I think this story illustrates a larger point

From CNN/International

It is doubtful that foreign security contractors could be prosecuted under Iraqi law. A directive issued by U.S. occupation authorities in 2004 granted contractors, U.S. troops and many other foreign officials immunity from prosecution under Iraqi law.

Security contractors are also not subject to U.S. military law under which U.S. troops face prosecution for killing or abusing Iraqis.

I bring it up because I think it speaks to a larger issue, including the warrantless spying issue.

Put simply, when there are no constraints on behavior then humans do bad things almost as a matter of course. The contractors in Iraq are working without any enforcment of rules of engagement. It was inevitable that an event like the one documented in this story would eventually take place.

But the same thing is true in regards to the NSA and the data-mining eavesdropping programs. They may have been set up with the best of intentions, but without oversight or coherent rules, abuse is inevitable.

Re:Petraeus - Betray us

Generals are people too. To pretend that they are above criticism or ridicule is to take yet another baby step towards fascism. The whole theory that our nation was founded upon was that "all men are created equal", that there is no priveleged class and that one of the most potent tools protected by the first amendment is satire. The people who wish to take this away clearly fail to understand the nature of Freedom and I personally find that heartbreaking.

Just a thought

What compartment of the brain do the people who absolutely despise illegal immigrants store their understanding of what it is to be an American in Iraq?

Just curious.

Its time for my favorite quote re: Treason.

"I, _____ (SSAN), having been appointed an officer in the Army of the United States, as indicated above in the grade of _____ do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter; So help me God."

I only bring it up because, the same people who are most likely to make references to treason while referring to their fellow citizens are uncoincidentally the same people who have the least respect for the US Constitution and the Freedoms it guarantees.

Marketing Marketing Marketing.

All the time we were being told to wait for General Petraeus's report to Congress, it never occurred to me that we were waiting for the anniversary week of Sept. 11th.

It seems to me, that one of the reasons the Dems are cowering in the corner is they actually appreciate the power of brainwashing - uh I mean marketing. This year is the first where September 11th falls on the same weekday as the original tragedy. Is it a coincidence that this is the week they've chosen to roll out the "7 out of 10 Generals prefer the Surge over the next leading strategy" campaign?

"The surge is working"

The surge is working alright. It has very conveniently changed the subject about what the future in Iraq holds and bought at least one more FU for our soldiers.

Recall that during the election campaign we were endlessly presented with the choice between "staying the course" and "cutting and running". Within minutes of "cutting and running"'s victory in the election, "stay the course" immediately disappeared down the memory hole and "the Surge" was born.

I just can't believe that our entire foreign policy apparatus is being run by a marketing department but there you have it.

re: Iran

It is possible that much of what is going on is bluster and is intended for its diplomatic and political effect rather than signalling an actual imminent attack. But its worth pointing out at this time that our Constitution was specifically written to make this kind of posturing and threatening impossible. Not only was the power to make war specifically entrusted to the lower house so that such decisions would be made by those closest to the people but military appropriations were specifically limited to two years so that the executive could not feel that he had an army at his disposal to do with as he saw fit.

The founders understood human nature and were afraid of what would happen if these guidelines were not adhered to. It appears they were dead-on.

I can't let this slide.....

Dissecting Greenwald


Even though I am supposedly a member of the Very Serious People (VSP) Foreign Policy Community (FPC) I feel obliged to say that I don't agree with any of these sentiments (well except for the part about America being "inherently good.")

In case you can't tell, I have a REAL problem who anyone says that the US is inherently good. We may indeed be a force for good. We may indeed be a model for the world. But these qualities aren't "inherent". We have to work for them. And that we have to work for them suggests that we can fail. America's goodness is not inherent. Anyone who suggests that it is, is being morally lazy at the very least.

A truly excellent example of truly lousy news coverage

LA Times

I just encountered this tonight but it does provide an excellent example of how news coverage can totally distort a situation by insisting on he-said/she-said construction.

a verdict that follows a long legal battle that pitted the Bush administration against civil liberties groups over how terrorism suspects are detained and should be prosecuted.

....

The conviction of Padilla, 36, and two codefendants was a boost for an administration that had received sharp criticism for holding Padilla as an "enemy combatant" for 3 1/2 years without due process until the courts insisted he be charged with a crime or set free.

The government's success in the Padilla case could now encourage officials to bring other enemy combatants into federal courtrooms.

"This clearly shows that in some cases, yes, the process can handle it," Morford said. "You have to look at it on a case-by-case basis. And these particular charges did work in a regular criminal trial."

Donna Newman of New York, Padilla's initial attorney who fought for months just to get a lawyer-client meeting with him, agreed, saying the administration was wrong not to "trust the courts" for so long.

"I don't necessarily agree with the verdict," she said. But in the future, "the government should be hard-pressed to say the [criminal justice] system doesn't work. It shows you can bring forth the evidence and try someone in court."

But Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said the jury's decision was not a blanket approval of how the administration had dealt with terrorism defendants.

"This verdict, if it stands, cannot be seen as an endorsement of a regime of unreviewable executive detention," he said. "President Bush should not take today's ruling as permission to continue to hold Americans outside the law at his whim."

If, as has been argued, the guilty verdict proves that the Criminal justice sytem CAN deal with terrorist cases then how is the conviction a boost for the administration which has insisted all along that it cannot? The answer is of course that it isn't and this particular reporter is full of malarky.

Don't forget...we were insane.

While I'm not going to sit here and exclaim that 9-11 changed everything, I will point out that it did make a lot of people who were reasonably secure suddenly feel helpless. There was a lot of importance to the idea that we DO SOMETHING even if what we did didn't bear any particular relationship to the causes of our discomfort. Whenever the subject comes up, I always like to remind people what happened to the Dixie Chicks. The reaction to Natalie Maines's comment can be described many ways but rational is not among them.

