What we missed

John Judis has about as straightforward an analysis of the Bush administration's imperial folly as you'll find. The entire article is really worth reading.

Sometimes the name calling and aspersions cast make terms like "imperialism" and "neo con" almost meaningless. It is vitally important, however, to understand the meaning of those terms in a historical sense. To ignore the history, is of course, the height of folly. Barbara Tuchman made that clear. Judis' article clearly delineates the differences between the liberal interventionism of Wilson, FDR, GHWBush and Clinton and the more radical and original imperialist approach that Bush has adopted, with a great deal of help from the neo-conservative cabal that surrounds him.

When George W. Bush took office in January 2001, however, his foreign policy echoed not only that of neo-isolationist Republicans like former Majority Leader Dick Armey, but also that of America's foreign policy before we decided in 1898 that we had to get involved in the struggle for empire. That was an America that not only scorned empire but was oblivious to much of the outside world. Bush disdained international organizations. He withdrew the United States from the Kyoto climate treaty and whatever other international agreements had yet to be ratified. He was a unilateralist, but he was reluctant to use America's singular power to affect the governments of other countries. His highest defense priority was the erection of an anti-missile system, the purpose of which was not only to make the United States impregnable from foreign attack, but also to reduce the reliance of the U.S. on other countries for its security......After September 11, they spoke openly of creating a new American empire. "People are now coming out of the closet on the word ‘empire,'" Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer exulted.

Indeed, this brand of imperialism, as practiced by the Bush administration, is remarkably similar to the older European variety. Its outward veneer is optimistic and even triumphalist, when articulated by a neo-conservative like Max Boot or William Kristol, and is usually accompanied by a vision of global moral-religious-social transformation. The British boasted of bringing Christianity and civilization to the heathens; America's neo-conservatives trumpet the virtues of free-market capitalism and democracy. And like the older imperialism, Bush's policy toward Iraq and the Middle East has been driven by a fear of losing out on scarce natural resources. Ultimately, his policy is as much a product of the relative decline of American power brought about by the increasingly fierce international competition for resources and markets as it is of America's "unipolar moment."

The Middle East, where Muslims still blanch at the Crusades and later British and French attempts to divide and rule, is particularly sensitive to outside attempts at domination. Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda didn't spring from Mecca but from the battlefield in Afghanistan, from resentment of American support for Israel and of American bases on Arab soil. Bush's policy in the region has reflected a profound ignorance of this history. Wrote former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski in January 2007, "America is acting like a colonial power in Iraq. But the age of colonialism is over. Waging a colonial war in the post-colonial age is self-defeating."

It is this "profound ignorance", this proud anti-intellectual and ahistorical posture that rankles me the most. At that end of the day, none of it should have been a surprise. He had laid it all out there on the campaign trail, and for some reason we ignored the danger. We elected a Yale cheerleader because we convinced ourselves he was a rugged cowboy. We elected a lifelong failure because we convinced ourselves that he radiated strength. We chose an alcoholic religious fanatic because he seemed like the kind of guy you could have a beer with. The fault, dear Brutus....

There were many pundits that were shouted down in the run up to the invasion of Iraq who warned that this outcome was likely. We failed to distinguish between what we achieved (and how we achieved it) in Bosnia from what we were undertaking in Baghdad. Shame on us for that.

This is going well, isn't it?

According to Indian news reports, the Turkish government pressed their actions into Northern Iraq this morning:

Cobra attack helicopters blasted suspected Kurdish rebel targets on Tuesday near the southeastern border with Iraq in a second day of fighting in the Mount Cudi area, which has reportedly claimed the lives of three Turkish soldiers and six guerrillas.

As the military pressure continued, the government called a Cabinet meeting for Wednesday to discuss a National Security Council recommendation on possible economic measures against groups supporting the Kurdish rebels, private CNN-Turk and NTV television reported.

Meanwhile, the leader of the northern Iraq regional Kurdish government had this to say:

Barzani implied in his words this weekend that Ankara might have other reasons behind its stance on the PKK, noting that PKK terror was not a new factor for Turkey. He said "I am about ready to believe that the PKK is just an excuse. Turkey's stance towards the Kurdish region, and its direct and indirect threats towards the region, make me think this. The real target is the Kurdistan region, otherwise why would we even want to get involved in a struggle between Turkey and the PKK?"

