Whatever Happened To . . .

Douglas E. Lute? Who, you ask? He is our War Czar. Did you forget we have a war czar? I almost did.

What brought him to mind today? Absolutely nothing. Somewhere in the deepest, darkest, alcoves of my wandering mind, I just remembered we have a war czar. Do you think he gets angry when General Petraeus gets all the credit (if credit is due)?

AAAAARRRRGGGGHHHHH!

There is nothing more annoying to a novice and unknown blogger than having your great idea independently spewed forth by a well-known blogger, and having him get recognition for it.

Another Reason Iran Might Have Dropped Its Nuclear Weapons Program

Well, this is familiar. The President claims a middle-eastern country has a WMD program, and then it turns out it doesn't. but the President keeps talking tough. Iraq? Yes, but it is not alone anymore. Now there is Iran. There are two questions that the new National Intelligence Estimate ("NIE")raises. First, when did the President know that his own intelligence community did not think Iran was engaged in constructing a nuclear weapon. Could it be when he said

I believe they want to have the capacity, the knowledge, in order to make a nuclear weapon…So I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.

Look at the weasel words in that: "capacity", and "knowledge". The President denies he knew about the NIE conclusions when he said it. I'll let you reach your own conclusions.

The other question be bandied about is why did Iran cease its nuclear program in the fall of 2003. So far I have heard three theories. One is that the Iranians got scared by the invasion of Iraq and therefore, ceased its program. Another theory is that Iran was responding to international pressure (that seems to be the one adopted by the NIE). The third, what I call the NeoCon Wishful Thought, is that the NIE is wrong and Iran is still trying to make nuclear weapons.

But there is a fourth possibility. Before the invasion of Iraq, there were two huge military presences in the Middle East that were both seeking dominance in the region - Iran and Iraq. The only way for Iran to equal Iraq's threatened or actual nuclear program was a program of its own. After the Iraqi army was decimated by the U.S. invasion, and it became more clear there were no WMDs, Iran no longer had to engage in a financially costly and internationally reviled program to be the biggest guy on the block. Sure, the US was still there, but by the fall of 2003 it was becoming clear that the US might be the military threat to Iran it might have thought earlier because of the Iraqi insurgency. (This would especially be true if Iran was aiding the insurgency). And anyway, even Iran realizes that even with nuclear weapons, it cannot equal US power. So, Iran recognizes that the geopolitical advantages of a nuclear program have disappeared, and stops its program. In other words, prior to the invasion there was a military balance of power in the region. After the invasion, Iran was the only local power remaining, and a nuclear program was useless.

In short, President Bush created the conventional monster of an unopposed Iran by invading Iraq, but might have destroyed a potentially nuclear Iran that was subject to the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction. Which is better? Don't know.

Karl Rove Must Have Been a D Student

Just when I thought Math (see 6th, 7th, and 8th answers) was Karl Rove's worst subject, it turns out it was history.

Petraeus and Recent Events

Check out Phillipe Duhart's find over at Who Are You to Accuse Me. He discovers that General Petraeus' claim that the Shiite Government is happily backing the training of Sunni police is a bunch of crap. Phillipe asks if Petraeus is an incompetent or an adminstration shill (not mututally exclusive - see Alberto Gonzalez, Michael Brown, etc.). I certainly tend to believe the latter.

Also, over the weekend, Petraeus found a new reason we're going to have to stay in Iraq:

As the terrible extremist threat of al-Qaida has been reduced somewhat, there is in some Iraqi neighborhoods actually a focus on crime and on extortion that has been ongoing and kidnapping cells and what is almost a mafia-like presence in certain areas.

One might think that this new threat is an internal police matter. But given what Phillipe mentioned, the United States is what keeps the Iraqi police an even potentially effective force. So we'll have to stay to stop the "mafia-like presence." How? I have no clue, and I suspect neither does Petraeus or Bush.

General Mood

Well, my Red Sox are up 2-0 on the Rockies. If Joe Torre is the greatest manager ever because he won four series in five years seven years ago, I guess Terry Francona will be the second greatest if the Sox win two in four years.

Anyway, I should be happy. But, I'm a tad cranky. I think I've been watching too much Fox News. I just feel that the political dialogue of this country is so skewed. For example, On the O'Reilly Factor last night, Bill complained that George Carlin, while on the View, blamed some of the people in Southern California for their plight. O'Reilly was outraged that no one challenged Carlin. Does O'Reilly not know that Carlin is a comedian appearing on an entertainment show?

And then I hear that President Bush is gaining political capital because of his visit to Southern California. Why? Because he didn't screw up like he did with Katrina? If I go to San Diego this week, can I be President too?

And we seem to have forgotten about Iraq. Apparently, very few American Solders are dying this month - so we must be succeeding. If that's the metric, I know how to have no American casualties. Get the soldiers the hell out of there. Oh, and by the way, any oil law, constitutional reforms, or amnesty yet? Where is that reconciliation we were promised? I guess it will come after the civil war ends in about ten or a thousand years.

