Tags: Scooter Libby, Cheney, Neocons, Iraq, Fitzgerald, Bush, Commute, Pardon, Obstrusction of Justice

Two interesting and intertwined stories collide. First, Lynne Olson, author of the feted “Troublesome Young Men”, the story of Churchill's wilderness years leading up to 1940 and immortality, spanks Bush, the Neocons and the whole Likudite effort to hijack Winston as their own revisionist mascost.



The WaPo is increasingly irrelevant as a journalistic force and even a useful local information source (witness Sunday's incredibly inane effort to promote their young hip Internet reporters against the WaPo rebel kids who left to found Politico.com. The WaPo scoop? People should use BCC instead of CC on Capitol Hill when sending mass emails. We almost sobbed at the temporary nadir, soon to be surpassed.)

But the Olson piece is a pleasant surprise. Read the whole thing as the ex-space-law power tool law firm associate-turned-blogger says. The Walter Reed stories and a few other glimmers at the WaPo, too — but so much empty banality.

Then, the Imperator of the White House grounds (and little else) bestows Scooter's Neocon-VC (and in this case not even politically postumously).

We were never a blog site that devled into the feral debates and arcana of the L'Affaire Wilson. The case against the WH et al. seemed clear to the Stiftung from the outset. We have always suspected from knowing Grover et al. that this WH ran an enemies list operation that would make Erlichman blush, and from outing Plame to selective IRS audits is how we know and suspect these guys roll.

Moreover, from the outset the details bored the Stiftung and were often wrong when reported. In truth, Firedoglake and the other usual suspects will serve you better, Dear Reader, if this issue is of concern. Those people, more than the traditional media, brought this story to the American people and deserve your readership. We could never match their expertise on the case even if we wanted to try.

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Narcissism. Wolfowitz's stubborness is especially tawdry. A fittingly craven end.

His Neocon cohorts rally still to his futile, rictus smiles and grip on status. Another Neocon romantic obsession with “Last Stands”. And beyond the '300' current pop sensibilities of Miller and Snyder's silliness.

Wolfowitz, like Sampson, would rather pull it all down around him. Neocon love affairs for such narcissistic heroics run throughout their historical revisionism. Varus, November 1942 (which is especially perverse for obvious reasons), Masada, Wagner's stuff (again, perversely, in that way), Dien Bien Phu, the Shia in 1991, the Kurds, etc. Many Neocons we know go bonkers for the movie ZULU. (We've never met one who gives a shit about Custer. Too much 'Americana' for their tastes perhaps. Comment, below, also reminds us the Alamo is absent from their litany).
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* 'Lupus Maximus' — another gem from the fertile mind of Comment, friend of all here at the Stiftung.
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Pity the fools? Nah.

U.S. diplomats are returning from Iraq with the [allegedly - ed] same debilitating, stress-related symptoms that have afflicted many U.S. troops, prompting the State Department to order a mental health survey of 1,400 employees who have completed assignments there . . . State Department employees in Iraq seldom leave the capital's heavily fortified Green Zone . . . Diplomats might be suffering PTSD to the same extent as troops, says Joseph Boscarino, an expert on war-related mental problems at the Geisinger Health System in Danville, Pa.

We don't make light of the dangers of Iraq or the courage of those there. The idea, however, that those State Department and other USG personnel hunkered down in the Green Zone share the same levels of stress and trauma of the men and women serving in the meat grinder in the rest of the country is ridiculous. Of course, Cher Condi's bogus AgitProp scheme of sending Foreign Service officers outside the Green Zone in Condi's Provisional Reconstruction Teams is lunacy. It's no wonder Condi and Karen Hughes can't find the volunteers for that farcical assignment other than the young, ambitious and perhaps naive new FSOs. Even then, not without lavish bonuses and other incentives.

Surge, indeed.





Tags: Iraq, Neocons, War, Surge, Condi, Condi Rice

We first encountered this White House directly in 2001 and saw first hand unified uniparty government (with the brief interruption Senate-side until November 2002). Since then we have been amazed watching the liberal and moderate establishments' willful failure to understand their peril. They sat across a gloating menace devoted to their destruction, not mere defeat. Still liberals and even Republican moderates such as “The Main Street Partnership” continued to seek understanding, compromise and traditional coalition management strategies.

The result? Disaster for them and the Nation.

Some still extend an unjustified benefit of the doubt. Harold Meyerson's column today expresses puzzlement why the Administration's recent scandals date after November's calamity. He offers four possible alternatives: a) Republicans hope for rescue by a non-Bush, non-“insider” candidate in 2008 such as Rudy to replace Bush; (b) Republicans want to stall and run against Dems as “do nothings”; (c) they believe their own Kool Aid and FOX; and (d) they just can't help themselves.


Harold, bright as he is, still doesn't fully grasp the nature of those ruling this country these past 6 years. First, the Movement continues to act in its self interest. Congressional Republicans are an after the fact consideration if not considered a nuisance. Nick Calio was essentially an appendix in the White House universe. Legislative outreach dwindled still further after his departure.

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Sy Hersh's latest on Iran and Iraq has some fresh reporting of interest. It also confirms a number of things that readers here have noted recently.

