Focus of Attention

Hillary will be Secretary of State.

Something I find fascinating about that article is the URL. The name of the file is "01clinton.html". The article is about the "security" (note - not foreign policy) team that Obama has assembled, yet it is filed under Hillary's name. This makes me think about a few things.

The chattering class and their avid readers in Whole Foods Nation are still more obsessed with their internal demons than with the fate of the nation. Stanley Fish's article on calumny aimed at the Clintons is as relevant today as when it was first published, and this is a danger to liberal politics. The fault line within the Democratic Party remains.

Next, the Neocons have succeeded in getting international relations and foreign policy intrepreted as police actions. It's not a policy team, it's a security team. The parts of the article not drooling over the presumed battle against the evil Clintons plays up the toughness and hawkishness of the new team, with emphasis on terrorism rather than the true international danger, which is the world wide collapse of economies.

The problematic emphasis on the Bush-style use of terrorism (The bad guys are gunna git you if you don't give us what we want) that so many of the Very Serious People want to promulgate, as though the problem with Bush/Cheney was the mode of execution and not the foreign and domestic policy objectives, focuses on the guys caught on video camera in train stations and hotel lobbies, the viscerally menacing Other, all too like the raging shooters at schools and malls. This terrorism is photogenic, adapts well to endless video loops on CNN, and allows the talking heads to hyperventilate.

What we don't see is the struggle for power in Pakistan, where the military continues to defy the civilian government, and where decades old US-USSR cold war operations continue to generate blowback. The Vale of Kashmir may be the single most dangerous flashpoint on the planet at the moment. We have an incoming president who has repeatedly voiced critical and belligerant opinions about Pakistan. We now have a Secretary of State who has connections to the (note relative term) more democratic elements in the country. And this is just one of the foreign policy challenges facing the new administration.

It may send WKJM into apoplexy, but the worst job in the world has been put into very good hands.

Anglachel

Manufactured Crisis

Honestly, I tried to follow the debate between The Precious and My Cranky Friend, but it was turn it off or throw up. Tom Brokaw presents the interests of the Very Serious People and wants to know what the candidates are going to do to cut spending, "entitlement reform," now that we have to give all of the money to Wall Street. Social Security, Medicare and Medicade are mentioned by name as prime candidates to cut.

The completely predicatable and ignored until warp-core meltdown manufactured crisis on Wall Street is used to bolster the perennial manufactured crisis of how are we going to kill off that pesky New Deal and Great Society stuff that only helps the little people. Pull up the ladder, Bo'sun, I'm aboard.

In lieu of actual presidential discussion, I present Hillary's cheeky and deliciously insulting letter to The Chimperor and his Hanky Panky today. She knows who created the problem and isn't afraid to rub Bush's nose in it, with a delivery all the more effective because of its politeness:

The ongoing credit crisis has severely restricted bank lending. The dramatic decline in the Dow Jones Industrial Average Index underscores the lack of liquidity in virtually all markets except U.S. Treasuries. At the same time, global market turmoil is creating more uncertainty and anxiety here at home, when what is needed at this time is confidence to bolster the credit markets.

Our economy runs on credit and credit is in too short supply. As a result, many small businesses cannot receive the loans and lines of credit they need to make payroll, stock inventory, or expand. This is having a dramatic impact on jobs with 159,000 lost this past month alone, the ninth straight month of job losses and the greatest single month loss in five years. Banks’ restrictive lending terms will make securing college loans more difficult, while also increasing the pressure on colleges and universities who lost access to funds maintained by distressed financial institutions to raise tuition.

The municipal bond market has taken a huge hit as investors flee and financing costs skyrocket. Several states and municipalities are at risk of failing to maintain important government functions.

Shorter Hillary - Look at the mess you made, you bozo, so bad even your base is in deep doo-doo (as Poppy would say). Nine straight months of job losses, Chimp, way to go!

I love the patient lecture to these two - See, kids, this is how the economy actually works. This is how it affects ordinary people, the kind invisible to you. You are not going to be allowed to sit around and dither, running down the clock while your uber-rich golf-buddies manipulate the markets to extort maximum benefit from the bailout. Unlike the guy the DNC handed the nomination to, she's not afraid to talk about social justice:

The Treasury has already become a lender of last resort for large financial firms and banks. We must extend that same help to small businesses, students, colleges, local governments and all those who are bearing the brunt of the same widespread credit crisis. It is a matter of necessity and a matter of fairness: we are helping to keep large Wall Street firms stay afloat with lines of credit. We should do the same for small Main Street businesses as well.

It matters how you frame arguments. If you accept the terms that there are no choices except to "fix" social programs by gutting them in hard times, the times when they are most needed, then that is probably what you will end up doing. Sympathy for them, even belief in them, is toothless if not backed by the willingness to fight for them exactly when it is least popular among the Very Important People. The argument to make is not one about morality (good people do this, we are a better people than that), but an appeal to justice (What we do for the powerful must also be done for the ordinary.). You don't need an appeal to innate goodness or the charity of someone's heart if you are willing to write something into law and put the full force of the government behind it. This applies just as much to healthcare and equal pay as to financial protection in times of crisis.

Social justice does not happen because we are good. It happens because we are willing to legislate and mobilize power on behalf of those too far from the levers of power to dictate what they want. Paulson has tried to dictate what will be done for the sake of his personal friends but even more for his socio-economic class and their world-view - a world-view Brokaw is repeating as Conventional Wisdom as he moderates the debate. What Hillary does with this letter is interrupt the world view with an alternative argument of how social goods and resources must be allocated. Justice is not just about voting the black guy into office. It's also about defending the ability of small businesses, the kinds most likely to be owned by people who are not part of the ruling class, to get venture capital and use debt constructively, businesses more likely to keep money in localities and regions, helping shore up the economy. It's about ensuring that access to higher education is not quietly shut off by denying credit to the many, many applicants who are not independently wealthy and to the schools that may not make money themselves, but which are the engines of wealth creation.

