One More Voice

I usually don't post items that are sure to see a lot of exposure on the very popular blogs, but after following the link at this post over at Eschaton, I just wanna go to the rooftop and join in.

George Lakoff is the shit. Yes, "this guy gets it." From even a brief reading it's very apparent that he "gets" just about everything:

You've written a lot about "tax relief" as a frame. How does it work?

The phrase "Tax relief" began coming out of the White House starting on the very day of Bush's inauguration. It got picked up by the newspapers as if it were a neutral term, which it is not. First, you have the frame for "relief." For there to be relief, there has to be an affliction, an afflicted party, somebody who administers the relief, and an act in which you are relieved of the affliction. The reliever is the hero, and anybody who tries to stop them is the bad guy intent on keeping the affliction going. So, add "tax" to "relief" and you get a metaphor that taxation is an affliction, and anybody against relieving this affliction is a villain.

"Tax relief" has even been picked up by the Democrats. I was asked by the Democratic Caucus in their tax meetings to talk to them, and I told them about the problems of using tax relief. The candidates were on the road. Soon after, Joe Lieberman still used the phrase tax relief in a press conference. You see the Democrats shooting themselves in the foot.

So what should they be calling it?

It's not just about what you call it, if it's the same "it." There's actually a whole other way to think about it. Taxes are what you pay to be an American, to live in a civilized society that is democratic and offers opportunity, and where there's an infrastructure that has been paid for by previous taxpayers. This is a huge infrastructure. The highway system, the Internet, the TV system, the public education system, the power grid, the system for training scientists — vast amounts of infrastructure that we all use, which has to be maintained and paid for. Taxes are your dues — you pay your dues to be an American. In addition, the wealthiest Americans use that infrastructure more than anyone else, and they use parts of it that other people don't. The federal justice system, for example, is nine-tenths devoted to corporate law. The Securities and Exchange Commission and all the apparatus of the Commerce Department are mainly used by the wealthy. And we're all paying for it.

So taxes could be framed as an issue of patriotism.

It is an issue of patriotism! Are you paying your dues, or are you trying to get something for free at the expense of your country? It's about being a member. People pay a membership fee to join a country club, for which they get to use the swimming pool and the golf course. But they didn't pay for them in their membership. They were built and paid for by other people and by this collectivity. It's the same thing with our country — the country as country club, being a member of a remarkable nation. But what would it take to make the discussion about that? Every Democratic senator and all of their aides and every candidate would have to learn how to talk about it that way. There would have to be a manual. Republicans have one. They have a guy named Frank Luntz, who puts out a 500-page manual every year that goes issue by issue on what the logic of the position is from the Republican side, what the other guys' logic is, how to attack it, and what language to use.

Every single democrat needs to read this guy. You're gonna get hit; you should know why and how. Maybe we could start giving the right's garbage the respect it deserves.

Seriously, go.
posted by David at 10/27/2003 10:31:00 PM ::

 
Rumsfeld: We Are Unprepared To Fight Terror

In an October 16 memo to top Department of Defense officials, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made a shocking revelation:

DoD has been organized, trained and equipped to fight big armies, navies and air forces. It is not possible to change DoD fast enough to successfully fight the global war on terror; an alternative might be to try to fashion a new institution, either within DoD or elsewhere — one that seamlessly focuses the capabilities of several departments and agencies on this key problem.

(emphasis mine)

To recap: the Department of Defense is not capable of successfully fighting terrorism.

Among many, many others, this statement raises the rather obvious question: Why are we using a very expensive tool for a job that it is incapable of doing?

Does this mean we can contemptuously ignore any and all administration statements that tell us how well the war on terror is going? I think so.
posted by David at 10/22/2003 09:49:00 AM ::

 
I don't get it

So all we needed to do was tell the North Koreans we wouldn't attack them? That's it? If we were going to do so, say, to derail their nuclear or missile programs, would we tell them ahead of time?

Our actions in Iraq seem to have seriously ruffled Kim Jong-Il's feathers. I don't think this is going to be enough for him. Look for more noise from that quadrant soon.

All our impotent chest-thumping has accomplished is to underscore yet again the benefits of having nuclear weapons.
posted by David at 10/20/2003 08:02:00 AM ::

 
Mark Driver

Tbogg's mention of Mark Driver prompts me to say something I've been meaning to say for a long time. Mark Driver is one of the best writers on the web. If you don't know him, and click on the link, I'm really jealous of your next several hours.

It helps if you read them in order.
posted by David at 10/19/2003 10:31:00 PM ::

 
Like a bad penny

Nearly a year ago, following the midterm elections, I made a crack about how democrats need to show some leadership if they're ever going to get the public behind them, to wit:

Giddyap Horse!

I'm deeply grateful to Media Whores Online for all the long hours of sleuthing they(?) put in, and for their valiant efforts to push the other side back, even if it's just a bit.

They had some items today that have me scratching my head though:

But do not adopt the media whore/Naderite narrative: Democrats lost because they don't stand for anything, and Tuesday proved they must move to the left in order to energize their base.

That sounds like exactly what we need to be doing. If we don't move left, we're in the mushy center, which is practically the definition of not standing for anything.

The problem for Democrats was not that more would have been motivated to vote if only Democrats had opposed war with Iraq more strongly or proposed repealing the disastrous Bush tax cuts, the consequences of which are not yet clear to most. While most Americans are uncertain about war with Iraq, it was not an exploitable issue by itself. The truth is, Tuesday's characteristically pathetic voter turnout supports the point that most Americans don't care at the moment whether it happens or not, and they couldn't be made to care in time. As for proposing a repeal of tax cuts - vigorously opposing them before they take place is a winning position, repealing them isn't.

Repealing that god-awful insult of a tax cut isn't a winning position? I beg your pardon? It wasn't all that long ago we could energize people by saying something like 'they're gonna take your money and give it to, of all people the rich! America, is that what you want?' With repetition and coordination, it would have sunk in and won us a lot of races.

Yes, this debacle of an election is the media's fault. But it's our fault as well, and we need to drastically change the way we do things in the Democratic party, not diddle around with how to phrase things to make them palatable to the electorate. If we have to drag American voters, kicking and screaming to chose their own interests, so be it.

Otherwise, let's just give up and leave the fray to Nader.

This prompted Armed Liberal to comment. A few days ago, my referral log started hopping with it again, in the context of, as he put it, liberals' "underlying position of obnoxious superiority."

Dave Yaseen, of the usually smart blog A Level Gaze, posts what I pray to Woodie Guthrie is a slip of the liberal tongue. His post concludes:

Yes, this debacle of an election is the media's fault. But it's our fault as well, and we need to drastically change the way we do things in the Democratic party, not diddle around with how to phrase things to make them palatable to the electorate. If we have to drag American voters, kicking and screaming to chose their own interests, so be it.

(emphasis mine)

Well, damn. That's the way to reach the poor uneducated voter and get them onto your side...

Comments like mine are taken to be one of the Big Things wrong with the left--we supposedly think we're smarter than everyone else and aren't too shy to say so. Well, I stand by the sentiment, even if the phrasing was heavy-handed, and a bit off. What was I trying to say there? Does anybody to the left of Limbaugh really believe I meant to round up all the stupid "little people" and forcefully indoctrinate them in the ways of proper thinking? What was I referring to?

It was, and still is, about leadership. It was about getting out from under the calculatedly stupid tutelage of DLC-minded types who urge us to swing towards the center and co-opt the less egregious positions of our opponents as a winning strategy. I'll admit such tactics occasionally work, but then we wind up holding our noses while our leadership does things like vote to give Dubyah the authority to invade Iraq.

