after the policy is a fait accompli (excuse my French), to create future deniability.

2003-04-02T13:09:00.001-05:00

Those satphones are a danger.

2003-04-02T13:09:00.000-05:00

I still think that the War effort has suffered in execution such that strategic objectives may not be unattainable, but here’s support for the “all according to plan” school

From DefenseTech (permalink not working - scroll to “Battle for Baghdad begins”), citing the ultraliberal, Bush and America hating, hope our troops die, NY Times, so ignore this info - they’re just trying to lull true Americans into a false sense of security

American troops are gaining a crucial advantage, the New York Times says, because the push is coming during the darkest period of the month, allowing American troops to use their night-vision goggles.

Glad to see A-10s are the primary close air support now - their armor is stronger than the Apaches. From context, think they needed a closer airfield, which Tallil provided. Hope our intelligence is correct hat RG divisions have been destroyed - we’ve been wrong on such estimates in the past.

2003-04-02T13:06:00.000-05:00

Am I the only one that thinks it is harder to get into Iraq’s “O-O-D-A” loop with headlines like this?

2003-04-02T13:05:00.000-05:00

Interesting post from Eugene Volokh. I agree that “Shock and Appall” is an appropriate moniker and that Sadaam and the Ba'athists revel in whatever civilian casualty they can induce. It seems the primary strategy to retaining power - shame the world into shaming the US.

I confess that the growing civilian deaths cause me pause in support of the war because I can’t reconcile these deaths with my worldview, my personal goals in the conflict and my perception of the threat we were addressing. I know we go to great lengths to avoid injury to civilians, but given Ba'athist strategy, mass civilian deaths look unavoidable. If we lack the ability, through no fault or creation of our own, to practice “due discrimination”, I’m not sure the war can be totally just, though the plank is usually not worded as such.

In any event, I think Volokh misconstrues one point. The “Shock and Appall” strategy isn’t more effective against Western powers because of their advanced collective conscience, though popular sovereignty will always impose a greater collective conscience, and that’s a good thing. Instead, think we are more vulnerable to such a strategy because it can defeat our strategic goals, which Josh Marshall has described as fourfold:

1. To eliminate Saddam's WMD capabilities.
2. To create a democratic or at least quasi-democratic Iraq, which -- because it is democratic -- has a positive ripple effect throughtout the region.
3. A more stable Middle East, which breeds less terrorism.
4. A more stable and peaceful world order made so by the example of the destruction of Saddam's bad-acting regime.

The middle two would never qualify as strategic goals for any self-respecting Stalinist, so Shock and Appall wold have no possibility of defeating such an opponent. In fact, they would be counterproductive and inconsistent with a conqueror seeking to impose rule by fear.

2003-03-30T11:41:00.000-05:00

Good stuff from an English Arab Daily

This is undoubtedly true

Arab News asked several of the refugees waiting to enter Basra what they thought of regime change. Accompanying Arab News were several international TV crews. What the refugees said on and off camera were very different things.

On camera, the general feeling among the crowd was sorrow at losing Saddam. Off camera, the citizens of Umm Qasr and Basra appeared genuinely exhilarated at the prospect of a brighter future, after Saddam had been removed.

But is this?

As Salman Al-Badran, 43, a carpenter who left Basra for Umm Qasr concerned about his family’s safety, told Arab News, after a night of heavy bombardment at Basra “the Iraqi troops are putting themselves at the middle of the civilian community and firing back at the British forces with their RPGs. The coalition forces are then firing back and hitting the civilian community. The hospitals are full and we have run out of critical supplies.”

“There’s a petroleum company on the outskirts of Basra that has a residential complex of some 50 houses,” he continued. “It was occupied by 75 workers. Iraqi troops went in last night and opened fire on coalition troops from there. The result was that all the houses have been destroyed and all 75 civilians, who included women and children, were killed.”

2003-03-30T11:40:00.000-05:00

Great point by Beinart

It's dangerous to generalize about this war. America's attack on Iraq is moving so fast that basic assumptions about its course can flip in the course of one day.

2003-03-30T11:38:00.000-05:00

Truly horrid

The Marine general said that what has surprised him most about the first week of fighting is the extent of war crimes carried out by the Iraqi regime. In addition to the execution of POWs, he said, Iraqis have used civilians as human shields, stored weapons in schools, set up command posts in hospitals and pretended to surrender only to open fire.
In one case, an Iraqi woman was hanged after she waved to coalition forces, Pace said.

2003-03-30T11:37:00.000-05:00

Another detour from the War. Tampa Rep. Jim Davis recently visted Cuba, and while remaining hostile to Castro's regime, has advocated some changes to the embargo to make the medical exception more effective. Due to geography, Tampa may be the key port for eventual trade to a Cuba Libre. Excerpts from Jim's report

For more than 40 years, the United States has maintained an economic embargo on Cuba in an effort to pressure Fidel Castro's one-party communist government to bring democracy and basic rights to the people of Cuba. While I have voted to maintain the embargo, I believe Congress must seek new alternatives to the embargo and find ways for the United States and Cuba to pursue a more positive relationship to the mutual benefit of our people.

To become part of the solution, I recently traveled on a five day fact-finding tour through Cuba. Traveling with Congressman Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, and members of the Inter-American Dialogue, I met Cuban government officials, human rights and religious community leaders, economic analysts and policymakers and average Cuban citizens to gain a comprehensive picture of the economic, political and social realities in Cuba.

The experience made me more determined than ever to help improve America's relationship with the Cuban people. The Cuban citizens I met are much like the Cuban Americans in Florida - enormously talented, highly educated and ambitious. Unfortunately, the citizens of Cuba are trapped under a repressive regime that has denied them an opportunity to use their talents to make a better life for themselves and their families.

Indeed, Cuba is a country of great contradictions and unlimited potential. Cuba has one of the highest literacy rates in the Western Hemisphere, but the average individual income is $12 a month. The Cuban government provides its people with universal health care, but many hospitals have a shortage of basic medical supplies, like surgical gloves.

We went to the home of Osvaldo Paya, leader of the Varela Project, to talk with him and his wife about their effort to empower the Cuban people. Mr. Paya and supporters of the Varela Project have gathered 20,000 signatures on a petition calling on the Cuban government to give Cuban citizens basic rights, including the right to start their own businesses, publicly speak out against government policies and run for office independent of the communist party.

We also attempted, unsuccessfully, to see Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, recently imprisoned for meeting with others to discuss their opposition to the government. His wife, whom we met instead, told us that United States attention to her husband's plight would inspire him and others to continue to fight for basic freedoms.

Only the Cuban people can plant the seeds of change in Cuba, but we can help these efforts grow. Congress can and should support reform efforts. I am encouraging my colleagues, who plan to travel to Cuba, to visit with Mr. Paya and Dr. Biscet in addition to meeting with government officials.

