bustardblog

The War's Killing Fields

Rodman & Shawcross have a compelling, horrifying op-ed in today's New York Times. (h/t memeorandum) They describe the slaughter of millions that occurred after we left Viet Nam, and offer some persuasive arguments as to how the aftermath of our "defeat" in Iraq might be even more deadly. What they do not offer is a plan for victory.

We've been in Iraq longer than we were in WWII.  Close to 33,500 U.S. Soldiers are dead. The cost of the war is somewhere between 450 Billion and 1 Trillion Dollars. Extrapolating from the Lancet figures, there would be about 760,000 Iraqi dead as of June 1. 

It's easy to predict the horrors that will occur if we are "defeated," just as it was easy for many of us in 2003 to predict that our invasion would put us precisely in the disastrous situation that we are now in. There were plenty of assessments, assessments which

"spoke directly to the instability, conflict, and black hole for blood and treasure that over the past four years we have come to know as Iraq."

What is difficult, seemingly impossible, is to devise a plan that leads to a victory.  Despite all the vicious protestations and assaults on the patriotism of war opponents, in fact this Administration has been given a completely free hand in its handling of Iraq.  The singular  positive result of this administration's strategy has been the removal of Saddam.  By every other indicator, this war has made life worse for Iraqi people, and has made terrorist attacks against us more likely.

During the run-up to the war, and throughout the war itself, this administration has displayed an utter contempt for the truth. Add this to its disdain for diplomacy, and any possibility of finding a path to victory are destroyed.

Rodman and Shawcross are right that the future for the region is incredibly bleak as the result of our invasion of Iraq.  Again today, Iraqi Kurds killed a few Turkish police, and the Turks are poised for massive retaliation.  At least one U.S. soldier and one Brit were killed. Dozens of Iraqis killed in Baghdad.  But the authors are more than four years too late in sounding the alarm.

Refusing to wake up will not end the nightmare.

(By the wary, haven't we been hearing for four years from supporters of the War that it is lunacy to compare Iraq with Viet Nam?)

Blair, Broder, Bush: Not Brave.

I've never really understood why some of my favorite bloggers, ones like Atrios, get so incensed by David Broder. Their frustration is palpable.

Today I understand - I actually read one of his columns. I suspect that what's so infuriating about Broder is not just his smug pomposity, but also his ability to be wrong on so many levels simultaneously. Those like Michelle Malkin, or her mentor Ann Coulter, are always single note writers. There are no chords in their work. So it's all the more infuriating that he has some ability, yet chooses only to write dissonant chords.

Today he Wrote of Bush and Blair, calling them "two wounded warriors."  A military theme dominates the piece: they "tried to shield each other from the slings and arrows of two nations' reporters;" they are " stripped of political protection by their woeful domestic approval scores;" and  the attacks of 7/7 on London and of 9/11 on New York "armed both men with a conviction that... the terrorist threat from radical Islamists is one that must be resisted at all costs."  Broder goes on to uncritically quote Blair: "what we are fighting, the enemy we are fighting, is an enemy aiming its destruction at our way of life....And this is a flight that we cannot afford to lose. " Not only uncritical, Broder called them "brave words", and suggested that when Bush responded by praising Blair for his courage, Bush "spoke from his heart."

It gets worse as Broder mentions the "awful price" Blair has paid, and expresses his sympathy for Bush's having had to endure a questioner "who was rude enough to point out" that the leader of the Conservative opposition in England "finds it advisable to avoid even meeting Bush."

Blair, Broder implies, is being forced out of office by a lack of support within his own party. While noting that our system would not allow a similar fate for Bush, he does regret that Bush "can be humiliated daily  - not only by his political adversaries but also by the incompetence of his own employees."

Broder's conclusion is that "both of them saw the threat to the West posed by terrorism and responded courageously," even if their own policies and conduct precluded success.

With all due respect to Mr. Broder, this is not St Crispin's day. It was a press conference. In the Rose Garden.

Neither Bush nor Blair are warriors, let alone wounded ones. As McCain pointed out last  week, actual warriors do not support torture. And just how has either one of them been wounded?

No one has "stripped" them of their arms: their "approval scores" are what they have earned; the humiliation they've endured because of the "incompetence" of their employees is the result of choices they themselves have made.

Sorry Mr Broder, there's been no courage on display.  Especially if you subscribe to the Blair/Broder/Bush  argument that our way of life in on the eve of destruction, you must condemn the cowardice of all three of them.   Blair is the longest serving P.M. in British history. He has chosen not to fight to continue in his job and is instead ceding it to a man who he knows will begin removing British troops from Iraq as soon as he can. What bravery is here? During WWII, would Churchill have decided that it was time for him to go, and then turn over his post to a Hitler appeaser?

