Nobody Expects a Drive-by Evangelist

So last night my family and I attended a neighborhood pot luck picnic in a little pocket park (a glorified street median, really) near our house: all families and kids and the American fucking dream with baked beans and potato salad and lemonade. And out of nowhere comes this dude in a mini-SUV (maybe a Kia?) driving in circles around our little pocket park, going so fast his tires squealed around each corner. During these bizarre maneuvers, he's leaning out the window screaming at us to "Repent!", "Stop using birth control", "Accept Jesus" and so on. Maybe we looked like the disciples of Satan out there picnicing with the neighborhood kids, some out-of-control sinners who, if not quickly talked out of our evil ways, would soon to be smoking crack and fornicating madly (but not without protection) with all genders and ages up and down the block. Or maybe this guy was a rogue sky pilot who was so overcome with the holy spirit (or something) that he mistook a quiet neighborhood picnic for a festival of sin.

In any case, as he circled madly four or five times around us he refused to stop and talk, or even to slow down for the sake of the neighborhood kids, which made me wonder why he thought a message of possible salvation delivered in that way might be effective. Would Jesus brake for children?

What war?

Just returned from a family trip. For the last few days, my main source of news was the cable TV in our room. Heard all about Lindsey Lohan and Mr. Dog Fighter Man, but not a word about Iraq. I mean nothing. It was like I entered some kind of alternate universe where the war just wasn't happening and no one's lives were being disrupted or destroyed.

Imagine my surprise, then, to return home and find that my country is still neck-deep in a brutal, stupid war in Iraq, and it generates more bad news every damn day.

Neocon OG David Wurmser leaving Cheney gang?

Robert Dreyfuss reports:

Vice President Cheney is losing a trusted aide: David Wurmser, Cheney’s chief adviser on Middle East affairs and perhaps the Bush administration’s most radical hawk. According to multiple sources, Wurmser will leave the office of the vice president (OVP) in August for the private sector, where he will start a risk-consulting business.

...In the 1990s, David and Meyrav Wurmser joined Richard Perle and Douglas Feith to author the famous “Clean Break” paper that they presented to Netanyahu, in which they called for strong Israeli action to force regime change in Iraq and Syria and to redraw the map of the Middle East. Before joining the Bush administration in 2001, David Wurmser worked at the American Enterprise Institute and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

In the Bush administration, David Wurmser and a colleague, Michael Maloof, founded the predecessor organization to the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans, where they sought to develop intelligence linking Saddam Hussein’s Iraq to Al Qaeda. That work, carried out under Feith’s supervision, has been widely discredited, and a recent report from the Pentagon’s own inspector general declared that their conclusions were not supported by the underlying intelligence. Wurmser also spent time as an aide to John Bolton at the State Department before joining Cheney’s OVP as his chief Middle East specialist.

PAF says: Sayonara, asshole.

War, Lies, and Videotape

Aside from the annoying soundtrack, this is a great video compilation. Thanks to Juan Cole for posting this.

postcard from PAF

Huh?

Washington Post reports on dismissal of Valerie Plame's lawsuit:

A federal judge yesterday dismissed a lawsuit filed by former CIA officer Valerie Plame and her husband against Vice President Cheney and other top officials over the Bush administration's disclosure of Plame's name and covert status to the media.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates said that Cheney and the others could not be held liable for the disclosures in the summer of 2003 in the midst of a White House effort to rebut criticism of the Iraq war by her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. The judge said that such efforts are a natural part of the officials' job duties, and, thus, they are immune from liability.

"The alleged means by which defendants chose to rebut Mr. Wilson's comments and attack his credibility may have been highly unsavory," Bates wrote. "But there can be no serious dispute that the act of rebutting public criticism, such as that levied by Mr. Wilson against the Bush administration's handling of prewar foreign intelligence, by speaking with members of the press is within the scope of defendants' duties as high-level Executive Branch officials."

What's wrong with this picture? Could it be that there is a fundamental difference between engaging in public debate to rebut critics and conspiring to violate the law by deliberately outing a covert operative for purposes of political retribution, and then committing perjury to cover up the first criminal act?

Naaa. Unsavory, maybe, but within the normal job desription of the Vice President's office. I'm glad we cleared that up.