Besides, where did the other side get their positions in the first place? Did they go to the public and hear an outcry for lower taxes for the rich? Did the majority of American people tell republican pollsters they wanted a return to massive defecits that would gravely imperil the future of Social Security and Medicare? Did the electorate tell them they were sick and tired of the onerous burden of environmental stewardship? It's at least somewhat plausible they did, because that's what a lot of them voted for. But it isn't true; republicans listened to the special interests that pay their bills, formulated a platform, and sold it to the public. They led.

And how do we respond? We make tentative policy proposals, and back down the second the other side starts wailing about it. Then we slap together some not-quite-as-bad-as-the-other-guy platform and wonder why there's no voter loyalty behind us, no passion. What Clinton tried to do back in his first term with health care, that's what I want to see more of. Sure the right cranked up the Mighty Wurlitzer and screamed it down. But at least he did something. Does anybody think it's "arrogant" to make an initiative to bring free health care to the people, as is the case in every other industrialized country in the world?

There's a reason we call them leaders. It's because they lead. We choose one person to represent a whole bunch of others. I'd like to presume that at least some of the basis of the choice of representatives has to do with the person's knowledge of the interests of his/her constituents, and his/her having some idea of how to address them. It's plain that voters can be manipulated, and that there are powerful vested interests that work very hard to move policy in a direction contrary to the interests of the majority. Over time, this propaganda gets into people's heads, and takes on a life of its own.

Most people are too busy living their lives to examine the whole spectrum of thought about every issue and formulate the policies that they know will bring them the best results. Ask a lot of people in this country what they want out of their leadership, and they'll regurgitate right wing talking points to you, because that's what they hear. From the left, they've heard nothing coherent or concrete. When we try to put something together, we're shouted down as elitists. It's a double standard, and it's crap. Maybe we need to change our tone (mea culpa, mea maxima culpa), but we need to do our own thinking and communicate the results of it forcefully.

There's nothing "arrogant" about the people whose job it is to come up with policy initiatives actually doing so. This isn't about "dragging" the voters somewhere bad for them; it's about holding up our end of the tug-of-war against the machinery of the right.

UPDATE: Changed above. Avedon didn't comment on liberals' "underlying position of obnoxious superiority," Armed Liberal did. My bad (again).
posted by David at 10/11/2003 01:00:00 PM ::

 
Russia to price oil in euros in snub to US

Can anybody out there tell me how big a deal this is?

Russia is to start pricing its huge oil and gas exports in euros instead of dollars as part of a stragetic shift to forge closer ties with the European Union.

The Russian central bank has been amassing euros since early 2002, increasing the euro share of its $65 billion (£40 billion) foreign reserves from 10pc to more than 25pc, according to the finance ministry.

***

Oil is seen as so central to the global power structure that the choice of currency used for pricing has acquired almost totemic significance. The switch from pounds to dollars after the Second World War has come to symbolise sterling's demise as a world reserve currency.

If the dollar were ever displaced by the euro, it would lose the enormous freedom it now enjoys in running macro-economic policy. Washington would also forfeit the privilege of exchanging dollar notes for imports, worth an estimated 0.5pc of GDP.

Also, diplomatically speaking, how big a slap to the U.S. is it?
posted by David at 10/10/2003 02:53:00 PM ::

 
Get me rewrite!

Does anybody out there ever recall hearing anything like this?

Q Mr. Mayor, how confident are you the investigation will find the multiple-reckless-endangerment perpetrator in your administration?

THE MAYOR: Randy, you tell me, how many people have you seen who've recklessly endangered the lives of others that you've exposed or have been exposed? Probably none. I mean this town is a -- is a town full of people who like to recklessly endanger the lives of others. And I don't know if we're going to find out the reckless endangerer in my administration. Now, this is a large city, and there's a lot of senior officials. I don't have any idea. I'd like to. I want to know the truth. That's why I've instructed this staff of mine to cooperate fully with the investigators -- full disclosure, everything we know the investigators will find out. I have no idea whether we'll find out who the felon is -- partially because, in all due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting the perpetrators of felony reckless endangerment. But we'll find out.

Yes, I know the crime of the leaker isn't specifically reckless endangerment, but it amounts to the same thing to a city without its own CIA.
posted by David at 10/08/2003 12:19:00 PM ::

 
Lest We Forget

I'd meant to repost this on 9/11/2003, and it completely slipped my mind. It's nearly two months'-worth more a propos now:

Wednesday, September 11, 2002

I live in New York. In 1995, I worked on the 74th floor of WTC Tower #2 for six months. Like everyone else in the country and much of the world, I was stunned, shocked, shaken and angered by the events of a year ago today. All but the last of these emotions have faded by now.

I'm still angry.

Regular readers know I'm generally anti-war. I have been all my life. I always made one exception, though. I'd pick up a gun and jump right in if someone attacked the U.S. Nobody takes a shot at my country and gets away with it. The one glimmer of respect I ever had for George W. Bush came when I watched his first speech after the attacks. We were going to get those sons of bitches. We were going to hunt them down and kill them, and I couldn't have agreed more. God help me, I cheered the bastard with tears in my eyes.

But we didn't do it. One unequivocally justified course of action presented itself after 9/11, and we didn't take it. We toppled the Taliban, dropped some bombs from a safe distance, and let nearly all the Al Qaeda escape.

As we bend all of our energy and attention to effecting "regime change" in Iraq, somewhere there are people who got away with planning, staging, financing, and facilitating the attacks. Bin Laden 'isn't a priority' for us anymore. 'Maybe he's dead,' they say. We hear endless variations on the threat Iraq supposedly poses to America and its interests, and nothing about those who've already attacked us, and who have vowed to do so again. We've even seen fit to squelch any meaningful investigation of the circumstances that allowed the attack to succeed. In short, we've done next to nothing to bring the perpetrators to justice or to protect ourselves from further attacks.

It's a disgrace.

Well, at least we got Iraq taken care of.
posted by David at 10/02/2003 10:30:00 PM ::

 
Spilling Perrier on the Yacht Isn't a Leak

Bush's talk about there being too many leaks in Washington really got me chuckling. All of his top officials are privacy fanatics.

W. hides his Texas gubernatorial papers and his father's vice- and presidential papers. His vice-president had big meetings to decide energy policy, and he won't even say who was in attendance. The most banal details of procedings are kept confidential for "reasons of national security." His attorney general gravely weakens the Freedom of Information Act and holds prisoners incommunicado from their lawyers in the name of the Security of the Homeland. His people suppress environmental reports and selectively cite economic data.

If you assume they're honest, they're calculating the possible damage to US public interest caused by too much information in the public sphere. If you don't assume they're honest, they're knowingly up to illegal things and trying to hide them. In either case, they're very private people.


Nondisclosure in their bones. (Plame was no accident.)
posted by David at 10/01/2003 09:48:00 PM ::

 
Plame Made Simple

I'd like to add a bit more flesh to the Plame case, as it seems the story is beginning to get bogged down into technical culpabilities and niggling distinctions. Which is not to say that there's any merit to any of the arguments being put forward by the administration's would-be defenders: if Novak and the Washington Post stories that broke the story are correct, at least 6 felonies have been committed by "senior administration officials." But, as the media and their adoring fans are often sidetracked away from the main point of a story by shiny (or dull) objects, I thought it might be beneficial to bring up the context in which it occurred.