Our readers should take a bow. Hersh quotes Armitage of all people saying what readers said here last summer — Nasrallah “is the smartest man in the Middle East”. Bob Baer also notes the “dog that didn't bark” after the 2006 air war in Lebanon — Nasrallah opted not to initiate Hezbollah terror attacks in revenge in and out of the region. Immediately after the 2006 Israeli offensive, readers noted Nasrallah's adept political skills.

Readers also followed the Executive Office of the Vice President (EOVP) closely. Not only in the typical blogosphere meme warfare (“Cheney sucks, man!” ) superficialities but in the technical analysis as well. Parsing the meaning of Addington's legal footprints, readers noted that Cheney et al. were indeed “ideological” — contra Larry Wilkerson's quaint diagnosis. The importance of Iran Contra to understanding today's situation is also a reader favorite. Hersh notes that Abrams even chaired a “lessons learned” symposium of sorts. Understandably, the current plan avoids operationalizing the NSC — this crowd is even more inept than the mid 1980s. All of this does remind one of amateur hour with cakes, etc. It's a shame we don't have the slides — one bullet point should have been “Make sure you have a presidential pardon !”



Having said that, we told a well-known liberal journalist who follows all this several years ago: the rise of private sector para-militaries and unbelievable (and unaccounted) cash flows made Casey's old 'Enterprise' concept a concrete reality. If one wanted to do so.

Assuming a “lessons learned” gathering did happen, concluding that the Agency and military need to be cut out is not unfeasible today. Moreover, the engorged private sector parallel to the Community truly can't be called amateurs across the board. They are stocked with some of the best former operators and analysts in or outside the government. As an aside we note in passing Iran claims the U.S. is fomenting attacks from Pakistan into Iran.

With reference to the incidents in Zahedan, Stratfor, a think-tank with close connections to the US military and security establishment, commented that the Jundallah militants are receiving a “boost” from Western intelligence agencies. Stratfor said, “The US-Iranian standoff has reached a high level of intensity ... a covert war [is] being played out ... the United States has likely ramped up support for Iran's oppressed minorities in an attempt to push the Iranian regime toward a negotiated settlement over Iraq.”

We give less credence to Hersh's source's claim that Negroponte resigned from DNI over an Elliott Abrams scheme. That contradicts everything we have heard and believe. There are 1,001 and one ways to shut something like that down in this town. Negroponte knows at least 999 of them. A skilled player like Negroponte could keep his finger prints clean as well. Oppositionists must be careful not to be seduced by the symmetry of a compelling narrative. Although we have no doubt Hersh was told this.

Two other Hersh factoids stand out: (a) U.S. forces are already entering Iran in “hot pursuit”/for other operational purposes; (b) the Israelis are peddling an Iranian ICBM threat. The remainder of the piece? Well we know DoD planning for Iranian strikes continues. Bandar is up to his neck playing games to create the hard line against the Shia. What Hersh doesn't report on is the schism within Neocon ranks between those who want strikes and those who want to topple the regime in a velvet revolution approach. Those advocating the less militaristic view happen to be those on the outside.



Elsewhere, some generals and admirals threaten to resign over Iranian strikes. A good story for a news cycle. But in the end, not even a speed bump. Congress is ultimately where the end game plays out. Do they clarify a priori the limits of AUMF re Iran? Or do they take a dive, especially before the combined lobbying efforts of the Saudis and Israelis?



Tags: Iran, Iraq, Neocons, Cheney, War

The first few steps into the 'Reality Zone' ? The estimable Graham Allison notes:

This represents a significant departure from the Bush administration's previously failed policy. And in that respect, I agree entirely with the statement John Bolton made yesterday [Tuesday] in criticizing this agreement, which, he said, “contradicts fundamental premises of the president's policy”. So I agree with Bolton, that this contradicts the fundamental premises of the failed policy followed by the administration and supported by people like Mr Bolton and Vice President [Dick] Cheney.

That approach had several key elements. First it demanded CVID - complete, verifiable, irreversible dismantlement - as a precondition for anything else. Disarm first. Effectively, they decided there would be no carrots for good behavior and actually - though it didn't say so - it demonstrated no sticks for bad behavior. Thirdly, it insisted that there would be no bilateral negotiations. I think that what we should learn from this is that it is a plausible but actually failed approach to problems. And I think maybe there are some lessons that could be learned that are relevant for the Iranian case.

Jim Lobe goes into more details here. We agree with Lobe that public gloating by Oppositionists will only galvanize those elements opposed to dialogue in Korea or Iran. Far more effective to press the matter by proxy. Hence, the usefulness of the ongoing Flynt Leverett offensive. While Rice is receiving shrapnel wounds, the main axis of advance remains Cheney's office and NSC elements such as Elliott Abrams. Meanwhile on another front, a counter offensive underway pushes back against the over hyped 'sloppy' briefings re the Iranian government's involvement arming insurgents in Iraq.

The good news? Now fairly evident the Warlord has not made a decision to attack Iran. The bad news? American policy (and strategy) remains a jump ball.