Glad we elected a Preznit who doesn't do nuance.

Seriously, there were lots of folks who warned that a preemptive strike against Baghdad was fraught with risk, due to the inherently complicated and unstable nature of Iraq and Western Asia generally. Regional and tribal hatreds, barely understood outside of a small group of Western analysts were a wild card that brought the risk of a larger regional conflagration into the equation. We now are reaping what we sowed, of course, and we hope against hope that the kids that have been placed in harm's way can survive until this group of adolescents leave the White House. The risk that we face, however, is that they won't leave without broadening the war into Iran, a country of which we know even less, and one with which we have not had consular relations or diplomatic dialogue with in three decades.

I have an eleven year old son, and my fear is that the George W Bush is writing a ticket that my son will have to pay for.

That didn't take long...

Don Surber adroitly points out that the California wildfires may indeed have been masterminded by Al Queda operatives

The stupid, it burns!

Rudy and the Monsignor....

The Washington Monthly picks up on the fact that Rudy is truly the heir apparent and true torch carrier for the radical expansion of executive power that the Bush administration has grabbed. As Digby says, "this is the guy the unitary executive was designed for".

Today, Giuliani is a front-runner for the presidency of the United States. Since 9/11 the office he seeks has been radically remade. Led by Dick Cheney, the Bush administration has expanded White House powers to levels unseen since the Nixon years. Claiming an inherent authority to act outside the law, it has unilaterally set aside treaties, intercepted telephone calls between citizens without court warrants, detained individuals indefinitely without judicial review, ordered "enhanced interrogations," or torture, prohibited by law, and claimed the ability to disregard more than 1,000 parts of legislation that it has deemed to improperly restrict its authority. To thwart oversight and checks on its power, all spheres of executive branch operations have been fortified by heightened secrecy.

This expansion has warped policy decisions, undermined the country's authority abroad, and damaged the framework of laws, institutions, and processes that secure citizens against abuse by the state. It also prompts two of the most crucial, if as yet unasked, questions of the 2008 presidential race: Which contenders are most likely to relinquish some of these powers, or, at the very least, decline to fully use them? And, alternatively, which candidate is most likely to not only embrace the powers that Bush has claimed, but to seize more? The reply to the first question is complicated, but to the second it's simple: Rudy Giuliani.

Read the whole thing. We really miss Steve Gilliard, who was so deft at pointing out how much New Yorkers despised Rudy by the end of his second term.

Such hubris, pettiness, and blind stubbornness would probably manifest itself in day to day decisions that Rudy makes on the campaign trail, wouldn't it? Hmmmm......

Meet Monsignor Alan Placa

The statute of limitations is a wonderful thing.....

Nuts

Uh oh. Don't tell Rudy and William the Bloody Kristol, but the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff thinks that they are raging lunatics.

He rejected the counsel of those who might urge immediate attacks inside Iran to destroy nuclear installations or to stop the flow of explosives that end up as powerful roadside bombs in Iraq or Afghanistan, killing American troops.

With America at war in two Muslim countries, he said, attacking a third Islamic nation in the region “has extraordinary challenges and risks associated with it.” The military option, he said, should be a last resort.

And just in case all of the saber rattling from Michael Leeden and Bill Kristol wasn't clear, Cheney laid out his philosophy quite baldly this weekend. From his speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy:

They've chosen this method because they believe it works, and they believe the history of the late 20th century proves the point. During the 1980s and '90s, as terror networks began to wage attacks against Americans, we usually responded, if at all, with subpoenas, indictments, and the occasional cruise missile. As time passed, the terrorists believed they'd exposed a certain weakness and lack of confidence in the West, particularly in America.

Dr. Bernard Lewis explained the terrorists' reasoning this way: "During the Cold War," Dr. Lewis wrote, "two things came to be known and generally recognized in the Middle East concerning the two rival superpowers. If you did anything to annoy the Russians, punishment would be swift and dire. If you said or did anything against the Americans, not only would there be no punishment; there might even be some possibility of reward, as the usual anxious procession of diplomats and politicians, journalists and scholars and miscellaneous others came with their usual pleading inquiries: 'What have we done to offend you? What can we do to put it right?'" End quote.

