The Self-Entangling Giant

White House officials are trying to prepare the ground for the fact that they're not going to close Guantanamo on time. I believe Obama boasted in his UN address that he announced the closure of Gitmo.

Senior administration officials told The Associated Press that difficulties in completing the lengthy review of detainee files and resolving thorny legal and logistical questions mean the president's self-imposed January deadline may slip. Obama remains as committed to closing the facility as he was when, as one of his first acts in office, he pledged to shut it down, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to more freely discuss the sensitive issue. They said the White House still was hoping to meet the deadline through a stepped-up effort.

The prison in Cuba was created by former President George W. Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as a landing spot for suspected al-Qaida, Taliban and foreign fighters captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere. But it has since become a lightning rod of anti-U.S. criticism around the globe. There are approximately 225 detainees still being held at the prison.

People may give a little slack if we're talking months, but of course we won't see the closure of American prisons holding suspects indefinitely. Bagram is still open, and the White House is trying to run some B.S. military commission-like trial to give the illusion habeas rights, which fall far short of that goal. They haven't set the rules for military trials at Guantanamo, or found a location for the prisoners they want to keep, or host countries that will take the ones who can be let go. And they want to use Bush-era theories about the authorization of military force against Al Qaeda giving them authority to use preventive detention and hold suspects without charges. This may be a small victory because they are not setting preventive detention into statutory authority through Congress, but it remains the case that this Administration still wants to hold suspects without charges, is doing so at Bagram and is dragging their feet on closing Guantanamo.

This leads to a more general point: when it comes to uprooting ("changing") the Bush/Cheney approach to Terrorism and civil liberties -- the issue which generated as much opposition to the last presidency as anything else -- the Obama administration has proven rather conclusively that tiny and cosmetic adjustments are the most it is willing to do. They love announcing new policies that cast the appearance of change but which have no effect whatsoever on presidential powers. With great fanfare, they announced the closing of CIA black sites -- at a time when none was operating. They trumpeted the President's order that no interrogation tactics outside of the Army Field Manual could be used -- at a time when approval for such tactics had been withdrawn. They repudiated the most extreme elements of the Bush/Addington/Yoo "inherent power" theories -- while maintaining alternative justifications to enable the same exact policies to proceed exactly as is. They flamboyantly touted the closing of Guantanamo -- while aggressively defending the right to abduct people from around the world and then imprison them with no due process at Bagram. Their "changes" exist solely in theory -- which isn't to say that they are all irrelevant, but it is to say that they change nothing in practice: i.e., in reality.

Greenwald references this Gary Wills article in forwarding the argument that a country in a near-permanent state of war will always assert these kind of expansive powers for reasons of national security :

That is just one of the hundreds of holdings in the empire created by the National Security State. A president is greatly pressured to keep all the empire's secrets. He feels he must avoid embarrassing the hordes of agents, military personnel, and diplomatic instruments whose loyalty he must command. Keeping up morale in this vast, shady enterprise is something impressed on him by all manner of commitments. He becomes the prisoner of his own power. As President Truman could not not use the bomb, a modern president cannot not use the huge powers at his disposal. It has all been given him as the legacy of Bomb Power, the thing that makes him not only Commander in Chief but Leader of the Free World. He is a self-entangling giant.

The White House has replaced the leadership dealing with Guantanamo closure, and maybe they'll regroup and get the place closed in short order. But the permanent national security society, and the political momentum behind it, will resist real transformation in this area.

Five Hundred Twenty Five Thousand Six Hundred Soldiers

According to Tom Andrews, the McChrystal strategy in Afghanistan would need just under that many to carry out the mission:

Embedded in General Stanley McChrystal's classified assessment of the war in Afghanistan is his conclusion that a successful counterinsurgency strategy will require 500,000 troops over five years.

This bombshell was dropped by NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Wednesday:

The numbers are really pretty horrifying. What they say, embedded in this report by McChrystal, is they would need 500,000 troops - boots on the ground - and five years to do the job. No one expects that the Afghan Army could step up to that. Are we gonna put even half that of U.S. troops there, and NATO forces? No way. [Morning Joe, September 23, 2009]

Spencer Ackerman cautions against reading too much into the numbers, saying that they would include Afghan Army and police boots on the ground, which in McChrystal's ultimate vision reaches 400,000. So we're talking about 100,000 coalition troops for five years, which roughly correlates to current levels. However, the Afghan security forces that make up 4/5 of this commitment, which is aspirational and not concrete at the moment, are 90% illiterate, frequently desert their posts and simply cannot be relied upon as a fighting force.

What is there to show for all this remarkably expensive training? Although in Washington they may talk about the 90,000 soldiers in the Afghan National Army, no one has reported actually seeing such an army anywhere in Afghanistan. When 4,000 U.S. Marines were sent into Helmand Province in July to take on the Taliban in what is considered one of its strongholds, accompanying them were only about 600 Afghan security forces, some of whom were police. Why, you might ask, didn't the ANA, 90,000 strong after eight years of training and mentoring, handle Helmand on its own? No explanation has been offered. American and NATO officers often complain that Afghan army units are simply not ready to "operate independently," but no one ever speaks to the simple question: Where are they?

My educated guess is that such an army simply does not exist. It may well be true that Afghan men have gone through some version of "Basic Warrior Training" 90,000 times or more. When I was teaching in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2006, I knew men who repeatedly went through ANA training to get the promised Kalashnikov and the pay. Then they went home for a while and often returned some weeks later to enlist again under a different name.

In a country where 40 percent of men are unemployed, joining the ANA for 10 weeks is the best game in town. It relieves the poverty of many families every time the man of the family goes back to basic training, but it's a needlessly complicated way to unintentionally deliver such minimal humanitarian aid. Some of these circulating soldiers are aging former mujahidin -- the Islamist fundamentalists the U.S. once paid to fight the Soviets -- and many are undoubtedly Taliban.

In addition, maintaining a 400,000-strong security force would probably take three times the gross national product of the country at a minimum. It's naive to the extreme to assume that the Afghans will live up to the 400,000 end of the bargain, and similarly to assume that McChrystal would not seek reinforcements from American troops should the Afghan security forces falter. Putting the number 400,000 Afghan security forces on a piece of paper and expecting them to deliver in any meaningful way is as silly as expecting that they have a legitimate government to defend.

Which means that US military might and treasure will get dragged in once again to another futile war, with an escalation bringing mostly destruction to Afghanistan instead of development. It is for this reason - and maybe others - that the President may be rethinking such a commitment. Dan Froomkin has a superb post about how the President could actually lead on this issue by changing his mind.

Should Obama actually change his mind about Afghanistan, our elite journalists -- obsessed as they are with how the game is played -- will almost inevitably characterize this as vacillation and declare it a sign of political weakness. But that really misses the point.

