How to use torture

But for most of 2002 and into 2003, Cheney and Rumsfeld, especially, were also demanding proof of the links between al Qaida and Iraq that (former Iraqi exile leader Ahmed) Chalabi and others had told them were there."

It was during this period that CIA interrogators waterboarded two alleged top al Qaida detainees repeatedly — Abu Zubaydah at least 83 times in August 2002 and Khalid Sheik Muhammed 183 times in March 2003 — according to a newly released Justice Department document. |McClatchey|

John Sidney McCain III and the Republican Party are Bad for America

I think many have been distracted by the polarizing figure of Sarah Palin. Please recall:

George W. Bush and the Republican party started an unjust war with Iraq based on fabricated evidence. John Sidney McCain III has been a vocal proponent of continuing the war. Barack Obama opposed the war from the start.

George W. Bush and the Republican party have made kidnapping, torture, and indefinite imprisonment without habeus corpus "business as usual". John Sidney McCain III, a former POW, opposed legislation that would ban specific torture practices. Barack Obama opposes torture and supports the Unites States Constitution.

George W. Bush and the Republican party took over a country with record budget surpluses and economic growth and created staggering debt, unemployment, and recession. John Sidney McCain III supports the current economic policy. Barack Obama supports windfall taxes on oil company profiteering, creating new jobs by developing green technology, supporting small business, fair trade, workers' rights, and other measures.

George W. Bush and the Republican party have enacted an energy policy written by oil company executives. The current energy policy has driven rapid increases in energy prices, increased reliance on foreign oil, and record profits for oil companies. John Sidney McCain III supports the current energy policy and supports increased domestic drilling for oil. Barack Obama supports rapid development of alternative energy sources.

John Sidney McCain III is inextricably linked with the current Republican administration's failures. He plans to continue these failed policies, and so would his vice president. 

What other failed policies do you want to see stopped? Post them in the comments.

Multiple choice question

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Monday publicly endorsed the concept of ordering a pause in troop withdrawals from Iraq this summer after the departure of five extra brigades deployed last year as part of the force increase. |NY Times|

Three possible explanations:

1. "...a brief period of consolidation and evaluation probably does make sense.” (Gates)
   
2. Things are deteriorating again in Iraq.
   
3. Things would almost certainly deteriorate in Iraq were more troops to be withdrawn, and keeping the troops there over the summer will help prevent the Democrats from making the election a referendum on a failed war.

Which explanation seems best?

Since that 'mission accomplished' banner didn't work out...

All over the conservative b-sphere, there's a renewed sense of hope about Iraq, as the result of the actions depicted in one picture, summed up in this comic:



And I know, I know, their point is that there are some muslims there helping out with that there cross. But really.

Semiotically speaking, it's a picture of christian conquest!

Misrepresentatives

Via Marc Cooper's math, I see that the average Republican voter is to the left of the average congressional Democrat regarding the Iraq war.

Paging Machiavelli

Young Prince Yglesias needs a lesson.

I noticed this absence of actual numbers, too, and all I can say is . . . what's the deal? When I saw Petraeus not including the numbers, I suspected something nefarious. But the Pentagon numbers that contradict Petraeus don't show them either, so it probably isn't nefarious. But it is damned odd. |Yglesias|

The upshot of relying on charts that don't include numbers, as Yglesias notes in his post, is that newspapers like The Washington Post, find themselves writing things like, "The charts are difficult to compare" instead of things like, "Somebody is lying." Maybe it's all innocent, but it's plausibly nefarious.

Crazy talk

We are organizing and regularizing what amounts to a Sunni militia. If we could do with the Shiite militias what we are now doing with the Sunnis (who already have plenty of weapons) the war would essentially be over now.

That's Mario Loyola, from an email posted at the fever swamp.

Sober up

Ugh. I gotta think Yglesias will regret writing this:

When I read this story about conditions falling apart in Basra after British troops handed practical control over to the locals, I thought it was yet-more ammunition for my quest to persuade whoever will listen that the US ought to end its tragic military engagement in Iraq. Somehow, though, I never got around to writing the post and it occurs to me that, of course, the article could be used to prove the precise reverse -- that we can't afford to leave lest we wind up with a country-sized Basra.