I propose that we set aside $150 billion of the $700 billion rescue plan for an “Emergency Stabilization Fund” to make emergency loans and establish temporary lines of credit for small businesses; to allow colleges and universities to have short-term access to funding to reduce the pressure on tuition; and to increase direct loans to students as private lending has dried up. The Small Business Administration and the Department of Education could be temporarily empowered to implement these loan programs until the market has stabilized.

Think about that. 21% of the bailout to be reserved for something else. $150 billion to stabilize the economic food chain where it will have immediate effect. Talking about the needs of small businesses and education as equally important as the golden parachutes of the Merry Banksters. This broad is talking as if these people are entitled to some support from the government! The nerve! Doesn't she know that there's no credit, no loans for people who can't repay? If they were creditworthy, they'd have other ways to finance their lives than sucking off the government teat, heaven without end, Amen! Don't they know we need that $150 billion to fund our retirement villas in the south of France? Socialists, all of 'em...

Hillary's bit about municipal bonds is important as more and more municipalities have had to rely on them to cover the loss of Federal money for things like infrastructure and support services. The entire thing reads like tutorial in government finance - and now you do this, and then you do that, are you following me, boyz? It lacks the grand rhetorical flourishes and deep econo-geekitude of Roubini's recent writings, but it gets to the same place - the credit crisis will not be solved on Wall Street, though it must be addressed there. It can only be solved by intervention in the localities where wealth is generated and capital replenished.

She concludes with two items. First, her signature statement about the power relationship inherent in the financial meltdown:

By failing to tackle a mortgage crisis, we ended up with a credit crisis. If we fail to take on this credit crisis, we risk deepening a looming economic crisis.

As Gulliver discovered, ignore the little people and you are toast. Her final line is a challenge to more people than Bush:

But if necessary, Congress should be called to return to consider additional authority to implement this plan.

This is directed at more than the White House. Where is the Democratic leadership on this issue? Why are they not waging this battle on behalf of Main Street?

The crises we are facing are things of our own creation - manufactured right here at home. While there are a number of way to solve these problems, it matters what path is chosen and whose interests are defended.

Anglachel

Krugman on Why We Should Demand More from Paulson

The Krug sums it up nicely. The problem isn't the current crisis, but how to prevent the "solution" for the current crisis from becoming a huge profit-grabbing boondoggle for Bush's "base":

Thinking the bailout through

What is this bailout supposed to do? Will it actually serve the purpose? What should we be doing instead? Let’s talk.

First, a capsule analysis of the crisis.

1. It all starts with the bursting of the housing bubble. This has led to sharply increased rates of default and foreclosure, which has led to large losses on mortgage-backed securities.
2. The losses in MBS, in turn, have left the financial system undercapitalized — doubly so, because levels of leverage that were previously considered acceptable are no longer OK.
3. The financial system, in its efforts to deleverage, is contracting credit, placing everyone who depends on credit under strain.
4. There’s also, to some extent, a vicious circle of deleveraging: as financial firms try to contract their balance sheets, they drive down the prices of assets, further reducing capital and forcing more deleveraging.

So where in this process does the Temporary Asset Relief Plan offer any, well, relief? The answer is that it possibly offers some respite in stage 4: the Treasury steps in to buy assets that the financial system is trying to sell, thereby hopefully mitigating the downward spiral of asset prices.

But the more I think about this, the more skeptical I get about the extent to which it’s a solution. Problems:

(a) Although the problem starts with mortgage-backed securities, the range of assets whose prices are being driven down by deleveraging is much broader than MBS. So this only cuts off, at most, part of the vicious circle.
(b) Anyway, the vicious circle aspect is only part of the larger problem, and arguably not the most important part. Even without panic asset selling, the financial system would be seriously undercapitalized, causing a credit crunch — and this plan does nothing to address that.

Or I should say, the plan does nothing to address the lack of capital unless the Treasury overpays for assets. And if that’s the real plan, Congress has every right to balk.

So what should be done? Well, let’s think about how, until Paulson hit the panic button, the private sector was supposed to work this out: financial firms were supposed to recapitalize, bringing in outside investors to bulk up their capital base. That is, the private sector was supposed to cut off the problem at stage 2.

It now appears that isn’t happening, and public intervention is needed. But in that case, shouldn’t the public intervention also be at stage 2 — that is, shouldn’t it take the form of public injections of capital, in return for a stake in the upside?

Let’s not be railroaded into accepting an enormously expensive plan that doesn’t seem to address the real problem.

The problem is that the proposed "solution" is not actually addressing the underlying causes of failure, and it increasingly looks like an attempt to have the taxpayers foot the bills for the financial malfeasance of Wall Street.

Here are more helpful links to keep track of analysis of the issue:

Krugman:

• Uneasy feelings
• Follow the money
  Doubts about the rescue
• No deal
• Authorization for the use of financial force

Calculated Risk:

• Some Thoughts on the Bailout
• NY Times Makes a Funny
• Bailout Eligibility Expanded to Foreign Institutions

Anglachel

Warning Shots

The Russian invasion of Georgia has been used as an opportunity by both Obama and McCain supporters to toss out largely irrelevant boasts about the respective candidate's effect on the situation along with unsupportable claims of readiness to take Hillary's 3:00 AM phone call. Seeing this military incursion through the US presidential primary prism is fundamentally wrong. Thanks to the Cheney administration's fundamentally cowardly approach to foreign policy, the US has little influence over Russia. This is about Putin staking out the boundaries of Russian influence, and the audience he is addressing is the EU.

The occupation of Gori - and the proximity of Russian forces to a major gas pipeline - was a warning shot to the EU to back off. While Europe and the US have been playing at regime change in Iraq where it has done no good for the West and has greatly strengthened hardliners in Iran, Russia has been gearing up for the real thing in its break away republics. The Crimea is a dangerous place to be.