You see, boys and girls, the reason the administration got mad at Joe Wilson was because he didn't like them saying the opposite of what was contained in the report they asked him to write.

Wilson saw they didn't have any worthwhile evidence that Iraq was trying to buy yellowcake uranium in Africa, and he had just found out that the little bit of evidence they did have, which prompted them to send him to Africa in the first place, was laughably bogus. Then, in the most important speech of the year, the president puts in the part about yellowcake, implying that because of it, Iraq was an even bigger threat to us than we realized before. Wilson writes a rebuttal that was printed in the New York Times, and the White House outs his wife in retaliation.

Let's review what happened here, shall we?

1) The administration lied about the threat of Iraq and the African yellowcake business...

2) In the interest of getting us to

a) get over 300 US citizens killed and
b) kill thousands more Iraqis and
c) spend hundreds of billions of our dollars, and
d) ruin our international reputation...

in a war for which there was no justification whatsoever.

3) And when someone, the good Joe Wilson, came forward and told the truth to the best of his knowledge about the subject, they destroyed his wife's career and put possibly dozens of lives overseas at risk, not to mention committing one or more very serious crimes along the way.

The administration (certainly people within it, at least) wanted this war bad, so bad that they bent every piece of evidence they used to talk us into it. In the case of the yellowcake allegations, they bent it until it said the opposite of what Wilson's and other evidence did, until it broke and became a lie.

There is nothing remotely defensible about these leaks. People in the administration fucked Wilson because he wouldn't let them use his name to support their murderous lie. Is that simple enough for everybody?

[Edit: changed from "over 1,000" US citizens killed. That's just the number with limbs missing or other life-changing injuries.]
posted by David at 10/01/2003 05:04:00 PM ::

 
Bush Won't Ask

President Bush's aides promised yesterday to cooperate with a Justice Department inquiry into an administration leak that exposed the identity of a CIA operative, but Democrats charged that the administration cannot credibly investigate itself and called for an independent probe.

White House officials said they would turn over phone logs if the Justice Department asked them to. But the aides said Bush has no plans to ask his staff members whether they played a role in revealing the name of an undercover officer who is married to former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, one of the most visible critics of Bush's handling of intelligence about Iraq.

(emphasis mine)

Uh...this isn't about finding out who dragged in all that mud from the T-ball field; those leaks were felonies. If a body were found in the White House, and the Washington Post wrote that "two senior Administration officials" were responsible, would it be acceptable for Bush not to ask his staff who was behind it?

I think Bush is hiding behind a very tenuous legal tactic. As Atrios points out, failing to notify law enforcement authorities of a known felony is a crime. I believe the tactic is as follows: Bush will claim to know nothing about the whole affair, but if it does come out that he was aware of Plame's outing, he can then claim that he didn't know who, specifically, did the deed. In this way, it could be said that he knew about a felony, but not these particular felonies, where Person A and Person B called those 6 reporters and gave them classified information.

I don't know the legalese, but it seems a pretty flimsy defense, at best. Besides, what rational administration is going to let something like this fester within its ranks until it blows up? If some overzealous staffers had decided on their own to leak Plame's status, every lawyer in the country would have told Bush to dump them immediately. I'm sure several of them did just that, which makes WH reticence since the appearance of Novak's article very curious indeed.

Given such a huge potential liability, one that threatened to directly affect the president himself, I'm sure the shrewd political operators in the WH found out in short order who had done the leaking. But they didn't follow up on it. It's as though they'd hit a brick wall. Many people in the administration knew that felonies had been committed, which knowledge, when combined with inaction, is criminal. Why would they just stand out there in the open and wait to get hit?

Because they're even more afraid of the consequences of going to the authorities, that's why. Who in the administration is badass enough to radiate that kind of menace?
posted by David at 9/29/2003 11:38:00 AM ::

 
Song Of Joy

Valerie Plame is her name
And she worked for the C.I.A.
Till someone gave up the game
And blew her cover away.

They started a war in Iraq
With bullshit and bogus "facts"
They blew our kids and budget to hell
It's a time I remember oh so well

The night they drove old Dubya down
And all the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dubya down
And all the people were singing
We went, "Na na na na na naaaa
Na na na na na na na na"


(Additional verses welcome!)

Apologies to J. Robbie Robertson
posted by David at 9/28/2003 10:38:00 PM ::

 
Just Wondering

How is the unification of all those federal agencies into Homeland Security going? I read a lot about what a big, complex, and expensive project it was going to be when the plan was unveiled, and I haven't seen a peep since. Has anybody heard anything on this front lately?
posted by David at 9/07/2003 10:25:00 PM ::

 
You've got to be kidding me

At long last, the Bush administration has started to moderate its policies on Iraq. They're appealing to other nations to help stabilize the country, and have even begun to crack on allowing those who would send their soldiers into harm's way to have a bit of input as to how they're used.

This, and a few developments like it, are welcome signs of sanity from our leadership, but Rumsfeld & Co. still have a long way to go.

This week, international experts enlisted by the American-led occupation authorities estimated that the loss of oil revenues and cost of operating a civilian government in Iraq is projected at $20 billion for 2004.

That figure was given to diplomats from potential donor nations in Brussels this week, and by all accounts they were stunned.

"Think of it this way," said an official familiar with the Brussels session. "You'd be putting more than a third of the world's development assistance in 2004 into a country with the second largest oil reserves in the world. Imagine what that does to the rest of the poor countries in the world. All of Africa doesn't get that much money."

This official said the United States would have to "dramatically trim" its requests and put up a huge sum to goad other nations into donating.

But a senior administration official said: "We expect billions of dollars out of the rest of the world. Billions."

Am I reading this right? We make a tragic, bloody mess of a country against their objections, and now we ask them to put their sons and daughters into the firing line to fix our mistake and pay for the privilege to boot? Ain't gonna happen. It'd be pure political suicide.

As if our offer could be any worse, who would ultimately be receiving a big chunk of these contributions? Halliburton and Bechtel, the same American companies that lobbied to keep all foreign competition out. And many of the jobs these two will be doing could be done by locals at a fraction of the cost.

If I were a European, I'd be sputtering with rage at the sheer gall of such a request.

Try again, fellas.

Update: Billmon has more.


posted by David at 9/05/2003 11:43:00 AM ::

 
An Immodest Proposal

So it's capitalism they worship, eh? Let's give it to them:

"Perfect" capitalism assumes that everyone knows the price point of every supplier in a market. Businesses that offer different prices to different customers are (with certain exceptions) prosecuted for it. How is one to price one's labor without knowing what others receive for theirs? It shall therefore be mandatory for businesses to make public the amount paid to each employee...say...on a quarterly basis. A meeting will be held in every office, in which every employee's name, number of years at the company, and salary are read aloud. Directories of salary will be published on the internet.

In the interest of fostering the most efficient possible commerce, it will be necessary for all companies to know how much wealth each person has in order to target advertising as precisely as possible. Home appraisals, car(s) value(s), loans, etc., will be updated annually. Directories of wealth will be published on the internet.

In the interest of perfecting financial markets, each person's investment portfolio should be available on a minute-by minute basis. If Jeff Goldblum decides to buy heavy into Verizon, your computer should pop up a window to tell you about it. If Mrs. McGillicuddy's prize pooch produces an improbable number of pups, the people have a right to know.