Get it? The Commie haters, the guys that we're so obsessed with Communism as a threat to our shores for three decades actually were envious of the Reds. Cheney and these authoritarian wannabes gazed longingly at the totalitarian regime that used unchecked brutality to vanquish opposition domestically and internationally. This is where warrantless wiretapping and rendition and Abu Ghraib all begin, with a man crush on authoritarianism and the lattitude of an unchecked executive power. And just like the Communists, the background has to be fear. In order for these guys to succeed, it is imperative that we all be kept in a state of high anxiety. World War III, duct tape, orange alerts, the like. Again, we see that Reagan and GHWBush, for their flaws, were pikers compared to these nuts.

UPDATE: That would be this Bernard Lewis, mentioned by Cheney above

Last year, the Princeton scholar, Bernard Lewis, a close adviser to Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal predicting that on Aug. 22, 2006, President Ahmadinejad was going to end the world. The date, he explained, "is the night when many Muslims commemorate the night flight of the Prophet Muhammad on the winged horse Buraq, first to 'the farthest mosque,' usually identified with Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back. This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary of the world" (my emphasis). This would all be funny if it weren't so dangerous.

What do these guys have for 90 year old ghouls like Podhoretz and Lewis?

Here's a thought...

By the way, if these lunatics are hell bent on declaring war on Iran, they better abide by the Regan rule, namely, no more happy adventures in Western Asia unless they re-institute the draft. If Rudy, Deadeye Dick and Little Lord Fauntleroy don't have the guts to face the American people and explain why it is completely necessary to draft my son and thousands of others in order to bomb the cradle of civilization into oblivion, then they don't get to do it. If the threat of Islamofascism, or whatever the hell Sean Hannity calls it these days isn't scary and threatening enough to get these guys out in front of the people to convince us that we ought to send our best and brightest into the breach, then they're just going to have to wait.

And by the way, we lived through an era when there were 10,000 nuclear warheads pointed at our major cities and a senile president in the white house, snacking on porridge while a bunch of zealous and criminal lunatics like John Negroponte, Elliot Abrams and Ollie North cut secret deals with dictators and death squads all over the world in a high stakes game of poker. For some reason, I find that a little more threatening than World War IV, which apparently is already underway. Unfortunately, in his train wreck of a presser yesterday, Bushie made it clear that he's not up to speed on the neocon war counting game, because he's still trying to scare the shit out of us by warning us of World War III. Olberman took that all apart here

These guys really ought to get their stories straight.

Is Rudy Insane or just stupid?

Josh Marshall runs down the four horsemen of Rudy's brain trust for foreign policy.



If you wanted to pick a candidate that actually represents a far stupider approach than the current White House's to the challenges that face the United States in 2008, you couldn't do much better than Giuliani. He is truly the heir to the anti-intellectual legacy of the current administration, and like Bush, stands for symbol over substance. He has been repudiated on his signal achievement, his actions in the aftermath of 9/11, and has been called out as a grandstander who actually failed in his efforts to prepare the first responders who he uses as props for his claim to legitimacy. He has surrounded himself with hacks like Bernie Kerick, and displays a shocking inappropriateness in his personal life and on the campaign trail. His choice of a bloodthirsty old ghoul like Norman Podhoretz as a foreign policy adviser displays a stunning example that he is either dangerously militaristic or profoundly ignorant.

It really boggles the mind that the Republican party can't come up with anyone less batshit insane to carry their flag in the next election, but unfortunately, that is another legacy of the failed Presidency of the Idiot Prince.

UPDATE: The Washington Monthly has an article by Rachel Morris that really spells the whole thing out.

UPDATE: Question Answered:

Subprime Mess

Here's the best explanation of the subprime mortgage meltdown that I've seen. Very easy to understand, very straightforward. I certainly wouldn't want to own shares in Moody's right now.

It truly is amazing that Goldman makes money at the end of the day, but I guess we shouldn't be surprised. Think there's a message in the fact that Goldman isn't interested in participating in the $100B bailout fund that Citi and B of A are putting together to bail out their own exposure to crappy subprime products?