A unified, well-armed Russia rolling in petro-dollars (petro-rubles?) regrouping into something very like the USSR at the height of its power is not something we expected to see after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the 80s. Putin is a truly formidable character and an astute political actor, easily taking advantage of the self-inflicted weakness of the US after Bush's push to war with Saddam. Whomever is President in Russia, Putin is calling the shots.

Yet another unintended consequence of the neocons' bid for world domination.

Anglachel

Pots and Kettles

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Russia's attacks against the former Soviet republic of Georgia have "substantially damaged Russia's standing in the world," President Bush told reporters Monday after returning from his trip to Asia.

Bush also warned Russia against trying to depose Georgia's government, saying evidence suggests Russia may be preparing to do so.

Bush said Russia's invasion of Georgia and the threat to Georgia's democratically elected government "is unacceptable in the 21st century" and has "substantially damaged Russia's standing in the world."

"These actions jeopardize Russians' relations ... with the United States and Europe," Bush said.

Bush to Russia: Reverse 'unacceptable' course in Georgia

Of course, these protestations would have a little more oopmf if Bush hadn't done the same thing to Iraq with even less cause. Just a thought...

Anglachel

The Bad Mother

I've spoken before about the murderous misogyny of the A-List Blogger Boyz and their grad school mentality, as well as hinting at the ways in which the up is down, right is wrong, truthiness over truth feel of the current campaign cycle is something they encourage, but the spousal unit brought up an aspect of the "We Hate HER!" bash-fest that I had overlooked. Here it is.

It's all about Iraq and their own guilty consciences.

Josh Marshall, Matt Yglesias, Mark Kleiman, Kevin Drum, and any number of other high profile bloggers were all rah-rah war supporters when it first began. They had no real reason to support it besides wanting to kill people and get some revenge. They were reading the New York Times and Judith Miller and gulping the White House kool-aide as avidly as they gulp Obama's kool-aide today. C'mon, c'mon, c'mon, we gotta get Saddam! They swore by Colin Powell. If Powell said there was proof, well, by golly, that was good enough for them.

At the same time, Congress was actually having to make a decision about authorizing use of force. The weapons inspectors wanted back in, and Hans Blix approved of the maneuver to show Saddam Hussein the West meant business, that we weren't tied down in Afghanistan too much to give him trouble.

I didn't trust Bush a second on this, but I could also see that there were legitimate reasons to get inspectors into the country, not the least of which was to make Saddam look weak to his own population. There was also a principle about the balance of power between the Congress and the President - the President must ask for military powers and, when justified, the Congress will grant them. These are powers that a Democratic president is going to want as well. This was the power that Bill Clinton needed to intervene in the Balkans and would have needed for Rwanda. He asked. The Republicans in Congress told him to fuck off.

Part of Hillary's calculation to authorize the use of force (nor was she alone in this calculation) was forward looking to when Bush is not in power and when there is a Democratic Congress. The crude power grabs for imperial power we see from the Bush White House, fully backed by the Movement Conservative dominated Republican Party have illegitimately expanded presidential powers and in ways that cannot be ignored. The formal exercise of power must be defended; the bounding and limiting, but also structuring and supporting, insitutions of liberal democracy are refounded every day in the proper exercise thereof. You can't just make it up as you go along. (That's why "hope" and "audacity" are not governing principles, let alone an operational plan.) You have to insist on the rules, even when the other person is trying to cheat - or demolish the rules entirely.

The greatest weakness of the Democrats in Congress, in my opinion, is that they are not "working to rule" like any good union boss knows you should do.

Anyway, Hillary acts with others to authorize force if Saddam does not comply with the terms of the UN deal for reasons that have to do with politics, rule of law, and trying to put limits on Bush, as well as being under enormous public pressure to kill some towel heads as revenge for 9/11. Like pressure from the Blogger Boyz, who were slobbering and bouncing up and down in anticipation of a glorious little war, bitching about the UN's attempt to slow things down, and really wanting to go get Saddam. Bush thumbs his nose at the COngress and the UN and orders an invasion anyway. The boyz all cheer.

Then the war goes tits over teakettle and they realize that they are on the losing side of the argument. They are guilty as hell for having brought their considerable intellectual talents to bear on promoting an unjustified war and they want to blame someone else for their bad judgment. I know, Hillary made me do it! She should have been a better mommy and kept me from indulging in my murderous desires! Bad Mommy! Bad!

The fact that she will not join in their villification of her, refusing to be badgered into admitting that she made her decisions on the same basis as they did (reasons they project onto her), saying clearly that she made what she thought was the right decision at the time, drives them even more batshit insane. They want Mommy to kiss it and make it better and she said tough luck, kiddos, learn to live with your mistakes. They want someone else to take on their guilt, to relieve them of their sins against the body politic, and she is not going to let them off the hook. Their fanatical identification with Obama in no small part is because of their wishful thinking that if they glom onto someone who denounced the war when they were beating the war drums, this someway, somehow, will absolve them of their trangressions.

Um, no, it won't. I was opposed from the start, I know what you guys said and what a bunch of blood-thisty little bastards you were, and how your desire for war had no political or ethical foundations that could bear up under scrutiny. I know HRC made a bad decision for perfectly sound reasons, and I have heard enough from her to know that she herself is not going to do such a thing. Quit projecting your own moral relativity and temptation to use violence to get your way - well on display in your attacks on her and in the behavior of the campaign you are supporting - and face up to the fact that your judgment was fucked up then and it is fucked up now.

There is only one person responsible for invading Iraq and his name is George W. Bush.

Anglachel

Krugman on Partisanship

Paul Krugman is always such a breath of fresh air in the miasma of creeping Broderism. His message is clear and simple - there can be no "bipartisanship" in Washington because the movement conservatives will not compromise on anything. They are the problem and they are out of step with the express wishes of the American public. Here are some key paragraphs from his latest opinion piece in the New York Times:

Yesterday The Times published a highly informative chart laying out the positions of the presidential candidates on major issues. It was, I’d argue, a useful reality check for those who believe that the next president can somehow usher in a new era of bipartisan cooperation.

