Total Information Awareness

There are several related stories emerging that could have potential ramifications this election year, proving costly to the Bush administration. The first potential bombshell relates to an FBI investigation of Larry Franklin, a top Iran analyst who works in the office of Doug Feith in the Pentagon. The FBI is examining allegations that Franklin gave classified US documents to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a pro-Israel lobbying group. It is with great amazement, and a touch of bemusement, that I note Douglas Feith's name, and that of his notorious Office of Special Plans, at the center of yet another controversy. But that is the subject of prior posts.

The documents in the current imbroglio relate to confidential drafts of presidential directives on Iran policy. The question that remains is what motives Franklin had for passing on such information. Was he passing on national secrets in order to aid the Israelis by informing them of US positions vis a vis the sensitive topic of Iran, or was he looking to get Israeli approval for potential courses of action as Juan Cole speculates? The answer to these questions, and the full breadth of the breach of security, including how far up the chain of command such involvement went, remains to be uncovered by the investigation.

One thing is clear though, the investigation itself has been greatly hampered by the leaking of its existence, and the fact that Franklin is cooperating with investigators, which has infuriated some involved with the probe. This has led some to suggest that the whistle was blown in order to warn Franklin's higher ups in the administration so that they could cover their tracks. In the alternative, it has been suggested that the story, which is potentially embarrassing to the Bush administration, was leaked late on Friday in order to bury it during the weekend, and subsequently beneath the coverage of the Republican Convention this week. In either scenario, the truth is a casualty.

Not to be outshone by the FBI's investigation of Franklin, the Senate Select Intelligence Committee is conducting its own investigation of a secret back channel between officials from, you guessed it, Douglas Feith's office and the former Iran-Contra arms dealer, Iranian Manucher Ghorbanifar. This scandal, covered in the Washington Monthly by Laura Rozen, Joshua Marshall and Paul Glastris, also involves Franklin as well as another Feith acolyte, Harold Rhode. Franklin and Rhode allegedly met with Ghorbanifar, Michael Ledeen, the neoconservative writer and political operative, Nicolo Pollari, the head of Italy's military intelligence agency, SISMI, and the Italian Minister of Defense Antonio Martino, several times in Europe in order to discuss Iran, Iraq and Middle East policy in general. The parameters of the scandal are captured by Rozen et al in this paragraph:

The meeting[s] [were] a source of concern for a series of overlapping reasons. Since the late 1980s Ghorbanifar has been the subject of two CIA "burn notices." The Agency believes Ghorbanifar is a serial "fabricator" and forbids its officers from having anything to do with him. Moreover, why were mid-level Pentagon officials organizing meetings with a foreign intelligence agency behind the back of the CIA -- a clear breach of US government protocol?

Of additional concern is the suggestion that one agenda at these meetings may have been in pursuance of coordinating efforts with the Mujahedeen Khalq, an Iranian dissident group based in Iraq. The problem is that the Mujahedeen Khalq are listed by the State Department as a terrorist group. This raises all varieties of moral, political, and ethical considerations.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse for Douglas Feith, yet another of his minions from his Pentagon office is the subject of an investigation. Michael Maloof, who was stripped of his security clearance a year ago after the FBI linked him to a Lebanese-American businessman under investigation by the FBI for weapons trafficking, is at the center of a probe by the House Judiciary Committee into the dealings of Feith's office. This investigation is looking into the possibility that Maloof and others were involved in illegal activity designed to destabilize the Syrian government. The details remain murky at this nascent stage of the process, but the behavior alleged is of particular concern for an administration that is trying to portray an image of strong leadership.

I will try to keep abreast of this tripartite of intelligence breakdowns as the story evolves. For a more complete background of these stories, and up to the minute coverage of details as they emerge, check out Laura Rozen's site War and Piece.

In mid-July of 2004, the DailyKos picked up a story about blogger Michael Rogers, and his new project blogACTIVE. The mission of blogACTIVE, according to Rogers, is to expose the hypocrisy of openly gay or closeted members of Congress, and their staffs, who supported the Federal Marriage Amendment. This controversial tactic set off a spirited debate in the comments sections on Publius' site, Legal Fiction, here and here. Almost every aspect of the morality, wisdom and strategic worth of these tactics was discussed in full. Publius raised an idealistic and commendable argument against probing into the private lives of politicians, at least not in this new way for fear that it would further lower the bar. My response was as follows (please ignore the blatant egotism of quoting myself):

There is only a line to be drawn, or a bottom to be avoided, in as far as you believe that the GOP considers any area "off limits" and that the Dems would be initiating a new method of attacks by trespassing on such ground. That may be true, but private life attacks didn't end with Clinton. Remember the Kerry intern scandal promoted by Drudge and other wingnuts? That wasn't even true, and they still spread it.

Another problem I have is that if the Dems follow that reasoning, they forever cede the first mover advantage to the GOP. In other words, the Dems would let the GOP decide which methods of personal attacks are OK and which aren't, never being the first to break with tradition, even if something is germane. Instead, the Dems will play within the GOP set boundaries which will be determined more by the political expediency of the day rather than by bright line ethical rules. This gives enormous tactical advantage to the GOP.

The bottom line remains that these politicians willingly thrust this issue into the national debate, going as far as to support amending the Constitution in a way that will impact the freedoms and rights of homosexuals in perpetuity. If they want to legislate about the sexual preferences of citizens, be it a ban on gay marriage, discrimination of homosexuals in the work place or anti-sodomy laws, their own personal hypocrisy is fair game. The private lives of politicians should only be deemed off limits to the degree that those same politicians treat the citizenry with the same forbearance and respect for privacy. Rogers quotes an item from About.com that captures the spirit of this argument:

If an important member of PETA, actively involved in popular efforts to ban the sale of meat, was known to grab a Big Mac a couple of times a week, would it be wrong to publicize that fact? I don't think so. By making a political issue out of what others eat, they are no longer entitled to the same privacy about what they eat. By politicizing the issue, their real beliefs about it become a matter of public interest.

The wisdom of taking this route may be a moot point, however, as it appears that Rogers has drawn first blood, taking "out" his biggest prize yet. CNN.com is reporting that Congressman Ed Schrock (R-VA), one of the most conservative members of Congress (the Christian Coalition gave him a 92% rating in their 2003 voter guide), suddenly, and unexpectedly, announced his decision to abandon his run for a third term this November, amid allegations that he is gay. Schrock, a married retired Navy officer and Vietnam veteran, is one of the strongest supporters of the Federal Marriage Amendment, also took a famous stand against the "don't ask don't tell" policy, so that the military could actively screen gays from the military.

He has neither confirmed nor denied the allegations, but Michael Rogers purports to have evidence, in the form of phone records (and recordings) and personal accounts, that Schrock was engaged in numerous liasons with other men in the Virginia area. Will the outing campaign undertaken by Rogers impact the policies emanating from the conservative wing of the GOP? That remains to be seen, but in the meantime you will likely hear the shatter of glass and the creak of the closet door with some frequency between now and November.

In his Think Again column for the Center for American Progress, Eric Alterman further probes the myth that prevails in the realm of American conventional wisdom which holds that the sober analytical Republicans are better suited to handle issues of national security and foreign policy than their more sensitive and ideologically inclined Democratic counterparts, which I discussed in a two part series here and here. [Ed Note: I apologize for some repetition in the topics and facts discussed in this and other posts, but it is my intent to follow through with certain themes that I have been working, highlighting evolving story lines that corroborate earlier arguments and assumptions, thus constructing a well documented meta-narrative].

Alterman gets to the heart of the matter, that the rhetorical device, as is so often the case, does not withstand empirical scrutiny, both historical and current. In fact, much of the critique of the Democrats' policies that emerge from right-leaning sources seem to contradict many of their own prior proclamations and theories. Witness the logical inconsistency and intellectual dishonesty in this apparent flip-flop from neoconservative stalwart Charles Krauthammer (who recently was taken to task by his neoconservative compatriot Francis Fukuyama here - bad week for Mr. Krauthammer I guess):

Consider a Time magazine article from March 1999 entitled, "The Clinton Doctrine." In it, the neoconservative warrior takes Clinton to task for his willingness to use the American military to oppose ethnic cleansing and the killing of innocent civilians. "The problem with this doctrine," according to author Charles Krauthammer, "for all the ringing moral satisfaction it gives, is that it is impossibly moralistic and universal." He goes on to say that "highfalutin moral principles are impossible guides to foreign policy. At worst, they reflect hypocrisy; at best, extreme naiveté."

But lo and behold, when a conservative Republican president justifies a far more costly war on the same grounds, Krauthammer is happy to march behind him. In May 2003, Krauthammer suddenly changed his mind about the value of "highfalutin moral principles," and argued, "We are embarking on [the reconstruction or Iraq] out of the same enlightened altruism that inspired the rebuilding of Germany and Japan – trusting that economic and political success in Iraq will have a stabilizing and modernizing effect on the entire region. But our self-interest does not detract from the truth that what we are doing in Iraq is morally different from what we did after World War II. In Iraq, we are engaged in rescue rather than the undoing of our own destruction." He would go on in other articles to wax poetic of the "moral purpose of the entire enterprise" and to ask, "Is our purpose in Iraq morally sound? Of course it is."

On the historical front, Alterman examines the justifications for the claims that Democrats, and in particular John Kerry, are prone to "cut and run" when the going gets tough. This part of the myth appeals to historical amnesia and selective recall. The most recent example cited by the Right is Clinton's decision to remove troops from Somalia after the "Blackhawk Down" incident. In that case, though, Clinton was being attacked by the Right for staying in Somalia and subjecting troops to those dangers (a deployment that Bush Sr. initiated as a sort of going away present during the interim lame duck period), and was equally, if not more vociferously, lambasted when he pulled out the troops. The more advantageous meme, that of the weak-kneed capitulator, has emerged as the victor from the GOP camp's orderly and coordinated talking points regime, and so that is how Clinton's handling of Somalia is described.

But what if that same critical lens is turned upon the icon of the conservative movement, Ronald Reagan, the same man that teary-eyed partisans want to enshrine as an addendum to Mt. Rushmore or as the usurper of FDR on the dime or Hamilton on the ten dollar bill:

John Kerry is now being tagged with the label of a "cut and run" liberal who will pull our troops out of Iraq before the job is done, thereby endangering our national security. But if we are going to have a national referendum of the potential failures of a liberal administration, we first need to take a look back at how conservatives have actually handled military action in recent years. Let us not forget the conservative 1980s, when cutting and running seemed to be what we did when presented with a problem. President Reagan let quite a bit slide during the decade, beginning in April 1983, when he essentially ignored a Hezbollah suicide bomb attack on the American embassy in Beirut that killed sixty-three employees, among them the Middle East CIA director. Just six months later, in October, another Hezbollah suicide bomber attacked the American barracks in Beirut, killing 241 U.S. Marines and wounding another 81. His response? Pulling the Marines out of Lebanon. But this wasn't all. As Reagan-booster Norman Podhoretz helpfully points out in the new issue of Commentary: "Having cut and run in Lebanon in October, Reagan again remained passive in December, when the American embassy in Kuwait was bombed. Nor did he hit back when, hard upon the withdrawal of the American Marines from Beirut, the CIA station chief there..."

More priceless quotes from neoconservative sources. Podhoretz, Krauthammer, Fukuyama, when will it end? But I digress. Alterman further delves into the "cut and run" meme vis a vis Kerry's challenger in this election, George W. Bush, in the most relevant of arenas, Iraq:

And how does the current administration fare by this standard? Not well, alas. Although the press has been loathe to admit as much, the American military has in essence given up on several strategic objectives in Iraq, pulling troops out of what may have been a winnable fight. Take the siege of Fallujah by 1,200 Marines in April. After fighting street by street with insurgents for about two weeks (at the cost of 36 American lives) the United States halted the siege on the condition that the militants hand over their heavy weapons – which they failed to do. The Marines waited outside the city for another two weeks before pulling out, handing a victory to the insurgents and leaving the city in the hands of religious extremists.

The failure in Fallujah was monumental, and one that continues to imperil the Iraq mission as a whole. Fallujah has become the central planning location for the Sunni led faction of the insurgency. Without Fallujah, there will be no stability, just a continuation of the suicide bomb attacks and assassinations that have so plagued the progress of stability.

This view is supported by a marine helicopter pilot, who told a New York Times reporter, "Fallujah, in fact, was very close to becoming a city our forces could have controlled, and then given new schools and sewers and hospitals, before we pulled back in the spring. Now, essentially ignored, it has become a Taliban-like state of Islamic extremism, a terrorist safe haven."

Having backed down to Sunni insurgents in the North, leaving them with a stronghold and sanctuary in Fallujah, the Bush administration continued to waver in the face of resistance in the South from the Shiite insurgency led by Moqtada al-Sadr. Despite the frequent declarations from L. Paul Bremer and other CPA officials, that they were going to either kill or capture al-Sadr, they have succeeded at neither. In fact, al-Sadr has only derived strength and support from his frequent showdowns with American forces, from which he emerges defiant and unharmed. In the latest example of indecision, the Bush team let al-Sadr engage in a protracted siege in the city of Najaf, which was only resolved after negotiation, with the emboldened al-Sadr withdrawing his forces, but suffering no consequences. I'm not suggesting that storming the Imam Ali Shrine would have been the wise choice, but the repeated concessions to al-Sadr have strengthened his hand, and his newly minted prominence and influence threaten the democratic process and succeful evolution of an Iraqi state, as detailed by Larry Diamond writing in Foreign Affairs. At the very least, this policy should serve as an example of hypocrisy in the characterization of Democrats as weak-willed, sensitive and prone to negotiating with terrorists. Isn't that what the Bush team has been doing with remarkable frequency in Iraq?

But where is the outrage from the right over our inaction? Shouldn't they be up in arms, calling for these terrorists' heads? Isn't this exactly what they accuse liberals of trying to do – cut and run, or negotiate and wait? As Peter Beinart recently admitted in the pro-war New Republic, "By ignoring the Bush administration's repeated capitulations in the face of Islamist terrorism in Iraq, conservatives can preserve their cherished partisan categories: Kerry lacks spine; Bush doesn't blink in the face of evil...Because the Bush administration arrogantly refused to do what was necessary to secure – and thus rebuild – postwar Iraq, most Iraqis have turned against us. And now, America's political weakness has produced military weakness. At the end of the day, if you don't listen and you don't plan and you don't adapt, you lose your capacity to be tough." [emphasis added]

Over the next week, during the Republican Convention, we will hear echoed ad nauseum the theme that the country should "stay the course" with Bush because of his unwavering strength in the war on terror. There will be innuendo and allegations to the effect that Kerry and his fellow Democrats are weak, sensitive, out of touch, unrealistic, prone to capitulations, naively believing they can negotiate with terrorists, and above all planning to "cut and run" in Iraq. The so-called liberal media will do nothing to expose these charges as baseless or ahistorical, just as they have done nothing to prevent this meme from becoming an accepted principle of conventional wisdom. But I guess it is foolish to look for wisdom in conventions, or liberal bias in the media.

[Update: This Sunday's New York Times had an article discussing the situation in Fallujah and neighboring Ramadi. It is a detailed account, and worth the read. Here is one quotation relevant to the discussion above:

"Still, Marine commanders at Camp Falluja, a sprawling base less than five miles east of the city, have been telling reporters for weeks that the city has become little more than a terrorist camp, providing a haven for Iraqi militants and for scores of non-Iraqi Arabs, many of them with ties to Al Qaeda, who have homed in on Falluja as the ideal base to conduct a holy war against the United States. Eventually, the Marine officers have said, American hopes of creating stability in Iraq will necessitate a new attack on the city, this time one that will not be halted before it can succeed."]

There were two points that jumped out at me from a recent interview that President Bush gave to the New York Times. The first item is how out of the loop Bush appeared regarding a major scientific finding emanating from the upper most echelons of his own administration which underpins the rationale for environmental policy and legislative action. In an historic break from prior stances and declarations, the Bush administration acknowledged the reality that global warming is occurring and the role that man made emissions play in contributing to the process. The problem is, no one seems to have told the president.

On environmental issues, Mr. Bush appeared unfamiliar with an administration report delivered to Congress on Wednesday that indicated that emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases were the only likely explanation for global warming over the last three decades. Previously, Mr. Bush and other officials had emphasized uncertainties in understanding the causes and consequences of global warming.

The new report was signed by Mr. Bush's secretaries of energy and commerce and his science adviser. Asked why the administration had changed its position on what causes global warming, Mr. Bush replied, "Ah, we did? I don't think so." [emphasis added]

The second part, left me scratching my head in disbelief. When probed about the nuclear capacity of North Korea and Iran, and what his foreign policy initiatives would be in this arena and in non-proliferation in general, Bush gave an answer that seemingly contradicts his infamous showdown with Saddam Hussein.

He said that in North Korea's case, and in Iran's, he would not be rushed to set deadlines for the countries to disarm, despite his past declaration that he would not "tolerate" nuclear capability in either nation. He declined to define what he meant by "tolerate."

"I don't think you give timelines to dictators," Mr. Bush said, speaking of North Korea's president, Kim Jong Il, and Iran's mullahs. He said he would continue diplomatic pressure - using China to pressure the North and Europe to pressure Iran - and gave no hint that his patience was limited or that at some point he might consider pre-emptive military action. [emphasis added]

Is this the same man who gave the famous deadline to Saddam Hussein to abdicate his leadership and flee Iraq or face invasion? Is this the same president who set deadlines for weapons disclosures and inspections backed up by the very real threat of force? Is this a kinder gentler Bush, or just an amnesiac one? Perhaps President Bush is developing a "sensitive" side.

"I'm confident that over time this will work - I certainly hope it does," he said of the diplomatic approach. Mr. Kerry argued in his interview that North Korea 'was a far more compelling threat in many ways, and it belonged at the top of the agenda,' but Mr. Bush declined to compare it to Iraq, apart from arguing that Iraq had defied the world community for longer than the other members of what he once called "the axis of evil." Nor would he assess the risk that Pyongyang might sell nuclear material to terrorists, though his national security aides believe it may have sold raw uranium to Libya in recent years.

No more mister tough guy.

[Update: Josh Gibson at Metablogic did the hard work in digging up this quote which exemplifies the Bush's contradiction in policy toward dictators:

"Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict, commenced at a time of our choosing."
-George Bush, March 17, 2003]

The first day of the convention kicked off yesterday (the ceremony if not the speeches), and it passed not with a bang but a whimper. I am breathing a deep sigh of relief that the rather sizable protests passed without violence or major disturbance. I was truly dreading the political capital that Rove would have reaped had such a spectacle transpired. The organizers and participants deserve a healthy dose of credit.

As for the impact on New York City, thus far I have little to report. Yes, traffic has been made more intolerable, with intermittent street closings and detours, and many colleagues have decided to take a vacation, so the office is eerily quiet for a Monday. My Saturday night bar hop was somewhat more challenging, what with the frequent police obstructions frustrating the cabbies and all, but that is really just a minor inconvenience. Nothing can keep me away from my libations.

One thing that is striking though, aside from the herds of GOP conventioneers that can be seen migrating along the sidewalks in tight-knit packs - obviously knowledgeable about the dangers of separating and becoming vulnerable to the liberal predators, is the increased security presence. I live on Wall St. so I have grown accustomed to the sight of body armored policemen toting automatic assault rifles as a daily observance, but there are a few additions to the vista that stand out, even for an otherwise jaded New Yorker.

On Saturday, as I was sitting in Battery Park perusing a copy of Politics by Hendrik Hertzberg, a book I highly recommend, my focus was diverted by the sight of two Blackhawk helicopters passing over head at a relatively low altitude. I also took notice of the flotilla of Coast Guard ships, large and small, circling the island with their .50 caliber machine guns and other armaments visible to all. Adding to the city besieged motif, you can't pass ten feet without seeing a police officer, and even then, it's usually a phalanx.

I wonder what impression this is leaving on the conventioneers, if this will affect their overall views of New York City, or the country in general. The funny thing about such open displays of military and security personnel is that they rarely make you feel safer, just more insecure. At least that is my take.

It has been the stated and unstated goal of conservatives in America to undo the legacies of the liberal policies enacted under the rubric of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's visionary New Deal and Lyndon Johnson's bold Great Society. The elimination of these programs is a central tenet of the goal to shrink the size of the federal government, to "starve the beast" and usher in an era of truly small government. The two most prominent survivors of this siege, Social Security and Medicare, have been the nemeses of conservative lawmakers, almost since their inception, even displaying the resilience to withstand the power of Reagan's overwhelming legislative mandate. They represent the last vestige of the American voters' refusal to vote against their interest.

Through the sleight of hand emphasis on cultural and social issues, so aptly described by Thomas Frank in his book What's The Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, conservatives, bolstered by the electoral support of the lower and middle classes, have been able to achieve much of their agenda of dismantling the New Deal and Great Society, which has, ironically, undermined the interests of those same lower and middle class voters who unwittingly supported them under the guise of "important" issues like abortion, flag burning, homosexual rights, religion, values, etc.

These economic policies skew heavily in favor of big agribusiness at the expense of family farmers, de-regulation and anti-union measures which hurt wage earners, in favor of big business over small business, slashing to non-existence social programs like head start, unemployment benefits, and Section 8 housing which benefit those on the lower income scale, supporting the removal of environmental protections, the removal of worker protection laws and, especially under Bush, supporting large scale tax relief for the wealthiest taxpayers, while shifting that burden to lower and middle class taxpayers.

Along the scorched Earth economic march of the conservatives, the buck, so to speak, has stopped with Social Security and Medicare. The electorate has remained steadfast in their support of these programs, no matter what cultural issue is invoked. These programs have been, and remain, the political third rail. Touch them, and you're fried.

A frontal assault on Medicare and Social Security has proven impossible to mount, and certain political suicide for those that try. But perhaps there is another way - a back door of sorts. The trick lies in the plundering of the budget surpluses created by the Clinton/Gore fiscal discipline during the economically prosperous decade of the 1990's. To do this, Bush would need to pass enormous tax cuts, while at the same time increase spending. He would need to turn the bountiful surpluses into dangerously out of control deficits. Although enormous deficits and big spending initiatives seem counterintuitive to an overall policy goal of shrinking the federal government, therein lies the brilliance of the subterfuge. But first, the history.

Anticipating the strains that would be put on Social Security, lawmakers raised the payroll tax in the 1980's (a disproportionate amount of which is paid by the lower and middle classes) and created a Trust Fund into which surpluses would be placed and saved in order to keep the system solvent during the lean years of the baby boomer retirements. In order to sink Social Security, conservatives would need to plunder the surplus and break the bank of the trust fund.

Gore, anticipating his opponents' flanking maneuver, gave much air play during the 2000 campaign to the infamous "lockbox" in which he would place the Social Security Trust Fund, to insure that the government would not use those funds for other purposes. Instead of taking his prescient proposal seriously, Gore's somewhat incessant repetition of this phrase was the subject of ridicule in the media from Hardball to Saturday Night Live. Bush for his part vowed to leave the Social Security surpluses untouched.

Of course Bush lied or flip-flopped, or whatever you want to call it. He began raiding the trust fund and the surpluses in his first months in office, and hasn't stopped since. According to the Historical Budget Data put out by the Congressional Office of Management and Budget in early 2004, to cover the cost of his tax cuts, Bush will have to spend the entire projected Social Security surplus of $2.4 trillion from 2005 through 2014. The lockbox will be completely looted, just as an avalanche of baby boomers are set to retire. While the Trust Fund is looted, and the baby boomers' retirement looms in the distance, the national budget shows little capacity to make up the difference, or reinforce the effort. This of course, was part of the plan.

The Bush administration has succeeded in greatly diminishing the revenue stream through far reaching and, if they get their way, permanent tax cuts which many economists have described as making the deficit recovery proof because of the breaks given on the taxation of passive income. He accomplished this while encumbering the government with the enormous spending obligations required to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is a reason that no government in the history of the United States, or the world for that matter, has cut taxes while at war. The deficits become unmanageable, and the resources of the government scarce. But Bush didn't stop there. He also passed the staggeringly expensive prescription drug benefit, even though he had to conceal the true cost from Congress and threaten to fire Richard Foster, the Medicare actuary, if he revealed the real estimates. This was a two-fold success in that he further drove up the deficit, while at the same time making Medicare even more expensive and ultimately unwieldly, an argument that will be used in the future to justify its "unfortunate" demise.

Which takes us up to the present. We are on the verge of the baby boomer retirement rush which would have put a strain on Social Security and Medicare had the surpluses been left intact inside a "lockbox." Instead they have been plundered, and if Bush's tax cuts are made permanent, they will remain bankrupt in perpetuity. The budget is hamstrung with intransigent obligations that are exceeding the paltry revenue trickling in as a result of widespread tax cuts that, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, overwhelmingly favor the wealthiest Americans, with millionaires receiving $72 to every non-millionaires' $1. There is no room in the budget to bail out Social Security and Medicare, but a crisis is looming.

As I predicted here, we have entered the era of tough decisions, mandated by the dire economic climate, even on seemingly sacrosanct programs such as Social Security and Medicare. As reported today in the Washington Post, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan fired the first volley. He said:

The country will face "abrupt and painful" choices if Congress does not move quickly to trim the Social Security and Medicare benefits that have been promised to the baby boom generation.

"If we have promised more than our economy has the ability to deliver, as I fear we may have, we must recalibrate our public programs so that pending retirees have time to adjust through other channels," Greenspan said. "If we delay, the adjustments could be abrupt and painful."

His proposed solutions are to begin reducing benefits, and to raise the retirement age (which is already being increased from 65 to 67). He has rejected, unequivocally, the repeal of Bush's tax cuts as a solution to the crisis. Leave those giveaways to the wealthiest Americans in place, he says, but cut the already modest benefits for retirees and increase the retirement age even further. This is only the initial foray, however, made to soften the resistance and introduce the concept to the populace.

Make no mistake, with Iraq continuing to hemorrhage money, and the President intent on making his reckless tax cuts permanent, the arguments of fiscal necessity are coming and they will threaten the prolonged life of Social Security and Medicare, especially with the imminent retirement of the baby boomers. Grover Norquist's long sought after starve-the-beast showdown is on the horizon, and it will be carried out under the guise of the circumstances being beyond the control of the politicians. In fact they will blame the entitlements themselves for being unsustainable. Social Security and Medicare will be dismissed as unrealistic, impractical, liberal pipe dreams, too expensive to maintain. Fast on their heels will follow other liberal fantasies such as EPA, OSHA, public education, etc. Grover Norquist and his accolytes will at last get their pared down version of government.