During my meeting with Ricardo Alarcon, President of Cuba's National Assembly, I called on his government to support the basic freedoms these reformers seek and expressed outrage over the r recent arrests of supporters of the Varela Project. I also told Mr. Alarcon that for the sake of Cubans and Americans alike, I hope to begin a frank, constructive dialogue between our governments. While I offered to seek ways to build a new relationship between our countries, I emphasized that to achieve this goal, Cuba must make changes to bring its people a better life.

Now that I have returned, I plan to explore why the medical exemption to the economic embargo is not working. While touring Faustino Perez University Hospital in Matanzas, we heard from doctors about the extreme shortage of basic medical supplies and prescription drugs. I will work with my colleagues in Congress and others to give the Cuban people the ability to buy the supplies and drugs they so desperately need.

It is also important that those who have staked out opposite positions on he embargo learn to work together. Congress can only do so much. Those working to help the average Cuban citizens must find common ground. I will continue working with people who have different views on these issues in search of new ways to improve the lives of the Cuban people.

2003-03-30T11:33:00.000-05:00

More CIA-CYA

The intelligence we gathered before the war accurately reflected what the troops are seeing out there now," one military intelligence official said. "The question is whether the war planners and policymakers took adequate notice of it in preparing the plan." At least one pre-war intelligence analysis described potential threats of Iraqi irregular forces mining harbors, planting bombs and firing at troops while disguised in civilian clothes, according to one senior intelligence official.

A CIA spokesman said the intelligence agencies presented President Bush and senior national security officials with "the full debate," including a National Intelligence Estimate that analyzed the scenarios that U.S. forces would likely encounter during a war. "Senior intelligence officials have all had their say," the spokesman said.

2003-03-30T11:31:00.000-05:00

Perhaps the most significant piece I have read to date in evaluation the progress of the effort. Essentially, our strategic goal is to change regimes while maintaining the support of the populace. That dictates a change in plans and methods, and means that startegic success may appear to be a tactical failure, at least in comparison with earlier antiseptic wars with negligible U.S. casualties

Pentagon officials contend that "armchair generals" criticizing conduct of the war in Iraq are failing to grasp the fundamental changes in strategy from earlier conflicts.

The changes include accepting more tactical risk to reduce long-term strategic risk; using air dominance to make the battlefield three dimensional; and selecting the least number of critical targets to get the maximum impact on the enemy's will to fight.

Five days into the war, armchair generals including retired warriors are calling military reporters to express their concerns there is only one heavy division committed to the battle; concerned only 250,000 personnel are undertaking the war when more than 500,000 were required to expel Iraq from tiny Kuwait in 1991; concerned there is not enough artillery; and concerned there is not yet a northern front to attack the Republican Guard divisions north of Baghdad.

But senior Pentagon officials explain there is a method to what some consider madness: accept more tactical risk to reduce the long-term strategic risk.

The tactical risk is that which troops accept on the battlefield. Certainly they would be safer with more heavy divisions than less, with more artillery than less, with more soldiers than less.

More important to Pentagon and Central Command planners is reducing the strategic risk. They do not want to win the war just to lose the peace afterward.

While that framework is necessary to accurately evaluate our efforts to date, I fear we are headed to strategic defeat even by that measure, as detailed below, and to be more developed by today's key contributions from Josh Marshall.

2003-03-30T11:23:00.000-05:00

TAP points to another effect of deployment, but believe TAP is wrong if they believe this effect is wholly unanticipated. While no one lilkely appreciated that certain public safety units would take such disproportionate hits through call ups, the military both expected and intended that call ups be "felt" by the civilian populace.

After the erosion of political support in Vietnam, the military adopted a new staffing model that relied heavily on reserves at the outset, to ensure that the military-civilan gap was never so large that the public was somewhat "removed" from the effort.

The call up is meant to ensure that military efforts have domestic political support, as part of the Weinberger, later Powell, doctrine.

THE OVERSTRETCHED RESERVES. David Broder has a good column making two important points: one, that since 9/11, we've been using our reservists like they're active duty troops, and two, that it's unsustainable. This is a real crisis. And since reservists are, in civilian life, EMTs, policemen, firemen and other first responders, when they're called up, they leave behind understaffed hospitals, police stations and firehouses. Not good.

2003-03-30T11:18:00.000-05:00

A quick detour from the War and related issues. I have long tried to get fellow sports fans and public policy aficionados interested in the policy issues presented by antitrust law, without success. My lack of success to date pints to my idiosyncratic nature. Here’s a another attempt, likely futile - the teaser for a program from next weeks’ ABA Spring meeting of the Antitrust Group, which I will miss. I find this interesting

What should happen, if anything, under the antitrust laws when several colleges get together and agree to drop certain sports to achieve Title IX compliance, drop early admission programs, promise that "A"students won't get tuition increases, or decide to pay their football players in violation of NCAA rules? What's the latest on the Commission's three pronged attack on the immunity doctrines in Unocal, Bristol Myers, and Indiana Household Movers?

On a somewhat related note, way to go Marquette. Hated to see the remaining SEC representative go down, but the Warriors are the sole remaining Jesuit representative, so that allegiance took priority. Good Luck Warriors

2003-03-30T11:10:00.000-05:00

A new Time piece has me concerned that our overall strategic goals in this action will not achieved, and that we are on a slope to unwittingly achieve the Onion's satirical "Operation Piss Off the Planet" label, and materially harm our position among Arabs everywhere, which is the opposite of what the operation was supposed to achieve.

The standoff in Basra underscored a central dilemma facing the war planners as they plot their final assault on Saddam's regime: the longer the allies remain handcuffed by their desire to limit collateral damage, the longer the conflict will be——and perhaps the deadlier for coalition troops. "The war ultimately will boil down to how many of our soldiers we are willing to sacrifice to keep dead Iraqi civilians off al-Jazeera," says a Navy officer at the Pentagon. Defense officials say that as the battle for Baghdad is joined in coming weeks, the U.S.'s unusually tight restrictions on target selection may be relaxed. Notes a Pentagon official: "We won't announce it." In the chaos of the battlefield, the old rules of engagement have already been tossed out. Lieut. Colonel Wes Gillman, commander of Task Force 130 of the 3rd Infantry Division, told his men, "If you see an Iraqi in civilian clothes coming toward you——even with a stick——shoot it."

But a high civilian death toll would play into the hands of Saddam. He presumably calculates that the U.S. could be made to quit fighting by international condemnation of the further loss of innocent life.

Though it may be both inevitable and understandable that our troops will begin being less discriminate towards putative civilians given what has occurred, that will indeed "play into Sadaam's hands", as the article notes. At that point, we will have already lost starategically.