This sort of thing, ultimately, is why no conceivable September report will make any real difference to the Iraq debate. It's not that ideological blinders prevent people from seeing the facts, it's that the facts don't really determine anything. Signs of improving conditions can be a reason to stay or a reason to leave. Signs of deteriorating conditions can be a reason to leave or a reason to stay. Ultimately, the issue doesn't hinge on fine-grained appreciation of the facts, nearly so much as it hinges on broader questions of how you look at American interests in the region and whether or not the prospect of spending tens of billions of dollars a day for an indefinite period of time on maintaining a military presence in a foreign country against the will of the population is the kind of thing that makes you queasy.

The most charitable reading of this I can imagine is that he does not think that there will be enough real, new information in the September report. But really I come away thinking that he meant: "I'm sick of all these facts. Policy decisions should be made from core values alone, without pesky facts interfering."

UPDATE On re-reading, I find there is another way to take what he says, and that is simply that it is a foregone conclusion that we should leave Iraq, because we are spending "an indefinite period of time on maintaining a military presence in a foreign country against the will of the population." No new facts about the situation on the ground are going to change those overarching conditions. I disagree with this point of view, but it's not so head-in-the-sand as my first reading.

So, when does Baghdad get its first roller derby squad?

I had no idea until I came across a blurb on the Austin Chronicle's website today.

I wonder if President Bush knows that the name of Austin's qa'im makam--sorry, mayor--is Will Wynn. Hell, maybe that's the reason!

I can see it now: erecting another Stevie Ray Vaughn statue just like the one on Town Lake--again, sorry, I mean "Lady Bird Lake"--only bigger, and in Fardus Square.

p.s. Does anyone else find it hopelessly tragic that a combat brigade, who serves at the mercy and whims of foolish politicians and furthermore is primarily skilled at, you guessed it, combat, is trying to establish proper working local governments?

Will Iraq be the prominent issue of 2008?

As I wrote earlier, Joshua thinks "no," and I think "hell yes." Neither of us can really know, of course, but that doesn't stop either of us from electoral prognostication. Yesterday, Josh sent me the following email:

Asked of Republican primary voters:

Which is more important to you in a presidential nominee — someone who commits to staying in Iraq until the U.S. succeeds, or someone who is flexible about when to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq? 

answer: 

39% committed to winning
58% flexible

This is coming from primary voters, mind you. The GOP voter is way more on top of this Iraq shit...they aren't going to shoot themselves in the foot over it. Bush might shoot them in the foot, however.

52% believe that the winning candidate will oppose the war. They aren't gonna run on it, and if both parties won't run on it, then it won't be an issue. Might it make sense for a Democrat to try and pin the other guy w/ it? Not really. It goes to Bush and he's in his private wilderness. The press will keep doing stories on it, but since both sides will be messaging the same message (get out), what will matter is health care, education, economy. Domestic issues election, this one.

There are three reasons why I think Josh is wrong.

First, Bush will probably shoot the Republicans in the foot (better than Cheney shooting them in the face, I guess). He's going to be president throughout the campaign, and if there's one thing we can apparently count on from Bush, it's that he will continue to mess things up real good. If we end up with a broader war in the Middle East, for example, I think even Joshua would agree that this would become the major issue in 2008.

Second, even without a foot-shooting-related incident, Iraq is on track to be in a significantly more horrific situation in mid-to-late '08 than it is right now. Top of the evening news, on the front page every day... that kind of horrific. There is no way that this doesn't become an issue in the primaries, where the "mainstream" candidates of both parties will face challenges from the left and the right. Candidates will need to put up specific proposals, and then those proposals will be savaged by both the "get out now" and the "stay to win" crowds.

Third, in the general election, I just can't see the Republicans not taking another tug at the national-security lever, especially if the race is tight. Perhaps their strategists will look at these polls and consider it a losing proposition, but I think it's more likely that they will suggest a series of slash-and-burn (political) attacks designed to move the electorate, and change that polling. The context of this poll is widespread malaise about Iraq, and nobody out there trying very hard to beat the drums of war. In full-on campaign season, the rhetorical landscape will be very, very different.

This has been my first prognostication entry for '08. Discuss.

On the "mistake" and other nonsense

Nothing has changed for Hillary, and John Edwards is seizing on that to try to get a little traction:

When Edwards spoke a few minutes later, he seemed to aim his rhetorical barrels right at Clinton, emphasizing repeatedly how he was, indeed, wrong to have voted for authorization of the war. “I should have never given George Bush authorization,” he said. Arguing that America needs a president who can is “honest, open, and moral” he said that after 6 years of Bush not taking responsibility for the war, it was no longer acceptable to dance around the issue as he implied Hillary was doing.

