Gen. Petraeus' Dirty Job

I have no doubt at all that Gen. Petraeus is one of the most capable field commanders the US Armed forces have produced in a generation. His command of the 101st Airborne in the early years of the war (how sad that we are referring to the "early years") showed that he "got it," about the new kind of war fighting that would be required to give us any chance of success in Iraq.

His reward was to be given a promotion and tasked with the thankless work of attempting to turn the sow's ear of the Bush administration's strategy in Iraq into a silk purse of a stable unified state.

We should have no doubts that Gen. Petraeus' report will reflect the political will of the administration. No matter what his personal judgement he will in the end, be a good soldier and take orders. It is a dirty job, but a soldier's duty is full of distasteful tasks.

Last week, Hilzoy of the Obsidian Wings blog wrote a guest post over at Andrew Sullivan's blog while Sullivan was on honeymoon. There really isn't much to add to it. It logically picks apart everything that will be said in defense of the surge and continuing engagement in Iraq under the current strategy.

Read all of: Thirteen Ways Not to Think About the Petraeus Report:

(1) "The surge is working; we should maintain it until we've done the job." -- This is not an option. Fred Kaplan:

"Adm. Michael Mullen, the incoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified at his confirmation hearings last month that the "surge" in Iraq could not be sustained at present levels past April 2008.

There are a few ways to remedy this shortfall, all of them impractical or infeasible. First, soldiers' tours of duty in Iraq, which were recently extended from 12 months to 15 months, could be stretched further to 18 months. However, Gen. Richard Cody, the Army's vice chief of staff, told me, during a recent interview for a separate story, that this idea is "off the table." As it should be: The relentless rotation cycles have already compelled many soldiers and junior officers to quit the Army; pushing duty and tolerance much further might not just exhaust the troops beyond limits but spark an exodus from the armed forces."

This means that the surge will end next April. When we ask ourselves whether or not to maintain it until then, we should recognize that the only question worth asking is: will keeping the extra troops there until April improve matters? Asking whether it would improve matters to keep them there in perpetuity, or "until we get the job done", is beside the point: we can't.

(6) But look at all our military progress! Doesn't that count for anything? -- In a word, no; at least not without political reconciliation. What is true in Anbar is true across the board: if the Iraqi government uses the increased security our troops are providing for them to create the conditions for real peace, then we will have accomplished something of real importance. If, on the other hand, they do not, then once our troop levels go back to normal, or lower, we'll be right back where we started. The entire effect of the surge will have been to produce a temporary fix, not a lasting improvement.

Don't take my word for it, though: here's Bush's nominee to be head of the Joint Chiefs:

"Unless the Iraqi government takes advantage of the "breathing space" that U.S. forces are providing, Mullen said, "no amount of troops in no amount of time will make much of a difference." (...)

In written responses to committee questions, Mullen warned that "there is no purely military solution in Iraq" and that the country's politicians "need to view politics and democracy as more than just majority rule, winner-take-all, or a zero-sum game." Absent that, he said, the United States will be forced to reevaluate its strategy."

Everything turns on whether or not the Maliki government takes advantage of the surge to make real progress towards reconciliation. And, of course, they haven't. From a briefing accompanying the National Intelligence Estimate:

"Political reconciliation has come to a "standstill," said a senior intelligence official who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity."

And from a story on the recent GAO report:

"One of eight political benchmarks -- the protection of the rights of minority political parties in the Iraqi legislature -- has been achieved, according to the draft. On the others, including legislation on constitutional reform, new oil laws and de-Baathification, it assesses failure.

"Prospects for additional progress in enacting legislative benchmarks have been complicated by the withdrawal of 15 of 37 members of the Iraqi cabinet," it says. An internal administration assessment this month, the GAO says, concluded that "this boycott ends any claim by the Shi'ite-dominated coalition to be a government of national unity." An administration official involved in Iraq policy said that he did not know what specific interagency document the GAO was citing but noted that it is an accurate reflection of the views of many officials."

And, of course, there is no real Sunni buy-in to the government, which makes reconciliation even more unlikely.

And without reconciliation, any improvements in security will vanish as soon as we do.

