Tristero

Saturday, April 10, 2004

Polls Looking Up  

But it's still not enough by half:

After weeks of increasingly violent news from Iraq, presumptive Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts now leads the president in a two-way trial heat by seven points (50 percent to 43 percent), according to the latest NEWSWEEK poll.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 2:20 PM

Yes 'n, How Many Deaths Will It Take, Til the People Will Know...  

...that too many people have died?

Gunmen running rampant on Baghdad's western edge attacked a fuel convoy, killing a U.S. soldier and an Iraqi driver and causing a fiery explosion that sent up a pall of black smoke. A Baghdad correspondent for Al-Jazeera Arab television said at least nine people were killed.


Another U.S. soldier was killed in an attack on a base elsewhere in the capital, and large groups of insurgents battled U.S. troops in two cities to the north, Baqouba and Muqdadiyah.

The military also announced the deaths of three Marines a day earlier, bringing the toll of U.S. troops killed across Iraq this week to 45. The fighting has killed more than 460 Iraqis – including more than 280 in Fallujah, a hospital official said. At least 646 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq since the war began in March 2003.

posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 12:32 PM

What Was In "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the US"  

Anyone surprised?

Highlights of the report entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the US" include:

-- An intelligence report received in May 2001 indicating al Qaeda was attempting to send operatives to the United States through Canada to carry out an attack using explosives. This information had been passed on to intelligence and law enforcement agencies;

-- Al Qaeda had been considering ways to hijack American planes to win the release of operatives who had been arrested in 1998 and 1999 [hmm...more proof that "nothing happened" under Clinton to thwart al Qaeda. Not.];

-- Osama bin Laden was set on striking the US as early as 1997 through early 2001;

-- Some intelligence suggested suspected al Qaeda operatives were traveling to and from the United States, were U.S. citizens, and may have had a support network in the U.S.;

-- At least 70 FBI investigations were underway in 2001 regarding possible al Qaeda cells/terrorist-related operations in the U.S.

And remember, boys and girls, the context. That memo came on the heels of months of warnings that something was about to happen. And the Hart/Rudman report.

Time for some resignations, folks. Starting with Condoleeza "Historical" Rice, whose testimony should be examined for a potential perjury indictment.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 6:46 AM

Friday, April 09, 2004

Rice Is Toast?  

John Nichols thinks so:

Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste asked Rice if she could recall the title of President Bush's daily briefing document for August 6, 2001, which crossed her desk more than a month before operatives associated with Osama bin Laden's al-Queda network attacked the world Trade Center and the Pentagon. After several inept attempts to avoid the question, Rice finally answered, 'I believe the title was, 'Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.'


Rice knew she was in trouble; she claimed immediately that the August 6 briefing paper was a speculative document, not a real warning. The administration's defenders then spent the rest of the day trying to convince Americans that they had not heard what they had, in fact, heard. But, as 9/11 widow Lorie Van Auken correctly noted after the title was revealed, 'That pretty much says it all.'


What it says, above all, is that Condoleezza Rice will forever be remembered as the national security adviser who knew bin Laden was determined to attack inside the United States but who, by all indications, felt no great sense of urgency about that threat. On 'The Daily Show,' host John [sic] Stewart simply played the tape of Rice's response to Ben-Veniste's inquiry. It got the best laugh of the night.


Fair or not, the impression that Rice created on Thursday will spell the end of her political prospects. She will never win a place on a national Republican ticket as a candidate for president or vice president. No matter how much Republican operatives may try to spin her back onto the short list, it is simply impossible to imagine that Rice, or anyone else, could survive the repeated airings of that exchange in an election year.

I sure hope you're right.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 3:22 PM

Josh To Bush: Do Your Job  

Josh Marshall highlights a WaPo article on the slacker president and suggests he might want to get to Washington right now, as there's a spot of trouble in Iraq.

I suppose it can't hurt for him to pretend to pay attention.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 10:25 AM

Missionaries In Trouble  

J.G. gives an excellent summary of the kidnapped Japanese missionaries story. In a masterpiece of understatement, she writes:

We wondered if welcoming naive and unprepared persons with a religious agenda that most in Muslim culture consider insulting to the occupied country is counterproductive.

All decent people hope that these hostages are released unharmed and that they get out of Iraq before even worse things happen. Unfortunately, it seems just a matter of time before some of the US missionaries in Iraq meet the same fate.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 9:59 AM

How Knowledgeable Is The 9/11 Commission?  