Good thing we have this separation of powers thingy so that our various branches of government can keep one another in check. Otherwise, you know, there could be abuses and the potential for unchecked and unaccountable concentrations of power.

Jon Stewart notes

some, um, subtle irony in the Administration's War on Terror. Courtesy of Crooks and Liars.

The view from Weimar?

Bob Burnett, writing at Open Democracy, about the deep clulessness of the American public and the Republican strategy to capitalize on our militant stupidity.

The president's persistence has worked with a large proportion of the American public: a poll published on 23 June found that 41% of Americans "believe Saddam Hussein's regime was directly involved in financing, planning or carrying out the terrorist attacks on 9/11, even though no evidence has surfaced to support a connection."

...The Bush inner circle, looking back on the Nixon presidency, sees George W Bush's Iraq posture as a calculated political stance that will have three positive consequences. First, it will pass the final resolution of the conflict to the next president; if chaos prevails, it will be blamed on the forty-fourth president, not on Bush. Second, it will solidify Bush's manufactured image as a single-minded, principled commander-in-chief who never relented in his battle against America's terrorist enemies. Third, it will strengthen the claim of Republicans to be the war party; the sector of American politics that will never countenance surrender, that believes that American military might can prevail in any circumstance given adequate political will. The White House's key figures contend that Bush's conduct of the Iraq war will - in the long run - help Republicans.

Whether the calculation is correct, and the president's Iraq policy helps his party, remains to be seen. What is clear is that Bush's endgame is to continue the war in Iraq at its current level until he leaves office on 20 January 2009.

PAF notes with some concern that this strategy hinges on successfully scapegating anti-war forces, and what remains of the American left, for the debacle in Iraq. In other words, it entails propagating a "stabbed-in-the-back" narrative in order to sustain the mythology of American martial potency and moral infallibility on which the Republicans are staking their future. So we're talking about sharpening the culture of compulsory militaristic hyper-nationalism in an environment where many of the constitutional contraints on executive power have been undermined and civil liberties are eroded.

I'm trying to remember why I called this blog premature anti-fascist.

Halliday: A long view of Middle East politics

Fred Haillday, distinguished British scholar of the Middle East, puts the Iraq debacle in longer-term context:

For all the dangers of speculating on the long-run significance of recent events, it is at least plausible to say that the United States invasion of Iraq in that year, with all its consequences within Iraq and the region, may prove to be as important an event as 1967 and, in some respects, on a par with the reordering of the region after 1918. It has already set in train six major processes, which will take years to work themselves through:

• the wholesale discrediting of the US, its allies, particularly Britain, and any campaign for the promotion of democracy in the Arab world;
• the unleashing across the middle east, and more broadly within the Muslim world, of a revitalised militant Islamism, inspired if not organised by al-Qaida, which has used the Iraq war greatly to strengthen and internationalise its appeal;
• the shattering of the power and authority of the Iraqi state, built by the British and later hardened by the Ba'athists and the fragmentation of Iraq into separate, antagonistic, ethnic and religious zones;
• the explosion, for the first time in modern history, of internecine war between Sunni and Shi'a in Iraq, a trend that reverberates in other states of mixed confessional composition;
• the alienation of all sectors of Turkish politics from the west and the stimulation of an authoritarian nationalism there of a kind not seen since the 1920s;
• the fomenting, albeit in slow motion and with some constraints, of a new regional rivalry, between two groupings: Iran and its allies (including Syria, Hizbollah and Hamas), versus Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan - a rivalry made all the more ominous and contagious by Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons.

This is, in Abdelrahman Munif's words, very much a quaking era. People, within the region and without, are alert to the distant thunder; they do most certainly await the morrow with dread. As should all of us. "Mission accomplished" indeed.

This war will continue to haunt us long after the date when US forces withdraw from Iraq, if they ever do.

Neither al Qaeda nor Iran behind Iraqi Insurgency

Juan Cole provides analysis of a very suggestive figure:

Ned Parker of the LA Times reports that of 19,000 "insurgents" held by the US military in Iraq, only 135 are foreigners. Think about that when you hear Bush say that the US is fighting "al-Qaeda" in Iraq or that "al-Qaeda" would take over Iraq if the US left. The foreigners just are not that important to the guerrilla war. Only .7% of detainees are foreigners, and unless they run faster than Iraqis, that is likely their percentage share in the "insurgency," too.

