Month: August 2007

From the Washington Post:

"Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. The document questions whether some aspects of a more positive assessment by the White House last month adequately reflected the range of views the GAO found within the administration.

The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form on Tuesday, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq.

The draft provides a stark assessment of the tactical effects of the current U.S.-led counteroffensive to secure Baghdad. "While the Baghdad security plan was intended to reduce sectarian violence, U.S. agencies differ on whether such violence has been reduced," it states. While there have been fewer attacks against U.S. forces, it notes, the number of attacks against Iraqi civilians remains unchanged. It also finds that "the capabilities of Iraqi security forces have not improved."

"Overall," the report concludes, "key legislation has not been passed, violence remains high, and it is unclear whether the Iraqi government will spend $10 billion in reconstruction funds," as promised. While it makes no policy recommendations, the draft suggests that future administration assessments "would be more useful" if they backed up their judgments with more details and "provided data on broader measures of violence from all relevant U.S. agencies.""

Here’s a graphic comparing the GAO and the administration’s views on which benchmarks have been met. The three that both agree have been met include: "Establishing supporting political, media, and economic committees in support of the Baghdad security plan", "Establishing all planned joint security stations in neighborhoods across Baghdad", and "Ensuring the rights of minority political parties in the Iraqi legislature are protected." Two more are graded "mixed" — "Enacting and implementing legislation on procedures to form semi-autonomous regions" and "Allocating and spending $10 billion in Iraqi revenue for reconstruction projects including delivery of essential services, on an equitable basis." The GAO finds that progress on all the rest has been unsatisfactory. "The rest" includes de-Baathification, amending the Constitution, the petroleum law, decreasing violence, training the Iraqi army, disarming militias, establishing electoral laws and so forth — little things like that.

But hey: at least we’ve formed some committees!

I found this bit particularly interesting:

"The person who provided the draft report to The Post said it was being conveyed from a government official who feared that its pessimistic conclusions would be watered down in the final version — as some officials have said happened with security judgments in this month’s National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq."

And the GAO is clearly right on this point: "future administration assessments "would be more useful" if they backed up their judgments with more details and "provided data on broader measures of violence from all relevant U.S. agencies." If the administration wants to ask the American people to go on supporting a policy that seems to have failed, they owe us a detailed explanation of why they think that support would do more than postpone the inevitable.

"I often remind our fellow citizens that we live in the greatest country in the world and that I have lived the American dream. Even my worst days as attorney general have been better than my father’s best days."

–from Alberto Gonzales’ resignation statement.

Even a determined Gonzales-hater might find this statement somehow poignant, given his family’s hardscrabble background. But what Mr. Gonzales evidently fails to understand is that he has diminished our collective American dream, alas. He diminished it by dismissing the Geneva Conventions as "quaint", by allowing a horrific torture policy to take root, by his banana-republic like late night visits to John Ashcroft’s hospital room, by ignoring Congressional subpoenas, by authorizing illegal wiretapping programs, by firing qualified United States attorneys in an apparent putsch, and on and on.

Still, I will confess to a measure of sympathy for the man. Much like Harriet Miers, he was so supremely underqualified for his position, so spectacularly beyond his depth, that he should never have been put in such a difficult position. Instead Bush’s bovine obsessiveness with loyalty–basic competence be damned– has focused the brutal kleig-lights of international opprobrium on old friends like Harriet and Alberto. Like Brownie, say, they will become key examples in the history books of the rampant cronyism and incompetence of this Adminstration.

Their legacy thus sealed, one wonders, is Bush even cognizant of how he’s effectively besmirched his friends by trying to elevate them to realms they should have never occupied to begin with? I suspect not, as the President’s capacity for self-criticism appears somewhere between minute and non-existent. Instead, he’s doubtless bitterly nursing his grudges, rankled that Senators like Arlen Specter and Pat Leahy and Chuck Schumer dared to challenge an Attorney General whose sycophancy to the President was so complete as to render the Department of Justice a wholly discredited arm of Government, one where Administration lawyers dutifully genuflected before David Addington and John Yoo’s youthful exuberances.

In the end, I suspect Gonzales simply couldn’t tolerate the punishing mortification anymore, the spectacle of his gross incompetence playing out so harshly on the national stage. And so he finally summoned up the courage to confront the President, that one time, if only to try and salvage whatever crumbs of dignity he had left, likely pleading with Bush to set him loose. Put differently, his only act of rebellion came at the very end, not on the important issues of the day that so badly sullied our democracy and highest traditions, but because Gonzales could no longer abide a crushing humiliation that had by then become total.