Aside from subjecting himself to a "rude" reporter asking why the Conservative leader in England did not want to be seen with him, I see no courage on Bush's part.  He risks none of his own treasure, nor the blood of any who really matter to him. Rather than confronting and dealing with the disaster that he has created, he clearly intends to leave it to his successor.

The problem with Broder is that he acts as if he has written a great new symphony, when in fact he's just a two year old banging away at the piano.

(h/t the memeorandum )

The Sun Also Lies

The way that the right uses the military, distorting at will the meaning of patriotism and service to one's country, is pretty despicable in my eyes, and how anyone proud of their service can support them baffles me.

Take for example the recent column by David Broder, attacking Senator Harry Reid of Nevada. The N.Y Sun, a newspaper that they'll deliver daily to your door for free, if you'll let them, has an editorial supporting Broder's piece today.  Its title, "Mr. Broder Goes to Washington, should give you a real heads up as to the level of intelligence driving the editorial. Borrowing from the Capra  movie involving a Mr. Smith, the title implies naive innocence. Actually, 'Mr. Broder Went to Washington' in 1955, when he started writing for the Congressional Quarterly: hardly a rube.

In response to reports that Sen. Reid declared the war in Iraq lost, Broder asserts that there is "a long list of senators of both parties" who would like Reid's reign to come to an end. But in fact all fifty Democratic senators sent an immediate reply to Broder, saying that his assertion was absolutely untrue. Even though it was unequivocably demonstrated to be false by the Democratic caucus of the United States Senate, Broder's piece was praised in today's Sun, which went on to condemn Frank Rich for characterizing  Reid's assessment as obvious. Forgetting the fact that the same assessment was made by leftists like William F. Buckley and Henry Kissinger, the Sun's assertion that the "episode illuminates how thin-skinned and intolerant the left is in this country" can only be considered a crock.

Borrowing from Capra is not enough for the Sun, it also must borrow from Pastor Niemolloer's homily about Nazis and the Holocaust.

"First they came for Fox News Channel, then they came for David Broder."

Holocaust survivors around the world must be delighted to have their suffering compared to Rupert Murdoch's.

Still worse is the closing paragraph in The Sun editorial:

One starts to get the feeling here that some of the divides in the rift between Mr. Broder and the Democratic caucus are not so much political but cultural. The chairman of the Washington Post Company, Donald Graham, served in Vietnam, and Mr. Broder himself is an army veteran. The notion of a Washington politician declaring a war lost even as American GIs are appearing in arms on the field of battle in the cause of freedom abroad, well it has a way of grating on those who have worn the uniform, a fact that many of Mr. Broder's readers, if not the 50 senators, understand.

Wow.  Even though almost 20% * of those senators are also vets;  even though Donald Graham's service in Viet Nam was honorable - and virtually identical to Al Gore's, both  as journalists; and even though David Broder's service during the Korean War was to endure  being stationed in Europe; the Sun impugns a guy like Sen Jim Webb**.

If I'm going to have a smear delivered to my doorstep each morning, I'd much rather it be enveloped in a bagel; Hold The New York Sun.

* Carper, Webb, Kerry, Kennedy, Reed, Harkin, Inouye, Lautenber, Akaka
** Webb: rifle platoon and company commander with the Fifth Marine Regiment in the An Hoa Basin west of Danang; was awarded the Navy Cross, the Silver Star Medal, two Bronze Star Medals, and two Purple Hearts.  If you need to disagree with Webb's assessment of Reid's comments, OK;  but do you  have to suggest cultural  issues between him and 'Vets' like Broder and Graham?

(A salt bagel would be just fine. Thank you.)

Tenet, Gonzales, Brownie, etc etc

It seems Mr Tenet is not so popular with his former employees.

CNN :

In a letter written Saturday to former CIA Director George Tenet, six former CIA officers described their former boss as "the Alberto Gonzales of the intelligence community," and called his book "an admission of failed leadership."

"You were not a victim. You were a willing participant in a poorly considered policy to start an unnecessary war and you share culpability with Dick Cheney and George Bush for the debacle in Iraq."

Another story from CNN

In the fall of 2002, he was told specifically that there was a high level source in Saddam's government that was saying, 'We don't have WMD,' " Johnson said. "George Tenet's hands are just as bloody as everybody else in this administration in helping gin up what was an unfounded case for war."

