Month: July 2006

"In the past two weeks, more Iraqi civilians have been killed than have died in Lebanon and Israel," – from Michael Gordon’s account in the NYT. Because of Rumsfeld’s pride, in order to attempt to secure Baghdad, we will have to abandon much of Anbar to the insurgents. Hey, we don’t need more troops, do we?

Yep: the most beautiful people on Capitol Hill have been unveiled. Don’t get too excited. Nobody asked him, but Boozhy has some strong opinions.

That’s the euphemism du jour:

Mr. Hadley, the national security adviser, said the failure of the initial plan [to secure Baghdad] forced the administration to move to what he called ‘Phase II.’ But other officials said there was no Phase II in the previous plan. ‘This is more like Plan B,’ said one of Mr. Hadley’s associates, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss internal policy matters. ‘Six weeks ago, we were talking about pulling American troops back from the city streets, not putting more of them out there.’

The good news is that someone in the White House, for a change, seems more concerned with doing what is necessary for a minimal brake on the civil war rather than more domestic spin. I was also glad to hear the president describe the security situation in Baghdad as "terrible." It’s better than denial.

A reader wants to know what the silence is all about:

The radio silence on Lebanon from the left-wing blogosphere (i.e. Kos, Atrios) is fascinating, and your reader from the ‘Liberal Blogs and Israel‘ post had it about right. To sympathize with Hezbollah would expose these bloggers to a potentially career-damaging backlash. However, to take the mainstream Democratic line of say, Chuck Schumer, would be to seriously alienate a chunk of their readership.

And for sure, Hezbollah sympathizers do exist on the left. One only has to listen to KPFA, the ‘free speech network’ broadcast out of Berkeley to get a taste of unfiltered Hezbollah propaganda, in which Mullah Nasrallah is characterized as the new Che Guevara. The Weekly Standard might have done better to listen to some of these transcripts, rather than to desperately fish around the diaries on Kos.

I’ve actually been skeptical of beating up on Kos on this. But I just read the last three pages of posts on the main site, and there’s only one even vaguely alluding to the crisis with Hezbollah. That’s just plain weird. I know we’re not supposed to notice silence on blogs – people are free to ignore all sorts of stories. But the silence can be instructive (hey, I studied with a Straussian). This is Atrios’ second-hand excuse:

I’ve said nothing about war in Lebanon or Ethiopia because I have nothing to add, and also because – as you may or may not be aware – the United States is actually involved in a hugely bloody war right now, and this is more of a pressing concern to me personally. I don‚Äôt know the secret formula for unshitting any of these beds – I promise I wouldn’t be shy if I did – but I currently only have to sleep in one of them; and, as it turns out, that’s the one bed where I actually have some miniscule chance of influencing the situation. So that‚Äôs my concern.

This would make sense if there were no connections between Hezbollah and Iran and Iraq. Are lefties unable to grapple with complex regional wars? Nah. They’re just wimping out. My reader gives one plausible reason why. Is there a more persuasive one?

This blog predicts that Washington State’s highest court will rule on marriage rights for gay couples today. So does this one. The decision is due at 8 am. The text of the decision should be available here by 11 am.

Maryland’s black GOP candidate for the Senate describes the Republican label as a "scarlet letter." His polling cannot be encouraging.

A Connecticut reader vents:

Reading the interview with Kos made me want to throw up. As a Connecticut native (and Lieberman supporter), I wonder where he gets off trying to play God in our elections. He says, "I don’t think Joe Lieberman would have anything to worry about had he tended to his constituents back home. His job is to represent the people of Connecticut."  What kind of view of Connecticut’s politics does he think he has from San Francisco, exactly?  Representing "the people of Connecticut" is exactly what Lieberman has been doing, which is why he is crushing Lamont and the GOP candidate in a 3-way general election with over 50% of the vote. What Kos wants, of course, is for Lieberman to represent his vision of what the Democratic Party should be. He goes on to say that Lieberman would not be abiding "by the democratic will of the people of Connecticut" if he loses the primary and wins the general election. Right, because "people of Connecticut" = "20% of Connecticut’s registered Democrats who turn out for the closed primary in the middle of the summer." Spare me.

Fired by the CIA for opposing waterboarding on her classified blog, Christine Axsmith has done the sane thing and started a public blog. Money quote:

What can I say? Waterboarding is torture, and torture is wrong.

And the United States almost certainly continues to use waterboarding. Except that none of us is actually allowed to know whether the Bush administration practises torture.

When a legal deposition goes off the rails … (Warning: lively language.)

A reader asks:

Does it really mean losing Iraq? The goal of a unified Iraqi government as originally envisioned may be lost – but three separate confederated states bound by shared geography, culture, and a central city (Baghdad) may be possible. I think Galbraith raises a possible way of achieving that. The Shiite areas if secured and made independent may not automatically spin into Iran’ s clutches (Iranian mullahs have a hard enough time controlling Iran and don’t underestimate the Arab-Persian differences). Provided Sunni areas do not become an al Qaeda haven – I could see us working out some sort of compromise there too.

I agree Rumsfeld and Cheney screwed this up – but we have to deal with what we have now, not what we had several years ago.

I’m loath to predict anything at this point. But Galbraith’s proposal does seem to me a sane and least worst one. And the result, if successful, may not be so bad.