Ironically evincing a smigden of backbone only in a bid to persuade Bush to allow him to move off stage to spare himself further such misery, this belated act of banal self-preservation sadly came far too late. By then our collective American dream had been badly tarnished. Still, if it is part of the price of him leaving, let us allow him to fancifully imagine he is still somehow living his. All told, it’s a small price to pay as we begin to clear out the rot left in the wake of this baleful Administration.

(Cross-posted at Belgravia Dispatch)

John Dickerson asks a good question:

We don’t have to guess about what Goldwater would do. During the 1964 presidential campaign, he faced almost precisely the same issue. In October, the Goldwater campaign learned that Walter Jenkins, LBJ’s closest aide, had been arrested on a "morals charge" in the YMCA bathroom. According to J. William Middendorf’s account of that campaign, A Glorious Disaster, Goldwater’s aides wanted to use the scandal against Johnson, who was well ahead in the polls. Jenkins was not only a security risk—open to blackmail— but long before he was arrested, there were allegations he’d used his influence with then-Vice President Johnson to get an Air Force general who had been busted on a morals charge reinstated. The Goldwater aides even tried out slogans: "Either way with LBJ." Goldwater insisted that they make no use of it. The story never came up during the campaign.

This may say more about Goldwater’s personal decency than it does about his governing philosophy. Jenkins had served in Goldwater’s Air Force Reserve Unit, and as Goldwater later wrote, "It was a sad time for Jenkins’ wife and children, and I was not about to add to their private sorrow. Winning isn’t everything. Some things, like loyalty to friends or lasting principle, are more important." Mitt, you’re no Barry Goldwater.

Which reminds me of the best put-down ever in the history of American politics:

Regular readers of Belgravia Dispatch likely sensed my dismay when the Administration floated that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards were going to be declared a foreign terrorist organization. (Actually, a "specially designated global terrorist", seemingly something of a sui generis category born of breezy ‘transformationalist diplomacy’ that apparently allows the largest branch of a sovereign state’s army to be designated a foreign terrorist group. And, yes, in case you’re wondering, this doesn’t really logically fit into this more established listing of foreign terrorist organizations, which I guess is more "quaint" now).

Beyond the sloppiness, however, the policy itself is unlikely to have any material financial impact on the Guards, but will very likely help dash any meaningful chance of fruitful diplomatic dialogue with the Iranians on issues like the nuclear dossier. As Ray Takeyh explains in yesterday’s FT:

…the US has no trade linkages to Iran that it can sever, and European companies are unlikely to adhere to yet another set of American sanctions. Moreover, given the murky and ambiguous nature of the Revolutionary Guards’ business enterprises, it is difficult to suggest in a conclusive manner whether a company is really operating on their behalf. As such, the type of information and intelligence that is needed for targeted sanctionsis unlikely to be available.

While the economic ramifications of the new policy will probably be in-adequate, its political impact is likely to be considerable. Past and present Guardsmen permeate Iran’s security network. The staff of Ali Larijani, Iran’s national security adviser and chief nuclear negotiator, is composed mostly of Revolutionary Guards. Iran’s policy toward Iraq and Afghanistan is also under the purview of the Guards.

Despite their attempts to arm and train Iraqi Shia militias and advance Iran’s nuclear programme, the Guards have not opposed negotiations with the US. Indeed, it would be inconceivable for talks on the nuclear issue or Iraq to have proceeded without the Guards’ approbation. The administration’s attempt to coerce and put pressure on this organisation is likely to trigger its antagonism towards further dealings with the US.

So we merrily continue to go down a road where conflict with Iran increasingly looks to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This is hugely troublesome, not least because–as Anthony Cordesman has pointed out–the repercussions of such a conflict could be disastrous. Cordesman lists potential Iranian retaliatory moves including (with some tweaks for context/language):

1) Iranian retaliation against US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan using Shahab-3 missiles armed with CBR warheads; 2) using proxy groups including…Sadr in Iraq to intensify the insurgency and escalate the attacks against US forces and Iraqi Security Forces; 3) turning the Shi’ite majority in Iraq against the US presence and demanding US forces leave; 4) attacking the US homeland with suicide bombs by proxy groups or delivering CBR weapons to al-Qa’ida to use against the US; 5) using its asymmetric capabilities to attacks US interests in the region including soft targets: e.g. embassies, commercial centers, and American citizens; 6) attacking US naval forces stationed in the Gulf with anti-ship missiles, asymmetric warfare, and mines; 7) attacking Israel with missile attacks possibly with CBR warheads; 8) retaliating against energy targets in the Gulf and temporarily shutting off the flow of oil from the Strait of Hormuz; and 9) stopping all of its oil and gas shipments to increase the price of oil, inflicting damage on the global and US economies.