Bill Kristol's World

....oh, and by the way, Little Bill Kristol was huffing the keyboard cleaner again:

That's partly because the GOP nominee will be stronger than Gerald Ford (with all due respect to the memory of that decent man, who would have been a better president than Carter). While a half-term senator and a one-term senator fight it out for the Democratic nomination, the GOP candidates include an experienced senator who's a war hero, the most successful political chief executive in recent times, an impressive businessman/governor, and a canny lawyer/senator/actor with Washington experience and a nice, middle-American background and manner.

Here's what's likely to happen: When the nominees are selected next year, the Republican will be behind--just as the GOP nominee trailed, at various times, in the 1980, 1988, 2000, and 2004 campaigns. Then the Republican will rally and probably win. Look to 1988 for a model: a tired, two-term presidency, a newly invigorated Democratic Congress causing all
kinds of problems for the administration, an intelligent, allegedly centrist Democratic nominee, and a bruising Republican primary with lots of unhappiness about the field of candidates. This resulted in a 17-point early lead for Michael Dukakis over George H.W. Bush, but an eventual Republican victory. True, the current Republican incumbent, George W. Bush, isn't Ronald Reagan. And the 2008 Republican nominee is going to have to chart his own path to victory. It will be a challenge. But it's a healthy one. Let McCain, Giuliani, Thompson, and Romney have at it. The competition will be good for them and good for the party, ensuring that the winner will be up to the task both of winning the presidency and leading the country.
No doubt he totally bogarted the whole can.

Liberals Kill Soldiers!!!!

Just so we can get out in front of the next breathless Fox News/Rush/Dennis Praeger/Glenn Beck news cycle, in which we will be told in no uncertain terms that Congress' delay in giving the Bush Administration blanket permission to sniff your underwear drawer led to the death of US soldiers in Iraq, Glenn Greenwald is nice enough to point out that it's all baloney.

As always, the Bush administration and their allies intend to play games with and nakedly exploit national security issues in order to obtain more unchecked power. Specifically, Roll Call reports today (sub. rq'd) that "Republicans are planning to use the kidnapping and subsequent murder of three U.S. soldiers in Iraq earlier this year to put a 'human face' on the [FISA] issue" -- referring to prior claims by Mike McConnell that delays in completing the forms for a FISA warrant prevented timely eavesdropping on Iraqi insurgents who had kidnapped those soldiers.

Like clockwork, the standard roster of GOP hacks -- The New York Post and Instapundit -- have their talking-point marching orders and are today promoting this dramatic tale. The Post article goes so far as to show a picture of one of the kidnapped soliders with his wife and repeatedly insinuates that the need to comply with FISA prevented the U.S. military from eavesdropping on insurgent calls and thereby prevented the military from saving this soldier.

As Spencer Ackerman previously reported, McConnell's claims in this regard are completely false, since their failure to eavesdrop right away was their own fault for failing to invoke FISA's emergency eavesdropping provision, whereby they are free to eavesdrop for 72 hours without a warrant. Just as importantly, the eavesdropping here involved foreign-to-foreign communications (i.e., Iraq-to-Iraq), which nobody in Congress believes ought to require a warrant.

This incident, then, has absolutely nothing to do with the pending FISA debate. But the administration and its standard, mindless followers nonetheless exploit -- as usual -- the U.S. troops who were killed by insurgents in Iraq for their own domestic political agenda.

I hadn't even heard the caterwauling from the Limbaugh crowd on this one before I read the article, but I'm sure that is only because I took a few days off from my usual self flagellation routine of tuning into the Big Talker, 1210 AM in order to do my oppo research. The truth of the matter is that FISA gives the administration broad and reasonable latitude with regard to policing international terrorism, and that at the heart of the "illegal wiretapping" debate is the brazen disregard for existing law that this administration embraced. FISA is the law of the land, and has been since 1978. If a republican administration and a republican congress, alongside a republican supreme court wanted to change this law after 9/11, they had every right to do so. They chose to break the law instead. At the end of the day, they do not believe that this is a country built on the rule of law and nothing proves that more clearly than this particular decision.

Chicago

Off to City of the Big Shoulders for a few days. Here's Freddie King:



How bout them shirt collars?