Meanwhile, Matthew Yglesias--who claims he is saying something nice about Hillary--says that Hillary isn't avoiding admitting a mistake. Instead, she just thinks it wasn't a mistake. Is that really being nice, or is he actually being a dick?

Lastly, one of my favorite politicians weighs in on Iraq:

Dennis Kucinich got his licks in, trashing all the other candidates. “It must be hard for these politicians to say they were misled, tricked and deceived by George w. Bush,” referring to their positions on the war in Iraq. “Here’s one who wasn’t. I organized 125 Democrats in Congress to oppose the war and I saw all the same information these other candidates did.”

Lest the "realists" amongst us get bent out of shape, I don't think Kucinich can win, but I don't think his candidacy hurts anybody either. He's one of my favorites not only because of his honorable positions, but also for stuff like this:

He then ended his talk by saying he was the only candidate who had no strings attached to him. Then he lifted his arms up to his shoulders and slowly twirled around on stage repeating: “No strings. No strings. No strings.”

Hillary's not going to apologize

Joshua has a politics class this year, and one of his projects is to map out a victory strategy for Hillary Clinton. I've told him that the war is going to sink her, but he thinks that the war won't be the main issue in the '08 campaign. We've got a bet on that, but it will be awhile before we find out.

In the meantime, there's this kerfuffle about Hillary's refusal to "apologize" for the war vote. Joshua today sends me this NYT article that gives some background and then says that she's not going to apologize, and people who don't like it can suck it. Suck on it:

“If the most important thing to any of you is choosing someone who did not cast that vote or has said his vote was a mistake, then there are others to choose from.”

I'm impressed by her moxie, but here's the thing: This isn't some semantic quibble. This is the frustration of many people who understood that the war was a mistake from the beginning--and who were abandoned by their party where the rubber hit the road--finally bubbling to the surface.

She's sticking to losing line of John Kerry's, "If I knew then what I know now, I would not have voted for the war."

Well, fucking DUH.

Okay, so the reason so many of us are pissed is because the war looked like a disaster from the start to a significant portion of the Democratic party. I'm not just talking about pacifists, I'm talking about realists who saw the "we'll be greeted as liberators" talk as obvious, rank propaganda (or frighteningly naive). Add in the completely unconvincing SOTU and Colin Powell's dog and pony show, and the final result wasn't that we "respectfully disagreed" with the vote to authorize the war.

Instead, it looked like John Edwards, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and the rest of the Democrats who voted for the war were running scared from a very popular President on a very popular issue. In other words, it didn't seem like a principled vote at the time. If Hillary or the others had looked around, there was ample evidence that the intelligence was being cooked, that there was no real plan for the occupation, and that therefore a blank-check vote like that was a serious mistake.

I know there was ample evidence, because we blogged about it at the time.

If she can't call it a mistake, fine. But it's not that I want her to "apologize" to me or anyone else. I want her to acknowledge her questionable judgment at the time, knowing what she knew then, not what she knows now. If she wants my vote, she would help herself enormously by dealing with this issue, so I can have confidence in her future judgment.

Mark Penn says that it's a mistake to call her vote a mistake, because the mistake is the President's. But I say to Mr. Penn, there is plenty of blame to go around. He may be right... it may cost her more votes to call it a mistake than to continue with her fiction that her vote was a good one at the time. But it's not helping her with me.

Notes on the coming plague

Note #1:

More than 300 cases of the highly infectious disease, which is spread by airborne droplets and kills 98% of those infected within about two weeks, have been identified in South Africa.

The disease is a new strain of extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis, or XDR-TB, and it is so dangerous that South Africa and the WHO are considering forcibly detaining infected patients until they die, to avoid regional or global catastrophe. Link.

Note #2:

Acinetobacter was the second most prevalent infection for soldiers in Vietnam, but the military did not expect to see it as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Researchers are still working to understand where it came from and how patients were infected.

And they say Iraq isn't another Vietnam.

So far, no active-duty soldiers have been killed, but they've brought the infection back to hospitals where it has killed five other people. Link.

On a relatively lighter note (with emphasis on "relatively"), check out this little dumb game Pandemic. There's really not a lot of input from the player (I typically don't have any points to spend on evolving my virus until day 40 or so), and basically you are just watching your virus kill 50 percent of the human population. I'm interested if anyone has a different approach, but my aim has been to keep the visibility of the virus low until it has infected all regions, and yet I've completely failed to infect Western Europe before they close their borders. Apparently, they don't have airports in Western Europe.