And yet, as Glenn Greenwald notes, no one really seems particularly alarmed about such a prospective debacle. What to say? I mean, whether on civil liberties issues (as Hilzoy describes to devastating effect here) or on the foreign policy side of things (we all know we’re ‘surging’ now through March ’08, don’t we, whatever September festivities aside, as this report strongly indicates?), one feels compelled to ask, where is the effective opposition?

I know, I know. Larry Craig has wandering toes, and we’re busily chronicling the travails of the blow-dried, bow-tied vigilante class roaming malls off "M" Street. But really, and speaking of "grit" as we’ve been doing here these past days, what about the abysmal meekness and unseriousness we are manifesting as a nation in refusing to attentively broach any number of issues of critical import to the future direction of this country?

(Cross-posted at Belgravia Dispatch)

Leon Wieseltier put it best when he referred to Norman Finkelstein–the hysterical, Hezbollah-loving, soon-to-be-late-of DePaul University political science professor–as "poison, he’s a disgusting self-hating Jew, he’s something you find under a rock." Finkelstein has built a career on defaming Holocaust survivors as greedy liars out to rob noble Swiss bankers, all the while using "I’m Jewish!" as a defense. The wife of the neo-Nazi and Holocaust denier Ernst Zuendel once said, "I feel like a kid in a candy store… Finkelstein is a Jewish David Irving." You get the picture. But if you don’t, read Omer Bartov’s review of Finkelstein’s The Holocaust Industry in the New York Times.

Well, it looks like Professor Finkelstein has some company under that rock: Tariq Ali, Noam Chomsky and, perhaps more surprising, ostensibly respectable academic figures like Tony Judt and John Mearsheimer, author of the conspiratorial The Israel Lobby.

In June, DePaul University denied Finkelstein tenure. Of course, his defenders are all weeping the tears of those victimized by academic "censorship" (because, as we all know, it’s leftists who are "censored" on college campuses). Ultimately, however, it was not Finkelstein’s political views–odious as they are–that did him in, but his shoddy scholarship and unprofessional behavior. As DePaul’s president wrote at the time, Finkelstein did not  ”honor the obligation” to ”respect and defend the free inquiry of associates.” DePaul has canceled Finkelstein’s class, but the good professor says he may carry out a "hunger strike" in protest. He’d be doing the world a favor if he did.

These academic heroes have joined an outfit called the "DePaul Academic Freedom Committee," the mission of which is to "preserve academic freedom for our faculty on campus." Ali, Chomsky, Judt and Mearsheimer will be convening a teach-in at DePaul in October to protest on behalf of Finkelstein. Though now lacking an academic perch (DePaul is the third university from which he has been fired) Finkelstein won’t be out of a job for long; I imagine the Iranian mullahs, Hizbollah or Hamas would love nothing more than to have an energetic, American Jewish spokesperson to make their respective cases (though perhaps he’s more effective advocating for them in an unofficial, unpaid capacity). If they don’t come through, Finkelstein can always go climb back under his rock. 

One expects these sorts of theatrics from Ali and Chomsky. But Judt and Mearsheimer have revealed much about themselves–and their intellectual motivations–by choosing to advocate for a Hezbollah propagandist and hero of neo-Nazis.

Toles (c) 2007 The Washington Post. Used by permission of Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reserved.

I’ll admit, the New York Post is a guilty pleasure. It’s the first paper I buy whenever I’m in the city. Like most of its readers, I take it for what it is, and enjoy it for a few minutes on the subway. It’s fun and understands its role as a tabloid, which is to say, it has a sense of humor. One of the best Post headlines was a front-page spread showing Yasir Arafat’s grieving wife at his funeral: "THE FAT LADY SINGS."

But New York magazine shows that the Post‘s coverage of the Larry Craig fiasco–perfect fodder for the tabloid–isn’t even funny. You can click on a link in the Post‘s news story to take their "Are you a gay senator?" test, which just traffics in old stereotypes. "Do you sing show tunes in the car between political events?" it asks. Who’s writing their jokes, Carlos Mencia?

A little media analysis: The Post differs from its rival, the Daily News (full disclosure: I’ve interned at the Daily News), in that it’s not just trying to reach New York’s working class, but also (if not primarily) its taste-makers, investment bankers, lawyers, media types, that is, professionals working in very, very gay-friendly environments. I imagine this affluent readership would have no problem with some tongue-in-cheek laughs at Larry Craig’s expense. But picking on gays in general and doing so in a way that just isn’t funny won’t endear the Post to the audience it’s trying to court.

