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Apparently that whole PEER thing about employees being told to not discuss the age of the Grand Canyon….not true. At all. Sorry. I’ll be double checking if not just ignoring their stuff from now on.
The Adults are Back In Charge
Because He Rants Better
Crooks and Liars has Keith Olbermann’s Special Comment. Go watch. Perhaps cry. Get angry.
John Cole has been a must read for several months since he realized the Emperor has no clothes. One of his recent is quite good and fits with the above.
John and I both supported the war though I think I can say I didn’t criticize those who disagreed much and in fact thought they made good points. John and I both realize how wrong we were and while I’ve been a Democrat, his disillusionment with the GOP has been interesting to watch. While I have lost much of my faith in the ability of government by reasonable people compromising, he’s watched an entire party he was a part of fall apart and become a cult of personality.
All that is for nothing though, as it has no serious effect other than to bruise our egos while we continue to throw soldiers into harms way with no purpose other than to assuage Dear Leader’s delicate ego.
Several experts wondered what moderates Hadley was referring to
There are two choices at this point. One is to decide to take down the ruling coalition by force in Iraq. That means when Maliki tells us to not attack al-Sadr we ignore him and create a huge firestorm of violence that we fight for several years as Shiites join with Sunnis in attacking our forces on a regular basis. It’s unclear that would lead to any more of a victory than getting out now would.
The other is to get out.
Other options are pretty much tantamount to standing around with bulleyes on American soldiers’ backs.
Confusing Famous and Infamous
Red State has Tom DeLay blogging. Next up Conrad Burns and Jack Abramoff.
For the left wing of the left wing–think about how assanine it sounds when Tom DeLay says if we just become more right wing and move from the center we will win elections again. Then think about the mirror image.
Playing only to your base works for a short time in the right circumstances. Like after the worst terrorist attack ever on US soil. However, it only works for so long.
Al-Sadr has US troops called off for a second time
This time US Troops were trying to find a missing soldier.
If you can’t go after death squads and our own troops, how is it that we are going to ‘win’?
And if we cannot go after death squads, how do we plan to create a stable democracy? Usually the rule of law and monopoly on force are pretty much necessary conditions of a stable democracy.
Okay, not usually, but always.
So Tom Friedman Wants Democrats to Govern from the Center
This administration has governed from the hard, hard right since day one and completely ignored policy instead focusing on politcs. For six years a horribly irresponsible course has been followed by Republicans, but they shouldn’t lose too bad.
Democrats tried too often to compromise with this administration and it got them screwed. No, it got the country screwed. Suggesting now that Democrats should try and work with one of the most ideologically driven, corrupt and incompetent Administrations ever just boggles the mind. What needs to happen isn’t compromise, but actual real live accountability with the Legislative Branch actually operating as an independent branch of the United States Government.
And it’s bad political science. Compromise doesn’t occur easily when the majority is small, it occurs when one side has a large advantage. We aren’t a parliamentary democracy that can have a unity government. It’s a zero sum game and small majorities mean constant battle over hot button issues and avoidance of issues that require hard choices. It’s not a hard incentive system to understand if one reads the literature from 30 years ago.
I’m center left. I like being around the center on policy, but the remaining two years of the Bush administration isn’t going to produce any policy that solves long term problems. The Administration doesn’t believe in doing so and it’s clearly stated it. The best one can hope for is an independent branch of the government that does it’s job as the dominant branch and at least minimizes any further damage.
Calling Buck Turgidson
Where else but in D.C. could well-educated, intelligent people argue ferociously for a solid year about whether or not to call the horrific bloodbath in Iraq a “civil war,” while never once bothering to come together on any actual solutions to the problem?
In what other civilized democracy would otherwise reasonable human beings constantly question whether their political opponents are on the side of terrorists? And instead of unifying behind solutions to the real terrorist threat and its underlying causes, they ban little old ladies from bringing bottled water onto airplanes?
And on what bizarre planet does an official National Intelligence Estimate, which reports that the Iraq war is a major reason for the spread of jihadist movements, become yet another indecent political football, with both sides parsing every word to prove that they’re right and everyone who disagrees with them is somehow evil?
What in the hell is wrong with that place?
The one aspect Rich doesn’t cover (and he did a good job) is that if one admits the obvious, that a civil war is in fact occurring, the solution is far different than fighting the remnants of the Baathists and some militant Islamists.
In the case of terrorism and guerrila war, politics is a part of the solution, but ultimately military defeat is answer to the fighters already fighting.
In the case of a civil war the only solution when it’s sectarian violence barring genocide is a political solution with current combatants.
For those who wish to try and continue to paint this as a war against militant Islamists in Iraq, head examines are in order. It’s not. It is a full out Civil War between Sunnis and Shiites and we aren’t even able to interfere with the Death Squads as the recent blocking of our efforts to go after Sadr’s forces clearly demonstrated. If you cannot target the death squads how do you stop the killing? Pretending we are doing anything besides sending young Americans into a meat grinder at this point is nothing more than a delusion.