Speaking of the Iranian threat

CNN.com has an article up right now with the breathless headline Iran role suspected in brazen Iraq attack. Without getting into a discussion of the claims made about Iranian influence, here's a catalog of the sources cited:

• "two officials from separate U.S. government agencies"

Done and done.

Addendum: Ogged has a more effective post making similar points.

A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, encoded in a sudoku, transcribed in a crossword

The other day I heard that, as of December, the US changed its policy toward Iranian agents encountered in Iraq. According to the report, the former policy had been 'catch and release' and the new policy is 'kill or capture'.

What? Until December of 2006 the US military's policy toward foreign agents found in Iraq was catch and release?! I'm pretty much a pacifist, and even I think those tactics sound irresponsibly naive. On the other hand, what does kill or capture mean? Are we talking about combat or summary executions? And, are we talking about limited term detention or are we talking about eternal confinement with some torture thrown in? And why, if the policy changed in December, is the Bush Administration crowing about it now?

Actually, the last question has a pretty simple answer. The Bush Administration is crowing about the new policy now because they're making a show of escalating the tension between the US and Iran.

That itself, though, is pretty strange. Leaving aside the fact that war with Iran would be a really bad idea, how does escalating the rhetoric against Iran and its religious fundamentalists square with a surge strategy in Iraq that basically amounts to the US taking the side of the Shia against the Sunni in Baghdad? Which is to say that there's something bizarre about the US simultaneously (a) turning up the heat against Iran, and (b) taking the side of Iran's Iraqi allies in the burgeoning Iraqi Civil War.

One possible answer to this puzzle, and the one I had pretty much resigned myself to accepting, is that the US powers that be still don't understand basic facts about the religious and sectarian divisions in that part of the world, and that this thoroughgoing ignorance has led to a massively incoherent policy.

This morning, though, I'm entertaining the possibility that what's going on is stupidity of an entirely different order. That is, I'm thinking that we're seeing the Clintonian political formula of triangulation applied as actual real military strategy. It goes like this. The US wants to be the dominant political actor in Iraq. To accomplish this, we have to disentangle the Shia from Iran, which means we must wage a serious campaign against Iranian influence. On its own, though, such a campaign wouldn't accomplish our goals because it would inevitably anger the Shiite majority -- in fact, we'll have to take on some Shiite militias in the name of freeing the rest of the Shia from foreign influence. Thus, we must triangulate by striking out against some group that's opposed to the Shia. Since we aren't going to strike out at ourselves or the Kurds, that leaves the Sunni. Sucks to be them.

Excuses, excuses

I couldn't stop myself. I watched the speech. Here's what I took to be the key passage:

I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign-policy matters with war on my mind. |W|

Oh, wait. That was from Meet the Press last February. Here, for real, are the two passages that leapt out at me:

I have made it clear to the prime minister and Iraq’s other leaders that America’s commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people — and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people. Now is the time to act. The prime minister understands this. Here is what he told his people just last week: “The Baghdad security plan will not provide a safe haven for any outlaws, regardless of sectarian or political affiliation.”
...
Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenge. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria. And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.|W|

The first paragraph sounds like an ultimatum. That is, it sounds like Bush is telling Makiki that if his government doesn't become a full partner in the US strategy to fight the insurgency, then the US will go home. Since Maliki obviously isn't going to take a stand against the Shiite militias, the warm and fuzzy optimistic cynic in me wants to believe that this is Bush's way of saving face. We'll have the surge, but (supposedly) due to a lack of cooperation from Maliki, Baghdad won't be pacified. Bush can then blame Maliki for the failure, throw up his hands, and bring the troops home. Also, I get a pony.

The second paragraph sounds like a threat. That is, it sounds like Bush is saying that if the surge doesn't work then that will be the result of Iranian and Syrian meddling. The cold and jaded pessimistic cynic in me can't help but believe that this is part of a larger strategy to widen the war. We'll have the surge, but (supposedly) due to foreign interference, Baghdad won't be pacified. Bush can then blame Iran (or Syria) for the failure, set his jaw, and go all Curtis LeMay on their asses. Nobody gets a pony, but hopes are raised in the fever swamp.

It's a new doctrine of preemptive ass covering, and you've got to admire the thoroughness. Whatever we do, and wherever mistakes may have been made, Bush will have an excuse.

Bleh.