Dave Neiwert has a terrific post analysing in detail Rice's comments regarding the Millenium Plot. Briefly, Rice tries to minimize Clinton's effectiveness and boost Bush's by claiming that either it was just a customs agent simply doing her job that broke open the Millenium plot or, conversely, a customs agent got lucky. Without in any way diminishing customs agent Diana Dean's terrific work, Dave demolishes Rice's attempt to get Bush off the hook for failing to learn of the 9/11 plot. Dave points out what should have been pointed out at the hearing itself, that it was Clarke's/the Clinton administration's rapid and effective followup that dramatically illustrates the difference between the Clinton and Bush responses. Clinton leapt into action. Bush spaced out:

... Rice is technically correct. But her "context" for the case omits the bigger picture -- which tends, in fact, to corroborate Clarke's version, and moreover paints Rice and her Team Bush cohorts in a decidedly incompetent light.

The bigger picture includes what happened next: Namely, FBI agents and the Clinton counterterror team, headed by Clarke -- realizing the enormity of what Ressam [the al Qaedian captured at the Canadian/US border] represented -- sprung quickly into action and soon uncovered most of the rest of his co-conspirators. Ressam, it must be remembered, was scheduled to bomb L.A. International Airport. However, there were at least three other millennium plots, all outside the U.S. but against mostly American targets... More to the point, investigators began uncovering a much broader assortment of Al Qaeda terrorist cells operating within the U.S. ...

The work needed to make that change [ie focus on the developing Millenium investigation and the real possibility of al Qaeda cells in the US], as Clarke has made clear in his testimony, is a significant part of what he tried to bring to the attention of Bush administration officials shortly after being sworn into office in January 2001. It was the chief reason he asked for a Principals meeting then -- though Rice and the Bush team now contend he was supposedly focused solely on dealing with Al Qaeda abroad. As we all now know, that Principals meeting did not occur until Sept. 4.

Even more significant is the fact that -- just as the Aug. 6 Presidential Daily Briefing that is now the focus of the post-testimony controversy apparently suggests, according to 9/11 commissioners Bob Kerrey and Tim Roemer -- the same warning signs that had alerted officials to the Millennium Plot -- were replicating themselves.

Ok, I think that Rice's incompetence, as well as that of her superiors in the months prior to 9/11, is established beyond any reasonable doubt. Despite every effort to alert them to the alarming danger of al Qaeda, they refused to listen carefully until it was too late. (By "reasonable doubt," I don't mean the phrase in the legal sense, but in the lay sense, that a dispassionate observer would be justified in concluding that Bush administration's incompetence contributed to the success of the 9/11 plot. It remains to be seen whether a legal case to indict the negligent officials can be developed, or whether there's any will do to try to do so.)

But I have a different question, about the here and now.

Unlike Dave Neiwert, or most folks, the 9/11 Commission has, supposedly, been intensely focusing on terrorism issues and the history of same for months now. One would assume that they were so conversant with the facts that they could easily provide context and debunk Rice's testimony as she is providing it. But they didn't. Instead, it seemed, from the little I watched and from what I've read, to be more like a Larry King-style he said/she said love fest, where everyone's spin on the truth is accepted as equally valid, without any serious, intensive disputation. That means that it's up to CAP, and Neiwert, and the rest of us who care about the truth of 9/11 to put the real story together.

But why should it be our job? Why should anyone who appears in front of the Commission get away with ignoring or distorting the context? Why aren't the questions posed by the Commission knowledgeable, pointed, and aggressive? Why should anyone who goes before the Commission, either from the administration, or critics, get a free pass to expound their position without immediate challenge?

Is it because the Commission is too intimidated to ask the hard questions? Or is it that they are not really doing their homework prior to questioning the witnesses? Or both?
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 7:48 AM

Thursday, April 08, 2004

It's The Bush Administration, Stupid  

I was very troubled by this nearly throwaway observation in an article about Bush, Kerry, and Iraq:

Mr. Kerry was in Washington, pressing ahead with a long-planned major speech on the issue that he expected to be the centerpiece of the campaign, the economy.

NO! The main issue in this campaign is not the economy, not the "war on terrorism," and not Iraq.

The issue is Bush and the Bush administration. They are, quite literally, the elephant in the room. To talk details about the economy when they are lying through their teeth and preening for the cameras is political suicide.

Don't the Democrats get it, after all these months, Howard Dean, and all the work everyone's done? The issue is Bush, stupid! Just as the issue was Carter in 1980. The issue is the quality and intentions of the Bush administration, and that must be front and center for any truly effective campaign.