The most important thing to keep in mind here is that over the last several months, what's emerged when it comes to Afghan policy is a sort of consensus of the realists -- from across the political spectrum. The consensus: That our national interests in Afghanistan are pretty limited and that the harder we try to change things over there, the more resistance we face; that Afghanistan, after eight years of U.S. occupation, has become a Vietnam-like quagmire where escalation only leads to more escalation, not victory; and that what little we could possibly accomplish there is not worth more American blood [...]

Another important thing that could happen here is that, by fully explaining his decision, Obama could go a long way toward restoring a balanced and rational sense of what it means to "support the troops." Former president George W. Bush and his political henchmen used that phrase as a bludgeon to beat Democrats into submission on any issue even vaguely related to national security -- even when it actually resulted in putting the troops in greater danger. Most notably, Bush insisted that once troops had been committed to Iraq, he bore the responsibility to make sure they had not died in vain -- and that anything short of victory would be a betrayal of those soldiers who had already made the ultimate sacrifice. Democrats were way too terrified to demand a pullout from Iraq, even when they controlled Congress, for fear of being accused of undercutting our brave fighting men and women.

It would be a sign of strength and not weakness to base strategy on the available evidence, and change it when the evidence points in that direction. It may not get you far in the Washington commentariat and foreign policy establishment, where only bombing countries to smithereens and sending in every able-bodied man and woman in America halfway around the world are seen as serious and acceptable options. But it would reflect strength, nonetheless.

The McChrystal troop request should reach the Pentagon within days. So we'll see if the President bends to the will of the neocon-establishment complex, or makes his own assessment. The shitstorm that would ensue if he nixes the counter-insurgency strategy would make the health care town halls look like (actual) tea parties. So Froomkin's take provides a response that will need to be echoed.

Yes, Virginia, There Is A Climate Change Bill

Reports of the demise of the climate change bill are highly exaggerated. A large, 63-member coalition called Clean Energy Works has been formed to get the bill over the hump in the Senate. They have ground troops in 28 states and coalition members have run multiple national ads. My favorite is this one from VoteVets, positioning climate change legislation as a national security issue:



Two can play at the "demagoguing about foreign policy" game. And VoteVets have the benefit of being accurate. Sending our tax dollars to Saudi sheikhs who fund extremism is not wise or sustainable, and most of all it's not necessary. The resource wars are just about to begin, if we do not start converting more renewable resources to power our economy.

The energy and climate debate is divisive, but it's possible for the government to devise a "clear, comprehensive, realistic and broadly bipartisan plan to address our role in the climate change crisis," declared the Partnership for a Secure America, a group that seeks a centrist, bipartisan approach to security and foreign policy.

It broadly sketched a plan for emissions reductions, less dependence on foreign oil, more renewable energy and aid to poor countries that will be hard hit by inevitable climate changes. "Doing so now will help avoid humanitarian disasters and political instability in the future that could ultimately threaten the security of the U.S. and our allies," the statement said. Failure to lead, it added, would give the U.S. little leverage in pending international negotiations for a global emissions reduction agreement.

Among the 32 who signed the statement were former Republican senators Howard Baker of Tennessee, John Danforth of Missouri, Slade Gorton of Washington, Nancy Kassebaum Baker of Kansas, Warren Rudman of New Hampshire and John Warner of Virginia.

None of these old fogies will move one Republican in Congress toward supporting the bill. But House Democrats are working their Senate counterparts. And a new analysis showing that the benefits of the Waxman-Markey bill, being used as baseline legislation for the Senate, far outweigh the costs, could spur the chamber to action.

I think it's extremely positive to have the health care debate overshadow the climate change bill, for now. They should try to pass as quickly as possible to keep the opposition off guard. I'm not optimistic about that happening, but in the meantime, at least liberal groups are starting to show some of their muscle.

...I get the concern that Blanche Lincoln will be a tougher sell on a climate change bill, but with her up for re-election and the threat of taking that gavel from her made explicit (ironically, the person pushing that the strongest is none other than Tom Harkin, who just gave up the Ag Committee seat), I think there are actually some pressure points here.

The Creeping National Security State

This makes no sense:

The federal government's most secure prison has determined that two books written by President Barack Obama contain material "potentially detrimental to national security" and rejected an inmate's request to read them.

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali is serving a 30-year sentence at the federal supermax prison in Florence, Colo., for joining al-Qaida and plotting to assassinate then-President George W. Bush. Last year, Abu Ali requested two books written by Obama: "Dreams from My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope."

But prison officials, citing guidance from the FBI, determined that passages in both books contain information that could damage national security.

Then I guess we'll have to track down all of the couple million copies sold worldwide and redact them, not to mention garbling the Grammy-winning books on tape.

Couple things here. First, somebody tell Republicans and skittish Democrats that there's an Al Qaeda member in a federal prison on US soil! Let the pants-piddling begin!

Second, this has basically become shorthand for any violations of civil liberties in the modern age - cite national security. There's no justification for the theory that someone confined to a solitary cell 23 hours a day can gain valuable insight to carry out attacks on the nation from a memoir written in 1996 and a campaign-era collection of policy papers. Seduced by secrecy, government officials use the threat of national security to convince themselves of any behavior under the sun. Shielding a book from a prisoner pales in comparison to torture or warrantless spying or whatever it is the CIA held from Congress all those years. But they have the same rationale, which is often uncritically accepted by political leadership and the media establishment. And everyone walks around in this daze, without challenging this constant invocation of national security for increasingly ridiculous actions.

As long as nobody rises to stop it, the ruling class can expand the national security state block by block until we live as we do today, in a fundamentally different country.

The Saddest Man

I didn't think too much about Dick Cheney's speech yesterday because the framing of a "showdown" between the President of the United States and the least popular human on the planet just made me laugh. But this monstrosity probably should be read and studied, because it offers a window into a diseased mind and an object lesson in specious logic.

First of all, the speech offered no broad vision of dealing with national security in the 21st century, but was simply an opening statement for Cheney's war crimes trial, with a defense of torture and all of the other illegal practices of his regime. But because these practices are indefensible, he structured this defense with lies and distortions and paragraphs that were sometimes contradictory in the space of a few words. He mentioned 9/11 twenty-five times, and tried to re-create the atmosphere of fear and desperation, a world in which he clearly still lives, traumatized and desiring only to inflict pain. He continued with this idea that the Bush Administration kept America safe, except on 9/11, when nine months of ignored warnings and inattention produced the tragic wreck of that day. And even more people died in future actions in Iraq and Afghanistan than died on September 11, anyway. He takes credit for taking down A.Q. Khan's network when America had nothing to do with it and A.Q. Khan now walks as a free man. He talks about moving decisively against Al Qaeda when Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri remain at large, and when they pulled out of Afghanistan to start an unnecessary war in Iraq. He flat out lied about torture and its effectiveness on numerous occasions. He decried the Obama Administration's use of "euphemisms" when he was the one who INVENTED the term "enhanced interrogation techniques. He claims that Article II authority and the AUMF allows illegal actions. He CONTINUED - in this speech - to push a connection between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda. He kept claiming that the work at Abu Ghraib was the result of a few bad apples and not policy, which has been disproven time and again.