The semiotics of the execution

Aside from my universal opposition to the death penalty, I don't much care what happened to Saddam Hussein or his remains, at least not for Saddam's sake. However, for the sake of Iraq and the success of that country, I need to ask:

Why aren't his executioners wearing some sort of uniform?

Shouldn't they be wearing the uniform of the Iraq army or police? These guys are dressed like thugs, like members of a death squad. Which, I suppose, is their uniform. They are in the uniform of the Muslim extremists who have been kidnapping and executing people in the name of Islam. The only way they could look more like our enemies is if they wore robes and, instead of hanging Saddam, they beheaded him.

Being a cheerful post addressing certain aspects of our nation's priapismic foreign policy

As the national conversation about Iraq grows ever more reasonable, it becomes easier and easier to fall prey to a sort of perverse optimism. Yes, the thinking goes, things are awful, but at least the right questions are being asked. At least the ISG report's assessment of the situation is grounded in reality. At least the Democrats aren't engaging in a more hawkish than thou pissing match with the Republicans. At least the American people seem to understand that this war is an unmitigated disaster. At least, at least, at least.

But, you know, as a certain wise head reminded us today, the President of the United States still has a raging hard on for this war. Maybe, just maybe a new fact has slipped into his worldview. Maybe he now believes that Iraq is spinning out of control into an ever more violent civil war. The question is, what is he going to do with this information?

Well, if the rumors are true then we have a good idea of the first part of his plan. He wants more troops in Baghdad. The thinking seems to be that we won the first battle of Baghdad too quickly, so it's time to start another, bloodier, one.

Huzzah!

In second step of the new plan for victory news, Bush seems to be taking certain parts of Powell's we-don't-have-enough-troops-to-control-Baghdad critique seriously:

"I'm inclined to believe that we do need to increase our troops — the Army, the Marines," Bush told the Post. "And I talked about this to Secretary Gates and he is going to spend some time talking to the folks in the building, come back with a recommendation to me about how to proceed forward on this idea."
|The Washington Post|

The article includes the qualification that, "substantial military expansion will take years and would not be meaningful in the near term in Iraq." Which, you know, would be a comforting sentiment if there were some reason to hope that the next near term after this one was going to be one in which the United States wasn't bogged down in Iraq.

I didn't see this in the decumbiture

There must be some bizarre astrological convergence today, some relationship expressed beyond whatever pedestrian harmonic controls vehicular safety. How else could it come to pass that a public figure is both appearing on a Sunday morning talk show and making sense about Iraq?

I'm talking about Colin Powell who, on Face the Nation this morning, first tore to shreds the Bush Administration's troop surge gambit and then offered a realistic assessment of what we can usefully do going forward. It was surreal.

At a fundamental level, Powell's criticism of the troop surge gambit is that it comes without any discernable rationale. In response to speculation that the troops will go to Baghdad and be part of an effort to stabilize the city Powell says, refreshingly, that 40,000 troops can't do that and that "The American army isn't large enough to secure Baghdad."

Plus, in a nod to all the wonks out there, he linked this critique to a three point test for evaluating any further use of military force in Iraq. Here's how it goes:

1. Is there a clearly articulated mission?
   
2. Can that mission be accomplished?
   
3. Do we have enough troops to accomplish the mission?

I don't know about you, but I've always been a sucker for a Powell doctrine.

As for his plan going forward, it's basically the ISG recommendation without the permanent bases and rapid reaction force. That is, Powell thinks that we should work with the elected Iraqi leadership to help them train police and put in place the political pieces that are going to make possible the establishment of stability.

Will this work? I'm not overly optimistic, but then, neither is Powell. Which is, I'll say it again, refreshing. It's not a give up and get out plan and it's not a stay the course plan. It's a figure out what we can productively do, do it, and live with the consequences plan.

All of which brings me to this. Whatever happened to the Colin Powell presidential speculation? I know that the conventional wisdom is that he lost his chance with his WMD testimony at the UN, but I have trouble seeing why that's supposed to matter so much. The bad spin, I guess, is that it shows that he's either dishonest or won't stick to his principles. But, you know, it's hard to see how that sets him apart from the field. And, anyway, there's positive spin too. Namely, that Powell is a team player.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that I'm on the Powell 2008 bandwagon, but he looks pretty good to me on the key issue of getting the hell out of Iraq. Unlike establishment Democrats, Powell wouldn't feel the need to prove his hawkishness. And unlike establishment Republicans he's not a melange of batshit crazy and evil incarnate.

Update: Video of the appearance is up at Crooks and Liars.