Still working through Hamdan. Our initial thought is that the case, while encouraging, may prove to be a slender reed in separation of powers jurispurdence. The main determinative in its future import will be how the political branches act upon it, especially Congress. Depending on congressional will, hitherto almost wholly lacking on separation of powers issues, Hamdan could well be of minor significance. Here's why.
The specific holdings are clear. The Administration's farthest claims of executive power were rejected. This alone is reason to celebrate. And even now some are reaching for dicta to divine more broad reaching impact. Dicta is language in judicial decisions which describe the reasoning of the court but not pinned directly to the specific holding. That language has no precedential value but can gain enormous political and meme-development value. Most of what you read about Hamdan and other cases around the Net or in newspapers, Dear Reader, is dicta.
And contrary to most reporting we have seen on cable and around the Net, the Court did not require application of the Geneva Conventions to al Qaeda. Instead, the much more circumscribed Common Article 3 of the Geneva Treaty is at issue and was deemed part of U.S. law. For David Addington et al, this ruling is enough, however, to stop the waterboarding and other torture/abusive practices as unforgivably sanctified by Office of Legal Counsel. Clearly a blow to their imperial dreams.
But even so, looking at the specific holdings of the Court,we disagree with triumphalist representations of what the Court did as set forth in the NYT and elsewhere. First, we disagree with the 5-3 characterization. Given Roberts' recusal, Hamdan is really a 5-4 decision (Roberts sided with the Administration at the Appellate level). The practical implications are enormous. One more Bush (or McCain) Supreme Court appointee of the Roberts or Alito mould effecitively negates Hamdan and gives the President what he wants — almost untrammelled Exeuctive discretion.
Hamdan is thus a close thing for the Bush regime. And for ideologicals determined to remake America and used to political combat inside institutions, the effective 5-4 decision merely confirms how close they are to remaking the separation of powers and the Nation. And with 2 years to go, the chances of another aged member of the Court “retiring” or passing on their watch are pretty good. We can not get behind this quote in the NYT today: “Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, a public interest law firm in New York that represents hundreds of detainees, said, 'It doesn't get any better.' ”
Secondly, when considered broadly, the Court effectively ruled yesterday that Congress is the institution that has to step up to the plate. We suspect that Congress under Republican control will effectively legitimate most (but not all) of what has happened and is occurring at Guantanamo. And even with this grant of congressional approval, expect another presidential signing statement.
What could change, of course, is if the Republicans loose *both* houses on the Hill. In that case, there is the potential for some fairly robust legislation and oversight of the tribunals. Given the current 5-4 mix on the Court, this restoration of separation of powers would be upheld by the Court — assuming either a Democrat president or a McCain/Republican regime that is denied opportunity to add another Alito.
On a whole host of radicalization matters — abortion, executive power and so on — the Movement is one heart beat away from achieving its most cherished dreams. Who knows? This decision may achieve a noteriety not discussed above: it may be remembered as one of the last stands of the Old Guard. Before New America was born.
As you likely know, the 185 page Hamdan decision is a classic mix of concurring and dissenting opinions. We are still working our way through it. Like John Houseman in the more lucrative but artistically squalid twilight of his career, we prefer to do our legal analysis the old fashioned way - read the actual document.
So this is another temporary placemarker.
A few initial comments. The initial meme that the decision helps the extra-legal, non-FISA wiretap challenges is wrong. When Gonzales et al. offered the spurious argument that the extra legal wiretaps were legal because they were included in the initial Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), they did so knowing it was a toss off after thought. The White House made the claim for political optical cover only.
The Stiftung knows some over in the White House counsel's office and in particular knows their legal thinking and constitutional training. That argument was never made with serious legal conviction — although the poltiical expediency behind it was and is compelling. At least until today.
Rather, the Administration's main legal argument was and is the inherent powers of the Executive under Article II, including but not limited to President as Commander in Chief. The Stiftung is more than a little familiar with FISA, wiretapping and the technical and constitutional issues involved going back several decades. Long before 2001-2006.
And as much as one may be outraged (like we are) at what the Administration has done, that Administration defense is, on our admittedly partial reading of the opinion, not particularly threatened by the Court's reasoning in Hamdan. All the more so given earler legal precedent and legal analysis relied on by presidents from the Carter Administration down to the present.
We'll be back to share some thinking after reading more of Hamdan. And replace this temporary post with a more permanent one at that time.
Bacevich does a marvelous job deconstructing Beinhart's laughable efforts to prove he is not a foreign policy wimp. This gem stands out:
He [Beinhart] not only [mis]comprehends history but insists with all the fervor of William Kristol that the United States has the capacity and duty to manage it. After all, when the first phase of the American Century ended in 1989, it rendered a definitive verdict: “The core reality was that the United States had vanquished its chief ideological competitor and military rival, leaving it in a position of astonishing strength.” Victory in the cold war imposed obligations; Americans were called upon to use that strength to carry on the work of liberating humankind. Today, when in Beinart's estimate “U.S. military and economic influence knows few bounds,” he believes it is incumbent upon policy-makers to redouble American efforts to spread the blessings of freedom and equality across the Muslim world.“
A while ago, the Stiftung sat down with an insurgent inside the Fox News apparat. This insurgent is profoundly anti-war, deeply hostile to Bush, a progressive/libertarian on social issues, and allergic to the Religious Right. So why remain at Fox News? I guess masochism.
But the insurgent struggles to insert some corrective reality into the Fox spin now and then. Our talk contained this insightful observation about liberal posers like Beinart. ”Never trust them. They are always desperate to be thought of as tough men. They will turn on a dime to fit in with the Vulcans". Now that seems Fair and Balanced to me.
Post script:
It is not enough, in the Stiftung's view, to reject Beinart's low carb Neoconism. We suspect there is a slight chance that Beinhart will do it himself, once he grows up a bit and begins to ween himself off the seduction of Romantic infatuations.
Seeing Bacevich printed in The Nation was interesting. Although the tactical criticism he offered of an apostate like Beinart was undoubtedly the draw. The bulk of Bacevich's work is far too grounded in history and reality for The Nation.
But that is exactly what The Nation and the rest of the Opposition should spend more time looking into. And asking the questions beyond rejecting Beinart. Where is the intellectual foundation for a sober and muscular appreciation of national power in all its facets — military, economic, cultural and diplomatic? Where is the compelling explanation for creating a durable architecture for the role and purpose of U.S. national power in the international system? To help build an international system that serves U.S. interests not only for now, during our temporary (and already eroding) hegemonic position, but for a future time when others assume or are on the cusp of assuming that role?
Rejecting Beinart and Kristol et al. is a necessary first step. But only the beginning of the journey. Some of the answers The Nation's readers will find in Bacevich's other writings. If they would only look.
David Ignatius today begins in the WaPo with a quote from our Plenipoteniary (and sartorial lounge lizard) Zalmay Khalilzad — “Every war must end” he tells Ignatius from the bunker in the Green Zone.
The Regent thinks otherwise, and likely has given Zalmay the Black Spot for defeatism. As Cheney declared to CNN's John KIng:
Neither an immediate nor phased withdrawal would confer any protection on the United States, Cheney said. “If we pull out, they'll follow us,” he said of terrorists.