Will the media remind the public of the road taken to the fiscal crisis? Will the Republicans in Congress and the White House soon be allowed to plead, with impunity, that in relation to gutting Social Security and Medicare, the circumstances made them do it? Will the American people allow the same politicians whose policies raided the trust fund, ran up the deficits, and shrank the revenues necessary to pay them down, claim that the deficits are to blame for the impending massive cuts to entitlements, and not their own fiscal strategy?

There is a saying that if you drop a frog into boiling water, it will leap out immediately feeling the shock to its nervous system. But if you place that same frog in tepid water and bring it to a boil slowly, the frog won't react to the gradual change in temperature and remain in the water until fully cooked. In the fiscal sense, and in relation to these entitlement programs, we are in the midst of a slow boil.

Would the real Republican Party please stand up. I'm a bit lost trying to follow the shells as Karl Rove, with the deft touch of a street hustler, whirls them around the table in a dizzying interchange that conceals the location of the ball from even the vigilant eye. Is this the Party that supports a Constitutional Amendment that would forever deny homosexuals the right to marry, or does Cheney speak for the Party when he says "freedom means freedom for everyone" and that gay marriage should be left to the states? Is this the Party of straightshooters like McCain, or nefarious prevaricators like the Swift Boat Veterans? Is the heart of the Republican Party with the Tom Delay conservative, Christian Right wing that have so dominated the legislative process, or the social moderates ostentatiously on parade in the prime time speeches at the Republican convention? Lastly, is this the Party of George H. W. Bush, or George W. Bush?

The overwhelming evidence suggests taht this is not his father's Republican Party. Take, for example, the disdain on the lips of this Bush administration's foreign policy gurus when they describe the Scowcroftian approach (Brent Scowcroft was Bush the elder's National Security Advisor). You would think Scowcroft was a thoroughly discredited liberal isolationist by the way his name is uttered with such obvious contempt. And the fault lines run deep. Gone is the overarching principle of fiscal discipline, replaced by the era of big spending, massive tax cuts and historic deficits. Cheney even went as far as to issue the conservative blasphemy that "deficits don't matter." The sacrosanct doctrine of empowering states' rights has been sacrificed for clumsy underfunded Federal education mandates, Federal intervention in state passed euthanasia laws and assaults on state recognition of gay marriage. No longer do heroic Republican candidates attack the draft dodging history of their opponents, now the draft evaders attack their heroic opponents.

The metamorphosis has been so rapid in its evolution, that the current incarnation of the Republican Party isn't even Bush's Party from 2000. The recently circulated draft of the Party platform shows many divergences from the platform of 2000. The most glaring discrepancies are in the definition of foreign policy strategy.

Criticizing the Clinton administration as running down the nation's defenses, in part though "promiscuous commitments" abroad, the 2000 platform had said that "the administration constantly enlarges the reach of its rhetoric," making the United States a "global social worker."

It added: "We propose our principles; we must not impose our culture," and, "The military is not a civilian police force or a political referee."

This message was echoed by Bush during the 2000 campaign, exemplified by this response to Vice President Gore:

"I'm not sure where the vice president's coming from, but I think one way for us to end up being viewed as the ugly American is for us to go around the world saying, we do it this way, so should you. I think the United States must be humble and must be proud and confident of our values, but humble in how we treat nations that are figuring out how to chart their own course."

The current platform obviously had to change in the diametrically opposite direction in order to comport with the audacious, arrogant and, in many ways, reckless foreign policy of pre-emptive strikes, intensive nation building and regional reconfiguration that Bush actually espoused upon reaching office.

And so the draft of the platform praises the current foreign policy stating, "The president's leadership has achieved successes once deemed impossible to realize in so short a period of time."

But it seems that the description of these successes is in many ways detached from the realities on the ground:

Despite the continuing turmoil in Najaf and other parts of Iraq, the draft describes the situation in that country as one of Mr. Bush's notable achievements, saying Iraq "is now becoming an example of reform to the region." [emphasis added]

I think it's safe to say that, even for reform minded Middle Easterners, Iraq is probably the last model for reform that they would choose. What exactly would be attractive about Iraq to the rest of the region? Is it the lack of stability? The continuing violence? The foreign influence? The prospect for civil war or the likelihood of the emergence of another strongman or totalitarian theocracy? Not exactly a model that inspires imitation.

The rest of the platform reflects the ascendancy of the far right wing of the party, and the marginalization of the social moderates which I discussed in this post.

In addition to newly appearing language opposing stem cell research, in stronger terms than Bush's own stance, consider this increased focus on abortion compared to the already strongly worded 2000 platform:

On abortion, the platform retained from previous conventions a call for a constitutional amendment banning abortion, expanding its discussion of the issue to a five-paragraph section on the "culture of life" from just two paragraphs in the 2000 platform in a section titled "Upholding the Rights of All."

Then there is this new section addressing the gay marriage issue:

On same-sex marriage, the draft says the party "strongly supports President Bush's call for a constitutional amendment that fully protects marriage," calling heterosexual marriage "the most fundamental institution of civilization."

These types of uncompromising stands on social issues have frustrated and alienated many moderates within the Party like Christie Whitman, the moderate former New Jersey governor and former head of the EPA under Bush who is writing a book entitled It's My Party Too, a reference to the increasing marginalization of centrist voices in the GOP.

Christopher Barron, political director of the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay group, said that given the slim chances of eliminating the endorsement of a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage from the platform, his group pushed for a "unity plank" to acknowledge that some party members might disagree about the subject.

It is unlikely that Barron will succeed in including the unity plank as "abortion-rights advocates have tried without success for similar provisions in years past." How can the GOP continue to project the image of the "big tent" through carefully crafted photo ops, such as the convention, while at the same time embracing a platform that is so extreme and exclusionary? At what point do members such as Christopher Barron and the Log Cabin Republicans lose their patience with a Party that views them as less entitled to basic rights? In many ways, this election will be a referendum on the battle between the Republicanism of Bush Sr. vs. that of Bush Jr., of the platform of 2000 and the platform of 2004.

If Bush defeats Kerry, the conservative leadership, validated and emboldened by their victory, will steer the Party even farther to the right, or perhaps more accurately, even further in the direction of their own vision which is not always more to the right necessarily. The question is, will the moderate voices advertising their Party's centrist credibility have a seat at the table if their efforts are met with a successful outcome in November? Is this their Party too?

With the first round of charges of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth laying in tatters and rags, either contradicted by contemporaneous military records, shown to be inconsistent with multiple accounts given by the same veterans in 1969, or categorically denied by the members of John Kerry's boat, the SBVFT have shifted their sites to John Kerry's post-war testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in April 1971.

Here is a description of the newest commercial release courtesy of Salon.com (one-day pass available after a brief web ad):

The second SBVFT commercial includes clips from Kerry's April 1971 testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: "They had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads ... randomly shot at civilians ... cut off limbs, blown up bodies ... razed villages in a fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan ... crimes committed on a day-to-day basis ... ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam."

What happens during those ellipses is SBVFT members talking about Kerry's accusations in these terms: "Just devastating." "It hurt me." "John Kerry gave the enemy for free what I and many of my comrades in the North Vietnamese prison camps took torture to avoid saying. It demoralized us." "Betrayed us." "Dishonored his country and more importantly the people he served with. He just sold them out."

The implication from the SBVFT, and from many in the mainstream media and punditry who have echoed their charges, is that Kerry was lying. These things didn't really happen, and that he in effect slandered all soldiers who fought in Vietnam. Never mind the fact that Kerry's testimony explicitly states that not all soldiers engaged in these crimes, according to them Kerry still painted them all with the same brush, and the allegations were unfounded.

What bizarre form of historical revisionism is this? How can the SBVFT's and members of the media turn a willfully amnesiac eye to mountains of historical evidence concerning the conduct of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam. Let me state this unequivocally: Atrocities, including and especially the ones described by John Kerry, did occur. The most famous incident of war crimes in Vietnam was the My Lai massacre, in which over 500 unarmed civilians, the majority of which being women and children, were executed by Charlie Company, a unit of the Americal Division's 11th Infantry Brigade.

There were, of course, numerous other incidences of atrocities and war crimes. In a recent piece of investigative journalism, three reporters from the Toledo Blade were awarded the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for their work uncovering the systematic atrocities committed by the Tiger Force, a special unit made up of soldiers from the Army's 101st Airborne's 1st battalion/327th Infantry Regiment. These atrocities, which included the severing of ears for necklaces and the decapitation of infants, were documented and investigated by the Army, but were subsequently covered-up with no charges being filed against any of the participants. Thanks to the efforts of the Toledo Blade journalists, the Army is now re-opening some of these inquiries in conjunction with the Vietnam government. A list of articles detailing these far reaching and widespread atrocities can be found here.

Here are some personal accounts containing some brutally graphic and disturbing detail. I warn the sensitive reader to consider stopping at this point.

Eric Alterman's site contains this description of pages 213-214 of the paperback edition of journalist Michael Herr's Vietnam book Dispatches, the material for which was compiled by Herr during his frontline stint in Vietnam:

...a Marine came up to [AP newsman John] Lengle and me and asked if we'd like to look at some pictures he'd taken...and you could tell by the way the Marine stood over us, grinning in anticipation as we flipped over each plastic page, that it was among his favorite things...There were hundreds of these albums in Vietnam, thousands, and they all seemed to contain the same pictures, the obligatory Zippo-lighter shot ('All right, let's burn these hootches and move out'); the severed head shot, the head often resting on the chest of the dead man or being held up by a smiling Marine, or a lot of heads arranged in a row, with a burning cigarette in each of the mouths, the eyes open...the VC suspect being dragged over the dust by a half-track or being hung by his heels in some jungle clearing; the very young dead with AK-47's still in their hands ('How old would you say that kid was?' the grunts would ask. 'Twelve, thirteen? You just can't tell with gooks'); a picture of a Marine holding an ear or maybe two ears or, as in the case of a guy I knew near Pleiku, a whole necklace made of ears, 'love beads' as its owner called them; and the one we were looking at now, the dead Viet Cong girl with her pajamas stripped off and her legs raised stiffly in the air.

'No more boom-boom for that mamma-san,' the Marine said...'But look, look at that bitch there, cut right in half!'

Here are some accounts of other soldiers made available by the Salon.com:

"My name is Scott Camile. I was a Sgt. attached to Charley 1/1. I was a forward observer in Vietnam...People cut off ears and when they'd come back in off of an operation you'd make deals before you'd go out and like for every ear you cut off someone would buy you two beers, so people cut off ears. The torturing of prisoners was done with beatings and I saw one case where there were two prisoners. One prisoner was staked out on the ground and he was cut open while he was alive and part of his insides were cut out and they told the other prisoner if he didn't tell them what they wanted to know they would kill him. And I don't know what he said because he spoke in Vietnamese but then they killed him after that anyway."

And this from Michael Hunter:

"I served in Vietnam two tours, the first tour was from the 1st Air Cav. Bravo Company 5th/7th Air Cav. and the second tour was the 1st Infantry Division, I Company, 75th Rangers, Lurps (LRRP) about 40 miles west of Saigon.

"Bravo Company, 5th of the 7th, when we were outside of Hue shortly after the Tet offensive, went into a village (and this happened repeatedly afterwards) and searched for enemy activity. We encountered a large amount of civilian population. The civilian population was brought out to one end of the village, and the women, who were guarded by a squad and a squad leader at that time, were separated. I might say the young women were separated from their children and the older women and the older men, the elderly men. They were told at gunpoint that if they did not submit to the sexual desires of any GI who was there guarding them, they would be shot for running away."

This is from Jamie Henry, Sgt. (E-5), H Co., 2nd Bn., 9th Marine Reg., 3rd Marine Div. (September 1967-August 1968):

"The captain simply repeated the order that came down from the colonel that morning. The order that came down from the colonel that morning was to kill anything that moves ... As I was walking over to him, I turned, and I looked in the area. I looked toward where the supposed VCs were, and two men were leading a young girl, approximately 19 years old, very pretty, out of a hootch. She had no clothes on so I assumed she had been raped, which was pretty SOP, and she was thrown onto the pile of the 19 women and children, and five men, around the circle, opened up on full automatic with their M-16s."

The tragic reality is that atrocities are inextricably linked to the mental anguish that war creates, and are thus an ugly component in practically every major armed conflict throughout the wide breadth of history. Under the particularly gruelling psychological strains of guerilla/insurgency combat like Vietnam, atrocities are even more common because of the stress and uncertainty endured by the occupying force in confronting an irregular enemy that deliberately blends in with the civilian population. Soldiers in these situations tend to view all civilians as enemies, and often act accordingly which results in countless acts of civilian targeting, on top of the typical dehumanizing of the enemy that is inevitable.

Pretending like atrocities don't exist doesn't make it so. In fact, this type of willful ignorance can lead policy makers to overestimate the efficacy of war as a substitute for other less bellicose tactics in foreign policy. Atrocities should always be factored into the calculus when deciding to use force.

John Kerry displayed great courage and bravery in acting as a spokesman, bringing these horrific events to the knowledge of the American people. His truth-telling helped to convince the majority of Americans of the futility of a war in which you had to raze a village to save it. As a result of his deeds, and the actions of other like-minded individuals, the wall at the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C. is that much shorter. I close on his words before the Senate back in 1971:

"We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped away their memories of us. But all that they have done, and all that they can do by this denial, is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission: To search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbaric war; to pacify our own hearts; to conquer the hate and fear that have driven this country these last 10 years and more. And so, when, 30 years from now, our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm, or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say 'Vietnam' and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory, but mean instead where America finally turned, and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning."

"One last mission": The turning is still in progress.

The circumnavigation of the truth at the heart of the torture scandal at Abu Ghraib, and elsewhere in Iraq and Afghanistan, is proceeding in concentric circles, ever approaching the center in a meandering progression. As the procession of various investigations march around the story like pilgrims on a haj circling the Ka'abah in Mecca, more and more of the picture is revealed. The release of two reports in the last two days has further brought the truth into focus.

The first report was authored by a four-member panel hand selected by Donald Rumsfeld headed by former defense secretary James R. Schlesinger includes another former secretaries of defense, a retired four-star general and a former Republican member of Congress. The Schlesinger report shows progress in the sense that it marks a departure from the highly implausible "few bad apples" narrative, that a handful of soldiers operating solely out of the venue of Abu Ghraib prison were responsible for all that went on. This is the theory that has been echoed repeatedly by Bush administration officials and their apologists. The Schlesinger report also takes the long overdue step of pointing the finger of blame up the chain of command, even if they stop prematurely at the office of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. As reported in the Washington Post:

"The abuses were not just the failure of some individuals to follow known standards, and they are more than the failure of a few leaders to enforce proper discipline," the report said. "There is both institutional and personal responsibility at higher levels."

Underscoring the broad scope of mistreatment, the panel said 300 abuse cases have come under investigation -- a number about three times greater than previous U.S. military statements.

Of 155 completed investigations, the report added, 66 have resulted in determinations of abuse -- 55 of them in Iraq, three in Afghanistan and eight at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "Dozens of non-judicial punishments have already been awarded," the report said without detailing them.

The second report, an internal investigation by Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones and Maj. Gen. George R. Fay, further discredits the "few bad apples" theory, and breaks new ground in its open indictment of the role played by the intelligence apparatus involved in the interrogation process.

But the findings yesterday of another Army investigation offered a more critical appraisal of what led to the mistreatment at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad. It implicated 27 military intelligence soldiers in abuse, providing some support for assertions by some of the seven military guards previously charged that they were not acting alone. Counting other intelligence, medical and civilian contract personnel cited for failing to report the abuse, and three more military police officers alleged to have engaged in abuse, the report appeared to raise to nearly 50 the number of people who may face charges or disciplinary action for misconduct at Abu Ghraib.

Yesterday's findings by Lt. Gen. Anthony R. Jones and Maj. Gen. George R. Fay also helped to substantiate a major pillar of the defense offered by the military guards already facing charges. They have asserted that their actions came at the direction of military intelligence personnel.

"Although self-serving, these claims do have some basis in fact," Fay said in his portion of the report.

The Fay/Jones report also delves into some details that have been glossed over by the mainstream media, which seems to have limited its reporting to the horrific, yet partial, record provided by the photographic evidence obtained by the press.

In sometimes agonizing detail, the generals detailed acts of sodomy, beatings, nudity, lengthy isolation, and the use of unmuzzled dogs in a sadistic game of making detainees urinate and defecate in fear.

"The abuses spanned from direct physical assault, such as delivering head blows rendering detainees unconscious, to sexual posing and forced participation in group masturbation," the Army report says. "At the extremes were the death of a detainee . . . an alleged rape committed by a US translator and observed by a female Soldier, and the alleged sexual assault of an unknown female."

Do you suppose those were the kinds of things Rush Limbaugh was talking about when he stated that the quality of the abuse detainees were subjected to at Abu Ghraib was nothing more than what college students endure in the fraternity rush?

It is encouraging to see that these reports are breaking new ground, and bringing the attention of the public closer to the responsible parties and policies. But for as much as these reports accomplish, there is that much more they leave undone. Of course this should come as no surprise since the Pentagon is essentially investigating itself with its own personnel, the one exception being an "independent" investigation conducted by two former Secretaries of Defense, a retired four-star general and a former Republican member of Congress, all personally selected by Donald Rumsfeld himself. Not exactly what would be described as disinterested parties. Furthermore, the scope and reach of each investigation has been in each case deliberately truncated so as to prevent any one investigation from being able to connect the dots in the whole picture, instead encouraging the logic-defying compartmentalizing of the findings. This deliberate myopia can be found in the following paragraph and quote from the Schlesinger report:

In discussing Rumsfeld's role, the report said changes he made between December 2002 and April 2003 in interrogation techniques for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay "migrated to Afghanistan and Iraq where they were neither limited nor safeguarded." The report said Rumsfeld might have avoided the policy confusion if he had a wider range of legal opinions and a more robust internal debate over detainee policies and operations in 2002, before the war started. [emphasis added]

The interrogation policies migrated? That is an interesting choice of words, implying some sort of passive transferrance of instructions and orders, much like a natural occurence undertaken by birds and butterflies. As Spencer Ackerman of the New Republic, via Laura Rozen, notes:

But, of course, no policy "migrates." Officials actively provide instructions to other officials...What his preferred euphemism glosses over are the questions of who told what to whom, with whose approval.

The "who told what to whom, with whose approval" is really the crux of the story, and the uncovering of that chain of events will be the moment of epiphany. The inability of these reports to probe those questions more thoroughly are their biggest failings, but perhaps they were designed with that result in mind.

One area only lightly touched upon by the reports is the extensive record of legal memos and opinions justifyiing torture that were sought by Rumsfeld and furnished by the Department of Justice and the White House counsel. These were the legal foundation for the expansion of what Seymour Hersh describes as a black-op used by the CIA and other intelligence entities in the apprehension and interrogation of al-Qaeda suspects. Rumsfeld, eager to quell the insurgency in Iraq, implemented the same controversial techniques in Iraq which had previously been reserved for use against al-Qaeda suspects. This angered many within the intelligence community who wanted to maintain the secrecy and sparing use of these tactics so as to insure their continued access to them free from public outrage. As Hersh notes:

The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focused on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld's decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat units, and hurt America's prospects in the war on terror.

According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon's operation, known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including Copper Green, encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld's long-standing desire to wrest control of America's clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A.

It is unclear whether the current administration will be compelled to uncover this unseemly history, or whether the media will accept the partial narrative of these reports and move on to something of more intrigue. The riveting story of Scott and Laci Peterson is good for ratings after all. Only a truly independent investigative body, endowed with full subpoena powers, and the mandate to follow the story no matter where it leads, will have the ability to connect the lines and form the circle. One could assume that Congress would authorize such an investigation concerning a matter of such monumental import as this, which has so badly tarnished our image and undermined our moral authority worldwide for decades to come. But I suppose there are priorities, and at the end of the day, where's the blue dress?

In an unprecedented expression of dissent within the neoconservative camp, noted political philosopher, author, professor and neoconservative by intellectual pedigree, Francis Fukuyama, has delivered a forceful critique of the Iraq invasion, and in many ways the recent direction of the neoconservative foreign policy group-think. The article appearing in the National Interest is a response to a series of policy recommendations advocated by Fukuyama's friend, and Washington Post columnist, Charles Krauthammer.

In this piece, Fukuyama lays the groundwork for an alternate vision of foreign policy, that diverges from the current neoconservative strain in terms of its respect for international organizations and concern for the inclusion of allies, its estimation of the capabilities and, more importantly, limitations of military power put to the task of effecting democratic change, the recognition and assessment of threats, and the overall detachment from reality. Fukuyama makes a compelling case in his effort to salvage neoconservative thought from the scrap heap that it will likely be relegated to if Iraq is held up as its most relevant manifestation.

The article appears in full below, and I apologize in advance for the length. It is a long piece, though well worth the read, but David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times offers up a synopsis here for those who prefer a briefer send up.

The Neoconservative Moment
Francis Fukuyama

One of Washington's most exclusive clubs during the 1990s was the annual board dinner of The National Interest. Presided over by founding editor Owen Harries and often kicked off with a presentation by Henry Kissinger, the group included Jeanne Kirkpatrick, Irving, Bea and Bill Kristol, Samuel Huntington, Paul Wolfowitz, Norman Podhoretz, Daniel Pipes, Charles Krauthammer, Marty Feldstein, Eliot Cohen, Peter Rodman and a host of other conservative thinkers, writers and doers, including just about everyone now characterized as a "neoconservative." What I always found fascinating about these dinners was their unpredictability. People's views were very much set in concrete during the Cold War; while this group was divided into pro- and anti-de tente camps, virtually everyone (myself included) had staked out territory years before. The Berlin Wall's fall brought a great change, and there was no clear mapping between one's pre-1989 views and the ones held thereafter. Roughly, the major fault line was between people who were more realist and those who were more idealist or Wilsonian. But everyone was trying to wrestle with the same basic question: In the wake of the disappearance of the overarching strategic threat posed by the former USSR, how did one define the foreign policy of a country that had suddenly become the global hegemon? How narrowly or broadly did one define this magazine's eponymous "national interest"?

It was at one of these dinners that Charles Krauthammer first articulated the idea of American unipolarity. In the winter of 1990-91, he wrote in Foreign Affairs of the "unipolar moment"; in the Winter 2002/03 issue of The National Interest, he expanded the scope of his thesis by arguing that "the unipolar moment has become the unipolar era." And in February 2004, he gave a speech at the annual dinner of the American Enterprise Institute in which he took his earlier themes and developed the ideas further, in the aftermath of the Iraq War. He defined four different schools of thought on foreign policy: isolationism, liberal internationalism, realism and his own position that he defines as "democratic globalism", a kind of muscular Wilsonianism-minus international institutions-that seeks to use U.S. military supremacy to support U.S. security interests and democracy simultaneously.

Krauthammer is a gifted thinker and his ideas are worth taking seriously for their own sake. But, perhaps more importantly, his strategic thinking has become emblematic of a school of thought that has acquired strong influence inside the Bush Administration foreign policy team and beyond. It is for that reason that Krauthammer's writings, particularly his AEI speech, require careful analysis. It is in the spirit of our earlier debates that I offer the following critique.

The 2004 speech is strangely disconnected from reality. Reading Krauthammer, one gets the impression that the Iraq War-the archetypical application of American unipolarity-had been an unqualified success, with all of the assumptions and expectations on which the war had been based fully vindicated. There is not the slightest nod towards the new empirical facts that have emerged in the last year or so: the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the virulent and steadily mounting anti-Americanism throughout the Middle East, the growing insurgency in Iraq, the fact that no strong democratic leadership had emerged there, the enormous financial and growing human cost of the war, the failure to leverage the war to make progress on the Israeli-Palestinian front, and the fact that America's fellow democratic allies had by and large failed to fall in line and legitimate American actions ex post.

The failure to step up to these facts is dangerous precisely to the neo-neoconservative position that Krauthammer has been seeking to define and justify. As the war in Iraq turns from triumphant liberation to grinding insurgency, other voices-either traditional realists like Brent Scowcroft, nationalist-isolationists like Patrick Buchanan, or liberal internationalists like John Kerry-will step forward as authoritative voices and will have far more influence in defining American post-Iraq War foreign policy. The poorly executed nation-building strategy in Iraq will poison the well for future such exercises, undercutting domestic political support for a generous and visionary internationalism, just as Vietnam did. It did not have to be this way. One can start with premises identical to Krauthammer's, agree wholeheartedly with his critiques of the other three positions, and yet come up with a foreign policy that is very different from the one he lays out. I believe that his strategy simultaneously defines our interests in such a narrow way as to make the neoconservative position indistinguishable from realism, while at the same time managing to be utterly unrealistic in its overestimation of U.S. power and our ability to control events around the world. It is probably too late to reclaim the label "neoconservative" for any but the policies undertaken by the Bush Administration, but it is still worth trying to reformulate a fourth alternative that combines idealism and realism-but in a fashion that can be sustained over the long haul.

Excessive Realism

Krauthammer and other commentators are correct that what is seen as "Kissingerian" realism is not an adequate basis for American foreign policy. A certain degree of messianic universalism with regard to American values and institutions has always been an inescapable component of American national identity: Americans were never comfortable with the kinds of moral compromises that a strict realist position entails. The question, which was the constant subject of those board dinners, was: What kinds of bounds do you put around the idealistic part of the agenda? Krauthammer answers this key question in the following manner:

"Where to intervene? Where to bring democracy? Where to nation-build? I propose a single criterion: where it counts. Call it democratic realism. And this is its axiom: We will support democracy everywhere, but we will commit blood and treasure only in places where there is strategic necessity-meaning, places central to the larger war against the existential enemy, the enemy that poses a global mortal threat to freedom."

While this axiom appears to be clear and straightforward, it masks a number of ambiguities that make it less than helpful as a guideline for U.S. intervention. The first has to do with the phrase "strategic necessity", which of course can be defined more and less broadly. Krauthammer initially appears to be taking a realist position by opting for the narrow definition when he refers to an "existential enemy" or an enemy posing a "mortal" threat. If these words have any real meaning, then they should include only threats to our existence as a nation or as a democratic regime. There have been such threats in the past: the Soviet Union could have annihilated us physically and conceivably could have subverted democracy in North America. But it is questionable whether any such existential threats exist now. Iraq before the U.S. invasion was certainly not one: It posed an existential threat to Kuwait, Iran and Israel, but it had no means of threatening the continuity of our regime. Al-Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups aspire to be existential threats to American civilization but do not currently have anything like the capacity to actualize their vision: They are extremely dangerous totalitarians, but pose threats primarily to regimes in the Middle East.