We were led into Iraq because at the time we were ready to be led anywhere and Bushco saw an opportunity in our confusion. To this day, they're still trying to exploit the confusion (see AQ vs AQI) but we're slowly waking up and people aren't buying it anymore.

More religion.....

This remains a danger

For a person to think that most or all Christians are like the Hagee groups would be a mistake as I have found many that are not in any way like these particular folks are.

As one well versed in Dawkins and Shermer and Dennett, I am well aware of the tendency to paint all Religious people as equally misguided but it's both politically inexpedient and logically fallaceous to do so. (My personal view is that the Universe as a whole should be given at least as much credit for being conscious as we give the subset we refer to as Humanity.)

However, to take a late interpretation of a allegorical story and turn it into a course of political action that includes the wholesale slaughter of innocent people, pretty thoroughly flies in the face of anything that any thinking person could possibly consider sacred.

Again quoting myself....

One of the tactical mistakes that far-left types frequently make is that they write off people with strong religious convictions as being unreachable or unreasonable. What they fail to realize is that one of the reasons that Christianity is so popular is that many of its moral precepts make perfect sense whether you happen to believe in magic or not.

When Jefferson wrote "we hold these truths to be self-evident" he of course meant that certain things are so obvious that they don't need to be defended. One of these self-evident truths is that if you're of the opinion that human life is sacred then you should oppose war with at least the same degree of fervor that you spend opposing abortion.

If on the other hand, your theology is based on the premise that pleasure is sinful but that pain is desirable, then it makes perfect sense to cheerlead warfare. Such thinking should be exposed at every opportunity.



Link

Josh nails it..

What I've been trying to say....

And groups all over the Middle East, who have little if any actual connection to al Qaeda, are adopting the name al Qaeda in vicarious support or sympathy or, perhaps mostly and most damningly, because we've managed to make it a strong brand.


Link

Words matter.....

But these are stories you haven’t been reading in The Times in recent weeks as the newspaper has slipped into a routine of quoting the president and the military uncritically about Al Qaeda’s role in Iraq — and sometimes citing the group itself without attribution.

And in using the language of the administration, the newspaper has also failed at times to distinguish between Al Qaeda, the group that attacked the United States on Sept. 11, and Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, an Iraqi group that didn’t even exist until after the American invasion.
link

I sometimes find it useful

To remind myself that we humans are in fact a just bunch of apes with a modicum of extra neural circutry that allows us to communicate more effectively. The core forces that drive our behavior remain the same ones that drive chimps to gather in bands and sort themselves by rank.

I need to remind myself of that because otherwise the part of me that thinks rationally and believes that "all men (and women) are created equal" just gets overwhelmed with the galling cruelty and stupidity that permeates our existence

Words Matter

I've always thought that the word "terrorist" should be defined as anyone who has committed an act of terrorism or anyone who plans on committing an act of terrorism in the future. It seems perfectly reasonable and it encompasses thousands of dangerous people. Unfortunatetly now "terrorist" has been redefined to include anybody who doesn't like the USA plus anybody who happens to occupy any real estate we're targeting at the moment. So we've instantly gone from facing thousands of terrorists to facing millions! No wonder the chickhawks are so scared!

What you've described in your post, is the redefinition of the word "insurgent" in precisely the same manner. It does make things more difficult when insurgents are routinely elected in the Democracies we're so busy imposing. But nevertheless in this Orwellian world we now occupy, "insurgencies" are bound to be springing up all over the place. All we have to do is target a building and "POOF", its instantly filled with insurgents!

A discussion on religion arose at swampland

Here are my contributions:

Whether one beleives in a diety or not, its hard to ignore the fact that religion is pretty ubiquitous among us humans. If you count choosing who gets elected President among your goals, then you ignore this fact at your peril.

Many people confuse freedom of religion with freedom from religion and the Republicans of course use this confusion to their advantage.

I've always felt that anyone who thinks the Creator of the Known Universe plays favorites among separate religious practices (let alone political affiliations) is suffering from a supreme failure of imagination.

Stressing that the message of the Democratic Party is one of inclusion should ring true among believer, agnostics and athiests alike. If not, we're just not getting the message across adequately.


Religion is simply politics seasoned with the extra confidence that comes from thinking that the Creator of the Universe has your back.

As such it's very powerful (I happen to think there's a strong genetic component) but at the end of the day, those of us who were taught that God is loving, compassionate and forgiving will believe it to the grave as will all those who think he is vengeful and jealous will do the same.

We'll leave the question of which group votes for which party as an exercise for the reader.


"and the insistence that there is a "natural" explanation for all unexplainable phenomena is no less "faith based" than the belief in God."

I'm not sure if you meant that the way I'm taking it but it's certainly incorrect.

History and experience have shown time and again that the assumption of a natural explanation for all observed phenomena is vindicated regularly and repeatedly. Without such an assumption, we'd still be having difficulties figuring out how to use twigs to harvest termites. Note that you needn't be an athiest in order to insist on natural explanations. The universe is quite sufficiently miraculous on its own without having to postulate uncaused effects.


"a kind of evolving spirituality that is a mix of Buddhism and string theory/quantum physics"

My belief is reasonably easy to state. The Universe should be given at least as much credit for consciousness as it's contents. It is therefore at least as self aware as we are. Like us, I beleive it strives to become more self aware. After that, it's physics all the way down.


"but with what exactly do you disagree when it comes to Jesus' exhortation to lead moral lives and love each other?"

That would be the people who twist the "lead moral lives" part into a reason to hate each other.

"When a woman was brought before Him for her transgressions, Jesus preached mercy, but then told her to go and sin no more."