The sad truth of the matter is that it took a brutal strongman like Saddam Hussein to hold the diverse population of the state of Iraq together. The only realistic option for a post-invasion success was to maintain the Baathist civil service and Army in place and to put an overwhelming US presence on the ground -- an MP on every corner. This is the model that worked in post-WWII Germany. It was proven and as close to a sure thing as there is in international politics.

The Bush Administration had other plans. Plans that they have stuck with for four years despite overwhelming evidence that not only were they not working, they were almost surely never going to work. Even the best generals leading the best army in the world wanting it with all their hearts and blood can make it work.

The inevitable decay of Iraq will come for Bush's successor(s). The responsibility for dealing with it will be theirs and ours in the years to come. But at the end of the day, all can and should know that the responsibility for these results rest squarely at the feet of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. The blood is on their hands.

----------------
Now playing: Kinski - "Boy, Was I Mad!"
via WOXY

Bush's Real Legacy:

The biggest taxer, the biggest spender in history. David Boaz at the CATO institute -- yes, that CATO institute -- crunches the numbers.

----------------
Now playing: Ella Fitzgerald & Duke Ellington - "Satin Doll"
via FoxyTunes

The Case for Impeachment, Part I: The Conservative Case.

Note: Since I started composing this during the Forth of July weekend a lot more has happened. All of it has only furthered my opinion that this administration must be slapped down, hard, for the sake of our future as a republic.

My thinking has progressed in the last couple of months. I used to be among those who held one of two opinions regarding impeachment. One, that impeachment would be a distraction, a partisan political circus that would get the Republicans backs up and in the end probably not accomplish much except to drag all involved even further down the abyss of cynicism and politics-as-usual. Two, that from a Progressive perspective, letting the current administration continue along its criminal, bumbling, traitorous course all the way through to November 2006 -- and making the GOP presidential candidates either defend it or walk away -- was the best strategy towards making a Democratic president in January, 2009 a foregone conclusion.

My attitude was a combination of the two. But in the last six weeks or so there has just been a torrent of insanity emanating from the general direction of The White House and One Observatory Circle that has forced me to rethink my position. From the Gonzalez mess, to the Libby commutation, to the cynical farce (QT video) regarding the status of the Office of the Vice President, I've finally seen enough.

My attitude now is that this gang has gone so far beyond the pale, so far outside even the very generous boundaries of our corrupt political culture that they are now a threat to the future of the Republic. My logic is simply thus: if the Bush Gang are able get away with all that they have done and if their only penalty is to simply slouch out of office in January, 2009 as public failures, their fortunes and reputations among their peers intact, their futures secure; then what chance do we have of ever getting a decent, honest and open government ever again?

In this first part of a two-part screed. I am going to lay out the rationale why the Republican Party itself should be supporting impeachment. Although, I do not make a habit of following the rantings of the 26% rump of the nation which continues to support Bush, I do pay attention to a number of conservative thinkers; Andrew Sullivan, Washington Post, Commissioner of Baseball, George Will, and the venerable, William F. Buckley, Jr..

Sullivan, arguably representative of the future of the GOP has long since abandoned the Bush Administration. Will, beltway-bound charter member of the Washington Establishment has not, but he grumbles , ominously. Buckley, representative of the Old Guard of the party has bailed on Bush as well and worries with good reason, that he may drag the party down with him. It is useful to note that the president's increasingly desperate defenders have begun to attack the conservative movement's eminence Gris, as "a coward."

So, the Conservative Case for Impeachment.

1. Domestic Spying: The Bush program of warrantless, mass domestic eavesdropping violates one of the sacred of conservative ideals -- or of small-d democratic ideals for that matter -- of freedom from constant surveillance by the government, the right to be left alone.
   
   Recent Revelations during el escándalo de Gonzales have shown that such loony left oddballs as former Attorney General, John Ashcroft, had strong reservations about the legality of the Administration's domestic spying program. Ashcroft resisted it from his sickbed. Not just Ashcroft, but also career Justice Department officials who apparently take seriously their oath to, "protect and defend the constitution of the United States."
   
   For those of a more Machiavellian outlook who might justify this program for it's (purported) necessity to give us the ability to track down (potential) terrorists, foreign and domestic. I will simply ask this question: if it remains legal and unpunished, how would you feel about it if it were under the control of the Hillary Clinton White House?
   