Bush and History

One of the persistent themes that the defenders of this administration, in particular the Decider in Chief return to again and again is the notion that when the history of this presidency is finally written, it will exonerate the wisdom of W's bold decisiveness and stubborn insistence on staying the course. There is a fatalistic belief that in the long long run, the books will note that while he was persecuted and reviled in his time in office, the ultimate wisdom and foresight of his actions will win the day.

This seems to me to be a complete load of crap.

What is it that would make such a scenario play out? Very concrete objectives were laid out when we pre-emptively invaded a sovereign constitutional government in Iraq, namely the defeat of radical Islamic terrorists who were being supported by Saddam Hussein, as well as the dismantling of his stockpiles of WMDs, which he was hiding from the United Nations Weapons Inspectors. Even giving Bush a mulligan for the WMD lies, it seems objectively clear that we have created many more radical Islamic terrorists than we've defeated, and we've spread chaos and destruction throughout Western Asia. We've become a pariah on the international stage, and strengthened and emboldened Iran, a true hegemon in the region, and invigorated their aspirations for a Shiite ascendancy across Persia and Mesopotamia. We've inflamed dormant and suppressed ancient tribal hatreds and unleashed misery and death that we in the United States may never truly appreciate.

At the end of the day, Iraq may heal, Iran may lurch towards modernity and open society, and the United States may regain the moral high ground that it has occupied as long as I have been around. But that will have nothing at all to do with the actions undertaken by this administration. If we end up with a thriving multi ethnic democracy in Iraq and a cosmopolitan Persian republic, there is no way that it will have anything to do with what we've unleashed. It will be in spite of that. The march towards openness and modernity will be led by the people of those countries, not imposed by a hypocritical invading force, nor "unleashed" by Operation Desert Whatever.

The hubris of this administration's belief that history will exonerate their decisions beggars belief. It is based upon the completely misguided belief that this war is somehow noble and emancipating. War is a failure of diplomacy and of human progress. The history of this Presidency can be written now, a failed policy, a failed war, a failed presidency.

Alaska Double Dip..

I did the double-dip of "guys lost in Alaska" movies yesterday. Started out with Sean Penn's "Into the Wild" at the theater in the afternoon, and finished with Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man" on Netflix in the evening. I was a little disappointed in the Penn movie, I found it very long and more than a little sappy. The story is compelling, though, and there are some great cameos by Hal Holbrooke and Vince Vaughn. The soundtrack is really powerful, Eddie Vedder on every track.

The Herzog movie, on the other hand, was incredible. Like in many of his other films, most notably the treatment of Bruno S. in "Stroszek", he observes people outside of society uncritically. Timothy Treadwell is a perfect muse for Herzog, and he is treated with in a way that accepts his enormous flaws but at the same time respects his misplaced motivations. Treadwell thought that he was protecting the Grizzlys and that he had created a unique relationship with the bears. He of course had done neither. The bears were located in an enormous preserve, the Katamai National Park and Preserve, and his unique relationship ended rather disturbingly. Herzog, however, shows a certain admiration for his subject, both for his courage, which cannot be denied, and also for his art.

For the other interesting thing about Treadwell, particularly for Herzog, is that he was a filmmaker. "Grizzly Man" is based on the over 100 hours of film that Treadwell himself shot over a five year period. Herzog analyzes Treadwell's style, his insistence on a number of takes for a particular scene, etc. He also scrutinizes the clues that exist in Treadwell's film, in particular the rare and cryptic appearances of his girlfriend, Arnie Huguenard.

Richard Thompson does the soundtrack on "Grizzly Man", which is also excellent.

Declan

No dancing for you....

Bob Gates and Iran

Apparently, Bob Gates is the only person in the inner circle of the executive branch of this administration who thinks that bombing Iran and its 70 million inhabitants back to the stone age in another pre-emptive strike is a bad idea. As the Daily Telegraph notes,

Pentagon sources say Mr Gates is waging a subtle campaign to undermine the Cheney camp by encouraging the army's senior officers to speak frankly about the overstretch of forces, and the difficulty of fighting another war.

Bruce Reidel, a former CIA Middle East officer, said: "Cheney's people know they can beat Condi. They have been doing it for six years. Bob Gates is a different kettle of fish. He doesn't owe the President anything. He is urging his officers to be completely honest, knowing what that means."

