The Dish

It’s pretty damning stuff. Not a whole lot of news in it, though, from my summary reading. Terminating Mapes is serious accountability. Here’s the real money quote:

The panel finds that once serious questions were raised, the defense of the segment became more rigid and emphatic, and that virtually no attempt was made to determine whether the questions raised had merit.

No attempt to ask questions? Wasn’t Rather part of this defense? And wasn’t it relevant that critics were accused of partisanship? Why the knee-jerk partisan response? What interests me about the summary is that all sorts of sins can be attributed to journalists – rushing a story to print, not following rudimentary fact-checking rules, refusing to re-check after questions were raised, etc, etc. But the one thing the report is clear about is that no political bias ever influenced the process. Even when you have Mapes calling Lockhart, the report insists that this created “the appearance of political bias.” (My italics.) Others will parse the report more carefully, I’m sure. But the refusal to acknowledge this blind spot is not encouraging.

Like many other smart analysts, the pro-war Stratfor military experts have concluded that the war to control the Iraq insurgency or to erect democratic institutions in Iraq has been lost (subscription required). I think it’s time to start truly absorbing this possibility. Why lost? Because we blew the opportunity to control the terrain with insufficient troops and terrible intelligence; because all the institutions required to build democracy in Iraq have already been infiltrated by insurgents; because at key moments – they mention the fall of 2003 or spring of 2004 – we simply failed to crush the insurgency when we might have had a chance of success. Short version: we had a brief window of opportunity to turn our armed intervention into democratic liberation and we blew it. Money quote:

The issue facing the Bush administration is simple. It can continue to fight the war as it has, hoping that a miracle will bring successes in 2005 that didn’t happen in 2004. Alternatively, it can accept the reality that the guerrilla force is now self-sustaining and sufficiently large not to flicker out and face the fact that a U.S. conventional force of less than 150,000 is not likely to suppress the guerrillas. More to the point, it can recognize these facts: 1. The United States cannot re-engineer Iraq because the guerrillas will infiltrate every institution it creates. 2. That the United States by itself lacks the intelligence capabilities to fight an effective counterinsurgency. 3. That exposing U.S. forces to security responsibilities in this environment generates casualties without bringing the United States closer to the goal. 4. That the strain on the U.S. force is undermining its ability to react to opportunities and threats in the rest of the region. And that, therefore, this phase of the Iraq campaign must be halted as soon as possible.

They recommend withdrawing U.S. forces to the periphery of Iraq and letting the inevitable civil war take place in the center.

DARKNESS BEFORE DAWN? The war has not been a complete loss, Stratfor argues, because it has engineered a slight shift in the behavior of neighboring regimes, and has allowed us to have a new base in the Middle East. The conclusion:

Certainly, it would have been nice for the United States if it had been able to dominate Iraq thoroughly. Somewhere between “the U.S. blew it” and “there was never a chance” that possibility is gone. It would have been nice if the United States had never tried to control the situation, because now the United States is going to have to accept a defeat, which will destabilize the region psychologically for a while. But what is is, and the facts speak for themselves. We are not Walter Cronkite, and we are not saying that the war is lost. The war is with the jihadists around the world; Iraq was just one campaign, and the occupation of the Sunnis was just one phase of that campaign. That phase has been lost. The administration has allowed that phase to become the war as a whole in the public mind. That was a very bad move, but the administration is just going to have to bite the bullet and do the hard, painful and embarrassing work of cutting losses and getting on with the war. If Bush has trouble doing this, he should conjure up Lyndon Johnson’s ghost, wandering restlessly in the White House, and imagine how Johnson would have been remembered if he had told Robert McNamara to get lost in 1966.

I hope they’re wrong but I fear they’re right. For the immediate term, it makes no difference. We have to hope and pray that a democratic miracle really will emerge. There have been darknesses before dawn in history before. And then there have just been darknesses.

THE ZBIG AND SCOWCROFT SHOW: Here’s a transcript of their discussion at the New America Foundation.

Yes, I broke one of my rules by awarding Ann Coulter a Malkin Award. Even though it was technically a headline, written by someone else. I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: “Now, if you know the tradition of the United States Army, one thing has been consistent and that is that we are aggressive and tough on the field of battle, but when you take prisoners they are treated humanely and with respect. That’s the rule that was set by George Washington in the battle of Trenton on Dec. 25, 1776. The soldiers of the continental army took the Hessians and said these soldiers are mercenaries and we should take retribution on them. They wanted the Hessians to run the gauntlet and they would beat them with sticks. General Washington said we will not do this. He said these people will be treated with respect and dignity and they will suffer no abuse or torture, because to do otherwise would bring dishonor upon our sacred cause. That’s one of the first orders given to the continental army and that antedates the United States. It has been military tradition for 240 years, and it was stopped by Donald Rumsfeld.” – former lawyer for Andrei Sakharov, Scott Horton. (Hat tip: Amba.)