Another troubling note:

Urban engagements historically result in 30% casualty rates on both sides; while the U.S. believes it can cut its losses to 10% of its total urban fighting force, that would send U.S. casualty figures into the thousands.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't see political support for thousands of U.S. casulaties. A 10% figure would mean in excess of 20,000 casualties. While that be militarily modest for urban warfare, I can't see it as politically acceptable, and again believe it will signal a strategic defeat. If that occurs, Perle's may not be the last resignation

2003-03-30T10:59:00.000-05:00

Chales Krauthammer continues his descent into the legion of "reportorial fedayeen" with this piece, again referencing his medical training as gaining some special insight into the medical defects of those who disagree with his politics

The media could use some lithium. Not since I studied bipolar disease 25 years ago have I seen such dramatic mood swings as in the coverage of the first week of the war.
It began with "shock and awe" euphoria, the hailing of a campaign of immaculate destruction. It was going to be Kosovo II, Afghanistan with embeds, another war of nearly bloodless (for us) success

Time is honest about the source of those expectation - it wasn't bipolar disorder, but the lack of bipartisanship, or the lack of permitting the "Red Force" to scheme without limitations

With live footage of fire fights streaming into the world's living rooms, the White House distanced itself from the predictions of a rapid, relatively painless victory that Administration hawks had peddled to build support for the war.

2003-03-30T10:25:00.000-05:00

Though I empathize (to a degree) with the plight of physicians paying medical malpractice premiums, a hot issue in Florida's current legislative session, conduct like that detailed here does not speak well.

Thousands of Florida doctors, angry at the state Senate for refusing to cap jury awards in medical malpractice cases, booed and jeered the chamber's president Thursday when he addressed a rally at the state Capitol.
A handful used strong language to make their point.
"Break his legs," one doctor yelled. "Heart attack," called several more. Some used far coarser language. Most simply booed.

2003-03-30T10:23:00.000-05:00

My six-year old daughter has started reading an “American Girl” series of books called “Meet Kit”. She choose this series among many ostensibly at random, though I detect the presence of the Divine in seeming coincidence. The “Kit” series is set in the Great Depression”, the formative experience in my family’s worldview.

Her story, illustrated by a wonderful series of six books written by American Girls Collection author Valerie Tripp, begins in 1932, three years into the Depression. At the start of the first book, Meet Kit, Kit's father loses his job, and this drastically changes the life of Kit and her family. Kit's family must turn their lovely house into a boarding house in order to keep it, and the family struggles in countless ways. What happens to Kit's family parallels what happened to the country during the Great Depression. As did those who actually lived through the hard times, Kit's family is forced to use their strength, determination and resourcefulness to carry on despite adversity.

My father is 89, and anyone with loved ones that loved through those times knows how they were permanently scarred by the experience. To this day, my father remains nearly mentally ill about money and waste, forever saving whipped cream containers and packets of catsup. That seems strange in our times of plenty, but they lived through times they were literally hungry. My father was also a medic in WWII. Those two experiences mean he will never glamorize war, and will never adopt the socially Darwinistic policies of the modern Right. He knows from firsthand experience that success and effort are not linearly correlated. My sincere hope is that as the “Greatest Generation” dies off, we don’t lose that memory, forcing a new generation to learn by experience.

2003-03-30T10:14:00.000-05:00

Josh Marshall beats me to use of a term I had been pondering and waiting for the right moment

Now he's been driven to the hills by reportorial fedayeen. He's run ragged, exposed to the elements, and short on food.

Bush’s “fedayeen” was going to be the new term to replace Jacob Weinberg’s “Conintern”

2003-03-30T10:12:00.000-05:00

Uggabugga frames some Fred Barnes hagiography that may not be that complimentary in retrospect, giving the President responsibility for the military planning beyond a simple chain of command analysis.

2003-03-30T10:11:00.000-05:00

Watching an Arab News reporter being interviewed on CNN reagrding Iraqi detention of journalists in Basra. He states that he was told that the Iraqis discovered their prsence after someone used a sattelite phone. I was not aware that the Iraqis had that level of technological sophistication.

2003-03-30T10:06:00.000-05:00

More evidence that something is causing our precision munitions to deviate, which makes it difficult to rebut claims that our missiles are causing civilian deaths in Baghdad

Some U.S. Tomahawk cruise missiles aimed at Iraq have fallen on Saudi Arabia, forcing planners to suspend certain routes for launches, U.S. military commanders said on Saturday.

"In the case of Saudi Arabia, we did have a number of T-LAM missiles that were reported down in their territory," Major-General Victor Renuart told a news conference at war headquarters in Qatar.

2003-03-30T10:05:00.000-05:00

Excessively polemical, but clever
Afterthought:we took a lot of lessons from 9/11, but it occurs to me that there's one we might have overlooked--when you attack a nation, people tend to rally around their leader, even if they hate him.

2003-03-30T10:04:00.000-05:00

First I have heard that Shiites may resent us due to fear of desecration of Holy sites

Najaf and Karbala are the holiest sites of Shi'ite Islam. Najaf - where Ayatollah Khomeini lived before returning to lead the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 - is the site of Imam Ali's tomb, the Prophet Mohammed's cousin and revered 14th century founder of the Shi'ite branch of Islam. Karbala is the site of the famous 7th century battle where Imam Hussein was killed and subsequently buried.

To the utmost horror of Shi'ites everywhere - Arabs, Persians, South Asians - American tanks are now rumbling around Najaf and Karbala. If the conquest of Baghdad - the iconic seat of the Caliphate for 700 years - is bound to ignite fury in the Sunni Arab world, one shudders to imagine what would happen in the Shi'ite world if Najaf and Karbala are desecrated during the war or under American occupation.

For Shi'ites, Arab nationalism - and especially the Ba'ath Party version adapted by Saddam for his own purposes - is nothing but undisguised Sunni domination. "Arab nationalism" has been a kind of byword for a social contract lasting many decades in Iraq. The Shi'ites will have no more of it. But they cannot trust the Americans to free them. They view Washington as hostile to Shi'ite Iran, to the Shi'ites in Syria and Lebanon, and only interested in oil in Shi'ite southern Iraq and oil in the Shi'ite eastern province of Saudi Arabia. Moreover, Shi'ites - who consider themselves Iraqis first and foremost - still remember how they were betrayed by Bush senior in March 1991.

The article also reveals that our SCIRI “allies” may rapidly change if we are perceived to be “occupiers”, which could mean if we take sides in post war Iraq and prevent the Shiites from trying to press their numeric advantage. This recalls Beirut 1982, where we were originally welcomed as peacekeepers, only to lose 241 Marines in the barracks bombings after taking sides. Reading further, the article references that history.