“It doesn't matter where we go. This is a global conflict. We've seen them attack in London and Madrid and Casablanca and Istanbul and Mombasa and East Africa. They've been, on a global basis, involved in this conflict. (Read the full interview transcript)
”And it will continue — whether we complete the job or not in Iraq — only it'll get worse. Iraq will become a safe haven for terrorists. They'll use it in order to launch attacks against our friends and allies in that part of the world.“
Endless war indeed.
------
Among the anti-war ranks, there is some disgreement about the meaning of all this. No, not the trite is Miss Foreign Affairs up and Darth Vader down chatter (Oh SUHNAP! It's oooonn Cheney!). We mean the larger social engineering prize that was always the ultimate goal behind the war: whither America?
Some very bright people believe that the GWOT (tm) creates a momentum of its own that radicalizes U.S. domestic politics and socio-demographic trends. They rely on historically valid truisms such as ”War is the enabler of the State“, etc. And certainly we have all seen that GWOT(tm) provides the pretext for creeping authoritarianism, encroachment of civil liberties, etc. Using this logic, some believe that if we can stop the war in Iraq, the domestic radicalization will recede.
Within the above is usually a corollary — that GWOT(tm) and the militarization of America are essentially the work of a few, a cabal, a conspiracy. Hence, the fixation by some even in 2006 on the already defunct Neocons, or Cheney's office, etc. Some fairly prominent war critics, after two or three bourbons, will confide that ”The Protocols of the Elders of AEI“ are out there, somewhere.
A companion view, shared by the Buchananites, is that the international abstractions of the Neocon vision must be opposed. This view is closer to the militarized nationalism of a Cheney or Rumsfeld, except for the Iraq sidestep.
Thus a seeming paradox. But not really. Our view here is that GWOT(tm) and Iraq are not external forces directed back at our society. We see them as expressions of the very foundational elements of the Republican ruling coalition — already radicalized and predisposed before September 11th for authoritarianism, etc. The Republican coalition was and is prepared for radical defacto minority governance. Iraq notwithstanding.
The Bush regime's wars did not bring radicalization to goverment and society. The mutated Republican base was already radicalized, in charge of government and brought the wars to Iraq and elsewhere. Perversely, Buchanan's brownshirtism, while tactically opposed to Iraq, was and is an enabler of the radicalization that led to Iraq. (As an aside, we believe that some of the sub rosa interplay bewteen McLaughlin and Buchanan on that eminently watchable show touches on this latter point often).
If Zalmay is right and the Iraq fiasco does wind down, we predict the anti-war coalition is in for a shock. Because traditional political science 101 would predict a de-escalazation of domestic radicalization. But under almost any conceivable Republican regime, the domestic radicalization will continue. And they will not need Iraq-in-fact as a cudgel. Iraq helped but was not necessary for radicalization. GWOT(tm), ”War of Civilizations“, ”Mexico's Invasion of the U.S.“, ”War on the Unborn“, and of course China — all are on the shelf. The ”Plug n Play“ nature of meme propogation among the Republican base is such that Iraq simply gets swapped out with one of the above. Like Mad Libs. Fortified with the moral certitude of ”Stab in the Back".
So you read it here first, Dear Reader. Cheney in a way was right, but for the wrong reasons. The war will continue. But the real war for them always has been behind the curtain: to remake a 21st Century Franco America, or a militarized Power in the service of internationalist abstractions.
It will be up to us to defeat both of them. Again.
Our Prime Directive here has nothing to do with non-interference with others. Or any Picard-esque moral self-righteousness. Our rule is simple: avoid blogosphere food fights and spats like the plague. Well, it's more like a guideline than a directive, but you get the idea.
So we studiously ignored the sophomoric “Townhouse” email list brouhaha involving The New Republic, the young but incredibly impactful (to coin a Haigism) Markos Moulitsas Zúniga and a growing host of others. Markos is the “Kos” in DailyKos and a genuine political celebrity and force. His recent convention in Las Vegas drew presidential aspirants and he was just given a respectful hearing by Tim Russert on Meet The Press.
Somehow people seek to turn an email list into something sinister. The Stiftung has known about the Townhouse email list for a long time. An acquaintance on the list has mentioned it obliquely in the past. That prominent bloggers and party activists and policy wonks had an email list was hardly a secret to anyone remotely interested in the Oppositionist blogosphere.
Disclosure — we are not on it. For a variety of reasons: (a) we don't go back to Dupont Circle very often anymore; (b) we are staunch anti-communists and remember the 1970s and 1980s clearly; (c) our views on the purpose of national power, history, political science, culture and technology differ from many on that list; and of course, (d) we've never asked nor been asked to join. And the world is better off for it all around.
Nontheless, the Stiftung has always honored Kos and what he and his blog readers have accomplished. Their organizational skills, focus on candidates and relentless rebuffing of the Bush regime's AgitProp has been a lifeline to all Oppositionists. Research and analysis by Armando and others have been vital in shutting down falsehoods and worse by Gonzales, Rove et al. I knew Kos was destined for higher things when I sat across from a sputtering and bloviating Michael Barone. My mere mention of DailyKos sent him into a sustained fit . Perhaps a Presidential Medal of Freedom. For that alone.
Have been swamped (literally) on the Hill today, in the lair of the Imperial City beasts.
In a bit, off to join a national television conservative pundit for an advanced screening of Superman. And no, Dear Reader, the pundit's mission is not to mine the film for evidence that Superman went for Goldwater in '64. As if — remember the whole “Truth, Justice and American Way” thing? Bushies get only the last one.
Will try to add post later based on correspondence with our friends over at Global Paradigms and Comments here.
See everyone in a bit.
The movie was good but long (2 1/2 hours). We recommend it.
The theater was full. Sustained applause at the end. Our reaction? Bryan Singer, the director, made this movie determined to present unalloyed the myth's essential reliance on the nobility and idealism of the character. This could well be a potential dagger to the heart of the Republican ruling regime in the mass culture zeitgeist.
Our sense is that there is a hunger in the land for someone who does not lie, who protects the weak and misfortunate, and will be there when catastrophe strikes — contra Katrina, etc. Moreover, the movie's essential premise is that Power needs restraint and interdependence. Another rebuke to the Cheney-Bush era. Think of Superman as the gentler, more subtle bookend to 'V for Vendetta'.
The tripe about 'is Superman gay' (he slept with Lois Lane, fathered a child and wants to be with them both) or the obvious Jesus allegories which mesmerize the NY Times are pretty insignificant. The savior allegory has been there since Superman's creation as well as in the 1978 movie. (Superman's creators were Jewish and his name Kal-El is deliberately close to the Hebrew for Voice of God — something the NY Times could have discovered if they bothered to use that crazy new thing called Google.
More to come later this evening. This trinket should provide a taste of what we have been thinking about over the weekend.
Directions should be self explanatory. But if not:
(a) hit record;
(b) trace with the blue reticle the agents amplifing fear and doubt to manipulate us all (again); and
(c) sit back, hit play and watch the travelling meme of Hate and Fear in action!
P.S. There is some 'play' in the ball; try using ricochet as well.
--------------
UPDATE
Dosing The Herd
Breathless accounts of the Miami “homegrown terror cell” across the media rarely discuss the actual indictment itself. We spent the day working through the scant 11 page document. Experience teaches us to be skeptical of Gonzales and this regime. Every major terror plot announced by this regime has collapsed in court, sometimes spectacularly.