The use of Jihadist threat by politicians is also another great example of how idiots creating policy only makes matter wsorse. Jihad as an actual war isn’t how most Muslims view the concept, instead it is a war with oneself to be devout. Not all that different from the concept Protestants have in saying we are all depraved sinners.
Using Jihadist as the way of describing the threat from militant Islamists leads to more misunderstanding regarding who we are fighting–not by us, but by the very Muslims who we hope to work with to create functioning liberal democracies. Americans don’t understand the power of words and that is why we are in a war run by the stupids.
But the stupids are even outdoing themselves. Instead of picking the situation where there is a need for a political solution, Frist picked Afghanistan and said we need to find a political solution with the Taliban.
He may have outstupided Hastert this week, though the understated coverage might not make it to be as much of a public spectacle. Mel Martinez joined in the fun.
The Tennessee Republican said he had learned from briefings that Taliban fighters were too numerous and had too much popular support to be defeated by military means.
“You need to bring them into a more transparent type of government,” Frist said during a brief visit to a U.S. and Romanian military base in the southern Taliban stronghold of Qalat. “And if that’s accomplished we’ll be successful.”
Frist said asking the Taliban to join the government was a decision to be made by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Sen. Mel Martinez, a Republican from Florida accompanying Frist, said negotiating with the Taliban was not “out of the question” but that fighters who refused to join the political process would have to be defeated.
“A political solution is how it’s all going to be solved,” he said.
There will have to be a political solution in Afghanistan since different areas are effectively controlled by different warlords, but the Taliban is the one group that’s cannot be a part of that solution. They provided a base for a direct attack on the United States and would do so again if they were to regain power.
Somehow, those who have left their faculties back when they flushed, seem to think it’s a legitimate argument to look at a miserable failure and ask for more miserable failure to ensure they look tough. Somehow, miserable failure to such folks has become not enough failure and we must continue to fail at all costs. There may be no sign that their miserable failure will improve by pursuing the same strategy that created the miserable failure, but by God we’ll pursue miserable failure with the righteousness of a crusader.
Rich points out the problem of alternative solutions such as timelines and he’s right. The problem is that for those enthralled with the notion of truly stupendous failure, mitigating that failure is not an option.
There are no good solutions in Iraq anymore is the reality of the situation and there haven’t been since the Heritage Institution and Halliburton staffed the ‘reconstruction’. There are less bad solutions, however. The first step is for Americans to get over their bruised egos and decided that young American lives are more important than feeling tough and sit down at the table to negotiate with all the major sects in Iraq regardless of whether they have killed Americans.
It’s hard to imagine how a partition isn’t the only workable solution at this point. Once torture and mass killings become the method of solving your differences, a giant timeout where everyone goes to their own corner for decades or centuries is about the only way to avoid a genocide or genocides.
But don’t think about that, we have to fail like we have never failed before and there is no time to waste in truly miserable failures.
Did He Get a Good Laugh
Bush cited Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt as examples of countries providing the diplomatic and financial leadership needed to foster Mideast democracy.
He’s here all week folks….
Why So Slow?
?I sensed a frustration with the lack of progress on the bigger picture of Iraq generally ? that we continue to lose a lot of lives, it continues to sap our budget,? said one person who attended the meeting. ?The president wants the people in Iraq to get more on board to bring success.?
That’s inbetween ducking the assassination attempts? Get more on board? Give it the old college try?
More generally, the participants said, the president expressed frustration that Iraqis had not come to appreciate the sacrifices the United States had made in Iraq, and was puzzled as to how a recent anti-American rally in support of Hezbollah in Baghdad could draw such a large crowd. ?I do think he was frustrated about why 10,000 Shiites would go into the streets and demonstrate against the United States,? said another person who attended.
Stunning.
One participant in the lunch, Carole A. O?Leary, a professor at American University who is also doing work in Iraq with a State Department grant, said Mr. Bush expressed the view that ?the Shia-led government needs to clearly and publicly express the same appreciation for United States efforts and sacrifices as they do in private.?
Essentially they should commit political hari-kari to make Bush feel better and then allow more radical people to take over. What a great analysis.
The White House began to open its doors to a wider range of views earlier this year, after acknowledging that months of complaints after Hurricane Katrina that the president and his team were isolated ? ?living in a bubble? was a frequent refrain ? had gotten through. But that accelerated after Joshua B. Bolten became White House chief of staff in the spring.
Wait for it:
?They wanted new insight, so they could better understand the arena in which they are making policy,? said Mr. Nasr, author of ?The Shia Revival.? He said he got no sense that the Bush administration was contemplating a shift in its Iraq policy.
Some who have been brought into past meetings with President Bush, even fierce critics of the conduct of the Iraq war, give credit to the White House for beginning to listen to alternate viewpoints.
They are listening and then ignoring it all. But that’s worth reporting as evidence of the new attitude of openness?
So….now, NOW, it’s a good thing to start listening to alternate viewpoints? Now.
Holy Shit is this country in trouble. 2 1/2 more years of Alice in Wonderland and I can’t even begin to grasp what else these people can fuck up.