For what the chart made clear was the extent to which Democrats and Republicans live in separate moral and intellectual universes....

In fact, however, except for Mike Huckabee — a peculiar case who’ll deserve more discussion if he stays in contention — the leading Republican contenders have gone out of their way to assure voters that they will not deviate an inch from the Bush path. Why? Because the G.O.P. is still controlled by a conservative movement that does not tolerate deviations from tax-cutting, free-market, greed-is-good orthodoxy....

So what does the conversion of Mr. McCain into an avowed believer in voodoo economics — and the comparable conversions of Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani — tell us? That bitter partisanship and political polarization aren’t going away anytime soon.

There’s a fantasy, widely held inside the Beltway, that men and women of good will from both parties can be brought together to hammer out bipartisan solutions to the nation’s problems.

If such a thing were possible, Mr. McCain, Mr. Romney and Mr. Giuliani — a self-proclaimed maverick, the former governor of a liberal state and the former mayor of an equally liberal city — would seem like the kind of men Democrats could deal with. (O.K., maybe not Mr. Giuliani.) In fact, however, it’s not possible, not given the nature of today’s Republican Party, which has turned men like Mr. McCain and Mr. Romney into hard-line ideologues. On economics, and on much else, there is no common ground between the parties.

The Great Divide

It really is this simple. The hyper-partisan movement conservatives have no interest in working with anyone who is not a lock-step believer in their rape-pillage-plunder agenda. They want permanent war, an obscenely wealthy upper class and a desperate, fearful, ignorant electorate.

Anglachel

Barry and the Problem of Sovereignty

Golden Boy Barry is having a bad time maintaining the fiction that his own awesomeness somehow trumps the fact that he actually hasn't done jack shit anything at a national (let alone international) political level. The spewing by his campaign cheif Axelrod, trying to make Barry's meaningless declaration that he wouldn't have given Bush any powers in Iraq stretch to cover all foreign policy situations, would be stomach turning if it weren't so ludicrous.

News flash Barry: Bill Clinton was talking about the dangerous conditions in south Asia in the 1990s. I remember several statements by the Big Dog about the Kashmir region being the most dangerous place on earth because of the role it plays in the cold (and sometimes smoking) war between two nuclear powers, exacerbated by Afghanistan, a failed state infested with Islamic extremists who have declared war on modernity. That's why he kept trying to take out Osama bin Ladin. That's why he kept trying to keep on good relations with Pakistan under Bhutto, despite the deep corruption of her government - to reduce the tensions between Pakistan and India, to offer carrots and pry sticks out of hands, to prevent Muslim and Hindu nationalists from gaining the upper hand.

It was George Bush and the undead corpse of Cheney who have abused this part of the world, ignoring the dangers and offering incentives that destabilize it yet more. Then, when they realize how much they have fucked it up, they do what Daddy Bush did to the Shia in Iraq - tempt Bhutto back into the country to rouse opposition and then abandon her to be martyred.

Barry, meanwhile, has adopted the Bush/Cheney big stick approach to Pakistan, and advocated unilateral invasions and bombardment of a sovereign nation (Hmmm, where have I seen that happen before? I know, Iraq!) in order to get bin Ladin. Obama was burned in effigy in Pakistan for those words. Oh, yeah, great judgment on display there, Barry.

There have been blow-by-blow write ups of the hole Barry keeps digging himself into at Taylor Marsh, No Quarter, The Washington Note, Talk Left and The Left Coaster (to name only a few), addressing not just the Obama pratfall but other issues related to the very grave situation in Pakistan.

What I take away from Axelrod's idiocy is that Obama has just run, full-tilt, into the limits of his biggest claim to fame - the tired excuse that he wouldn't have voted for AUMF had he been in the Senate. On the one hand, nothing in his Senate career thus far, most especially anything connected to his foreign affairs work, provides any proof that he would have done anything different than Clinton, Biden, Dodd or Edwards. He talks a good fight, but his actions do not support his rhetoric. On the other hand, it is becoming painfully obvious that, aside from this one sound bite, he doesn't have much to say for himself on the foreign policy front. He surrounds himself with Clinton advisors after claiming he is going to do things a new way, he can't talk off the cuff on foreign policy matters without sounding like a moron, he says outrageous and inflammatory things about other nations, and he tries to wrap everything into this moldy blanket of "I would have done different than HRC," as if that is an answer to any substantive foreign policy challenge.

What the tragedy in Pakistan also points out is the limits of US power in foreign affairs, particularly after Bush/Cheney. We can't simply order other nations to do our bidding, as the neocons fantacize doing, and our ability to persuade and influence has been greivously reduced becuse of the neocon adventures. The US gains nothing by threatening other nations the way Obama did Pakistan. More to the point - Pakistan is not here to serve the US, or be a tool in our foreign policy. It's called sovereignty. We are dealing with other sovereign nations and it's time we acknowledge that truth.

Wes Clark gets it and that's why he is always talking about the centrality of diplomacy in rehabilitating US influence in the world. Diplomacy means understanding our own national needs and interests clearly enough to locate common ground where it exists and to contain conflict where it does not. It means treating others with respect, not babbling about your own wonderfulness, and it means understanding everything possible so that you are prepared to do the impossible when crisis arrives.

Sovereignty is also what underlay Al Gore's famous words from the Rolling Stone interview, back when I still hoped he would run for President, that we need to be sure that our manner of leaving Iraq does not create a worse situation than our invasion. Sadly, I'm not sure that is possible. This is what drives me crazy about "Troops out now!!!!" obssessives. They don't understand that by performing an unconscionable act of violence upon the people of Iraq and upon their nation's sovereignty, we have incurred obligations to both. We cannot simply throw them down, like toys we no longer want, and move on to the next imperial adventure.