We went through the 11 pages compensating for initial prejudice against the Bush DoJ. The indictment more and more still looks like a DoJ/FBI set up and a political sham. For the reasons discussed below, a competent prosecutor can likely evade the legal technicalities of entrapment. But even if DoJ can escape the entrapment defense, the indictment is extraordinarly thin. And on its face skates close to entrapment line.
Forcing courts and the judicial system to host political AgitProp theater should be familiar to Americans by now. Rove, Gonzales et al.'s cynicism leads them to believe the American people will nonetheless fall for this ploy yet again. Their profound contempt for this nation is clear: the American people are but a herd of barely sentient creatures to be manipulated at will.
The Administration itself throughout 2002 and 2003 made a great deal of public noise repeatedly about its monitoring of international finance and “terrorist funding networks”, etc. Publicizing this story now is certainly not breaking news to “the evil doers”. As the NY Times noted, even the Brussels-based SWIFT consortium at issue “gave no sign today that it was rethinking its relationship with the American government, despite the sudden glare of publicity aimed at an organization that generally keeps a very low profile.”
Here is the real story: the psychological insights we gain seeing the Kool Aid set's disproportionate rage about treason. In print, on cable and on radio, the media pinata got special love, joined now and then with “traitors” in the intelligence community. Andrew McCarthy over at NRO writes in “The Media’s War Against the War Continues”:
Yet again, the New York Times was presented with a simple choice: help protect American national security or help al Qaeda.
Yet again, it sided with al Qaeda.
Once again, members of the American intelligence community had a simple choice: remain faithful to their oath — the solemn promise the nation requires before entrusting them with the secrets on which our safety depends — or violate that oath and place themselves and their subjective notions of propriety above the law.
Once again, honor was cast aside.
And so on. And no wonder — McCarthy is a colleague of Cliff May, former Republican flack and now reinvented as President of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. FDD is a proud part of the sputtering Neocon AgitProp keiretsu.
Not to be outdone, while channel surfing, we caught O'Reilly tonight in full flight. He demanded criminal proceedings against the New York Times. Judge Napalitano, seemingly slightly uncomfortable sitting across from O'Reilly in demagogic pirouette, tried to appease O'Reilly while remaining faithful to integrity and judicial experience. One kept thinking of Derek Jacobi — his Claudius' sly grovel before John Hurt's Caligula.
We benefit from such outbursts. They persuade no one. But such paroxysms of rage give us a rare opportunity to see precisely the psychic costs of cognitive dissonance. The Kool Aid crowd in the Bush regime's twilight are cracking under duress. Only to get worse. Accordingly, the real headline should be “Stab in Back Meme Gains Another Fill Up Today. Film at 11:00 PM”.
Readers and this site periodically delve into the Rightists' obsession with “the Mainstream Media”, Hollywood and pop culture. Their unabashed desire to control, censor and eliminate 'deviationist' thinking truly knows no bounds.
As the Stiftung has described, the “Movement” is a cohesive (if distributed), self-reinforcing echo chamber. Within it, the hierarchy/pecking order of various front groups and personalities is more or less clear; albeit the competition and rivalries can be fierce.
Rightist Agit Prop performers insist the “Left” must be similar. Yet to their dismay, evidence of any such centralized, cohesive counterpart to the “Movement” is scant. This leads Rightists to assume it must therefore reside in the nefarious media/Hollywood complex.
Stewart is very much a hit or miss experience most nights (even the phenomenal Lewis Black only bats a little over 400). Yet this clip shows Stewart speaking essential truth to Cooper and the implications of his stunt interview with Angelina Jole. The silliness of the Rightist rage at the media revealed.
If all of the MSNCNBCNNFOX executives are chasing, in Cal Thomas' words, the Fox “trailer park trash demographic” (kudos for Thomas for a momentary burp of truth telling), then this is where they end up:
O’Reilly: Now to me, they’re not fighting it [Iraq] hard enough. See, if I’m president, I got probably another 50-60 thousand with orders to shoot on sight anybody violating curfews. Shoot them on sight. That’s me… President O’Reilly… Curfew in Ramadi, seven o’clock at night. You’re on the street? You’re dead. I shoot you right between the eyes. Ok? That’s how I run that country. Just like Saddam ran it. Saddam didn’t have explosions - he didn’t have bombers. Did he? because if you got out of line, you’re dead.
Let us stipulate a couple of immediate points in response: (1) O'Reilly is a performance artist and demagogue seeking Rush-style ratings; (2) the essential premise that lack of security and too few forces in country doomed the half-assed occupation is not irrational; and (3) this kind of inflammatory simplicity is the embodiment of the “trailer park trash demographic” that Thomas (I have met the man only once so will refrain from calling him Cal) admitted was the bedrock of Fox. Cooper has no easy answer for this reality. With Dan Abrams in ascendance at MSNBC and Katie Couric prepping for her fierce debut, the only missing piece is for Jeff Foxworthy or Larry the Cable Guy to take over Nightline. And then what?
Waging war on journalists is a political staple over the decades. But never waged with such ferocity, malice and unrelenting determination as by this regime. The driving up of the negatives on the media — in Rove speak — was just the preliminary phase. Now comes the second phase of attack — to blame the media itself for terrorism. Blaming the media for terrorism fits perfectly with the post modernist inclinations of the Bush regime — narrative control determines objective reality, regardless what that reality may be. There lurks a kernal of basic junior high level truth therein; terrorists, just like O'Reilly et al., are performance artists. And they naturally seek a wide audience for their deadly theater. Yet the Soviet-style alternative — self censorship or even imposed news blackouts, etc. — implicit as a response is worse.
Blaming the media will get alot more attention before the election. Not expressed in the piece above — with nuance and a twinge of conscience, perhaps. Rather, expect more gutter trash talk of treason, etc. as recently heard from Republicans on the Hill.
Fox itself is perhaps the most culpable for sensationalizing and overhyping events, explosions and the threat. If the logic of media responsibility was carried to its logical next step, of course, Fox would lose immediately about 75% of its programming. Next to go would be the Missing Attractive Blonde Girl/Woman of the month. Hyping such cases could feed copy cats, etc.
Furtive and vengeful: just two adjectives historians will use to explain the irrationality of the 2001-2008 period. Deceitful will be another. And that prediction is before the regime loyalists flood Barnes & Noble, Borders and the Human Events Book Club with their rancid, self-serving and naturally inaccurate memoirs.
Historians therefore will have to weigh the self serving lies and omissions more carefully than ever before. Evaluating memoirs in the context of a closed society that prizes secrecy, deception and loyalty is a skill still remembered in the West. Strobe Talbot made his career translating Khruschev's memoirs which were written in secret while the author was in exile after 1964. Similarly, Zhukov's memoirs proved invaluable.
The contemporary news record from 2001-2006 will not help those interpretive efforts — much as in the Soviet example. The news record is a wasteland of triviality and sloganeering. The major news outlets --especially in broadcast — gave sycophantic coverage to the ruling regime and abuse to the out of power (and clueless) Democrats. Media fluffers spend their non broadcast time concocting and hawking their “books”. Regime courtiers like Tim Russert, Bob Schieffer et al. have no stomach for hard reporting. They instead hump Imus' leg for a favorable plug of their latest inanity. “Big Tim and You”, “Letters to My Pet Hamster”. Is there anyone, anywhere, anymore who does NOT have a disposable “book” to push?