2003-03-30T09:58:00.000-05:00

Fred Kaplan of Slate did some commentary last night on CNN, referencing this piece, which, unfortunately, seems to show that the "testing" of our war plan through "war games" again presumed that the Iraqis would not use the tactics they are using, sadly shortchanging our preparation and vetting. JFK said that "Victory has a thousand fathers, while defeat is an orphan". Though we will be ultimately victorious, it seems that most are disclaiming paternity of this plan:

Officially, the war game was a great success; the theories were proven sound. However, on Aug. 12, as the game was winding to a close, a retired three-star U.S. Marine Corps general named Paul Van Riper wrote an e-mail to some of his friends, casting grave doubt on this conclusion.
Pentagon war games pit "Red Force" (simulating the enemy) against "Blue Force" (the United States). In this war game, as in many war games over the years, Van Riper played the Red Force commander. In his e-mail (which was promptly leaked to the Army Times then picked up, though in much less detail, by the Guardian and the Washington Post), Van Riper complained about Millennium Challenge 02, writing that, "Instead of a free-play, two-sided game …… it simply became a scripted exercise." The conduct of the game did not allow "for the concepts of rapid decisive operations, effects-based operations, or operational net assessment to be properly assessed. …… It was in actuality an exercise that was almost entirely scripted to ensure a Blue 'win.' "

2003-03-30T09:50:00.000-05:00

Extremely cogent post from Kevin Drum - that I were capable of such expression, though I will humbly adopt every sentiment.

WHERE'S THE CENTER?....A couple of days ago I wrote a plea for a "center party." Several people wrote to suggest that the Democrats actually are the center party these days, and there's a lot of truth in that. So exactly what "extremism" is it that I'm so concerned about?
I was having a hard time getting my thoughts together on this, and then I read an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times this morning by Drew Limsky, "a professor of English at Pace University and Hunter College. Remember Adrien Brody's reaction when he won his Academy Award on Sunday? Everyone loved it —— it showed genuine warmth and spontaneity —— but Limsky was not amused:
When Berry read Adrien Brody's name and the actor bounded up the stairs, scooped Berry up like prime chattel and branded her with a long smooch, there went dignity.
....The Brody kiss seemed to be the payoff to every [Steve] Martin joke that objectified Berry. Last year, best actress; this year, house squeeze.
This is part of the problem: extreme lefties as moralistic killjoys. There are plenty of serious problems with sexism in America, but complaining about the "objectification" of Halle Berry, a Hollywood star whose most recent role —— a voluntary assignment, I assume —— was as a Bond girl, makes feminism look ridiculous. The whole point of Hollywood is to put great looking men and women on the screen, and making millions of ordinary people feel guilty for enjoying this can't possibly do feminism any good.

Other examples? Congressmen who travel to Baghdad to criticize American foreign policy on nationwide TV, gay rights parades that seem deliberately designed to repulse as many ordinary people as possible, college professors who publicly hope for lots of American deaths in Iraq, and tooth-and-nail opposition to bans on partial birth abortion, a procedure that's rare, loathed by a large majority of Americans, and generally forbidden even in the socialist hell that is Europe.
I'm sure my two or three conservative readers could add other items to this list. The problem here is that, rightly or wrongly, this kind behavior is associated with Democrats, and it has the effect of either repulsing moderate voters or else making them feel like they have to walk on eggshells anytime they're around us. Making people feel variously repulsed, guilty, and vaguely uneasy is not a vote-winning strategy for a national party.
Let me put it another way: I'm convinced that the Black Panthers set back the cause of civil rights, PETA sets back the cause of animal rights, and vomit-ins are setting back the cause of peace activism. It's a free country, of course, and these folks can do what they want, but somehow we have to disassociate them from the Democratic party in the public's mind. I know perfectly well that Republicans have the same problem with the Christian right, but for some reason it doesn't hurt them among moderates as much as lefty extremism hurts Democrats. It's not fair, but it's a fact.
So there you have it: my problem with liberal extremism. It may not be an official part of the Democratic party, but it's an albatross around our necks anyway. We need to do something about it.

I think Kevin is really in tune with the "Democratic Wing" of the Democratic party

2003-03-28T14:24:00.000-05:00

Nice sentiments from Jeanne D'Arc on the tragedy in the Shaab neighborhood

Even when Burns writes about the horrible details, he seems to think that it would be unprofessional, or perhaps unpatriotic, to have a normal human reaction to the carnage. He can't tell you about the severed hand, or the "fragments of human remains, including brain tissue" without pointing out that "officials" were there to make sure reporters noticed everything. He ties himself in a strange emotional knot: Bad people want me to care about this, so therefore I won't care too much about it.

Imagine reading a newspaper on September 12, 2001, and havng to comb through paragraph after paragraph of statements politicians made about a horrible mass murder that took place a day earlier, before finally, halfway through the story, finding out exactly what happened. The idea of structuring the story that way is obscene, as if the fact that thousands of people died were less important than what use politicians made of those deaths. Human priorities were not hard to sort out on September 12. When people die like that, the only thing to do at first is grieve. The only thing to do second is celebrate their lives. Anything else is an abomination. When a few clueless leftists spoke -- even weeks afterwards -- of understanding "root causes," they were, and deserved to be, castigated. To every thing there is a season, and the season of understanding can not follow too hard upon the season of grief.

We understood that when Americans died. We need to understand that the same thing is true when Iraqis die.

There is, as I said, something missing from the way the New York Times covered the story of more than a dozen deaths in a marketplace in Baghdad. What's missing is the basic human understanding that death matters, and human beings deserved to be mourned. John Burns buries the story in context and rationalizations designed to make us care less about people who died. Skepticism is a wonderful quality in a reporter, but Burns goes beyond that, to a cynicism that robs us of normal human reactions -- reactions we need if we're going to hang on to our humanity. It diminishes the people who died. It dehumanizes readers. War does that all by itself. We don't need one of the best newspapers in the country to help the process along.

And the Times is the liberal bogeyman, or at least it was two weeks ago. Now the BBC is the target of righteous wrath

2003-03-28T14:04:00.000-05:00

Gregg Easterbrook may have more on the Syrian arms connection in today's installment of his daily breakdown on war equipment:

Now two Abrams tanks have been knocked out near An Najaf by the AT14 "Kornet," a new Russian-built, solider-carried anti-tank rocket somewhat similar to the new U.S. "Javelin" weapon. Kornets are laser-guided for accuracy and employ an advanced kinetic penetrator (extreme speed, not explosive power, is the key feature) to break through the layered, "composite" armor used by the Abrams and other advanced tanks.

And the key connection

Because the Kornet was first fielded in 1994, obviously Iraq obtained it in violation of the U.N. embargo. A large shipment of Kornets was sold by Russia to Syria in 1998, so peace-loving Syria may be the violator. A few Kornets were also aboard the Karine A, the weapons ship intercepted on its way to the peace-loving Palestinian Authority. If Kornets find their way into the hands of the Palestinian Authority, Israeli tanks will no longer be able to roll with impunity through the West Bank and Gaza.

2003-03-28T13:49:00.000-05:00

More good stuff from WaPo

Nonetheless, they were impressed by the Iraqis' adaptive tactics and their willingness to fight -- both of which may have been underestimated by some in the Pentagon on the basis of the Iraqis' performance 12 years ago. At that time, their armor formations were destroyed in the open desert, and tens of thousands of troops surrendered.

