The Dish

It hasn’t even begun to tackle Sadr City yet, but in some calmer parts of Baghdad’s Red Zone, the surge is clearly doing what it’s supposed to do. That means a limited amount, since the critical decisions that the Shia and Sunnis have to make will not be made easy by a handful of successes. But it’s also better than nothing. Michael Totten has a first-hand report:

“Man, this is boring,” one of them said to me later. “I’m an adrenaline junky. There’s no fight here. It won’t surprise me if we start handing out speeding tickets.” So it goes in at least this part of Baghdad that has been cleared by the surge.

“When we first got here,” said another and laughed, “shit hit the fan.”

It was all a bit boring, but blessedly so. I knew already that not everyone in Baghdad was hostile. But it was slightly surprising to see that entire areas in the Red Zone are not hostile.

Anything can happen in Baghdad, even so. The convulsive, violent, and overtly hostile Sadr City is only a few minutes drive to the southeast.

“Want to walk past your favorite house?” Lieutenant Lord said to Sergeant Lizanne.

“Let’s do it,” said Sergeant Lizanne.

“What’s your favorite house?” I said.

“It’s a house we walked past one night,” said Sergeant Lizanne. “Some guys on the roof locked and loaded on us.”

Gun shots rang out in the far distance. None of the Iraqis paid much attention but the soldiers perked up and stiffened their posture like hunting dogs.

“Gun shots,” Lieutenant Lord said.

“I heard,” I said. “You going to do anything about it?”

“Nah,” he said and shrugged. “They were far away and could be anything, even shots fired in the air at a wedding. A lot of these guys are stereotypical Arabs.”

The gun shots were a part of the general ambience.

The rest is here. Hit his tip jar.

(Photo: Totten.)

Was Jonah hoaxed?

Glenn Greenwald has a pertinent post on the partisan flip-flopping of AEI’s resident war-criminal, John Yoo. He slammed executive privilege under Clinton, just praised it under Bush. This too:

As Anonymous Liberal first noted last year, Yoo — in 2003, before it was known that Bush was eavesdropping outside of FISA — wrote an Op-Ed praising FISA as a constitutional and important safeguard which gave the President the eavesdropping tools he needed to fight the Terrorists while at the same time protecting our privacy.

But once it was revealed in 2005 that the President was violating FISA, Yoo suddenly reversed course, claiming that FISA was an unconstitutional infringement on the President’s power and that Bush’s violations of it were necessary to protect us all from being vaporized at the hands of the Terrorists. That behavior is quite similar to the right-wing fanatics who spent the 1990s vocally objecting to the "secret FISA court," whereby Bill Clinton could eavesdrop on us by getting warrants from a secret court (!), only to then defend George Bush’s eavesdropping on us with no warrants or judicial oversight of any kind.

Like every good authoritarian, Yoo’s only real principle, his only True Conviction, is that the Leader is Good and Right.

Listen to the attorney-general simply refuse to answer a simple question from a U.S. senator. The hearing yesterday was a staggering low-point in the Bush Justice Department. Gonzales’ remaining at the DOJ is now a purely monarchical gesture on behalf of the president.

A conservative reader writes:

1. Having been absolutely certain that the war was the right thing to have done, and that we would prevail easily, I am no longer confident that I can discern when emotion is affecting my judgment unduly.

All said, the war was the right thing to do.  Think hard about the alternatives, there were no easy outs.  That said, I agree with Rod that there was too much emotion and too little objective thinking going into the war.

2. I no longer implicitly trust governmental institutions, including the military — neither in their honesty nor their competence.

Rod might add non government institutions on that list, such as the Catholic Church.  Frankly, it is unhealthy to "implicitly trust" any man made institution (or a sure fired way to end up very disappointed).

3. I no longer believe the Republican Party is superior in foreign policy judgment to the Democrats.

I am ready to agree to this and then Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid open their mouths and destroy the illusion (and that takes real talent given the foriegn policy bungling of Cheney in Charge).

4. I no longer have confidence in the ability of our military, or any military, to solve deep cultural and civilizational problems through force alone. I mean, I thought nothing could stand in the way of the strongest military fielded since the days of ancient Rome. No more.

Sobering but correct analysis (in a general sense).  Of course the military did not lose this war, the leadership did.  Had we "gone in heavy" and swept control of Iraq with a sufficient occupation force–we would probably not be facing the situation we are facing now.  I still disagree with those who claim this war was never winable.

5. I have a far greater appreciation for how rare and fragile liberal democracy is, and a corresponding revulsion at the American assumption that it’s the natural state of mankind. Which is to say, the war has made me rethink my ideas about human nature, and I’m far more pessimistic now than I ever was.

God Bless America. Then again, before Rod gets too depressed, lets remember that liberal democracy has spread through most of Europe, in parts of South America, in Japan and parts of Asia.  Africa and the Middle East still need a lot of work, but to wallow in pessimism over this is not warranted.

Rod Dreher asks what certainties people have abandoned these past few years in Iraq. His list:

1. Having been absolutely certain that the war was the right thing to have done, and that we would prevail easily, I am no longer confident that I can discern when emotion is affecting my judgment unduly.

2. I no longer implicitly trust governmental institutions, including the military — neither in their honesty nor their competence.

3. I no longer believe the Republican Party is superior in foreign policy judgment to the Democrats.

4. I no longer have confidence in the ability of our military, or any military, to solve deep cultural and civilizational problems through force alone. I mean, I thought nothing could stand in the way of the strongest military fielded since the days of ancient Rome. No more.

5. I have a far greater appreciation for how rare and fragile liberal democracy is, and a corresponding revulsion at the American assumption that it’s the natural state of mankind. Which is to say, the war has made me rethink my ideas about human nature, and I’m far more pessimistic now than I ever was.

Yours? I’m going to think about mine.

In defense of Barry Bonds.

A pet peeve we share:

Do you know what I really dislike? Extremely long critical essays that describe their subject, often in painstaking and florid detail, without bothering to interpret it.

It’s more than just graffiti. And Banksy has a new website.

The poor loves, they need the nerds’ help in real life:

Notice: For financial success, the main measure where nerds now excel, governments make quite an effort to equalize differences. But on other margins of social success, where many nerds still struggle, laissez-faire prevails …

Punchline: Through the lens of the Jock/Nerd Theory of History, the welfare state doesn’t look like a serious effort to "equalize outcomes." It looks more like a serious effort to block the "revenge of the nerds" – to keep them from using their financial success to unseat the jocks on every dimension of social status.