HRC gets this, as do Dodd and Biden. It's more than just US interests at work here, it is also US obligations. That is why their responses to Bhutto's assassination were the best, because all three spoke from a position of respect for Pakistan and for Ms. Bhutto, recognizing the reality that we can only, ethically, offer assistance, not attempt to engineer the situation to meet US desires. This in contrast to the White House demanding that the elections go on, and most other presidential candidates trying to use it for very crude campaign advantage. While I admire Edwards' initiative in calling Musharraf, that was not something that a candidate should do in an international situation. Do a twist on this - how would you feel about Mike Huckabee or Mitt Romney calling up a foreign head of state during an international crisis when a Democratic president is handling the situation?

What Bhutto's assassination does is raise the stakes in the most dangerous part of the world and quickly separate out those candidates who are ready to handle an explosive situation and those who simply treat it as another bit of campaign fodder.

Anglachel

Gary Trudeau - The best war coverage

Breaking our hearts as he shows us the truth:

Toggle

This starts on Monday, November 26. Read that week and the next and keep on until the story line is done.

Trudeau's cartoon arcs on Bush's War are better than his magnificent work during Vietnam and the downfall of Nixon. The feckless administration, led by C+ Augustus and his ever-more-battered centurion helmet. The new breed of war profiteers, exemplified by Earl. The toothless press with their mascot, Roland Headley. People like Joanie and Mike and Mark who wonder how the world they won back from Nixon has become even more nightmarish. The children trying to find a cause in a world with out foundations. And then there is BD. And Boopsie. And Ray. And Elias. And Melissa.

And now Toggle.

Anglachel

Diplomacy vs. Imperialism

Kevin Drum is going to catch hell for his post about Carrots and Sticks with regards to Bush's war, but he is fundamentally right. It's a little complicated, so read carefully.

He quoted James Fallows from The Atlantic saying that the NIE report, which showed that Iran's nuclear weapons program basically stopped in 2003 invalidates Hillary Clinton's argument in the recent NPR Democratic debate that good foreign policy takes carrots and sticks, which is why she voted for Kyl-Lieberman stating that the Senate considered the Iranian National Guard a terrorist organization. [Anglachel aside - I agree with that, the ING *is* a terrorist organization.] Fallows argues that since Iran abandoned the program in 2003, Hillary is wrong to be rattling the saber now.

Kevin then reminded us:

Iran's about-face on its nuclear program may have had nothing to do with Kyl-Lieberman, but surely 2003 rings another bell in the carrots-and-sticks department? There may have been multiple reasons why Iran shut down its bomb program, but I think you'd have to do some pretty serious special pleading to argue that our invasion of Iraq wasn't one of them. And if that's the case, it's pretty good evidence that sticks have a place in foreign policy, just as Hillary says.

This isn't an argument that the Iraq war was a good idea. It's an argument that once Bush made the decision to go to war, it was foolish not to take advantage of one of the resulting upsides. Iran was pretty clearly spooked after we crushed Saddam with such stunning ease, and was pretty clearly ready to do a deal with us. But the Bush administration was so blinded by its own world historical importance, and so dominated by triumphant neocon ideologues, that it refused to see the deal that was in front of its own face.

Carrots and Sticks

Um, well, kinda. Hussein didn't allow the inspectors back in until after the AUMF (AUMF joint resolution on October 10, UN Resolution 1441 on November 8, weapons inspectors back in Iraq November 27, 2002). Iran had a double incentive to discontinue their program - Hussein's bluff was called and the US was sitting right on their border with an army itching for a fight. In addition, Khatami was in power and he was looking for a way to normalize relations and further undermine the mullahs. If a normal administration had been in charge at that time, it could have been a win-win-win situation - the Taliban ousted, Hussein's bluff called and him humiliated, and Iran willing to come to the table to talk seriously about ending their weapons program.

It was not until after Bush had declared he didn't care what the inspectors said that we heard from Richard Clarke, who let the public know that the tue goal of the Bush administration all along had been Iraq. And, by then, there was a war juggernaut in place and rolling.

So, before dismissing anyone who supported AUMF, it is crucial to remember the difference that Bush brought to the table - a willingness to lie and misrepresent to get the most slender thread on which to charge forward into war.

I think Kevin goes too far in saying that the actual invasion of Iraq was in any way counter-balanced by the the cessation of the Iranian weapons program. The actual invasion was so completely beyond the realm of justifiable behavior that any positive side effects are cancelled out by the butchery inflicted on Iraq. Also, we have to look at how much Iran benefitted from the invasion in ways that do not brign advantage to anyone else.

But what the NIE demonstrates without a doubt is that serious diplomacy and strategic use of threats do work.

Anglachel

Evacuation

The fires are still burning and dangerous, but not the enormous threat they were earlier this week. The biggest safety concern for the county now is air quality, or rather the lack thereof. I'm pretty miserable at the moment.

Overall, the way the disaster was handled has been viewed favorably. We are still understaffed on firefighters and equipment (no taxes, no budget, no equipment), but the fire was fought strategically with what was available and damage was less than it could have been. One of the loopier ideas put forth during the fires was from the much reviled City Attorney, Mike Aguirre. He said the entire county should have been evacuated except for essential personnel. At base, it is a logical proposition, but the prospect of moving several million people out of the county with a few hours notice is simply impracticable under perfect conditions, let alone when the major transit routes out are blocked by fire and or hurricane force winds.

I discussed this with one of my co-workers yesterday, an older gentleman. He was digusted by Aguirre's proposal, thinking it just a bid for attention. "Logistics," my co-worker said, "it all comes down to logistics." And here is where the conversation became interesting.

"Like Iraq," he said, "you need to plan to get out. And no one has an exit strategy. They didn't have one, and we shouldn't have been there in the first place."