That's capitalism, right? We should make nakedly stark the poverty of folks you thought were doing all right. We need to expose the nest eggs of people who don't need help. How can one hope to emulate the wealthy (disseminate best practices) without knowing who they are and how they do it? How can one avoid the mistakes of the poor without knowing what they did wrong?

In this culture, money is everything. The organizing principle of our economic system is said to be "capitalism," which holds that an "invisible hand" determines the price (relevance, worth, existential quotient) of a commodity in a truly open market. If we are to have actual capitalism, bright light must be shone on every aspect of the financial world, including the personal. Given that a Time magazine poll has 39% of Americans already or expecting to be at some point in their lives in the top 1% of income, such illumination is essential.

Who's with me?
posted by David at 7/30/2003 08:51:00 PM ::

 
Somerby Update:

Today's Howler has the missing source of evidence I wondered about yesterday, as reported by the Post's David Ignatius:

IGNATIUS: [T]he British intelligence cited by the president was almost certainly based on reporting by the French government. French intelligence sources say that their spy service closely monitors Niger’s uranium production, and France is known to be the most accurate source of information about Niger.

The British focused partly on a report that an Iraqi trade delegation had visited Niger in 1999. Because 70 percent of Niger’s exports are uranium, and because Iraq had bought more than 500 tons of uranium from Niger in the 1980s, the British concluded that the Iraqis were considering renewed uranium purchases. This view was reinforced by additional, post-1999 intelligence, which also almost certainly came from France. The British didn’t tell the United States, because sharing such sensitive information with a third country is an intelligence no-no.

Finally, neither the British dossier nor Bush’s reference to it had anything to do with documents that surfaced last year alleging that the Iraqis had actually purchased uranium from Niger. They were later branded “crude forgeries” by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, who were given a copy by the United States. The British were unaware of the documents when they prepared the September dossier and learned of them only after the president’s State of the Union speech.

Now there is a plausible rationale for the SOTU's famous 16 words. Other questions remain:

1) If the British saw fit to tell the White House they had reliable intelligence that Iraq was fishing for uranium in Africa, why didn't the CIA know about it? Tenet lobbied successfully to keep the subject out of Bush's Cincinnati speech, and unsuccessfully to keep it out of the SOTU. The CIA either didn't find the British information credible or wasn't aware of it at all. Why didn't the State Department know about it? Despite apparently having been pressed to include the allegation in his speech to the UN, Colin Powell refused, reportedly referring to the claim as "bullshit."

2) The claim was removed from the Cincinnati speech, possibly because the administration was not yet aware of the additional British intelligence, and included in the SOTU as a result of receiving it. If this proposed timeline is correct, why did Bush's Cincinnati speechwriters put it in the speech in the first place? Was it on the basis of the "dodgy dossier?" If the timeline is correct, there were some in the administration who were willing to press the issue on the basis of "obvious forgeries." While that doesn't rise to the level of presidential lying in a constitutionally mandated address to the American people in the interest of promoting an unprovoked invasion, it does show brazen mendacity on the part of those upon whom we rely to do Bush's thinking for him.

3) Why did we give the phony Iraq report to the IAEA?

4) What of Joseph Wilson and his trip to Niger to check out the story? Wilson is probably the closest thing in this country to the horse's mouth where Niger is concerned, and he concluded that it was "highly doubtful" that Iraq had been able to get any uranium from there. Given the tight control over Niger's uranium exports, however much Saddam might have wanted to get his hands on some of their yellowcake, he wasn't going to be able to, and it's certain that every relevant intelligence agency in the U.S. knew it. It's like me looking into buying a blue whale--you can insinuate all you want about my motives, but at the end of the day, we both know I won't get one.

I'm sure Hussein would have liked to invade and conquer the U.S. himself. But the issue was not about what he would have liked. It was about whether or not he presented a credible threat to the United States. Putative existence of evidence of a 1999 Iraqi trade mission to Niger, even if it included proof that inquiries about uranium were made, would have no material effect on Iraq's ability to threaten us. Pointing to it in the context of building a case that Iraq was a danger to us, although not specifically a lie, was blatantly deceptive.
posted by David at 7/25/2003 08:51:00 PM ::

 
This can't end well

CAIRO, Jul 24 (IPS) - The same official sermon will be delivered in 88,000 mosques across Egypt from this week. The government move is a part of extensive new censorship, and penalization for mosques and preachers that do not toe the official line.

As of Friday this week, no preacher will be free to deliver his own sermon, according to a statement from the Awaqaf (religious endowments) ministry. Friday is the holy congregation day at mosques when preachers give their views on religious and political issues.

The sermon will now be written and distributed by officials from the regime of President Hosni Mubarak. The regime has been fighting Islamic groups trying to topple his secular pro-Western rule for the past 15 years.

"Preachers who do not stick to the text (provided every Friday) would be deprived of bonuses and will be subject to an investigation by the legal affairs department at the ministry," according to the statement from the Awaqaf ministry.

The plan also provides for removing independent preachers and replacing them with imams paid for and appointed by the regime.

Preachers at all newly appropriated mosques will be asked to attend state-run religious indoctrination courses. Preachers will only be appointed after clearing an examination and passing a security test.

Wow. Looks like Egyptian Muslims are going to be even more pissed off. And the best part is, a lot of 'em will blame us!

The campaign is "a part and parcel of the pressure the United States places on our regimes to try and limit the Islamic movement," [Muslim Brootherhood official Abdel Monem Abul Fotouh] told IPS. "At the same time as the government and foreign countries are calling for economic liberalization and economic freedom, they want to place restrictions on freedom of expression and religious freedoms in mosques."

No, Abdel, you've got it all wrong! You must have us confused with somebody else. We're the shining beacon of democracy and free speech on the hill (that gives your brutally repressive government $3 billion a year).

This is a deliberate provocation calculated to produce a great swell of protest. Mubarak is taking a huge gamble, that he can goad intractable religious leaders and their more militant followers into jailable offenses and reassert his authoritarian grip. Failing that, his government is history.
posted by David at 7/25/2003 04:43:00 PM ::

 
Lies and Libertarianism

Daniel Davies makes (still yet another) excellent point in this post over at Crooked Timber. Libertarianism, Davies ventures, should advocate no stigma against the public act of lying, as it does not in itself constitute action harmful to others. “Why,” then, he asks, “have they got such a downer on fraud?”

The prohibition on force is easy to understand. Force is nasty; it harms people directly and interferes with their liberty. But defrauding someone is just offering them an opportunity to harm themselves. Rather like selling them heroin, or persuading them to opt out of a defined benefit pension scheme, two activities that most of us would support people’s right to do, even though we might disapprove of the consequences. If we’re going to establish a strong principle of caveat emptor, as most libertarians seem to think that we should, why should we have a prohibition on that form of free speech known as “lying”? If someone wants to be fooled by a smooth-talking charmer, or decides rationally that they can’t be bothered verifying the accuracy of claims made to them, why should the govenrment step in and paternalistically demand that they be insulated from the consequences of their actions?

‘Pure’ libertarians face a serious theoretical problem in that they are loath to admit that structure and rules are fundamental to the existence of a sphere in which individual actors can excercise their ‘freedoms.’

Without sanctions against the use of physical force, libertarians admit, none of us could be secure in our possessions or persons. Although such rules limit the scope of one’s behavior, they’re deemed prerequisite to civilized society. Rules enforcing truth-telling are equally so.