And then there's the most clever lie:

As far as the interrogations are concerned, all that remains an official secret is the information we gained as a result. Some of his defenders say the unseen memos are inconclusive, which only raises the question why they won't let the American people decide that for themselves. I saw that information as vice president, and I reviewed some of it again at the National Archives last month. I've formally asked that it be declassified so the American people can see the intelligence we obtained, the things we learned, and the consequences for national security. And as you may have heard, last week that request was formally rejected. It's worth recalling that ultimate power of declassification belongs to the President himself. President Obama has used his declassification power to reveal what happened in the interrogation of terrorists. Now let him use that same power to show Americans what did not happen, thanks to the good work of our intelligence officials.

It's incorrect that the President declassified the torture memos - the Justice Department did. And just a few paragraphs earlier, Cheney attacked the President for doing so. He only likes HIS kind of selective declassification. But one thing he knows - under an executive order by none other than George W. Bush, the CIA cannot declassify the documents he seeks while they are the subject of an ongoing lawsuit. Cheney knows this, so he can yap about the one document that would prove him right, knowing that it cannot be released. Cheney may have never seen the law as an impediment, and claims that Obama could insta-declassify whatever he wants, but he knows that the President won't choose to do so, allowing him to lie away about evidence that, by accounts of those who have seen it, wouldn't prove a thing.

But I'm really saying too much about this sad, pathetic man, trying to save himself from universal condemnation. Time has marched on.

Not Thrown Off The Trail

Good for human rights and civil liberties groups, refusing to be dazzled by rhetoric, and almost unanimously coming out today to assail the President on particular detainee policies, particularly indefinite detention, as too close to the prior regime and out of step with the policies he has articulated. A sample from Human Rights Watch:

"President Obama is absolutely right to emphasize that ignoring our values undermines rather than enhances America's security," said HRW executive director Kenneth Roth. "But allowing detention without trial creates a dangerous loophole in our justice system that mimics the Bush administration's abusive approach to fighting terrorism."

A kinder, gentler, stateside Guantanamo, with the same indefinite detention and kangaroo court policies, does not and should not satisfy those committed to the rule of law. Obama may have gotten over the hump with respect to the decision to close Guantanamo, but his divide with these groups remain. They should be commended for fighting for all of us to make us safer and more respected in the world.

The Speech Is Not Enough

President Obama made a nice speech today, defending his national security policies and the theory that we should not shrink from our values in a maelstrom of fear. He stood at the National Archives, in front of the founding documents, and acted as a defender of them.

And that's great. Obama made quite a few excellent points, about the closure of Guantanamo, the need for checks and balances and vigorous oversight from the other branches of government, and the failure of the previous Administration to keep faith with our values.

Bully. Wonderful.

I'm pretty much done with talk. On these issues in particular, I will look to the actions of the Administration to make determinations on their success or failure in my eyes. And those actions are likely to fail as much as they succeed. Obama basically acknowledged this. I think this was the key moment in the speech, the moment where Obama tried to position himself as offering some wise middle path and marginalizing "absolutists" on either side of him:

We see that, above all, in how the recent debate has been obscured by two opposite and absolutist ends. On one side of the spectrum, there are those who make little allowance for the unique challenges posed by terrorism, and who would almost never put national security over transparency. On the other end of the spectrum, there are those who embrace a view that can be summarized in two words: "anything goes." Their arguments suggest that the ends of fighting terrorism can be used to justify any means, and that the President should have blanket authority to do whatever he wants - provided that it is a President with whom they agree.

Both sides may be sincere in their views, but neither side is right. The American people are not absolutist, and they don't elect us to impose a rigid ideology on our problems. They know that we need not sacrifice our security for our values, nor sacrifice our values for our security, so long as we approach difficult questions with honesty, and care, and a dose of common sense. That, after all, is the unique genius of America. That is the challenge laid down by our Constitution. That has been the source of our strength through the ages. That is what makes the United States of America different as a nation.

When he talks here about absolutists, I can only assume he's talking about those of us who believe that no prisoner should be held indefinitely without charges, who believe that there need not be a military courts process outside the one used on our own soldiers, with all of the agreed-upon safeguards and rules for acquiring justice over 200-plus years, who believe that people described vaguely as "supporters" of criminal activities are not as culpable as the criminals themselves and cannot be held without legitimate charges, who believe that the government should not be able to assert state secrets as a means solely to shut down accountability by the judicial branch. If that makes me an extremist, cue the Barry Goldwater line about extremism in the defense of liberty being no vice. I'm simply articulating Constitutional principles, much like the human rights groups who met with Obama yesterday have articulated for many years. And I come out of this speech with a similar reaction to one of the participants in that discussion.

Asked whether the president had pacified some of the concerns she brought to the White House on Wednesday, (Human Rights First CEO Elisa) Massimino said that she was pleased with the opportunity for engagement. Beyond that, she still registered concerns.

"I think that many of us were disappointed by the announcement about the military commissions and wondered what the reasoning was behind that. And to be honest, I am still wondering having been in this meeting today. I don't think that this fits the overall framework that the president had articulated about using our values to reinforce a counter terrorism strategy against al Qaeda."

Obama seems committed to providing a durable framework for future Presidents to deal with these issues, and seems committed to a robust process of oversight to allow for a full examination of whether the policies are consistent with Constitutional principles. And then he throws out something like the military commissions revival or hints about preventive detention (literally, the pre-crime process from Minority Report) and you wonder if this is the same person. The actions have not matched the rhetoric, at least not always.

Now, as a token of some sort, the US government will prosecute Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who was allegedly involved in the bombing of US Embassies in Africa in 1998, in a New York City courtroom. That's consistent with our criminal justice system and the proper method of dealing with terrorist activity. It lends credibility to the process and shows that the United States is serious about joining the community of law-abiding nations again. But one token is not enough. And I will continue to fight for civil liberties as long as I see them being abused.

Now, Dick Cheney crawled out of the primordial ooze and I'm supposed to be watching his speech today as well. Here's my only response to that.

Fear's Triumphant Return

Glenn Greenwald captures perfectly the horrifying and absurd spectacle of tough guy conservatives riling up the public with bedwetting fear over prisoners possibly being held in American prisons, and weak-kneed Democrats going along with them. These arrested development conservatives, afraid of their own shadow, are seen as the Serious people by the national media, who then back Democrats into a corner to force them to be as afraid as everyone else, and Democrats inexplicably take the bait. It tells you something that it takes Dianne frickin' Feinstein to cut through the B.S. here.

FEINSTEIN: Yes, we have maximum security prisons in California eminently capable of holding these people as well, and from which people — trust me — do not escape. So I believe that this has really been an exercise in fear-baiting. I hope it’s not going to be successful.

(See also Dick Durbin)

But of course, it will be, as long as Give 'em Hell Harry Reid refuses to offer any rebuttal to the fearmongering nonsense coming from the right. And so we get the Senate voting 90-6 in favor of right-wing cartoon fantasies. The President caused this by asking for the money without an actual plan in place, but the Pavlovian response to Republican fear card-playing from Senate Dems really makes you sick.