   This program is by all appearances an unconstitutional threat to the values and principles of the United States. It is in opposition to good conservative values and the administration's failure to justify its necessity or to testify to its breadth and extent certainly qualifies as a potential high crime or misdemeanor.



2. War on False Pretenses and War Crimes: The modern conservative movement has always had a bit of a isolationist streak. But practically speaking it has been (generally) practiced along lines of competence, think Howard Baker, Colin Powell. The greatest victory of a conservative president came through his canny ability to outflank and outlast its main rival, the Soviet Union, without resort to war.
   
   During the Revolutionary War, Thomas Paine wrote a number of pamphlets, mostly addressed as open letters to British military and government persons, called The American Crisis. In The American Crisis V, addressed to General William Howe, Paine wrote:
   

   
   "If there is a sin superior to every other, it is that of willful and offensive war. Most other sins are circumscribed within narrow limits, that is, the power of one man cannot give them a very general extension, and many kinds of sins have only a mental existence from which no infection arises; but he who is the author of a war, lets loose the whole contagion of hell, and opens a vein that bleeds a nation to death."
   

   
   
   The invasion of Iraq, based on lies is bad enough. But multiple war crimes have been committed there, from Abu Ghraib to many instances of willful civilian murders. Open source records, especially those from General Taguba, indicate that these violations of both federal, military and international laws took place with the sure knowledge and probable approval of the highest levels of the Administration.
   
   The invasion itself, in both its motives and its execution was clearly in opposition to conservative values. The behavior of the U.S. in Iraq and our crimes there have severely eroded our international standing, but more than that, have put all American soldiers, sailors and airmen at risk. Just ask the families of the two poor troopers who were captured in battle last month.
   


3. Suspension of Habeus Corpus & Extra-Judicial Detentions: "The Great Writ," habeus corpus, which is latin for, "produce the body," simply states that the government cannot imprison a person without having to bring the suspect before a judge in open court and justify the charges against him/her. It is one of the fundamental building blocks not only of the American justice system, but that of most civilized nations.
   
   The idea that a government can simply pick a person up off the street and throw them into jail indefinitely with no need to give justification to anyone outside the government is simply abhorrent to the civilized mind. Whether that person is a citizen of the country in question or not is irrelevant. If the United States wishes to have decent relations with its neighbors in the world it must abide by the rules of global society, which say that only dictatorships and barbarian states do such things.
   
   No law or policy put forward by this administration has withstood judicial scrutiny with regards to the one American citizen thus treated, or to those in Guantanamo. The status of those who have disappeared into the national security apparatus cannot even be discussed because it is so top secret.
   
   Again, for those who might justify this on its purported necessity, one simply has to ask the question, how will you feel about it when these powers are in the hands of those whose political aims you oppose? For example, what if, under some future liberal administration the scope of "potential terrorist" is expanded to include those who possess automatic weapons?
   
   No, these violations of our constitution are too egregious to permit any administration to continue to wield them.
   

That is merely the reading of the high crimes and misdemeanors. From open source materials alone, there is ample substance there for the average American to conclude that George Bush and Dick Cheney are answerable for serious offences against the American people and their Constitution. It would be up to the Senate to determine guilt or innocence of course.

Crude political logic seems to me to indicate that if the conservative movement wishes to remain relevant in American politics they should lead or at least be vocal from the rear in forcing this Administration to defend itself against high crimes and misdemeanors.

The longer the conservative mainstream and the Republican Party continues to support Bush and more relevantly -- those like Guliani and Romney who wish to replace his person but not his policies -- the less likely they are to ever hold power again in this country (by any legitimate means) for the foreseeable future.

But a movement to impeach, abetted and supported by leading conservatives would send a strong signal to the nation that the movement and the party has had enough and absolutely rejects the methods, policies and criminality of the Bush Gang and their brand of "conservatism." The "conservatism" of George Bush and Dick Cheney bears no resemblance to the conservatism of Goldwater, Buckley or even Bush The Elder. It resembles Franco much more so than Regan. Its continued existence should be considered a threat to all people who value individual liberty, economic liberty and the American experiment.

It being the 4th of July and all, let's close with another example of prose from that great Patriot, Thomas Paine, from the The American Crisis: I, which he wrote supporting the Revolution:

"Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man. I conceive likewise a horrid idea in receiving mercy from a being, who at the last day shall be shrieking to the rocks and mountains to cover him, and fleeing with terror from the orphan, the widow, and the slain of America."