This is a continuation of the whole "log in your eye vs. a speck in your brother's" message. We humans are imperfect and are not in a position to judge each other let alone invoke God's name when doing so. Those who miss this simple message, as mudcat pointed out in the original post can be reasonably accused of blasphemey Of course the accusation itself would be subject to the exact same logical failure.

In the end the message is clear, that we should be tending to our own transgressions first and formost and leave those of our neighbors in more capable hands.

re: Rural voter

I think the issue of whose Urban vs Rural is less important that the issue of who has experienced actual exposure to people who are unlike them. While city dwellers encounter people of differing religion and/or race or ethniciity routinely, people who live in small towns have less such exposure but unfortunately so do people who live in the vast suburban enclaves that surround our major cities.

The cultural inexperience we're associating with the "rural" mindset is far more widespread than the actual membership in the rural demographic.

El Cid comments at GG...

American security policy under Republicans is like an pest exteriminator company run by bitter ex-pro wrestlers who are blindfolded and given only methamphetamine, Red Bull, and axes and told to go into every home with full force in order to teach those damn insects a lesson, so that their insect sisters and brothers will hear about what horrible things happened in the house torn apart by the confused blind muscleheads.

-- El Cid

Link

I comment at WaPo re: Libby

I've always thought that the reason we have courts and rules of evidence and Grand Jury proceedings was to insure that when someone was indicted, that it was based on a preponderance of evidence and when convicted, it was based on evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.

Now I realize that things said in forums such as this or "the court of public opinion" don't necessarily have to meet these stringent tests, but don't we think that by this time "Libby was framed!" would have outlived its usefulness?

Just asking?

Once again I cut & paste one of my GG comments to post here.

Two conclusions are inescapable....

Have you conveniently forgotten that atheists killed more people than religionists by a substantial multiple, last century? Stalin and Mao alone evened the score for a large portion of human history. So much for "reason".

1: Many people have killed many other people.

2: Many people have religious beliefs.

Any conclusions beyond these two are unsupported BS.

For the record, what all the mass murderers have in common is a willingness to classify people into arbitrary but reasonably easily delineated groups and declare members of one of the groups to be "unclean". The stated goal is inevitably the betterment of "mankind" ignoring the fact that mankind is made up of individuals each "created equal" with an equally sacred stake in living, loving and raising families who share their goals and values.

If you are among those, willing to condemn such a group to the point of wishing death upon their members, then you share in the evil that the mass-murderers represent.

Failure of Education....

Since I never raised children, I had the luxury of being able to ignore whatever has been happening in our schools for quite a while now. It's clear to me now that whatever it was, its now a major contributer to the current pollution of our discourse.

While individual reporters are merely churning out whatever is rewarded institutionally by their organizations, in the meantime those higher up in the organization are concentrating their efforts on determining whatever will do the most to enhance revenue flow.

We can all see the results of this process, which of course moves expensive haircuts and continuing saga's of missing pretty white women to the fore of news coverage. (Never underestimate the power of that photo that accompanies the 10 second teaser for the next segment)

So, if as I assert, the lousy news coverage is demand driven, how can we create demand for substantive coverage? Why, in school of course. If we were doing an adequate job of teaching that the demands of citizenship include paying attention, developing informed opinions and voting, then (eventually) the demand for decent serious news coverage would grow.

Needless to say, the process takes years to accomplish, but it is simply one of the better investments we can make in our future.

I always enjoy when libertarianism is discussed...

Because it usually causes everyone to examine their core assumptions. During the Viet Nam era, I was too young to be subject to the draft, but it certainly profoundly affected my attitude toward the coercive power of the state. When you peel away all the pretty words, what remains are people with blue uniforms and guns who reserve the right to shoot you if you don't come quietly. The rest is simply arguing over who deserves to be on the receiving end of such treatment

What is winning?....II

I made a comment several threads back that speaking of "winning" or "losing" in Iraq was misguided and counerproductive..

Leave it to someone much smarter to explain in detail why...

TPM:

With Harry Reid's controversial 'war is lost' quote and with various other pols weighing in on whether we can 'win' or whether it's 'lost', it's a good time to consider what the hell we're actually talking about. Frankly, the whole question is stupid. Or at least it's a very stilted way of understanding what's happening, geared to guarantee President Bush's goal of staying in Iraq forever.

Important questions from Kevin Drum

So here are some questions for every one of the 2008 presidential candidates: Do you care about Muslim public opinion? Do you think it impacts U.S. national security? Which aspects of American foreign policy do you think contribute to these attitudes? What concrete steps would you take to change these parts of our foreign policy

Link

The amount of ignorance that permeates our discourse is astounding and depressing. The sad fact remains, these are NOT the questions the candidates will face.

What is victory?

We need to work very hard to get past the idea that the Iraq war is a contest that be lost or won. It is in fact a situation that can improve or degenerate. But as long as people are thinking in terms of "winning" or "losing" they are imagining an outcome or end state after which there's no longer a contest. This is of course nonsense. But unless I'm wrong, this whole Harry Reid flap is based on this persistent illusion. By using the term "losing" he bought into the frame.

We need to work past it or it will continue to bite us in the ass.

Re: The surveillance State....

In times like these....
it always fun to regurgitate the outrage that Republicans expressed over the Clipper Chip proposals during the Clinton years.

John Ashcroft

But doing so reminds us that the battle for personal privacy cuts across party lines and that there are no shortage of Democrats who are willing to sacrifice freedom if they think it will give them "law and order" or "war on terror" cred.

I've always assumed that every link I've ever clicked as well as every case of beer I've ever purchased was available as a data point for anyone willing to dig for it. And who even knows how many servers the photos we take with our cel-phones end up on.

One of the downsides of technological advancement is that anything that can be done will be done at some point. Does everyone remember the talk of internet-enabled refrigerators?