First, if there are to be any rules whatsoever, there is required some form of institutionalized enforcement authority that determines their applicability. If the rules are to perform the function in society for which they are intended, they must be applied as much as possible to instances of behavior that actually happened. Insofar as data pertaining to the enforcement of the rules is obtained from the mouths of humans, there must be sanctions against fabrication and/or distortion of evidence.

Second, libertarians acknowledge the utility of contracts, which rely for their very essence on the validity of the terms contained within them. If a party to a contract is found to have made false claims, the contract is void. As those who gain advantage by means of dodgy contracts deprive others of their property or services without compensation, the bedrock necessity of contractual truth-telling to a libertarian system is self-evident.

Total proscription of lying is unrealistic and doesn’t make sense, but in areas where one’s words impact upon compliance with accepted rules of conduct, mandating truth is essential.

posted by David at 7/25/2003 09:32:00 AM ::

 
Somerby Misses the Point

The incomparable Bob Sommerby

Omigod! They did it again! But then, how hard can it be for professional writers to use accurate terms to describe the Bush statement [British--Iraq--Niger--yellowcake]? Answer: Once a Perfect Storm starts to build, it can be very, very hard. For example, Joel Achenbach engages in conventional overstatement on page one of this morning’s “Style” section. Using a stronger term which really can’t be defended, Achenbach refers to “the president’s use of incorrect information about Iraq in his State of the Union address.” But this, of course, has been the norm; like many others, William Raspberry described Bush’s statement as a “falsehood,” although no one has shown that the statement was false.

The "disputed" Niger memo refers to a particular instance where Iraq supposedly attempted to obtain yellowcake. The documents are forgeries, so therefore, the instance didn't exist. As the Bush and Blair administrations have failed to produce a single piece of additional evidence that Iraq has obtained or attempted to obtain uranium from Africa, the statement beginning with "the British government has learned" is pure fiction. It's frickin' made up. A figment.

Another instance of Iraq attempting to get uranium may well have happened. But we had no idea. Bush said we knew he did. Until I see credible evidence to the contrary, that claim is a lie.

Instead of shuffling blame back and forth, the administration should just make the evidence public, "national security" be damned. The fact that it hasn't tells me there isn't any evidence.

The movers in this administration have had conquering Iraq on their minds since long before Day 1. They have pushed, pulled, twisted and bribed our way into this war, and a lot of their arguments, such as the the complete and utter fabrication of ties between the government of Iraq and al Qaeda, were bullshit. If Iraq wasn't a threat, we didn't need to spend $100 billion to get our boys shot and blown up in a remote desert. Everyone in the administration was shilling for this unnecessary war, using any club available to beat our need to invade Iraq into our heads. It should have been obvious, even to our press corps.

I'm a big fan of The Daily Howler, and think Bob Somerby is one of the finest and most productive writers on the web. He just missed the point on this one.
posted by David at 7/25/2003 12:08:00 AM ::

 
One year done

A Level Gaze is a year old today. I'd like to thank everybody who linked the site, provided useful comments, and everyone who took the time to read it. It's been a really wonderful experience which I hope will last a few more years yet. Cheers!
posted by David at 7/23/2003 04:11:00 PM ::

 
Real Realpolitik

The neocons are often given credit for their big-picture perspective. While progressives worry about trivialities like living wages, provision of health care, and the environment, they are trying to contend with The Survival of Western Civilization Itself. They maintain that the world is a fundamentally dangerous place that America must actively shape to protect itself. They would not have us rely on diplomatic safeguards against the emergence of global strategic threats. We should maintain our security and preeminence through the threat and use of force, squashing any emergent power before it has the chance to do us harm.

Interesting doctrine, eh? Unfortunately, even under its own terms it’s obviously doomed.

Leaving aside the fact that this principle was the basis of a “preemptive” invasion of a country that was not even vaguely threatening to us, it won't work for real threats either. Following our glorious victory in Iraq, we are now getting a lot of serious contemplation from the neocons of preemptive military action against Iran and Syria. And then what? More of the same?

Will we have the money to invade, occupy, and materially change these countries so they will not reemerge to cause us trouble in the future? Will we have the political will to do so? As technology continues to advance and atomic weapons become cheaper and easier to manufacture, will all countries decide against acquiring them, even while under the thumb of an avowedly hegemonic hyperpower? Can we be sure that no new weapon of mass destruction that doesn't require expensive engineering and rare components will be invented at some point in the future? Can we formulate and enact policies over the long term such that no country, group, or individual will decide to work toward our destruction?

The answer to all of these questions is no. There is no magic formula to neutralize all global threats. Economic basketcases North Korea and Pakistan have found that acquisition of nuclear weapons is, dollar for dollar, the most efficient route to international influence, respect, and security. That lesson isn't going to be lost on other countries; so long as the world continues to be a chaotic place, governments are going to opt for proven deterrents over faith in the goodwill of the U.S., their neighbors, or international institutions. Unless we bomb the rest of the world back to the stone age, it's a good bet that fifty years from now dozens of countries will have nuclear weapons. Is this the solution that will be ultimately proposed?

What’s worse, I don’t even think the neocons really mean what they’re saying. If nonproliferation of WMDs is a goal worth going to war over, you don't have the luxury of being selective about it. They don’t act against China, which has pretentions to global-power staus and certainly has the means to cause us a lot worse harm than Iraq could ever have done. The administration hawks pussyfoot around Pakistan, nuclear-armed, seething with Islamic militants, and roughly a heartbeat away from becoming a fierce enemy. They blithely ignore happenings in Russia, which is still smarting from its come-down in the global hierarchy, is badly policed, is still armed to the tips of its teeth, and is teeming with impoverished military officers and scientists possibly willing to sell any of dozens of kinds of WMDs to the highest bidder. Strangely, for dealing with these countries, diplomacy and international consensus are the preferred tools.

The neocons who dragged us to war in Iraq painted themselves into a corner by claiming the invasion wasn’t about oil, the only material difference between Iraq and the countries we didn't attack. Had they been above-board about it, their arguments would have at least held together. It’s tempting to wonder why they weren’t. Possibly their reticence came from a desire to avoid a global outcry over the nakedly imperialist implications of such an admission. Possibly it came from a calculated attempt to maintain political support at home. Maybe they don't really care whether they make sense or not.

Update: David Neiwert has an excellent post with a lot more background information and analysis.
posted by David at 7/23/2003 04:06:00 PM ::

 
Should we give them Purple Hearts?

Just heard on Jay Leno that injuries involving fireworks hit an all-time high this year.

Suppose it has anything to do with the hyperventilating, chest-thumping, mouth-breathing "patriotism" the right has been enforcing? I can see it--what godfearing parent is going to tell Little Dylan he can't play with explosives for America? Even Iraqi and Afghanistani kids are doing it.
posted by David at 7/08/2003 11:49:00 PM ::

 
God is in the Details

Speaking to Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, George W. Bush said

God told me to strike at al-Qaida and I struck them, and then He instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me, I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.

There seem to be some interesting twists to his theology. The possible explanations of his appending to the two things that "God" had told him to do, something he had himself determined to do are 1) that he believes that anything he is determined to do is the will of "God," 2) that he thinks Abbas is a mindless religious fanatic who can be persuaded of anything, so long as "God" is invoked. Also, it is right if the will of "God" is suspended in favor of preparation for elections to positions of earthly might.

Why do we bother with having federal employees, sinners all, attempting to influence policy when we have the one true Implement of the Almighty for our President? Won't they only stir up the mud of corruption and obscure the Will of the Creator as revealed to the prophet Dubya?