Felony > High Crimes & Misdemeanors

Just so we're all clear on this, actively preventing someone from obeying a Congressional subpoena is a felony under U.S. Code.

18 U.S.C. Sec. 1505 : Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication influences, obstructs, or impedes or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede the due and proper administration of the law under which any pending proceeding is being had before any department or agency of the United States, or the due and proper exercise of the power of inquiry under which any inquiry or investigation is being had by either House, or any committee of either House or any joint committee of the Congress-

Shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 5 years or, if the offense involves international or domestic terrorism (as defined in section 2331), imprisoned not more than 8 years, or both.

Now, I'm not a lawyer, but that seems like a pretty clear-cut bit of statute right there. Of course, the Solicitor General will be able to run this through the court system until the clock runs out on the administration.

One of the little known things about Congressional power is that congressional committees work almost exactly like courts and judges with regards to their ability to summon people to testify.

Such that when Congress subpoenas a person, they have to show up. They can plea the Fifth or waive their letter of executive privilege or whatever, or just clam up and risk contempt charges but they have to show up. You can't just blow off a subpoena. It is one of the basic little building blocks of our system of democracy. If summoned you are obligated to appear. If you don't appear, or if you prevent someone from appearing it is a felony.

Impeachment is Too Good For 'Em.

But I'd take it as a start. From the Daily Kos, a snippet from a Judiciary Committee Report following the 1974 Watergate hearings.

In the [Constitutional] convention George Mason argued that the President might use his pardoning power to "pardon crimes which were advised by himself" or, before indictment or conviction, "to stop inquiry and prevent detection." James Madison responded:

[I]f the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds [to] believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty...

Madison went on to [say] contrary to his position in the Philadelphia convention, that the President could be suspended when suspected, and his powers would devolve on the Vice President, who could likewise be suspended until impeached and convicted, if he were also suspected...

I'll spell out in some more detail over the long, patriotic weekend why I've changed my position on the impeachment issue. The gist of the matter is that this gang of thugs is so far beyond the pale that if they get away with this what hope is there of EVER getting anyone honest in the presidency (or any other office) again. I believe that this is an existential (in both senses of that word) crisis for the Republic.

Tough Love

Let's say that you live in a small, prosperous Midwestern town, a real old-fashioned place right out of Leave It To Beaver or Mayberry, RFD. You have two teen-aged boys. The first, let's call him Bill, is whip-smart, ambitious but a bit reckless, prone to run-ins with the law and goes through cheerleaders like most boys go through a pack of M&M's. The second, his name is George, is not too bright, a "C" student but he's a real straight arrow, dates a frumpy National Merit Scholar and always comes home by curfew.

So, let's say and why not, that one night the cops pull Bill over in his '68 Camaro SS -- after a high speed chase -- only to find the kid reclined in the front seat swilling Coors Light while getting a hummer from the Prom Queen.

Chaos ensues. It is a major community crisis. Your family, model citizens in the town is publicly shamed. After several tormented months, an unconscionable amount of money spent on expensive lawyers to maneuver Bill out of a felony charge things finally settle back down. Bill is bundled off to Harvard, his scholarships still in place. The family takes a deep breath of relief.

Then a year later in George's junior year over the course of a few months it begins to become apparent that George isn't at all what he seems. Teetotaling, not too bright, good-egg George, has been running a protection racket around town. He and his buddy, Dick are at the center of a very tightly organized and quite sordid little tale of beatings, rapes, numbers and extortion. No, one can pin anything on them definitively but the circumstantial evidence is so extensive it is impossible to ignore it any longer. Both the family and the local Sheriff are exhausted after the last family episode and are reluctant to open up what could be a can of worms several orders of magnitude larger.

What do you do? The nice boy two doors down the street -- geeky Chess Club memeber, liked George's girlfriend, maybe too much -- flat-out disappeared a couple of weeks ago. His parents are beside themselves. You get dirty looks down at the grocery store and at the auto dealership. The family has a pew to itself at the normally packed Sunday services. Even the guys at the Country Club and down at the bank where you work are becoming a bit standoffish. Your last neighborhood barbeque only attracted your Pastor, the family of the bank's loan officer -- your immediate subordinate -- and the Sheriff.