Tags: Iran,, Iraq,, Neocons,, North Korea

Perhaps this kind of thinking helps explains in part the LA Times' recent death spiral:

THOSE of us who get a kick out of watching Tim Russert every Sunday on NBC's “Meet the Press” are feeling a little hangdog these days. We always thought Big Russ Jr. was tough on the powerful. Now we learn that to some Washington media types on both the right and the left, he's just a tool for the powerful . . . A former Cheney press aide testified last month that she pushed to get the vice president on Russert's show to bat down negative news because it was “our best format,” a program where political handlers can “control the message.”

Wow. Really? With his Buick-like physique, piercing stare and rumbling baritone — plus his interrogatory style of brandishing incriminating documents and video in front of his guests — Russert sure doesn't look like any flack's patsy . . .

Big Russ“ may not stack up as great literature, but it became a surprise bestseller and humanized Russert to millions who'd known him simply as a guy who liked to play ”gotcha“ with elected officials.

But writing a heartwarming book that merchants might file alongside ”Tuesdays With Morrie“ doesn't help demonstrate journalistic toughness. And watching ”Meet the Press“ over the last few weeks, I think I can understand why both Cheney's office and critics such as Huffington believe Russert can be readily controlled . . .

Russert can seem overly dispassionate, particularly during a time when opinion has increasingly bled into the news. And it's the lack of emotion that can make his approach look, after a while, less like real toughness than a facsimile of it.

He's ”dispassionate.“ That's what the LA Times calls programming for years where only Republicans would appear on MTP, or why a ”roundtable“ of 4 commentators would feature at best 3 pro-war and 1 skeptic. ”Dispassionate“ must explain the routine under the table gropes with Matalin and Carville. Who knew that rather than taking a dive for the Administation like Tweety did, Timmy's just an emotionally repressed blue color kinda guy, like Big Russ. ”Dispassionate“ must explain why the D.C. bureau chief says he assumes everything he is told is off the record. Naturaly, MTP was the EOVP's preferred vehicle to get the message out because Cheney and Timmy are dispassionate bookends.





One thing that stands out to us watching the Scooter drama is how it underscores a critical truth in this town: policy wonks make poor political media operatives. Cheney was ill-advised to deploy Scooter to swat away Wilson, even if it was to protect both of them. The trial testimony only confirms our view. It is true that Scooter was no naif and knew specific reporters such as Miller, etc. But his mindet and personality came from the national security policy arena, and before that, a Dechert litigator.

Both law and national security require a substantial commitment in terms of training, comportment, and frankly personality. Knowledge, rational analysis and formal techniques of argumentation — or bureaucratic sabotage — are rarely personality dependent and intensively transactional. Accordingly, policy specialists, however gifted, almost always lack initially the instincts, comportment and understanding that human relationships are the mother's milk for effective political media operators. (Some of course do learn fast. But even some well known policy wonk bloggers who tangentially get involved in legislative dynamics took about a year to get the instincts and ”radar“ to not stumble around). We've watched some of this up close and seen PhDs in arcane areas of specialities with world class reputations asume that media ”coordination“ and legislative affairs are purely process-related and thus something a child could do. They assumed that they could slide into politically operational roles through dint of pure rational analysis and calling on colleagues for support. Same with corporations who underestimate all the above and start a D.C. office with an executive suite favorite. Almost invariably, the results are either comical or disasterous.

Of course, Cheney had no choice in his mind but to use Scooter — both of them were mostly responsible for the false hype in the runup. Cheney, however, would have been better served to rely on Christine Martin or someone else work the issue. Her instincts and personality as revealed by testimony and notes indicates she understood intuitively the human relationship dynamics needed to be successful. Personalities best attuned to operational political and media-related roles tend usually to be human relationship oriented. Substance always gets a superficial nod, of course. Yet those that work in that sphere over time professionally understand that issues (and candidates) come and go. (In fact, it is not unsual for the issues themselves to be largely immaterial but a ticket to get 'in the game' — although this is always denied).

Relationship truths — ”Tim hates Chris Matthews“, etc. almost always are simply not discoverable through objective rational analysis. Working human relationships requires ultimately some kind of engagement, some ”ground truth." Nor can their true meaning be gleaned fully by pure rational (even if malign, as in Scooter's case) perspective. This is especially so in the hyper-paced frission of Imperial City media and politics. Relationship truths and transactional understandings are the alpha and omega of success. One wonders what would have happened if Cheney had access to Matalin's skill-set full time then — how woud events have played out? Perhaps it would have made no difference in the end.

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Life is so much easier when one could furrow one's brow and chirp out declarative, empty phrases such as “transformational diplomacy”. Right Condi? Today the NYT underscores what we heard over the weekend:

Many federal employees have outright refused repeated requests that they go to Iraq, while others have demanded that they be assigned only to Baghdad and not be sent outside the more secure Green Zone, which includes the American Embassy and Iraqi government ministries. And while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice maintained Wednesday that State Department employees were “volunteering in large numbers” for difficult posts, including Iraq, several department employees said that those who had signed up tended to be younger, more entry-level types, and not experienced, seasoned diplomats . . .

“There’s some outrage that the collective capacity of American reconstruction capability was ignored prior to the war,” said one State Department employee who is learning Arabic before deploying to the Middle East. “And now we are expected to clean up the mess.”