Apparently, the editors responsible for keeping the Washington Post’s style spare and lean were on strike today:

"Consider the bathroom stall, that utilitarian public enclosure of cold steel and drab hue.

It can be a world of untold secrets, codes and signals as invitations to partake. Like foot-tapping: Who knew?

Let us peer in, shall we?"

No, let’s not.

***

UPDATE: Judging by the response at Obsidian Wings, I should say: this was meant to be a very slight post about style, not about whether it might be interesting to read about come-ons in bathrooms. I tend to hear metaphors literally: when I was a teenage Christian, I would dissolve in giggles every time we had to sing the hymn that includes the lines:

"By the light of burning martyrs

Jesus’ bleeding feet we track."

Likewise when I read this. Plus, it was late. ;)

From the Washington Post:

"A growing clamor among rank-and-file Democrats to halt President Bush’s most controversial tactics in the fight against terrorism has exposed deep divisions within the party, with many Democrats angry that they cannot defeat even a weakened president on issues that they believe should be front and center.

The Democrats’ failure to rein in wiretapping without warrants, close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay or restore basic legal rights such as habeas corpus for terrorism suspects has opened the party’s leaders to fierce criticism from some of their staunchest allies — on Capitol Hill, among liberal bloggers and at interest groups.

At the Democratic-leaning Center for American Progress yesterday, panelists discussing the balance between security and freedom lashed out at Democratic leaders for not standing up to the White House. "These are matters of principle," said Mark Agrast, a senior fellow at the center. "You don’t temporize." (…)

The terrorism issue came to a head early this month in an explosive final closed-door House Democratic Caucus meeting before the August recess. Reps. Hastings, Moran, Melvin Watt (N.C.), John F. Tierney (Mass.) and Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.) pleaded with party leaders not to bring to a vote a White House bill extending the administration’s authority to listen in on electronic communications from abroad without a warrant.

Conservative Democrats, including Rep. Allen Boyd (Fla.), argued just as vociferously that Democrats dare not leave on vacation without passing the White House bill.

"The most controversial matters are the ones that people use to form their opinions on their members of Congress," said Rep. Lincoln Davis (D-Tenn.), who voted for the administration’s bill. "I do know within our caucus, and justifiably so, there are members who have a real distaste for some of the things the president has done. But to let that be the driving force for our actions to block the surveillance of someone and perhaps stop another attack like 9/11 would be unwise.""

Dear Rep. Davis: this is not about "distaste". Our objections to allowing the administration to listen in on us without warrants is not aesthetic. It concerns some of the most fundamental principles in our Constitution, and the freedoms we take for granted as Americans. Distaste has nothing to do with it.

"Such divisions will not be easy to bridge in the coming weeks. Republicans have said that Democrats who are trying to close the Guantanamo Bay prison want to import terrorists to Americans’ back yards. And they have said that those pushing to restore habeas corpus rights want to give terrorists the legal rights of U.S. citizens.

"People say to me, ‘Well, what about the 30-second spots?’ " said Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, referring to attack ads. He is pushing a bill to restore habeas corpus.

"If you just say you’re standing up for civil liberties, the American people are with you, but if you say terrorism suspects should have civil liberties, it stretches Americans’ tolerance," said Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), who along with Hastings represents Congress on the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, a human rights monitor. "It’s a tough issue for us.""

What about the 30-second spots? Dear God, Democrats: grow a spine. Figure out that if there’s no principle for which you would willingly lose your office, then you don’t deserve to hold it in the first place. The liberties enshrined in our Constitution matter more than your political careers.

And even if they didn’t, this is not a moment when you need to be afraid. People don’t like the Republicans. You are winning. Grow up and deal with it.

"If anything, the habeas corpus and Guantanamo Bay issues will be tougher. In June, nearly 150 House Democrats signed a letter by Moran urging the shuttering of the prison. But Moran said last week that he no longer thinks he could muster the votes to pass the measure, even though the move is supported by former secretary of state Colin L. Powell, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. Republicans appear to have won the argument with their accusation that Democrats want to import terrorists.

A restoration of habeas corpus rights may have a better chance. Leahy said he will push the issue next month, and legislation co-sponsored by Conyers and Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is likely to move through their committees this fall.

But political fear still hovers over any legislation that touches on the fight against terrorism, which, for Democrats, may be the new third rail of politics.

"We can do this, but you have to keep in mind Republicans care more about catching Democrats than catching terrorists," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. "They have spent years taking Roosevelt’s notion that we have nothing to fear but fear itself and given us nothing but fear.""