Needless to say, the more connected we all are, the more irresistable the urge to monitor and control will become. It's just plain human nature.

Re: Michael Goldfarb and "near dictatorial power"

Anyone with a passing knowlege of history and the Constitution know why this "dictatorial" thinking is misguided and wrong. What I personally find more interesting is the insights into human nature which were apparent to the founders that caused them to frame the founding documents the way they did in the first place.

They knew that they had to impart the war-making powers to the legislature specifically because as the representatives most closely accountable to the people, they would be the ones least likely to use military engagements as a tool of self aggrandizement. They understood well how the combination of a fearful populace and ambitious leaders could result in evil forces acting under the umbrella of arbitrary law.

To those who think of themselves as individuals first and then members of society, is is indeed excruciatingly basic and obvious. To those who subsume their individuality to their tribal loyalties, it needs to be explained....again....and again.....and again....

One of my better efforts...

In response to a discussion of unalienable rights over at Glenn Greenwald.

We of course are playing word games here, but I'll give it a shot. Our rights come from the consensus we created when we asserted that we had them. That we put them in our founding documents for easy reference adds to their value. If you doubt the power of consensus then I suggest you burn all the money in your wallet because it has no value save what has been assigned to it by the power of consensus.

You make a valid point about how the lack of ownership of our own bodies is evidence that we have rights that are currently being violated, but if you had no rights beyond what the government grants, then you would have no basis to complain!

When Jefferson wrote the declaration of independence, he did indeed invoke the diety and referred to it as the source of the rights asserted. But he also said, "we hold these truths to be self evident" meaning that he had no reason to think that anyone in his audience wouldn't know exactly what he was talking about.

He also used the phrase "goverments are institued by men". When you refer abstractly to "not having any rights except what are granted by government" then you are allowing 1 useful fiction to trump another useful fiction. Government is nothing more than a collection of people, many of whom are armed, who assert the right to control the behavior of others.

No wonder, when designing a system of government, the framers were very careful to design it in such a way that the ambitions of its participants are set against each other so that the power of law wouldn't become an instrument of abuse.

Opinions vary on how well they did, but it certainly highlights why its important to continue to assert our rights, even when we are among those who would sacrifice them for expedience or safety.

Spin in action.

This quote is from a story concerning Kyle Sampson's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee:

"The distinction between 'political' and 'performance-related' reasons for removing a United States attorney is, in my view, largely artificial," Sampson said.

"Some were asked to resign because they were not carrying out the president's and the attorney general's priorities," he said. "In some sense that may be described as political by some people."

Pretty mealy mouthed right? Yea, I thought so too.

Here's how it translates as a headline in the San Luis Obispo Tribune's website...

Sampson denies, under oath, U.S. attorneys fired for political reasons

I'm in the wrong line of work.

ah...nostalgia....

Does anybody remember how important civil liberities were to Republicans when Janet Reno was AG.?

The administrations interest in all e-mail is a wholly unhealthy precedent, especially given this administrations track record on FBI files and IRS snooping. Every medium by which people communicate can be subject to exploitation by those with illegal intentions. Nevertheless, this is no reason to hand Big Brother the keys to unlock our e-mail diaries, open our ATM records, read our medical records, or translate our international communications. --John Ashcroft October 1997

Read It All

Freedom isnt free.

Digby....

The point to keep in mind is that the fundamental difference between the two parties is that Democrats believe America can be decent and strong at the same time and Republicans believe that those are mutually exclusive concepts

permalink

Rosa Brooks via Kevin Drum

To paraphrase Zbigniew Brzezinksi, we need to resist efforts to frame policy debates in terms of strong versus weak, or hard versus soft power: the real question is whether we're going to be smart, or stupid. I don't know about Joe, but I'll take smart over stupid any day of the week.

Original

H/T

From Kevin Drum

The biggest role -- assuming we actually want to win, that is -- will be played by programs and policies that work to convince the Muslim world that we're not at war with them. Policies and programs aimed at winning them over and persuading them to stop supporting or tolerating terrorism in their midst. In the long run, short of turning the Middle East into a glassy plain, it's simply the only way to win.

Link

Judging from what goes on over at LGF and similar sites, it would appear that there's a faction within this country for whom the glassy plain IS the only solution.

Sometimes large truths are found in short sentences.

The Republican base does not really care about social conservatism. It just hates liberals.

Digby Said It.

Glenn Greenwald's post today is a must-read.

Read it here.

War-cheerleaders often appear to be looking in a mirror and I've always regarded it as a tragic failure of imagination, that the people who call for the death of their enemies can be recast as calling for their own elimination with just the slight shift of perspective that comes from applying the Golden Rule.

The tragedy is compounded further when you consider that some of these death-merchants self-identify as Christian.

I often wonder......

How much effect the advent of television and movies has had on our (as a culture) willingness to engage in warfare. While people often credit TV (Huntley-Brinkley-Cronkite) for helping to end the VietNam war by delivering the reality of the carnage to our living rooms, at the same time, we are subject to an endless series of fictional scenarios in which, with the sacrifice of sencondary and tertiary players in the game, the heroes ALWAYS win in the end.

That would certainly help explain the chickenhawk mentality. The problem isn't that they haven't experienced actual combat and warfare. The problem is that they've experienced an idealized and unrealistic version instead. That's why they keep on insisting that we clap louder. They actually believe that that's the key to victory. It also helps explain all this claptrap about "giving comfort to the enemy". They actually believe that cheerleading helps us win.

Scary......

Among the things I wish I had said...

The sooner we realize that military force is a blunt instrument, rather than a fantastically supple collection of hyper-qualified diplomat/soldier/thinker/humanitarian/civil servants, the better off we'll be.

Ezra Klein

The Constitution Test

It used to be that you couldn't graduate high school until you demonstrated a passing knowlege of the US Constitution. Nowadays that lack won't even keep you out of Congress!

from poputonian at Digby's

Read it and weep!