Republicans, Children, and Macro Thinking

I am reminded of a time many years ago when I was still in High School and my parents had gone to visit my older sister at college (not Annie). I got a call from the Electric Company saying that unless we paid the bill by the end of the day, we would be cut off from the grid. I informed the caller that I was a minor whose parents were out of town, and asked who the Electric Company wanted to punish by shutting off the electricity. Because if the company intended to cause my parents to suffer, it was failing desperately as they were out of town. After some discussion with a supervisor, I received a temporary reprieve until the day my parents returned.

What reminds me of that story? The Republicans attitude towards children. Consider, for example, the S-CHIP debate. As I have noted before, some parents might not enroll their children in an insurance program because of cost. SCHIP can be used to create an incentive to financially reluctant parents to get their children insurance. The Right Wingers oppose this concept, as David Fredosso said to me, "health care is a private choice." But, like the Electric Company in Vermont, Fredosso would keep insurance from children because their parents are screwing up.

Similarly, consider the current movements in many areas to take away benefits from illegal immigrants, including some that benefit the children of illegal immigrants. For example, Prince William County in Virginia has chosen to deny housing assistance to illegal immigrants. Who gets hurt by this? Certainly the adult illegal immigrants do. But so do their children. Why do we punish the kids for the behavior of the parents?

I think the difference between my thinking and that of the Right Wing on these issues comes from the Right Wing's macro way of looking at things, while I consider things from a more individual way. Just like the Right Wing thinks our economic problems are solved if the GDP rises regardless of individual problems, it tries to solve other problems in easily measurable ways where a a more appropriate response might be difficult to implement and measure. Illegal Immigration? Cut all benefits. Some middle class parents shouldn't get SCHIP? Don't give it to any middle class parents. They don't seem to care who gets hurt, as long as it might solve whatever problem they perceive.

This might explain the Iraq war actually. The bluntest of instruments is a war; and the most subtle is diplomacy. Will people get hurt if we invade? Sure, but who cares. Its the price we pay for the easiest of answers to our problems.

How Bad Is Bush?

This article in the New Republic is a wonderful primer on how incredibly bad a President our current one is. The scariest part, if you ask me, is the section on the "rebuilding" of Afghanistan. This I did not know or had forgotten:

based apparently on its aversion to allies, the administration blocked any non-U.S. troops from deploying outside Kabul for the first two years of the occupation. Not only were we unwilling to police Afghanistan; we weren't going to let anyone else do it, either. The absence of Western boots on the ground meant that responsibility for security was often entrusted to local warlords--whose increased clout, in turn, slowed the formation of a real Afghan national army.

Peter Bergen, the author of the piece, then compares Iraq of late 2003 with Afghanistan of now, and finds them to be eerily similar:

today, Afghanistan resembles nothing so much as Iraq in the fall of 2003, when the descent into chaos began. In 2006, IED attacks doubled, assaults on international forces tripled, and suicide bombings quintupled. In fact, last year saw the highest number of U.S. military and nato casualties since the fall of the Taliban. And 2007 is shaping up to be even worse, with suicide bombings up 69 percent from last year.

Read the piece. Your skin will crawl, and if you weren't angry before, you will be now.

Civilian Contractors In Iraq

My problem with Blackwater and other civilian contractors performing quasi-military services in Iraq is not only the apparent lack of accountability for those contractors. I also worry about the responsibility the U.S. military, and the American public, might feel for the contractors. Lest we forget, in March 2004, four Blackwater contractors were killed in Fallujah. In response, the military began "Operation Vigilant Resolve" after President Bush was quoted as saying he wanted "heads to roll" for the slaying of the contractors. Operation Vigilant Resolve was a disaster. Pat Buchanan called the siege of Fallujah the "High Tide" of the American Empire. In essence, we took a major military defeat because the President felt a necessity to take military action in response to civilian casualties; even though those casualties were contractors performing military actions. I do not think the reaction to the deaths would have been so drastic if four Marines had been killed. This is war and we expect soldiers to be killed in war - but not civilians. Unless we can be certain that the military and the public will view contractors such as Blackwater as no more than tools for the war, and not civilians to be protected or avenged, we should not have them there.

A War Tax's Possible Unintended Consequence

House Appropriations Committee Chair, David Obey, is offering a bill for a War Tax. Obviously, he thinks such a tax would pressure lawmakers to get out of Iraq quickly because of pressure from their constituents. But I think there might be a different, unhappy result of a War Tax.

I think one of the reasons Bush has lost support for the Iraq War is that he told us early and often that he would handle it and we did not have to worry. Americans tend to believe that if something is important, it will cost them a lot. By saying we did not have to sacrifice, Bush was saying the Iraq War was not really that important. His poll numbers are so low because the American people don't understand why he is so stubbornly remaining in what is clearly not such a big deal.