The US is fighting Iraqis in Iraq, who are nationalists of various stripes, whether religious or secular. They are Sunni. They haven't given fealty to Bin Laden and are not "al-Qaeda." So you'd think after all the ink spilled on Iranian and Hizbullah contributions to the troubles in Iraq, that they'd be prominent among the foreign fighters, right? Wrong. It is not clear that the US has any Iranians at all in custody. There was a big deal made at the NYT about one Lebanese Hizbullah guy who may have been a freelancer.

So if they aren't from Iran, where are they from? Saudi Arabia--- 45%! Only 15% are from "Syria and Lebanon," and I'll bet you that all but one of those are Sunni. 10% are from North Africa, which is only about 14 guys. North Africa is Sunni.

That is, the numbers Parker pulled out of a US officer in Iraq demolish the entire image that the Bush administration and the Washington press corps has been presenting of the war.Foreign "al-Qaeda" is almost irrelevant to it. Iran is entirely trivial to it. The Baathist, Allawi-dominated Syrian government is trivial to it. The Lebanese Hizbullah may not be involved at all, as an organization. Certainly it is not involved in any significant way.

Which country is providing a lot of foreign suicide bombers? US ally Saudi Arabia. Has any general or Bush administration official called a press conference to denounce Saudi Arabia? No. Has Joe Lieberman threatened it with a war? No. Everything is being blamed on Iran because powerful American special interests want to get Iran, regardless of the facts. There isn't any significant cadre of foreign "al-Qaeda" fighters in Iraq if this is all we could capture. They can't take over the country because they are such a tiny group.

Everything Bush and Cheney have said about the nature of the war and the supposed dangers of a US withdrawal is transparent falsehood.

Confronting Iran: for Oil and Empire

Robert Dreyfuss on what's driving the administration in their confrontational policy toward Iran:

President Bush may or may not order a massive aerial bombardment of Iran later this year. Or he may wait until 2007. Or he may simply escalate a risky confrontation with Iran through covert action and economic sanctions. But whatever the next act in the crisis, don’t be fooled by the assertion that the problem is Iran’s pursuit of nuclear arms.
Iran is a decade away from gaining access to the bomb, according to the administration’s own National Intelligence Estimate, and despite all the talk about the ugliness of the theocratic regime in Tehran, the likely showdown is, at bottom, driven by the geopolitics of oil. With one-tenth of the world’s petroleum reserves and one-sixth of its natural gas reserves, Iran sits in a strategic geographical position that makes it the cockpit for control of the entire Middle East. It straddles the Persian Gulf’s choke points, including the Strait of Hormuz; it has important influence among Shiites throughout Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the Gulf states; and it borders highly contested real estate to the north, from the Caucasus to the Caspian Sea to Central Asia.
The logic of the Bush administration is inexorable. Its ironclad syllogism is this: The United States is and must remain the world’s preeminent power, if need be by using its superior military might. One of the two powers with the ability to emerge as a rival —China— depends vitally on the Persian Gulf and Central Asia for its future supply of oil; the other—Russia—is heavily engaged in Iran, Central Asia, and the Caucasus region. Therefore, if the United States can secure a dominant position in the Gulf, it will have an enormous advantage over its potential challengers. Call it zero-sum geopolitics: Their loss is our gain.

Of course, the idea of the Persian Gulf as an American lake is not exactly new. Neoconservatives, moderate conservatives, “realists” typified by Henry Kissinger and James A. Baker, and liberal internationalists in the mold of President Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, mostly agree that the Gulf ought to be owned and operated by the United States, and the idea has been a cornerstone of U.S. policy under presidents both Republican and Democratic. Its adherents justified it in the past, however thinly, because of the exigencies of World War II and then the Cold War. But if the administration’s goals are congruent with past U.S. policy, its methods represent a radical departure. Previous administrations relied on alliances, proxy relationships with local rulers, a military presence that stayed mostly behind the scenes, and over-the-horizon forces ready to intervene in a crisis. President Bush has directly occupied two countries in the region and threatened a third. And by claiming a sweeping regional war without end against what he has referred to as “Islamofascism,” combined with an announced goal to impose U.S.-style free-market democracy in southwest Asia, he has adopted a utopian approach much closer to imperialism than to traditional balance-of-power politics.