When in doubt - quote myself.....

The sad part of this whole thing, is that the country isn't divided into those who desire war and those who oppose war. It's divided into those who favor effective action versus those who favor blundering around like a drunk with a revolver.

That's why Bush supporters hate the CIA. They represent the folks who are actually interested in the REAL war on terror.

Boycott the Mouse

It's bad enough that 700 Club still airs but this is ridiculous.

ABC Entertainment president personally attacks Sandy Berger, says error-riddled "Path to 9/11" was totally true

Hope springs eternal....

In case anyone needs any more evidence that the war-r-us crowd is painting themselves into a tight little corner of irrelevance I present you: The NRSC Pledge

I wrote USA Today....

Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Likewise, the gambler's fallacy is the belief that a run of bad luck will portend a turn for the better in the near future. I fear that both these thought processes infuse our current Middle East policy.

The American people have made it abundantly clear that they are ready for a change in course but it seems that all we're being offered is more of the same, the only difference being a raise in the stakes that higher troop levels represent. I urge all our Congressional Representatives to make clear to the administration that the AUMF was not a blank check and that its time to re-evaluate what can realistically be acheived in the Middle East and to move toward a policy based on reality rather than wishful thinking.

Bucky posted this comment at Glenn Greenwald:

What if there is a well defined mission in Iraq, but the leadership can not share it directly with the American people? What if the mission is simply to destroy the Arab states of the middle east? If it is, then we are doing "the job" and the speeches are just to cover up the real mission.

I added:
You're probably on to something important. pretending for the sake of argument that the #1 US goal is to prevent a nuclear device from being used on us and the second most imnportant goal is to maintain control over the oil supplies. Since our soldiers have sufficient weaponry to operate in a war zone, even if they are unable to control events on the ground or prevent the civil war from proceeding at its current deadly pace, by simply remaining they are accomplishing their mission, and any talk of democracy or stability or and end game of any kind is just sugar coating for the folks back home (and the parents, wives and friends of the soldiers in question).Same deal if we go into Iran. Stability is not required. A freindly regime is not required. Chaos is fine as long as it keeps our "enemies" unable to operate freely.

Joshua Micah Marshall has more:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/011888.php

A comment on the wisdom of invading Iran....

Its EASY to believe things that are true and apparent and visible.To believe something that is absolutely and utterly wrong, false, clearly mistaken and borderline insane on the other hand requires great faith, strength, stamina, resolute determination and courage.

From Americablog

For a long time, perhaps roughly 2003 to 2005, there was a disturbing edge to discourse in this country, and I think our society will eventually look back upon this time not unlike we now do the McCarthyist years: as a shameful period in our nation's history, one in which the prevailing powers made the inappropriate common and the opposition was eventually proven both right and righteous.

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/12/dixie-chicks-movie-great-and.html

I actually feel this is an understatment. Insofar as a nation can be spoken of like an individual, in March 2003 we were batshit insane. Jes sayin'.........

Quick note

Of coures, in my view, anybody whose idea of the Creator of The Universe is so limited that they can imagine that said creator fails to regard all humanity equally and instead differentiates between those who face Mecca when they pray from those who face an altar, then you too are a victim of the blindness that drives most of the clearly irrational conflict in the world

Lifted Directly from Digby.....

I do know that when someone speaks like a fool and acts like a spoiled child and appears to be "intellectually uncurious" and has never done anything in life that would give you a clue that he knows how to govern or lead -- well, it's not a good idea to make that person the most powerful person on the planet. If we've learned nothing else, I hope we have learned that.......
The past six years have been a tragedy and we desperately need some thoughtful, intelligent, competent leadership to set this right.

Read it all

Once again, the easiet way for me to come up with new posts is to cut'n'paste my own comments elsewhere!

I like the fact that the word "christianist" exists (even if I'm unlikely to use it with the precise meaning that Sullivan intends) because I think its important to differentiate between what Christianity means as expressed in the Gospels and what Christianity means as expressed in current public discourse.

One of the overriding themes of the New Testament is that of hypocrisy. Judge not, lest you be judged, when you pray, pray in secret, render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, don't speak of the speck in your brother's eye when you have a log in your own..etc.

The degree to which politically active Christian sects stray from these ideals is the degree to which I want a label to separate their beliefs from my own.

Call me selfish but I hope that "christianist" makes Oxford's English within ten years.

A response to a comment at GG's

Where do you find support for the idea that "training the Iraqi army" is a feat still within our grasp?

Who'd's response actually brings to light one of the more serious problems affecting us as Americans.

Contrary to some of the accusations levelled by the more serious, libelous warmongers, Americans feel at home travelling anywhere in this country and have no trouble understanding that our loyalty and the "providing for the common defense" that we all share operates on a national level. I can fly to Birmingham, Alabama one day and Chicago, Illinois the next and while I might feel uncomfortable getting into serious political debates in barrooms in those places, I can reasonably expect to come away from such a conversation alive.

In Afghanistan and Iraq, however such confidence is totally misplaced. Tribal/Religious identity trumps nationalism and we as Americans just don't get it.

That's why Who'd and others who think similarly think that "a sovereign Iraq able to truly act like one, including quelling sectarian violence, and resisting the influence of Iran is actually achievable. Nothing in their immediate experience suggests otherwise.

That's why I pray vigorously that at some point in our near future, we can put adults in charge of our foreign policy and give the frat-boys a well deserved time-out.

Revisionist History

I recently had the opportunity to visit the Nixon Library.

I learned two things.

1: The truth is whatever someone is willing to say it is.

2: Or not.....

Thank you

I'd just like to take this opporunity to thank American voters all over the Country for restoring my faith.