As we've noted here, to even get a FS level 3 rating in Arabic — which is needed to “pass” the language proficiency test — is several years of intensive immersive work. (And a “3” is very rudimentary and would not be sufficient to navigate successfully outside the Green Zone; this poor student will be even more green linguistically than the pilots that were sent to Midway Island and slaughtered by Nagumo's Zeros in their context). Of course, it is all for AgitProp anyway. We already sent out State personnel to the field when it was relatively safer before the elections. Their goal was to promote a unity, non-sectarian approach to democracy — and Allawi's ticket, btw. They had little or no impact. The results came down along sectarian lines.

Sending them out now (even with full military security) is just blowing the whistle at the bottom of the trench ladder in Galipoli. Just one more price tag we're all paying for this incompetent Administration and their half-assed war. Seeing Max Boot discover “security” now in 2007 as essential to a successful surge is both laughable and mendacious (hat tip to a good friend).



Back during the Victory Disease euphoria in 2003 and early 2004, Tom Barnett used to run around talking about DoD's need to build two parallel militaries. Both would be needed to “drain the swamp” and conduct a “20 years war” that the United States would underwrite as a the world's “systems administrator” (I am not kidding). All promoted with weird pop culture references usually dropped in from Star Trek to Law & Order. The first military would be their transformational warfighter fantasy. You know the drill. Cool robots, instant kinetic force via stand off platforms and no American risk. The second military would the Ringling Brothers' parade sweepers, the civil affairs types, the “soft military”. After the first blows a place apart and kills alot of people, the second would go in and make nice and turn everything into a larval Japan or West Germany. And then both would move on to the next part of the swamp, etc.

Not to say Barnett represented anyone's views beyond his own. But his thinking in scale and scope was widely shared within Rumsfeld's OSD re the duration and scope, if not the methodology. The disconnect between OSD's delusions and what Iraq is today is far greater than (a) flowers; (b) self-paying; (c) Syria and Iran. The recent announcement of an African Command earlier this week is long overdue from the “20 year war” perspective. We know OSD has long discussed Africa as both a current and long term “swamp” for systemic problems beyond the Middle East. But is pure kinetic force going to be any more succesful? Of course not.

We do agree with Barnett that the American military is in doctrinal thinking and organizational structure ill-suited to pursue a victorious war. Far too much focus on force-on-force engagements. This is now a truism and even the Brits have openly criticized U.S. over emphasis on “war fighting”. There is little or no sign that the U.S. ethos will change.

On one level it is tempting to say so what? Iraq in most peoples' eyes has put an end to the game of Risk that Barnett and others had in mind. Perhaps. Certainly for now that seems to be true. More significantly, we simply can't afford to do it. A second, “soft military” needed for occupation duties would essentially add anywhere to 25-40% more to the current astronomic DoD budget. Even more problematic, the concept of two forces has major inherent flaws — not the least being the ridiculous assumption that there are clean and distinct phases to war and that progression of one phase to the next is unidirectional and permanent.



In our conversation this weekend with a senior foreign service officer recently retired, he suggested morale and support for Cher Condi is even thinner than suggested by the Times. Negroponte will have his hands full just getting the place back from disarray. This story Rice's attempt to deny knowledge of a 2003 Iranian offer for a “grand bargain” won't help matters much. This fax and how it was handled is actually far more important and far reaching than Scooter and Timmy's pas de deux.

“First of all, I don't know what Flynt Leverett's talking about, quite frankly,” she said. “Maybe I should ask him when he came to me and said, 'We have a proposal from Iran and we really ought to take it.' ”

Leverett said yesterday that he became aware of the two-page offer, which came over a fax machine at the State Department, in his waning days in the U.S. government as a senior director at the National Security Council, but that it was not his responsibility to put it on Rice's desk because Rice had placed Elliott Abrams in charge of Middle East policy. “If he did not put it on her desk, that says volumes about how she handled the issue,” he said yesterday.

Abrams is currently the deputy national security adviser in charge of the Middle East and democracy promotion. An NSC spokeswoman, speaking on behalf of Abrams, said yesterday that Abrams “has no memory of any such fax and never saw or heard of any such thing.”

Cher Condi is the gift that keeps on giving.


Tags: Iraq, Condi Rice

What a pathetic spectacle. Boston brought low by a cartoon. A prime window on how the iron triangle of the American national security id, shameless politicos and their media accomplices will lash out in rage. And Americans simply nod, blandly accepting what they are spoon fed. A sad reminder of what we have all become in just 6 years.

We speak, of course, about over reaction to the “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” guerrilla media campaign. The vampiric American media circus continues to parade a cavalcade of vapid “news anchors”, breathless security “experts” and the predictable menagerie of unhinged former prosecutors across our screens. All echo shamelessly “9/11 changed everything”, “authorities say”, and ridicule the two young men contracted to place the marketing devices for smiling — especially the one with the [smirking encouraged] dreadlocks!. (Tellingly, the affair is labelled a “hoax” — as if the effort wanted to pretend they were bombs. It's a “hoax” because Gov. Duvall Patrick says it is? American media truly is beyond salvage).



From TV screens the tone is even harsher. The two young contractors, Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens, were charged today for “creating panic.” The cable networks covered it all wall-to-wall, condemning the youngsters paraded for the camerasfor refusing their script — don''t they know they are supposed to look guilty and radiate shame for embarrassing the Authorities? (Ignore the self righteous posturing by Boston officials, law enforcement and Massachussets politicians frantically covering up their hysterical over reaction). With gale force strength, the meme hurricane is unwaivering — non-conformity will not be tolerated, incompetence in the name of “security” is no vice, and most importantly, LIVE IN FEAR.