With Friends Like These

With Friends Like These

by dday

Is there one right-wing hissy fit the Democrats can manage to ignore? I know, simple answers to stupid questions, the answer is no.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) declared in a press conference today, “We will never allow terrorists to be released into the United States.” In several tense back and forths with reporters, Reid said he opposes imprisoning detainees on U.S. soil, saying flatly, “We don’t want them around the United States”:

REID: I’m saying that the United States Senate, Democrats and Republicans, do not want terrorists to be released in the United States. That’s very clear.

QUESTION: No one’s talking about releasing them. We’re talking about putting them in prison somewhere in the United States.

REID: Can’t put them in prison unless you release them.

QUESTION: Sir, are you going to clarify that a little bit? …

REID: I can’t make it any more clear than the statement I have given to you. We will never allow terrorists to be released in the United States.

Later, Reid repeated that he would not support Guantanamo detainees being transferred to U.S prisons:

QUESTION: But Senator, Senator, it’s not that you’re not being clear when you say you don’t want them released. But could you say — would you be all right with them being transferred to an American prison?

REID: Not in the United States.

That floating plastic island in the Pacific is looking better and better every day.

No doubt Reid's sudden lack of confidence in the federal prison system and trickle of piss tumbling down his pants has something to do with the low approval ratings coming out of Nevada. But more than that, he exhibits the exact same knee-jerk response to Republican fearmongering to which we've grown accustomed - a weak-kneed backpedal displayed in the name of looking strong and tough. This statement Reid's office released makes absolutely no sense, proving again Digby's point that, when politicians start speaking Engrish instead of English, you know they're hiding something:

"President George W. Bush, Senator John McCain, Secretary Colin Powell, President Obama and I all agree – Guantanamo must be closed. President Obama’s approach is a responsible one. [...]

“The amendment Chairman Inouye has offered today recognizes that it would be premature for Congress to act before the Administration proposes its plan. I support his amendment. On two important points, however, we do not need to wait for any instruction – and there should be no misunderstanding. Let me be clear: Democrats will not move to close Guantanamo without a responsible plan in place to ensure Americans’ safety. And we will never allow a terrorist to be released into the United States.

“This amendment is as clear as day. It explicitly bars using the funds in this bill to ‘transfer, release or incarcerate’ any of the Guantanamo detainees in the United States. When the Administration closes Guantanamo, we will ensure it does so the right way.”

So we have to close Guantanamo, but we will never allow terrorists to pump our gas or check us out at Wal-Mart, but we also won't transfer, release or incarcerate any Guantanamo detainees, whether they've been absolved of any terrorism charges or not. But in the end, don't worry, we'll do the "right" thing. Sounds like they need some kind of detention facility outside the United States, maybe on foreign soil, to handle those dangerous sorts. Maybe Cuba has something opening up soon.

Harry Reid needs to get himself down to Guantanamo and personally inform the Uighurs, who have been held in a Kafka-esque legal black hole for seven years, innocent of crimes and cleared for release but without a country to call home, why his misplacing of his vertebrae means that they must stay locked in prison forever. Maybe they'll say to his face what they said to Newt Gingrich through interpreters: "Why does he hate us so much and say those kinds of things? He doesn't know us."

Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell is laughing his ass off:

Senate Democrats won rare praise from Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who hailed their "flexibility" on closing Guantanamo Bay and other national security issues.

"Well, they're certainly coming in the right direction," McConnell told reporters about Democrats' decision to strip money to close the Naval detention center from the war supplemental bill.

McConnell said Americans "ought to be pleased that our friends on the other side of the aisle are showing some flexibility on this issue and heading in our direction," adding that he hoped President Obama would show similar flexibility, as with his reversed decision on releasing photos of detainee abuse.

"The president has shown some flexibility on national security issues," McConnell said. "I hope he will have some flexibility on the detainee facility at Guantanamo, because it really has worked very, very well."

I can't wait for the day Obama reverses hiimself and keeps Guantanamo open. The pundits will praise him endlessly for his wise centrism. And he might as well, considering the restoration of military commissions with the same flaws as before, including continued use of evidence obtained from HEARSAY - think about the implications of allowing evidence in an American-sponsored court based on anonymous whispers. Nobody wanted a change of venue from Guantanamo because they didn't like the name. It was about the sad legacy of the policies practiced there.

The problem with Reid's obnoxious, intelligence-insulting backpedal, aside from how easily anyone can discern the party on offense from the party on defense, is that the entire Democratic Party has flat stopped making any argument about national security from the perspective of civil liberties and human rights, and how respecting both ultimately makes us safer. Even if Democrats believe it - and most of them don't - they either think it's too nuanced for the country to accept (wrong) or too easily demagogued by the hissy fit stirrers on the right (who are completely discredited). And this of course starts right at the top. Obama put himself in this position, where the Senate Majority Leader is now flopping around like a fish trying to look "tough." But Reid is of course collateral damage in this battle to burnish the "sensible center," as defined by what George Bush did to keep us safe. Here's Glenn:

What is, in my view, most noteworthy about all of this is how it gives the lie to the collective national claim that we learned our lesson and are now regretful about the Bush/Cheney approach to Terrorism. Republicans are right about the fact that while it was Bush officials who led the way in implementing these radical and lawless policies, most of the country's institutions -- particularly the Democratic Party leadership and the media -- acquiesced to it, endorsed it, and enabled it. And they still do [...]

As Maureen Dowd pointed out in the non-plagiarized part of her column on Sunday, the reason Bush was able to do what he did is because "very few watchdogs — in the Democratic Party or the press — were pushing back against the Bush horde in 2002 and 2003, when magazines were gushing about W. and Cheney as conquering heroes." But all of this recent media commentary makes clear that media stars and Democratic leaders now are only pretending to find Bush/Cheney policies repugnant because Bush is now so unpopular and his policies were proven to be failures. As a result, a new face is needed for those policies, but the belief in the rightness of those policies hasn't changed. They still consider Bush/Cheney policies "centrist" and responsible -- only Leftist Purists oppose them -- and thus heap praise on Obama for embracing them. We're still the same country we were in 2003. Our media stars and political leaders from both parties still think the same way. That's why the more Obama embraces the Bush/Cheney approach, the more praise he gets for Centrism.

This is not only a losing argument around the world, as the stars fall from their eyes when they witness the same distasteful policies wrapped up in a prettier package. It's also a lose POLITICALLY to strengthen the arguments of your opponents and alienate your supporters. I'm just a DFH who doesn't know how the world works, but it seems to me that the Democrats never succeeded by trying to take issues "off the table," only by confronting them and offering a better argument. I guess that makes me unserious.

"Most Transparent Administration In History"

Sorry, I was out for a bit.

There was an expectation of this today, and now the Obama Administration made it official - they're going back to court to block the release of thousands of photographs from Afghanistan and Iraq of detainee abuse sought by the ACLU.