Quoting Myself:

I happen to be old enough to remember when the stakes in the nuclear stalemate was the survival of the entire planet. It almost seemed like we were given a puzzle. "Can the human race figure out a way to get along without anhilating the entire planet." Facing such choices we nevertheless (except for a few zits -J Edgar Hoover, Nixon - Kissinger) chose to keep the Constitution of the United States intact and if we did engage in horribly unethical behavior (blind LSD trials, sensory deprivation research) we at least had the decency to PRETEND we weren't doing it. Besides we had a monolithic scary enemy to point to to justify the actions.

Fast forward to 2006:

We are now so afraid of 15 guys armed with box-cutters, that we're completely trashing the Constitutional protections that have served us so well these last 200 years and were openly declaring our willingness to use the same techniques which justified our outrage in years past. In other words we are becomming our enemy.

Just for the record....

While I'm enjoying watching the Congressional meltdown over the Foley thing, I still think that the willful destruction of our Constitutional guarantees of freedom is a more important issue...jes sayin'

from the NYT

They’ll know that in 2006, Congress passed a tyrannical law that will be ranked with the low points in American democracy, our generation’s version of the Alien and Sedition Acts

From me:

The problem is that once this law is on the books, it's not going to go away and "who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States" is sufficiently vague that a few years down the line it can be used to mean just about anything. Like perhaps giving money to PETA or Greenpeace.

This has to go down as the worst legislation ever passed in my lifetime and certainly an indicator that morality and human decency has fallen victim to political expediency.

It is a sad day in America.

The tragic case of Maher Arar.

Read about it .here

My comment follows......

Where were the media..??

What gets me is simply this....The rendition took place in September 2002. He was released in October 2003. I distinctly remember reading about his case at the time (probably at antiwar.com) Why is it taking until September 2006 for this to be getting prominent coverage. He's now been exonerated by the Canadian government. But he's been an innocent man unlawfully detained all along. Shouldn't more Americans have been informed of this back in 2003 when it could have made a difference

Six Questions for Dr. Emile A. Nakhleh on the CIA and the Iraq War

There are 1.4 billion people in the Islamic world and only a tiny minority, maybe 2 or 3 percent, are politically active. Just like Jews and Christians, most have kids to raise and bills to pay. Most view Islam as a personal and societal force, not a political one, and only a tiny minority becomes terrorists.Link

From Kevin Drum

It's not because liberals don't understand the threat, it's because liberals seem to be the only ones who do understand the threat these days — namely that public opinion in the Muslim world is our biggest problem, and conventional military action only makes this problem worse

Link

Standin’ at the Crossroads by Tom Chartier

Five years ago America suddenly and brutally found itself at a major intersection of its history. September 11, 2001 was America’s crossroads. At that emotionally charged moment, Americans chose the path of revenge. They chose hastily, ignoring warnings from those still possessed of rational thought. Since that moment, America has been charging unchecked and blind toward self-destruction

Link Here

I can't believe I used that phrase in a sentence!

Lefties and righties should be in agreement about the evils of our current administration. Because after all, using the military to provide perquisites for particular industries at the expense of the economy as a whole certainly runs counter to any free-market idealism one could care to entertain.

The degree that so-called conservatives come to the defense of the current administration is the degree to which they have abandoned any principles and are now engaged in masturbatory xenophobia (it feels good to hate people!)

Quagmire means never having to say you're sorry

He ought to be too ashamed to continue pontifficating and to shunned to be able to do so -- at the very least without admitting his error, recanting and apologizing.

Its called cognitive dissonance and it can be quite crippling. When faced with a choice between perceiving reality and feeling good about ones self, the feeling good wins hands down.

Everybody does it, its not a phenomenon limited to warmongering wingnuts. But in the hands of said wingnuts, its exceedingly dangerous!


Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: So wrong that it re-defines "wrongness"

From AmericaBlog

Yes, well, we've been at war in Iraq in order to stop home-grown British terrorists from blowing up US airplanes.



Link here

Digby:

When your country is engaged in dangerous wars based on lies and obscure reasoning, it is immoral to say nothing simply because you are afraid it will make you look bad.

Link

Just quoting myself......

It was a few weeks ago that I pointed out that the only real commodity that matters in the world is consensus. After all the value of money only exists because we all agree to value it. The chain of command in a military heirarchy only exists because everyone agrees to obey it. Our Constitution has only survived because we all agree to honor it. These instiitutions have tons more power than we give them credit for.

This is why the battle for "hearts and minds" is so important and it's also why the "moral high ground" and "rule of law" that we've so blatantly abandoned when the going got rough needs to be reclaimed.

Digby's turn again.

Yes, it has had widespread political implications, political implications predicted by many, many of us who could see that sending a bunch of Americans into the heart of the middle east with no knowledge of the culture, a lie for a mission, an officer corps convinced that Arabs were primitive creatures who had to be subdued by brute force and sexual humiliation and a political leadership that lived on starry-eyed dreams of American omnipotence and high-tech fairy dust --- was a colossal mistake of epic proportions.

It was all there for people to see. Seymour Hersh saw it and he was called a terrorist by Richard Perle. That was par for the course.
link

Here's an extremely pertinent quote from Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift when he was on Hardball last week.

SWIFT: It‘s not whether they deserve it or not. It‘s how we conduct ourselves. It has to do where if we say that our opponent can cause us not to follow the rules anymore, then we‘ve lost who we are. We‘re the good guys. We‘re the guys who follow the rule and the people we fight are the bad guys and we show that every day when we follow the rules, regardless of what they do. It‘s what sets us apart. It‘s what makes us great and in my mind, it‘s what makes us undefeatable, ultimately.