That perked up my ears, so I pressed a little bit. It was clear that my co-worker's sympathies did not lie with the anti-war left, but neither was he supporting the administration. His concern was for the military troops and getting them safely out of Iraq. He knew you can't just pick up and leave, not if you want living soldiers and functional equipment.

Why is this significant? It shows what is probably a majority US opinion - do what it takes to get our troops Iraq with the least possible harm to them. Other issues just didn't matter, and could be dealt with later.

All political sides need to take cognizance of this stance. Ordinary people don't want to leave Iraq for ideological reasons. They have nothing vested in that. They measure the price of Bush's war in US soldiers maimed and killed, and wish to keep it low. Thus, the winning argument will have the most coherent withdrawal plan, putting the safety of the soldiers front and center.

Anglachel

Congratulations Al, a Winner in Every Way

Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on behalf of every human being on the planet. He is donating all proceeds of the award to the Alliance for Climate Protection.

Compare the service this man has given to his country and world to the venality and barbarity of George W. Bush. We don't have to wait for history - the world has already judged Shrub to be a failure and a disgusting, petty, puerile little man.

Anglachel

It's not about them, it's about us

ABSOLUTELY NOT WORK SAFE.

The Rude Pundit cuts through the crap and tells us what the unwillingness of this nation to reject torture really means:

If you haven't yet read the New York Times article on just how deranged the Bush administration is about covering its ass over torture, do it and then come back here. The Rude Pundit will wait...

Yeah, yeah, it's long. Get the fuck back there and finish it. Jesus, short attention-spanned motherfuckers.

You done? Good. Let's get going here:

In essence, what that article by Scott Shane, David Johnston, and James Risen said is that conversations went on in the White House and the Justice Department in the United States that went something like this: Bush might say, "Hey, all that fucked-up shit we've been doing to prisoners, how much of it can we still do?"

To which some random bloodthirsty Yoo or Addington would say, "Oh, fuck, we can do whatever the fuck we want."

And some plaintive Comey or Goldsmith would say, "Umm, we kinda got treaties and shit, maybe a few laws that might say we should back off."

And some Cheney or, to a lesser extent, Gonzales would say, "Yeah, right, fuck you, Comey or Goldsmith. Yoo or Addington, kick out the enhanced interrogation jams and tell those CIA pussies who wanna know if shit's legal that we got their backs."
....

And some Cheney or, to an even lesser extent, Gonzales would go, "Call the CIA. Tell 'em naked, drownin', sleepless brown people is a-okay."

And Bush would say, "I'm glad we decided we're not war criminals. Now lemme go tell Umerka we done made 'em more securer."

And then in some brightly-lit metal cell at Bagram Air Base or Gitmo, ice cold water was thrown on a naked man from Iraq, with the water tosser feeling assured that what he was doing was good and right for God and country.

A few years back, a social worker friend gave the Rude Pundit a simple moral question that seems so obvious once it's said, but it hangs over the Rude Pundit constantly. He was looking for absolution for some betrayal of trust he wanted to commit. The friend said, "You have to ask yourself, 'At the end of the day, what kind of person do I want to be?'" The Rude Pundit decided he wasn't that kind of person. No, he ain't a saint, but he ain't outright cruel.

The Rude Pundit has not been one of the loud drum beaters for impeachment out here in Left Blogsylvania because of the practicality of achieving it. But he has to say that the longer these depraved motherfuckers get to go unpunished, the more obvious it is that the Congress and, indeed, the citizens of this fallen nation have decided what kind of people they are.

I don't think there is any way to force Bush and Cheney from power before the end of the term, so the focus has to be on two things:

1. Elect a president who has a freaking clue about foreign affairs and international law. That means Edwards, Kucinch and Gravel are out. Period. Not even VP material.
   
2. Elect as large a majority in Congress, particularly the Senate, as we can get to keep the Rethugs sidelined. The prospects are looking better by the day.

If we want any hope of help on extricating ourselves from Bush's war without having our military destroyed in the process, we have to show that we're serious about upholding the Geneva Conventions and destroying Cheney's imperial framework. Otherwise, we'll be left to our own increasingly isolated and powerless devices. Failure to do so, and we will get what we deserve.

Rejection of the Cheney doctrine is the first step to the refoundation of the republic.

Riverbend and Her Family Are in Syria

Back in April, Riverbend, author of the Baghdad Burning blog, announced that she and her family were going to leave their home in Iraq because it was not possible for them to remain:

There are moments when the injustice of having to leave your country, simply because an imbecile got it into his head to invade it, is overwhelming. It is unfair that in order to survive and live normally, we have to leave our home and what remains of family and friends… And to what?

It's difficult to decide which is more frightening- car bombs and militias, or having to leave everything you know and love, to some unspecified place for a future where nothing is certain.

Since that post, I have checked her blog every few days, hoping to see a post that showed she and her family had not become part of the death statistics. This morining, I saw a post. It deserves to be read in its entirety:

Leaving Home...
Two months ago, the suitcases were packed. My lone, large suitcase sat in my bedroom for nearly six weeks, so full of clothes and personal items, that it took me, E. and our six year old neighbor to zip it closed.

Packing that suitcase was one of the more difficult things I’ve had to do. It was Mission Impossible: Your mission, R., should you choose to accept it is to go through the items you’ve accumulated over nearly three decades and decide which ones you cannot do without. The difficulty of your mission, R., is that you must contain these items in a space totaling 1 m by 0.7 m by 0.4 m. This, of course, includes the clothes you will be wearing for the next months, as well as any personal memorabilia- photos, diaries, stuffed animals, CDs and the like.

I packed and unpacked it four times. Each time I unpacked it, I swore I’d eliminate some of the items that were not absolutely necessary. Each time I packed it again, I would add more ‘stuff’ than the time before. E. finally came in a month and a half later and insisted we zip up the bag so I wouldn’t be tempted to update its contents constantly.