Do you do what is right for your family, your community and your neighbors? Do you straighten your tie and go down to the Sheriff and give him your full backing to put your son and that asshole Dick away for a long, long time? Or do you say to yourself, "We've been through enough. He'll be off to college in two years. It will be all over then, and we'll all get back to normal. It will be just like it was."

You're kidding yourself, Jack. It will never be what it was. George and Dick have poisoned the well. There are a couple of dozen underclassmen running around town kicking dogs, rolling the town drunk and putting the squeeze on the Grocery Store Manager. Your town is sliding down into the abyss but you are too weak to do what needs to be done, to put yourself through another agonizing...

Impeachment?

Memorial Day: The Myth of Media-Driven War Fatigue.

It's Memorial Day weekend. It is dreary and raining and I can't get out and work on the pond like I wanted to. So, I'm catching up on my reading.

Over at Talking Points Memo, Josh Marshall recently published a letter from a reader that, I think sums up very well the feelings and opinions of the small number of Americans who either still support the war outright or support it in concept. TPM reader JDG writes:

Yes, our war in Iraq is very much like the one in Viet Nam, but not the way its opponents mean the comparison. What's similar is this: Both of these war efforts by the United States have been sabotaged, probably on purpose, and we will probably lose this one as we lost Viet Nam, by the media's practice of showing us the daily body count in color on the nightly news every single day, again and again and again and again!

It is simply impossible for a democratic country to pursue any war, no matter how justified, to a successful conclusion under those conditions.

No matter what you think of the merits of the present war, it's obvious that two choices lie before America: either we go back to our pre-1950 policy (which most countries in the world still follow) of wartime censorship -- not just of information that would help enemy commanders, but also of information that would undermine our own public's morale -- or we may as well pack it in and invite China to rule our country, since we can never possibly win another war.

As I said, I think it is important to confront this idea head on. It is, among a class of mostly male mostly conservative individuals a very popular and persuasive notion and it goes like this: The media prevents us from winning because the American people cannot stand to see their boys and girls bleeding and dying on a daily basis. It undercuts morale over the long haul and makes victory impossible by undermining the support for the war at home.

This is wrong and here is why. War is, for at least one of the participants, an existential threat to the nation. In other words, loose and your country -- at least as far as you currently know (and possibly love it) ceases to exist. That existential threat tends to bring everyone together not just in spite of the constant parade of death and destruction, but because of it.

America never faced an existential threat in Viet Nam or in Iraq. They were and are optional wars fought on vague principles of national security policy. The American nation has not been forced and hasn't even been asked to sacrifice in any way for the support of these wars. On the contrary, the Bush Administration has encouraged Americans to go on about their normal daily lives. In the words of the Vice President, "the American way of life is non-negotiable."

So, it is of very little shock then that the vast majority of the American people, who do not serve and who increasingly do not even know people who serve in the military have no stake in the war. It is an abstract thing, thousands of miles away. Their only connection to it is through the media. And the media shows it for what it is, a disaster. A disaster for the Iraqi people, a disaster for American standing in the world, and a disaster for those brave men and women who march off to war in our names.

But do think back to the times where America DID face existential threat. Think back to World War II. Did the media show such graphic scenes of American casualties? Not as much, no. But did every American know a Gold Star Mother? Did every American have a close family member serving in the military? Did every American participate in rationing, in scrap drives, in victory gardens, buy war bonds? The answer to all those questions is, Yes.

Think back to the Civil and Revolutionary wars. Those wars were fought on our own soil. For many, the battles and the marshaling of forces occurred literally in their back-yards. Did a large majority of Americans personally witness the carnage that results from combat? Was there TV in 1862? No. Was there Matthew Brady and other photographers using that new technology to bring the carnage of the war into people's homes? Yes. Photo of African American voulunteers collecting the bones of the dead following the Battle of Cold Harbor. John Reekie, July 1865. Library of Congress.