President Obama said on Wednesday that he is seeking to block the release of photographs that depict American military personnel abusing captives in Iraq and Afghanistan, worrying that the images could “further inflame anti-American opinion.”

As he left the White House to fly to Arizona for an evening commencement address, Mr. Obama briefly explained his abrupt reversal on releasing the photographs. He said the pictures, which he has reviewed, “are not particularly sensational, but the conduct did not conform with the Army manual.”

He did not take questions from reporters, but said disclosing the photos would have “a chilling effect” on future attempts to investigate detainee abuse.

The president’s decision marks a sharp reversal from a decision made last month by the Pentagon, which agreed in a case with the American Civil Liberties Union to release photographs showing incidents at Abu Ghraib and a half-dozen other prisons. At the time, the president signed off on the decision, saying he agreed with releasing the photos.

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said that the president met last week “with his legal team and told them that he did not feel comfortable with the release of the D.O.D. photos because he believes their release would endanger our troops.”

This may be the most Bushian thing Obama has done, not necessarily because of the action, but because of the rationale. First off, the idea that the release of the photos would endanger the troops looks over the fact that the troops are in danger RIGHT NOW because of their placement in harm's way in two unnecessary and failed wars. We've heard all this happy talk about the war in Iraq, yet one set of photos would spark a revolution? I think it betrays a naivete about what the Iraqis already know about detainee abuse. After all, they have, um, access to those who were abused, namely their relatives.

Second, Obama said that the release would have a "chilling effect" on other attempts to investigate abuse. How? If anyone stopped taking photos because of their release, that would have already happened after the release of the pictures in Abu Ghraib. Look, the Defense Department wants everything they do to remain secret. But this is a democracy, and I dare say that the American taxpayer has paid for those photos. We deserve an accounting. And if Obama thinks that denying the EVENTUAL release (he'll lose this in court) will somehow mute the calls for an independent investigation over torture, clearly the opposite will happen.

I hope the stars are out of everyone's eyes with respect to Obama now. And this reversal is sadly not isolated, particularly on national security and civil liberties issues. They want to revive the discredited military commissions process, and sidestep a criminal justice system that has worked for 225 years in favor of what amounts to a kangaroo court. They threatened Britain to keep quiet over evidence showing the torture of Binyam Mohamed, or else they would cut off cooperation with the British government on terror operations and intelligence. They have continued the practice of declaring the state secrets privilege to shut down judicial review of past actions of the executive branch. On these issues, Obama has offered no change whatsoever, but an allegiance to very right-wing ideas about security and privacy and civil liberties. It's shameful.

Friday Blues

This is worse than expected.

The U.S. economy was hitting on almost no cylinders in the fourth quarter, as gross domestic product fell at the fastest pace since 1982 on sharp declines in consumer spending, investment and exports, the government said Friday. GDP fell at a 6.2% seasonally adjusted annualized pace in the final three months of 2008, revised from the initial estimate of a 3.8% drop, the Commerce Department reported. It was the worst decline in GDP since a 6.4% decrease in the first quarter of 1982. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected a revision to a 5.5% decline.

If you just look at the job market, the 1st quarter of this year will be just as bad. New jobless claims yesterday rose to a new record of 667,000, also the highest since 1982.

And considering that we're in a more globalized economy than we were back then, the potential for worldwide unrest and resource wars is great.

As people lose confidence in the ability of markets and governments to solve the global crisis, they are likely to erupt into violent protests or to assault others they deem responsible for their plight, including government officials, plant managers, landlords, immigrants and ethnic minorities. (The list could, in the future, prove long and unnerving.) If the present economic disaster turns into what President Obama has referred to as a "lost decade," the result could be a global landscape filled with economically fueled upheavals.

Indeed, if you want to be grimly impressed, hang a world map on your wall and start inserting red pins where violent episodes have already occurred. Athens (Greece), Longnan (China), Port-au-Prince (Haiti), Riga (Latvia), Santa Cruz (Bolivia), Sofia (Bulgaria), Vilnius (Lithuania) and Vladivostok (Russia) would be a start. Many other cities from Reykjavik, Paris, Rome and Zaragoza to Moscow and Dublin have witnessed huge protests over rising unemployment and falling wages that remained orderly thanks in part to the presence of vast numbers of riot police. If you inserted orange pins at these locations -- none as yet in the United States -- your map would already look aflame with activity. And if you're a gambling man or woman, it's a safe bet that this map will soon be far better populated with red and orange pins.

For the most part, such upheavals, even when violent, are likely to remain localized in nature, and disorganized enough that government forces will be able to bring them under control within days or weeks, even if -- as with Athens for six days last December -- urban paralysis sets in due to rioting, tear gas and police cordons. That, at least, has been the case so far. It is entirely possible, however, that, as the economic crisis worsens, some of these incidents will metastasize into far more intense and long-lasting events: armed rebellions, military takeovers, civil conflicts, even economically fueled wars between states.

Have a happy Friday!

Binyam Mohammed and The Need For Justice

Glenn Greenwald has the sordid details of the Binyan Mohammed case, which are causing a stir in Britain and around the world but barely a ripple here. Here's his ultimate summary:

So, to recap: first, the U.S. abducted Mohamed and refused to provide him with any access to lawyers or the outside world. Then -- with no due process afforded -- we shipped him around for the next couple of years to various countries that are the most notorious practitioners of torture, where agents of those countries and the CIA jointly conducted interrogations by brutally torturing him. Then, once he was broken beyond the point of return, we shipped him off to Guantanamo.

After six years in detention, we finally charged him with crimes in a Guantanamo military commission -- based on confessions we extracted from him -- but refused to provide him with the exculpatory evidence showing that those confessions were extracted by torture, even though, as the High Court noted:

"For several centuries the common law has excluded evidence obtained by cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; it cannot be used to secure a conviction."

We then threatened Britain that they had better keep the facts surrounding the torture concealed from the world or else we would no longer notify them of terrorist threats aimed at them. And finally, when Mohamed sued in American courts over the rendition and torture he suffered, the U.S. Government -- first the Bush administration and then the Obama administration -- insisted that courts must not allow him a day in court because any discussion of what was done to him was a "state secret" and any disclosure at all would harm national security.

One thing that's missing, notable if only for its unbelievable nature, is that Mohammed was imprisoned as a terrorist after confessing to reading a satirical article in a magazine, written by noted terrorist Barbara Ehrenreich, about how to make an H-bomb. Really.

There was a wild claim a week or so ago that the CIA was holding the torture information from President Obama, which is absurd considering that he has unilateral ability to classify and declassify documents (unless they're protecting him from criminal liability). While some US lawmakers are demanding that the evidence be shown, and others are trying to get the State Secrets Protection Act revived so that the Administration cannot hide behind national security any longer, ultimately we're still stuck with a group of government officials putting self-interest above the rule of law:

One of the many things that bothered me about the Obama administration's invocation of the State Secrets privilege in this case was the apparent indifference to justice. It seemed to be all about what was convenient for the government, and not at all about allowing people who allege horrific treatment at our hands to have their day in court. I still hate the invocation of the State Secrets privilege. And I do not for a moment think that releasing Binyam Mohamed constitutes justice in his case, let alone in the cases of the other plaintiffs. But it is something beyond blank indifference. I suppose it says something about how low my expectations are that that matters to me.