This is not to say that Iraq and Al-Qaeda did not pose serious threats to American interests: the former was a very serious regional threat, and the latter succeeded in killing thousands of Americans on American soil. Use of WMD against the United States by a terrorist group would have terrible consequences, not just for the immediate victims but also for American freedoms in ways that could be construed as undermining our regime. But it is still of a lesser order of magnitude than earlier, state-based threats. The global Nazi and communist threats were existential both because their banner was carried by a great power, and because ideologically there were many people in the United States and throughout the Western world seduced by their vision. The Islamist threat has no such appeal, except perhaps in countries like France that have permitted high levels of immigration from Muslim countries.

I suspect that Krauthammer's intended use of the term "strategic necessity" is actually broader than is implied by his own words about existential threats. At the end of his axiom he leaps to the need to fight an "enemy that poses a global mortal threat to freedom", and elsewhere speaks of the United States as "custodian of the international system", suggesting a broadminded understanding of self-interest. Does "global" here mean threats that transcend specific regions, like radical Islamism or communism? If the enemy's reach has to be global, then North Korea would be excluded from the definition of a "strategic" threat. Or does "global" instead mean any mortal threat to freedom around the globe? Does the fact that an "enemy" poses a mortal threat to another free country but not to us qualify it as our "enemy?" Is Hamas, an Islamist group which clearly poses an existential threat to Israel, our enemy as well? Is Syria? And if these are our enemies, why should we choose to fight them in preference to threats to free countries closer to home like the FARC or ELN, which threaten democracy in Colombia, or Hugo Chavez in Venezuela? What makes something "central" in this global war? Was Iraq central to the war against radical Islamism?

It is clear that Krauthammer's axiom provides very little practical guidance for answering these questions. He might respond that applying the general principle requires prudential judgment. He might further respond that his position is very distinct from that of the realists because he is using democracy as an instrument to advance U.S. strategic interests: By transforming Iraqi politics and turning a bloodthirsty dictatorship into a Western-style democracy, new possibilities will open up for the entire region that promises to get at some of the root causes of terrorism. This is indeed an ambitious and highly idealistic agenda, and it is precisely in the prudential judgments underlying the current project of transforming the Middle East that his argument is fatally flawed.

Excessive Idealism

Of all of the different views that have now come to be associated with neoconservatives, the strangest one to me was the confidence that the United States could transform Iraq into a Western-style democracy, and go on from there to democratize the broader Middle East. It struck me as strange precisely because these same neoconservatives had spent much of the past generation warning-in The National Interest's former sister publication, The Public Interest, for example-about the dangers of ambitious social engineering, and how social planners could never control behavior or deal with unanticipated consequences. If the United States cannot eliminate poverty or raise test scores in Washington, dc, how does it expect to bring democracy to a part of the world that has stubbornly resisted it and is virulently anti-American to boot?

Krauthammer picks up this theme in his speech. Noting how wrong people were after World War II in asserting that Japan could not democratize, he asks, "Where is it written that Arabs are incapable of democracy?" He is echoing an argument made most forthrightly by the eminent Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis, who has at several junctures suggested that pessimism about the prospects for a democratic Iraq betrays lack of respect for Arabs. It is, of course, nowhere written that Arabs are incapable of democracy, and it is certainly foolish for cynical Europeans to assert with great confidence that democracy is impossible in the Middle East. We have, indeed, been fooled before, not just in Japan but in Eastern Europe prior to the collapse of communism.

But possibility is not likelihood, and good policy is not made by staking everything on a throw of the dice. Culture is not destiny, but culture plays an important role in making possible certain kinds of institutions-something that is usually taken to be a conservative insight. Though I, more than most people, am associated with the idea that history's arrow points to democracy, I have never believed that democracies can be created anywhere and everywhere through sheer political will. Prior to the Iraq War, there were many reasons for thinking that building a democratic Iraq was a task of a complexity that would be nearly unmanageable. Some reasons had to do with the nature of Iraqi society: the fact that it would be decompressing rapidly from totalitarianism, its ethnic divisions, the role of politicized religion, the society's propensity for violence, its tribal structure and the dominance of extended kin and patronage networks, and its susceptibility to influence from other parts of the Middle East that were passionately anti-American.

But other reasons had to do with the United States. America has been involved in approximately 18 nation-building projects between its conquest of the Philippines in 1899 and the current occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the overall record is not a pretty one. The cases of unambiguous success-Germany, Japan, and South Korea-were all ones in which U.S. forces came and then stayed indefinitely. In the first two cases, we were not nation-building at all, but only re-legitimizing societies that had very powerful states. In all of the other cases, the U.S. either left nothing behind in terms of self-sustaining institutions, or else made things worse by creating, as in the case of Nicaragua, a modern army and police but no lasting rule of law.

This gets to a much more fundamental point about unipolarity. Krauthammer has always stressed the vast disparity of power between the United States and the rest of the world, vaster even than Rome's dominance at the height of its empire. But that dominance is clear-cut only along two dimensions of national power: the cultural realm and the ability to fight and win intensive conventional wars.

Americans have no particular taste or facility for nation-building; we want exit strategies rather than empires-a point Krauthammer reiterated at the start of his lecture. Where then does he think the domestic basis of support will come from for this unbelievably ambitious effort to politically transform one of the world's most troubled and hostile regions? And if the nation is really a commercial republic uncomfortable with empire, why is he so eager to expand its domain? Lurking like an unbidden guest at a dinner party is the reality of what has happened in Iraq since the U.S. invasion: We have been our usual inept and disorganized selves in planning for and carrying out the reconstruction, something that was predictable in advance and should not have surprised anyone familiar with American history.

Allies, Institutions and Legitimacy

The final area of weakness in Krauthammer's argument lies in his treatment of legitimacy, and how the United States relates to the rest of the world. Failure to appreciate America's own current legitimacy deficit hurts both the realist part of our agenda, by diminishing our actual power, and the idealist portion of it, by undercutting our appeal as the embodiment of certain ideas and values.

Krauthammer avoids confronting this issue by creating a bit of a parody of foreign critiques of American policy, something easily dismissed because it comes from "the butchers of Tiananmen Square or the cynics of the Quai d'Orsay." He manages to lump both the Democratic Party and most of our European allies into a single category of liberal internationalists. He argues that their opposition to the Iraq War was founded on a self-proclaimed normative commitment to multilateralism and international law. For liberal internationalists, war is legitimate only if it is sanctioned by the United Nations. But this high-mindedness, he argues, masks motives that are much baser: the Europeans are Lilliputians who want to tie the American Gulliver down and reduce American freedom of action. So they are both naive and hypocritical in the same breath.

What Krauthammer here describes as the Democratic/European position is one that is readily recognizable and does in fact characterize the views of many opponents of the Iraq War. But if he had listened carefully to what many Europeans were actually saying (something that Americans are not very good at doing these days), he would have discovered that much of their objection to the war was not a normative one having to do with procedural issues and the UN, but rather a prudential one having to do with the overall wisdom of attacking Iraq. Europeans tended not to be persuaded that Iraq was as dangerous as the Bush Administration claimed. They argued that Ba'athi Iraq had little to do with Al-Qaeda, and that attacking Iraq would be a distraction from the War on Terror. Many Europeans, moreover, did not particularly trust the United States to handle the postwar situation well, much less the more ambitious agenda of democratizing the Middle East. They believed that the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict was a more dangerous source of instability and terrorism than Iraq and that the Bush Administration was undercutting its own credibility by appearing to side so strongly with the policies of Ariel Sharon.

All of these were and are, of course, debatable propositions. On the question of the threat posed by Iraq, everyone-Europeans and Americans-were evidently fooled into thinking that it possessed significant stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. But on this issue, the European bottom line proved to be closer to the truth than the administration's far more alarmist position. The question of pre-war Iraq-Al-Qaeda links has become intensely politicized in America since the war. My reading of the evidence is that these linkages existed (indeed, it would be very surprising if they did not), but that their significance was limited. We have learned since September 11 that Al-Qaeda did not need the support of a state like Iraq to do a tremendous amount of damage to the United States and that attacking Iraq was not the most direct way to get at Al-Qaeda. On the question of the manageability of postwar Iraq, the more skeptical European position was almost certainly right; the Bush Administration went into Iraq with enormous illusions about how easy the postwar situation would be. On the question of Palestine, the Europeans are likely wrong, or at least wrong in their belief that we could move to a durable settlement of the conflict if only the United States decided to use its influence with Israel.

The point here is not who is right, but rather that the prudential case was not nearly as open-and-shut as Krauthammer and other neoconservatives believe. He talks as if the Bush Administration's judgment had been vindicated at every turn, and that any questioning of it can only be the result of base or dishonest motives. Would that this were so. The fact that our judgment was flawed has created an enormous legitimacy problem for us, one that will hurt our interests for a long time to come.

The problem of judgment gets to the heart of what is wrong with the vision of a unipolar world that Krauthammer lays out. In his words, the United States "has been designated custodian of the international system" by virtue of its enormous margin of military superiority. If we had in fact been designated global custodian, we would have no legitimacy problem, but we have unfortunately designated ourselves. We have in effect said to the rest of the world, "look, trust us, we will look out for your interests. You can do this safely because we not just any run-of-the-mill hyperpower. We are, after all, the United States." While we would not trust Russia, China, India, France or even Britain with a similar kind of power, we believe that the rest of the world should trust us. This is because the United States is different from other countries, a democracy espousing universal values and therefore not subject the same calculations of self-interest as other would-be hegemons.

There is actually something to this argument. But it is also not very difficult to see why it does not gain much traction outside the United States, and not just among those endemically hostile to America. Krauthammer-the-realist, after all, argues for a narrow definition of national interest, which does not suggest we will be a very reliable partner to a struggling friend when we do not have important interests at stake. And even if we were willing to bear other people's burdens, what about our judgment?

Legitimacy is a tricky concept. It is related to substantive principles of justice, but it is not the same thing as justice. That is, people believe that a set of institutions is legitimate because they believe they are just, but legitimacy is always relative to the people conferring legitimacy.

Legitimacy is important to us not simply because we want to feel good about ourselves, but because it is useful. Other people will follow the American lead if they believe that it is legitimate; if they do not, they will resist, complain, obstruct or actively oppose what we do. In this respect, it matters not what we believe to be legitimate, but rather what other people believe is legitimate. If the Indian government says that it will not participate in a peacekeeping force in Iraq unless it has a UN Security Council mandate to do so, it does not matter in the slightest that we believe the Security Council to be an illegitimate institution: the Indians simply will not help us out.

Krauthammer and others have dismissed the importance of legitimacy by associating it entirely with the United Nations-and then shooting at that very easy target. Of course, the UN has deep problems with legitimacy. Since membership is not based on a substantive principle of legitimacy, but rather formal sovereignty, it has been populated from the beginning by a range of dictatorial and human-rights abusing regimes. Our European allies themselves do not believe in the necessity of legitimization through the Security Council. When they found they could not get its support for the intervention in Kosovo because of the Russian veto, they were perfectly willing to bypass the UN and switch the venue to NATO instead. But our legitimacy problem in Iraq went much deeper. Even if we had switched the venue to NATO-an alliance of democracies committed to the same underlying set of values-we could not have mustered a majority in support of our position, not to speak of the consensus required for collective action in that organization. The Bush Administration likes to boast of the size of the "coalition of the willing" that the United States was eventually able to pull together. One can take comfort in this only by abstracting from the quality of the support we received. Besides Britain and Australia, no one was willing to put boots on the ground during the active phase of combat, and now that post-conflict peacekeeping looks more like real warfare once again, Spain, Honduras and other members of the coalition are pulling out. Those countries that did support the United States did so on the basis of an elite calculation of national interest-in almost all cases against the wishes of large majorities of their own populations. This is true alike for Tony Blair, our staunchest ally, and for Poland, the most pro-American country in eastern Europe. While the behavior of Germany's Gerhard Schroeder in actively opposing the war was deeply disappointing, I would still much rather have Germany on my side than a feckless and corrupt Ukraine.

It is clear, in other words, that a very large part of the world, including many people who are normally inclined to be our friends, did not believe in the legitimacy of our behavior towards Iraq. This is not because the Security Council failed to endorse the war, but because many of our friends did not trust us, that is, the Bush Administration, to use our huge margin of power wisely and in the interests of the world as a whole. This should matter to us, not just for realist reasons of state (our ability to attract allies to share the burden), but for idealist ones as well (our ability to lead and inspire based on the attractiveness of who we are). I do not believe that the Bush Administration was in fact contemptuous of the need for legitimacy. What they believed and hoped, rather, was that legitimacy would be awarded ex post rather than ex ante by the international community. There was a widespread belief among members of the administration that once it became clear that the United States was going to disarm Iraq forcefully, other NATO allies including France would eventually come on board. Everyone was taken aback by the vehemence with which France and Germany opposed the war, and by the U.S. failure to line up normally compliant countries like Chile and Mexico during the Security Council vote.

The hope that we would be awarded ex post legitimacy was not an unreasonable calculation. It might indeed have materialized had the United States found a large and active WMD program in Iraq after the invasion, or if the transition to a democratic regime had been as quick and low-cost as the Bush Administration expected. Many people have argued that American unilateralism towards Iraq breaks a long pattern of transatlantic cooperation, but they are forgetting history. The United States during the Cold War repeatedly pushed its European allies to do things they were reluctant to do, often by staking out positions first and seeking approval later. In the end, American judgment on these issues was better than that of the Europeans, and legitimacy was in fact awarded retrospectively. When this happened, the United States was not blamed for unilateralism, but praised for its leadership.

One could then interpret the Iraq War simply as a one-time mistake or unfortunate miscalculation coming on the heels of a long string of successes. Certainly, it would be utterly wrong to conclude that the war teaches us that the United States should never stick its neck out and lead the broader Western world to actions that our allies oppose or are reluctant to undertake. Nor should we conclude that pre-emption and unilateralism will never be necessary.

On the other hand, it is not simply bad luck that we failed to win legitimacy as badly as we did this time. The world is different now than it was during the Cold War in ways that will affect our future ability to exert leadership and claim to speak on behalf of the world as a whole. This is so for three reasons.

The first difference is, of course, the demise of the Soviet Union and the absence of an overarching superpower threat. During the Cold War, there was rampant anti-Americanism around the world and popular opposition to U.S. policies. But our influence was anchored by center-right parties throughout Europe that were both grateful for America's historical role in the liberation of Europe and fearful of Soviet influence. The global terrorist threat may some day come to be interpreted in a similar fashion, but it is not yet.

A second difference has to do with the very fact of our military dominance. During the Cold War, when our power was more or less evenly matched against that of the Soviets, we cared a great deal about credibility and slippery slopes. We were afraid that withdrawal in the face of a challenge would be taken as a sign of weakness and exploited by the other side. Today, the United States is utterly dominant in the military sphere. Credibility in our willingness and ability to use force remains important, but we simply do not have to prove our toughness to the rest of the world at every turn. The final difference has to do with the fact that the current battlefield is not Europe but the Middle East. There were always sharp differences of opinion between the United States and its allies on how to proceed with respect to the Soviet Union, but they pale in comparison to the differences between the United States and virtually everyone else in the world with respect to the Arab world. So it is to this issue that we must turn.

Dealing with the Middle East

Krauthammer has thought long and hard about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and his views on how the Israelis need to deal with the Palestinians colors his views on how the United States should deal with the Arabs more broadly. Krauthammer has not supported strongly engaging the Arab world through political strategies. In the past, he has put forward a particular view of Arab psychology, namely, that they respect power above all as a source of legitimacy. As he once said in a radio interview, if you want to win their hearts and minds, you have grab a lower part of their anatomy and squeeze hard.

Towards the end of his AEI speech, Krauthammer speaks of the United States as being in the midst of a bitter and remorseless war with an implacable enemy that is out to destroy Western civilization. This kind of language is appropriate as a description of Israel's strategic situation since the outbreak of the second intifada. The question is whether this accurately describes the position of the United States as well. Are we like Israel, locked in a remorseless struggle with a large part of the Arab and Muslim world, with few avenues open to us for dealing with them other than an iron fist? And in general, does a strategic doctrine developed by a small, vulnerable country surrounded by implacable enemies make sense when applied to the situation of the world's sole superpower, a country that spends as much on defense as the next 16 most powerful countries put together? I believe that there are real problems in transposing one situation to the other. While Israel's most immediate Arab interlocutors are indeed implacable enemies, the United States faces a much more complex situation. In Al-Qaeda and other radical Islamist groups, we do in fact confront an enemy that hates us for what we are rather than for what we do. For the reasons given above, I do not believe they are an existential threat to us, but they certainly would like to be, and it is hard to see how we can deal with them other than by killing, capturing or otherwise militarily neutralizing them.

But the radicals swim in a much larger sea of Muslims-1.2 billion of them, more or less-who are not yet implacable enemies of the United States. If one has any doubts about this, one has only to look at the first of the United Nations Development Program's two Arab Human Development reports, which contained a poll asking whether respondents would like to emigrate to the United States if they had the opportunity. In virtually every Arab country, a majority of respondents said yes. On the other hand, recent Pew surveys of global public opinion show that positive feelings about the United States in Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan and other supposedly friendly Muslim countries has sunk to disastrously low levels. What these data taken as a whole suggest is that for the broad mass of public opinion in Muslim countries, we are disliked or hated not for what we are, but rather for what we do. What they do not like is a familiar list of complaints about our foreign policy that we somehow continue to fail to take seriously: our lack of concern for the plight of the Palestinians, our hypocritical support for dictators in Muslim countries, and now our occupation of Iraq.

The War on Terror is, in other words, a classic counter-insurgency war, except that it is one being played out on a global scale. There are genuine bad guys out there who are much more bitter ideological enemies than the Soviets ever were, but their success depends on the attitudes of the broader populations around them who can be alternatively supportive, hostile or indifferent-depending on how we play our cards. As we are seeing vividly in Iraqi cities like Fallujah and Najaf, counter-insurgency wars are incredibly difficult to fight, because we must somehow destroy the enemy without alienating the broader population and making things worse. Counter-insurgency requires a tricky mixture of precisely targeted force, political judgment and extremely good intelligence: a combination of carrots and sticks.

Israel used carrots during the Oslo process and then shifted to sticks after its collapse and the beginning of the second intifada. I do not want to second-guess either of these approaches, neither of which seems to have worked very well. But an American policy toward the Muslim world that, like Sharon's, is largely stick will be a disaster: we do not have enough sticks in our closet to "make them respect us." The Islamists for sure hated us from the beginning, but Krauthammerian unipolarity has increased hatred for the United States in the broader fight for hearts and minds. This suggests that we need a much more complex strategy that recalibrates the proportion of sticks and carrots. This has begun to happen with the leaking of the Bush Administration's Greater Middle East Initiative, but that is only the beginning of a much longer political struggle.

Israel's policy of constantly being on the offensive, pre-empting and taking the initiative (as in its policy of targeted assassinations) is also something that does not scale well. Unlike Israel, the United States has a substantial margin of strategic depth and does not constantly have to run risks in order to stay on top. A sole superpower that is seen being as inclined to intervene pre-emptively and often will frighten not just its enemies but its friends as well. The United States must never abjure its right to pre-empt, but it is a right that needs to be exercised cautiously. Even talking about such a strategy, as we did in the National Security Strategy document, will tend to promote opposing coalitions and resistance to U.S. policies. Israel can afford to antagonize potential allies and disregard international public opinion as long as it can count on support from the United States. The United States could, I suppose, survive if it were similarly isolated, but it is hard to see why we would want to put ourselves in this position. It is hardly an advantageous position from which to launch an idealistic Wilsonian crusade to reshape the Middle East in our image.

What Now?

Since I have volunteered only to write a critique of the views expressed by Charles Krauthammer and am not myself running for president, I am under no obligation to lay out in depth a positive agenda for American foreign policy that would serve as a substitute. On the other hand, there are elements of a different neoconservative foreign policy that are implicit in what I have said thus far. The United States should understand the need to exercise power in pursuit of both its interests and values, but also to be more prudent and subtle in that exercise. The world's sole superpower needs to remember that its margin of power is viewed with great suspicion around the world and will set off countervailing reactions if that power is not exercised judiciously.

This means, in the first instance, doing the simple work of diplomacy and coalition-building that the Bush Administration seemed reluctant to undertake prior to the Iraq War and not gratuitously to insult the "common opinions of mankind." We do not need to embrace the UN or multilateralism for its own sake, because we somehow believe that such institutions are inherently more legitimate than nation-states. On the other hand, we need like minded allies to accomplish both the realist and idealist portions of our agenda and should spend much more time and energy cultivating them. The promotion of democracy through all of the available tools at our disposal should remain high on the agenda, particularly with regard to the Middle East. But the United States needs to be more realistic about its nation-building abilities, and cautious in taking on large social-engineering projects in parts of the world it does not understand very well. On the other hand, it is inevitable that we will get sucked into similar projects in the future (for example, after a sudden collapse of the North Korean regime), and we need to be much better prepared. This means establishing a permanent office with authority and resources appropriate for the job the next time around as part of a broader restructuring of the U.S. government's soft-power agencies.

To this list I would add a final element that for reasons of space I cannot elaborate here. The visionary founders of the postwar order were institution-builders, who created not just the much-maligned UN system, but the Bretton Woods institutions, NATO, the U.S.-Japan and U.S.-Korea alliances, the Gatt, the WTO, and a host of other international organizations. Institution-building is not something that has occupied the time of officials in the Bush Administration, but it should. If the United States does not like the fact that the UN is dominated by non-democratic regimes, then it should invest in an effort to build up other institutions, like NATO or the Community of Democracies founded during the Clinton Administration, that are based on norms and values we share. The Community of Democracies initiative, which the French foreign minister Hubert Ve drine tried to strangle at its birth, was never taken seriously by the Republicans, for, I assume, "not invented here" reasons. But such a global alliance of democracies, led by newer ones in eastern Europe and Latin America, could play a legitimizing function around the world in a way that NATO cannot.

If the United States cannot create new global institutions, then it could try to pursue a vision of overlapping multilateral organizations on a regional basis. The Bush Administration has stumbled into a six-power format for dealing with North Korea; why not seek to make permanent a five-power caucus once we (hopefully) get past the current impasse over nuclear weapons with Pyongyang? Such an organization could play a very valuable coordinating function in the event of, say, a sudden North Korean collapse. Mutual suspicions between Japan, Korea and China are high, and a multilateral forum would be a much better vehicle for sharing information and plans that the current system of bilateral alliances running through Washington. The Chinese in recent years have been pushing a series of regional pacts-ASEAN Plus Three, the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area, a Northeast Asian Free Trade Area, and ultimately, an East Asian Free Trade Area-that they argue may some day serve as the basis for regional security arrangements as well. While the Japanese have seen these as bids for regional leadership and have replied in kind with trade pacts centered on themselves, the Bush Administration has not, as far as I am aware, formulated anything like a coherent response. Do we simply want to swat down proposals for regional multilateral organizations, as we did in the case of Mahatir's East Asian Community in the early 1990s or Japan's proposal after the Asian financial crisis for a regional IMF, or do we want to engage with the region and shape such proposals in ways that can suit our own interests? I believe that East Asia is under-institutionalized and ripe for some creative thinking by the United States.

I believe that this kind of recalibration of American foreign policy still qualifies as falling in Krauthammer's fourth "democratic globalism" basket, being neither isolationist, liberal-idealist nor realist. Whether it will ever be seen as neoconservative I doubt, but there is no reason why it should not have this title.

George Gedda of the Associated Press, via Juan Cole, recalls the "eerily prescient" predictions of George H.W. Bush regarding the likely results of an invasion of Iraq, as some had argued for during Gulf War I.

"Incalculable human and political costs" would have been the result, the senior Bush has said, if his administration had pushed all the way to Baghdad and sought to overthrow Saddam Hussein after the U.S.-led coalition ousted the Iraqi army from Kuwait during the Persian Gulf war in 1991.

"We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect rule Iraq," Bush wrote. "The coalition would have instantly collapsed. . . Going in and thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations mandate would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish.

"Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land. It would have been a dramatically different - and perhaps barren - outcome."

The elder Bush's analysis was seconded by James Baker, who served as Bush's Secretary of State. Baker wrote in a September 1996 opinion piece:

"Iraqi soldiers and civilians could be expected to resist an enemy seizure of their own country with a ferocity not previously demonstrated on the battlefield in Kuwait.

"Even if Hussein were captured and his regime toppled, U.S. forces would still have been confronted with the specter of a military occupation of indefinite duration to pacify the country and sustain a new government in power.

"Removing him from power might well have plunged Iraq into civil war, sucking U.S. forces in to preserve order. Had we elected to march on Baghdad, our forces might still be there."

Juan Cole adds his always valuable insight:

One thing Gedda neglects in his account is the enormous pressure the first Bush administration received from Middle East allies not to go in. The Saudis were afraid the Shiites would take over, strengthening Iran and perhaps becoming influential in the oil-rich al-Hasa province of Saudi Arabia, which traditionally had a Shiite majority. The Turks were afraid of Kurdish nationalism being unleashed, such that it might spread back to Turkey. The Jordanians were also afraid of chaos, which might blow back on them. The Egyptians objected to a Western army invading a Muslim country.

Even more recently, in 2002 - 2003, King Abdullah II would have much preferred that the war had never been fought. He warned Bush that it might cast the entire region into flames. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak warned that it would produce a thousand Bin Ladens. Was he wrong?

Unfortunately, it appears that Mubarak was right, as was Bush Sr. and James Baker. Come to think of it, the Saudis were also correct in their prediction of Shiite ascendancy and the related increase of Iranian influence. The fears of the Turks also appear dangerously close to fruition, as the Kurds are pushed ever closer to declaring independence. Jordan's concern for chaos reverberating back home, and Abdullah's subsequent warning of widespread regional conflict also seem far from the ravings of a scaremongerer. All the voices of these various interests, some in historic internecine conflict and some historically aligned, had the foresight and vision to understand the wider implications and reach the correct conclusions in a rare display of unity of message. In fact the only people who seem to have gotten this wrong reside in the current Bush administration.