Johnson is a registered Republican who voted for Bush in 2000.

Rich on Bush

True, I've marveled and been impressed at the hoops through which the pundit class has learned to pass in order to avoid the "L" word when describing the deceitfulness of this administration.

But today I confess my absolute delight at Frank Rich, in today's N.Y. Times:

"President Bush threw any remaining caution to the winds during his news conference on the Rose Garden that same morning. Almost everything he said was patently misleading or an outright lie.

Lie. As in Lying Liars. Their only hope for holding onto their 28% is to deceive them.

Rich's apt use of the word is cleansing. 

 

Stupid England, Bloody Stupid

While bloggers like Captains Quarters and Riehl World View choose to focus on the weakness shown by our allies in the Britain/Iran imbroglio (although I thought that describing how weak our team is only gave aid and comfort to the enemy), I am more concerned by the apparent stupidity displayed by the Brits.

Their confident self-righteousness oozing forth,  those who support confrontation insist that the British ship was 1.7 nautical miles inside Iraqi waters.  They argue that a 1976 treaty signed by the Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein clearly defines the maritime border. Even I know that there is nothing in that part of the world that is "clearly defined." After the Iranian revolution in 1979, it was pretty obvious that Khomeni did not feel a whole lot of obligation to abide by agreements signed by the Shah - especially ones with Iraq, who in 1980 invaded Iran. This war cost Iran an estimated one million casualties. Border disputes were cited as it's cause.

It just seems pretty damned stupid to me to fool around within a couple of miles of some technical border that exists on paper only, especially when you're talking about Iraq and Iran.

But it may even be stupider than that. Read this:

Former Head of the Maritime Section at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Craig Murray, has written that an agreed Iran/Iraq maritime boundary, as shown on the British government provided map, does not exist. He also noted that the location of the incident given by the Ministry of Defence is closer to Iranian than Iraqi land."

And this:

Richard Schofield, an expert in international boundaries at King's College London, stated "Iran and Iraq have never agreed to a boundary of their territorial waters. There is no legal definition of the boundary beyond the Shatt al-Arab.

When I opened by commenting on some of wingnuttia's talk of the weakness of our allies, I wasn't just speaking of the Britain is Toast argument of Dan Riehl. The entire European Union is being described as weak and dysfunctional because it is not immediately ready to declare war. It's a bit unfair to blame the E.U. for the mess  Britain got itself into, when they so clearly warned the U.K. that it was only going to get itself into a mess.

The [European] Council simply expressed its "grave concern" and generally weakened the strong message the British wanted. Perhaps memories on the Council of the invasion of Iraq (without which the naval party would not of course have been there) played a part here. (emphasis added) (link)

Following our lead, Britain has been behaving stupidly in the Middle East, and the repercussions it is now experiencing were only to be expected.

 

Tal Afar

In April, 2006, the New Yorker published a piece by George Packer, in which he quoted Bush:

Last month, in a speech in Cleveland, President Bush hailed the achievement in Tal Afar as evidence that Iraq is progressing toward a stable future. “Tal Afar shows that when Iraqis can count on a basic level of safety and security, they can live together peacefully,” he said. “The people of Tal Afar have shown why spreading liberty and democracy is at the heart of our strategy to defeat the terrorists.”

Yesterday in Tal Afar:

In Tuesday’s truck bombings in Tal Afar, one suicide bomber lured victims to buy wheat loaded on his truck in a Shiite neighborhood. A second truck bomb exploded in a used car lot. The attacks killed 63 people and wounded more than 150.

Early Wednesday

Meantime, police and hospital officials said off-duty Shiite policemen enraged by massive bombings in the northern town of Tal Afar went on a revenge spree against Sunni residents there on Wednesday, killing at least 45 men.

(More than just a h/t to Rising Hegemon = This is really just a shorter version)

Bet on Soros

AIPAC is having a bad week. Sort of.

George Soros' piece on the lobbying group is accurately devastating. (He must have been reading some of my recent posts!) He begins his piece:

The Bush administration is once again in the process of committing a major policy blunder in the Middle East, one that is liable to have disastrous consequences and is not receiving the attention it should. This time it concerns the Israeli–Palestinian relationship.

Soros continues with a detailed analysis of the recent foreign policy blunders by both the U.S. and of Israel.  He clearly demonstrates the damage such mistakes has done - with the result being a more fragile, less secure future for Israel than ever.