Oh, come on. As I said above, the Republican party is not very popular these days. Moreover, it’s not as though it’s hard to craft a really inspiring message on these issues. We’re not talking about some arcane feature of patent law that it’s genuinely difficult to get people to care about; we’re talking about the freedoms we all claim to cherish. Honestly, if Democrats can’t figure out how to make a winning issue of keeping the government from being able to throw you in jail without having to explain themselves to anyone, or at least to prevent it from outweighing what looks to be their pretty serious electoral advantage in 2008, they must be brain dead. And if they can’t be bothered to support our Constitution if there’s any possibility that it might cost them politically, then their love of their country must be dead as well.

The article I’ve quoted makes it clear that not all the Democrats feel this way. 41 Democrats voted for the FISA bill, but 181 voted against it. Moreover, even those 41 are generally not falling all over one another in their eagerness to gut our civil liberties, as many Republican members of Congress are.

Still, the fact that there’s even a debate about this in the Democratic caucus is sickening.

(Cross-posted to Obsidian Wings.)

When George W. Bush finally managed to get to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, he said this:

"Tonight I also offer this pledge of the American people: Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives. And all who question the future of the Crescent City need to know there is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again."

The electricity was turned on to light his speech, and then turned off again. That should have told us everything we needed to know about how much this President’s pledge was worth. And in case we were still in doubt, the announcement that he had put Karl Rove in charge of reconstruction made it clear how serious he was about rebuilding one of America’s greatest cities.

Now, two years later, Douglas Brinkley writes about what has happened since then:

"Over the past two years since Hurricane Katrina, I’ve seen waves of hardworking volunteers from nonprofits, faith-based groups and college campuses descend on New Orleans, full of compassion and hope.

They arrive in the city’s Ninth Ward to painstakingly gut houses one by one. Their jaws drop as they wander around afflicted zones, gazing at the towering mounds of debris and uprooted infrastructure.

After weeks of grueling labor, they realize that they are running in place, toiling in a surreal vacuum.

Two full years after the hurricane, the Big Easy is barely limping along, unable to make truly meaningful reconstruction progress. The most important issues concerning the city’s long-term survival are still up in the air. Why is no Herculean clean-up effort underway? Why hasn’t President Bush named a high-profile czar such as Colin Powell or James Baker to oversee the ongoing disaster? Where is the U.S. government’s participation in the rebuilding? And why are volunteers practically the only ones working to reconstruct homes in communities that may never again have sewage service, garbage collection or electricity?

Eventually, the volunteers’ altruism turns to bewilderment and finally to outrage. They’ve been hoodwinked. The stalled recovery can’t be blamed on bureaucratic inertia or red tape alone. Many volunteers come to understand what I’ve concluded is the heartless reality: The Bush administration actually wants these neighborhoods below sea level to die on the vine."

A report from the Institute of Southern Studies gives some details:

"Although it’s tricky to unravel the maze of federal reports, our best estimate of agency data is that only $35 billion has been appropriated for long-term rebuilding.

Even worse, less than 42 percent of the money set aside has even been spent, much less gotten to those most in need. For example:

* Washington set aside $16.7 billion for Community Development Block Grants, one of the two biggest sources of rebuilding funds, especially for housing. But as of March 2007, only $1 billion — just 6 percent — had been spent, almost all of it in Mississippi. Following bad publicity, HUD spent another $3.8 billion on the program between March and July, leaving 70 percent of the funds still unused.

* The other major source of rebuilding help was supposed to be FEMA’s Public Assistance Program. But of the $8.2 billion earmarked, only $3.4 billion was meant for nonemergency projects like fixing up schools and hospitals.

* Louisiana officials recently testified that FEMA has also "low-balled" project costs, underestimating the true expenses by a factor of four or five. For example, for 11 Louisiana rebuilding projects, the lowest bids came to $5.5 million — but FEMA approved only $1.9 million.

* After the failure of federal levees flooded 80 percent of New Orleans, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers received $8.4 billion to restore storm defenses. But as of July 2007, less than 20 percent of the funds have been spent, even as the Corps admits that levee repair won’t be completed until as late as 2011.

The fact that, two years later, most federal Katrina funds remain bottled up in bureaucracy is especially shocking considering that the amounts Washington allocated come nowhere near the anticipated costs of Gulf rebuilding.

For example, the $3.4 billion FEMA has available to recover local public infrastructure would only cover about one-eighth of the damage suffered in Louisiana alone. But this money is spread across five states — Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas — and covers damage from three 2005 hurricanes, Katrina, Rita and Wilma."

While George W. Bush celebrated John McCain’s birthday, this administration left people to die in the days after Hurricane Katrina. Now it is leaving the city of New Orleans to die.