By inaugurating a war of choice against a nation that had not attacked the United States, and by justifying his actions under a new doctrine of unilateral, preventive war, Bush shattered the U.S. establishment’s policy consensus while alienating America’s closest allies, angering its rivals, and provoking a storm of anti-Americanism in the Muslim world. Now, like a high-stakes blackjack player doubling down, the president is letting the world know that he is ready to do it all over again in Iran.

Cheney pushing for another war

The Guardian (UK) reports:

The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned. The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: "Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo." The White House claims that Iran, whose influence in the Middle East has increased significantly over the last six years, is intent on building a nuclear weapon and is arming insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The vice-president, Dick Cheney, has long favoured upping the threat of military action against Iran. He is being resisted by the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and the defence secretary, Robert Gates. Last year Mr Bush came down in favour of Ms Rice, who along with Britain, France and Germany has been putting a diplomatic squeeze on Iran. But at a meeting of the White House, Pentagon and state department last month, Mr Cheney expressed frustration at the lack of progress and Mr Bush sided with him. "The balance has tilted. There is cause for concern," the source said this week.

Nothing says "clusterfuck" like losing three wars simultaneously. Is there a Guiness Book of World Records entry for this kind of thing?

Mr. Sunshine: William Kristol

Uber-neocon William Kristol writes in the Washington Post why history will favorably judge the Bush presidency:

George W. Bush's presidency will probably be a successful one. Let's step back from the unnecessary mistakes and the self-inflicted wounds that have characterized the Bush administration. Let's look at the broad forest rather than the often unlovely trees. What do we see? First, no second terrorist attack on U.S. soil -- not something we could have taken for granted. Second, a strong economy -- also something that wasn't inevitable. And third, and most important, a war in Iraq that has been very difficult, but where -- despite some confusion engendered by an almost meaningless "benchmark" report last week -- we now seem to be on course to a successful outcome.

PAF vaguely remembers this kind of euphoric sense of well-being from the 1970s. But Kristol isn't stoned, he's just full of shit (as he has been all along). Let's take his major points one at a time:

1) No terrorist attack on US soil. While none has been successful since 9-11, Bush's policies have alienated and radicalized huge swaths of the Muslim world, and led to the widespread metastasization of terrorist cells across the world, making future attacks on US soil more rather than less likely. As if that weren't bad enough, the original al Qaeda is making a comeback and poses an increasing threat to the US. The fact that we've been lucky so far doesn't mean the threat has diminished.

2) The economy is great. Sure: for rich people, defense contractors, and right-wing think-tank mavens funded by right-wing rich people and defense contractors. Looking at, you know, the broad forest, we see that levels of economic inequality in this country are at near-record levels. But things look great from Richistan.

3) Iraq. Please. Even the admninistration's own report claims no progress on the crucial political benchmarks which are the only real paths toward a successful resolution of this increasingly monstrous disaster. Americans and Iraqis are dying every day to preserve a status quo in which Americans and Iraqis die every day. Is that progress, or a treadmill?

What a shameless charlatan this man is. Have some more pie, Bill.



UPDATE: David Corn on why Bush is a loser and William Kristol is a monumental douchebag.

UPDATE2: Further Douchebaggery.

Badda-Bing

Johann Hari describing right-wing battle-bot Mark Steyn among the paying customers on a cruise for supporters of National Review:

He is wearing sunglasses on top of his head and a bright, bright shirt that fits the image of the disk jockey he once was. Sitting in this sea of grey, it has an odd effect - he looks like a pimp inexplicably hanging out with the apostles of colostomy conservatism.

Not necessarily unconstitutional

At least, not according to the very scary Mr. Yoo

Progress in Iraq

A new ad aimed at Republican Senator Mitch McConnell and his support for the President's strategy (whatever that is). The ad was produced by Americans Against Escalation in Iraq.

Thanks to AMERICAblog for originally posting this.