Let's be clear about this:

The 38 electronic devices have been in place in Boston for approximately 2 weeks and other major American cities. Unremarked upon. So by their own metrics, Boston security and law enforcement personnel and their counterparts in each and every city should be sacked now. Because we are told “this could have been a mushroom cloud”, yada yada yada. Will they pay for overlooking things then or overreacting now? Of course not.

The devices are said to be “suspicious” because they had “wires” and “batteries”. Lots of things do. That is why metropolitan police and security personnel have experts. Even modest exploration by a layman would have revealed these to be battery powered signs. Boston has explosive experts, let alone experts with bomb detection equipment, explosive detecting dogs and x-ray equipment. After discovering more than two of the devices, they were in fact then examined and determined to be harmless. There simply is no excuse for unleashing massive panic without following through on these rudimentary examinations — which already indicated their harmless nature. (We shook at our heads this morning watching on a video monitor some hack prosecutor tell a judge that the mere presence of batteries and wires was “intended” to be threatening).

Boston officials, without even acknowledging those cursory investigations, shut down portions of a major metropolitan city and created an international media circus. It is THEY, far more than the youngsters or the company, who should be brought up on charges for criminal negligence and incompetence.

Of course, someone else must pay for the embarrassment. The cable networks and local officials were tripping over themselves hyping this story yesterday afternoon. Coming after British domestic arrests, we had something happening here in the U.S. of A! Politicians could look forward to a media vamp. Hey, we, too, can act decisively. Lots of camera time for them. And videotape from ambitious local reporters anxious to audition for the “Big Time”. Cheap for the networks and ratings gold. All the B roll video of s-e-r-i-o-u-s men in security bomb suits trotted out again. New graphics! Maybe even a new theme song coming.

But to be caught hyping a marketing campaign? For a cartoon? For a cartoon called “Aqua Teen Hunger Force”? For a cartoon called “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” that stars a milkshake? Someone truly must pay. So now they want to cover their shame and embarrassment and incompetence (a powerful trifecta) by squashing two youngsters, Turner Broadcasting and anyone else who looks “funny” or “smiles” at it all. How dare they mock us? We unleashed our national security self righteousness! We can not be mocked! Or questioned.

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This is the new America. Fear and authority will not be triffled with. And it will be likely the same no matter who wins in 2008. Perhaps worse. As Duvall Patrick proves, Dems likely will prove twice as hawkish to overcompensate for their insecurities that an airhead like Sean Hannity doubts they have sipped enough Kool Aid.

We are not unmindful that threat merchants have lobotomized critical thinking since 9/11. And a marketing campaign in an urban environment should take that into account. Don't get us wrong. Investigating the devices as suspicious makes perfect sense. It's not a media campaign we would have done. Nor executed in the manner we would do it. But the initial blunder in no way excuses the staggering overreaction.

Boston Mayor Tom Menino, law enforcement, security and political officials have an even larger public duty — to think before panic. Yes, one must take threats seriously. But one must act responsibly before creating an international media storm. Menino, state and local law enforcement failed the public. They did not do their jobs. They should have ascertained what they were confronting before punching the panic button. To hide that incompetence and shame by vengeful court theatrics today against two contract employees is beyond the pale.

That's the real story here. How “national security” should not be a shield for faulty decision making. And how such faulty decision making is promoted by the self serving needs of the infotainment complex. How sad to see the stain of the Bush Administration's campaign of fear mongering spread so pervasively. Americans have been told time and time again to live in fear of “authority”, don't question the competence or actions of “authority”, don't stick out, don't rock the boat. Above all, don't smile when you are paraded in for a media circus that has already deemed you anti-social deviationists.

The infotainment complex and state and local officials react now on auto-pilot. Gonzales did not need to say anything for it to unfold.

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What exactly is suprise? When is it legitimately 'surprise' — the commonly accepted notion of being 'caught unawares'? As opposed to something less generous?

Four separate and recent actions by the Bush regime spark the musings:

(a) Gonzales' denial that habeas corpus and fair trial is a constitutional protection;
(b) his replacement of career prosecturors with partisan hacks relying on heretofore unheralded provisions in the Patriot Act;
(c) the FBI's massive Internet surveillance program revealed by ex DoJ officials to be akin to the NSA's illegal activities; and
(d) a new Executive Order installing de facto political commissars in every cabinet department and agency to oversee regulatory matters.



Each of these acts is eminently predictable. Why? They are consistent with the essential character of the Bush regime (the term 'regime' on this blog here used precisely in the way Nick Xenos at MIT correctly points out the Neocons intend its use). Yet people still seem surprised by it all. Even when declaiming over a house chardonnay how 'radical' or 'reckless' the Administration is.

Of course, on one level, they may not be truly surprised. Affectation is not merely a wing nut affliction. One supposes that expressions of 'surprise' might be designed to appeal to an audience, generate web traffic, spike comments and all that. John Dvorak, the computer pundit, deconstructs his manipulation techniques to spike web traffic by generating outrage (in this case the Apple fanbase). His 'deconstruction' of the technique — although he is a bit self-congratulatory there — is followed by alot of wingnut pundits themselves in various guises. Surprise can lead to outrage and more web hits. This is true whether one is progressive, liberal, libertarian, conservative or totally in the tank for the regime.