"This is not a stupid force," said Anthony H. Cordesman, a former Pentagon official at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who is an expert on the Iraqi military. "It's been studying U.S., Russian, Chinese and Yugoslavian literature on asymmetric warfare for 12 years. The elite units have fought well in the past. And this is not a group of cowards."

But when the smoke cleared, two Abrams tanks -- virtually impregnable, 70-ton behemoths -- had been shot in their soft spot, a rear grille covering the engine. Miraculously, the tanks' four-man crews escaped in both cases, a testament to the Abrams's design, which puts a premium on protecting crew members.

"A lot of this is just good war fighting," one retired Army colonel said. "But we haven't encountered it for a long time, and we didn't expect it from the Iraqis. And as they have success, it breeds success."

Some Pentagon officials said yesterday that the attack marked the first time Abrams tanks had been destroyed on the battlefield . An Army official disputed this, saying the tanks "were not blown to bits -- they were rendered immobile. They're going to be evacuated and repaired."

On the battlefield, it was not immediately clear what weapon the Iraqis used to knock out the tanks. A senior defense official said yesterday that it was a French-made Coronet antitank missile.

This piece, especially the line about the Iraqis fighting smarter and harder than twelve years ago, offer some support for a phenomenon I have long feared - that we grew subconsciously complacent, akin to the 73 Israelis that believed the Egyptians were cowards and could not fight based upon their experience six years earlier. The Israelis learned the hard way.

More on that point from Kenneth Pollack through Brad DeLong, and why this should not have been as surprising as it was

According to Kenneth Pollack, if the Iraqi army of today is like the Iraqi army of the past half century, its soldiers and unit commanders will be incompetent at using their artillery, unable to maneuver, unwilling to take the initiative, incapable of adapting to any surprise, armed with technologically-inferior and poorly-maintained equipment, and yet large numbers of them, especially from the Republican Guard, will stand their ground and fight--until they die.

2003-03-28T13:42:00.000-05:00

Background on the plan here:

The genesis of the battle plan was a what-if session over beers among a handful of Army majors nearly 17 months ago. They were all students at the Army's School for Advanced Military Studies, known colloquially as SAMS, at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., where the Army's most promising planners take a graduate course in strategic campaigns. The young majors brainstormed about a march on Baghdad to dispose of Saddam Hussein. In its earliest versions, the plan envisioned a 125-day campaign by a U.S. force nearly twice the size of that now in Iraq.

From the very beginning, he says, the need to synchronize a rapid, combined-arms campaign to seize the initiative with "shock and awe"—roughly the modern-day equivalent of armored blitzkrieg warfare—leapt out at planners determined to limit the opportunity for Iraqi forces to employ chemical weapons, wreak environmental havoc, or organize a coordinated defense. In bullfighter parlance, they wanted to go for a quick kill before the bull learned the trick of the cape.

To take the fight quickly into Baghdad—a city of more than 5 million that dwarfs in size and population either Stalingrad or Berlin during World War II—these forces would need to seize key bridges and make multiple river crossings with the help of combat engineers. The logistics train supplying critical fuel, ammunition, and food to front-line forces would stretch hundreds of miles. At one point, Army planners even looked at moving supplies by barge up the Euphrates to speed the supply chain, and a special Army railroad unit studied the feasibility of quickly repairing Iraq's north-south railroad line.

By far the most dramatic and disruptive change to the battle plan, however, was Rumsfeld's decision last November to slash Central Command's request for forces. This single decision essentially cut the size of the anticipated assault force in half in the final stages of planning, and it had a ripple effect on Central Command and Army planning that continues to color operations to this day.

2003-03-28T13:35:00.000-05:00

Best name of the war from WaPo again:

"We will do it short steps at a time," said Maj. Steve McQueenie, a British liaison officer at Marine headquarters, which oversees the British forces. "What we have got to do in Basra is make sure civilians are protected."

Wonder if he’s nicknamed “Bullitt”

2003-03-28T13:33:00.000-05:00

Lots of other great things to mine in that article, with this framing:

In their view, invasion of Iraq was not merely, or even primarily, about getting rid of Saddam Hussein. Nor was it really about weapons of mass destruction, though their elimination was an important benefit. Rather, the administration sees the invasion as only the first move in a wider effort to reorder the power structure of the entire Middle East. Prior to the war, the president himself never quite said this openly. But hawkish neoconservatives within his administration gave strong hints. In February, Undersecretary of State John Bolton told Israeli officials that after defeating Iraq, the United States would "deal with" Iran, Syria, and North Korea. Meanwhile, neoconservative journalists have been channeling the administration's thinking. Late last month, The Weekly Standard's Jeffrey Bell reported that the administration has in mind a "world war between the United States and a political wing of Islamic fundamentalism ... a war of such reach and magnitude [that] the invasion of Iraq, or the capture of top al Qaeda commanders, should be seen as tactical events in a series of moves and countermoves stretching well into the future."

2003-03-28T13:32:00.000-05:00

Rumsfeld is putting Syria and Iran on notice, Iran for offering Shiitte forces to fight Sadaam, Syria for arming Sadaam. With respect to the former, Rumsfeld was referring to the SCIRI. I originally flagged the piece to remark on how interesting it was to have another "axis" charter member as an ally. Guess not.

With respect to the warnings against both, can't help but think of thy neocon vision of remaking the MidEast, by force if necessary, as highlighted in Josh Marshall's must read cover story in the Washington Monthly

Meanwhile, U.S. intelligence has discovered fresh evidence that, prior to the war, Saddam moved quantities of biological and chemical weapons to Syria. When Syria denies having such weapons, the administration starts massing troops on the Syrian border.

2003-03-28T13:25:00.000-05:00

Comparative religion has long been an interest, so I found Stephen Schwartz’s comments interesting in the context of an interview of Wahabbism, even if I’m not sure I agree with them. I think he oversimplifies Protestants, and should refer to Fundamentalists as a better description. Moreover, he neglects to admit to the legitimacy of Luther’s critiques, though interview admittedly addresses other points

What sort of comparisons would you draw between Wahhabi Islam and puritanical branches of Christianity and Judaism? Are there any similar motivations behind them?

Absolutely. This is an extremely complex and paradoxical issue. In Islam, there has always been the argument that Wahhabism arose directly as an imitation of Protestant Christianity. And there are Wahhabis who do make this comparison. They say, "We are creating a Protestant Islam." I used to respond to this by saying to Wahhabis, "If you're looking for models from the Christian world, the Catholics are much better models." If I went to Jerry Falwell and asked him how he thinks the poetry of William Blake relates to theology, it is very doubtful he would even know what I was talking about. If I were to go to Pat Robertson and ask him what he thought of John Milton as a representative of Protestant culture, it's very doubtful he would have an intelligent comment. But I can go to a Catholic priest anywhere in the Catholic world and talk about philosophy and poetry, literature and art, because Catholicism is a whole civilization. If you want a Protestant-style Islam, fine, I can't stop you from wanting that, but Protestantism begins with John Milton and ends with Jimmy Swaggart. A Protestant-style Islam would be stripped down, with no spirituality, no sense of Islam as a civilization or a culture, no love of poetry, of mysticism, of religious philosophy, no beautiful mosques. When you look at Protestantism versus Catholicism, or Wahhabism versus traditional Islam, these are the striking parallels. It's a big cliché in the West: "Islam needs a Reformation." No, Islam does not need a reformation. If Islam needs anything comparable to developments in Christian history, it needs a Counter-Reformation. That is, what the Catholics did. You reaffirm faith, you reaffirm tradition, but you adjust the day-to-day functioning of the Church to the realities of a modern society.