The necessary counterpoint to the administration's mantra of "progress" in Iraq is their imputation of "desperation" to stubbornly intensifying insurgent attacks: see the Year(s) of Lying Desperately compiled by Hairy Fish Nuts.

Meanwhile, back in Waziristan

Time reports:

U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded al-Qaeda has rebuilt its operating capability to a level not seen since just before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, The Associated Press has learned.

The conclusion suggests that the network that launched the most devastating terror attack on the United States has been able to regroup along the Afghan-Pakistani border despite nearly six years of bombings, war and other tactics aimed at crippling it.

Sadly No , mocking right-wing battle-bots, Fox viewers, and the White House: "Oh. But, um. . .would that be the Afghan-Pakistani border in Anbar province?"

Because, you know, al Qaeda is in Iraq and we're really not all that concerned about Osama.

More here, from Michael Gordon no less.

truth to (stupid) power

A group of high school graduates designated as Presidential Scholars are not overawed by the majesty and mystique of the Presidency, and have the courage to speak truth to power, directly, straightforwardly, handing a note to President Bush which reads as follows:

“As members of the Presidential Scholars class of 2007, we have been told that we represent the best and brightest of our nation. Therefore, we believe we have a responsibility to voice our convictions. We do not want America to represent torture. We urge you to do all in your power to stop violations of the human rights of detainees, to cease illegal renditions and to apply the Geneva Convention to all detainees, including those designated enemy combatants.”

Bush's reaction?

Mari described Bush’s reaction to the letter: “He read down the letter. He got to the part about torture. He looked up, and he said, ‘America doesn’t torture people.’ And I said, ‘If you look specifically at what we said, we said, we ask you to cease illegal renditions. Please remove your signing statement to the McCain anti-torture bill.’

“At that point, he just said, ‘America doesn’t torture people’ again.”

In fact, after Bush signed the bill that outlawed the torture of detainees last year, he quietly issued a “signing statement” reserving the right to bypass the law, as he has more than 1,100 times, issuing more signing statements than all other U.S. presidents combined.

Uncomfortable coincidence

Battle-bot Lieberman and pals introduce anti-Iran amendment to the Defense Authorization Act.





US Navy sends a third carrier battle group to join armada near the Persian Gulf.

un·fucking·believable

The invaluable McClatchy News Service reports:

Bush again links al-Qaida in Iraq, 9/11

Struggling to stem growing opposition to his Iraq policy even among Republicans, President Bush contended anew Tuesday that the perpetrators of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States are the same as al-Qaida in Iraq, a violent insurgent group that didn't exist until after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion.

It was the second time in two weeks that Bush has made the link in an apparent attempt to transform lingering fear of another terrorist attack in the United States into backing for the buildup of U.S. troops in Iraq.

"Al-Qaida is doing most of the spectacular bombings, trying to incite sectarian violence," Bush told a business group in Cleveland, Ohio. "The same people that attacked us on September the 11th is a crowd that is now bombing people, killing innocent men, women and children, many of whom are Muslims."

Al-Qaida in Iraq didn't emerge until 2004. While it is inspired by Osama bin Laden's violent ideology, there's no evidence it is under the control of the terrorist leader or his top aides, who are believed to be hiding in tribal regions of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan.

Moreover, the two groups have been divided over tactics and strategy.

While U.S. intelligence and military officials view al-Qaida in Iraq as a serious threat, they say the main source of violence and instability is an ongoing contest for power between majority Shiites and Sunnis, who dominated Saddam Hussein's regime.

In his speech, Bush cited the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks as the motivation behind the continuing war in Iraq. "They will kill a Muslim, a child or a woman at a moment's notice to achieve a political objective," Bush said. "They are dangerous people that need to be confronted, and that's why since September 11 our policy has been to find them and defeat them overseas so we don't have to face them here at home again."

I suspect the president is intellectually incapable of making this kind of distinction between Osama and the original al Qaeda who were directly responsible for 9-11, and the franchise al Qaeda in Iraq which the President's own policies brought into being and which is more interested in asserting Sunni salafist power in Iraq than in attacking the USA. I think George is just too fucking dim to get his mind around this. Cheney, on the other hand, is not stupid. He lies baldly, deliberately and repeatedly.