THE GOODS ON SLEEP: Fascinating. Fascinating Fascinatingzzzzzzzzz.

“Just before his helicopter lifted off, [Senate majority leader, Bill] Frist and aides took snapshots of each other near a pile of tsunami debris. ‘Get some devastation in the back,’ Frist told a photographer.” – CBA/AP.

Fred Kagan sums it up eloquently. Kudos to the Weekly Standard for keeping up the pressure:

With more troops in Iraq during and immediately after the war, we would have been able to do the following things that we did not do:

* Capture or kill thousands of Iraqi soldiers who were at that time still concentrated in combat units and had not yet melted back into the countryside with their weapons and their skills.

* Guard the scores of enormous ammunition dumps from which the insurgents have drawn the vast majority of their weapons, ammunition, and explosives.

* Secure critical oil and electrical infrastructure that the insurgents subsequently attacked, setting back the economic and political recovery of Iraq.

* Prevent the development of insurgent safe havens in Najaf and Falluja, or at least disrupt them at a much earlier stage of formation.

* Work to interdict the infiltration of foreign fighters across Iraq’s borders.

If the U.S. Army had begun expanding in 2001, we would have been able to:

* Establish reasonable rotation plans for our soldiers that did not require repeatedly extending tours of duty beyond one year.

* Avoid the need to activate reservists involuntarily.

* Dramatically reduce the frequency with which soldiers return from one year-long tour only to be sent immediately on another.

* Let the troops that would still have been overstrained know that help really was on the way.

The U.S. military did not do these things because of Rumsfeld’s choices.

And those choices have greatly impeded our ability to win the war. I have no ill-will for Rumsfeld. He’s the object of much unfair personal criticism. He’s a deeply kind man, extremely smart, and dedicated to the public good. But his errors have alas compounded our problem. And at some point, accountability must mean something.

MALKIN AWARD NOMINEE: “Liberals love America like O.J. loved Nicole,” – headline on an Ann Coulter column at Townhall.com.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER: The NYT runs four corrections for a piece that ran almost three years ago.

When you review the way Jonathan Klein has treated Tucker Carlson, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that Klein is a first-class shit. I loathed Crossfire, but Carlson is a rare, intellectually independent conservative, whose talents were greatly abused, in my opinion, by CNN. Mickey explains it all better.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “My brother was a reservist near Fallujah (who thankfully came home just this past year, although he is still technically under contract until December), who reports that coercion was encouraged, and abuse (not the same as coercion) was greeted with a blind eye. Now, he and I don’t see eye-to-eye on Iraq, because I pay attention to Chrenkoff’s reporting in addition to what I hear from my brother and from the MSM. Thanks to Chrenkoff, I know that there are large areas in Iraq where things are going right. Thanks to my brother, I also don’t automatically discount everything that MSM says (even a stopped clock is right twice a day).
According to my brother, the reservists have the lowest morale (because they have lives outside the military), and the enlisted men, particularly certain types, are more prone to carrying out the abuse… I believe that the vast majority of American service personnel are good people, as are most of their officers. But all it takes is one bad apple to ruin the bushel, and I don’t mean this in the sense that they ruin our image. Much more than that, Andrew. What I mean is, if they are seen as getting away with inhumane treatment of prisoners, what’s to stop another group of soldiers who were already leaning that way from giving into the temptation of sadism?
So while Gonzales may be correct on a technical level, it remains to be seen whether or not this sort of behavior is what we want the world to see. I don’t doubt that most other great powers would be harder pressed to be better than us. But as my brother takes pains to remind me, we are America, we can be better than everyone else, and so we should be.” It is important, I think, to emphasize that the incidents number in the low hundreds, while there were thousands of people in U.S. custody. It’s also important to note that no abuse was found in regular internment facilities in Iraq. This was not very deep but extremely geographically dispersed. And it was torture designed to get intelligence.

“I don’t even know who the candidates are other than Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas), let alone this Gere. We don’t need the Americans’ intervention. We know who to elect. Not like them — they elected a moron.” – Gaza soap factory worker Manar an-Najar Wednesday. No I don’t think Bush is a moron, but the guy certainly demonstrates an understanding of the democratic spirit.

It’s relieving to hear many conservatives dissent from the kind of torture that the U.S. has practised these past few years in the war on terror. But there are two critical myths that keep being repeated. Let me enumerate them.