The bottom line is this. I always said to the Wahhabis, You think the world is impressed when someone goes into a bus in Israel and blows up a bunch of kids. That doesn't impress people. What impresses people about Islam is a picture of the Taj Mahal. What impresses people who are not Muslims is Islam as a culture, Islam as a civilization, Islam as a set of beautiful mosques. Wahhabism wants to get rid of all that, it wants to drain all of that out of the religion.

There is one extremely important difference, however. Protestantism did not attempt to enforce conformity. Protestantism fostered pluralism. Wahhabism does not foster pluralism, unlike traditional Islam, which is pluralistic, non-conformist, and allows for a multiplicity of opinions. And that's why, in the end, I now essentially reject the parallel.

2003-03-28T13:22:00.000-05:00

Michael Kinsley has a poignant line that captures how some feel

If Daniel Patrick Moynihan hadn't died this week of complications from a burst appendix, he might have died of embarrassment. Not necessarily over what his country is doing in Iraq, but over what his country's leaders are saying about it.

2003-03-28T13:20:00.000-05:00

The Right's new Epithets

Michael Moore's Revenge
As antiwar protests spread in California, the largest state in the Union becomes more and more politically irrelevant

“Irrelevant" and “unserious” - the new epithets of choice for the Right - repeat ad nauseum, always to the point of meaninglessness

2003-03-28T13:17:00.000-05:00

More good stuff from WaPo, this time some disturbing observations on how the President’s minders do their job, and his penchant for blaming the media for creating expectations of a quick victory. That’s simply dishonest, as Gen. Wallace’s quote’s illustrate. The man is a liar.

One adviser said Bush is irritated at the media for setting "phony expectations" about how quickly the U.S.-led forces would be able to subdue the Iraqi military and drive President Saddam Hussein from power.

I have often described the philosophy of the Right as “The Search for Enemies”, and this seems to bear that out. Sure, it was the media, on their own initiative and contrary to the narrative being supplied on background or with attribution, creating the expectation of sudden victory.

On the scale of missteps in the history of the Republic, this is pretty small, but lying about it only makes it larger. Seems to me that the President is somewhat hampered by his need to blame others. The Perle resignation looked like the first step to addressing errors. Maybe in private, but the public face of the Administration is to find a bogeyman.

The other point:

People close to Bush said his aides initially emphasized a hands-off approach because they wanted to insulate him from bad news and because they did not want him to appear obsessed with or emotional about the war. These aides quickly realized they had overdone it, potentially making Bush look out of touch. But his advisers have concluded that scripted remarks, rather than off-the-cuff comments, may be required in assuring that the message of the day gets delivered forcefully.

2003-03-28T13:12:00.000-05:00

WaPo continues the best reporting on the war with the interview of General William Wallace and other unsourced quotes

On the record
FORWARD OPERATING BASE SHELL, Iraq, March 27 -- The Army's senior ground commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. William S. Wallace, said today that overextended supply lines and a combative adversary using unconventional tactics have stalled the U.S. drive toward Baghdad and increased the likelihood of a longer war than many strategists had anticipated.
"The enemy we're fighting is different from the one we'd war-gamed against," Wallace, commander of V Corps, said during a visit to the 101st Airborne Division headquarters here in central Iraq.

A true understatement
The paramilitary forces, while recognized by planners, have demonstrated a willingness and ability to fight that has caught the Americans off-balance. "The theory was that they might not welcome us but that they wouldn't resist us," a senior officer said today. He later added, "I hope this is what's being cast in some quarters as the dying gasp of a regime on the ropes. But I'm not so sure."

A key node
A senior Army officer said the number of Iraqi combatants at Najaf, including those allegedly forced to take up arms, is estimated at 3,000 to 6,000. He added that Army strategists have concluded that "if you can't get Najaf to fall, you probably aren't going to go much farther."

2003-03-28T13:08:00.000-05:00

Of course, the bill to provide certain tax breaks for those who serve is admirable, though straight bonuses might be a more direct "Thank You"

Still, I can't help but think of some of the deranged supply-siders like Paul Craig Roberts (who incidentally opposes the War), Bill Archer or the Wall Street Journal editorial page, the locus of such nonsense, who are just looney enough to believe this will incrase military effectiveness. After all, the supply-side zealots truly believe that all human behavior in explained in terms of tax incentives, which is why one of many many epithets for this school of thought is that its actually supply side sociology/psychology, more the latter, since true supply side theory doesn't recognize the indivividual within a culture. In any event, a logical extension of this reasoning is that our soldiers will fight harder knowing that they have now been partially freed from the yoke of taxation oppression. Look for this argument in the Journal editoral page

2003-03-28T13:01:00.000-05:00

Jonathan Chait has great fun in a publicly available piece in TNR lampooning the utterly absurd justifications served up by the Administration for it’s irresponsible tax cut, especially the attempt to link the measure to military success. Through the Looking Glass, indeed

The larger idea, of course, is that wars require some measure of public sacrifice often tax increases and certainly not large tax cuts. The White House is trying to stamp out this disturbing outbreak of public-mindedness by making a fairly novel argument: It would be unpatriotic not to cut taxes. Wartime, according to this administration, demands that we put aside our partisan differences and unite behind the president so he can complete the crucial job of starving the government of the funds it needs to prosecute the war.

2003-03-28T12:57:00.000-05:00

TAP, which I rarely agree with, aptly frames perhaps the key policy issue facing us now

NEOCON NEONATAL. When people look back on why Bush decided to take us to war, it will probably all boil down to one question: How did neocons sell the president on their bold -- and likely wildly over-optimistic -- vision of an Iraq invasion transforming the Middle East? Prospect editor-at-large Harold Meyerson looks at that question in this piece from the LA Weekly

2003-03-28T12:56:00.000-05:00

Good stuff from an MSNBC reporter in Baghdad on Iraqi press practices in general and what occurred as the bombing started:

Baghdad has always been a strange place, but in Saddam Hussein’s last days, it got more surreal than ever. Ordinary Iraqis gave up pretending to have faith in their government and began talking, quietly at first, about how they really felt. At about 5:30 one morning at the Rasheed Hotel, I bumped into a floor attendant. “I’m so scared, so scared,” he whispered, wringing his hands. “Please help,” he said. “Please.” He was obviously looking for sympathy and a bit of easy cash. But he had good reason to be scared. The hotel’s multilevel basement, a labyrinth of VIP bunkers and tunnels that reportedly include a government command-and-control hub, could make the place a coalition target. (Actual slogan: “Al Rasheed—It’s More Than a Hotel.”)