The current policy is not even questioned in the United States. While other problem areas of the Middle East are freely discussed, criticism of our policies toward Israel is very muted indeed. ... This is all the more remarkable because Palestine is the issue that more than any other currently divides the United States from Europe. ..

One explanation is to be found in the pervasive influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which strongly affects both the Democratic and the Republican parties.

Like Kristof in his recent op-ed, Soros underscores how dangerous the lack of debate has become for Israel, and then asks:

How did Israel become so endangered? I cannot exempt AIPAC from its share of the responsibility.. While the other architects of the Bush administration's failed policies have been relentlessly exposed, AIPAC continues to be surrounded by a wall of silence...

One reason, he believes, is because just as an American who criticizes the decision to invade Iraq is called anti-patriotic, so too is one who criticizes Israel is called anti Israel or anti-Semitic.

Soros concludes with what might seem to be an obvious, uncontroversial solution: that thoughtful, liberal American Jews must find a way to restrain and rebuild AIPAC.

Thus in the last couple of days there have two very critical, prominent pieces strongly critical of AIPAC. The reason that this can only be called a "sort of" bad week for AIPAC has been the quiet reaction to these pieces, which can only be called muted, or perhaps muzzled.

Kristof's piece in the Times seems to have created a somewhat bigger stir. There were lots of comments on his blog, and today's paper printed four letters to the editor.  (If you need to understand how AIPAC does it, be sure to read the accidentally honest fourth letter, where the method for dealing with those who are critical of Israel is detailed: "Most of those political figures who have used such language...backtracked once reminded, by the force of public condemnation, that such comparisons are unacceptable."

Memeorandum's link to Soros' piece had only two links. One agreed with Soros' analysis, but was angry that he was not going to play the knight on a white horse and solve the problem himself. (Soros' contention that he is "not sufficiently engaged in Jewish affairs to be involved in the reform of AIPAC" works for me.) The other link contained an entirely predictable attack, with all the requisite ranting comments, on what an evil, utter fool Soros is.  It's really an awful post - first outlining horrible crimes committed by Palestinians, as if this were an argument against trying to find a path to peace. Proof for her is the Palestinian attempt to rearm, because "A group intent on a peace agreement has no need to arm itself and train its troops." She never responds to a single of Soros' argument.

The relative silence in response to these two pieces (and of course my blog posts) is curious.Is it a sign that criticizing AIPAC, and Israeli policies, are now acceptable parts of our common discussion?  Or is it a sign of just how powerful AIPAC is? 

Perverted Anniversaries

A piece from Anothy Arnove, is to be found by scrolling down through a great article which I got to thanks to the guidance of Juan Cole, sums up the perversity of how both the  "left" and the right discuss Iraq:

In a much-lauded speech to the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Sen. Barack Obama couched his criticism of Bush administration policy in a call for "no more coddling" of the Iraqi government: The United States, he insisted, "is not going to hold together this country indefinitely." Richard Perle, one of the neoconservative architects of the invasion of Iraq, now says he "underestimated the depravity" of the Iraqis. Sen. Hillary Clinton, Democratic frontrunner in the 2008 presidential election, recently asked, "How much are we willing to sacrifice [for the Iraqis]?" As if the Iraqis asked us to invade their country and make their world a living hell and are now letting us down.

There is also real depravity in the comfort we take in the "We're fighting them over there, so we don't have to fight them over here" argument.  Iraq never, ever was a threat to the U.S.  It harbored no terrorists who threatened the U.S.  Neither its government, nor a single individual Iraqi - committed a terrorist act against the U.S.

As Arnove pointed out, approximately  650,000 Iraqis are dead, and millions rendered refugees, because we invaded their country.  It's their fault.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, according to the 9/11 Commission Report:

. Indeed, KSM describes a grandiose original plan: a total of ten aircraft to be hijacked, nine of which would crash into targets on both coasts-they included those eventually hit on September 11 plus CIA and FBI headquarters, nuclear power plants, and the tallest buildings in California and the state of Washington. KSM himself was to land the tenth plane at a U.S. airport and, after killing all adult male passengers on board and alerting the media, deliver a speech excoriating U.S. support for Israel, the Philippines, and repressive governments in the Arab world. Beyond KSM's rationalizations about targeting the U.S. economy, this vision gives a better glimpse of his true ambitions. This is theater, a spectacle of destruction with KSM as the self-cast star-the superterrorist.³⁵

He views himself as the "star", the "super-terrorist" and is the creator of  "grandiose" plots.

Can someone please explain how his "confessions" are news?

For in depth coverage of this breaking news please go to Attaturk.