Which brings us to The American Prospect's item suggesting that the Administration is carefully preparing to throw Cheney under the bus. This one actually surprised the Stiftung. In a normal landscape of partisan political calculation, the logic is not bad. You know, record low opinion polls, loss of the Hill, a failed war, disasterous personal media appearances, etc.

Cheney, of course, is not an employee. He was co-elected with the Warlord. So the idea of simply asking for his resignation is not particularly applicable. Moreover, he is even more valuable now to the Movement core of the regime. He has already fought the imagined heroic last stand against Democrats in 1974-76. He has seen 'the enemy' (not 'terrorists' but secular progressive Democrats) once before undermine Amerikuh and the presidency. Who better to know what to look for, what to avoid, for those in a bunker mentality.

Is there tension between POTUS staff and the EOVP apparat? Undoubtedly. Does he help himself going public? Even among the Kool Aid set? No. But to remove Cheney is not to remove one man — it is to remove the intellectual soul and raison d'etre of this regime. Consider the Times item about political appointees now vetting regulation. It's not really about policy, even. The Bush regime never let cabinet-level departments develop policy. Cabinet secretaries are and were largely martinets. Instructions and decisions came from the White House — DoD being the exception because of the Rumsfeld-Cheney nexus.

The White House is pushing forward and down its historic 2001-2006 contempt for the cabinet departments past the cabinet level to supervise regulatory policy. To mark a new line of trench warfare with the Democrats on the Hill. The equivalent of 'not one step back.' It is all about control. Per Balkinization:

Interestingly, the Bush Administration has built on the Clinton model more than the Reagan model. Instead of trying to halt regulation, it has sought greater political control over advisory documents and required a greater showing that regulation addresses a genuine market failure. It seeks to use political appointees to act as gatekeepers for the content of advisory documents before they are published.

The reasons why Bush has followed Clinton more than Reagan flow from the rise of Bush's big government conservatism, a conservatism that happily uses all the levers of federal power to benefit his political allies, including most particularly business interests, who remain central to the Republican political coalition. The Bush Administration does not so much seek to stop regulation as to mold it in a decidedly business-friendly way.

Expect more of this. Both new and old being uncovered. Don't be surprised. Which again raises the question we've put before. Besides food fights about who voted for Iraq in 2002, are the Dems capable themselves of fully understanding what has been done to our constitutional republic? Not just in rhetoric but in the granular details, in the Federal Register and the U.S. Code? To put the mosaic together and thus begin to unwind it in 2008? What other obscure lines in U.S. Code have been deliberately crafted for vagueness to allow the FBI to do “full pipe” Internet surveillance? To authorize Gonzales to purge federal prosecutors?

This provision of the Patriot Act was inserted by the House in conference committee. If you've been involved in conference negotiations before, this is where real mischief occurs because almost no one bothers to read a bill emerging from conference, let alone conference reports. Those who have stacked the decks by arranging for or helping to place friendly Senators or House members on the Committee can literally go to town. Here is what was tucked in:

of SEC. 502. INTERIM APPOINTMENT OF UNITED STATES ATTORNEYS.
Section 546 of title 28, United States Code, is amended by striking subsections (c) and (d) and inserting the following new subsection:

''(c) A person appointed as United States attorney under this section may serve until the qualification of a United States Attorney for such district appointed by the President under section 541 of this title.''

Until this proivision, if a United States Attorney resigned before the end of his term, the judicial branch would nominate an interim US attorney until the Senate acted on a Presidential nomination. An interim US Attorney by law could only be in place 120 days. As Gonzales made clear, the new law allows the President to makes the appointment. Moreover, no time limit exists for the appointment and there is no Senate oversight function at all. Diane Feinsein, for example, who has denounced all this recently on the Senate floor, of course, voted for the Patriot Act Re-Authorization in March 2006 with this language in it. Apparently, she too is “surprised” — six plus years into the Bush regime.

And so on. It's all of a piece. Staring Democrats and the rest of us in the face. For six years Cheney and the regime have been surgically altering the constitutional fabric of our society. Who knows what else has been churned through the Congress of Peoples' Deputies through the years? What TAP doesn't get is for the Administration to jettison Cheney is to disavow the architect and spiritual source of this enormous undertaking. This, even more than Iraq, is the Bush Administration's legacy.

Unfortunately, to understand the totality of what has been done, one must have a coherent philosophy or ideology of one's own. If the Democrats unveil one or discover one, that would indeed be a most pleasant surprise. If they then acted on it, even more so. Here's to hope.


Tags: Cheny, EOVP, Addington, separation of powers, Patriot Act, US attorneys, FBI, Internet, surveillance

A truism is that capitalism offers seemingly infinite capacity to absorb, commercialize and thereby render harmless almost all forms of social revolution.