Can I confess something that might sound startling to anyone who has read even a portion of my writing: I'm a little ambivalent about my desire to see Kerry win come November. No, I haven't lost it completely, nor am I buying into the ludicrous notion that Bush can better execute the war on terror, nor does the fact that John Kerry might have only skirted the Cambodian border and not actually crossed over changed my mind on his worth as a candidate. I'm just wondering if there is really something worth winning come November, or if the mess created by George Bush's four years would be best left to him, forever enshrined as his legacy and his alone. I admit, these thoughts drift in during my weaker moments when spiteful urges hold sway over my more altruistic nature, but there is a method behind my flirtation with madness. The origins of my own personal dilemma can be found in the larger picture.

First of all, Iraq is unraveling at an alarming rate, and the prospects for this endeavor going forward are hurting if not mortally wounded. This is the area where my political instincts are most conflicted. I am not convinced that Kerry, or anyone else for that matter, can salvage the vision of a democratic, peaceful and stable Iraq. One side of my schism would like to see Bush in power should Iraq continue along its current trajectory. Let Bush turn on the spit while Iraq descends into a lawless state as casualties mount and conflicts erupt, rather than allow the right-wing punditry the opportunity to blame the inevitable collapse on Kerry and the "sensitive" leftist approach. This is how they will capitalize on their own wildly misguided foreign policy blunders. Blame the results on the administration that comes in after the fact. Just consider the situation on the ground.

The probability that Iraq is going to emerge, intact, as a democratic state seems remote. The more likely scenario is increased violence that will cause the postponement of elections, which in turn will fuel more unrest. Allawi will try to play the role of strongman and consolidate power, but as his recent handling of the Najaf siege indicates, resistance to his style of leadership is widespread, determined and growing. American troops will need to remain in Iraq for years to come, sustaining a steady drumbeat of casualties, in order to provide cover for either Allawi, some form of totalitarian Saddam-like regime or whatever other government takes the reins. In what is yet another Iraq-generated Catch-22 and paradox, the elections themselves portend the greatest risks to the whole operation.

Sistani and the moderate non-Sadr Shiite leadership are more amenable to riding out the occupation because for the majority Shiites, the elections hold the key to political ascendancy and dominance. By virtue of their percentage of the electorate, they are positioned to control the country through the democratic process for the foreseeable future, a privilege they have been denied for decades of Sunni-led Baathist rule. The prize is so alluring that Sistani has swallowed his disdain for the American leadership and abstained from openly challenging the U.S. presence, instead biding his time for election day.

The problem is, if Sistani gets what he wants, the Kurds won't, and neither will the Sunnis. In the transitional law, the precursor to the eventual constitution, that Sistani begrudgingly signed off on in an effort to keep the process moving along, the Kurds are granted veto power over the final constitution (the exact wording allows for veto of any measure by a two-thirds majority of three of Iraq's provinces, with the Kurds enjoying a comfortable majority in three such States). Immediately after the transitional law was passed, however, Sistani and other Shiite leaders criticized this provision and signaled that they would not support its inclusion in the process for drafting the final version to be conducted at a later date.

The Kurds, having prospered under the protection of the no-fly zone enforced by U.S. and British air power, are already a functioning para-state, complete with a robust economy, relatively well developed political institutions and a sizable militia (armed, trained and supported by Israel in an effort to counterbalance the Iranians' influence over the Shiites in the South). The Kurds will resist the powerful urge to secede and form their own nation only if they get assurances that this long suffering minority will not be victimized again by the government in Baghdad. Without this veto power that the Shiites seem unwilling to grant, they will, as they have professed on numerous occasions, secede which in turn could very well lead to a broader regional conflict drawing in Syria, Iran and Turkey on the one side and Kurdistan and possibly Israel on the other.

Then of course there is the damage done to our efforts to stave off the rise in popularity, appeal and support of the radical, Islamist, anti-American, terrorist mentality. The war in Iraq has set back this process immeasurably, with support for America at unprecedented lows globally, and in the Muslim world almost non-existent. We have successfully undermined and alienated the moderate voices in the Muslim world while providing Osama and his ilk with gift after gift, making the increased likelihood of terrorist attacks against American interests a very palpable reality. Further, the money drain in Iraq has left our homeland defenses underfunded, ignored and alarmingly vulnerable at a time when their fortification is more important than ever.

Are you sure you want John Kerry to be the President of record if and when these types of catastrophes ensue? Ultimately, the angel on my shoulder persuades me that Kerry's team will be more inclined and able to diffuse the tension if and when it arises. He will make homeland security the priority that it should be. Kerry's administration will not arrogantly shun nuance, diplomacy and multilateralism which will enable them to achieve more and engender more support. But to some degree they will suffer their predecessor's mistakes and the historical amnesia of the punditry. Bush's failings will become Kerry's headaches.

Then there's the economy. Despite the pollyannic prognosis of the White House's economic team, there are fundamental structural flaws to this economy, flaws that I'm not sure a Kerry administration would be able to address unless the Democrats seize the Senate and make sizable inroads in the House. The near term economic forecast is not promising, and will likely be punctuated by prolonged stagnation and frequent setbacks. I don't want the conservative punditry to pin the economic malaise on John Kerry, when it is the extremist supply-side cult of the Bush team that has so greatly exacerbated the situation. Consider the litany of problems.

Tax policy has shifted the burden to the states and localities and ultimately the increasingly squeezed middle class which has led to a surge in bankruptcies, personal debt and hardship while slowing down consumer spending, which makes up two-thirds of the GDP. The deficits are so out of control that interest rates have begun inching upward despite the economic stagnation. With Iraq hemorrhaging money, expensive programs like the prescription drug benefit in place, and a Republican dominated House and Senate unwilling to realign tax priorities, those deficits will remain entrenched and thus interest rates will continue to climb. This will burst the real estate bubble and plunge even more Americans into unmanageable debt as floating rate mortgages become unsustainable.

Oil prices are at unprecedented levels, but unfortunately the trend upward in prices is inevitable and probably irreversible in the near future. China, India and other developing economies are developing an appetite for oil that is rivaling our own, yet production, refinement and supply remain relatively static, with little hope of significant enhancements in any of these categories. The cost of oil will continue to drag on the economy, yet vigorous research and development of alternative fuels will be made difficult by a recalcitrant Congress and a strapped budget.

In the area of job creation, the lack of nationalized health care is preventing employers from hiring, and is making foreign outsourced hires that much more attractive. Corporate profits might be up, but employers are reluctant to add to their domestic payrolls when there are educated and qualified workers who can digitally commute for a fraction of the cost (especially when health insurance is factored in). There is no end in sight for the migration of jobs overseas.

With the deficit as large as it is, the Republicans in charge of Congress and with the tax base shrunk and shifted, there is little likelihood now for the successful passage of such a grandiose endeavor as national health insurance even if Kerry is elected. Furthermore, fiscal policy in general will be hamstrung for years, if not decades, to come as the federal government is forced to make efforts to pay down the debt. My schizoid self wants Bush to be associated with the disastrous results of his own economic policies. My better half wants Kerry to do all he can to reverse the trend and ease the burden on working Americans.

With those mammoth albatrosses gift wrapped and waiting for Kerry and Edwards I now turn my attention to an intriguing power struggle within the GOP, with this election likely tilting the balance in favor of one side over the other. In a recent article, reporters at the New York Times detailed the tension in the Republican Party between the conservative wing and the moderate, Rockefeller Republicans.

The internal struggle has been punctuated by pitched primary battles between moderates and conservatives, even for long time incumbents like moderate Senator Arlen Specter (PA) who narrowly eked out a victory in his primary contest with ultra-conservative Patrick Toomey. One of Toomey's chief backers was the conservative group the Club For Growth, which has led the fight to defeat candidates they define as RINOs or "Republicans In Name Only."

Stephen Moore, president of the Club for Growth, acknowledges that his organization's goal is to make moderate Republicans an endangered species. "The problem with the moderates in Congress is they basically water down the Republican message and what you get is something that infuriates the Republican base," Mr. Moore said.

Christie Whitman, the moderate former New Jersey governor and former head of the EPA under Bush (who departed on somewhat acrimonious terms over several public and embarrassing environmental policy divergences, especially when the President reneged on a campaign pledge to reduce CO2 emissions that was highly touted by Whitman in the press) is writing a book titled It's My Party Too, a reference to the increasing marginalization of moderate voices in the GOP. Whitman assesses the impact of the election on the Party dynamic thusly:

Frankly, if the president wins walking away with this, maybe the country is in a different place than where the moderate Republicans are...If he loses, it is an absolute validation of the fact that you cannot be a national party if you are excluding people.

As Whitman predicts if Bush wins, the conservative leadership, validated and emboldened by their victory, will steer the Party even farther to the right. Don't be fooled by the centrist facade on display in the prime time slots during the convention, Tom Delay and the conservative wing want total loyalty and uniformity of ideology. But in that move to the right, the GOP exposes large swaths of political real estate to the Democrats.

Leaders of the Main Street group [a moderate version of the Club For Growth] say that conservatives who enjoy one-party Republican rule in the nation's capital should not forget they would not be in that position were it not for moderates in the narrowly divided House and even narrower Senate. And when Republicans serving middle-of-the-road constituencies step down, their seats can be ripe for Democratic picking.

The future viability of the Republican Party rests with the moderate voices, the ones with mass appeal in swing states and among the middle of the road Americans. So any alienation of moderates and independents could severely damage the GOP's ability to produce candidates and platforms with long term national appeal. The hubris of the victorious conservatives could lead to their political over-reaching. So in a bizarre sense, if Bush wins, the GOP may lose.

I realize that there are too many other issues of importance such as the gutting of the regulatory state, the appointment of Supreme Court and other federal judges, and the overall direction of the nation to actually claim that the defeat of Kerry and Edwards would be in any sense a positive thing. I also have no doubt that the nation, and the world, will be a safer more unified place under their leadership. It is just that a part of me wants to see Bush burn in the fires he set, and I am sickened by my anticipation of the blame for the enormous problems created by Bush being placed at the footsteps of Kerry and Edwards. Although I eagerly await November, I am bothered by a nagging feeling that even victory will be bittersweet.

"One of the wonders of recent American politics has been the ability of Mr. Bush and his supporters to wrap their partisanship in the flag. Through innuendo and direct attacks by surrogates, men who assiduously avoided service in Vietnam, like Dick Cheney (five deferments), John Ashcroft (seven deferments) and George Bush (a comfy spot in the National Guard, and a mysterious gap in his records), have questioned the patriotism of men who risked their lives and suffered for their country: John McCain, Max Cleland and now John Kerry."

-Paul Krugman from today's column

Now to balance out Krugman's liberal take with a quote from partisans on the right. This is from Andrew Ferguson, right-wing columnist and a senior editor of the bastion of conservatism that is the Weekly Standard:

"Yet in 2004, Republicans find themselves supporting a candidate, George W. Bush, with a slender and ambiguous military record against a man whose combat heroism has never (until now) been disputed. Further--and here we'll let slip a thinly disguised secret--Republicans are supporting a candidate that relatively few of them find personally or politically appealing. This is not the choice Republicans are supposed to be faced with. The 1990s were far better. In those days the Democrats did the proper thing, nominating a draft-dodger to run against George H.W. Bush, who was the youngest combat pilot in the Pacific theater in World War II, and then later, in 1996, against Bob Dole, who left a portion of his body on the beach at Anzio.

Republicans have no such luck this time, and so they scramble to reassure themselves that they nevertheless are doing the right thing, voting against a war hero. The simplest way to do this is to convince themselves that the war hero isn't really a war hero. If sufficient doubt about Kerry's record can be raised, we can vote for Bush without remorse. But the calculations are transparently desperate. Reading some of the anti-Kerry attacks over the last several weeks, you might conclude that this is the new conservative position: A veteran who volunteered for combat duty, spent four months under fire in Vietnam, and then exaggerated a bit so he could go home early is the inferior, morally and otherwise, of a man who had his father pull strings so he wouldn't have to go to Vietnam in the first place." [emphasis added]

I generally try to shy away from simply posting a link to an article without providing my input because, well, I feel lazy about it and that I am not offering anything value-added to the experience. With that caveat in mind, I intend to do just that by referring to this extremely worthwhile article appearing on BattleBunny.com which describes the duplicitous assault being waged by conservatives on the principles of academic freedom.

By way of very limited background, the author, Bryan Pfaffenberger, makes the case that the well-oiled right-wing opinion machine has introduced, disseminated and solidified the myth that the academia is a bastion of liberal demagoguery and indoctrination. This despite the fact that in 2000 more "college and university professors gave more money to Bush in 2000 than they did to Gore," and the fact that the current make-up of faculties nationwide represent a diversity of perspectives and viewpoints. With this fallacy enshrined as conventional wisdom, the right-wing has begun to propose solutions to the phantom problem. Pfaffenberger's examination of the proposed policy initiatives provides a frightening glimpse at the potential future of our vaunted academic institutions. The narrative is well worth the read.

M.J. Rosenberg, writing for the Israeli Policy Forum, in a brief yet informative piece, discusses the impact on the long term goals of Israel and the United States, especially in relation to its efforts to curtail the spread of radical anti-American jihadism, in the context of the internal struggle that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Gaza withdrawal plan is facing within his own Likud Party.

The Likud Party convention has dealt a serious blow to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and to his proposed withdrawal from Gaza. The blow will also be felt by the United States which needs movement on the Israeli-Palestinian front to assist us in the struggle against terrorism. Keeping Israeli forces in Gaza would be high on Al Qaeda's wish list and, unless the resourceful prime minister finds a way around the Likud activists who thwarted him, anti-American and anti-Israel forces worldwide have been presented with a gift that will keep on giving.

Rosenberg provides insight into the somewhat unique situation by which Sharon's bold policy initiative is being derailed by a small, yet vocal, minority from within Likud, while the majority of Israelis, and possibly even the majority of Likud, supports the Gaza pullout.

It is as if a minority of Republican Party activists in Richard Nixon's day voted to oppose the President's opening to China and its members in Congress had to follow their lead and block its implementation. Inconceivable here, and it should be there. It isn't.

Sharon appears intent to fight on, though, seeking the support of his historical political opposition, the Labor Party, and possibly calling for a more inclusive Likud Party re-vote on the Gaza issue. It is crucial for the United States to back Sharon in this showdown with whatever assistance can be provided. At this point in time, with the debacle in Iraq dragging the image of the United States to unprecedented depths in a region of the world, and among a religious group, in which we are most in need of rehabilitating the perceptions of our motives and interests, a breakthrough is imperative. We have strenthened the hand of the fundamentalists and the radicals to such a degree that a tipping point is on the horizon. Now we need to offer something to the moderates to use to change the momentum in their pitched effort to seize the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. The Israeli evacuation of Gaza would be just that. Without it, al-Qaeda's prominence will continue to rise, and this trend imperils us all.

Unfortunately, there are signs that the United States is looking to be less involved, not more. According to a JTA story this week by Ron Kampeas, Congressman Porter Goss (R-FL), President Bush's nominee for CIA director, is not likely be as engaged in the Middle East as outgoing director, George Tenet.

This will not likely be a subject probed in any depth during Goss's confirmation hearings, but it may be more important than any other single issue brought to the floor. To appreciate how vital CIA involvement is to the overall prospects of some type of resolution, or even to the success of the small steps along that arduous road, Rosenberg delves into the scarcely reported history of the CIA's role in prior peace efforts.

The story actually begins in 1996, a time when implementation of the Oslo agreement was advancing rapidly. Prime Minister Shimon Peres was riding a wave of popularity following the murder of his partner Yitzhak Rabin, the military hero turned prime minister who propounded the idea that getting out of the territories was necessary for Israel's security. Israel was turning over territory to the Palestinian Authority and the Authority was struggling to thwart terrorism.

Peace seemed inevitable. And, not surprisingly, it was at this point that Hamas launched a wave of bombings that killed dozens of innocent Israelis, stopped Oslo in its tracks, enabled Binyamin Netanyahu to defeat Shimon Peres, and caused Palestinians and Israelis to question whether the dream of peace had died with its architect, Rabin. By 1997, the peace process seemed to be a dead letter.

That is when the United States brought the CIA into the process. Its mission was to bring Israelis and Palestinians together in the struggle against terrorism. Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed that the Palestinians were not fulfilling their obligations to fight terror while the Palestinians claimed they were. The CIA was called in as arbiter and to foster security cooperation between the two sides, monitor implementation, and help develop a security plan. It immediately set up a trilateral framework, under which Israeli and Palestinian security officials began regular meetings, in the presence of the CIA, to work together to thwart the suicide bombers.

Initially, the Americans played the largest role in these meetings but, within a relatively short time, Israelis and Palestinians had established enough mutual trust that the American role was transformed from active mediator to mere observer.

The result was a Palestinian action plan to fight terror with implementation monitored by the United States. It worked. From the scores of terror victims in 1996 prior to direct CIA involvement, the number of victims inside Israel dropped dramatically following the CIA intervention. By the time of the Camp David summit in 2000 - after which security cooperation collapsed - the war on Palestinian terrorism essentially had been won. Everything changed after the peace process collapsed in 2000 although every plan to resuscitate it since - most recently the Road Map - has envisioned the CIA returning to its previous role.

While Porter Goss is sworn in, under the cover of political expediency as Democrats appear unwilling to mount a challenge that could be spun against them in an election year, will the role that Goss intends the CIA to play in the peace process be ignored? It would be at our own peril that such an oversight would ensue. The Bush administration has been defiantly disengaged from the peace process, eschewing all things Clintonian, and the result has been an escalation of tensions, rhetoric and violence. The implications that this conflict has on the greater efforts to stem the tide of radical Islamist terrorism can not be overstated. It is from this festering strife that much of Osama's appeal derives. It is time for Bush, or Kerry if he succeeds him, to take an active role in bringing both sides together, and there is no doubt that the future director of the CIA must share this resolve. Does Porter Goss appreciate this?

[Update: This article, via Atrios, further calls into question the credentials of Porter Goss, noting that he: "...sponsored legislation that would have cut intelligence personnel by 20 percent in the late 1990s."

It is beginning to look like the selection of Goss was made for political reasons (a familiar refrain), in an effort to shore up flagging support for Bush in Florida, Goss's home state. There is a certain counter-intuitiveness to appointing a person to salvage the wayward CIA when that person had the greatest responsibility in the House of Representatives for CIA oversight during the period in which the enormous intelligence failures of the Agency have led some to demand its dismantling. His position on Israel is as disturbing as his record in Congress. The article discusses the proposed cuts further:

"Goss, who has been chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence for the past eight years, was one of six original co-sponsors of legislation in 1995 that called for cuts of at least 4 percent per year between 1996 and 2000 in the total number of people employed throughout the intelligence community.

The Bush reelection campaign has been blasting Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry as deeply irresponsible for proposing intelligence cuts at the same time. A Bush campaign ad released on Aug. 13 carried a headline: 'John Kerry . . . proposed slashing Intelligence Budget 6 Billion Dollars.'

But the cuts Goss supported are larger than those proposed by Kerry and specifically targeted the 'human intelligence' that has recently been found lacking. The recent report by the commission probing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks called for more spending on human intelligence."]

In the latest installment of "Arming The Choir," I thought I would try to provide a quick one-stop shop for the latest links that contain the expert debunkery of the deceitful and erroneous claims as presented by the latest version of the partisan smear campaign, the ironically named, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.

When you stop laughing at the misnomer, take a look at what real journalism looks like. These sources actually go as far as to reveal lies and deceptions in the shadowy realm of the pseudo-scandal, fabricated for obvious political motives. I'd kind of forgotten what debunking lies looked like, it's been so long you see:

The latest from the New York Times (front page I might add, which used to be the sole purview of Judith Miller's Ahmed Chalabi fantasma-musings). This piece has an in depth review (possibly too long) of the right wing funding machinery and how they breathed life into this product, including some tantalizing ties to Karl Rove and President Bush. There is also a nice play by play of some of the factual inaccuracies and contradiction that the Vets are promulgating.

Because pictures are worth 1,000 words, the Times throws in these pretty ones here, which neatly collates the funding ties to Bush and Rove, and sets out some basics on the contradictory statements of the Vets themselves.

The Washington Post from yesterday, also opting for the front page treatment, delves deeply into the claims of one vet in particular, Larry Thurlow. It seems that Mr. Thurlow has some explaining to do since his citation for his Bronze Star, earned in the same incident as John Kerry's, contradicts his claim that there was no enemy fire being taken when Kerry fished Green Beret Dennis Rassman out of the water.

Also from the post, an actual PDF copy of Thurlow's Bronze Star citation which contradicts his current testimony. Oh Larry.

For an interesting back and forth between conservative William Saletan and liberal Jacob Weisberg, check out Slate.com's take. It is worth noting that, much to his credit, even Saletan has harsh words for the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, openly conceding to the lack of veracity behind their story.

The non-partisan watchdog group FactCheck.org has the most thorough point by point analysis of the claims by the Swifties. Not an impressive record guys.

Last, but not least, David Brock and Media Matters has a constantly updated list of links and stories. Surely he will be monitoring the situation closely.

More to come as the story evolves....

Does David Kay have a book coming out soon? Is this retired CIA agent, hand picked by the Bush administration to lead the search for WMDs in post-invasion Iraq, really a closet liberal and Clintonite? Is he shamelessly trying to profiteer off of his experiences? How else can you explain the conclusions that yet another well respected lifelong Republican insider reached in testimony before the Senate this past Wednesday?

Here is how the New York Times sums up Kay's appearance:

In uncharacteristically caustic remarks about his former colleagues, the weapons inspector, David Kay, said the National Security Council had failed to protect President Bush from faulty prewar intelligence and had left Secretary of State Colin L. Powell "hanging out in the wind" when he tried to gather intelligence before the war about Iraq's weapons programs.

Although he condemned the entire intelligence apparatus, he reserved his most pointed criticisms for Condoleeza Rice and her National Security Council, illustrated by this somewhat colorful phrase:

"The dog that did not bark in the case of Iraq's W.M.D. weapons program, quite frankly, in my view, is the National Security Council."

His criticism of the council, which is responsible for coordinating the work of national security agencies in the government, mirrored that made earlier this year by Richard A. Clarke, Ms. Rice's former top counterterrorism deputy, who accused her of paying little attention to dire intelligence threats throughout the spring and summer of 2001 that Al Qaeda was about to strike against the United States.

Some of the specifics of his assessment pertain to a certain line of critique that was first noted by other lifelong Republican Bush administration insiders Paul O'Neill and John DiIulio. Namely, that something was terribly amiss with the decision making process in the White House. O'Neill and DiIulio were famously frustrated by the president's lack of focus and curiosity, his lack of interest in researching, engaging and parsing major policy initiatives. The discussion and debate in Cabinet meetings was remarkably shallow, and, as described by O'Neill and others, the conclusions, often based on political rather than policy rationale, seemed to precede the discussion. It was this leadership style that alienated O'Neill, Whitman, Clarke, DiIulio and others.

There is perhaps no more egregious an example of this slipshod approach to the policy vetting process than the decision to invade Iraq and the development of the relevant plans needed to carry off such a bold strategy. Instead of encouraging dissent and weighing the contrary evidence and arguments, the Bush administration espoused a recklessly one sided approach, turning a deaf ear to any narrative that did not comport with the most sanguine predictions emanating from the Vice President's operation and the infamous Office of Special Plans headed by Douglas Feith in the Pentagon. From intelligence analysts to policy makers, one vision and one message was expected, and only one version of events was embraced and rewarded, while all other voices were drowned out.

The most obvious manifestation of the dearth of process is borne out by the post-war planning debacle. Instead of relying on the objective, non-partisan analysis prepared by the experts, exiles and career professionals working for the State Department's Future of Iraq Group, the Army and the CIA, that voluminous body of work was completely ignored in favor of far fetched theories promulgated by Ahmed Chalabi and his team of defectors known as the Iraqi National Congress. Donald Rumsfeld, who wrested control of post-invasion operations from State and the CIA, famously sacked all of the diplomats associated with the State Department group, and even went as far as preventing the initial head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Jay Garner, from reading the reports prepared by State. The results: Rumsfeld ignored the warnings of looting, insurgency, the recommendation against disbanding the Iraqi army, the recommendations for more troops (400,000 to be exact), and other prescient guidance, much to the detriment of the overall effort in Iraq.

The same flaws in the process also infected the intelligence gathering and assessment in the run-up to the invasion. Kay offers these observations on a small part of the intelligence breakdown (leaving aside for now the damage done by the intelligence operations of the Office of Special Plans):

"Every president who has been successful, at least that I know of, in the history of this republic, has developed both informal and formal means of getting checks on whether people who tell him things are in fact telling him the whole truth," Dr. Kay told the Senate intelligence committee at a hearing called to discuss the findings of the Sept. 11 commission.

"I think this is particularly crucial and difficult to do in the intelligence area," he continued. "The recent history has been a reliance on the N.S.C. system to do it. I quite frankly think that has not served this president very well."

The other pattern that Kay lends credence to, is the utter lack of accountability within the Bush team. Despite the almost comical, if not so tragic, errors that Donald Rumsfeld has overseen, from authorizing torture to bungling post-war planning, the administration, through Cheney, defended him as the "best Secretary of Defense this country has had." Ignoring calls from prominent conservatives such as George Will, Max Boot, Senator James Inhofe and others to resign, Rumsfeld remains firmly entrenched atop the Department of Defense.

As George Will described the situation:

When there is no penalty for failure, failures proliferate. Leave aside the question of who or what failed before Sept. 11, 2001. But who lost his or her job because the president's 2003 State of the Union address gave currency to a fraud -- the story of Iraq's attempting to buy uranium in Niger? Or because the primary and only sufficient reason for waging preemptive war -- weapons of mass destruction -- was largely spurious? Or because postwar planning, from failure to anticipate the initial looting to today's insufficient force levels, has been botched? Failures are multiplying because of choices for which no one seems accountable.

Kay's lament about the lack of accountability went as follows:

"Iraq was an overwhelming systemic failure of the Central Intelligence Agency," Dr. Kay said. "Until this is taken on board and people and organizations are held responsible for this failure, I have a real difficulty in seeking how a national intelligence director can correct these failures."

Uh, Mr. Kay, if you're waiting for the Condoleeza Rice, the National Security Council or any other people or organizations to be held responsible in this administration, don't hold your breath, unless you're waiting for November 3rd to exhale.

Yesterday's George Will column was too good not to print in full, and though it pains my inflated ego to refrain from interspersing the text with my witty snark but, alas, I must simply let Will do the talking in this instance. Will once again proves why he has more integrity and insight than his conservative Op-Ed peers Safire and Brooks. Who knows, maybe deep down he hates America too. So, without further ado:


On Oct. 23, just 10 days before the election, the war in Iraq will have lasted as long as the 584-day U.S. involvement in World War I, from the April 6, 1917, declaration of war to the Nov. 11, 1918, armistice. And probably in late September or early October the number of U.S. military deaths in Iraq will pass 1,000.