The reason that Gates is a different kettle of fish is because he is Poppy's boy, sent in to try to clean up the mess that the idiot prince and his pals dragged us into. He's got a lot on his plate, though, because Cheney is surely aware that Poppy wants Gates to counterbalance his own influence. Poppy has had a very mixed record in trying to corral his son, as evidenced by Junior's treatment of the Baker Hamilton report.

Cheney is a sick and twisted old man, in decrepit physical condition who has no fear of anything, because he knows that he will be dead soon. Like many men who have faced death, he is a changed man, and in this case he has become an unhinged, murderous swine. Like Norman Podhoretz, he lusts for a war with Persia and sees it as his legacy. The obvious thing to watch here, is whether Gates will be steamrolled by David Addington and Dick Cheney, because if he is, we may be facing even more horror in Western Asia. How's this make you feel?

One CIA insider said: "Bush understands that any increase in real military hostilities in Iran right now could have a negative effect. Bob Gates is the only one opposed to it. He's the single person in the US government who has any standing with the White House fighting it."

Now, consider that the person Gates is trying to influence began his speech this week in Lancaster, PA with the following:

I really appreciate the Lancaster Chamber of Commerce for giving me an opportunity to explain why I have made some of the decisions I have made. My job is a decision-making job. And as a result, I make a lot of decisions.

Feel even better?

Round up the Usual Suspects....

In an article in today's Inquirer, Arlen Specter comments on the just disclosed 2005 legal opinions on interrogations that clearly show that Bush and his idiot minion, Abu Gonzo made conscious and clear efforts to institutionalize torture as a policy, whether Congress made it explicitly illegal or not. Aside from the fact that it is simply pathetic that we as a nation are even having a discussion on whether thumbscrews and waterboarding are appropriate behaviors, Specter's indignation is really mind numbing.

"I think they're shocking," he said.
He said Congress voted to ban "cruel, inhumand and degrading treatment in December 2005 without knowing that the Justice Department had already decided that the CIA's methods did not violate that standard.
"I think the administration has a duty to inform Congress about these opinions," Specter said.

Oh, come on, Arlen. Nobody that hasn't been huffing spray paint for the past eight years could be shocked by this. It fits the pattern of utter disdain that this administration has shown for the rule of law and the Constitutional balance of power that this country was founded upon. Bush has made it clear, whether it be through signing statements, recess appointments, cronyism, fired prosecutors, or the general politicization of the Justice Department that he has no time for our Constitutional Democracy and that in his own words, a dictatorship would be much easier, if he were the dictator.

How can you be shocked Arlen? In making another empty threat to use the power of the purse to hold this administration accountable for their disdain for the Congress, you said:

Institutionally, the presidency is walking all over Congress at the moment. If we are to maintain our institutional prerogative, that may be the only way we can do it.…

It is true that we have no assurance that the president would follow any statute that we enact.

That was in May of 2006.

The State of The Right's Discourse

From the comments at Think Progress, during a discussion of Rush Limbaugh's statement that soldiers that spoke out against the mission in Iraq after returning are "phony soldiers":

How many of you left-wing liberal morons have heard what Rush actually said? Have you heard of Jesse MacBeth? Ms- I’m not a lesbian Cackle Fruit- Clinton is having her way with the media. The media has lost so much credibility! ABC in particular is the mouthpeice of the anti-Bush, anti U.S. Democrats! Hillary, aka Joseph Goebbels are like the pitbulls of Michael Vick and the Nazis of WWII rolled into one.. Isn’t ironic that the real voices of descent-Rush and Bill O’Reilly are being attacked in “the Media”. Well, Ms- I’m not a lesbian Cackle Fruit- Clinton couldn’t destroy the country if anyone disagreed. The liberal Democrat party should be renamed The National Socialist Party-Nazi. Remember Hitler promised the Germans everything and gave them hell on earth!! Do we want the same?

Comment by mikey309 — October 1, 2007 @ 9:01 pm

Joe Dirt.

The Mustache of Understanding

Shorter Tom Friedman

This whole war in Iraq thing has turned into such a bummer. It was way more fun to write about this when W had the bullhorn and the flight suit, but now it just sucks. When can we start talking about cool things like 'the world is flat' again?