The decision that we would each take one suitcase was made by my father. He took one look at the box of assorted memories we were beginning to prepare and it was final: Four large identical suitcases were purchased- one for each member of the family and a fifth smaller one was dug out of a closet for the documentation we’d collectively need- graduation certificates, personal identification papers, etc.

We waited… and waited… and waited. It was decided we would leave mid to late June- examinations would be over and as we were planning to leave with my aunt and her two children- that was the time considered most convenient for all involved. The day we finally appointed as THE DAY, we woke up to an explosion not 2 km away and a curfew. The trip was postponed a week. The night before we were scheduled to travel, the driver who owned the GMC that would take us to the border excused himself from the trip- his brother had been killed in a shooting. Once again, it was postponed.

There was one point, during the final days of June, where I simply sat on my packed suitcase and cried. By early July, I was convinced we would never leave. I was sure the Iraqi border was as far away, for me, as the borders of Alaska. It had taken us well over two months to decide to leave by car instead of by plane. It had taken us yet another month to settle on Syria as opposed to Jordan. How long would it take us to reschedule leaving?

It happened almost overnight. My aunt called with the exciting news that one of her neighbors was going to leave for Syria in 48 hours because their son was being threatened and they wanted another family on the road with them in another car- like gazelles in the jungle, it’s safer to travel in groups. It was a flurry of activity for two days. We checked to make sure everything we could possibly need was prepared and packed. We arranged for a distant cousin of my moms who was to stay in our house with his family to come the night before we left (we can’t leave the house empty because someone might take it).

It was a tearful farewell as we left the house. One of my other aunts and an uncle came to say goodbye the morning of the trip. It was a solemn morning and I’d been preparing myself for the last two days not to cry. You won’t cry, I kept saying, because you’re coming back. You won’t cry because it’s just a little trip like the ones you used to take to Mosul or Basrah before the war. In spite of my assurances to myself of a safe and happy return, I spent several hours before leaving with a huge lump lodged firmly in my throat. My eyes burned and my nose ran in spite of me. I told myself it was an allergy.

We didn’t sleep the night before we had to leave because there seemed to be so many little things to do… It helped that there was no electricity at all- the area generator wasn’t working and ‘national electricity’ was hopeless. There just wasn’t time to sleep.

The last few hours in the house were a blur. It was time to go and I went from room to room saying goodbye to everything. I said goodbye to my desk- the one I’d used all through high school and college. I said goodbye to the curtains and the bed and the couch. I said goodbye to the armchair E. and I broke when we were younger. I said goodbye to the big table over which we’d gathered for meals and to do homework. I said goodbye to the ghosts of the framed pictures that once hung on the walls, because the pictures have long since been taken down and stored away- but I knew just what hung where. I said goodbye to the silly board games we inevitably fought over- the Arabic Monopoly with the missing cards and money that no one had the heart to throw away.

I knew then as I know now that these were all just items- people are so much more important. Still, a house is like a museum in that it tells a certain history. You look at a cup or stuffed toy and a chapter of memories opens up before your very eyes. It suddenly hit me that I wanted to leave so much less than I thought I did.

Six AM finally came. The GMC waited outside while we gathered the necessities- a thermos of hot tea, biscuits, juice, olives (olives?!) which my dad insisted we take with us in the car, etc. My aunt and uncle watched us sorrowfully. There’s no other word to describe it. It was the same look I got in my eyes when I watched other relatives and friends prepare to leave. It was a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness, tinged with anger. Why did the good people have to go?

I cried as we left- in spite of promises not to. The aunt cried… the uncle cried. My parents tried to be stoic but there were tears in their voices as they said their goodbyes. The worst part is saying goodbye and wondering if you’re ever going to see these people again. My uncle tightened the shawl I’d thrown over my hair and advised me firmly to ‘keep it on until you get to the border’. The aunt rushed out behind us as the car pulled out of the garage and dumped a bowl of water on the ground, which is a tradition- its to wish the travelers a safe return… eventually.

The trip was long and uneventful, other than two checkpoints being run by masked men. They asked to see identification, took a cursory glance at the passports and asked where we were going. The same was done for the car behind us. Those checkpoints are terrifying but I’ve learned that the best technique is to avoid eye-contact, answer questions politely and pray under your breath. My mother and I had been careful not to wear any apparent jewelry, just in case, and we were both in long skirts and head scarves.

The trip was long and uneventful, other than two checkpoints being run by masked men. They asked to see identification, took a cursory glance at the passports and asked where we were going. The same was done for the car behind us. Those checkpoints are terrifying but I’ve learned that the best technique is to avoid eye-contact, answer questions politely and pray under your breath. My mother and I had been careful not to wear any apparent jewelry, just in case, and we were both in long skirts and head scarves.

Syria is the only country, other than Jordan, that was allowing people in without a visa. The Jordanians are being horrible with refugees. Families risk being turned back at the Jordanian border, or denied entry at Amman Airport. It’s too high a risk for most families.

We waited for hours, in spite of the fact that the driver we were with had ‘connections’, which meant he’d been to Syria and back so many times, he knew all the right people to bribe for a safe passage through the borders. I sat nervously at the border. The tears had stopped about an hour after we’d left Baghdad. Just seeing the dirty streets, the ruins of buildings and houses, the smoke-filled horizon all helped me realize how fortunate I was to have a chance for something safer.

By the time we were out of Baghdad, my heart was no longer aching as it had been while we were still leaving it. The cars around us on the border were making me nervous. I hated being in the middle of so many possibly explosive vehicles. A part of me wanted to study the faces of the people around me, mostly families, and the other part of me, the one that’s been trained to stay out of trouble the last four years, told me to keep my eyes to myself- it was almost over.

It was finally our turn. I sat stiffly in the car and waited as money passed hands; our passports were looked over and finally stamped. We were ushered along and the driver smiled with satisfaction, “It’s been an easy trip, Alhamdulillah,” he said cheerfully.