The war already has lasted longer than the Spanish-American War (230 days), and on Dec. 9, 42 days before the next president is inaugurated, the war will be longer than was the war with Mexico (630 days). It will not last as long as the war against Philippine insurgents (4,000 U.S. and 200,000 Philippine dead) that followed U.S. annexation and festered intermittently for 14 years. The annexation was defended in 1901 by the president of Princeton University:

"The East is to be opened and transformed, whether we will it or not; the standards of the West are to be imposed upon it; nations and peoples who have stood still the centuries through are to be quickened and to be made part of the universal world of commerce and of ideas."

Such thinking was already a U.S. tradition. In 1846, on the eve of the war with Mexico, a New York poet, whose optimism did not exceed the Polk administration's, said that Mexicans would be chanting, "The Saxons are coming; our freedom is nigh." But "Death to the Gringos" is what Mexican schoolchildren were chanting in April 1914, in response to President Woodrow Wilson's dispatch of U.S. troops to Mexico, pursuant to his belief that "every nation of the world needs to be drawn into the tutelage of America." Yet by 1918, regarding post-revolution Russia, he declared:

"My policy regarding Russia is very similar to my Mexican policy. I believe in letting them work out their own salvation, even though they wallow in anarchy for a while."

These excavations from America's rhetorical record are from John Judis's new book, "The Folly of Empire," a sobering read during Iraq's current wallow. Iraq's condition is not quite anarchy, but it does point to a double peril of producing democracy.

Democracy, loosely -- very loosely -- defined as government responsive to gusts of public passions, might fail. Or it might succeed ruinously. A government that is all sail and no anchor might produce popular choices that lead through anarchy to civil war, or national fragmentation, or fragmentation forestalled by Bonapartism, Francoism or some other variant of authoritarianism.

The Bush campaign is pelting John Kerry with dead cats because of his promise to wage a more "sensitive" war on terrorism -- Democrats tend to think in the vocabulary of the therapeutic society and its "caring professions." But the Bush administration is simultaneously struggling to balance the competing imperatives of economizing American lives and waging a war sensitive to the religious sensibilities at stake in the struggle for control of Najaf.

In all this, the concept of sovereignty is being pounded shapeless. Preemptive war was waged, in part, to notify enemies of the United States that U.S. sovereignty could not be paralyzed by world opinion or the noncooperation of international institutions. And one measure of progress in Iraq was the June 28 transfer of sovereignty.

But in a New York Times story from Najaf, readers learn, regarding the problem of Moqtada Sadr and his militia, that a Marine spokesman says, "We'll continue operations as the prime minister [Ayad Allawi] sees fit." And readers learn that U.S. commanders "curbed a broader national amnesty proposal announced by Dr. Allawi earlier this week, limiting its terms to exclude any rebels who have taken part in actions killing or wounding American troops."

So does sovereignty reside with the prime minister whose will evidently commands U.S. commanders? Or with those commanders who curb the prime minister's will?

A house so divided cannot stand. If it is the prime minister's will, or that of Iraq's embryonic democratic institutions, to conduct with insurgent factions negotiations that strip the Iraqi state of an essential attribute of statehood -- a monopoly on the legitimate exercise of violence -- the U.S. presence will become untenable.

Untenable even before what may be coming before November: an Iraqi version of the North Vietnamese Tet offensive of 1968. To say that the coming offensive will be by "Baathists" is, according to one administration official, akin to saying "Nazis" when you mean "the SS" -- the most fearsome of the Nazis. Such an offensive could make Sadr's insurgency seem a minor irritant. And it could unmake a presidency, as Tet did.

As a supporter of Democratic candidates in most elections, on most issues and in the majority of legislative debates, I openly admit that I am envious of the discipline and the display of unity as maintained by the Republican party apparatus. Not only do the politicians and policy makers in the Executive branch, in Congress and at the local level tend to march in lockstep on major legislative initiatives, but the right wing punditry has also been extremely effective at echoing, in a coordinated fashion, the talking points which are passed down through the hierarchical party structure.

They call Tom Delay "The Hammer" for a reason. If a legislator strays from the fold, and toys with the notion of casting a vote of conscience against the Party's directives, Delay, and others, are there to "hammer" the errant lawmaker back into shape. Just ask Nick Smith, a Republican congressman from Michigan and longtime deficit hawk who was opposed to the staggeringly expensive Medicare prescription-drug law (and that opposition came before the true costs of the law were revealed - thanks to the suppression of Richard Foster's evidence). Since Smith was retiring at the end of his term, and thus was not dependent on funding from the central Party, Hastert, Delay and others threatened to withhold funds from the campaign of Smith's son who was planning a run for Congress himself. If, however, Smith would change his vote to yes, his son would be rewarded. Feeling the pressure, and fearing for his son's political future, Smith did in fact vote yes.

The Smith story does indicate the one weakness that the disciplinarians like Delay have: how to deal with lawmakers that are retiring and are no longer beholden to the necessities of financing a campaign and the dependence on the coffers of the RNC that results. How do you muzzle an outgoing politician who wants to set the record straight or speak his mind and conscience? Presumably, they won't all have sons or daughters preparing for a run themselves.

This brings us to the recent revelations contained in a letter from retiring Rep. Doug Bereuter (R-Neb) to his constituents, as reported by the AP via the New York Times and the Lincoln Journal Star. But first some background:

Bereuter is a senior member of the House International Relations Committee and vice chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. He is stepping down after 13 terms to become the president of the Asia Foundation, effective Sept. 1.

That's quite an impressive resume. He was elected 13 times, and he holds two impressive committee memberships. Furthermore, his record in Congress is not exactly a moderate or liberal one (in the Republican context of course), thus it should come as no surprise that he voted in favor of the 2002 resolution authorizing Bush to use force in Iraq. With that in mind consider his assessment of Iraq as expressed in the letter to his constituents. Bereuter states:

Iraq was unjustified and that the situation there has deteriorated into "a dangerous, costly mess."

That's especially true in view of the fact that the attack was initiated "without a broad and engaged international coalition," the 1st District congressman said.

"I've reached the conclusion, retrospectively, now that the inadequate intelligence and faulty conclusions are being revealed, that all things being considered, it was a mistake to launch that military action."

"Knowing now what I know about the reliance on the tenuous or insufficiently corroborated intelligence used to conclude that Saddam maintained a substantial WMD (weapons of mass destruction) arsenal, I believe that launching the pre-emptive military action was not justified."

As to the causes for the faulty intelligence, Bereueter doesn't pull any punches: "Left unresolved for now is whether intelligence was intentionally misconstrued to justify military action."

Bereuter goes on, stating:

In addition to "a massive failure or misinterpretation of intelligence," the Bush administration made several other errors in going to war.

"From the beginning of the conflict, it was doubtful that we for long would be seen as liberators, but instead increasingly as an occupying force," he said. "Now we are immersed in a dangerous, costly mess, and there is no easy and quick way to end our responsibilities in Iraq without creating bigger future problems in the region and, in general, in the Muslim world."

"American and coalition forces were inadequate in number to take effective control of Iraq when the initial military action was completed," he said. Other mistakes included disbanding the Iraqi army and placing responsibility for reconstruction with the Department of Defense instead of the Department of State, he said.

"The cost in casualties is already large and growing," he said, "and the immediate and long-term financial costs are incredible.

Congress and the administration "must learn from the errors and failures" related to the attack and its aftermath, he said."The toll in American military casualties and those of civilians, physical damages caused, financial resources spent, and the damage to the support and image of America abroad all demand such an assessment and accounting."

Bereuter concluded that, as a result of the war, "our country's reputation around the world has never been lower and our alliances are weakened."

Alright Congressman Bereuter, but why don't you tell us what you really think? In a sense, these statements provide a spark of hope for the restoration of my faith in the individuals if not the system. I get the impression that this is what it looks like when GOP politicians, untethered from the financial influence of the RNC, speak their mind. This is how Bereuter described his purpose: "I felt I should send you a forthright update of my views and conclusions on that subject before I leave office."

The critique of the President's decision to invade Iraq is that much more damaging considering the speaker, and it is one that Karl Rove and his coterie, who put a premium on loyalty, are none too pleased about. Maybe they should start encouraging Congressional sons and daughters to begin careers in politics. It would give new meaning to "Young Republicans."

Having laid the groundwork for the lack of historical justification for the prevailing narrative that Republicans are better suited to handle issues of national security and foreign policy in Part I of this post, I want to shift focus to the most current example of Republican led foreign policy, that espoused by the Bush administration.

A closer look at Bush's record reveals that simply being a Republican does not, surprisingly enough, bestow sound judgment in the arenas of foreign policy and national security. As Matthew Yglesias laments, sometimes the only substitute for intelligence, knowledge and understanding is actually intelligence, knowledge and understanding. The lack of depth in comprehension of the complex realities of foreign policy, and the seemingly incurious approach to being brought up to speed, has led the current Republican president through a series of national security stumbles, miscues and disasters. And there is no end in sight.

Upon entering office, the Bush team did not display the ability to grasp the threat of stateless, international terrorism, although according to Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke and others, they did seem monomaniacally obsessed with Iraq. In defense of the Bush administration, few understood the magnitude of the al-Qaeda threat before 9/11. There were, however, repeated calls for more action from some, including intelligence figures like Richard Clarke, FBI agent John O'Neill, and oddly enough L. Paul Bremer who had this to say in February of 2001:

The new administration seems to be paying no attention to the problem of terrorism. What they will do is stagger along until there's a major incident and then suddenly say, 'Oh, my God, shouldn't we be organized to deal with this?' That's too bad. They've been given a window of opportunity with very little terrorism now, and they're not taking advantage of it.

Instead of heeding these warnings, or the threats in the now infamous August 6th Presidential Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden determined to attack inside the U.S.," which contained intelligence regarding, among other things, "patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings," the Bush team remained aloof with an Attorney General that the 9/11 Commission described as "largely uninterested in counterterrorism issues before Sept. 11 despite intelligence warnings that summer that Al Qaeda was planning a large, perhaps catastrophic, terrorist attack."

Then came the tragedy of 9/11 and the shock and suffering resulting from the brutal attack. So what do the Bush administration do after 9/11? Aside from hounding Clarke and others for evidence that Saddam was behind the attack, to no avail, and despite Rumsfeld's famous complaint that "there were no good targets" in the desolate country, they somewhat reluctantly launched an invasion of the Taliban led al-Qaeda haven in Afghanistan (possibly at the behest of British Prime Minister Tony Blair who promised his support for an invasion of Iraq in return for Bush's action in Afghanistan).

The was a commendable move, although in reality it was a no-brainer as there were few alternatives for any administration to take. Undoubtedly successful in toppling the Taliban regime (this part of the process seems to come easily for the Bush team), the overall planning and lack of follow through has led to some regrettable outcomes. With an eye on the impending and long cherished goal of invading Iraq, and under the guidance of Rumsfeld's theories of lighter, smaller troop contingents, Afghanistan saw the dedication of too few U.S. ground forces to be fully successful from a military point of view. Although planners were able to use proxy fighters from the Northern Alliance to unseat the Taliban, these bought-off contingents proved unreliable in the siege of Tora Bora, and through our lack of troop strength, we allowed Bin Laden, Mullah Omar and al Zawahiri to escape the trap.

With the Taliban disbanded, and al-Qaeda on the run at least, the Bush administration proceeded to doom the overall mission in Afghanistan to failure by almost immediately diverting troops, intelligence, money, humanitarian resources, and overall focus to Iraq. As a result, the installed Karzai government now is in control of Kabul alone, with the various warlords retaining their fiefdoms throughout the remainder of the country. The Taliban has reconstituted and is re-emerging as a threat. Democracy and rebuilding in Afghanistan are long forgotten endeavors. According to Juan Cole, there is also this little nastiness to contend with:

Then [Bush] let the poppy growing industry come back with a vengeance. Afghanistan's GNP is $5 billion a year. At least $2 billion of that is poppies, and Afghanistan has become the top source for heroin in Europe. With al-Qaeda and the Taliban still powerful in the country or its borderlands, Afghanistan is on the way to becoming a terrorist's dream -- a place worse than Colombia from which narco-terrorism can be funded and launched. This looming disaster will certainly blow back on the American homeland. Yet Bush is doing nothing to avert it.

All I can say is, "Thank God Al Gore wasn't in office on 9/11." How could a Democratic administration possibly have gotten Afghanistan so right? These are the experts though, so perhaps the comparison is unfair.

But while Afghanistan still looked like a success, and the public opinion in the World was still largely behind the United States, the Bush team, as noted above, began the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. With our image in the Muslim world hanging in the balance, instead of directing efforts at the root causes of terrorism or making progress in any major policy area of concern that could improve our standing in this region and stave off the rise of jihad minded philosophy (such as a re-invigorated involvement in the Palestinian/Israeli peace process or addressing the overall economic and political inequality in the Muslim world), the Bush administration decided to invade Iraq, a second Muslim country after Afghanistan, which only served to reinforce the propaganda of Bin Laden that the U.S. and Israel were leading a crusade against Muslims worldwide.

It was during this time that the Bush administration also committed another strategic blunder. Instead of showing concern and regard for the opinions expressed by the U.N. and our other allies, who urged that more time be given to inspectors and that other diplomatic solutions be exhausted, the Bush team deliberately berated and belittled the U.N. calling it toothless and warning of its descent into the dustbin of history (these attacks on the U.N. are consistent with the neo-conservative views on multilateralism). There was also a concerted effort to undermine France and Germany by driving a wedge between these countries, termed "Old Europe," and those in the recently democratized Eastern Europe, who were largely more amiable to our invasion plans. The result was a coalition with fewer nations providing fighting forces than in Gulf War I, and with most nations providing only a handful of non-combat troops in general.

Make no mistake, our military was fully capable of taking out Saddam's forces alone, but the U.N. and the robust involvement of our allies were crucial to winning the peace. Given that Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld ignored, mistakenly, the advice of General Shinseki regarding the required troop strength, opting instead for roughly 100,000 troops, a larger troop contingent from our allies would have aided greatly in the law enforcement/stability efforts after the fall of the Hussein regime. Furthermore, with international bodies like the U.N. involved, there is infinitely more in the realm of humanitarian efforts and NGO participation which help to assuage hostile populations and smooth over the transitional periods. Herein lies the value of our allies and international bodies to our military endeavors, in this and providing the perception of legitmacy which should not be underestimated since we are in a war of perceptions.

Further reinforcing the lack of involvement from a multilateral presence, the Bush administration, in a display of petty showmanship, refused to let countries not in the coalition to bid on reconstruction contracts. Clearly it would have been better policy to increase the stake that the world had in a successful Iraq mission, not further alienate countries that could prove useful down the road.

It should come as no surprise that the Bush team has recently adopted the Democratic strategy, as spelled out by none other than John Kerry, in terms of appealing for the involvement of our allies in NATO and seeking to get the U.N. involved in the elections and interim government process. It may be too little too late, but it is worth noting that in this instance, even the Republicans agree that the Democrats had a better plan.

Of course, the flippant willingness to disregard our allies speaks to the general lack of understanding and poor post-war planning as carried out under the auspices of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Feith, and others. Instead of relying on the sober, thorough and analytical work done by the experts and professionals working for the State Department's Future of Iraq Group, that entire body of work was completely ignored in favor of a series of last minute, slipshod reports put forth from the Defense Department and the Vice President's office, rife with the fantastical fictions promulgated by Ahmed Chalabi and his team of defectors known as the Iraqi National Congress.

That Chalabi's advice proved worthless is a gross understatement. It was far more destructive than that. In addition to informing the decisions regarding troop strength (as noted above), Chalabi convinced Wolfowitz and others that there would be no insurgency, that troops would be greeted with flowers, that U.S. forces would be able to be reduced to 30,000 or fewer by August 2003 (a claim Wolfowitz repeated to Congress before the invasion), that there would be no ethnic strife because Iraq had no historical indications of such a likelihood (a claim also repeated by Wolfowitz to Congress), that Chalabi would be able to command the mandate necessary to claim the mantle of leadership, that Chalabi would be able, as leader, to normalize relations with Israel, and many other falsehoods that led our policy makers down the wrong paths.

The absence of planning and understanding of the scope of the endeavor has led to many of the problems we now face. The lack of a comprehensive plan for reconstruction gave rise to looting (with the PR nightmare of U.S. troops selectively guarding the oil ministry), widespread crime, robust insurgency, continued infiltration of foreign elements, perpetual violence and instability, and the list goes on.

Remember, Bush's team are the geniuses, the "Vulcans," the foreign policy gurus. The experts who have a grasp on the world that eludes the Democratic mind. These are the "grown-ups" who put our collective mind at ease.

Adding to the list of bungles is our failure to adequately substantiate our justifications for the invasion in the first place. There are no vast stockpiles of WMDs, and there is certainly no nuclear program. As the Council on Foreign Relations noted, the sanctions and inspections regimes left Saddam with no non-conventional weapons capacity, and a decrepit conventional arsenal to boot. There are no ties to al-Qaeda, and it is becoming increasingly clear that there are only slim chances for democracy, but more likely some form of Saddam-like strongman or a civil and/or regional war will ensue when our troops eventually leave the theater.

Further damning us, is the public and despicable manner with which we have mistreated large numbers of Iraqi civilians, as captured on Arab and mostly non-U.S. media. This includes first and foremost the Abu Ghraib torture and abuse scandal, an event that undermined our moral authority for years to come, especially considering that it was carried out under the legal cover provided by the Justice Department's now infamous memos justifying the use of torture. Add to this the unnecessary siege of Fallujah and the misguided siege of Najaf, and all the collateral civilian casualties stemming from these actions and the war in general, with the pictures of the dead and disfigured women and children being broadcast to the world on a daily basis.

Given the conduct of the war and its lead-up, it is no wonder that our involvement in Iraq has led to the unprecedented rise in popularity and support for al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, while our own standing in the world has plummeted precipitously. Multiple intelligence agencies have noted that recruitment for al-Qaeda has been made much easier by this gift to Osama, and the potential for Iraq to devolve into a lawless state infested with terrorists is more than a possibility. The war against the spread of radical anti-American jihadist terrorism has been dealt a severe blow.

But this blunder was not cheap. In addition to the tens of thousands of Iraqi lives, and over 1,000 coalition soldiers, the financial commitments of Iraq have greatly undermined key components in the effort to make the nation safer from attack. As Eric Alterman points out:

Statistics, [appearing in the New York Times], demonstrate an almost criminal negligence in ignoring airline, airport and port security at home, securing weapons-grade nuclear material abroad, rebuilding Afghanistan and adding to the size and effectiveness of our Armed Forces. Since 9/11, we have allocated less than $500 million to securing our ports and waterways against attack, despite the fact that shipping is the most unregulated method of transport in the world, and al Qaeda almost certainly owns ships currently plying the oceans.

We have also failed to fund the most basic programs for protecting chemical, industrial and nuclear facilities, which are obviously potential targets for terrorists. In fact, as Jonathan Chait pointed out well over a year ago in The New Republic, "The risk sufficiently alarmed Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham -- a conservative Bush appointee -- that he requested $379.7 million to protect various Energy Department facilities where nuclear weapons are designed, manufactured, and stockpiled." In response, the White House approved just $26.4 million for Energy Department security. [emphasis added]

With this shortfall of funding as a backdrop, Bush continues to press forward with the multi-billion dollar deployment of a missile defense system that even the Pentagon's experts agree doesn't work. Not that al-Qaeda would attack us with an ICBM, but it wouldn't matter anyway because the system doesn't work.

This is the grasp of national security that I am supposed to put my blind faith in? These are the policies that represent the "course" that Bush is beseeching the voters to stay on? If these are the priorities of the Republicans, why should we fear a Democrat in office? Where is the evidence that the GOP has a handle on national security that the Democrat's lack.

A glance around the globe sees other non-Iraq threats receiving the same lack of attention, focus and energy. In North Korea, a nuclear program operated by an unstable totalitarian regime continues unimpeded, with no major diplomatic or policy initiative crafted to deal with the problem. If anything, as Yglesias notes, we have weakened our position vis a vis the Clinton years through our lack of a coherent strategy and unnecessary provocation of Kim Jong Il, coupled with the uncomfortable realities of our current diminished military threat.

Nevertheless, there has been probably no greater non-Iraqi mismanagement than in relation to Iran. This is a country that the 9/11 Commission identified as having worked with al-Qaeda (Khobar Tower bombings), made overtures for collaboration in the future, is still harboring senior members of the organization despite U.S. and Saudi efforts to extradite, and which continues to inch closer to the acquisition of nuclear weapons. This is the country for which all the hollow and false bluster about Iraq holds true.

But instead of attacking or threatening Iran, we instead launched two costly wars to decapitate Iran's regional enemies: the Taliban to the East, and Saddam to the West. Further, Iran is exerting more control in Shiite dominated Iraq than ever before.

As Iran gains influence and power in the region, and approaches nuclear capacity, the US is left with fewer options to take due to our overstretched military and intelligence apparatuses. As Sy Hersh reported, senior intelligence officials acknowledged that "we know we can't attack them right now, they know we can't attack them, and what's worse, they know that we know we can't attack them."

Iran will be the unintended victor for our great mis-adventure in Iraq, and they will be emboldened by their increased prominence and our diminished capacity to respond with military force.

So let's look at the track record of this Republican regime, which by definition is better able to handle national security and defense policy than a potential Democratic one:

First, they failed to adequately appreciate the threat of terrorism, but their only comeback is "so did Clinton." Despite the fact that Clinton did in fact take this threat more seriously, that type of defense hardly makes the case that the Republicans are better.

Second, they mishandled the invasion of Afghanistan resulting in the escape of Bin Laden and his top advisers, allowing the Taliban to regroup and reassert itself, allowing the re-emergence of the poppy industry providing ample cash to finance terrorism in a lawless country, and creating a scenario in which the Karzai regime is boxed into a tiny area surrounding Kabul, leaving the prospects for national unity, let alone Democracy, very sliml.

Third, they mishandled the run-up to the war by alienating allies crucial for the reconstruction, built the war on false justifications, ignored the post war plan authored by the State Department's experts in favor of Chalabi's version of reality, through the conduct of the war they turned the opinion of the world against us and increased Osama's support in proportion to our decline in standing, increased Osama's recruitment efforts, and in the end Iraq's future remains as likely to end in Shiite theocracy, totalitarian rule, or civil war as it does in democracy.

Fourth, the all consuming expenditures in Iraq (with the leftover going to some new fangled SDI) have led to the gross underfunding of homeland security requirements that are of vastly more importance to the safety of American citizens than the caged in and disarmed Saddam Hussein.

Fifth, our complete and utter focus on Iraq, combined with the diminished military capacity resulting from our overstretched forces being pinned down in Iraq, has let other more palpable threats such as North Korea and Iran to increase in magnitude, strength and danger.

After reviewing the history and the current state of Republican foreign policy compared to Democratic foreign policy, I am left wondering how the so-called liberal media has allowed the unsubstantiated myth that Republicans are more adroit in matters of foreign policy than Democrats to continue even to this day, when the overwhelming weight of evidence suggests that at least the current Republican occupant of the White House is in over his head. Come to think of it, maybe it was the individual and not the party all along. Imagine that.

One of the most persistent, yet misleading, narratives perpetuated with great skill over the past 30-plus years is the story that Republicans and conservatives are more adept in the realms of national security and foreign policy than their Democratic counterparts. These sentiments have been reflexively echoed in the mainstream media, and throughout the population in general, so frequently that this myth has risen to the level of conventional wisdom. As a testament to the intransigence of this storyline, almost every Republican presidential candidate over this period has enjoyed a decisive advantage over their Democratic adversary in polls focusing on the question of national security (Bush being the latest, although perhaps least deserving, to receive this boon).

But as with many political narratives, the facts, both historical and current, belie the broad conclusions and sweeping generalizations. Historically speaking, the 20th Century provides a mixed bag of evidence.

First, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a Democrat, was an undeniable success in the areas of national security and foreign policy. He successfully commanded the military during World War II, oversaw the massive conversion of American industrial might to the service of military production, inspired a nation and maintained morale through the eloquence of his weekly oratorical dliveries, and in the end vanquished Naziism, the single biggest and most threatening foreign opponent that America has faced on the battlefield in it's history.

So how did the legacy of FDR become lost in the historical memory hole? The roots of the problem probably begin with the Cold War, but again the history diverges from the narrative. Truman, another Democratic president, did not hesitate to involve American forces on the Korean peninsula in defense of the South when the Communist North invaded in 1950. Nor was Eisenhower, a Republican, able to garner anything better than a stalemate in 1953, more than a year after he took office.

Then there is Kennedy, a Democrat, who again was willing to employ the U.S. military in Vietnam in order to counter a growing Communist movement. Similarly, Kennedy was steely in his resolve, and ultimately prevailed over Khrushchev, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, probably the moment in history when the two superpowers were closest to the brink of mutual nuclear annihilation. Some view his unwillingness to provide air support for the Bay of Pigs invasion as weakness on the part of Kennedy, but granting that conclusion for the sake of argument, this flap still at worst only slightly tarnishes the "tough" stances he took in other areas.

Next comes Johnson, a staunch Texas liberal, who oversaw a profound escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Not exactly true to the modern misinformed stereotype of a "liberal," Johnson sacrificed the well being of his bold Great Society program by diverting the budgetary largesse into the war effort.

Taking over for Johnson is Nixon, a Republican, who ironically campaigned on the message of "peace with dignity" which was a euphemism for pulling out the troops, or as Bush might term it, cutting and running. Despite his campaign pledge, Nixon remained entrenched in his support for the policies of military involvement in Vietnam, famously stepping up the bombing campaigns in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, though to little avail. Nixon was no more successful at pulling off a victory in Vietnam than his Democratic predecessors.

In fact, there is ample evidence that Nixon delayed the pullout of American troops for political purposes, in order to win the 1972 election. As evidenced by recently released tapes, just three months before the election, Richard Nixon and his national security advisor Henry Kissinger discussed the fact that despite a massive bombing campaign during the spring and summer, in Nixon's words, "South Vietnam probably can never even survive anyway."

With this in mind, Nixon went on, "We also have to realize, Henry, that winning an election is terribly important." And so he and Kissinger devised a plan to stall the conclusion of the Paris peace talks, and the subsequent fall of Saigon, until after the election. During this interim period termed the "decent interval" by Kissinger, thousands of American GI's lost their lives for a fait accompli. Not exactly supporting the troops, nor an image of strength in the arena of national security.