In all those cases America and American's stayed in for the long haul, against the odds (1941, 1863) and ground out the inevitable victory. In all those cases, the difference between victory and defeat was strong leadership and a strong national sense of purpose. THAT is what we lack in America today. The media is merely a long-focus lens that lets us see events ocurring a long way away. But without the leadership to give us confidence that our men and women are there for a good purpose, those images from abroad will eat away at the conscience of America. Without the leadership to give all of us at home a shared vision, shared purpose that can help us set aside the ugly images abroad and see a brighter future, the names of the dead will haunt us. Eventually, the will to fight will flag and fail.

No, it is not the media's fault for showing us what IS. It is the Administration's fault for lying to us about what Iraq WAS and for not providing America with a compelling sense of mission in Iraq. Lord knows they tried. But you can't just fake this shit. People know, instinctively whether something is right or wrong. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and you can't make 2003 into 1941. People know the difference.

And THAT is why the vast middle of America has turned its back on the war and on the administration. America can fight and win any war that has the backing of the American people. But war has changed. There probably (God willing) will never be another large, conventional war fought. The wars of the future will be guerrilla, open-source wars. It will require very good reasons and very compelling arguments for Americans to get behind those sorts of bloody, drawn-out affairs.

It requires a sense of noble purpose, an inspiring call to arms by our leaders and probably a burden shared with other nations. It requires that we feel morally and legally justified in doing what we have to do, ideally with international institutions behind us. It requires some sort of sense that not only is progress towards the final goal possible, but evidence that it is occurring.

All of those things are missing in America's endeavors in 2007. So, on this Memorial Day, 2007 I, along with so many parents across the country simply ask myself the same question that was asked in 1970, "who will be the last child to die for a mistake?"

The Undoing of American Conservatism.

The operation of the Bush administration and its executive branch appointees is now presenting the Republican party with an existential threat. Conservatism is largely about maximizing liberty through the idea that government should remain small and as far removed from people's daily lives as possible.

Yet their "unitary executive" theory and their electoral and governing policies of promoting fear of -- and attacking both real and imaginary -- threats while striving to push a moral agenda have given the ruling class of the Republicans one thing no one ever could have imagined of the party of Lincoln: The cloak of authoritarianism. This stands in utter opposition to everything conservatism stands for.

And the people the party is offering us as replacements to Bush show no signs of bringing the party back to its real conservative roots. Example one could be Mitt Romney's chest-pounding offer to "double the size of Guantanimo," at the last debate. I'm sorry, double how? Start rounding people up? Disappearing undesirables off the streets?

It says a lot about the current state of the Republican party as it is in power that John Ashcroft... yes, John Ashcroft looms as a paragon of both small "r" and big "R" republican ideals: maintaining from his sickbed his opposition to the administration's attempt to extend the illegal spying activities.

I've said it before, the real political struggle of the 21st Century is as old as time itself. It has nothing to do with right versus left -- that poor distinction which is a relic of the French Revolution. No, the struggle for the future of humanity is stark and simple, the struggle between those who treasure and work towards maximizing human freedom and those who would bind us in chains of authoritarianism. And beware, the strongest chains are those we forge ourselves out of fear.

Bosworth Field for Bush In Iraq

The chief problem that has bedeviled the Bush Administration from the beginning in its Iraq project is that it seems to have been working with a construct of the Middle East of its dreams and desires, not of the Middle East as it is; 20,0000 years old, cradle of Western Civilization, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, a modern technological society burdened by cultural ideas from the Middle Ages, a bustling, brawling collection of tribes, clans, cults and idealists of every stripe imaginable in the human condition.

For a long time, the Administration and its supporters succeeded in getting many if not most of the American people to buy into its imaginary construct. It did this in much the same way as Peter Pan revived Tinkerbell. If we all clap hard enough and believe hard enough it will be so.

Well, facts are uncomfortable and uncompromising things. They will not be denied and they keep forcing themselves upon you. Anyone who is not completely psychotic will eventually be faced with accepting that their fantastic world view does not work in the world of facts and will change their outlook.

Not so our Glorious Leader. After a solid renunciation of his policies at the polls in November, it had the change to reevaluate. After the promulgation of the findings of the Iraq Study Group, an unwieldy collection of pretty much every rational idea put forth in the last four years for dealing with the situation in Iraq, the Administration could have made some hard choices.