All the other issues are important provided that they illuminate the central point: Bush is incompetent, corrupt, and cares only for his rich friends.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 4:42 PM

Daniel Pipes Wants To Set Up "Moderate" Islamist Group  

And while he's at it, maybe he could set up a group to counter the Falwells and Robertsons in Christianity, right here in the US, also:

Pipes is currently seeking funding for a new organization, tentatively named the "Islamic Progress Institute" (IPI), which "can articulate a moderate, modern and pro-American viewpoint" on behalf of US Muslims and that, according to a grant proposal by Pipes and two New York-based foundations, obtained by IPS, can "go head-to-head with the established Islamist institutions".

This has not a chance in hell of succeeding. Once again, these sorts of things well up and can't be imposed from the top down in any kind of intelligent or effective fashion.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 4:30 PM

Operation Trojan Horse  

The Shi'ites hit the fan. This should surprise no one. Nor should the timing:

The most likely explanation for the coincident eruptions of violence, many Iraqis believe, is that Sunnis and Shiites are each watching the other's assaults, first in Falluja last week and then in the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad, Kufa, Najaf and at least three other southern cities over the weekend, sensing that the American forces were overstretched.

And meanwhile, the utter cluelessness of the American media and the narcissism of its official opinion makers reaches the level of psychotic delusion. Check out this bizarre Times editorial:

...it is impossible to build a better nation in Iraq unless there are Iraqi leaders willing to stand up to extremism...

Um, folks? Hello???? Earth to Times!

There are no actions going on in Iraq more extreme than the unprovoked invasion, conquest, and continued occupation of the country by the Bush administration.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 6:53 AM

Tuesday, April 06, 2004

Dirty Tricks - File Under: Plausible, Somewhat Likely  

Florida times N, where N is the number of states whose count is contested because of GOP irregularities - voter fraud, computer machine fraud, y'know the drill. But this time, rather than one, there are four or five simultaneous recounts. Lawsuits in just as many states, slowly working their way up to the Supreme Court.

Now what? Surely, the election wouldn't be decided before January 20, 2005. Who would be president on January 21?
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 5:21 PM

Proof Bush Administration Can't Plan Ahead  

Well, at least it wasn't a fake turkey:

It was a mouthwatering menu. Not that you'd expect less for $2,000 a plate.


Seered beef tenderloins with golden tomatoes on an herb-encrusted baguette. Grilled garlic chicken with smoked gouda on a honey wheat wrap. Fruits and gourmet olives and crudite. A gourmet luncheon with only one thing missing: something to eat it with.


The explanation was at the bottom of the menus distributed at President Bush's $1.5 million Charlotte fund-raiser Monday.


"At the request of the White House, silverware will not accompany the table settings," it said in discreetly fine print.


No silver. No plastic.


The lack of utensils might have been why many plates went virtually untouched.


The reason: So the tinkle of silver wouldn't disrupt the president's speech.

via Atrios.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 3:33 PM

On The Four Deaths In Fallujah (Short Version)  

 
The blogosphere has gone into a cynically manipulated snit over the deaths of the 4 American civilians in Fallujah. Some comments:

1. The deaths and mutilations were horrible and revolting. Nothing whatsoever justifies such horror. Sympathy and condolence is due their families. Unfortunately, Americans may be about to experience much more.

2. Therefore, Kos' callous statements are, in the words of John Kerry's blog, unacceptable and attempts to justify his original remarks by appealing to his own experiences only make him look more callous.

3. Did Kos deserve the treatment he received? Hell, no, but he should have expected it. Politics, Bush-style, is not simply dirty; it is nidorous (look it up). In this case, Kos seriously misread the zeitgeist and he's now learned an important lesson if he wants a serious role in American politics: NEVER post so much as a comma when you are spitting angry.

4. Should Kerry have dropped Kos from his blogroll? Hell, no! Someone over at Kerry headquarters STILL doesn't get it. A high profile catfight to defend Kos would have exposed exactly how cancerous and ugly mainstream Republican discourse has become. So Kerry's response should have been, "A blogger whose opinions are his own, but whom my campaign links to, said something incredibly stupid, yes. Now you wanna make something of it? Great! Bring it on. We dare you to make a campaign issue out of Kos's words. We can't wait to show the American people what you really say."

The upshot of the Kerry team's present refusal to out the cesspool of hate that is standard-issue Republican rhetoric is that the day of reckoning has merely been delayed. Sooner or later, this fight will have to happen.

But it may not be so easy later on as it would have been over Kos.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 2:31 PM

On The Four Deaths In Fallujah (Long Version)  

The blogosphere has gone into a cynically manipulated snit over the deaths of the 4 American civilians in Fallujah. Some comments:

1. The deaths were horrible. Sympathy and condolence is due their families.

2. The mutilations were revolting, recalling mob-rule atrocities wherever they occur, be they lynchings in the 1920's American South or in Afghanistan in 2000, or anywhere else.