If Abbas (or Sharon) chooses not to help him, won't "God" bear some of the responsibility? Why would He tell W to do something and then make it impossible for it to be accomplished? "God" would never play both sides of an issue, would He?

Or does the will of "God" only go so far as to create good intentions? It's not as though Bush managed to actually get rid of al Qaeda or Saddam, and it's not likely he's going to be able to get any actual peace in the Middle East. Maybe that's all "God" figures Georgie's good for.

Maybe "God" will even give George some hopeful platitudes to say about the millions of dead, injured, starving, and tortured people in the Congo and elsewhere. That is, before he returns his attention to milking his rich contributors for hundreds of millions of dollars so he can smear reputations and utterly degrade the dignity of truth itself en route to another four years of empty rhetoric and naked aggression.
posted by David at 6/26/2003 04:59:00 PM ::

 
At Eschaton, via commenter Tripleg regarding this post, an idea.

In response to Atrios' (correct) assertion:

The only evidence we need to know that the administration is simply in CYA mode is the fact they don't seem very concerned about the "missing" WMD. If they really believed they existed, the hunt for them wouldn't be motivated by a desire to justify the war, it would be motivated by the very legitimate desire to make sure the deadly weapons were not in the hands of evil-doers. Since the administration isn't sounding the alarm along these lines, it's obvious they're unconcerned. They just want to find some scrap of something - a la the ridiculous mobile "labs" - to pacify the media and dupe the public.

Tripleg wrote:

No one but administration insiders know what was in the 8,000 missing pages of the Iraqi report on compliance to the UN, thanks to Powell's interception before it got to the UN security council. It wouldn't be at all surprising to learn that the missing 8,000 pages contained a detailed accounting of the destruction/disposal of Iraq's WMD.

And I thought:

Shit, if anyone finds out that we forced the Iraqis to completely disarm and we attacked them anyway, no other country is ever going to disarm again, ever. Kiss nuclear nonproliferation good-bye, all for the sake of a geopolitical footprint and some quick cash.

If this is found to be true we'll have a permanent global arms race and mutually assured destruction. Even if we don't destroy the planet, more precious resources will be spent on weapons and armies will grow in size and political influence worldwide. Standards of living will plummet, exchanged for everlasting terror.

I feel the duty to exhort any journalist who comes up with evidence that we knew Iraq had destroyed all of its meaningful WMD to keep it to him- or herself. I hope it's not necessary to tell said journalist to bring down Bush and the neocons by every other possible means.

posted by David at 6/03/2003 09:57:00 PM ::

 
"Not a Story"

In a semi-coherent look at Sid Blumenthal's The Clinton Wars, Tina Brown wrote:

Blumenthal was absolutely right, of course, back in 1995 to keep insisting -- almost alone, and in the face of the frenzy of the press pack and my own anxiety about missing the bus -- that the allegations of Clinton corruption in the Whitewater affair were a big load of nothing. On the other hand, he was absolutely wrong to maintain -- as he put it with maddening loftiness -- that "It's not a story." Not a scandal, perhaps, but not a story? A cabal of right-wing fanatics manipulates the press, the judiciary, and the FBI to the point of nearly destroying a president and it's not a story? It was a helluva story -- as Sidney's book amply shows. And the story isn't over yet, as the Clinton wars continue to be fought in the reviews.

This woman ran the most famously literate publication in America, and she can't parse a sentence? "The Clintons did something bad in Whitewater" was not a story. The malignant skein of the Clintons' implicit "fecklessness" and "immorality" the press wove around it, the actions of Scaife and Starr and their carniverous ilk, yes, that was a story. Sid thought so. He wrote an 800-page book about it.

As I doubt even he would bother to deny, Sid was in the tank for the Clintons. (He just thought the tank was full of Evian.) The truth is, I would have been more tolerant of Sid being in the tank if it had delivered the New Yorker a string of scoops. The big problem with being relentlessly nice to politicians or even just fair and balanced is that they repay you by never giving you any real news. Their press secretaries save the red meat to throw off the back of the sled at the ravening wolves from the Washington Post. Why else would G.W. Bush invite scary Bob Woodward in to write an authorized account of the buildup to the invasion of Afghanistan? So he doesn't write the other book, the one where all the enemies talk. The Clinton White House knew Sid was the Democrats' samurai so they went elsewhere to break their hottest stories.

If Blumenthal had brought her incontrovertible proof that Whitewater and the carnival of crap that went with it was a complete sham, would she have considered that a "scoop?" It sure wasn't getting play anywhere else in the media.

To hell with parsing sentences, Brown can't even think clearly. "Being nice" to Clinton would have caused him to direct his press secretary to "save the red meat" for the people who weren't nice to him? The idea is absurd. Does she believe the press is following this strategy in its dealings with Dubya? They're being nice to him and being fed horseshit. To all appearances, they don't want any "real news." Otherwise, they'd call him on his administration's duplicity, arrogance, and, to all appearances, corruption. Deviate from the party line and you're in Siberia. With the kind of treatment Clinton was getting in the press, does Brown really believe Clinton would deliberately withhold information from a sympathetic reporter to instead give it to someone whose intent was to gut him with it?

No wonder she couldn't see the scoop sitting in her lap.

A general point about book reviews needs to be made, I think. If the facts presented in a book are true and fly in the face of conventional "wisdom," it's important. That's the essence of a good story, not whether and why the author actually had a reason to care about the subject of his/her book. We use this principle in our courts: the motive of the prosecution is to convict, of the defense, to acquit. Neither motive has any bearing on the truth of the case at all, but we still think of this system as the best way of getting to it. If the author gets the story right, it doesn't matter what the motive was.
posted by David at 5/22/2003 12:02:00 PM ::

 
Sometimes it helps to rephrase things

We've all heard about how Dick Cheney's old company Halliburton had been awarded the contract to run the Iraqi oil distribution system, without having to bid, without public hearings or any public oversight whatsoever, and contrary to initial Bush administration characterizations of the deal as a much smaller contract to repair and maintain Iraq's oil infrastructure. Apart from Henry Waxman, the news has caused barely ripple in the American public's consciousness.

Good thing we've got Chris Floyd around to put things in perspective:

Last week we learned that the U.S. administration lied about the extent of Halliburton Corp.'s involvement in the "reconstruction" of Iraq. Officials in the administration of U.S. President George W. Bush initially claimed that Halliburton -- the oil and defense services conglomerate once headed by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, who still receives an estimated $1 million annually from the company in "deferred compensation" -- had been awarded a relatively small contract to repair Iraqi oilfields.

But in fact, as the Washington Post reports, Halliburton is now pumping and distributing Iraq's vast oil reserves -- a privilege potentially worth billions of dollars. The Bush camp freely admits that this was part of Halliburton's no-bid, open-ended contract all along; they deliberately "failed to mention it" in their first official notices. It was not publicly disclosed until a congressman read the fine print of the contract and began asking questions.

To recap: a firm that pays the vice president of the United States a million dollars a year has now taken over operation of Iraq's oil wealth. There have been times in U.S. history when such an arrangement would have been called by its true name: "corruption." But these are not such times.

(emphasis added)
posted by David at 5/16/2003 11:57:00 AM ::

 
What We Need To Do

Go read this over at Ruminate This.

Then, let's engage in a national discussion about fixing this problem of "corporate personhood," an issue that should serve as the foundation of a coalition platform between Democrats, Greens, Independents and others. If the Democratic Party doesn't lead, if the party decides its not in its interest to solve the problem, then the Democratic Party deserves defeat. I'm hoping the Dems will instead find merit in tackling this populist issue, and thereby distinguishing itself from the Right in a meaningful way. Without this change, we're just spinning our wheels.