A second rule is that most social revolutionaries are easily bought off. Beneath alot of posing is a burning desire for recognition, legitimation and status. Happily, that recipe works out for everybody involved most of the time. There are always exceptions — those who actually do hold to principle. They are the rare exception. Just try to explain to a 14 year old in 2007 that Mick Jagger et al. were once considered a social threat. Even a more topical reference to Snoop Dogg won't help you out.

Same with bloggers. The story is known. Ana Marie Cox leaves her bedroom for the pink-slip-littered-halls of Time. Pajamas Media hilariously stalks C-SPAN-rejected morning breakfast policy fora and presents the D-Lists as “hot gets”. The new force in journalism seeks affirmation by sharing stale donuts with an ex congressman. And some bloggers flock to Davos, shamelessly name dropping while re-treading the same worn carpets Tom Friedman stained over a decade ago.

The titans of globalization and the status quo that are Davos must be amused. How easy it is to tame these unruly and strange creatures called bloggers; invite them, praise them as the future, give them camera/interview time — voila, another housebroken puppy gushing how cool it is to be in Davos. (The taming process still leaves our titans time for cocktails with their old Oxford roommates, now central bankers from SomewhereIsItStan). How some of the Davos bloggers rationalize that they are more than pale knock off versions of Friedman would make entertaining reading.





Smart players ignore the bling — whether at Davos or elsewhere. They always do. They want more than status and publicity. They want all the way in.

Read more »

Give Peace a chance: Surge!

A decisive moment in world history is at hand. If the United States, Britain and their allies fail in Iraq the result will almost certainly be a regional maelstrom. If the coalition succeeds, then the West will regain the initiative against radical Islam in Iran and throughout the Muslim world.
The current trajectory in Iraq is poor: rising sectarian violence threatens to rend Iraqi society and destroy America’s will to continue the struggle . . . [t]he choices are bleak. . .

Kagan channelling VDH sans cheap hoplite reference. How is it, after the disasterous last six years, the Neocons are granted such megaphones and impact? Last month, the death knell for the Neocon oeuvre was everywhere. Here is Tweety, comically late coming forward but nimbly tacking with the wind in November 2006: All [the neoconservatives] care about is ideology,“ complained MSNBC's Chris Matthews a few months ago. ”The president bought it hook, line and sinker." Stop the presses!

And then on Fox News Sunday we see Kristol add:

There's no point having a short term surge. Especially, if it's proclaimed ahead of time that it's just short term. Then [the enemy] goes into hiding for 3 or 6 months.

We pull back and we're in the same situation. Bush will commit — I believe, when he speaks in a couple of weeks — to doing this. That this is a strategy for victory and that he's willing to do this for the remaining 2 years of his presidency. This is a remarkable moment, though. I came to Washington 30 years ago. How often does a president go against — what Juan referred to — the wider consensus in this town, 'the military solution isn't possible?' It's a very broad consensus of the establishment and, I think, that's why there's so much anger among the establishment-types. 'Gee. The Baker-Hamilton Commission pronounced its verdict. And how dare the president make up his own mind and decide that he's not just going to just gracefully accept defeat with this nice bi-partisan patina of the Baker-Hamilton Commission. How dare he decide that we might win in Iraq.

A discredited Neocon policy/pundit eilte. A national referendum on Nov. 7th. against the Administration. Yet a defiant escalation in the war. When even Kissinger must have told Dubya that National Strength = Power x Popular Will. Bush the 'Neocon in Chief" is ably laying the table for McCain the Successor. Iraq may not even be at the end of the beginning.

(More tomorrow on why this happened)

Tags: Neocons, Kagan, Kristol, Iraq, War

TOP SECRET: SCI/JABOTINSKY


To: BLETCHLEY III WORKING GROUP

cc: C. DeMuth, M. Wurmser, B. Netanyahu, F. Hiatt

From: Team C

re: After Action Analysis

Date: 12/20/06



I. SUMMARY

You tasked us to analyze why the mission to save the Realm and promote the American Empire failed. We believe the essential premise of the mission remains sound. There can be no accomodation with the Arab mind and Palestinian parasites until they learn fear, humiliation and obediance through force of arms. Nothing alters the correctness of our diagnosis.

American society was not up to the historical task assigned to it because of its essential decadence and political instability due to overreliance on consent and demos. This softness allowed only a short window within which to execute our plan before American power would collapse in confusion and accomodation. This 'American Disease' (see Annex B, supra for complete details) has now infected Israel itself.

Our Sparta is now sick with the same American softness and weakness. The Olmert government's failure to ignite a regional war in the Summer of 2006 only the most glaring evidence.



To salvage this situation, we have a three fold plan. We estimate it will take at least 4 years to implement. The budget and human capital (HUMCAP) allocations are set forth in Table 27, supra.

First, to reverse the American Disease, we must accelerate its progress. We must 'heighten the contradictions' in American and Israeli society. Regional disorder in the Middle East, our initial objective in Phase One, will now serve to radicalize both societies. We must aggressively promote defeat as the consequence of betrayal and softness at home.

Our assets “SMUG CANADIAN”, “CHESHIRE CAT” and “CHEERFUL PUNDIT” will infiltrate the McCain, Guiliani and Gingrich campaign mechanisms towards that end. We also suggest an additional US $2.5 million be funnelled to Buchanan to subsize his polarization activities as well. He will be vulnerable to infusion through our usual False Flag cut out in Tempe, AZ. Later when he is exposed as relying on our money for subsistence, his following will implode. We also recommend covert support for progressive and Democratic web sites to promote the necessary dialectic of social restoration through heightened conflict. The Agents In Place to effect this manipulation are too numerous to list here.