3. Tragically, such pointless death and horror within Iraq seems likely to become a more and more common sight for American observers. (Surely, such things went on, in Saddam- approved settings, before the Bush/Iraq war, but the US public never saw it, nor were US citizens the victims.) Certainly, Americans are not the only targets of cruel barbarities in Iraq right now, but the deaths of countrymen in such a horrible fashion creates a sense of shared fate among most Americans that overwhelms the next question, "What were these four people doing there?"

4. Assuming even the worst case scenario -they were highly paid, well-armed mercenaries who played by no rules except the most extreme brutality - that IN NO WAY justifies or condones their murder, let alone the mutilations. No one, except perhaps their families partially, can truly explain their presence. Maybe it was love of danger, maybe not. Maybe it was greed, maybe not. Maybe they were individuals strapped for cash who had few options to keep their families afloat, maybe not. Maybe they were deeply disturbed, maybe they were completely sane. Maybe they were personally violent and cruel to Fallujans, maybe they were innocent victims of inchoate rage.

5. Therefore, Kos' callous statements are, in the words of John Kerry's blog, unacceptable. Some of Kos's attempts to justify his original remarks only make him look more callous. His personal experience with soldiers and mercenaries and death does not give him any special insight or consideration when it comes to moral judgements. For example, I know a Holocaust survivor whose life work has been forensic psychological assessment of violent serial offenders, including Son of Sam, Ted Bundy, and so on. He is firmly opposed to the death penalty, not merely for practical reasons (too expensive, race issues) but because it is morally unacceptable behavior for a state to execute criminal offenders under any and all circumstances. I know other Holocaust survivors who feel nothing but "serves 'em right" when the subject of the death penalty is broached. So a different person than Kos could experience worse than what Kos experienced and react with horror, not the angry "screw 'em" Kos expressed. Kos owes the families both an unhedged apology and the promise that he will try to better understand his own vindictive instincts. No man is an island. Ever.

6. Kos's usually fairly decent political instincts were also seriously derailed by his anger. He's now learned an important lessen if he wants a serious role in American politics: NEVER post so much as a comma when you are spitting angry, especially when it involves the deaths of Americans. And so Kos misread the zeitgeist. Even those most prone to defend him, like Atrios, admit it was, at best, not Kos's final hour. Since he so misread the overall mood, freepers and similar bottom-feeders nailed him and tried to embarass Kerry. Did Kos deserve such treatment? Hell, no, but he should have expected it. Politics, Bush-style, is not simply dirty; it is nidorous (look it up).

7. Should Kerry have dropped Kos from his blogroll? Hell, no! Someone over at Kerry headquarters STILL doesn't get it. Sure, they know that 20 seconds of googling would reveal that the freepers who were so angry at Kos are total hypocrites. But another 20 seconds in Google would turn up far worse than Kos from the likes of Coulter, Krauthammer, Kathleen Parker, and DeLay. In other words, a high profile catfight to defend Kos would have exposed exactly how cancerous and ugly mainstream Republican discourse has become. So Kerry's response should have been, "A blogger whose opinions are his own, but whom my campaign links to, said something incredibly stupid, yes. Now you wanna make something of it? Great! Bring it on. We dare you to make a campaign issue out of Kos's words. We can't wait to show the American people what you really say."

The upshot of the Kerry team's present refusal to out the cesspool of hate that is standard-issue Republican rhetoric is that the day of reckoning has merely been delayed. Sooner or later, perhaps even the usually reasonable and rational Kevin Drum may be pushed over the edge. And eventually, someone who really matters will say something in the heat of argument they might regret. After all, sober people who, before Bush, were moderate to conservative -like Paul Krugman or Brady Kiesling- have become increasingly vocal in voicing their alarm at Bush's incompetency, his dangerous policies and his low character. They have also become increasingly willing to give as much back to the Republicans as they get. And then, when the stakes are far higher, Kerry will have to stand up to Republican trash-talk without the experience or support he will need to be as effective as he could otherwise be.

For if Kos is expendable, the blogosphere is not; we're too good at fundraising for Kerry to ignore. And even if he decides to risk cutting us off, there are others, far more prominent, who Kerry cannot afford to ignore. He will be forced to defend them, the way General Clark had to fend off those who made an issue out of Michael Moore's "deserter" statement.

But it may not be so easy later on as it would have been over Kos.
posted by tristero permanent link to this entry 1:21 PM