After Nixon came Ford and Carter, both relatively unremarkable in terms of foreign policy initiatives, although Carter had the misfortune of presiding over the Iranian hostage crisis, a situation which was not handled well by the Democratic president and which left a lasting stain on his reputation. Due to this, and other factors, the Carter administration, and the transition to Reagan, probably marked the turning point in the perception war between the Democrats and the Republicans. Reagan was sworn into office concurrent with the serendipitously timed release of the hostages.

His presidency was marked by strong rhetoric aimed at the Soviet Union and a concerted effort to support insurgencies around the globe that were in conflict with Communist and Socialist regimes. This led to a checkered tally of questionable success and frequent atrocities. Reagan famously backed the Contras and the governments of Guatemala El Salvador and Haiti who employed brutal death squads that terrorized and murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians, including American Catholic clergy raped and murdered in El Salvador.

Billmon has this to add regarding Reagan and the Muslim world:

"The legacy of Reagan's policies in the Middle East, meanwhile, are still being paid for - in blood. The cynical promotion of [Osama Bin Laden and] Islamic fundamentalism as a weapon against the Soviets in Afghanistan, the alliance of convenience with Saddam Hussein against Iran [which included sending Hussein biological, chemical and conventional weapons, money and intelligence], the forging of a new 'strategic relationship' with Israel, the corrupt dealings with the House of Saud, and (perhaps most ironic, given Reagan's tough guy image) the weakness and indecision of his disastrous intervention in Beruit - all of these helped set the stage for what the neocons now like to call World War IV, and badly weakened the geopolitical ability of the United States to wage that war.

In reality, Reagan did confront Communism in a pro-active and determined fashion, and this strategy did succeed in some areas, but this has unfortunately given rise to the familiar refrain that Reagan defeated Communism. The argument that he toppled Communism is myopic at best, and disingenuous at worst. This argument ignores the decades of conflict and Cold War confrontation conducted by past presidents, Republican and Democrat alike. Reagan did not come to office in a Cold War vacuum, and without a historical context.

Furthermore, there were fundamental structural flaws in the political and economic models of the former Soviet Union and its satellite states in Eastern Europe. Communism in these regions was collapsing under its own ponderous weight and inefficient machinations. It is possible, if not probable, that Reagan hastened its demise through the escalation of the arms race and the incumbent financial strains this put on the Soviet model, but this greatly underestimates the importance of the role that Mikhail Gorbachev played in the process.

Without Gorbachev's historic break from decades of hard line tradition in promoting glasnost and perestroika, the Communist leadership in the U.S.S.R could have maintained its grip on power for many more years. In a sense, Reagan benefited from good timing, and the fortuitous emergence of a tango partner in the Kremlin. Furthermore, his successful rapprochement with Gorbachev, and the numerous treaties and detente that flowed from this relationship, marked a decidedly softer approach, something akin to the approach ascribed to the Democrats.

Still, the myth coalesced in the Reagan years. Democrats were not to be trusted in foreign policy and national security. Republicans were the only group tough enough to stand up to foreign threats. Disregard the 20th Century and the successes and failures in both Republican and Democratic regimes. It is no longer a question of individual talents, but of party affiliation. Nevermind that Bush Sr. didn't "finish the job" in Iraq (although in hindsight, when he wrote in 1998 in Time Magazine that invading Iraq would be a mistake because we would alienate most of our allies around the world and we would then inherit an enormous security mess in trying to run Iraq as a country, he appears to display uncanny prescience). And forget that it was Bush Sr. who got us involved in the muddled mess of Somalia. Also, ignore the fact that Clinton waged the highly successful intervention in Kosovo to prevent ongoing ethnic cleansing, over the vocal opposition of Republicans (although his inaction in Rwanda was inexcusable and a tragic oversight of unthinkable dimensions, it is worth pointing out that the GOP wasn't clamoring for action either).

None of the history matters much in the defiantly ahistorical realm of public opinion. Repeat a narrative enough times, and it becomes perception, which in political terms is reality. That is why when the one term governor from Texas, George W. Bush, ran for president in 2000, despite an absolute dearth of foreign policy experience, he was granted the benefit of the doubt on the issue of national security because he was, after all, a Republican, and thus innately gifted in crafting foreign policy and national security policy. History will not look kindly on this judgment, but will anyone pay attention to something as trivial as history?

Columnist Beppe Severgnini from the Italian newspaper Corriere Della Sera, in his most recent article, puts himself in the shoes of an American and indulges in some hypothetical introspection:

If I were American, I’d be wondering why my country has gone down in the world’s estimation. I’d seek an explanation from the Bush administration, which appears to be less than entirely extraneous to this development. But I’m not American; I’m just a friend of America, so I’ll restrict myself to being sorry.

Truth be told, many Americans, including this one, do wonder at the precipitous decline in America's standing in the world, although most of us have learned long ago the futility of seeking an adequate explanation from the Bush administration. Instead, we are left to try to put together the pieces of humpty dumpty that lay scattered on the world stage in an attempt to discern the path to rehabilitation, to determine how it is possible that a proud nation that has only recently suffered mightily at the hands of "terrorism, fought for a century against dictatorships, welcomed migrants from all over the world, given the world a dozen Nobel Laureates and Julia Roberts, [can] still be so unpopular?"

Severgnini does pick up on one of the major impediments to this type of self-criticism: the reluctance of many Americans to even countenance the possibility that some portion of the blame belongs with themselves, or at least with their government's policies. It is much easier, and more comforting, to place the blame for our recently eroded standing in the world at the doorstep of jealousy and envy (the burden of being #1), or the usurping of our standing by a Franco-German old Europe conspiracy, or perhaps by the faint hearted liberals both here and abroad who cannot stomach the tough policies that are needed to combat radical Islamist terrorism (nevermind the fact that throughout the duration of the Cold War as the U.S. employed many extreme examples of "tough policies," America was at the apex of popularity in the Western World).

One thing is certain though, attempt to critique America's policies and the role they play in the shaping of the world's opinion, and face a backlash of accusations, insults and aspersions cast on your patriotism, character and intentions. Apparently, there are risks abroad as well:

Many people do not want even to listen to this kind of talk. Among them are Americans, and to an even greater extent America’s adulators. I see this myself, from my own small observatory. Every time someone criticizes the policies of George W. in my column, "Italians," that person receives a barrage of insults. From Italy, the offender is called a "communist" (wonder who they got that from?), and from America, if the individual is resident over there, they write, "If you don’t like it here, go home."

But what does burying your head in the sand, or worse still, shouting down the introspective accomplish? Is there really an explanation that can be divorced from our own role in this evolving debacle? Severgnini considers this alternative:

Of course, the world may have gone crazy. It may simply not see that the current administration is right all along the line, on preventive wars, [the Patriot Act], Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, international courts, the Red Cross, distrust of the United Nations, attempts to split Europe, general diffidence, and specific reticences.

Sure that is a possibility, but what would explain the sudden wrongheadedness of the rest of the world? Why now, after decades of U.S. foreign policy dominating the world stage, some of which marked by militaristic endeavors, would the world suddenly and collectively jump in unison to the wrong conclusions? Although there are many governments that still stand with us, even those ties are more tenuous than in the past, and in almost all of those countries, the populations are overwhelmingly and vehemently opposed to our recent policies at home and in Iraq. It is likely that at least some of these leaders will feel the weight of the political albatross that associating with the Bush administration will have on their political futures in upcoming elections. Aznar in Spain already has. Then again, there might be a drag from world opinion on the current administration's performance in November as well.

Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), takes the gloves off and comes out swinging at Vice President Cheney in response to some comments Cheney made in regard to Kerry's record on defense and the war on terror, and some other incidents in the Senator's home state. It seems that Harkin is taking a page out of the Clinton playbook: if they hit you, hit 'em back. Silence on the part of the maligned has a way of letting the mud filled attacks coalesce into hardened perceptions:

"It just outrages me that someone who got five deferments during Vietnam and said he had 'other priorities' at that time would say that," said the Iowa Democrat, a former Navy fighter pilot . . . The issue first arose when Harkin joined with Des Moines police officials protesting the call-up of a police officer who already had completed his eight year military commitment. Harkin said that it angered him to hear tough talk from Cheney. "When I hear this coming from Dick Cheney, who was a coward, who would not serve during the Vietnam War, it makes my blood boil," said Harkin. "He'll be tough, but he'll be tough with someone else's kid's blood" [emphasis added].

The quotes are taken from a CNN.com article via Juan Cole.

Blogosphere legend Mick Arran, the force behind Omnium, From The Trenches, LitBlogs, and The Omnium Annex stated in an interview with BiteSoundBite, that one of the greatest benefits the blogosphere offered to the general discourse, in addition to "influencing the discussion in the mainstream media" was a phenomenon termed "arming the choir" (Mick himself was quoting Phaedrus' tag line).

Arming the choir, differentiated from "preaching to the choir," describes the process by which blogs can quickly disseminate information that might otherwise be ignored by the mainstream media, information that is necessary to shoot down spurious and baseless arguments and misinformation promulgated by one political faction or another. So, it is not just that blogs echo the beliefs and sentiments of their readers, but they actually arm their readers with vital information required to navigate the murky waters of mainstream media spin, misinformation, and buried leads.

It is in the interest of arming the choir, that I present to you today an analysis of the latest cheap shot from the habitually foul mouthed Vice President, Dick Cheney. In reaction to comments made by John Kerry that he would fight a "more sensitive" war on terrorism, Cheney deliberately took the quote out of context and used it to unfairly characterize Kerry as soft on terrorism:

"America has been in too many wars for any of our wishes, but not a one of them was won by being sensitive," Cheney said in Dayton. "President Lincoln and General Grant did not wage sensitive warfare -- nor did President Roosevelt, nor Generals Eisenhower and MacArthur. A 'sensitive war' will not destroy the evil men who killed 3,000 Americans and who seek the chemical, nuclear and biological weapons to kill hundreds of thousands more."

David Sirota and company at the Center for American Progress once again perform a valuable service by compiling a series of quotations extolling the virtues of a sensitive approach to foreign policy and the fighting of wars, in particular the poorly named war on terror, attributed to everyone from Cheney himself, to President Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Generals Franks and Meyers, and others. A quick perusal of some of these quotes exposes the hypocrisy and emptiness of Cheney's critique.

Juan Cole adds his perspective with a historical challenge to Cheney's assertions. Cole describes some of the "sensitive" approaches taken by Roosevelt, Churchill and Eisenhower during World War II (particularly in the North African campaign), and how these nuanced approaches were keys to the success of the campaign, whereas a blunter more dogmatic approach would most likely not have met with such fortunate outcomes. To quote Cole:

And that is the big difference between Cheney and Bush as wartime leaders on the one hand, and on the other Roosevelt and Eisenhower. Cheney and Bush are diplomatically tone deaf, projecting nothing but arrogance and being all too willing to humiliate traditional allies. They have no sensitivity. And it is for that reason that they have the U.S. stuck in Iraq with only one really significant military ally, the U.K. (the Italians only have 3,000 troops there, and most countries just a few hundred, which makes their presence a token one). They have perhaps permanently alienated all the countries that might have lent the U.S. a hand.

There is something you can take into battle.

Today's New York Times reports on the alarming, and dangerous, situation unfolding within the Environmental Protection Agency's Superfund program. According to a recent Congressional report, "dozens of Superfund sites that are eligible for cleanup money are likely to be granted nothing or a fraction of what their managers say is needed because of a budget shortfall that could exceed $250 million."

The lack of requisite funding means that many sites that expose local populations to harmful and carcinogenic contaminants will remain a public health risk in the near term, and possibly the long term. Consider this, 65 million Americans, including 10 million children below the age of 12, live within four miles of a Superfund site. In addition, the lack of funding means that the current backlog of over 1,200 sites for which the clean-up process has yet to begin will likely remain untouched, although more sites will almost certainly be added, further increasing the ever daunting case load.

The crisis over the lack of funding has its roots in a shift in tax policy that began nine years ago. When the Superfund program was signed into law 23 years ago by President Carter, the funding mechanisms of the act were designed to ensure that polluters, not taxpayers, paid for the required clean-ups utilizing a two step payment process. First, the entity responsible for polluting the site was presented with the bill for clean-up. Equally important, a measure was included to fund the clean-up of sites for which there was no longer any responsible corporate entity in existence. This was accomplished through the creation of a special fund financed by taxes on certain industries that are prone to pollute, and on levies on the use of highly toxic chemicals and petroleum products (the pollutants themselves).

In 1995, the special taxes were eliminated altogether, leaving the funding to come out of polluter liabilities and general tax revenue. Despite the lack of "polluter pay" fees, the Superfund remained solvent for years to come, and the Clinton administration, to its credit, was successful in securing adequate additional funding from Congress during the remainder of their term. Unfortunately, the Bush administration has been far less vigilant in requesting the necessary money from Congress. A 2002 inspector general report showed that the Bush administration underfunded the Superfund program by 45% compared with amounts requested by EPA regional directors for site cleanups. Furthermore, in the last three years, the Bush administration has greatly reduced the liabilities faced by corporations guilty of creating these environmental calamities, which has only compounded the funding shortages. The results of this one two punch to financing the Superfund have bordered on catastrophic.

Katherine N. Probst, author of "Superfund's Future," a 2001 report to Congress that predicted a growing shortfall of money, said that people who live near the affected sites will feel the financing squeeze. "These people have been promised something they are not getting," she said. Delaying the cleanup of a problem like groundwater pollution, she said, means "it probably will cost us more in the long run."

Using a rhetorical double speak that has become all too common, the Bush administration initially argued that, through reform of the process and the elimination of bureaucratic red tape, they would actually produce a more efficient and effective Superfund program despite the apparent curtailment in funding that would result from their policy focus. Corporate liabilities and industry specific taxes were actually an impediment to clean up efforts, according to Bush administration officials (although it is worth noting that former head of the EPA Christie Todd Whitman resigned her post in the early going over this and other disagreements with the Bush team). The evidence, of course, suggests that these sanguine, even panglossian, predictions were not borne out by the facts on the ground.

True to the warnings of environmentally concerned citizens and politicians much maligned as scaremongerers by administration officials, the current system of funding is woefully inadequate to meet the needs of present and future environmental disasters. Adding to the problem are the current budgetary realities. In the midst of multiple resource draining military endeavors, and in a climate of staggering budget deficits and greatly reduced tax revenue, it is more difficult than ever to secure funding from an ever dwindling stream of general tax funds. Now, it is easier for Congressional Republicans and the White House to feign concern over the Superfund's goals, while claiming their hands are tied by the lack of tax revenue and the need for fiscal discipline. The canary in the mine shaft of starve-the-beast budgetary politics has just perished. Is anyone paying attention?

The logic-defying leap of faith promulgated by the Bush team to allay the concerns of the public regarding the funding of environmental clean up, is reminiscent of a larger pattern in this administration, and possibly portends of a grand strategy for ultimately shrinking the size of the federal government to relatively miniscule proportions. For example, the same rationale can be seen in the justifications for the Bush economic policies that claim that the massive tax cuts will actually reduce deficits through the ramped up collection of taxes resulting from increased economic activity spurned on by the tax cuts.

This inverted logic was described by former Nixon Commerce Secretary, Peter G. Peterson, in his recently released book entitled Running on Empty: How the Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It: "No matter which taxes are reduced, and no matter how far, Bush's economic team is inclined to believe - and of course his political team agrees - that reducing them still further will ultimately raise more revenue. . .This tax cut ideology is not fact-driven. It is faith-driven." [emphasis added]

Again, with the record deficits as Exhibit A, the overwhelming heft of empirical evidence militates against the Bush economic team's prognostications. Although enormous deficits and big spending initiatives seem counterintuitive to an overall policy goal of shrinking the federal goverment, therein lies the brilliant sleight of hand. A frontal assault on Medicare and Social Security is almost impossible to mount, and certain political suicide for those that try, but perhaps there is another way. If an administration were able to so greatly diminish the revenue stream through far reaching permanent tax cuts while encumbering the government with spending obligations (Iraq, prescription drug benefit, etc.), they could create a fiscal crisis that requires drastic countermeasures, especially in regard to entitlement programs on the verge of feeling the baby boomer strain. Just like the Superfund's diminished priority, that potential economic climate would necessitate tough decisions, even on seemingly sacrosanct programs such as Social Security and Medicare.

As with the ability to secure Congressional disbursements for the Superfund, will the Republicans in Congress and the White House soon be allowed to plead that in relation to gutting Social Security and Medicare, the circumstances made them do it? Will the American people allow the same politicians whose policies ran up the deficits and shrank the revenues necessary to pay them down, claim that the deficits are to blame for the impending massive cuts to entitlements, and not their own fiscal policies?

Make no mistake, with Iraq continuing to hemorrhage money, and the President intent on making his reckless tax cuts permanent, the arguments of fiscal necessity are coming and they will threaten the prolonged life of Social Security and Medicare, especially with the imminent retirement of the baby boomers. Grover Norquist's long sought after starve-the-beast showdown is on the horizon, and it will be carried out under the guise of the circumstances being beyond the control of the politicians. In fact they will blame the entitlements themselves for being unsustainable. Will the so-called liberal media remind them of the road taken to the fiscal crisis?

There is a saying that if you drop a frog into boiling water, it will leap out immediately feeling the shock to its nervous system. But if you place that same frog in tepid water and bring it to a boil slowly, the frog won't react to the gradual change in temperature and remain in the water until fully cooked. In the fiscal sense, we are in the midst of a slow boil.

The Center for American Progress has compiled a greatest hits collection of President Bush's most infamous flip-flops. It illustrates how superficial and hollow the criticism of Kerry as a flip-flopper really is, considering that the same allegation can be levelled at any politician, especially and including Bush himself.

I feel gratitude to groups like the Center that are doing the work that the so-called liberal media isn't doing to expose the hypocrisy in the charge against Kerry being repeated and echoed ad nauseum. This type of critique as distraction is nothing new however. Wheter it be Al Gore's personality, likeability meters, first lady fetish, or the oft discussed poll regarding which candidate potential voters would rather have a beer with, it seems that the media is intent on following the GOP's cues in avoiding substance in favor of style and scandal. Anything to avoid the issues. Same old song and dance.

In his most recent column, E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post notes, with a tinge of bemusement, the peculiar dilemma Republican U.S. Senate hopeful from Colorado Pete Coors finds himself in the midst of. Recognize the name? If you do, it's for good reason, Pete Coors is from that Coors family, of Colorado brewing reknown, the famous purveyor of the popular Coors and Coors Light brand beers.

The problems for Pete Coors first arose in the pitched battle against social conservative stalwart Bob Schaffer for the party nomination in the recently decided primary. Coors emerged victorious from the primary, but not before Schaffer could call into question Coors' conservative family values bona fides. Schaffer argued that Coors willingly used degrading, over-sexualized images of women to sell his products, most famously the "twins" from the ubiquitous football-themed Coors Light commercial, thus exposing the hypocrisy of his appeals to family values.

Thus was Coors faced with sharp attacks from Schaffer, and even more from an independent ad campaign organized by former senator Bill Armstrong. A staunch conservative, Armstrong attacked Coors for running "brewery ads that are degrading to women and nearly pornographic."

This tension between social conservativism and free market conservative values has implications that are far reaching in scope. As Dionne points out:

Conservatism is a noble tradition and an intellectual mess. Conservatives say they revere both traditional and market values. But those two sets of values so often contradict each other that conservatives have to cover their eyes -- from the twins ads, for example -- if they are to pretend to be consistent.

The prevailing conservative narrative tells of a disempowered conservative class being subjected to the morally decadent assault on traditional family values at the hands of a vast liberal elitist conglomeration of interests. According to the story, the liberal media, hollywood and the entertainment industry are pushing their liberal social agenda on the religious, pious and conservative who lack the power to fight back. These sentiments have been used with great guile by Republicans to garner political spoils that have positioned the GOP at the helm of all three branches of the Federal government, and with a majority stake at the local level nationwide. Despite this ascension to political power, the claims of underdog and outsider remain a constant, and the finger of blame is kept pointing in the direction of the liberals, and never at the right wing captains of industry who are using sex and violence to ply their wares.

The obvious contradiction inherent in the marriage of free market ideals and social conservativism has been successfully concealed for the past 30 years, but there appear to be some cracks in the facade, as evidenced by the hypocrisy exposed in the Colorado race. How can a group dedicated to laissez faire economics and the virtue of profit maximization over social concerns continue to rationalize the use of sexual explicitness, violence, irreverence, hedonism, and indulgence to sell their products while at the same time preaching about the values of restraint, abstinence, forbearance, temperance, and modesty?

What is the most powerful force for permissiveness in the United States? It is not liberalism. It is the free market's use of sexuality to sell products. Children in our country are exposed to many more sexual images in television ads -- especially those selling beer -- than in raunchy magazines sold under the counter. The beer ads run heavily during sports broadcasts watched by sports-minded kids who love healthy competition, achievement, discipline and victory. Rather "conservative" values, no?

To reinforce this point, it is important to note that even the so-called liberal bastion of Hollywood, and the entertainment industry in general, are themselves businesses, and big ones at that. Entertainment is the United States' number one export to the rest of the world, with sales totaling in the billions annually. Entertainment is our black gold. These businesses are governed by corporate principles and the goal of increased profits more than any social agenda. Movies and television are produced with the intention of increasing revenues and profits, as are media ventures, and this the foundation of conservative economic values.

How can the GOP maintain this precarious juggling act in the future? How do the Coors's of the GOP maintain their credibility despite the inherent hypocrisies of their business practices? One possible outcome is revealed by Thomas Franks' observations of the recent sea change that has occurred in Kansas's political landscape, which could serve as a cautionary tale to those who, to some degree disingenuously, abuse the demagoguing of values in the political context. Franks, in his acclaimed book What's The Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America, reveals how hard it is to get the horses of social conservativism, once freed, back in the barn.

Nowhere in America has the political narrative of the disenfranchised and disempowered social conservatives battling the Goliath of liberal moral decay been used with more success than in the one time progressive state of Kansas. But something interesting happened along the way to the forum. In Kansas there developed, over time, a divide between moderate Republicans, who had historically dominated the state's political machine, and ultra-conservatives, the usurping new-comers to the scene. The moderates have a more socially liberal agenda in a relative sense. They tend to support abortion rights, are tolerant of homosexuality and are comfortable with teaching evolution in public schools. The ultra-conservatives have a religious right social agenda, which includes banning abortion, criminalizing homosexuality and banning the teaching of evolution in favor of creationism.

The irony is that the ultra-conservatives began to use the same demagoguery of values to undermine the moderate conservatives, even going as far as to attack them as liberals and elites. The results have been staggering, as moderates have fallen one after the other like dominoes to ultra-conservative candidates.

While the moderate Coors prevailed over the ultra-conservative Schaffer in Colorado this year, the handwriting is on the wall, which should give some in the Republican leadership a pause for concern. The GOP, when considering the political future of its party, should be careful when using the values issue to exploit the religious and moral sentiments of the population for political gain. Better stick to the strategy on display at the Republican National Convention, by putting forth social liberals and moderates like Giuliani, Pataki, Schwarzenegger, Bloomberg, Zell Miller and McCain, rather than the ultra-cons appealed to by the bold strategies of Karl Rove. That is an awfully big corporate suite made of glass from which to be casting stones, and chickens have a knack for coming home to roost.

More from TIA's foreign correspondent in Japan, Mr. Alexander St. John:

On August 9, 1945, Japan’s city of Nagasaki was devastated by a nuclear weapon. Japan renounced the development of nuclear weapons, a pledge it restates annually, most symbolically at a ceremony held at the Atomic Bomb Dome (Genbaku Domu) in Hiroshima (the first Japanese city to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon) to commemorate those hundreds of thousands citizens who were killed there 59 years ago. Japan, however, did not renounce the use of nuclear power as an energy source. Today, 25% of Japan’s electricity needs are met by nuclear energy (with plans in place to boost the percentage to 40%). Japan’s nuclear power industry ranks third globally, behind the United States and France.

It is with some sense of irony then, that 59 years to the day on which Nagasaki was destroyed by an atomic bomb, Japan suffered its most recent major blow to public confidence in the safety of its nuclear industry. The facts pertaining to August 9, 2004 are relatively simple, but their implications are disturbing. A steam pipe at the Kansai Electric Power Company’s (KEPCO) nuclear reactor in Mihama (300 km west of Tokyo) burst exposing eleven employees to scalding and highly-pressurized 300 degree steam, killing four men instantly and hospitalizing the remaining seven. No nuclear contamination occurred on this occasion, but naturally it brings to bear the possibility of a disturbing 'what if.' Events have progressed, as they so often do in Japan, with the rounds of apologies, acceptance of responsibility, and promises to detail all of the facts and bolster safety.

As widely reported, a section of carbon steel pipe had not been inspected in – pause for emphasis – twenty-eight years allowing the wall of the pipe to corrode to a thickness no greater than metal foil. Sadly, the possibility of this problem had been brought to the attention of KEPCO by a subcontractor almost a year and a half ago (April 2003), and KEPCO had planned for an ultrasound inspection to take place a few days after the accident occurred. In fact, the subcontractor stated it was moving materiel into the reactor facility for the shutdown that was to take place on August 14, 2004, which was the reason the facility was crawling with so many people on August 9. Kyodo News has suggested that this was itself a violation of the reactor’s safety procedures.

In a country that prides itself in emphasizing "safety first," it is disconcerting to hear of the apparent lack of safety in what amounts to arguably the most dangerous industry of all. Quoting "sources," Japan Today reported on August 11 that, in compliance with the reactor's safety manual, more than ten minutes were spent confirming the source of the accident (in spite of the obviousness of the steam-filled room) before placing a phone call to the fire department. The manual-writers’ logic being, hey, we’re only a nuclear reactor, and if it’s a pesky fire or containment breach with – as an extreme – Chernoby-like repercussions, better to confirm it first before troubling the authorities empowered with a mandate of public protection, right?

Le Figaro pointed out that the incident at Mihama was only the latest in a series of accidents at Japan’s nuclear facilities, the first dating back to September 1999, when 600 people where exposed to radiation at a uranium treatment plant in Tokaimura. Two employees were killed in that event. In 2000, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), the world’s largest energy company, admitted that it falsified inspection reports regarding radiation leak rates at certain of its nuclear reactors. Last year, TEPCO was forced to close seventeen of its reactors while carrying out inspections. In the case of this most recent safety incident at Mihama, the plant itself was closed in November 2002 after water escaped (radioactive in that case), but fortunately resulted in neither injuries nor emissions into the environment.