A few journalists ignore those banalities and contribute to public discourse and future history through reporting. The Michael Gordon and Lt Gen. Bernard Trainor book “COBRA II” comes to mind. Bob Woodward's shameful PR pieces have already become dismissable. And it appears that Ron Suskind's latest book may be the kind of work many expected from Woodward, before self regard and conflicts of interest rendered him inert. Suskind tapped a number of pissed off Community professionals to provide some intriguing morsels of insight. As Barton Gellman says in the WaPo:
This is an important book, filled with the surest sign of great reporting: the unexpected. It enriches our understanding of even familiar episodes from the Bush administration's war on terror and tells some jaw-dropping stories we haven't heard before.
It says something about our debased times that the basic facts Suskind sets forth: Cheney's “One Percent Doctrine”, the realities of the Al Qaeda senior executives we have captured (Abu Zubaydah, rather than being a 'mastermind' is apparently a schizophrenic near vegetable), etc. appear here, rather than through congressional hearings. Indeed, the other end to the Bush regime's secrecy and obsession with loyaly in pursuit of illegality is Congress' dereliction of constitutional duty.
As with most efforts that rely on Community sources, it appears that Suskind was used by those sources to refight old battles and settle old scores. The Stiftung is suspicious of such books in the ordinary course. When Tenet and John McLaughlin et al. are involved, our bullshit detectors naturally automatically go to max. Only such venal and weak creatures could by their very presence generate even a whiff of sympathy for sociopathic players such as Cheney, Libby and Addington. Suskind opens his book with this gem, according to Gellman:
Tenet and his loyalists also settle a few scores with the White House here. The book's opening anecdote tells of an unnamed CIA briefer who flew to Bush's Texas ranch during the scary summer of 2001, amid a flurry of reports of a pending al-Qaeda attack, to call the president's attention personally to the now-famous Aug. 6, 2001, memo titled “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US.” Bush reportedly heard the briefer out and replied: “All right. You've covered your ass, now.”
We look forward to reading Suskind's book. Maybe Suskind presents the necessary balance that would make this book truly useful and historic. We will have to see. But for those of us seeking a comprehensive and balanced judgment that transcends the agenda of specific sources, it would be no surprise if we must wait awhile still. Perhaps Tenet could give us “Letters To Big George”?
Ignoring the clutter foisted by the infotainment complex is particularly oppressive lately. What are the big short term media tempests? Let's see: there was the effervescent hype over the bogus “debate” over Iraq, then the missing two soldiers in Iraq and their tragic murder, followed by the North Korean cry for attention with their potential missile launch. And there are assorted lesser info burps such as Rather's ignominious kick out the door, Suskind's book, etc.
All which will last as long as a McDonald's Happy Meal in the national consciousness.
This development only underscores the importance of the SCO as a geopolitical structure. Its combination of growing economies, petroleum resources and nuclear powers makes the SCO a potentially major opponent for the U.S. as it seeks to retain its Central Asian footprint gobbled up immediately after 9/11. But whether the U.S. can hold on let alone consolidate its position is an open question. As Ariel Cohen writes in the link above:
Washington now confronts the likelihood the SCO states will try to put the squeeze on the US geopolitical position in Central Asia. American policymakers are currently working to develop a strategy to blunt the SCO’s ability to influence regional developments.
Kazakhstan, an SCO member, figures prominently in the US strategic calculus. Energy-rich Kazakhstan is Central Asia’s economic engine, and thus wields considerable influence in any regional grouping of which it is a member. Top Bush administration officials have courted the country’s president, Nursultan Nazarbayev. For example, during an early May visit to Kazakhstan, US Vice President Dick Cheney expressed admiration for the country’s economic and political development.
We agree with Cohen's analysis that Kazakstan will be the next linch pin in the contest. Russia and China both will seek to use the SCO mechanism to roll back U.S. presence in their backyard. We do not agree, however, with Cohen that Russia and Tehran are in a de facto anti-U.S. alliance yet. Putin is far too smart to allow Iran to become the tail that wags the Russian dog. The statements Putin issued at the SCO summit indicate Russian independence from the U.S. diplomatic line and from Iranian intransigence.
A true and responsible cost benefit analysis has never been made for the rollback of Russian influence and position. Not only across the European glacis of Ukraine, Georgia, etc. but across the Central Asian 'stans — Uzbekistan, Tadjikistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgystan.
Moreover, an ends/means analsysis has yet to be made to justify the scale, size and impact on other powers of the U.S. geopolitical position there. Other than as logistical 'Lillypads' for the incompetent war in Iraq and the more important but equally mismanaged Afghan campaign, what precisely are the rationales for the U.S. presence there? We have yet to hear a cogent and compelling case.
This is contra to China and Russia. Both have obvious immediate and tangible strategic interests in assuring a hegemonic position in Central Asia; and for blocking U.S. hamfisted intrusions.
The SCO is merely one means being used to roll back a perceived U.S. encirclement. One can not help but ask if the Bush regime has thought through: (a) what exactly is the game/strategy being pursued — containment or something else; (b) whether the game is viable let alone worth the costs; (c) if it has the strategic and diplomatic finesse to maintain a U.S. presence as an outlier power; or (d) evaluated what other policies and priorities are impacted by overt or implicit linkage.
The Bush Administration's overall incomptence compels one to believe that a massive strategic burden has been assumed with little or no thought to costs, means, benefits or consequences. The push back evident at the SCO is only now just beginning. What will the U.S.do? What should the U.S. do? And at what costs? Those questions, Dear Reader, transcend Dan Rather's retirement, 2 soldiers kidnapped in Iraq or sham debates the Republicans impose in Congress as they recite the same talking points.
When Negroponte first began, we were heartened by his creation of a senior level “human capital” officer. The individual given that assignment, Ronald Sanders, was to recommend and oversee policies for creating and exploiting expertise and talent in the intelligence community. Such an approach at breaking down silos, even if notional, was long overdue.
Today, we learn that Negroponte is taking tenative steps in this direction. A welcome development. As the WaPo reports today:
As part of an effort to break down barriers between intelligence agencies, employees will be required to serve tours of duty outside their home offices to qualify for promotion into the government's senior ranks.
A directive mandating “joint duty” assignments was recently issued by John D. Negroponte , the director of national intelligence. It is one of a series of steps taken this year by Negroponte to better integrate operations among the 16 federal agencies that make up the intelligence community. . . The program, which will apply to General Schedule 13 and higher grade employees, will be gradually rolled out over the next three to four years, he [Ronald Sanders] said, in part because officials do not want to put the current crop of mid-career and senior leaders at a disadvantage in competitions for promotions.
As a tepid first step, it is welcome. Naturally, of course, all bureaucracies will react by gaming the system and this initiative will be no different. What is more pressing, however, is to rotate or assign officers across multi-disciplines or functions even within their own agencies, let along across the community.
