Month: August 2008

By Patrick Appel
Ahmed Rashid recently sat down with Scott Horton to talk about Afghanistan and Pakistan:

The United States never deemed it necessary to provide enough ground troops in the first place, so it became necessary to use excessive air power to avoid U.S. casualties—the force Rumsfeld had committed was far too small to secure Afghanistan after 2001, much less to deal with the Taliban insurgency after 2003. Rumsfeld refused to deploy more troops because of the need for more troops in Iraq. Even when NATO forces came in the use of air power only became more excessive because many of the NATO countries imposed caveats which either prevented their troops from actually fighting or demanded close air support from the Americans for every patrol.

I find it amazing that the Afghans, with their enormous capacity to undergo suffering and death after 30 years of almost continuous war, did not actually rebel much earlier against their own government and the Americans. Even in the early years after 2001, when there was not much of an insurgency, the level of civilian casualties was very high.

In recent months U.S. and NATO forces have become much more careful about civilian casualties and I don’t think Rumsfeld’s order still stands. The other determining factor has been that since the insurgency began the Taliban have become very adept at exploiting and exaggerating civilian casualties, which they often cause themselves by using civilians as shields–especially when they know that bombing is going to take place. Moreover, the Taliban propaganda machine has become fast and effective, and that has forced Western forces to change their policies.

By Jessie Roberts

Jonathan Chait thinks so:

Here’s the likely rationale: The public, by a wide margin, wants a Democrat to win the presidency. So all Obama has to do is make himself acceptable and he’ll win. Hence the focus on building up his own credentials rather than tearing down McCain.

Perhaps that sounds familiar. Let me refresh your memory: it was the John Kerry campaign strategy in 2004….

But even when Obama dips in the polls now, McCain doesn’t go up. Who’s to say that Obama attack ads wouldn’t alienate more voters than they’d win?

By Patrick Appel
Greenwald on yesterday’s ruling:

[The] ruling should elevate the pressure on Bolten, Miers, Rove and other Bush officials to respond to Congressional inquiries regarding what they know about the firing of these U.S. Attorneys, but as a practical matter, its impact will be quite limited. Miers, Bolten and friends can still (and certainly will) assert privilege with respect to specific conversations and documents (the court only resolved whether they have immunity from Congressional subpoenas generally, not whether specific documents and conversations are privileged). This ruling simply means that Miers and Bolten must "respond" to the Subpoenas — Miers can show up and refuse to answer most questions by relying on specific "privilege" assertions (that the court would then have to resolve), and Bolten can do the same with regard to documents. This administration has repeatedly demonstrated complete indifference to legal process.

By Patrick Appel
Andrew Romano writes:

McCain’s previous silence proves that when playing the "playing the race card" card, the impression you create–an impression of your rival saying something racially outrageous that benefits you politically–is far more important than whether or not you actually think he said something racially outrageous. In this case, I don’t believe that’s what Obama did–and judging by June 21, neither does McCain. But unlike whoever was running the show back then, new head honcho Steve Schmidt–a pugilistic Karl Rove protégé–seems to have decided that it benefits his boss to give voters the impression that Obama is the type of person who "plays the race card" (even though Obama strenuously, and necessarily, avoids doing so). And that’s what’s unsettling about this incident. If Schmidt and Co. were worried, as they say, that Obama was trying frame any "conventional campaign attacks as race-based" and were merely seeking to pre-empt his efforts, they could’ve simply said "we’ve never played the race card and we never will." But instead they lashed out. In playing offense instead of defense, Team McCain is actively characterizing Obama as another Al Sharpton–a "divisive, negative" Black Politician with vocal grievances who uses race as both shield and sword. This strikes me as too convenient to dismiss as a coincidence.

By Patrick Appel
Mattahias Schwartz did what one should never do —talk to the trolls:

So far, despite all this discord, the Internet’s system of civil machines has proved more resilient than anyone imagined. As early as 1994, the head of the Internet Society warned that spam “will destroy the network.” The news media continually present the online world as a Wild West infested with villainous hackers, spammers and pedophiles. And yet the Internet is doing very well for a frontier town on the brink of anarchy. Its traffic is expected to quadruple by 2012. To say that trolls pose a threat to the Internet at this point is like saying that crows pose a threat to farming.

By Patrick Appel
Michael Crowley documents McCain’s campaign against ultimate fighting:

Ultimate fighting sprang up in the early 1990s with a flurry of neck chops, spleen blows, and roundhouses to the face. Goldman, a longtime sports commentator, was an early fan and evangelist; McCain was an early and vociferous critic. He condemned the sport as "human cockfighting," leaned on cable companies not to televise it, and sought to ban it nationwide. "It’s an abuse of power story!" fumes Goldman. "The vehemence of McCain’s position had no rational explanation."

By Patrick Appel
Crowley:

What would be wonderful–and even possible if both these candidates really believed in rising above petty politics–is if they could have a conversation by phone and agree to pretend the last 24 hours never happened and start off [today] with a good argument about, say, energy policy. I won’t hold my breath.