In an interesting bout of double speak, leading conservative Japanese daily Yomiuri Shinbun warned: "Care must be taken not to overemphasize the dangers involved in the operation of nuclear power stations, which could lead to an overreaction" (New York Times translation). However, its hard not to overreact when one imagines the effects radiation exposure would have in as densely a populated country as Japan. It is a disturbing image.

What’s also frightening, is to think what the manual says, or doesn’t say, should happen in such an event. Or worse, if the manual doesn’t cover events that might have been outside the scope of its drafters’ imaginations! One is certainly not convinced that employees’ reaction times would be adequate or timely when KEPCO has a manual that imposes internal hurdles limiting the potential response times of the nation’s safety resources, when time is truly of the essence in the context of nuclear reactors. At a time when emphasis is being placed on the threat of terrorists infiltrating nuclear reactors and reaping all sorts of death and destruction, it would seem that greater emphasis should be placed on those responsible for the basic safety inspections of nuclear reactors. If a country that is so "safe" is having such a variety of problems with its nuclear safety, what of those reactors in the United States and France? For my money, it’s the non-adherence to basic safety precautions and common sense that appears to be where the greatest risk of danger lies.

I'm probably not telling you anything you haven't realized on your own when I say that Juan Cole is providing the most insightful, honest, and straight forward coverage of the conflict in Iraq that can be found in the blogosphere, if not the media in general. There are two items that he posted recently that I wanted to highlight.

The first is a suggested response that John Kerry should have given to the question posed by Bush asking Kerry "if he would still have voted for the Iraq War if he had known in fall of 2002 everything he knows now about the non-existence of weapons of mass destruction."

Kerry's response was a typically nuanced "yes." He said that he would still have voted the same way, but that he would have handled things differently, giving the weapons inspectors more time to do their jobs and making a more determined effort to involve the international community so that the US did not have to lead an ambivalent coalition both in the military phase and, more importantly, in the reconstruction phase.

Bush immediately seized on the opening presented by Kerry and twisted it to suit his purposes stating publicly:

After months of questioning my motives and even my credibility, Senator Kerry now agrees with me that, even though we have not found the stockpile of weapons we all believe were there, knowing all believe were there, knowing everything we know today, he would have voted to go into Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power . . . I want to thank Senator Kerry for clearing that up.

The problem is that Kerry doesn't agree with Bush. It is dishonest to suggest that the same outcome would have proceeded from giving the inspectors more time or involving our allies in the process. More importantly though, this allows Bush to gloss over the most significant distinction that Kerry presented: how the war and the subsequent reconstruction were conducted. Unfortunately for Kerry, the press probably won't probe any farther than the apparent concurrence, shying away from delving into the substance of the differences. Thus, Bush succeeded in crafting the debate and steering the press coverage in a way most favorable to himself.

In this regard, Kerry's decision to respond to Bush's question without reframing the terms was a politically daft move. Even Kerry's national security advisor Rand Beers seems to have a better retort for Bush: "Knowing what you know now, do you still believe that you made no mistakes in how you took this country to war?"

As for Cole, he offers his suggestion for how Kerry could have avoided the trap of answering the question on Bush's terms which gave him and Rove the sound bite they craved:

Mr. President, the question of whether we should have gone to war is water under the bridge. We are in Iraq now, and are on the way to spending $500 billion on it at a time when many of our own people don't have insurance or cannot afford the drugs they need, or cannot build a needed new school. You have posed a counterfactual question, an imaginary question. There is no way to answer a question about an imaginary situation. Why don't you keep your feet on the ground and your head out of the clouds, and look what is happening to our troops in Iraq? What I can tell you is that the way you fought the war in Iraq has made Americans less safe, not more safe. You have diverted resources from fighting al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and the Pakistani border regions to bombarding Muslim holy sites in Iraq. You have allowed the poppy trade to come back, to the tune of over $2 billion a year, in Afghanistan, creating a powerful threat of narco-terrorism. Do we really want the remanants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda to get hold of that kind of drug money? You have thrown Iraq into political and military chaos, creating an unstable situation that could well breed terrorism against the United States. Your supporters are fond of calling you the "commander in chief" even with reference to your civilian role. But you are the commander in chief of the US armed forces, and you have not served them well by sending in a force too small to provide security to post-war Iraq.

While Mr. Cole is feeling magnanimous, he also offers some advice on issues Kerry should focus on in response to Bush's recent criticisms of Kerry's stated desire to begin reducing the number of U.S. troops within 6 months of his election if the conditions on the ground, and the hoped for reinforcements from allies, allowed for such a scaleback. Bush's critique went as follows: "What we don't want is to cut short the mission. We don't want politics to decide the mission."

Cole's suggested line of inquiry for Kerry:

How long does Mr. Bush plan on keeping 138,000 US troops in Iraq? What is this project going to cost the American taxpayer? What does Mr. Bush plan to do if the situation remains so unstable that elections are not feasible in January? What are Mr. Bush's real plans for Iraq, such that his "mission" there cannot be completed within one year? What exactly is the mission? Because if it is forcing Western democracy on Iraq and then holding up Iraq as a model to other Middle Easterners, that is not working out very well. Iraq under the Bush administration is the worst advertisement for democracy in the history of the world. [emphasis added]

Ahem...tap tap tap...is this thing on...Mr. Kerry, Mr. Shrum, is anyone listening?

[Update: Eric Alterman weighs in with his own suggestions for Kerry to un-muddle his position:

Anyway, you want a clear consistent position. Here’s one:

1. President Bush misled the country and the Congress into war and has conducted it incompetently.
2. The war also turns out to have been a dangerous diversion in the war against terrorism.
2. Even though we were misled, and even though we would be better off working with our (former?) allies to conduct a truly effective global war against terrorism, in Afghanistan and at home, we have no choice but to try to clean up this mess we’ve created.
4. But we should try and do so as quickly, inexpensively and painlessly as possible, so we can begin to repair some of the damage that’s been done to our nation’s reputation and get on with the business of defending the nation with the help and cooperation of our allies, as well as freeing up the resources we need to protect our homeland.

What’s so hard about that?]

The New York Times reported yesterday that global demand for oil is expected to be higher in 2004 and 2005 than initially forecast. The article cites several factors for the increased demand, including disruption of production in Iraq, the uncertainty surrounding Yukos - Russia's leading oil producer, and increased demand from emerging economies such as China and India.

The International Energy Agency now sees global oil demand at 82.2 million barrels a day in 2004 and 84 million barrels a day in 2005, up about 730,000 barrels a day from previous estimates. The agency's new figures recognize demand that had been previously underestimated, Klaus Rehaag, the author of the agency's monthly oil market report, said in a phone interview.

World oil demand will increase by 1.8 million barrels in 2005, after a record gain of 2.5 million barrels a day this year, the agency said.

This news only confirms fears that have arisen over the past decade as declining global oil supplies, and the lack of new oil field discoveries, has coincided with the exponentially increasing demands for oil from formerly third world economies that have been experiencing frenetic growth. This problem is not going to subside in the near future, but will likely get worse as China, India and other developing economies devour more oil as industries boom and populations, approaching a combined 3 billion, begin to acquire middle class goods and services, such as automobiles and air travel, that require large quantities of refined fuels. According to National Geographic:

"China is currently the world's second largest consumer, but still only consumes about one-third as much oil as the U.S.," said Jeffrey Logan, China program manager for the International Energy Agency.

Logan notes that "growth is increasing very rapidly," however, and said Chinese demand for oil grew more than 10 percent last year and is expected to be about 13 percent this year. "Car ownership and industrial production are the main drivers of this growth in oil demand," he said.

It is noteworthy that China, not exactly a country known for progressive environmental policy, has enacted strict mileage and emissions standards that go well beyond those in the United States. This is an effort to rein in the impending explosion in demand for oil related to burgeoning automobile use, as well as a measure to curb the release of harmful pollutants.

Although the article tried to sound an upbeat note by pointing out that there are prospects for increased production from Russia and Saudi Arabia, a closer examination of the situation vis a vis OPEC reveals a troubling picture in terms of oil output potential going forward.

OPEC, which produces a third of the world's oil, is close to full production capacity. The International Energy Agency found that "effective" spare capacity within OPEC was down to 500,000 barrels a day. The estimate excludes countries like Iraq, Venezuela, Nigeria and Indonesia, which can't boost their production because of disruptions, strikes or civil unrest. OPEC's total spare capacity stands at 1.2 million barrels a day, according to the agency.

"I basically don't think there is any spare capacity left," said Adam Sieminski, global oil strategist at Deutsche Bank in London. "If you have a hiccup anywhere in the world, you can have prices well above $50 or more."

While America is in the throes of a sluggish economy, and the deleterious effects of record oil prices are being felt even more acutely, an interesting turn of events is unfolding involving a familiar savior. Consistent with the claim made by Bob Woodward in his book Plan of Attack, Saudi Arabia appears intent on increasing oil production to help lower fuel prices. According to Woodward, the Saudi rulers, historically close to the Bush family, pledged to assist the re-election efforts of George W. Bush by giving the economy a jolt in the summer by ramping up oil production and driving down the cost of crude. Maybe its yet another instance of serendipity for Bush, but the Times article describes just that phenomenon.

In an effort to calm jumpy markets, Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, said today that it held 1.3 million barrels of idle capacity that could be used to meet demand. Saudi Arabia currently produces 9.5 million barrels a day, according to the energy agency.

Ali al-Naimi, the Saudi oil minister, said the kingdom was trying to ensure stability in the oil market "and prevent oil prices from escalating in a way that may negatively affect the world economy or oil demand."

"For achieving this goal, the kingdom has increased its production during the last three months to meet the growing demand for Saudi oil," he said, in a statement distributed by the Saudi Press Agency. "This increase amounted to more than one million barrels per day, bringing to more than 9.3 million barrels daily the average production of the kingdom during the past three months.

"The Saudis are trying to calm the market now and said they're ready to provide the barrels needed," said Lawrence J. Goldstein, president of the New York-based Petroleum Industry Research Foundation. "That's a welcome comment."

Coming on the heels of the recent Pakistani apprehension of a high value al-Qaeda target and the release of such information during the Democratic National Convention, as predicted in an earlier National Review Article, this bailout by the Saudis, as foretold by Woodward, appears to be something more than mere coincidence. Due to circumstances beyond their control, the Saudis may not be able to significantly reduce prices enough to help Bush, but it does appear Prince Bandar (or Bandar Bush) is trying.

Information gathered in connection with the recent arrest of al-Qaeda operative Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan, while helpful to officials working to combat the terrorist organization, also provides evidence of a trend warned about by foreign policy experts, counterterrorism experts, and this site on more than one occasion (relevant portions of those prior posts will be re-incorporated below - if I'm boring you by repetition, I apologize, but it is only because this is such an important point).

The New York Times and Reuters are reporting that recruitment efforts by al-Qaeda over the past several months has proceeded at a brisk pace. The Times, citing two senior intelligence officials, reported that:

A new generation of al Qaeda operatives appears to be filling a vacuum created when leaders were killed or captured.

Using computer records, e-mail addresses and documents seized after the arrest of Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan last month in Pakistan, intelligence analysts say they are finding that Al Qaeda's upper ranks are being filled by lower-ranking members and more recent recruits.

These revelations also raise significant questions about claims made by Bush administration officials regarding the alleged successes in neutralizing al-Qaeda's senior leadership. As reported by Reuters:

The development, the newspaper said, presents a more complex picture of al Qaeda's status than President Bush presents on the campaign trail, where has claimed that much of al Qaeda's leadership has been killed or captured.

Among other things, it suggests that the organization has retained some of its centralized command and communications structure, using computer experts to relay encrypted messages.

These discoveries confirm what appeared highly predictable, even intuitive, to many. Just as the 22 year CIA veteran and counter-terrorism expert identified only by the moniker Anonymous declared in his book Imperial Hubris, "Bin Laden saw the invasion of Iraq as a Christmas gift he never thought he'd get," a boon to recruitment beyond his wildest dreams.

But really, how could these events play out in any other way? Compounding our inability to make progress in any major policy area of concern (including the Palestinian/Israeli conflict and the overall economic and political inequality in the Muslim world), we invaded Iraq (a second Muslim country after Afghanistan), failed to provide adequate justification for this invasion (no WMDs, no ties to al-Qaeda, slim chances for democracy), without a comprehensive plan for reconstruction (looting, crime, insurgency, infiltration of foreign elements), and then publicly, and in a despicable manner, mistreated large numbers of Iraqi civilians (Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, collateral civilian casualties).

Considering all of those factors, how could al-Qaeda not have experienced a surge in applications? And the evidence of just such a trend has been observed by a wide variety of bi-partisan and non-partisan sources, from Zogby polling data and Richard Clarke, to other top intelligence officials and the International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS).

The IISS, a non-partisan think tank located in Great Britain, in its annual survey of world affairs, issued a glaring condemnation of the effect our military efforts have had on al-Qaeda. According to the IISS, the mismanagement of the war in Iraq has actually hurt the efforts of the war against radical Muslim terrorists.

The IISS echoed the sentiments that the war in Iraq has provided Osama Bin Laden and other radicals with a recruitment tool that well exceeded their means and ability to concoct on their own. Furthermore, the enormous costs of the Iraq campaign (already in excess of $200 billion), the alienation of crucial allies, the steady stream of images of dead and mutilated civilians, images of tortured, abused and murdered detainees, and the use of the language of crusades by Bush and other senior military officials "has arguably focused the energies and resources of al Qaeda and its followers while diluting those of the global counterterrorism coalition that appeared so formidable" after the Afghan intervention, the IISS survey said.

And there is evidence of the ramifications of Iraq being felt as far away as the India/Pakistan border. As reported on CNN, an incident last month in the embattled region of Kashmir is the first sign of the unfortunate status of Iraq. Just as Lebanon was in the 70's, Afghanistan in the 80's and Chechnya in the 90's, Iraq has become the new training ground for international jihadists. Scores of young radicals have poured in to the lawless, stateless vacuum that has existed since the toppling of Saddam in order to establish their jihadist bona fides and to learn the skills of jihad, guerilla warfare and terrorist planning and execution. A country once devoid of radical Islamists, is now awash with their ranks, and apparently they are mobile and their tactics are cross pollinating.

The incident was reported as follows: Five Indian policemen died when a motorcade of VIPs came under attack by suspected Islamic militants in the Indian part of Kashmir.

According to the Inspector-General of Police P.L. Gupta, "The car carrying the policemen was totally destroyed by an explosion, apparently caused by an improvised explosive device." [emphasis added]

Sound familiar?

This somewhat obvious turn of events has also been observed in polling data from Zogby and other groups that shows a burgeoning support for al-Qaeda in the Muslim World at the same time as the opinion of America has been plummeting. "What we're seeing now is a disturbing sympathy with al Qaeda coupled with resentment toward the United States, and we ought to be extremely troubled by that," said Shibley Telhami, a University of Maryland professor who commissioned one of the surveys.

To deny these realities for political gains is more than just political rhetoric, it is a national security liability of enormous proportions. It is high time the Bush administration owned up to the fact that the invasion of Iraq as a component in the war against the growth, popularity and capabilities of radical Islamist terrorists has been an abject failure, provoking debilitatingly counterproductive outcomes. Not that I'm holding my breath for this admission, but I remain hopeful that the American people realize just how incompetent the Bush administration has been in its role as national security steward, despite the persistent sterotypes of Democrats and Republicans in this arena.

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome any and all readers of TIA to send me your rants, ravings, opinions and feedback. I promise to read them all, and will even publish the ones that warrant such treatment (and being as I'm a liberal, by definition my standards are pretty lax). In that spirit I offer up this piece from the reader currently known as "Mike":


While this blog is mostly political in nature, and certainly far more current than what I am ranting about, I hope you'll throw this out there for the masses to discuss. I am speaking as a thirty year old who still gets a huge kick out of going to a record store and flipping through endless CDs before settling on a few. Here is my pet peeve: putting new songs on greatest hits CDs is cardinal sin.

It is the artist/band's way of showing complete disregard for the most loyal fans. Every artist who does this, and there are far too many, doesn't really have a leg to stand on in regards to fans downloading their songs. Generally, a greatest hits cd comes out after 5 albums ($75 in purchases). To hit a fan up for another $15 for one song is terrible.

And I don't want to hear the artist(s) complain that the suits put them up to it. This is not a chicken or egg scenario. Tom Petty (who is guilty of this greatest hits scam also, sadly) once threatened to name an album "don't pay more than $8.99 for this album" so kids wouldn't go broke buying his music. This example is not totally relevant, but it does show that an artist can do a lot to shut the suits up. I know the corporate types at the record labels love greatest hits albums, they probably sell very well and the risk ($$) is far less than the risk in spending money developing new bands or giving a struggling artist another shot, but it's wrong. Also, it's rock and roll, there is nothing wrong with the occassional F you.


Thanks Mike. Keep 'em coming folks...

Now the Bush/Texas/Republican smear machine has turned its battle tested sights on yet another candidate's veteran credentials. Apparently the mantra of "support the troops" doesn't apply to veterans, either in terms of benefits, which the Bush administration has been cutting relentlessly (interesting issue to draw the line of fiscal discipline - especially considering the spend-happy irresponsible Bush budgetary policy), or in regard to veterans who happen to hold different party affiliations or simply different aspirations in the same party.

First to feel the wrath was John McCain in the 2000 election who was attacked by the Bush campaign's surrogate, J. Thomas Burch Jr., chairman of the National Vietnam and Gulf War Veterans Coalition. He actually had the gall to attack McCain's record on veteran's issues, charges which Bush never disavowed or reined in. According to Burch in 2000, "He has always opposed all the legislation, be it Agent Orange or Gulf war health care, or frankly, the POW-MIA issue -- he was the leading opponent in the Senate. He had the power to help these veterans. He came home. He forgot us." Never mind the fact that McCain's record in the Senate did not comport with the charges, the damage was done in South Carolina, a state with a very large veteran population. In addition to an attack on his veteran loyalties, McCain was also subjected to an even more depraved smear when Bush campaign surrogates began calling potential voters and spreading the rumor that McCain's adopted Bangladeshi child was actually an African American child born out of wedlock. Nice touch, even if unrelated to his veteran status.

Then of course there was Max Cleland, the Vietnam veteran who left three limbs on the battlefield in Vietnam, who experienced the "support" from GOP patriots during his bid for re-election to the U.S. Senate in Georgia in 2002. The most disgusting attacks he had to endure were the accusations leveled by Ann Coulter, that his injuries were suffered in an accident while drinking beer with some friends in Vietnam. "He didn't 'give his limbs for his country,' or leave them 'on the battlefield,'" Coulter said. "There was no bravery involved in dropping a grenade on himself with no enemy troops in sight."

Then he was accused of being soft on terrorism and an implicit ally of Osama Bin Laden for opposing the Bush administration's version of the homeland security legislation, despite the fact that Cleland had penned a Democratic version of the bill himself (ironically, the Bush administration initially opposed pre-9/11 attempts to pass a homeland security bill before it flip-flopped and pushed through a version of the measure). One famous TV ad actually juxtaposed images of Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein next to the triple amputee Vietnam veteran in order to drive home the point of connection, while a narrator claimed that Cleland was soft on defense.

With this kind of track record, it should come as no surprise that John Kerry now finds himself taking some friendly fire from his fellow countrymen, albeit political opponents, regarding his decorated military service. The charges are broad in scope and varied in nature, from allegations that he didn't actually volunteer for service (which he did), and that he faked injuries to receive early dismissal from active duty (which the triple purple heart winner didn't), to claims that he re-enacted battle scenes while in Vietnam to further his political career down the road (a charge that has been discredited).

The latest bit of misinformation comes in the form of a a television ad by a group calling themselves "Swift Boat Veterans For Truth." This group, with extensive financial support from some of Bush's biggest backers and the aid of Spaeth Communications - the same media group that placed ads attacking McCain in 2000, has produced an ad questioning the merits of Kerry's Silver Star, Bronze Star, and two of his three purple hearts. The ad even goes as far as to claim that the account given by Jim Rassman, the soldier who re-told the story of how Kerry saved his life during a battle, was false. Rassman, a lifelong Republican, responds to these allegations in an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal.

In addition, a careful examination of the military's own records by a non-partisan group shows the attacks in this ad to be without basis and contradictory of earlier statements by some that appear in the ad. The analysis is detailed and meticulous, and I encourage the reader to investigate further, but I will not publish the point by point refutation in this space.

Another familiar assault on Kerry's veteran bona fides comes in the form of the critique of his now infamous testimony before the U.S. Senate concerning the conduct of the Vietnam War. As I pointed out in a prior post, most of the flak Kerry takes centers around his claims of atrocities committed by U.S. soldiers, including himself. Although Kerry has said that some of his language was over the top and colored by the extreme emotions lingering from his then recent return from the battlefield, some of his comments have also been misrepresented.

For example, some of the most unfair jabs claim that Kerry said that "all" soldiers committed atrocities. This is not what Kerry said though. He pointed out that atrocities were being carried out by some U.S. military personnel, in some instances at the behest of commanders. To counter this point, some conservative pundits have even gone as far as to claim that this was a lie, and that there were not atrocities committed at all, or if at all they were limited to the aberration of My Lai.

This historical revisionism is easily refuted, and Kerry's claims vindicated. In truth, atrocities were a part of Vietnam, as they have been a part of every war since the dawn of time. Furthermore, in guerilla/insurgency scenarios, atrocities are even more common because of the psychological stress of confronting an irregular difficult to identify enemy that blends in with the civilian population. Simply put, soldiers in these theaters tend to view all civilians as enemies, and often act accordingly which results in countless acts of atrocities.

For an example of the type of widespread and systematic atrocities that Kerry was talking about, and the psychology behind such actions, I recommend a review of the work of three reporters from the Toledo Blade who were awarded the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for their efforts in uncovering the war crimes committed by the Tiger Force, a special unit made up of soldiers from the Army's 101st Airborne's 1st battalion/327th Infantry Regiment. These atrocities were documented and investigated by the Army, although the disciplinary action and publication of the findings was lacking in follow through.

I guess this should come as a warning to any soldier currently serving in Iraq or Afghanistan. Should you decide to return to this country and seek political office, be you a Republican or a Democrat, "support" for our troops will only extend as far as political expediency allows, and last time I checked, that doesn't get you more than a long walk off a swif boat plank.

As I ease back into non-Vegas life (tear cascades slowly down the cheek), I would like to take advantage of a pinch hitter of sorts. In that vein, I offer these insights from TIA's foreign correspondent in Japan, Mr. Alexander St. John:

When the Japanese soccer team played Bahrain last week during the Asia Cup’s semi-finals, the Japanese public was presented with a precursor to the Chinese sentiment that would be on display at the China-Japan Asia Cup final match this past Saturday. Saturday’s Final, at which fans were requested to act “civilized”, bore witness to political banners aplenty and chants of “Kill! Kill! Kill!” that would make even the rowdiest Manchester United hooligans look like choirboys. The booing was so loud, in fact, that it drowned out the Japanese national anthem. Just as at the Bahrain game, Japanese fans were cordoned off in a section of the stadium’s stands out of safety concerns, with Chinese military separating them on either side from unruly and heckling Chinese fans.

The lead-up to Saturday’s game witnessed high-level members of Japan’s government appealing to the Chinese government to ensure the safety of the Japanese soccer team and its fans in attendance at Beijing’s Workers Stadium by taking every effort quell the behavior of the Chinese fans at Saturday night’s match. These talks and the concerns were reported widely in the Japanese press and coverage of the game (or political rally might be a better term?) even made for a story in the New York Times, available here.

A longstanding soccer rivalry notwithstanding, the nationalist anti-Japanese sentiment among the Chinese runs deep. At a time in which Japan’s popularity is at a seemingly all-time high in the West with a spate of interest in films, cuisine and design, it might surprise some that a country of mild-mannered ‘salarymen’ could spawn such animosity in its largest neighbor, who’s economy will eclipse that of the island-nation in the not so distant future. China is asserting itself on the world and regional stage economically and Japan is still suffering from a decade-plus economic doldrums in spite of economic reforms. Its a tale of a people with a rising level of confidence being provided with an outlet to gladly share its feelings at what it perceives as an economically-depressed neighbor in the midst of an identity crisis (in spite of being an economically first-world country, Japan still plays an insignificant role in world affairs and the criticism of the government for that is reaching new heights).

Looking deeper at the root causes of the anger directed at Japan during the game in China bears witness to a generational gap of sorts. For the older generation of Chinese, those who lived during Japan’s invasion and occupation of China during the 1930’s and 1940’s (what the Chinese refer to as the War of Resistance against Japan), the hatred and ill-feeling towards Japan is longstanding and, if the accounts in Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking are an indication of what went on in those sections of Japanese-occupied China, understandable. It’s the younger generation of Chinese, who know only of Japan’s actions through what’s been passed down from their elders or perceived through the government-controlled media (think Fox News without competition), that provides a more interesting glance of awakened nationalist sentiment in the once sleeping giant.

As Mr. Yardley points out in his NYT article, the Chinese government has not exercised any restraint in terms of stoking the fires of anti-Japanese sentiment. In fact, liberalization on the use of the Internet in China has allowed greater dissemination of nationalist feeling, and in two of the more public examples, resulted in effects on Chinese policy: (i) knocking Japan from the running to provide a high-speed train to link Shanghai and Beijing, and (ii) feeding the flames over control of the tiny Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea, an issue that emerged as a flashpoint in China-Japan relations recently.

At the end of the day, the fear on the minds of many Chinese is that in a sphere of the world in which the United States has shown less interest (focusing its attentions on the Middle East) and in which North Korea waves a nuclear sword in the air, Japan is intent on changing its cuckolded military position and, in the name of defending itself, substantially re-arming. Japan’s dispatch of its so-called Self-Defense Force personnel to Iraq (albeit with a limited humanitarian mandate) marks the first overseas deployment since World War II ended in 1945. The significance of this event is not lost on the Chinese, who were once at the bayonet’s end of such military excursions. Some feel that the Iraq deployment marked the first step in Japan’s remilitarization (and that the press coverage of the vocal anti-Japanese soccer fans is being over-dramatized in the press to justify Japan’s re-fashioned call to arms) and the question that follows is, Where will it end? In partial answer, some have pointed out that there are those in Japan intent on acquiring nuclear weapons to counter threats from North Korea.