Few Americans realize that a career can begin within one entity, and traverse a narrow and compartmentalized silo all the way to senior management. The result? A “senior manager” that has no real substantive idea or understanding what the rest of the organization does or how it functions. We don't always agree with Odom on things (and that, Dear Reader is a long story), but General Odom is right about that point — a human capital plan must expand the exposure of officers to other disciplines and management structures within their own service as well as joint train them.
Bill Gates is drawing the curtain on his portion of the PC era.
We have mixed emotions. Back in the mid-late 1970s, when we first huddled over acoustic 300 baud modems embedded in thermal printers (those were the cool TI units),the “computer industry” was IBM and BUNCH. Back then, most “borrowed” mainframes for programming in BASIC and Fortran or played Colossal Cave. The fabled Altair home hobbyist kit was a novelty, the original Apple, the Exidy Sorcerer (!) and Commodore Pet were just gaining traction. TRS-80s were still to come.
Perhaps remembering those days helps put Gates and his achievement in perspective. Of all the personalities that dominated that early hobby/industry primordial soup, only Gates and Jobs exert meaningful impact on the industry and our lives today.
So what to make of Gates and his departure? We know Microsoft has really never been an innovator technologically. From day one. Oh, they trot out some PR trophy initiatives over the years for show. And now they have the loss-leader X-box business unit. But in the main, Microsoft was always about the business model. Along with Gates' hard nosed verging-on-pathological belligerence approach to business. Those are qualities that can easily survive his departure in one way or another.
The importance of Gates' emphasis on a business model-centric ethos should not be dismissed. When Draper was giving away his Electric Pencil word processor, Gates famously demanded hobbyists cease copying Microsoft programs and pay for them. His swimming against the communitarian tide helped drive the maturation of American tech and PC companies from the Homebrew ethos to corporate warrirors capable of dominating the global high tech era. In the 1980s they were able to attract initial seed capital, draw in sequential funding rounds, and retain the best human capital and draining it (for a while) from the rest of world. It is not Gates' fault that the post Netscape IPO world in the 1990s inverted this approach into the bubble lottery.
There really is little point dignifying the sham on the Hill today with any serious commentary. An empty PR stunt shaped by “Ram and Cram” use of the Rules Committee in the House has its intended effect: polarizing noise, signifying nothing. The Stiftung has used the Rules Committee before for precisely this effect, as well as bringing up relatively unanimous legislation under “suspension” (of the Rules).
The potentially zero-sum partisan nature of working in the House is both its great strength and heavy burden. But debates of sophisticated national import? Even under the best of times, neither the House nor the Senate often rises to the challenge. Given our debased political culture and atrophied political institutions, we get this mess. One shouldn't expect anything much different. The House — and the Senate for that matter — are mere shells of their former selves as co-equal branches of government. They are, for all intents and purposes, like the Duma under Putin.
Today's real news? We hit the 2,500 combat death mark today. Take a moment to remember the Fallen.
The Bush Administration quite sensibly seeks to squeeze blood from the Zarqawi turnip via PR stunts. Fortune is fickle. They are determined to grab her hem as she passes — perhaps for the last time.
Meanwhile, the Iranians continue to dance rings around the lead footed (and punched out) U.S. Just today the Iranians offered to help the U.S. and the Iraqi government stabilize the situation on the ground. It claims the offer was made several times over the past few years. But the U.S. has been too tone deaf to pick up on their feelers in the past.
The Iranians appear determined to win the public diplomacy contest. And to date are far more adroit than Washington. For a regime here at home that cannot admit mistakes, coughing out a “yes” to Iranian diplomatic gambits will be a spectacle all its own.
This is not to equate Iranian shrewdness with the moral high ground. But we see three main reasons for the Iranian flexibility. All are designed to further concrete Iranian strategic interests and reduce military and other options for the U.S., now and in the foreseeable future.
First, a stablized Iraq now is in Iran's interest. The U.S. shot its bolt. The intent to use U.S. military power to overawe the Arab/Islamic world into subservience failed. Saddam, Iran's enemy, is gone. Iranian agents — probably over 50,000 — flood the Iraqi landscape. Given this situation, a stable Iraq that avoids Shia-Sunni violence is in Iran's national interest.
Second, a stable Iraq hastens the departure of the bulk of U.S. forces from the region — a departure that may be semi-permanent, even if some residual over-the-horizon in theater capability remains. If the U.S. retains some presence in the so-called “Super Bases” out of sight in Iraq, the U.S. capacity to inject sustained military combat power would require another massive logistical, political and economic flow through — an exercise the Iranians quite sensibly do not see as likely in the near to middle future. So a draw down of combat power from Iraq too is in Iran's interest.
And third, Iranian diplomatic flexibility further isolates and boxes in U.S. options on the Iranian nucelar program. And here, all the news is not great for Iran. Russia and China may not be anxious to see another half-assed U.S. military adventure in their backyard. But neither are eager to be puppets for Iranian intransigence. The evidence is in what is happening tomorrow at the fifth anniversary of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Shanghai Or Bust! OPEC With Bombs?
We wrote about this meeting when Putin went to Beijing (Springtime in Beijing). We speculated that this meeting would show the results of the strategic collaboration between Hu and Putin. The founding members are Russia, the four 'Stans — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — and China. Iran is an observer, but like India, Pakistan and Mongolia seeks full membership.
We take this development to mean simply that Russia and China will develop SCO according to their strategic vision, rather than be hostage to Tehran's. Accordingly, the rebuff to Iran over the next few days is their rejection of Tehran's bid to turn Moscow and Beijing's pet project into a de facto anti-U.S. alliance. Given their sign off on the tepid initiative launched in true AgitProp style by Condi, to do otherwise would also cause unneeded blow back.
We predict Iranian membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization will come. But on terms set by Moscow and Beijing. Iran has suffered a mild and temporary setback. We therefore expect another fusillade of Iranian public diplomacy over the summer.
Long time readers of this site know one of our essential premises: the Bush Administration is a sui generis phenomenon in American political experience. Its addiction to narrative control over effecting events in the world and its consequent obsession with ideological conformity makes it the first truly post-modern regime here.
The “suprise” visit by Bush to Baghdad is just another example. A hollow stunt aimed at control of news and opinion narratives.
Under Bush, America truly entered the world of the “hyper-real.” That term was popularized by the late Jean Baudrillard. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, when deconstructing the States (and giving the Soviets a free pass) was still fashionable in France (and later here), Baudrillard wrote a series of powerful polemics against the U.S.
His bottom line is that American addiction to media, commodification of thought and manipulation of this 'hyperreal' mixture created a separate American reality — a world that is more 'real' than real. Americans, he said, were replacing authentic things by a copy (thus reality is replaced by a substitute). In his diagnosis, nothing here is “real,” though we who live here in America are trapped in the illusion. So we can't see that we are trapped. The nature of synthetic life as described by Baudrillard is that we no longer have experiences. Instead, he claims Americans passively take in spectacles via the TV, radio or today, the Internet. A shame that Baudrillard died before Second Life and World of Warcraft made his speculations all too evident — or Koreans were dropping dead from playing video games too long.
The Left Continental critique of the U.S. from the 1970s and 1980s (which perversely picked up and recycled the European Rightist critiques of the 1920s and 1930s-- hence the Left's rehabilitation of Schmitt et al.) has its own ideological agenda. But nonetheless, Braudillard's diagnosis merely was 30 years too early — the Bush Administration is largely a complete vindication of almost all his fear and loathing.