Lisa is absolutely, positively spot-on. Seriously, go read the whole post.

Before we go getting any ideas, though, we're going to have to be prepared: this is going to be HARD.

Why? Well, there are...

Political Obstacles

a) Money = power in U.S. politics these days according to a very straightforward equation. Corporations have plenty of money.

b) Unions are likely to be of no help if job or pay cuts are threatened.

c) As long as we've got Terry McAuliffe & Co. slobbering at the corporate trough, Democratic opposition will be nil. If Democrats espouse wholesale reductions in corporate privileges, we've realistically got to be willing to go through at least one entire election season, and win, without any coroporate money.

d) Conservative packing of higher U.S. courts with pro-corporation judges is going to have knock-on effects for years to come. This will be a slooow, ugly process.

While we're working on it, we'll have to deal with the...

Economic Obstacles

a) Current corporations have huge networks of business relationships with other countries and corporations located abroad. We were able to knock down the robber barons because they had nowhere else to go. Multinationals will see which way the wind is blowing and get as much of 'their' money out of the country as they can. The absence of this investment capital and productive capacity will be crushing.

b) Being free of all of those constraints by definition increases the competitiveness of corporations as currently constituted. Domestic production will suffer relative to other countries as a result.

c) Reducing our corporations' profitability will cause international investors of all stripes to pull out of U.S. assets. The stock market will go to hell. Real estate prices will dive. The dollar will go through the floor. Liquidity will be nil. Cats and dogs will live together in open co-habitation.

All of that said, (some) corporations are killing this country. Suggestions are welcome.
posted by David at 5/07/2003 11:39:00 PM ::

 
Michael Kelly Mystery Solved

Roger Ailes may have discovered the key to the Big Mystery of Michael Kelly: the reason this brilliant journalist, skilled and diplomatic editor, loving husband and father, and all-around nice guy, was such a screamingly oblivious partisan wad whenever he put his Kolumnist Kap on. Why was it? To get in with the Kool Kidz, of course!

While writing for The Times' magazine in the early '90s, he concluded that the new Democratic president and his wife, still in the glow of their triumph, were morally bankrupt, and he excoriated each of them in blistering profiles. To see those audacious pieces in The Times -- The Times! -- back then was to be gobstruck. Who is this Michael Kelly? It was the question people asked over and over as he moved from place to place. He never stayed long, and sometimes departed under less-than-pleasant circumstances, having alienated those who signed his checks. He loved his friends, but he treasured his enemies.

He drove people crazy. In his Washington Post columns, he settled into a style one might call the scorched-earth polemic, in which he made it clear that anyone who disagreed with him on the subject at hand was not just wrong, not just misguided, but deeply, irredeemably corrupt. Yet he had a mild, tolerant personality, and his own political views were more complicated and interesting than he ever let on in those columns. I know, from countless liquid conversations in the Madison Hotel bar, that his political pantheon included such names as Roosevelt and Moynihan and that some of his views had a decidedly old-liberal cast. But he mostly kept those ideas to himself, didn't take on those issues or use them to modulate his fierce public persona. Why? Because he didn't want to be just another media smoothie, one of those who clip and trim their arguments in order to remain in the club.

So, basically, he wrote things he didn't believe were true to make himself look like an iconoclast. He succeeded brilliantly. It's kind of a pity, though, that everyone thought he was serious. It's regrettable that people read his barking palaver and, given the source, concluded that pursuit of the Clinton witch-hunt was a reasonable thing to do with the time and resources of the federal government. It's just too darn bad that the 2000 election took place under the cloud of Kelly's venomous "hatred" of Al Gore and his "worship" of GW Bush (in his featured column in the United States capital city's paper of record, no less). It's a goddamn shame that there were important things at stake, things like war, constitutional rights, medical care for the sick, the health of the environment, and, uh, the economic viability of the middle and lower classes in this country.

Anyone who believed a word of his columns was being sold down the river so that Saint Frickin' Michael Kelly could look good. If that isn't journalism, I don't know what is. Thanks a lot, Mike. Rest in peace, person considered as having compromised principles for personal gain.
posted by David at 4/14/2003 05:01:00 PM ::

 
Policy of Preemption Starting to Bear Fruit

You know you're on the wrong track when the North Koreans are on the rational side of the argument:

The United States has demanded that North Korea scrap its nuclear programmes before dialogue on resolving the crisis can begin.

North Korea came close Thursday to admitting that it possessed nuclear weapons when it said allowing nuclear inspections would entail disarmament.

"The US demand for the DPRK's (North Korea's) scrapping of its 'nuclear weapons programme before dialogue' would lead to inspection and the resultant disarmament spark a war," Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

KCNA said North Korea had learned from the war in Iraq that it was a fatal mistake to bow to inspections as Baghdad had learned to its cost.

"The only way of averting a war is to increase one's own just self-defensive means," KCNA said.

"The Iraqi war launched by the US preemptive attack clearly proves that a war can be prevented and the security of the country and the nation can be ensured only when one has physical deterrent force, a military deterrent force strong enough to decisively repel any attack of the enemy with any types of sophisticated weapons."

We sure taught them a thing or two.
link via The Agonist

posted by David at 4/10/2003 01:40:00 PM ::

 
U.S. Promises to Move Main Military Base From Seoul as Soon as Possible

For decades, the Yongsan Garrison in the heart of Seoul has been a symbol of the U.S.-South Korean military alliance forged during the 1950-1953 Korean War.

But the headquarters also has become a source of friction in recent years. Some South Koreans complain that U.S. forces occupy valuable real estate and sometimes cause trouble in nearby neighborhoods.

"Both the Republic of Korea side and the United States have decided that this is an issue that can't wait any longer for resolution," U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Lawless said after two days of talks with South Korean officials.

The Agonist brings to our attention this change of heart on the part of U.S. leadership. Although the military is currently engaged in a program to return a number of military facilities to South Korean control, relocation of the Yongsan Garrison was not on the table until a few months ago, because of the likely expense of moving and the difficulty of finding a replacement site. But there's a new urgency to the issue now.

One might be tempted to conclude that this is a gesture intended to improve U.S.-South Korean relations, which have lately been strained by differences on the issue of North Korea. I'm guessing it's something else entirely.

North Korea has an enough artillery pieces and missiles aimed directly at Seoul to completely destroy the city in a matter of hours. In the event of a U.S. attack, they would almost certainly be used. I'd bet we don't want to be in town when they are, and seeming to acquiesce to the desire of South Koreans to move the base provides us cover to get our people out of harm's way in preparation for a move against the North. What such a move would mean for the other residents of Seoul I leave as an excercise for the reader.
posted by David at 4/09/2003 12:35:00 PM ::

 
I've read Mark Kleiman for quite some time. His site is a long-overdue addition to the blogroll. But if I didn't know him from Adam, this excellent history lesson would have earned him a place on the spot.
posted by David at 4/02/2003 10:51:00 PM ::

 
I saw this post over at N.Z. Bear, and felt obliged to comment. It turned into quite a rant, so I'm doing my four dozen readers the service of reprinting it here. Bear asks:

I've been noodling a piece about the current state of peace protesters, and the shift in meaning that occured between protesting to prevent a war, and protesting a war that is already in progress.

But frankly, others have done it already, so I'd be retreading old ground. So instead of doing that, and putting words in the mouths of those opposing this war, let me just ask a simple question:

What do you want?