Clever location by the Iraqis - placing bunkers beneath the press hotel

For hours after the bombing stopped, rumors ran wild. Some people said the airstrikes had hit the notorious interrogation center known as The Palace of the End, where the torture cells’ red-painted walls are said to be covered with graffiti scribbled by detainees who were taken there and never seen again. Other Iraqis later said coalition cruise missiles had struck the residences of three of Saddam Hussein’s relatives, along with a computer center run by his son Qusay.

The locals even know where the torture cells are, which is not usally the case in totalitarian societies, which either means the practice is more widespread than in other despotic regimes, or they're just less discreet

2003-03-27T18:17:00.000-05:00

Breaking News, from Drudge, as usual.

Richard Perle has resigned. This is huge. Perle has had some ethics problems which no doubt factored in, but he was also the prime progenitor of the "Iraqis will surrender en masse" startegy that looks utterly foolish right now

2003-03-26T17:50:00.000-05:00

More from Kevin Drum on the limitations of swagger as your sole foreign policy approach.

Are these guys ever going to learn? Don't they understand that publicly threatening people doesn't get them to back down, it just pisses them off? Hell, it didn't even work against Saddam Hussein, let alone the prime minister of Canada, who would be out of a job in a wink if he were seen as caving in to American pressure.

The fact is that threats and intimidation virtually never work. It didn't work against Saddam, it didn't work against the Turks, and it didn't work against France. It hasn't worked for either Israel or the Palestinians, although neither side has learned this lesson over the past half century. And it didn't work for Japan when they bombed Pearl Harbor

2003-03-26T17:48:00.000-05:00

God Bless

Moynihan passes away

Former Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a New York City shoe shine boy who became an iconoclastic scholar-politician and served four terms in the Senate, died Wednesday. He was 76.

2003-03-26T17:35:00.000-05:00

Kos also captures my thoughts here.

Reuters is reporting large-scale movement amongst Iraqi Republican Guards. Apparently a column 1,000-vehicle strong is moving out of Baghdad to confront US armored forces approaching the capital.

The Iraqis apparently feel emboldened by the massive sand storms buffeting Iraq. Good. They can be easily picked off in the open. It's true that helicopters are grounded because of the weather, but ground support aircraft can still operate freely.

And even without airpower US equipment far outclasses anything the Iraqis can muster against them.

The Iraqis have hailed the sandstorms as a sign from God. If it emboldens them to abandon their best recourse (defensive urban posturing) in favor of attacks in the open desert, then the storms may end up being a very early Christmas present for the US and its troops.

My question is - do the sandstorms ground the A-10s, with their fan engines? They are the most effective against armored columns. And do the Iraqi columns include mobile AA?

2003-03-26T17:31:00.000-05:00

Kos has the goods on the Administrations's overoptimism, no doubt driven by bad intelligence. The distance from the VP Cheney's comments in the linked transcript and reality is disturbing.

Then again, a contact that works for a Congressman with full clearance that got briefings says we're fine

2003-03-26T17:28:00.000-05:00

Did we get suckered?

First we had taken Basra - then Iraqi irregulars and Fedyaeen, using guerilla tactics, were harassing us and keeping us from asserting control. Then those irregulars were facing an uprising. Now an Iraqi mechanized division and brigade are encircling British troops and launching multiple offensives!

Iraqi South Command has decided to man a counteroffensive from Basra in a few directions. Goal: defeating and partly encircling UK forces southern Iraq, plus those around Basra, all the way down to the Iraqi maritime border in the Persian Gulf. Decision results: several attacks, March 26, via Basra. In earlier fighting, unidentified infantry units of Iraqi Army retook control over one of three Basra airports. Same time: the Iraqi 51st Mechanized Division (this division was supposed to have surrendered on first day of fighting) launched two bat-sized offensives on the UK positions near Az Zubayr. Main offensive came southeast of Basra, 25th Mech-Brigade of same division moved under cover of darkness in the direction of Al Faw attempting to join Iraqi forces there. Brigade inflicted an unknown number of losses on 3 Cmdo, Royal Marine at Abu Al Khasib then broke through. UK units called for air support, and Iraqi column is currently under massive bombardment. Al Jazeera TV also reports Iraqis are launching a major offensive in several directions all around Basra and having encircled some UK units. Will have more soon. Sorry it is so sketchy.

2003-03-25T14:10:00.000-05:00

A reader writes:
This post: has serious flaws in it's analysis, IMHO. Probably caused by too much reliance on Marshall's (intentionally?) blatant misread. Even the LA Times piece that he links to for his quote of Negroponte made this clear, but strangely enough he neglected the portions that disproved his take. For example: "The Bush administration says the resolution does not restrict it from launching military action, which it maintains is authorized under previous Security Council resolutions on Iraq. But it does commit it to a second round of U.N. deliberations on the question of whether and how to use force to enforce Iraqi disarmament."It does not handcuff the United States," said National Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack, "but it does provide an avenue for the Security Council to demonstrate its relevance.""

BTW, how often does Marshall use the LA Times as a source for a widely reported event? Could he have preferred that link to CNN's for some odd reason, like, perhaps, the fact that they, along with several other sources, also reported the following, including a more to the point Negroponte quote? "The Bush administration reiterated its position that although it would consult with the Security Council, it is not required to get U.N. approval for U.S.-led military action if Iraq fails to comply. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Negroponte said Iraq will be disarmed "one way or another." "If the Security Council fails to act decisively in the event of further Iraqi violations this resolution does not constrain any member state from acting to defend itself against the threat posed by Iraq or to enforce relevant United Nations resolutions and protect world peace and security," Negroponte said. "Hmm, it sounds like the Bush Admin has in fact been entirely consistent from the beginning. They did bow to international pressure enough to agree to a drawn out inspection process (one that Blix has just admitted was a failure). However, reading the rest of the Administration statements makes it clear exactly what that Negroponte quote meant, and it is CRYSTAL clear, that he did not mean it in the way that Marshall (and subsequently you) interpreted. The quote stated that there was no "automaticity", and that the UNSC would have an "opportunity to consider" the matter before the US took action on it's own. Clearly this was in fact the case. The price we paid for getting a unanimous vote was to introduce some (rather minor) ambiguity into the measure, and to delay any invasion to allow for a renewed inspection process. The inspections were only slightly problematic, though only in the remote event that Saddam actually followed through. They actually proved very helpful to us, by allowing us the unimpeded time to build up the necessary forces in the region. The French used the ambiguity to stab Powell (and us) in the back.