The meeting was as much a media event as it was a high-level strategy session, devised to send a message that this is “an important break point for the Iraqi people and for our mission in Iraq from the standpoint of the American people,” in the words of the White House counselor, Dan Bartlett. [Bartlett, recall was the WH aide who told Ron Suskind that “we are an Empire now” and “We make our own reality” - Stiftung].
Recent Comments here already predicted this narrative loop and disconnect before today. And as mentioned there, the Camp David “Summit” is above all a ploy to position the Administration to avoid blame — by shifting it to the Iraqi people, Democrats and finally the American people.
But it is about more than just Bush. The catastrophic results of “hyper real” governance are undeniable both here (Katrina, etc.) and abroad (Iraq, the universal disregard for America overseas). But the Republican Party still can not break free of its own contamination of the “hyper real” post modern addiction to narrative control and ideological obediance. The one instance where there is a break, on immigration, it is to move even further into Nativist fringe Talking Point land.
For those Republican friends who read this blog, I submit to you that replacing the Bush Administration is a necessary but insufficient condition for a return to empirical politics and essential liberal democratic (small “d” ) norms. The entire Republican ruling apparat must be smashed. We must consciously reject the “hyper real” post modernism foisted on us since 2001 by the Administration and its sycophants across the other two branches of government.
The Democrats for all of their flaws — or perhaps because of those flaws — offer a better chance to return to the politics of rationality, empiricism and away from narrative addictions. And from the Republican ruins, perhaps, a political organization can emerge that is worthy again of participating in American politics.
The Stiftung has known a number of those people for over 20 years. We speak here of the people day to day associated with PNAC — the indirect network of letter signers, etc. is too diaphanous to characterize simply. Those most closely related to PNAC, while politically duplicitous and even ham fisted more often than not, are often genuinely bright — at least in terms of manipulation of abstract memes. Although one less well known member of the PNAC Board in particular struck the Stiftung even 20 years ago as a prime example of that queer Imperial City archetype: shameless hustler/self promoter and distinctly dimbulb.
This day of closure and endings was long coming. PNAC essentially served its purpose during the Neocon wildnerness years in the 1990s and as a networking platform to place sanctioned personnel within the Administration. But has been an empty shell for years. Even Kristol looked at Stephen Colbert with amused contempt when Colbert asked him recently about PNAC. To paraphrase Kristol, PNAC is moribund and has been in hibernation for a long time. The soto voce thought balloon over Kristol's head was more direct — “You're just twigging to PNAC now????” — and clearly evident even on Basic Cable.
So one front group shuts down. As addicts to AgitProp, the Neocons can not but help open another. This is the life they have chosen, after all. Where? Will it be with Marshall Wittmann and the McCain campaign? A suitably romantic (or deeply cynical) Democrat? Will we be lamenting Neo-Liberals in a few short years? (And mocking Peter Beinhart's 2010 Kostler-esque confessions that “if only I had known?” ).
The most pressing question to the Stiftung this campaign season is the hardest to answer. Will the elections offer an opportunity to restore the essential foundations of a liberal democratic Republic? Or will they merely offer a change of faces, whether Democrat or Republican, extending the Schmittean authoritarian trajectory established since 2001?
Grover Norquist, a principal organizer of the conservative movement who is close to the Bush White House and usually supports its policies, says, “If you interpret the Constitution's saying that the president is commander in chief to mean that the president can do anything he wants and can ignore the laws you don't have a constitution: you have a king.” He adds, “They're not trying to change the law; they're saying that they're above the law and in the case of the NSA wiretaps they break it.” A few members of Congress recognize the implications of what Bush is doing and are willing to speak openly about it. Dianne Feinstein, Democratic senator from California, talks of a “very broad effort” being made “to increase the power of the executive.” Chuck Hagel, Republican senator from Nebraska, says:
There's a very clear pattern of aggressively asserting executive power, and the Congress has essentially been complicit in letting him do it. The key is that Bush has a Republican Congress; of course if it was a Clinton presidency we'd be holding hearings.
Grover is a casual acquaintance of the Stiftung's. Over the years we cross paths here and there. We remember one time being on a bike ride in Germany with Grover back in 1998 (don't ask). While gliding though the Bavarian landscape, Grover excitedly set forth his vision of a Bush Administration. Names that are now ubiquitous first popped into the Stiftung's mental rolodex — Rove, Hughes, etc. Grover gave the impression that then Governor Bush would be loyal to conservatives and controllable. Much of Grover's agenda has come to pass. But Grover's mistake was assuming his agenda was the one that would be in control. Even so, his enthusiasm for tax cuts always exceeded his commitment to fiscal restraint or the 'leave us alone' coaltion instincts.
We recommend the Drew piece as a nice recap. Compared to much already here at the Stiftung or elsewhere around the blogosphere, Drew is decidedly Old Skool. Verging on the decorous. But in its entirety, the piece underscores in a timely manner the true stakes this Fall: it is not enough for Democrats to win one or both chambers on the Hill to break the back of this incompetent Republican apparat. Democrats must find a cohesive historical, cultural and political memory of what was and systematically seek to restore both separation of powers and checks and balances. Otherwise, the famous coda to Pete Townshend's hoary anthem Won't Get Fooled Again will resound with depressing clarity.
A mean and ignoble death seemed Zarqawi's destiny. The Stiftung congratulates the SOCOM Task Force. They worked hard for today. Yet they had help. The intriguing question is from whom?
Given that Zarqawi has become a loose cannon and that his actions are handicapping Al Qaeda's efforts, it seems reasonable to expect that an accident may befall him at some point in the near future. If handled right it can be made to look like he went out in a blaze of glory fighting American troops or that he was foully murdered. Either way, al Qaeda gets rid of a problem and gains another “martyr.”
A fairly prophetic item. 2 years of fairly bleak news is now broken by a small glint of light. A friend wrote in a privately circulated email that the Al Qaeda experience in Saudia Arabia suggests that the movement is susceptible to leadership decapitation. We recognize that the insurgency in Iraq and Al Qaeda are two separate phenomena. Nonetheless, one can be forgiven for anticipating some breathing room has been established as of today. Let us hope that the new Iraqi regime and the U.S. make the most of it.
UPDATE: The prevailing meme from this morning is that 'locals' helped pull off today's JDAM judgment. Andrew Sullivan has it here. We don't buy it as the major factor.
The Stiftung has been aware of the TF operating for Zarqawi, long before it was widely mentioned and identified in the media. The frustration about missing Zarqawi time after time within the TF was extremely high (although positive morale strong). Even with good 'local cooperation'. The problem has always been time urgent info that allowed the TF to get in position and take a shot within Zarqawi's movement/decision cycle. Locals even today would not likely have that information.
Far more likely — offcial public statements notwithstanding — is a combined tracking of Zarqawi deputies, probably some SIGINT/ELINT footprint and the indirect assistance noted above.
How to determine when a movement or social scene reaches sufficent bloat and narcissism that it demands deadly parody? Such an elusive but crucial tipping point usually is the death knell for those depicted. Fortunately it also can be the source of comedy gold for the rest of us. Such gems as This Is Spinal Tap come to mind.
Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and - Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten? Nigel Tufnel: Exactly. Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder? Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten.
You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where? Marty DiBergi: I don't know. Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do? Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven. Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder. Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder? Nigel Tufnel: [Pause] These go to eleven.
Rush Limbaugh this week announced the press was “gleefully” reporting about Haditha, and was “ecstatic” about the blood-soaked tale. But he offered no examples to illustrate his allegation. Fox News analyst and right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin insisted she could see “puddles of drool in the offices of the L.A. Times and The New York Times” as they reported out the atrocities allegedly carried out by U.S. Marines. Malkin also demanded that there be “a ratcheting down of all the hyperventilation and treat this incident with the seriousness and sobriety that it deserves” . . .
Where, readers and viewers were left to wonder, were the all the gleeful articles, quotes, headlines, and cable news talk shows about Haditha? Where was all the rampant, distasteful gleefulness hiding? Apparently it's been invisible to the naked eye, but detectable among pro-war, super sleuths like Limbaugh, Malkin, O'Reilly and Lowry, who have perfected the art of media criticism via mental telepathy. Frustrated conservatives can't actually point to any sort of demented press gloating, so instead they pretend to read the minds of journalists to determine that beneath the surface they love--love--reporting the fact that U.S. Marines may have lined up dozens of innocent Iraqis in Haditha, including women and children, and shot them execution-style.
Doubtless Krauthammer would launch now into an elaborate but specious discussion about the psychopathology of these falangistas. It is hard to avoid the temptation — the acting out becomes all the more blatant day by day. And the fodder for a contemporary Marty Di Bergi simply grows richer. The falangist rage against the much reviled empirical reality betraying them just exposes the manic ideological narcissism. How else to explain O'Reilly's repeated insistence that the Nazi SS executioners of American POWs at Malmedy in France were actually the victims of Americans? But unlike Krauthammer, we will avoid drawing facile psychiatriac conclusions about O'Riley muttering to himself in a dank dark room, staring vacantly at scale models of Linz. (Or would that be Levittown?)
In fact, we are somewhat sympathetic. Plodding forward, shouldering the burdens of metaphysical certitude in the face of cruel Fate, is a martyrdom reserved only for the timocratic elite. Expect more acting out as the burdens only grow. Kevin Baker in the latest Harper's explains how the “Stab In the Back” myth is taking shape.. But the falangist agony will intensify as they are saddled with maintaining market share, meeting or exceeding audiences, book sales metrics, etc. in the face of audience fatigue. Certain anorexic harpies also must fend off creeping age. It is only natural that some such as Coulter seek refuge in exploring even further the extreme outer boundaries of shrill and decency.
-----------
Conservatives and the Administration, according to Coulter's latest bid for media attention, are the true friends and supporters of science. Against them? Liberals and oppositionists who in her inverted world hate science. Coulter on 9/11 Widows: ‘I have never seen people enjoying their husbands’ death so much’. Here, however, is the true subtext of Lauer's Coulter interview:
Lauer: No one ever said you (or anyone else) couldn't respond to the 9/11 widows.
Coulter: [pause] But these go to eleven.
It may be just us, but we doubt seriously that such a screeching harpy-like creature as Coulter could offer even the one counterbalancing attribute mentioned in the song here. (Speaking of which, who knew an entire tune could be based successfully on a single Joe Perry riff from 30 years ago?).
Will Republican manipulation of prejudices and hate in its base be successful?
Until this morning, the Stiftung was hopeful that the cynicism behind such tactics would be clear to even those being pandered to by the Republican apparat. Then we chatted with one of the Stiftung's long time acquaintances (he is not a dog and hence by Imperial City ordnance can not be considered a 'friend' - hey, it's the law, not me). He remains Faithful To The Cause and the Administration, even if disillusioned the past 6 years. Yet, today he positively brims with renewed vigor and Belief.
Apparent political rejuvenation came via the White House propaganda festival yesterday. This multi-decade veteran of political campaigns and Republican politics previously acknowledged the Administration's misrule since 2001, the intellectual bankruptcy of the “Christian Socialist” Republican apparat (hat tip to Andrew Sullivan for that felicitous phrase), the incompetent war, etc. This acquaintance last week even wanted to see a Democrat victory in November (like the Stiftung), admitting only defeat would force Republicans to take back the Party from the radical fringe.
Yet today, he is, as one of the ED commercials promise relentlessly, a “new man.” After just one White House staged event, this hard bitten political veteran is full of renewed enthusiasm. To take back America from the fags, liberals, communists and elevator music companies that have sapped our P.O.E. as Jack Ripper memorably wrote.
What to make of it all? We are still pondering these and other micro reactions. We haven't seen the specific polling data or the data cross linkages that are never reported in the media. Besides, we'll leave the sweeping sociological bullshit to Brooks. But in the case of this specific acquaintance, it seems clear that he needs an enemy, something to be against, perhaps even more than something for. Republican malfeasance and Democrat rope-a-doping had truly sapped his purity of essence, by all indications. But he is back, at least for a short time.
In an earlier post, we speculated on a possible biochemical basis for the polarized politics of today. I suspect there is fertile and possibly operationally very alarming ground to be explored there. Truly, l'enfer c'est les autres — and to think he wrote that before American Idol or the Terry Schiavo calamity.
Buchanan rolled back the curtain a bit tonight. What can we expect from the fringe Rightists in the twilight of Bushism?
Tonight we witnessed a preview of the authoritarian Movement's real objectives. And the Stiftung believes what we saw is far more menacing, far more dangerous, and far more crazed than even Bush, the Neocons and their romantic fantasies.
Buchanan tonight stopped just short of calling for an uprising against Constitutional government. But the ground work is being prepared. One accomplishment of the Bush era is how it has mainstreamed fringe ranters like Buchanan. Granted, he hides his malice and authoritarianism under avuncular colloquialisms. But Buchanan is by ancestery German, not Irish as implied by the name. And he is the contemporary heir to the anti-liberal democratic strands so prevalent in the 1920s — deeply Catholic, deeply mistrustful of democracy, deeply authoritarian, and fervently beholden to a heroic self image as fighter against a Declinist social agenda.
Buchanan in fact tonite could have been been sent to 1928 or 1929 Germany and translated verbatim. His appeal to the gutter spirit would have played just fine. He claims the country is almost irretrievably decadent. He claims that “elitists” ignore the will of the people and undermine faith in the Constitution. And the basis for this? Gays may get married. Schmittean? Spenglerian? All of those.
“So what?”, one might ask. Buchanan has always been so.
But Buchanan and his Nativist, authoritarian, intollerant and irrational (he is in the thick of Intelligent Design) agenda has been mainstreamed. He appears on Imus and tells locker room jokes. He is on MSNBC. Moreover, his opposition to the war when many were afraid to speak out raised his esteem in the eyes of more mainstream conservatives. Interestingly, those conservatives who began to commingle with Buchanan that the Stiftung knows have now picked up other tunes from his song book — from his racial/eugenic views of immigration and control of the uterus, to trade, to guns, to gays. He has done very well in bringing his radical fringe in from the cold. In this sense, Buchanan and his authoritarian agenda may be the real winner under Bushism.