As we crossed the border and saw the last of the Iraqi flags, the tears began again. The car was silent except for the prattling of the driver who was telling us stories of escapades he had while crossing the border. I sneaked a look at my mother sitting beside me and her tears were flowing as well. There was simply nothing to say as we left Iraq. I wanted to sob, but I didn’t want to seem like a baby. I didn’t want the driver to think I was ungrateful for the chance to leave what had become a hellish place over the last four and a half years.

The Syrian border was almost equally packed, but the environment was more relaxed. People were getting out of their cars and stretching. Some of them recognized each other and waved or shared woeful stories or comments through the windows of the cars. Most importantly, we were all equal. Sunnis and Shia, Arabs and Kurds… we were all equal in front of the Syrian border personnel.

We were all refugees- rich or poor. And refugees all look the same- there’s a unique expression you’ll find on their faces- relief, mixed with sorrow, tinged with apprehension. The faces almost all look the same.

The first minutes after passing the border were overwhelming. Overwhelming relief and overwhelming sadness… How is it that only a stretch of several kilometers and maybe twenty minutes, so firmly segregates life from death?

How is it that a border no one can see or touch stands between car bombs, militias, death squads and… peace, safety? It’s difficult to believe- even now. I sit here and write this and wonder why I can’t hear the explosions.

I wonder at how the windows don’t rattle as the planes pass overhead. I’m trying to rid myself of the expectation that armed people in black will break through the door and into our lives. I’m trying to let my eyes grow accustomed to streets free of road blocks, hummers and pictures of Muqtada and the rest…

How is it that all of this lies a short car ride away?

This is what George Bush did - throw the lives of millions of people into chaos (at best) and death (at worst) so that he could get his war on. What he and Cheney did was a war crime. It was also the most moronic "foreign policy" I know of, directly in opposition to the interests of every nation affected. He has casually, selfishly destroyed the lives and livelihood of millions. At his command, normalcy was annihilated.

This is what Bush's War has done. It is little solace to anyone that he is the Worst President Ever, and that his name will never be said save with a sneer. How can reparations be made for what this man has done to Iraq? I don't know. I simply don't know.

Anglachel

Excusing Bush by Bashing Clinton

The current dust-up between Clinton and Obama on the most effective method for engaging with flakazoid foreign leaders is, frankly, silly. Both agree that stonewalling is not a viable policy and the real difference appears to be semantic - Obama is mumbling something about laying groundwork then loudly talking about talking, while Clinton is strongly insisting on the groundwork first and won't commmit to a specific mode of engagement beyond that.

This is small beans, people. The key point for both senators is that ostracizing rogue or even obstreperous states is really fucking stupid foreign policy.

Then Matt Yglesias shoots off his mouth how Clinton is just "Bush-lite" for refusing to agree to talks with particular heads of states without conditions or considerations. Hel-fucking-lo? I sure as shit do NOT want the US in any way shape and/or form legitimizing the nutcase running Iran at the current moment. That doesn't mean refusing to engage with *Iran*. That means refusing to walk into a PR trap set up by some anti-Semitic, mysogynistic, dictatorial fucktard who happend to have "won" an utterly bogus election.

You know, like George W. Bush.

Put some different players in this argument and you'll see why Big Media Matt has parked his brain at the door.

What should a country do who thinks there is no way not to engage the US, but who also thinks George W. Bush is a war criminal? You keep diplomatic channels open, you arrange for meetings and talks, and you are very careful not to become PR fodder for the BushCo White House.

In short, Clinton has expressed an extremely intelligent and rational general approach to engagements with states who have loathesome leaders, but where the US has a clear interest in strengthening more advantageous relationships. She has done no more than say that the US will act like every other rational state actor in the world.

To take the most extreme interpretation of Obama's position, declare it brilliant, and then categorically declare Clitnon's stance to be just like Bush and Cheney does violence to serious thinking about foreign policy. It trivializes the rogue behavior of the Bush administration. Matt and the other Clinton-haters of the TAPPED and TPM empires may think this is oh-so-terribly clever (Look! Look! Snicker, giggle, we called Hillary a right-winger! Har-har, we tried to trash her by a false comparison and the neo-Naderite netroots is eating it up! Guffaw, we sure showed Mommy, er, Hillary, er, no, no, BILLARY - heh-heh, yeah, that's it, Billary- who's the got the dick in this debate!) are not paying attention to the ways in which they normalize what is a breathtakingly violent and destructive stance towards the rest of the world.

No. There needs to be a bright and clear line between the criminal activity of the Cheney White House and genuine (if fundamentally trivial) disagreements about legitimate, common-sense diplomatic methods. Not to maintain that distinction excuses their imperial over-reach and their contempt for humanity as such.

Anglachel

Josh Marshall Nails it

This really cuts to the chase. Why are we in Iraq?

And here we are, again, with the president introducing yet another new new direction in Iraq. Yes, the stakes of 'defeat' in Iraq are very high. And that's why so many people are so upset with this president because the whole thing is quite obviously a disaster and we are going to pay a very big price for it on many levels. And it's his fault. But let's not pretend that these are grave hypotheticals off in the future. They're here. It's a disaster. And we have to deal with it. Not pretend.

People ask what we're doing in Iraq. And you can answer in a hundred ways and in a thousand shades of literalism to metaphor. But at some level we're in Iraq because President Bush wanted a parade. It's not hard to imagine how he must have imagined it. A withdrawal of most American troops from a staunchly allied pro-American Iraq. Waving flags. Heartfelt thanks and vindication for the president who had the guts and character to see it through.

And that's why we stay. Because somehow if he just keeps at it someday he might get his parade. Or rather if he just keeps us there forever he doesn't have to really deal wtih what a disaster he's created and fundamentally what a failure he is.

He wants the parade.

He Wants his Parade - Josh Marshall