I'd really like to know. And I'll leave it at that, as I don't want to prejudice the question any more. But please, if you oppose (or opposed) attacking Hussein's forces in Iraq, I'd like to hear your "What I would do if I was President" speech. What actions would you take, and how would those actions be better (in whatever way you choose to define 'better') than the course we are pursuing today? And if you feel really intellectually honest, in what ways would your approach be worse?

No offense, Bear, but I think the question is unfair. Bush got us into a fight we opposed. But the damage has been done. We're in too far to stop now. Doing so would seriously blunt the threat of our using force, should we really need it someday.

I think a lot of the continued protests are expressions of anger, of pure protest. People are angry because of the war, so that's what shows up on their signs. Many people would like it made clear that they would not have chosen this course of action, and do not wish to be tarred with it. (Paradoxically, their actions could actually be good for the country, as they indicate to the international community that not all Americans are (by their lights) bloodthirsty imperialists, and will give us some benefit of the doubt instead of opposing us reflexively.)

What do I want? At this point, the only rational course is to get it over with as little bloodshed as possible (which may be quite a lot). Maybe the proper course is to wait a bit, and bring in truly overwhelming ground forces and supplant 'shock and awe' with 'grim inevitability.'

We need to get out there and talk to the countries we've pissed off. They're not going anywhere and everything we want to accomplish wil be a lot easier if there is cooperation among nations. Make concessions where necessary. Actually listen to their points of view, while explaining that our one inflexible point is that we finish the job in Iraq.

If Iraq is not materially better off after our intervention, we will have failed. Meaningfully commit to a thorough rebuilding of Iraq--$10 billion/year for five years, minimum. Not business investment, just straight-up directed resource transfer. Make restitution to the families of dead and injured civilians. Invest the time and money to find competent, clean local leadership and maintain just enough presence to keep rival groups from killing one another. Find and punish the truly odious, then establish (and fund) amnesty courts a la South Africa. Sow the seeds of civil society. Do what is really required to make Iraq a "bastion of democracy."

That's what I'd do.
posted by David at 4/02/2003 10:22:00 PM ::

 
David Neiwert brings to our attention an email that's making the rounds among the knuckledraggers.

With all of this talk of impending war, many of us will encounter "Peace Activists" who will try and convince us that we must refrain from retaliating against the ones who terrorized us all on September 11, 2001, and those who support terror. These activists may be alone or in a gathering... most of us don't know how to react to them. When you come upon one of these people, or one of their rallies, here are the proper rules of etiquette:

1. Listen politely while this person explains their views. Strike up a conversation if necessary and look very interested in their ideas. They will tell you how revenge is immoral, and that by attacking the people who did this to us, we will only bring on more violence. They will probably use many arguments, ranging from political to religious to humanitarian.

2. In the middle of their remarks, without any warning, punch them in the nose.

3. When the person gets up off of the ground, they will be very angry and they may try to hit you, so be careful.

4. Very quickly and calmly remind the person that violence only brings about more violence and remind them of their stand on this matter. Tell them if they are really committed to a nonviolent approach to undeserved attacks, they will turn the other cheek and negotiate a solution. Tell them they must lead by example if they really believe what they are saying.

5. Most of them will think for a moment and then agree that you are correct.

6. As soon as they do that, hit them again. Only this time hit them much harder. Square in the nose.

7. Repeat steps 2-5 until the desired results are obtained and the idiot realizes how stupid of an argument he/she is making.

8. There is no difference in an individual attacking an unsuspecting victim or a group of terrorists attacking a nation of people. It is unacceptable and must be dealt with. Perhaps at a high cost.

I can't speak for all of us, but anybody who tried that on me wouldn't get the chance to hit me a second time.

1. Aside from the fact that the people who attacked us are not the same people we're attacking in Iraq...

2. I'm just a stupid lefty blogger, but I'm still willing to bet the author of the email and most of those who respond positively to it call themselves Christians. Would Jesus do this? Or would he more likely find himself on the other side of the fisticuffs?

3. I'm so glad we have democracy and the rule of law to distinguish us from the savages. Nope, force isn't used here for political purposes. We've trancended that.

Update: Digby gives the subject a more thorough treatment.
posted by David at 4/01/2003 09:20:00 PM ::

 
Homeland Invasion

With all the talk of Iraq's breaking the Geneva Convention, I'm wondering if it's reasonable to expect Iraqis to follow any rules at all. Why? In addition to the they-have-absolutely-nothing-to-lose rationale put forward in a previous post, there's another reason:

We invaded them. Saddam & Co. didn't challenge us to a fight; they didn't want a war, and certainly not one with the "world's only remaining superpower." On our own initiative, opposed by nearly every other country on the globe, we unilaterally decided to rain death and destruction and disruption on Iraq. "We're coming to your country to kill as many of you as it takes to get you to say 'uncle.' Oh, and you'd better fight fair."

It's like a big jock picking a fight with a skinny kid, then complaining when the skinny kid lands one below the belt.

It's reminiscent of the conservative lament: "If a guy breaks into my house, it oughta be legal for me to blow his brains out, no matter what. Whaddya mean it's illegal? He has to threaten me with deadly force first? I gotta give him a chance to hurt me or my family before I can take him out?" Essentially, that's what we're doing in Iraq, but in addition we've told the world we intend to kill or abduct the head of the household. Saddam is going to feel justified in defending his regime by any and every means available, and we should assume as much.

Yes, Saddam's a monster. Yes, Iraq and the world will be better off without him. But U.S. bitching about Iraq's breaking the rules of war is pathetic and stupid.
posted by David at 4/01/2003 11:22:00 AM ::

 
One of many reasons to respect international opinion

Sulaimaniyah, Iraq - A major reason for the lack of a Shiite uprising in southern Iraq could lie hundreds of miles away in the Iranian capital, Tehran, where the leading Iraqi Shiite cleric has lived in exile for more than 20 years.

Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim has sent instructions to his supporters and secret cells in Basra, Najaf, Karbala and other southern Iraqi cities not to start an uprising or support the American-led coalition in any way, according to two of his top advisers. Al-Hakim also issued a "message to the Iraqi people" last week urging them not to side either with the United States or the Iraqi regime.

And in his most direct challenge to the United States, al-Hakim warned coalition forces that they must leave Iraq soon after toppling Saddam Hussein's regime, or Iraqis would rebel against them.

Why didn't we see this coming? I'll tell you.

Before the war began, Hakim stressed that he was not an Iranian puppet, and that his group was focused purely on getting rid of Saddam.* He pledged cooperation with the US, and very nearly offered his forces to help us. Now that the war has begun, and Rumsfeld et al. have clumsily slapped at Iran, Hakim has pulled back. Khameni told him to, and Hakim had no option but to obey.

Hakim depends upon the Iranian government. We depended on Hakim to help keep the Iraqi Shi'ites in order. Although it had long been whispered in the dark corridors of the Bush administration that Iran would be next in our crosshairs, Iran kept quiet. The Iranian elite had been willing to hold their noses and deal with the Great Satan to get rid of the hated Saddam. Rumsfeld slapped* them* so hard they switched and took the part of the reviled man who had launched a war against them that took 2,000,000 Iranian lives.

Iran is Iraq's longstanding and natural enemy. Their noninterference with Hakim could have made capturing Basra easy. But Rumsfeld screwed it up.
* = links t/k
posted by David at 3/31/2003 09:08:00 PM ::