This was only about Abu Ghraib. Nope. Abu Ghraib was what prompted the inquiries and reports that showed us that this phenomenon was much more widespread. Torture has occurred at Abu Ghraib after the scandal hit; in Ramadi, Tikrit, in Saddam’s old mukhabbarat HQ in Basra, at Camp Cropper, Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, and in transit. It has been perpetrated by almost every branch of the military. When you read a blog like the Mudville Gazette, you realize that they are simply ignoring the bulk of the evidence. Why?

There’s no proof this was actually policy. Well, that’s pretty much true as it stands. Officially, the president ordered – like a monarch – that, although prisoners did not deserve Geneva protection, they should have it. But it seems to me remarkably incurious not to be troubled by the following series of events: memos telling POTUS that he has the right to order torture, regardless of any domestic law or international treaty; memos defining torture in the most minimal sense; torture restrictions loosened at Guantanamo Bay, under Rumsfeld’s instructions for a few weeks; the transfer of the general in Gitmo to Abu Ghraib, because intelligence wasn’t forthcoming; a sudden outbreak of torture across all the theaters of war. I would hope that those who say they’re against torture might not simply dismiss these facts as if there’s nothing suspicious here. And in many of the reports, plenty of military officials say they believed they were acting under orders from the highest authorities. I quote from the ICRC report:

“Several military intelligence officers confirmed … that it was part of the military intelligence process to hold a person deprived of his liberty naked in a completely dark and empty cell for a prolonged period to use inhumane and degrading treatment, including physical and psychological coercion … to secure their cooperation.”

Again: hmm. The current conservative orthodoxy is that the Red Cross cannot be trusted. I dissent.

If we are to have a debate about interrogating a few high profile Qaeda members, then Rich Lowry is right that the administration should welcome the debate. Alas, that is no longer the debate. The debate is how this administration has presided over widespread torture, abuse, rape and murder of inmates in American custody; how its own laxness and mixed messages contributed to this; how we still do not know how commanders got the impression that this was policy; andn how all this has deeply wounded America’s reputation, undermined the war, and perpetrated evil. Perhaps some simply trust the administration to be good guys. When it comes to torture, trust is not enough. In all this, the president has evaded any real responsibility and has rewarded all those who presided over this catastrophe. It is a shameful record. He deserves to be held to account. Not to benefit the pathetic Democrats – who ducked this issue in the campaign as well. But because this is America. This stuff shouldn’t happen. Period.

One of the aspects of George W. Bush’s political career I have long found troubling has been his evident comfort – even enthusiasm – for the death penalty. As governor of Texas, he didn’t have much power to prevent the extraordinary number of executions in his home state – but he did have a chance to demonstrate his concern for human life by reviewing each case very carefully. He didn’t. And a critical enabler of this insouciance toward human life was Alberto Gonzales, whose work on the legal memos for the then-governor has been criticized as shoddy, peremptory and incomplete. I respect those who defend the death penalty in necessity, even though I cannot morally acquiesce to it in any circumstances. But the blitheness of Bush’s and Gonzales’ treatment of the issue is surely troubling for those who are pro-life. Here is a man implicated in two policies anathema to serious Catholics. He gave legal sanction to torture – an absolute moral evil – and glibly facilitated the executions of dozens. Why are pro-life writers apparently untroubled by these facts? Or have I missed some out there?

ATTENTION STANLEY KURTZ! Finally, conclusive proof that marriage equality leads to the breakdown of heterosexual marriage.

Compare the kind of appeal made Wednesday night by Arnold Schwarzenegger with what is now the mojo of the national Republican party. The GOP nationally has increased its Congressional majority in part because of brutal gerrymandering in Texas that obviated the regular procedures. Call it Tom DeLay Republicanism: whatever it takes to win. Arnold actually challenges the established power of political parties and their self-interested rigging of districts to maintain incumbency – and wants to throw the issue to an independent body of retired judges. One is a corrupt defender of privilege; the other a reformer trying to expand the democratic process. I know which one I prefer. David Kusnet has a good analysis.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “Based principally on your relating your own sleep apnea experience, I did a sleep study in December. Found out today that I do have sleep apnea, and I do need a CPAP. As my doctor said, it’s not unreasonable at age 45 to expect a good night’s sleep, and to arise feeling refreshed. Thank you very much for sharing your experience. Other guys I’ve talked to who have corrected their apnea problems have said the difference is ‘life-changing.” I hope your sleep is improved. Thanks again!” No problem. I’ve had several emails like this one. My own sleep has indeed improved – along with that of my other half. The effect is subtle over time. I do feel more alert in the daytime. And I haven’t felt the need for a nap in a month. Yay!