(As Hilzoy makes reference to, is does look like Mohammed may actually be released shortly.)

Ultimately, this is what the Administration is throwing away by blocking accountability, while parroting the talk of how we value the law in America and we hold no man above it. An international group of judges have made their pronouncement on what this evasion of responsibility does to our moral standing and values, and it's a powerful statement:

"We have been shocked by the damage done over the past seven years by excessive or abusive counterterrorism measures in a wide range of countries around the world," said Arthur Chaskalson, a member of the International Commission of Jurists, in a statement announcing results of a three-year study of counterterrorism measures since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"Many governments, ignoring the lessons of history, have allowed themselves to be rushed into hasty responses to terrorism that have undermined cherished values and violated human rights,'' said Chaskalson, a former chief justice of South Africa.

"It would be better that the government recognized that there are risks -- rather than frightening people in order to be able to pass laws which restrict civil liberties, precisely one of the objects of terrorism -- that we live in fear and under a police state," said Stella Rimington, former head of MI5, the domestic intelligence-gathering agency.

None of this changes unless we recognize that crimes were committed and that they must be adjudicated, with those held responsible brought to account. Otherwise, the cancer will metastasize with another President in another era and it will come back worse than before. In addition, continuing to ignore treaty obligations and flout international law while demanding that other nations be held to that same standard is crippling for American legitimacy. Indeed, some in the Administration claim to know that there are some terrorist suspects who we simply cannot prosecute and must hold indefinitely, while simultaneously knowing that there are individuals inside the previous government who committed and authorized direct crimes but cannot be held responsible. The double standard is staggering.

Amid such competing viewpoints, a compromise idea has also emerged, which the Obama Administration is weighing. A number of national-security lawyers in both parties favor the creation of some new form of preventive detention. They do not believe that it is the President’s prerogative to lock “enemy combatants” up indefinitely, yet they fear that neither the criminal courts nor the military system is suited for the handling of transnational terrorists, whom they do not consider to be ordinary criminals or conventional soldiers. Instead, they suggest that Obama should work with Congress to write new laws, possibly creating a “national-security court,” which could order certain suspects to be held without a trial.

One proponent of this idea is Neal Katyal, whom Obama recently named to the powerful post of Principal Deputy Solicitor General, in the Justice Department. Katyal is best known for his victory as the lead counsel in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006). In his first appearance before the Supreme Court, he persuaded a majority of the Justices to declare that the Guantánamo military-commission system was illegal, arguing that Congress had not authorized the commissions. Katyal’s new job is to represent the government before the Supreme Court. Given the sensitivity of this role, Katyal declined to comment for this story. But in October he posted an article on a Web site affiliated with Georgetown Law, in which he argued, “What is needed is a serious plan to prosecute everyone we can in regular courts, and a separate system to deal with the very small handful of cases in which patently dangerous people cannot be tried.” This new system, he wrote, would give the government the “ability to temporarily detain a dangerous individual,” including in situations where “a criminal trial has failed.” There are hundreds of legal variations that could be considered, he said. In 2007, Katyal published a related essay, co-written with Jack L. Goldsmith, a conservative Harvard Law School professor who served as the head of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Bush Justice Department. The essay argued that preventive detention, overseen by a congressionally authorized national-security court, was necessary to insure the “sensible” treatment of classified evidence, and to protect secret “sources and methods” of gathering intelligence. In his Web post, Katyal wrote, “I support such a security court.”

Amazing. We have powerful individuals in the Obama Administration arguing for a parallel justice system in the United States. No wonder Charlie Savage calls this a return to Bush-era national security policies. Perhaps the most disgusting thing Savage digs up is this quote from Greg Craig, the White House counsel:

Addressing the executive-privilege dispute, Mr. Craig said: “The president is very sympathetic to those who want to find out what happened. But he is also mindful as president of the United States not to do anything that would undermine or weaken the institution of the presidency. So for that reason, he is urging both sides of this to settle.”

"The institution of the Presidency" is seen as more important than the laws the President swears to uphold and execute. And thus an empire crumbles.

While I agree with Glenn Greenwald that there is a distinction between what Obama Administration officials say and what the President will actually do, and that Obama has the opportunity to make a better outcome here (especially if pressured by a newly emboldened Congress), the essential truth cannot be questioned:

Nonetheless, there is no question that Obama has already taken some truly alarming steps, including -- in addition to those listed above -- invocation of highly dubious secrecy claims to resist FOIA requests and keep Bush/Cheney documents concealed. Moreover, after initially (and very tentatively) defending the limited rendition policy which Leon Panetta said they would continue, I've become convinced -- for reasons Darren Hutchinson has argued and Savage today pointed out -- that there's more potential mischief in that policy than I immediately recognized.

There's just no denying that there are substantial and disturbing steps which have been taken. And critically, the primary excuse offered by Obama supporters for all of these actions -- he just needs more time; it's only been three weeks -- is a complete straw man.

The bottom line is this: most of the key civil liberties and Constitutional questions that linger from the dark Bush/Cheney era remain unresolved thus far. Obama has not yet embraced or rejected most of them. And that is by design. There was that first week of Executive Orders that made some nice symbolic gestures and, in some cases, took some tangible steps. In other cases, the Obama administration has already evinced some of the truly disturbing tendencies of its predecessors. But overall, the truly controversial and weightiest questions have been pushed off to the future (e.g., he ordered Guantanamo closed but has not yet said whether he wants to retain the power to imprison accused Terrorists without a real trial). In sum: who and what Barack Obama is when it comes to the restoration of our core civil liberties and Constitutional protections remains to be seen. Those fights are still ones that will be waged.

And we must wage them. We must fight for accountability and justice, starting with a full investigation into Bush-era crimes and a full release of those reports already completed. The American people deserve the truth. Furthermore, we must ensure that the changes in policy resulting from the new Administration on these issues are real changes and not the same policies with a friendlier face.

Beware of Republicans Bearing Gifts

Good for Karen Tumulty to smack down the latest instance of a Republican mole trying to suck up to Barack Obama. Tumulty deconstructs the moment during the campaign where Obama correctly reiterated that Henry Kissinger had called for high-level talks between the new Administration and Iran. Faced with this from an ally, the McCain campaign put Kissinger up to claiming that Obama was mistaken when that was completely not the case. Now that the election is over, Kissinger has the gall to praise Obama for his foreign policy stances.

Of course, we all know that Kissinger, and in fact everyone in Nixon's orbit, was a worm. After all, there was nobody more responsible for blocking peace with Vietnam for at least 7 years in order to win an election, causing the needless deaths of tens of thousands of American troops and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, than Kissinger.