Instead it has decided to throw yet more bodies into the fray. The plan Bush put forward on Wednesday would raise the troop levels to about what they were in mid-2005. This final "surge" will be combined with a push to get the Iraqi government to make a series of reforms that have been in the works since the government was empaneled in January of last year. That government has known that it needed to do these things and has not yet been able to do them. Expecting them to do so know is yet more wishful thinking.

Many Democrats have been branding this plan an "escalation" of the war in Iraq. Normally, I don't hold with such semantic shenanigans. However, it seems that escalation is indeed the word to be used here. The plan put forth to once-and-for-all occupy and pacify large swaths of Bahgdad by placing US soldiers in the neighborhoods 24/7 will force the militias who currently excersise defacto confrol to stand and fight. This will lead to an escalation in the level and ferocity of fighting.

Secondly, the entire framing of this plan as the last-best-hope for victory puts a huge mental pressure on military commanders and rank-and-file soldiery to pull out all the stops in day-to-day fighting. Former US Special Forces Colonel and Middle Eastern Expert, Pat Lang recently wrote an article Surging To Defeat:

As Robert Gates takes the helm at the Pentagon today, he is probably already aware that Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush are resolute in their decision to stay the course in Iraq (without using those words) for the next two years. What he probably does not realize is that the U.S. military is about to commit hara-kiri.

A “surge” of the size possible under current constraints on U.S. forces will not turn the tide in the guerrilla war. Reinforcement of Baghdad several thousand U.S. troops last summer simply brought on more violence. Those who believe still more troops will bring “victory” are living in a dangerous dream world and need to wake up.

Moreover, major reinforcement would commit the US Army and Marine Corps to decisive combat in which there are no more strategic reserves to be sent to the front. It will be a matter of win or die in the attempt. In that situation, everyone in uniform on the ground will commit every ounce of their being to a hope of “victory,” and few measures will be shrunk from.

Analogies come to mind: the Bulge, Stalingrad, the Battle of Algiers. It will be total war with all the likelihood of excesses and mass casualties that come with total war.

To take up such a strategy and force our armed forces into it would be an immoral course of action, both for our troops and for the thousands more Iraqis bound to die.

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., spoke for many of us last Thursday on the Senate floor:

“I, for one, am at the end of my rope when it comes to supporting a policy that has our soldiers patrolling the same streets in the same way, being blown up by the same bombs day after day. That is absurd. It may even be criminal. I cannot support that anymore.”

Yesterday, when George Stephanopoulos asked Smith what he meant by “criminal,” he replied:

“I said it. You can use any adjective you want, George. But I have long believed in a military context, when you do the same thing over and over again, without a clear strategy for victory, at the expense of your young people in arms, that is dereliction. That is deeply immoral.”

If adopted, the “surge” strategy will be even worse than that. It will be something we will spend a generation living down.

Lastly, this week comes the news that US forces are going after Iranian operations in Iraq. The operation in Irbil last week took down a facility that was borderline to seizing diplomats. This is not necessarily a strategically or operationally poor decision. The Iranians are working actively with their clients and allies in Iraq and working their interests. The interests of Iran are not the interests of the US forces there and they could be considered legitimate targets.

However, Iran is not (yet) a belligerent in this conflict. More behavior such as that this week could change that. I believe that imprisoning Iranians qualifies as an escalation at least in the diplomatic sense that doesn't do much to advance our interests in stabilizing Iraq.

So, at the end of the day we are left with a President who has rejected all attempts by friends and foes alike at urging less-bad bad options in his Iraq adventure. He maintains is now obviously psychotic imaginary world-view of how things may be in Iraq and urges us towards one final effort to "win" "victory." He stands alone now, his former Congressional followers abandoning him in droves after seeing their colleagues cut down in November. Bush stands now alone, only his most loyal retainers by him like Richard III. A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!

Yet none have the courage or the will to gainsay the President his powers to send unknown hundreds (thousands?) of American men and women to their doom, to undoubtedly kill thousands more Iraqis -- innocent and not, and to commit yet more crimes of war.

Would that he will suffer the torments of Richard on the eve of battle.