PS BTW, I don't blame Powell for the subsequent UN problems. I believe he simply made the mistake of relying on French promises/lies when we went there for 1441. I don't believe any face to face meetings would have changed a thing. The French will reap what they have sown.

Like Krugman, Marshall has a target on his chest, and he’s not even “shrill”. Seems to me there are various propositions at issue. The first is what the Administration meant when it signed onto 1441, the second is what 1441 means, the last is the larger significance of adherence to 1441. One at a time.

Think Marshall’s quote was well supportive of the proposition he was using it for, no more, which was though everyone signed off on 1441, there were different mental process going on in their minds even at that time. That’s significant, because the Administration has constantly suggested that the meaning was clear, and that those who disagree are going back on their word or showing a lack of will or some other failure of character. That seems overstatement at best, and Negroponte’s quote shows that other nations had reason to believe we would come back, notwithstanding previous statements to the contrary.

More significant is the context of the quotes - Negroponte’s statement is made “at the U.N.,” i.e., in front of the other members. The other qualifying statements appear to be made after the vote. As matter of legal analysis, divining “legislative intent”, that’s more probative of the meaning of the resolution then being passed than quotes offered after the vote was in. Whatever the U.S. was privately thinking, or saying on background in the press, or even publicly in other fora, Negroponte’s statements before the body evidence that the U.S. at least led other members to believe it was buying into the process to some degree.

That’s not that significant in the larger picture (unless you believe Beinart, noted below) - one would have to be unconscious for months to be unaware that there a substantial part of the Administration that wanted to proceed regardless of what the UNSC did, and likely would. As noted in my original post there are “two Bush Administrations on every foreign policy issue”, which is consistently problematic for our allies, but that’s another issue. The problem is when we say our allies are plainly deviating from 1441, and that 1441 never required another resolution and therefore grants the US “authority”, whatever that means, to proceed. Maybe, but it’s certainly not that clear, and certainly not clear enough to make the statements we have.

Some other pieces that suggest that at least one of the Bush Administrations was of the mind that a second resolution was necessary as a function of the resolution’s language, but that we reserved the right to go outside if we deemed the other UNSC members to be acting in bad faith, which makes it perfectly clear ;>

Wash Times Mr. Powell also said the plan, which was first outlined by French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, could result in the United States pursuing military action without any further U.N. backing.

"If the U.N. does not face up to its responsibilities as clearly laid out in Resolution 1441, then it would be necessary for the United States to act with a willing coalition," he said on NBC.

Mr. Powell said the United States and its allies on the Security Council have begun drafting a second resolution, which would trigger the "serious consequences" threat. But he declined to say when such a resolution might be presented to the Security Council.

And just to make things clearer:

•• BLAIR IN MIDAIR: On an airplane over the Atlantic Ocean as he returned from a one-day visit to Washington, British Prime Minister Tony Blair told reporters, "I believe we will get a second [U.N.] resolution. It's important that this be resolved as soon as possible. The U.S. has always believed that the current Resolution 1441 provides sufficient authority [to use force against Iraq], but 1441 also clearly implies further discussion

To the second issue - does 1441, by its text, require another vote? Harder to say without a background in International Law, but this piece seems at least ambivalent on the issue

The Consequences of Material Breach, According to the Resolution
Resolution 1441 appears to speak out of both sides of its mouth because it is a compromise document. It was the result of protracted negotiations between, on the one hand, the United States and the United Kingdom, and on the other hand, other permanent members of the Security Council such as France and Russia.
Accordingly, Resolution 1441 may be seen as striking the following deal: The U.S. and U.K. agreed that before going to war against Iraq, they will return to the Security Council for a determination by that body of whether Iraq is in material breach. Meanwhile, the other Security Council members agreed that if a material breach is found, they will authorize military action to oust Saddam Hussein from power.

Another piece that provides context, and suggests that a second resolution was necessary to effectuate UN authorization, from a source that should provide more comfort from the LA Times, another on the list of “librul” bogeymen.

3. U.N. SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 1441
U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, passed on November 8 by a 15-0 vote, marks a sharp diplomatic setback for the U.S. At the outset the U.S. had insisted on a single resolution authorizing U.N. member states —— not the Security Council itself —— to determine whether or not Iraq had committed a further "material breach" of its disarmament obligations, the legal predicate or trigger for the use of military force ("all necessary means" in diplomatic parlance).
Resolution 1441 falls well short in every respect. First, it's unclear exactly who has authority to determine a material breach. Second, a false or misleading inventory of banned weapons (due by December 8) by itself does not amount to a material breach; some further Iraqi noncompliance or noncooperation is also required to reach that threshold. Third, any Iraqi noncompliance or interference with inspections merely triggers another Security Council meeting, not military action.

FWIW, the plain language of 1441 seems to me to state that only the UNSC can find breach and authorize enforcement. As to the larger significance of that conclusion, if accurate, I was not particularly concerned, until I read Beinart, which articulated something I intuited but couldn't reason through.

2003-03-25T14:08:00.000-05:00

Josh Marshall has great stuff today - he’s in his element as an intelligent foreign policy analyst. First, bullying as your sole foreign policy tactic has limitations. Second, more on Perle’s incredible optimism, if that’s the right word. It really seems he has given little thought to the possibility that they’re won’t be mass surrenders. In this piece, he disclaims any strategic role in planning for such things, though that claim is inconsistent with other accounts Finally, I agree that this is a fair summary of events to date. Yesterday, emotions ruled the day.

2003-03-25T13:32:00.000-05:00

More mediocre minds think alike, in rapid time to Josh Marshall's post only an hour earlier, which escaped notice earlier

That debate is now coming back with a vengeance as a lot of retired Army commanders are coming forward with a big "I told you so."

2003-03-25T12:06:00.000-05:00

Talk about being unclear on the concept.

This Conservative Catholic would benefit from reading Christ’s reply to “who is my neighbor, not to mention the woman at the well.

John Allen reports.

From a certain point of view, one could say that the papal appeal fell on deaf ears. Yet John Paul has always been addressing multiple audiences, one of which is the Islamic street. His last-ditch appeals have been, in part, designed to hammer home the point that this war is being waged by George Bush and Tony Blair, not by Western Christianity. A less overt, but equally compelling, aim is to protect Christians scattered across the Islamic world. Some Catholics, especially those sympathetic to the Bush administration on the war, wish the pope would premise his opposition more straightforwardly on the fate of Christian minorities. ““If the pope were to say that an attack by Western countries on Iraq would not augur well for Christians in that country, everyone would (at the least) appreciate the good sense of his position,”” American Catholic conservative Tom Bethell recently wrote in his column for Beliefnet. ““But here, as so often in his papacy, the pope seems to subordinate the welfare of the church he presides over to the promotion of a woolly theistic humanism. It is the whole world that he is concerned with, not these merely parochial concerns. All too often, he sounds as though he would rather be, instead of pope, a one-man United Nations, filled with caring for the material welfare of all the people in this world,”” Bethell wrote.