It all provides for ample food for thought, especially as Japan commemorated this past week the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, an annual event that marks a remembrance of Japan’s war past, its adherence to peace and is renunciation of nuclear weapons (of which Prime Minister Koizumi reaffirmed again this year). And, while I have the conch, if there’s anything more to be gleaned from this (yes, history is valueless if nothing is learned from it), it’s the reminder that the scars and memories of war – and bad behavior during war – can have a long-lasting effect (especially when spoon-fed with a dash or two of government propaganda).

Further, in a controlled society such as China, where voicing one’s unhappiness and frustrations against the government will get you imprisoned, venting their frustrations on the Japanese, a ferocious enemy of yester-year, provides a forum for letting off a little steam without the negative repercussions like getting tossed into jail. So too in the Middle East, where the United States presents itself as such a target for years to come. The United States' present occupation of Iraq, its intentions not withstanding, provide those frustrated and disenfranchised persons of the Middle East with a target on which to vent their ire. China’s sentiments toward Japan – some sixty-plus years after the latter occupied the former – are an indication that bad deeds can be hard to live down. Perhaps the United States should step wisely and lively on the soccer fields of the Middle East in years to come.

A note to all the TIA readers, yours truly will be taking a much needed vacation this week. I leave today for the city of sin, which is only fitting for a morally decadent liberal like myself. I will return to posting on Tuesday the 10th. In the meantime, there may be a guest blogger or two posting in this spot, or I may just bask in the warm glow of aloofness as I take in the sun, the strip, the gambling, the booze, and any other vice I can dig up.

I hope to see you all when I return and I appreciate the readers and the comments immensely....

Discussing the release of the 9/11 Commission's report for the Washington Post's opinion page, David Ignatius unearths a detail that went largely unreported in the major media outlets:

Even after 9/11, some senior Bush officials didn't seem to get it. Another of those little-noticed footnotes describes a Sept. 20, 2001, memo prepared by Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith, apparently for his boss, Donald H. Rumsfeld. According to the commission, "the author expressed disappointment at the limited options immediately available in Afghanistan and the lack of ground options. The author suggested instead hitting terrorists outside the Middle East in the initial offensive, perhaps deliberately selecting a non-al Qaeda target like Iraq. Since U.S. attacks were expected in Afghanistan, an American attack in South America or Southeast Asia might be a surprise to the terrorists." If Feith really wrote such a memo, how is it possible that he is still in his job? [emphasis added]

Of course, the evidence of Feith's gross incompetence preceded the release of the 9/11 Commission's report. In a way, Feith has been a ubiquitous presence in the administration, with an uncanny ability to find himself with a hand in every major scandal and policy fiasco to date. Chris Suellentrop of Slate.com wrote an incisive expose of the number 3 civilian post in the Pentagon, behind Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, which I discusses in a prior post. While Feith, the Defense Department's undersecretary for policy, might be number 3 in the Pentagon, he is number 1 in terms of mistakes, scandals and blunders, or as Chris Suellentrop puts it, a sort of "Michael Dukakis in reverse: ideology without competence."

Here is a glance at Feith's impressive resume of achievements during his tenure in the Pentagon, as compiled by Suellentrop:

Feith oversaw the two offices that have since been criticized for politicizing intelligence and for inadequately planning for the occupation [of Iraq]. The first group was known as the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Unit, and it was established to find links between terrorist organizations and their state sponsors. The group issued a report about connections between Iraq and al-Qaida that Rumsfeld had Feith deliver to CIA Director George Tenet in August 2002. This was reportedly the same report that Vice President Cheney recently called "your best source of information" on the links between Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.

But the report has been widely discredited. Tenet told a congressional committee in March that Cheney was mistaken about its reliability. And Daniel Benjamin, former director of counterterrorism at the National Security Council, wrote in Slate that, far from proving Saddam-Osama ties, "the document lends substance to the frequently voiced criticism that some in the Bush administration have misused intelligence to advance their policy goals."

The other office Feith oversees, the Office of Special Plans, probably wrought even worse damage that the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Unit: Its job was postwar planning, which even many conservatives now admit has been a disaster. As USA Today's Walter Shapiro put it this month when he summed up a one-year anniversary panel discussion on Iraq at the American Enterprise Institute (hardly a bastion of the antiwar left): "An easy summary of the overall impression fostered by the panel would be: Right war, wrong postwar plan."

Not to mention the role that the Office of Special Plans played in hyping up intelligence about WMDs in Iraq, and alleged ties to al-Qaeda, in an effort to circumvent the CIA and provide the administration with the backing for its claim of the necessity for war.

Given this impressive track record, it should come as no surprise that Feith's office is in charge of Iraq's military prisons, including Abu Ghraib. In fact, as Suellentrop points out:

It was Feith who devised the legal solution for getting around the Geneva Conventions' prohibition on physically or psychologically coercing prisoners of war into talking. As a Pentagon official in the 1980s, Feith had laid out the argument that terrorists didn't deserve protection under the Geneva Conventions. Once the war on terrorism started, all he had to do was implement it. And even more damning than his legal rule-making is Feith's reported reaction to complaints by military Judge Advocate General lawyers about the new, looser interrogation rules. "They said he had a dismissive, if not derisive, attitude toward the Geneva Conventions," Scott Horton, a lawyer who was approached by six outraged JAG officers last year, told the Chicago Tribune. "One of them said he calls it 'law in the service of terror.'"

Still despite the numerous incidents of poor judgment, lack of foresight and fundamental lapses in reason, Feith remains at his post, along with his superiors, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld, who share at least part of the blame for Feith's mistakes. In the Bush administration, which displays a curious aversion to the notion of being held accountable for error, I'm sure Bush or Cheney, if asked, might say, "He's the best undersecretary for policy this country has ever had."

Juan Cole has a post that tracks nicely with my post yesterday about the root causes that lead Muslim youth to join the ranks of radical Islamist jihadists, the impact American foreign policy has on the mind state of potential jihadists, and the failure of the Bush administration to issue a cogent strategy for addressing these problems.

To quote Cole:

The number of persons in the Muslim world who wanted to inflict direct damage on the US homeland in 2000 was tiny. Even within al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri's theory of "hitting the distant enemy before the near" (i.e. striking the US rather than Egypt or Saudi Arabia) was controversial.

The Muslim world was largely sympathetic to the US after the 9/11 attacks. Iranians held candlelight vigils, and governments and newspapers condemned terrorism. Bush's
unprovoked attack on Iraq, however, turned people against the US. The brutal, selfish, exploitative occupation, the vicious siege of Fallujah, the tank battles in front of the shrine of Ali, a vicar of the Prophet, Abu Ghraib, and other public relations disasters have done [al-Qaeda's] work.

To back up this assertion, Cole points to an article by Lawrence Pintak that documents some of the recently released Zogby poll results:

The latest survey results out of the Middle East show that America's favorability rating is now, essentially, zero. That's down from as high as 75 percent in some Muslim countries just four years ago.

It was bad enough in 2002, when Zogby found that an appalling 35 percent of Jordanians and 12 percent of Saudis viewed us favorably. Now those figures are 15 percent and four percent respectively. We can't even buy friends. Egypt received some $4 billion last year in U.S. aid, yet only two percent of Egyptians responded positively. In a poll with a margin of error of about four points, that doesn't even move the needle.

Pintak also addresses the now infamous head fake thrown by Bush in a speech on the one year anniversary of 9/11: "Why do they hate us? They hate our freedoms - our freedom of religion, our freedom of speech, our freedom to vote and assemble and disagree with each other."

According to Pintak:

It was an effective soundbite, but it wasn't true. "There appears to be no empirical evidence to support the claim that Arabs have a negative view of the U.S. because 'they hate American values,'" the Zogby survey concluded. Interviews with members of suicide cells and surveys of opinion in the Middle East have consistently shown that both the terrorists and Arab and non-Arab Muslims as a whole generally admire American 'values' like democracy, a free press, free speech, and universal human rights. What they hate is our support for authoritarian regimes that deny them those rights. Ignoring those grievances was to ignore the "hearts and minds" so vital to defeating terrorism. An overwhelming majority in the Zogby poll expect the U.S. invasion of Iraq to result in less democracy in the Middle East and say it was motivated by U.S. goals of "controlling oil," "protecting Israel" and "weakening" or "dominating" the Muslim world.

He concludes the piece thusly:

The issue was not whether bin Laden posed a dangerous threat, which he demonstrably did; but a question of whether, if it had framed the war on terror differently, acknowledging the root causes - the denial of political and human rights - and taking peaceful steps toward addressing them, the United States might have preserved the well-spring of goodwill that existed among the majority of the world's Muslims in the days after 9/11, rather than creating precisely the climate of fear and alienation that bin Laden sought to foment.

One of the main sources for the now discredited intelligence that Saddam Hussein provided training to al-Qaeda in the use of chemical and biological weapons was a senior leader named Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, captured in Pakistan in the months that followed September 11.

According to intelligence officials, quoted in the New York Times, al-Libi himself recanted his claims at sometime last year when presented with conflicting intelligence during interrogations, "but not before they had become the basis of statements by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and others about links between Iraq and Al Qaeda that involved poisons, gases and other illicit weapons."

The article recounts how in October 2002, Bush said in a speech in Cincinnati that "we've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and poisons and gases." Elsewhere:

In an address to the United Nations Security Council in February 2003, Mr. Powell referred at length to Mr. Libi's account of an Iraqi role in illicit weapons training, though he did not identify him. He attributed the account to a "senior Al Qaeda terrorist" who "was responsible for one of Al Qaeda's training camps in Afghanistan."

The article continues, "In the prelude to the American invasion in March 2003, those claims were echoed often by Mr. Bush and his top advisers, but they have not repeated that allegation for at least six months."

In a footnote to the report it issued, the 9/11 Commission noted that an al-Qaeda detainee "who had provided the most detailed information alleging such ties had backed away from many of his claims."

Some of the ramifications of this incident are also addressed in the Senate Intelligence Committee report:

The American officials now say still-secret parts of the separate report by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which was released in early July, discuss the information provided by Mr. Libi in much greater detail. The Senate report questions whether some versions of intelligence reports prepared by the C.I.A. in late 2002 and early 2003 raised sufficient questions about the reliability of Mr. Libi's claims.

Further calling into question the wisdom of unequivocally relying on these claims, to make assertions of undisputed fact, the article notes that "The Senate report says that a highly classified report prepared by the C.I.A. in September 2002 on 'Iraqi Ties to Terrorism' described the claims that Iraq had provided 'training in poisons and gases' to Qaeda members, but that it cautioned that the information had come from 'sources of varying reliability.'" [emphasis added]

It is apparent that even if they did not deliberately mislead the American people regarding the substance of these claims, at the very least the Bush administration failed to adequately account for the fact that the sources of these claims were of less than perfect credibility. Instead, this intelligence was paraded around as the smoking gun without hesitation or qualification. That is no way to lead a country to war.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting, via The American Prospect, that former Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger may have been, excuse the pun, served. Despite the bombshell allegations that Berger stuffed original documents down his pants and removed them from the National Archives in an attempt to conceal damning information about the Clinton administration's anti-terrorism efforts from the 9/11 Commission, it appears that Berger's transgressions were much more benign.

Officials looking into the removal of classified documents from the National Archives by former Clinton National Security Adviser Samuel Berger say no original materials are missing and nothing Mr. Berger reviewed was withheld from the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

Several prominent Republicans, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, have voiced suspicion that when Mr. Berger was preparing materials for the 9/11 Commission on the Clinton administration's antiterror actions, he may have removed documents that were potentially damaging to the former president's record.

Archives spokeswoman Susan Cooper said officials there "are confident that there aren't any original documents missing in relation to this case." She said in most cases, Mr. Berger was given photocopies to review, and that in any event officials have accounted for all originals to which he had access.

That included all drafts of a so-called after-action report prepared by the White House and federal agencies in 2000 after the investigation into a foiled bombing plot aimed at the Millennium celebrations. That report and earlier drafts are at the center of allegations that Mr. Berger might have permanently removed some records from the archives. Some of the allegations have related to the possibility that drafts with handwritten notes on them may have disappeared, but Ms. Cooper said archives staff are confident those documents aren't missing either.

Daniel Marcus, general counsel of the 9/11 Commission, said the panel had been assured twice by the Justice Department that no originals were missing and that all of the material Mr. Berger had access to had been turned over to the commission. "We are told that the Justice Department is satisfied that we've seen everything that the archives saw," and "nothing was missing," he said.

I assume we can expect apologies from Hastert and Delay in the near future for their premature attacks on the character of a former White House official. Or maybe they'll just let this whopper fade away.

Mention the virtues of a progressive tax code, and you're inevitably accused of embracing socialism. Issue an impassioned defense of Social Security, and you can count on hearing the term "Marxist" flung your way. Dare to point out the mounting evidence that the Bush team's economic policies are disparately impacting the middle and lower classes, and invariably you will face the charge of engaging in class warfare.

My question is, when do these policies themselves count as class warfare? Why is it class warfare to make an empirical argument that the radical changes to the tax code have greatly favored the wealthiest tax brackets at the expense of the rest, but not class warfare to usher in such a regressive redistribution of wealth in the first place? Reminds me of an oft quoted line by billionaire Warren Buffett, "If there is class warfare, my class is winning."

In a piece appearing on Slate.com, Daniel Gross examines Bush's economic policies using two recent books as a background. The first is Daniel Altman's new book, Neoconomy, which if nothing else, has bestowed upon us the gift of lexicon that is "NeoConomists," a term used to describe the economic counterpart to the brash foreign policy theories espoused by the Neo-Conservatives. Here is Gross on Altman's book:

The Neoconomists, led by the dour supply-sider Lawrence Lindsey and the more cheerful (and shameless) Glenn Hubbard, possessed of "a revolutionary mindset," used the forecasts of a surplus as an excuse to restructure the tax code. Their goal was to eliminate or sharply reduce taxes on savings and investing and instead finance government activities by taxing wages. So marginal tax rates were cut on the wealthy, the estate tax was slated for elimination, and taxes on dividends and capital gains were slashed. The result: hundreds of billions of dollars of the Social Security surplus spent, hundreds of billions in extra debt, subpar job growth, and structural deficits as far as the eye can see.

And they're not done yet. If the Neoconomists have their way, Altman concludes, "All your income from working would be taxed" while "none of your income from other forms of saving would be taxed." That's a huge relative advantage for those with enough assets to invest and live off of savings and a huge relative disadvantage for people who haven't yet made it. Two Americas, anyone?

"To date, the [recovery's] primary beneficiaries have been upper-income households," concludes Dean Maki, a J.P. Morgan Chase (and former Federal Reserve) economist who has studied the ways that changes in wealth affect spending. In research he sent to clients this month, Mr. Maki said, "Two of the main factors supporting spending over the past year, tax cuts and increases in [stock] wealth, have sharply benefited upper income households relative to others."

I close with yet more questions: Who exactly is waging class warfare, when was the first shot fired? More important, which side is winning?

The Bush administration announced in the aftermath of 9/11 that they intended to launch an initiative to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. This is more than an abstract concept, without changing the attitudes on the Muslim street, groups like al-Qaeda will continue to have an ample pool of candidates from which to recruit jihadists intent on destroying Americans and other Westerners.

In crafting my treatment of this dilemma, I do not ignore the role that many of these Muslim nations play in stoking the fires of anti-Americanism, nor can any meaningful solution gain traction without addressing these causes. For too long the governments of Muslim nations, particularly in the Middle East, have fueled anti-American rage through propaganda laced state run media outlets in order to draw attention away from the inequities and economic imbalance resulting from policies propagated by the governments themselves. America has served as a convenient and multi-purpose scapegoat for problems large and small.

Saudi Arabia, our supposed ally, with its funding and promotion of Wahhabism (the most virulent,anti-American, pro-jihadist strain of Islam - of note, Osama and most of al-Qaeda are Wahhabists) has played as much a role in this as any nation, but Egypt, Syria, Iran, and many others are guilty of these crimes. The only feasible solution is to use our diplomatic leverage to compel these countries to rein in this rhetoric, and to promote an alternate narrative through legitimate venues, but this will be a long and arduous process. Of course, there are also real non-propagandized underlying causes for animosity to the United States that must be addressed if we want to address the full nature of the problem with our perception in the Muslim world, and give the chance for moderate, pro-reform movements to hold sway over the vast majority.

Despite the bluster of the Bush administration, the full extent of this crucial diplomatic campaign was limited in scope and light on substance. We did start a rival news program, Al Hurrah, to counter the angles taken by Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, but our effort has been widely dismissed as propaganda in the Muslim world since the positions taken by this network basically echoe talking points of the administration, and the content is sanitized compared to the graphic imaged broadcast on its competitors (also contributing to its lack of legitimacy, it broadcasts out of Virginia).

The hard work, a shift in policy priorities in the region, a meaningful engagement in the Israeli/Palestinian peace process, and the real promotion of reform movements, has been sorely lacking. We have even failed to take the seemingly simple task of providing meaningful humanitarian aid to Palestinians living in squalid conditions in occupied territories, and this oversight has not gone unnoticed. Compounding, and building on our inability to make progress in these other areas, the invasion of Iraq (a second Muslim country after Afghanistan), the failure to find adequate justification for this invasion (no WMDs, no ties to al-Qaeda), and the treatment of Iraqi civilians (Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, civilian casualties) has dealt a decisive blow to our efforts to win over the good will of the Muslim people.

An article in the Washington Post details some evidence, via a series of polls, of our deteriorating position in the Middle East, and the failure of the Bush team to formulate a cogent policy to win the hearts and minds of the populace and stave off the well-spring of radical Islamist jihadists:

"In 2002, the single policy issue that drove opinion was the Palestinians; now it's Iraq and America's treatment, here and abroad, of Arabs and Muslims," said James Zogby, who commissioned the report with the Arab American Institute.

In Zogby's 2002 survey, 76 percent of Egyptians had a negative attitude toward the United States, compared with 98 percent this year. In Morocco, 61 percent viewed the country unfavorably in 2002, but in two years, that number has jumped to 88 percent. In Saudi Arabia, such responses rose from 87 percent in 2002 to 94 percent in June. Attitudes were virtually unchanged in Lebanon but improved slightly in the UAE, from 87 percent who said in 2002 that they disliked the United States to 73 percent this year.

Those polled said their opinions were shaped by U.S. policies, rather than by values or culture. When asked: "What is the first thought when you hear 'America'?" respondents overwhelmingly said: "Unfair foreign policy."

And when asked what the United States could do to improve its image in the Arab world, the most frequently provided answers were "Stop supporting Israel" and "Change your Middle East policy."

These poll results highlight the disturbing trend pointing to the counter-productive nature of our invasion of Iraq. Instead of dealing a blow to al-Qaeda, we have increased their support in the region by making them seem righteous in their opposition to our perceived heavy handed and one sided tactics. This in turn has made their recruitment efforts all the more easier.

These sentiments were echoed in the book Imperial Hubris by the 22 year CIA veteran and counter-terrorism expert identified only by the moniker Anonymous. According to Anonymous, "Bin Laden saw the invasion of Iraq as a Christmas gift he never thought he'd get." By invading a country that's regarded as the second holiest place in Islam, he asserts, the Bush administration inadvertently validated bin Laden's assertions that the United States intends a holy war against Muslims. It has become increasingly difficult to refute these accusations in the Muslim world.

Consider this take from an article appearing in Foreign Policy (subscription required):

The military component of the war on terrorism has had some significant success. A high proportion of those who associated with bin Laden between 1996 and 2001 are now either dead or in prison. Bin Laden's own ability to commission and instigate terror attacks has been severely curtailed. Enhanced cooperation between intelligence organizations around the world and increased security budgets have made it much harder for terrorists to move their funds across borders or to successfully organize and execute attacks.

However, if countries are to win the war on terror, they must eradicate enemies without creating new ones. They also need to deny those militants with whom negotiation is impossible the support of local populations. Such support assists and, in the minds of the militants, morally legitimizes their actions. If Western countries are to succeed, they must marry the hard component of military force to the soft component of cultural appeal. There is nothing weak about this approach. As any senior military officer with experience in counterinsurgency warfare will tell you, it makes good sense. The invasion of Iraq, though entirely justifiable from a humanitarian perspective, has made this task more pressing.

Bin Laden is a propagandist, directing his efforts at attracting those Muslims who have hitherto shunned his extremist message. He knows that only through mass participation in his project will he have any chance of success. His worldview is receiving immeasurably more support around the globe than it was two years ago, let alone 15 years ago when he began serious campaigning. The objective of Western countries is to eliminate the threat of terror, or at least to manage it in a way that does not seriously impinge on the daily lives of its citizens. Bin Laden's aim is to radicalize and mobilize. He is closer to achieving his goals than the West is to deterring him." [emphasis added]

In a related matter, the complete erosion of public opinion toward America has hampered the efforts of democratic reformers whose calls for democracy are tainted by their association with American ideals, which is a nearly untenable position in the Muslim world today. Instead, the hard liners and fundamentalists are gaining in power and influence because their message is the gospel of resistance to the perceived American led aggression. Not exactly a domino effect of democracy emanating from the epicenter in Baghdad. More from the Washington Post article:

"What we're seeing now is a disturbing sympathy with al Qaeda coupled with resentment toward the United States, and we ought to be extremely troubled by that," said Shibley Telhami, a University of Maryland professor who commissioned one of the surveys.

Telhami, who is collecting statistics for an upcoming book on the Arab world, said the "United States had it right when it said after Sept. 11 that we would battle for hearts and minds. But, unfortunately, things went the way al Qaeda wanted them to go rather than the way the U.S. wanted them to go in terms of public opinion."

This trend was also observed and noted in the bi-partisan 9/11 Commission report:

The findings reflect the concerns raised in the Sept. 11 commission report released yesterday, which emphasized a losing battle for public opinion. "Support for the United States has plummeted," the commissioners wrote.

For how long can the war against radical Islamic jihadists persist without addressing the fountain from which the foot soldiers in this battle spring forth. The ranks of jihad well be reinforced in perpetuity until we make a meaningful effort to address the underlying causes. This won't be easy, and may be beyond our reach in the near term, but the current trajectory has not been productive in the least nor free of enormous peril and sacrifice.

Yes, Arafat walked away from Clinton's proposed peace settlement swayed by the intransigence of certain Palestinian militants, and Rabin was gunned down by hardliners from within his own ranks, but that doesn't mean we should abandon this vital effort. Ironically, Arafat would be more prone to accept the Clinton plan today than four years ago, but Sharon is not likely to put it on the table again. Nor is Sharon likely to yield on the issue of the "Wall" or his use of heavy-handed military tactics in the occupied territories, which only further diminishes our standing in the region at a highly sensitive time considering the realities in Iraq. Unfortunately, in an election year neither Bush nor Kerry appears intent on exerting any pressure on Sharon to return to the table, instead opting to lay all the blame at Arafat's feet, where some but not all belongs. Furthermore, it is even unlikely that either candidate would promote humanitarian aid for the Palestinians in crisis, despite the fact that this would at least be a small step in the right direction toward rehabilitating our image in the Muslim world

But it goes beyond Israel. The United States must find a way to empower reformers and democratic movements without delegitimizing their members by too closely associating them with our policies.

Richard Clarke has more on these topics:

Even more important than any bureaucratic suggestions is the report's cogent discussion of who the enemy is and what strategies we need in the fight. The commission properly identified the threat not as terrorism (which is a tactic, not an enemy), but as Islamic jihadism, which must be defeated in a battle of ideas as well as in armed conflict.

We need to expose the Islamic world to values that are more attractive than those of the jihadists. This means aiding economic development and political openness in Muslim countries, and efforts to stabilize places like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Restarting the Israel-Palestinian peace process is also vital.

Also, we can't do this alone. In addition to "hearts and minds" television and radio programming by the American government, we would be greatly helped by a pan-Islamic council of respected spiritual and secular leaders to coordinate (without United States involvement) the Islamic world's own ideological effort against the new Al Qaeda.

Unfortunately, because of America's low standing in the Islamic world, we are now at a great disadvantage in the battle of ideas. This is primarily because of the unnecessary and counterproductive invasion of Iraq. In pulling its bipartisan punches, the commission failed to admit the obvious: we are less capable of defeating the jihadists because of the Iraq war.

Given the record of monumental setbacks and repeated incompetence, why is it that there is still an underlying presumption among large swaths of the electorate that Republicans are stronger on foreign policy and defense, in particular the war against radical Islamic jihadists? What exactly has the Bush team done to earn this benefit of the doubt? Rather than make headway in the long hard slog to stave off the flow of desperate and embittered youth to the side of jihad, the Bush administration has alternately hampered efforts, remained indolent and reversed positive trends and forecasts. If honest, intelligent people view these efforts as a success, what does failure look like?

[Update: An Op-Ed by Robert Wright in today's New York Times touches on some of the themes mentioned above. He discusses the need to "rebrand" America in the Muslim world, and to change the paradigm of "better to be feared than loved" into one of "better to be respected than feared." Here are some excerpts:

What is new, and uniquely challenging, about the war on terrorism is that hatred of America well beyond the bounds of its alliance now imperils national security. Fervent anti-Americanism among Muslims is the wellspring of terrorism, regardless of whether they live in countries whose governments cooperate with us.

For a nation to be thoroughly respected, the perception of its strength needs to be matched by a perception of its goodness. It helps to be thought of as just, generous, conscientious, mindful of the opinion of others, even a little humble. In lots of little ways, Mr. Bush has given the world the impression that we're not these things.

Mr. Kerry touched on some of this, noting that global leadership means inspiring more than fear. But he didn't carry the respect theme explicitly into the context of Muslim opinion.

Doing so wouldn't by itself amount to a strategy for the war on terrorism. But it would add a new dimension to the Democrats' emerging critique of the president's foreign policy - and a potent one. The plummeting regard for America in Muslim nations like Indonesia over the last few years is a well-documented fact. If voters can see the link between this and the security of their children - see that for every million Muslims who hate America, one will be willing to fly an airplane into a shopping mall - then President Bush will have a lot of explaining to do. And existing criticisms of his policies will acquire new force. (Given how unpopular the Iraq war was known to be in the Muslim world, wasn't the lack of postwar planning beyond inexcusable?)

I aree with Wright's assessment, and his suggestion that Kerry/Edwards might want to think about touching on these themes in the campaign. Of course, this is a very delicate messsage to craft in a political campaign because of the risk of appearing to suggest that America should pander to the Muslim world and cater to the demands of terrorists. Still, even if it doesn't become a campaign center piece, it should be incorporated into a possible Kerry strategy post-November.]