Give me another horse: bind up my wounds.
Have mercy, Jesu!--Soft! I did but dream.
O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!
The lights burn blue. It is now dead midnight.
Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
What do I fear? myself? there's none else by:
Richard loves Richard; that is, I am I.
Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am:
Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why:
Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself?
Alack. I love myself. Wherefore? for any good
That I myself have done unto myself?
O, no! alas, I rather hate myself
For hateful deeds committed by myself!
I am a villain: yet I lie. I am not.
Fool, of thyself speak well: fool, do not flatter.
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree
Murder, stem murder, in the direst degree;
All several sins, all used in each degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all, Guilty! guilty!
I shall despair. There is no creature loves me;
And if I die, no soul shall pity me:
Nay, wherefore should they, since that I myself
Find in myself no pity to myself?
Methought the souls of all that I had murder'd
Came to my tent; and every one did threat
To-morrow's vengeance on the head of Richard.

Chamberlain Bush Churchill and Gore

Sounds like a white shoe legal firm.

Due to a lack of any recent fiction works which have captured my interest I've been wending my way through some history books lately. From William Manchester's great Churchill biography, The Last Lion; Alone 1932-1940 comes this passage on p. 470

The present is never tidy, or certain, or reasonable, and those who try to make it so, once it has become the past, succeed only in making it seem implausible. Among the perceptive observations and shrewd conclusions of the Churchills and Sargents were clutters of other reports and forecasts, completely at odds with them. All of it, the prescient and the cockeyed, always arrives in a promiscuous rush, and most men in power, sorting through it, belive what they want to belive, accepting whatever justifies their policies and convictions while taking out insurance, whenever possible against the possibility that the truth may lie in their wastebaskets.

Neville Chamberlain required a very large wastebasket...

It is merely coincidence that just a couple of weeks ago I referenced a post by Billmon which deconstructed the argument of those few remaining in the Administration's Amen Corner that punting or playing for time on the issue of Iranian nuclear research would be equivalent to Chamberlains's doe-eyed sellout of the Czechs to der Furher. We all know that George Bush requires a very large wastebasket as well. But, the above passage and, well the entire first five hundred pages or so of Alone are a treatise on two themes.

One, that no matter what evidence to the contrary, most people in uncertain times will continue to believe that the good times will go on right up until the moment where the good times literally die in flames before their eyes. Would that our generation had a Churchill; an elder statesman, currently in disgrace for poor judgement, who would nevertheless continue to eloquently condemn the current government's folly and sound the alarm for action.

I look now... no I issue a call to Al Gore to step into the role of Churchill. I will leave it to the reader to decide if this is a sign of my (and no few others') desperation or if this is another case history's ability to rhyme. Nonetheless, mark my words, he once derided as Ozone Man will yet have a part to play in history's great drama whether he will it or not.

Two, that the Bush Administration does not hold the all-time record for folly, stupidity and obstinate obedience to cherished -- and tragically wrong -- world views. Yet.

America has had its share of dismal presidential failures; men whose lack of courage and perverse vision of how the world works resulted in pain, desperation and death for thousands: Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Hoover. But these men live on in infamy almost solely in American minds and in darn few of those. However, mention the name Neville Chamberlain to almost any reasonably educated person in the world and you will instantly receive a look of recognition. Chamberlain's name is synonymous with idiocy and selling upwards of 30 million people down the road to hell in the name of political expediency and faith-based reasoning.

We can only hope that for future generations, the name of Bush remains a slur that is recognizable chiefly to Americans as a member of a sadly lengthy list of electoral mistakes; of disasters narrowly avoided or eventually overcome at great cost mostly to ourselves. But he is making his break for the Big Time -- surely his name will ring through the ages in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, as he gins up a crisis in Iran and closes his eyes to the state of the worlds energy markets and climate he stands on the cusp of overtaking the seemingly invincible Chamberlain for the title of The Worst Idiot In History.

Al Gore may not be the Churchill figure (okay, Last Jedi, if you insist). But we desperately need SOMEONE to fill that role, to speak out with bona fide courage from a position of authority and put themselves in the wings awaiting Bush's evenutal fall. Perhaps, to be a Churchillian figure one must first be in the wilderness, which is why I logically gravitate to Gore as opposed to say, Russ Feingold.

But need him or her we do. Churchill was not able to prevent Chamberlains's folly, but without him the world probably have entered a long and dark age. We have a choice to make in November of this year that may yet keep the name of Bush a (mostly) American slur. Let us hope that we make the right choice so that our apparent lack of (rhymes with) Churchill does not plunge us into a long, dark age.