In the last months of his administration, President Lyndon B. Johnson suggested that associates of Richard M. Nixon were trying to persuade the South Vietnamese government not to join the peace talks until after the 1968 election, recordings of telephone conversations released Thursday show.

Accusations of Nixon’s influence in the peace conference have been reported before, but the tapes provide a look at how Johnson handled the issue, said Bruce Buchanan, a government professor and an expert on the presidency at the University of Texas, Austin.

During a conversation with Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, Johnson, referring to people close to Nixon, and said, “This is treason.” Dirksen was the Republican leader in the Senate.

In a conversation in November 1968, Nixon assured Johnson that he supported the president’s efforts to arrange a peace conference in Paris. Johnson had cited news articles and private information he had been given that he said made him think Nixon’s associates were working against his efforts.

This is chronicled in Nixonland. Nixon's national security team had back-channel communications with the South Vietnamese that persuaded the then-President that they could get a better deal under the new leadership.

Privately, however, Nixon was acting more assertively on the Vietnam issue. Over the course of the campaign, Nixon grew increasingly concerned about President Johnson's negotiations with the North Vietnamese. Word was "out" that LBJ would be proposing a bombing halt of North Vietnam provided the South Vietnamese were permitted to participate in the ongoing peace talks in Paris. To blunt the possibility of a late campaign "Peace Offensive" by the Democrats, Nixon developed a "back channel" to persuade President Thieu of South Vietnam not to cooperate with President Johnson. The line of communication went from Nixon to John Mitchell (who would be named Attorney General) to Anna Chenault, a strong Nixon support who was close to a number of South Vietnamese officials, including President Thieu. Nixon's message was subtly delivered but unambiguous. Thieu should refuse to join the peace talks in 1968 because the South Vietnamese would be treated better by a Nixon rather than a Humphrey Administration. Thieu ultimately followed Nixon's suggestion and did not participate in the peace talks during the fall of 1968 (see, Steven Ambrose, Nixon: Triumph of a Politician, pp. 206-218).

This is a classic Kissingerian move and was repeated dozens of times in his tenure. He never believes in transparent negotiation, only secret meetings with political designs in mind, not conceptions of peace. He's an execrable man. I would stay FAR away from him if I were the President-elect.

Lying Us Into War Has Its Privileges

Just to put a coda on today's heartfelt welcoming back of Joe Lieberman to the Democratic caucus (I swear, all this bipartisanship and comity brings a tear to my eye), let's go over one loose end that Mr. Connecticut for Lieberman hyped endlessly throughout the election season. It was considered absolute by him that Iran was supplying weapons to Iraqi militia that were using them to murder American soldiers. This was the basis for the Kyl-Lieberman Amendment, which threatened to "combat, contain and stop" Iran if they continued these efforts against coalition forces. In fact, Kyl-Lieberman contained as evidence this language:

(2) Ambassador Ryan Crocker, United States Ambassador to Iraq, stated in testimony before a joint session of the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Affairs in the House of Representatives on September 10, 2007, that "Iran plays a harmful role in Iraq. While claiming to support Iraq in its transition, Iran has actively undermined it by providing lethal capabilities to the enemies of the Iraqi state."

(3) The most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, published in August 2007, states that "Iran has been intensifying aspects of its lethal support for select groups of Iraqi Shia militants, particularly the JAM [Jaysh al-Mahdi], since at least the beginning of 2006. Explosively formed penetrator (EFP) attacks have risen dramatically."

(4) The Report of the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq, released on September 6, 2007, states that "[t]he Commission concludes that the evidence of Iran's increasing activism in the southeastern part of the country, including Basra and Diyala provinces, is compelling... It is an accepted fact that most of the sophisticated weapons being used to 'defeat' out armor protection comes across the border from Iran with relative impunity."

Set aside for a moment the fact that the current government in Baghdad is actively supported by Iran, and that Tehran was "in the room" during the recent negotiations on the status of forces agreement. Let's focus on the fact that Lieberman was promoting this idea that Iran was supplying lethal weapons to Iraqi militias to kill American troops, an act of provocation that he was willing to go to war over to stop.

(CBS) The United States should launch military strikes against Iran if the government in Tehran does not stop supplying anti-American forces in Iraq, Sen. Joe Lieberman said Sunday on Face The Nation.

"I think we've got to be prepared to take aggressive military action against the Iranians to stop them from killing Americans in Iraq," Lieberman told Bob Schieffer. "And to me, that would include a strike into... over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers."

Funny story about those Iranian weapons - they were a complete fabrication, representing an infinitesimal fraction of the weapons used in Iraq.

According to the data compiled by the task force, and made available to an academic research project last July, only 70 weapons believed to have been manufactured in Iran had been found in post-invasion weapons caches between mid-February and the second week in April. And those weapons represented only 17 percent of the weapons found in caches that had any Iranian weapons in them during that period.

The actual proportion of Iranian-made weapons to total weapons found, however, was significantly lower than that, because the task force was finding many more weapons caches in Shi'a areas that did not have any Iranian weapons in them.

The task force database identified 98 caches over the five-month period with at least one Iranian weapon, excluding caches believed to have been hidden prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion.

But according to an e-mail from the MNFI press desk this week, the task force found and analysed a total of roughly 4,600 weapons caches during that same period.

The caches that included Iranian weapons thus represented just 2 percent of all caches found. That means Iranian-made weapons were a fraction of one percent of the total weapons found in Shi'a militia caches during that period.

The extremely small proportion of Iranian arms in Shi'a militia weapons caches further suggests that Shi'a militia fighters in Iraq had been getting weapons from local and international arms markets rather than from an official Iranian-sponsored smuggling network.

These were pretty obvious lies, considering that the military could never manage to give a coherent briefing about the origin of those Iranian weapons. But there was one man in the US Congress willing to believe these lies and pass a resolution seeking to escalate tensions with Iran over them - Joe Lieberman. This false narrative of Iraqi arms running pushed us to the brink of yet another war based on erroneous information.

For this, George Bush was used as the foil throughout Barack Obama's Presidential campaign and one of the key reasons he will be 44th President. For this, Joe Lieberman got his Homeland Security Committee gavel and a hug.

And this is the kind of fearmongering, overhyping and agenda-driven bluster you can expect coming out of the Homeland Security Committee, in the name of "protecting Americans," over the next 2-4 years.

Can't say you weren't warned.

This is What "Regional Instability" Means

Dozens killed in 16 separate bombings in India. Two bombs in Turkey, reportedly set off by PKK rebels (many of whom operate in Iraqi Kurdistan, kill 16 and wound 150. The relative success or failure of the surge ought to be considered in a regional and global context. A non-functional government, a culture of violence and a maintenance of order through airstrikes which inflame local populations all contribute to world terrorism generally (and violence locally, even if the reporting is more sporadic).

If we continue to have foreign policy "experts" who think only about American interests with respect to Iraq, and then fail to actually understand American global interests when making those decisions, so blinded are they by the prospect of all those natural resources so ripe for the taking, we aren't going to solve these fundamental problems, and we will weaken our national security significantly.