I find the fact that we're even having a discussion about torture, let alone that some people are coming out in favor, profoundly troubling. When we have become our enemy, then we no longer have the standing to attack the enemy. What next? A debate on the efficacy of beheadings in discouraging crime in cities?

here's the link

I liked my comment on Glenn's site so much, I posted it here too.

PS. Does this mean killing has now been sanctioned by the left?

Shooter's epiphany reveals a lot about how the right wing mind works in general.

He just can't get it through his head that there's a difference between legitimate self defense and wanton aggression.
He can't understand that there's a difference between taking prisoners in a field of battle and interrogating them vs sticking light wands up their asses just for yucks.
He doesn't realize that there's a difference between a joke based on the premise that the president is an idiot vs one based on the premise that 50% of the nation are traitors against the other 50%.
And lastly, he doesn't understand that there's a difference between using wiretap technology to detect and thwart those who would do us harm following the procedures set in place for the purpose vs. giving one agency carte blanche over the entire US communication infrastrusture and telling them to "have at it!"

Digby wins the "irresistable quote of the day"

Whether Rove cut a deal or Fitz just couldn't make a case for those two crimes is unknown. What is not unknown is whether Rove is a lying, scumbag piece of shit. He is.


Link here

Digby

The right specializes in schoolyard taunts and sleazy gossip because they must attract the stupid vote in order to get elected and that's the only humor stupid voters understand. Link

From Alan Bock

The U.S. has made mistakes in dealing with jihadism in part because it has had little firsthand intelligence of the kind that only human beings operating in delicate and sometimes dangerous environments can gather.

Link

From Matthew Yglesias guest-blogging at TPM

The issue is that there are actual limits to what our troops can accomplish. They're soldiers, not magicians.

Link

via Paul Craig Roberts

The question presents itself: Are Americans guilty of treason when they turn their backs on the Constitution? Treason is betrayal of country. And what defines country? In the United States, the Constitution defines country. The Bush regime's assault on the Constitution is an assault on America.

Link Here

From: An Open Letter to Richard Cohen By William Rivers Pitt

It isn't an excess of outrage that plagues this nation today, but an abject lack of it.

Link

Billmon depresses again...

Friends don't send friends to jail -- or smash their presses or abolish their political parties or line them up against the wall and shoot them.

The problem is that the tissue of this particular lie has been eroding ever since the Clinton impeachment, if not before, and is now worn exceedingly thin. It's becoming harder and harder to conceal the ruthlessness of the struggle for power, or ignore the consequences of losing it.

Here's The Link

Stolen from Digby

Are we all clear on how this works now? Lying about fellatio leads to lethal abuse of power by the state. Flatly refusing to obey the laws he signed and lying about national security serves the common good. This is your modern Republican party in a nutshell: A dictatorship of puritanical busybodies.

link here

Re Glenn Greenwald's new book....

>i love the thought that there are going to be thousands of wigged out, right-wing super patriots who buy this book thinking it's their preferred type of reading.<

As well they should. Patriotism is after all about not only loving your country, but participating in its governance and accepting responsibility for its actions. If our country's actions don't reflect our values, then we have a responsibility to try and bring about change.

I think more and more people are realizing this and are waking up to notice that our values are NOT being reflected in our governments actions.

I'm actually holding out hope that more Republicans will also realize that civil liberties are not a partisan issue but rather affect us all and will help to pull us back from the precipice

Today we quote Scott Ritter

Sandy Berger is a liar every bit as much as Condoleezza Rice is. Madeleine Albright’s a liar every bit as much as Donald Rumsfeld is. I mean, they’ve all lied about the same thing, which is that Iraq represented a threat in the form of weapons of weapons of mass destruction that warranted military action.

The article



His Book

Buy this while your at it!

Too short to excerpt

Just follow the link

Re: Iran

So Bush wants to be remembered as the one President who had the "courage" (read - complete lack of accountability) to prevent Iran from aquiring a WMD and he refuses to rule out the first use of an atomic weapon against a country with which we are NOT currently at war.

Tell me again which one is the rougue state?

Stolen from Digby

Pacifism is a respectable philosophy that has been a part of the American (hell, the Christian) experience forever. And it, at least, has some intellectual coherence, unlike this hawkish/centrist mish mash of nothingness you find among the so-called liberal hawks
Full post here

Another excite poll

Testifying before a Senate committee, former Nixon White House counselor John Dean asserted Friday that President Bush's conduct in connection with a domestic spying program exceeds the wrongdoing that toppled President Nixon from power. The Senate, Dean said, should censure or reprimand Bush as proposed in a resolution by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin). (AP)
Do you think the Senate should censure President Bush over conduct related to the domestic wiretapping program?


Yes 49% => 4178 votes

No 48% => 4113 votes

I'm not sure 2% => 224 votes
Current number of voters: 8515

Kool-aid anyone?

President Bush said Wednesday that Saddam Hussein, not continued U.S. involvement in Iraq, is responsible for ongoing sectarian violence that is threatening the formation of a democratic government. In response to critics who say the U.S. presence in the wartorn nation is fueling the insurgency, Bush said that Saddam was a tyrant and used violence to exacerbate sectarian divisions to keep himself in power, and that as a result, deep tensions persist to this day. (AP)
What do you think is the chief cause of ongoing sectarian violence in Iraq - ongoing U.S. involvement in the country, or the legacy of Saddam Hussein?


Saddam's legacy 36% => 2252 votes

U.S. involvement 29% => 1815 votes

Both are equally to blame 30% => 1909 votes

I'm not sure 3% => 224 votes
Current number of voters: 6200

From John at AmericaBlog

You simply can't sit back, hug a tree and sing cumbaya in your Birkenstocks by the campfire and expect the crystal fairy to hand you your civil rights and your country back.


Link

I'm occasionally reassured.

Do you think the U.S. should establish long-term military bases in Iraq?