Second, the U.S. military shows an alarming lack of commitment to our policies. The insubordination to Kagan's Surge is an unacceptable demonstration that Rumsfeld failed in his mission to subordinate the military to our Will. The Joint Staff in particular is a brake on all our plans. Accordingly, we recommend a further outreach effort to military evangelical organizations and networks to identify and promote officers who share our commitment and vision. Joint Israeli-American liaisons can further serve to cross pollinate our interrogation and other insights in controlling the Arab and Palestinians. We must also make sure that resentment in the military for failure be fanned. The military must equate Iraq-Defeat-Secular Progressive Decadence-Democrats. They then will be ripe for control.

Finally, we must begin more intensive cadre development. We failed in large part this time because we acted oversoon. Our cadres lacked sufficient numbers to occupy secondary and tertiary positions. This is true in the American government but also in Iraq at the CPA. Out talent spotting staff must be expanded beyond the Ivy League. Interbreeding and affirmative action have destroyed those student pools as reliable sources. Albert Wohlstetter before his passing in 1997 revised our PsychoActive Profile Kit (PPK). It has been improved upon since. We recommend the new PPK field trials begin immediately. Age Cohort Classes 5, 6 and 9 require three-fold expansion before OPERATION PEACOCK THRONE commences.

These initial steps, if taken together, will allow us to resume our march to victory and a New Middle East. This is a dark time for the American Empire. The Realm requires immediate assistance. If we act now, we will be poised to secure our power. The Tehran occupation will vindicate us all.

[End Executive Summary Excerpt]

Tags: Iran, Iraq, Neocons, Wurmser

Whether the Maximum Leader announces his “New NEW Strategy for Forward Victory Paths” this week, next or at the halftime of the Super Bowl makes no difference to us. In fact, all things being equal, the latter would be a blessing. The NFL halftime show could use a good stand up act. We won't lose anything by waiting. As our friends at Global Paradigms say, it is in the end, too little too late.

But it is the holidays, and playing games of What It All Means is a tradition. In olden times before color TV, PETA and cute animal merchandizing icons, a priest would grab a small varmint and seek to divine outcomes via entrails. Villagers would nod at it all, mutter and retire to the market. Good in theory but too messy. That's out. Turning on “The Situation Room” and its kin is just too grim. So we will have to just share our own thoughts. Here goes:



First, we believe the Administration is still capable of surprise. November 7th, the ISG, 21% approval ratings, Maliki, etc. notwithstanding, the Administration's fundamental radicalism remains unchanged. (Rumsfeld was only an ancillary part of it). Recall that they started office with at least 1/2 the country believing they were illegitimate and another 25% uncertain. It didn't matter. Today, even with a Democratic Congress, it may be adjustment rather than change. A government of pragmatism and execution requires accumulation of facts, formal policy review mechanisms, etc. — all antithetical to a political Movement in power. Bush and Cheney both know that such a formalized and transparent (at least to itself) government would be the death knell of their essential political personas.

Second, we have heard rumors from a highly knowledgeable source that the NSC itself recently convened/sponsored a simple war game exercise. Participants were drafted from the usual suspect Think Tanks. The purpse of the exercise as told to the Stiftung was to play out strikes and military options on Iran. We don't know anymore than we were told, i.e. did SAIC or someone run it, was it done in house, or if actually transpired. We are running it down and actually curious to see who was Red and Blue, etc. For some reason we have to smile thinking someone at some point would have to demand a do over. The military option on Iran we believe — regardless of this report — to be very much alive internally. This will have implications for ISG recommendations.

Third, regarding the abrupt resignnation of the Saudi ambassador and his return back to Saudi Arabia: everyone is talking out of their butt right now.

The initial take was that internal Saudi royal family matters drove events more than our American tragi-comic theater. A second wave of speculation driven by Turki partisans (and let's be candid, suck ups) are claiming Bandar was too jealous of his standing here. One thing we can be sure: a veteran like Turki did not suddenly wake up and scream realizing that the House of Saud mortgaged their futures to a bunch of incompetents. He's been hip to that by 2004 at the latest. Which is to say that we do not expect it had anything to do with a “Shia Tilt” in Iraq ala “pick sides” — at least not right away.

No question as we have written before that Wurmser and others in EOVP and on the NSC want to overthrow the House of Saud badly. They continue to push the choose the Shia option internally according to the New York Times. A grand alliance with purple fingered Shia grateful to Uncle Sam was their preferred means. But we suspect in the end, having to choose between a nuclear Iran and the House of Saud, only one of them holds conferences denying the holocaust. And that one would utltimately control a Shia Iraq and Hezbollah. Easy choice.

As for the recommendations in the ISG, sadly we don't think it matters overall. Even if adopted, this crowd is not competent enough to execute them. We will get more money and talk about training, embedding and a regional conference or maybe two. It won't make any difference. We expect in Gerson's own words, Bush will reap the whirlwind, and so will we.


Tags: Iraq, Neocons, War, Jim Baker, Iraq Study Group