The Nativist opposition to Iraq today has parrallels with the continental brownshirts who opposed the Trotskyite internationalism back then. Buchanan and his cadres oppose the war in large measure because it detracts from their domestic radical agenda. And this explains in part a major reason that the most strident alarmists about the Neocons in 2006 are in fact Buchananites or fellow travelling conservatives. Some of the more sophisticated of this crowd know that the Stiftung is right, and that military action is not imminent. But by baiting the Neocon issue, these authoritarians (a) help cloak their own domestic radical agenda, and (b) build the case of the “stab in the back”.
--------------
The Stiftung is not even going to address Snow's pathetic effort to link the gay marriage debate in the Senate to civil rights today. The cynicism of this crowd is breathtaking. Particularly for their own base, whom they expect to fall for this game yet again.
At this point in any Administration, inevitably thoughts begin to turn to the legacy. That Bush would make a little noticed speech at West Point last week comparing his Administration to Truman suggests legacy is indeed on his mind. Doubtless Bush likes to think containment, formation of NATO, the Berlin Airlift and the Korean War are akin to his incompetent war of aggression in Iraq, fiscal irresponsibility, and malignant authoritarianism at home. At 29%, one can forgive that drowning man clutching for a straw.
Iraq can fairly well be said to be “lost” in the American mindset — Haditha is likely merely a postscript. As of May 2006, insurgent episodes in Iraq climbed towards 630 a week - an all time high. Basra has fallen into chaos. Apologist Tom Friedman has finally acknowledged that Iraq is heading towards “anarchy”. Anbar requires an infusion of yet more troops. The Administration's canard of claiming yet another election in Iraq having an appreciable impact has been revealed even for the Kool Aid set. Since the elections of January 2006, the Iraqis can not select a Minister of Defense.
Haditha is a tragedy for the victims and the Marine Corps. Unlike My Lai which was symptomatic of a disintegrating Army and the massive racial and cultural ecumenae divide, Haditha is not emblematic of the military. Despite efforts by Buchanan and Tony Blankley to fabricate a “stab in the back” strawman over Haditha, the American media and even Left blogs are almost uniformly pro-troops and sympathetic to the burdens placed on them. There is no “Mainstream media” effort to disparage the troops. Should the allegations be true, those guilty should be punished. As with those in the cover up.
And yet, Miss Foreign Affairs continues to blather the talking points on Iraq. Bromides, verbal diarreaha and vacuity, today on Face the Nation:
If even “we'll know in the next six months” Friedman is abandoning ship, things are indeed grim for this AgitProp regime. Yet note Condi's facile repetititon of the talking points. More hollow rhetoric from such an unrelentingly mediocre mind. Self parody without even realizing it, with frequent use of “clearly” and “obviously”.
The new elections turned the corner.
The new strong man will assert control.
The Iraqi security forces are taking the lead.
We need more time.
Yet still the Condi Fan Club, fresh from rapturous adoration for Madonna's latest tour/caclulated outrage, ignores Condi's essential banality. The Condi Fan Club now performs summersaults over Condi's “breakthrough” with Iran. But as the NYTimes reports, Rice's triumph is a bid to recover from a “disasterous” meeting in Europe. There, Europe, Russia and China made it clear that the U.S. was alone and without support for its maladtroit intansigience over Iran. Her much vaunted breakthrough, thus is a scramble to block an Iranian diplmatic rout. And rooted, as noted in a post below, in fundamdental U.S. geostrategic weakness. Other than Wilhelmine Germany, has a Great Power ever played its hand so recklessly and poorly? And for the Condi Cheerleaders, since when is having a policy collapse at the hands of an admitted delusional firebrand in Tehran and then forced to scramble to recover amount to a “triumph”? The Condi Cheerleaders can't even point to a victory over Cheney or Rumsfeld — neither sought to block this move nor seek an alternative policy.
Perhaps, if Cher Condi simply repeats the AgitProp long enough, she believes she can avoid the fate below. Yet the verdict of history is remorseless. And is indifferent to Ferragamo shoes.
Has Condi's reply to the Iranian letter initiative heralded a new breakthrough and a triumph for the Bush Administration? Is David Brooks correct saying this when he wrote and opined at length on the MSNBC Imus Book Promotion Show today?
Or is Condi's media blitz a mere fork in the road? And the path chosen, while less travelled, will not in the end make much difference, leading to inevitable military action? We see an Iranian diplomatic victory as almost unstoppable. Barring something wholly unforeseen, we also don't envision any military action for the foreseeable future.
First, we must be clear. The U.S. is conducting a policy from a position of weakness. In terms of absolute power, the military costs in material and human capital of Iraq continue to mount. Iranian agents in the tens of thousands are operating in Iraq today. While we weaken, we have made Iraq safe for Iran. Moreover, as we mentioned in an earlier post, to take down the Iranian military and occupy a country of some 60 million under CENTCOM doctrine will call for an armed force of near 1,000,000.
We don't have that force posture today and won't in any foreseeable future. There is no viable military option for many years. It is no accident that the Marines are wargaming a conflict circa 2015.
An airstrike would be the worst possible option. We have no realistic chance of terminating the program. The sites are dispersed. We don't have the intel. What is destroyed can be reconstituted. And the Iranian program only retarded. And in return the U.S. would be the legitimizing agent that would solidify the populace around a largely discredited theocratic regime.
Second, the Chinese and Russians have successfully blunted the Administration's dwindling but palplable instinct to unilateralism. Contra David Brooks, Rice's speech was a sign of Chinese and Russian diplomatic prowess. It is unlikely that the UN Security Council will bend to the Administration as it did however reluctantly re Iraq. That good will and political capital has been squandered.
The relatively unimpressive list of sanctions Rice is speaking of today will likely be the high water mark — at least for the remainder of this failed presidency. The sanctions discussed are real, but unlikely to induce a change in behaviour. Stronger sanctions? Unlikely that the Chinese or Russians will given this President a victory of tougher sanctions on petroleum refining, etc.
So What Is The Deal?
Unfortunately, even with a moderate sanctions regime in place, the AgitProp will be shrill. Israel, defense of “the only democracy in the Middle East” — all will be bludgeoned on the mass mind of the American populace. As rabid talk show host Michael Graham said on Imus before Brooks, “the real question is will the American people be willing to go to war to defend Israel”. Expect in the years to come alot more invocations of Chamberlin, Munich etc. Graham and his comrades in chickenhawk pamphleteers are, however, blissfully ignorant of military realities, including manpower and logistics discussed above.
Let us assume for the moment that Negroponte and the intelligence community is right. That we are looking at an initial operating capability of Iranian weaponized nukes in ten years. That is about 2016. The Marine Corps wargame scenario of 2015 looks especially interesting — an operational Iranian bomb would essentially mute talk of any viable military option.
Our bottom line? We see nothing happening under the current Administration beyond jawjaw. And at the moment, all things considered, unless the Iranians provoke matters eggregiously, we do not see any military action before 2012.
Someone tell W that his nickname, bestowed by Fate, is “Paper Tiger”. You read it here first.
Dear Reader, the Stiftung is saddened to announce the passing away of its computer network, or at least the tech support contract for the network if it doesn't come back up pronto. Posting will be light until this is resolved. One hopes by tomorrow morning at the latest.