Yes 25% => 2606 votes

No 69% => 6962 votes

I'm not sure 4% => 484 votes
Current number of voters: 10052

Today's Quote - Joshua Micah Marshall

He's set on a destructive course, laced with corruption and fed by extremism. And he mistakenly believes that stubborness and ignorance constitute a virtue he calls 'leadership'.

Link

I hate to tell Auntie Pinko this

But American audiences are shallow myopic selfish ADD victims!


"Even well-intentioned journalists are often betrayed by a relentless focus on playing to a conventional wisdom that depicts American audiences as shallow, myopic, selfish individuals with short attention spans and an appetite for the sensational."

Link here

I comment at AmericaBlog

The exchange between F&L and gorilla is a great example of what's happening among Dems in general. Here we have a pacifist who would refuse to kill on principle ( a position I'm quite sympathetic toward) countered by someone who would actually like to regain control of where the country is headed so we can bring this madness to an end! In order to do that, we need to take a bite out of the center, which of course means a> not appearing weak b> acknowleging that most people in our military feel that they are honestly and morally defending our nation c>not set ourselves up to be caricatured.

Today's Quote - The Green Knight

Personally, I no longer give a crap whether people respect my beliefs or not. If they do, they do, and if they don't there's very little I can do to change their minds. Ultimately, it comes down to personality type, perhaps. Some people don't like the Beatles. What are you gonna do?

My e-mail to Russ Feingold

I, unfortunatly am not a constituent of yours but I do wish to write in support of your censure resolution. The effort our President is exerting to make the executive branch unaccountable to the American people will have ramifications far beyond any one person's term in office. I am grateful for your efforts to bring this to the attention of the American Public.

My stolen quote for today

"People place their hand on the Bible and swear to uphold the Constitution; they don't put their hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible," he said.

Jamie Raskin

via Preemptive Karma

Today's Quote from Mark Danner

Military power is good for blowing things up; it's good for destroying things. It's not good for building a new order. It takes a great deal more power, skill, and patience to construct an enduring order in Iraq.

Link

I've always said when your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. When your only tool is a bomb everything looks like a target.

Matthew Yglesias pisses me off.

Fundamentally, if invading Iraq had proven to be a good idea I doubt there would be all that much concern about the president's honesty. The basic problem is that the war wasn't a good idea. The lying is sort of icing on the cake

And this guy's supposed to be on my team.

War is NEVER a good idea. Even if it might ever be necessary it is NEVER a "good idea". And the lying is The WHOLE EFFING PROBLEM!

link

George W. Bush 3% - I know I'm impressed!

Happy Presidents' Day!
Who do you think was the greatest U.S. president that served in the last 30 years?


Jimmy Carter 6% => 588 votes

Ronald Reagan 47% => 4614 votes

George H.W. Bush 1% => 112 votes

Bill Clinton 23% => 2269 votes

George W. Bush 3% => 373 votes

None of them were great 17% => 1737 votes

I'm not sure 1% => 105 votes
Current number of voters: 9798

I comment at Glenn Greenwald

The framers of the constitution understood the corrupting influence of power and did everything they could to guard against it. It doesn't matter whose "team" you're on. Can you imagine the howling that would be going on if it were Janet Reno who was claiming the right to wiretap without oversight?

(Actually we don't need to imagine it, we can remember it.) Anyone remember the "clipper chip"?

This battle is of crucial impoortance because whatever the result, it will affect the stucture of power in this country for decades to come.



Link

Posted without comment

Generally speaking, do you approve, disapprove, or have mixed feelings about the way President George W. Bush is handling his job? (Related AP article)

Strongly approve 23% => 2382 votes

Somewhat approve 14% => 1512 votes

Have mixed feelings 9% => 929 votes

Somewhat disapprove 5% => 550 votes

Strongly disapprove 47% => 4922 votes

I'm not sure 0% => 17 votes
Current number of voters: 10312

A comment I posted on Glenn Greenwald's site.

Too many people it seems have forgotten the lessons of Kent State and the 68 democratic convention. Violent action against citizens over their politics is a real possibility, if we can't maintain the rule of law.

Quoting from your post yesterday "the Administration has now baldly stated that whatever it is allowed to do against our enemies in a war, it is equally entitled to exercise all of the same powers against American citizens on American soil."

So what happens when the eavesdropping program discovers someone who's a really bad guy but they can't prosecute him because they've tainted the evidence?

We already know what they do if he happens to be in Pakistan.

I am occasionally encouraged that people are starting to get it.

What do you think should be the single most important priority in the federal budget?


Extending tax cuts 9% => 348 votes

Fighting the war on terrorism 18% => 674 votes

Medicare 7% => 265 votes

Reconstructing the Gulf Coast region 4% => 159 votes

Reducing domestic spending 4% => 170 votes

Reducing the federal deficit 23% => 856 votes

Social Security 9% => 354 votes

Stimulating job growth 11% => 403 votes

None of the above 7% => 250 votes

I'm not sure 2% => 92 votes
Current number of voters: 3571

From Glenn Greenwald

In case anyone wonders why I think this stuff is scary....

"Put another way, the Administration has now baldly stated that whatever it is allowed to do against our enemies in a war, it is equally entitled to exercise all of the same powers against American citizens on American soil. "

Link

From read JDM

I understand that our soldiers are making sacrifices. But I don’t really feel like my freedoms are on the line in Iraq at the moment. Maybe they are. But if so, I’m more concerned with how they got over there in the first place. I mean, they’re my freedoms, aren’t they? Shouldn’t they be over here with the rest of my things? I’m going to need some answers to those questions if “Defending Our Freedom” is going to work as a pro-war argument for me.

Full article here

From the Washington Post

Police escorted Sheehan from the visitors' gallery above the House chamber after causing a disruption, said a Capitol Police official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the incident were sketchy. he was lying.


link