If a War Tax passed, perhaps Americans would start to feel as if the Iraq War was actually worth fighting. If we have to pay for it out of our own pockets (and not our children's) it must be important.

Chechnya In Iraq

Phillipe Duhart at Who Are You To Accuse Me has a scary idea. I can't be sure how serious he is that we should use Russia's model in Chechnya as our guide in Iraq, but I think he is making the Mother of Understatements when he says: This might offend our liberal sensitivities. Ya think?

Rudy and Guns

I know I'm a little late on this one (boy, the blogosphere moves fast), but is anyone taking Giuliani's claim reagrding gun rights seriously? He said:

I also think that there are some major intervening events — September 11, which cast somewhat of a different light on the Second Amendment, doesn’t change it fundamentally but perhaps highlights the necessity of it.

That's just ridiculous. Does he think some pistol packing citizen would have shot down the planes on 9/11? Or does he think that we should be permitted to carry heat on airplanes to stop terrorists?

How exactly does 9/11 change one's view of the 2d Amendment? It is scary to think that a potential president thinks there are significant parallels between national defense and self defense. If I believe my neighbor is building up a collection of guns, should I be able to invade his house, occupy it, and instill my personal values on him and his family? Especially if I've asked him to destroy those guns on a number of occasions? In Rudy's world, why not?

Ahmadinejad, Ground Zero, and Iraq

I agree with everything Mahablog says about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's proposed visit to Ground Zero and Columbia. Just one other thing I want to mention. Ahmadinejad's request has allowed the Bush administration to once again link 9/11 and Iraq. See, we can't have Ahmadinejad visit Ground Zero becasue he is fighting us in Iraq. Obviously, if he understood the magnitude of 9/11, he wouldn't be fighting us in Iraq.

You can argue that Ahmadinejad should not be allowed in the US because he is complicit in the killing of Americans in Iraq. But once you let him in, his actions in Iraq have no connection to Ground Zero and 9/11.

Sunnis vs. Iran and Iraq

Andrew Sullivan has a very good post suggesting that Bush and Cheney are preparing for a potential invasion of Iran. He says:

It's back to the 1980s. Instead of backing Saddam against Iran, we're now in danger of backing the Iraqi Sunnis, in league with Egypt and Saudi Arabia ... against Iran.

I have one addition to Andrew's post. It should read:

It's back to the 1980s. Instead of backing Saddam against Iran, we're now in danger of backing the Iraqi Sunnis, in league with Egypt and Saudi Arabia ... against Iran

and Iraq. We are arming the very people who will, as Andrew points out earlier in the post, fight the Shia Iraqi majority as soon as we leave. So, while Andrew is correct that Cheney is always looking for new ways to screw up the Middle East - it is even worse than Andrew concludes.

Brooks and Gates

I've been listening to today's Pentagon Briefing on CSpan. The issue of David Brooks' interview of Defense Secretary Gates was discussed. The critical quote in the Brooks' column was

I asked him whether invading Iraq was a good idea, knowing what we know now. He looked at me for a bit and said, “I don’t know.”

When pressed as to whether that meant Gates thought it was a mistake to invade Iraq, the spokesman said that Gates did not mean he thought getting rid of Saddam Hussein was a bad idea, but that, knowing what he knows now, would he have done everything the same way, the answer was he does not know.

What an amazing statement! Assuming the invasion of Iraq was appropriate, how can he not know if he would have handled the aftermath differently. It is genrally accepted that the occupation of Iraq has been a disaster. The answer to "would you have done something differently" has to be a resounding yes. To say "I don't know" is either a lie to protect the President's precious little insular world, or incompetence. I think Brooks should have asked Secretary Gates which it was.

White House Assesment of the Surge

I just wanted to suggest that everyone read the White House Benchmark Assessment report. Everyone has been so obsessed by the Petraeus/Crocker testimony, that we seem to have missed the administration's own words regarding the Surge. I hope to have more to say later, but I just wanted to make a couple of general points. Just as in the Initial Benchmark Assessment report from July, even where the administration has determined that there has not been sufficient progress, no changes to strategy have been recommended. See for example the discussions of the oil law and provincial elections on pages 13 and 15. Also, there are a couple of benchmarks in the new report for which the only progress mentioned pre-dates the initial report - not exactly a continuation of success. I am also intrigued by the two benchmarks (amnesty and disarming militias) which the administration claims cannot be assessed becasue "preconditions" for achieving those benchmarks have not been met. (pages 15-16). Isn't that just a way of saying no progress has been made? Surely, progress towards the "preconditions" is progress towards the benchmarks. Finally, for now, note that all of a sudden we are presented with a new strategy - "bottom-up" reconciliation. Until it was clear that we had no real success on the "top-down" reconciliation front, we never heard anything about this "bottom-up" idea. Do you think it may be a desparate attempt by a lame-duck President to justify the only remaining policy of his that anyone gives a damn about? Just a thought.