Barack On Iraq

I caught a good bit of Sen. Obama's Iraq speech today, and it was not calibrated to curry favor with bipartisan elites. In fact, the very serious Michael O'Hanlon is livid.

Michael E. O'Hanlon, a Democratic defense analyst at the Brookings Institution who has been an outspoken supporter of the war in Iraq, said he could not believe that Obama would put such a definitive timeline into print before a trip to Iraq, where he is to consult with Iraqi leaders and U.S. commanders.

"To say you're going to get out on a certain schedule -- regardless of what the Iraqis do, regardless of what our enemies do, regardless of what is happening on the ground -- is the height of absurdity," said O'Hanlon, who described himself as "livid." "I'm not going to go to the next level of invective and say he shouldn't be president. I'll leave that to someone else."

Actually, O'Hanlon is the living embodiment of absurdity, having called for just such a withdrawal in 2004. Furthermore I'm pretty sure he doesn't live in Iraq or speak Arabic, and he's been wrong pretty much all the time with respect to Iraq, and yet he manages to put his thoughts into print every day. One would think he'd be embarrassed.

Here's a link to the speech. As Greg Sargent says, Obama has taken his Iraq policy to a higher level, placing it in a strategic context and rejecting the typical back and forth of the tactical debate. Good for him. I think what people innately understand is that trying to spend unlimited dollars reaching something that can pass for stability in Iraq has distracted us, devalued us, and threatened our national security. Obama talks about the missed opportunity in the days following September 11, something else that Americans innately feel. This is one of the strongest moments of the speech.

Imagine, for a moment, what we could have done in those days, and months, and years after 9/11.

We could have deployed the full force of American power to hunt down and destroy Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and all of the terrorists responsible for 9/11, while supporting real security in Afghanistan.

We could have secured loose nuclear materials around the world, and updated a 20th century non-proliferation framework to meet the challenges of the 21st.

We could have invested hundreds of billions of dollars in alternative sources of energy to grow our economy, save our planet, and end the tyranny of oil.

We could have strengthened old alliances, formed new partnerships, and renewed international institutions to advance peace and prosperity.

We could have called on a new generation to step into the strong currents of history, and to serve their country as troops and teachers, Peace Corps volunteers and police officers.

We could have secured our homeland—investing in sophisticated new protection for our ports, our trains and our power plants.

We could have rebuilt our roads and bridges, laid down new rail and broadband and electricity systems, and made college affordable for every American to strengthen our ability to compete.

We could have done that.

Instead, we have lost thousands of American lives, spent nearly a trillion dollars, alienated allies and neglected emerging threats – all in the cause of fighting a war for well over five years in a country that had absolutely nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks.

Obama's plan looks at the big picture and identifies five steps to guide his foreign policy: "ending the war in Iraq responsibly; finishing the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban; securing all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states; achieving true energy security; and rebuilding our alliances to meet the challenges of the 21st century." On the war, I wish he would remove all residual forces, and he should be demanded to do so once in office instead of perpetuating the occupation. But he does understand that foreign policy does not begin and end in Baghdad. And he understands the economic and diplomatic incentives that we can undertake to strengthen our national security while lifting up nations of the world from poverty. His discussion with Fareed Zakaria has been instructive:

ZAKARIA: But how do you view the problem within Islam? As somebody who saw it in Indonesia ... the largest Muslim country in the world?

OBAMA: Well, it was interesting. When I lived in Indonesia -- this would be '67, '68, late '60s, early '70s -- Indonesia was never the same culture as the Arab Middle East. The brand of Islam was always different.

But around the world, there was no -- there was not the sense that Islam was inherently opposed to the West, or inherently opposed to modern life, or inherently opposed to universal traditions like rule of law.

And now in Indonesia, you see some of those extremist elements. And what's interesting is, you can see some correlation between the economic crash during the Asian financial crisis, where about a third of Indonesia's GDP was wiped out, and the acceleration of these Islamic extremist forces.

It isn't to say that there is a direct correlation, but what is absolutely true is that there has been a shift in Islam that I believe is connected to the failures of governments and the failures of the West to work with many of these countries, in order to make sure that opportunities are there, that there's bottom-up economic growth.

By rejecting the narrowness of the debate from McCain (who was sputtering the same empty, petty phrases like "the surge is working" and "no surrender" and "conditions on the ground" today - tell it to the 35 dead Iraqi recruits at the hands of a suicide bomb today), Obama elevates the need to look at national security in a global context, and to use all the tools at America's disposal to benefit the globe rather than pounding it into submission. He's forcing that a different judgment be made on the war, one that respects Iraqi sovereignty while acknowledging that we can't waste unlimited resources propping up their government. It's a very good re-framing of the debate.

I've already remarked upon his plans for Afghanistan. But I do want to talk about his emphasis on nuclear nonproliferation, which extends not only to removing loose nukes but also eliminating the threat of nuclear weapons from the world generally. This is a big idea and one I hope he'll keep hammering. In fact, there's a companion TV ad that makes this point as well.

BO at town hall: We are a beacon of light around the world. At least that's what we can be again. That's what we should be again.

BO in interview: The single most important national security threat that we face...

BO VO:...is nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists.

BO VO: What I did was reach out to Senator Dick Lugar, a Republican, to help lock down loose nuclear weapons.

BO in interview: We have to lead the entire world to reduce that threat.

BO at town hall: We can restore America's leadership in the world.

BO VO: I'm Barack Obama, and I approve this message.

Instead of expelling Russia from the G8, Obama would reach out to them on this issue to gather loose nukes. This is generally agreed as one of the world's greatest threats, and yet the current Administration has really done a terrible job at securing radioactive materials in this country and abroad. I know that I've been wondering, particularly in the wake of Ryan Lizza's New Yorker article, what Obama is holding this political capital for, and where he plans to spend it. He's been running a different campaign every four years or so for over a decade, what will he spend his time on when there's no office left to conquer? I think nonproliferation will be a key component, as will building coalitions out of mutual self-interest to confront humanitarian crises or strengthen national security. A President with a vision of a non-nuclear world is a very new conception. That alone has the power for massive change, and will make us all safer. And this isn't some DFH on the side of the road with a "no nukes" sign, but the man in charge of all levers of statecraft.

It's a good speech, I encourage you to read it and think about it.

UPDATE: I forgot to flag this part:

George Bush and John McCain don't have a strategy for success in Iraq—they have a strategy for staying in Iraq. They said we couldn't leave when violence was up, they say we can't leave when violence is down. They refuse to press the Iraqis to make tough choices, and they label any timetable to redeploy our troops "surrender," even though we would be turning Iraq over to a sovereign Iraqi government—not to a terrorist enemy. Theirs is an endless focus on tactics inside Iraq, with no consideration of our strategy to face threats beyond Iraq's borders.

Crucial point. When the choice is "surrender" vs. "conditions," there's one answer. When the choice is "responsible plan" vs. "stay in Iraq forever," it's quite a different picture.

What About Lieberman's Remark?

The unquestionably worst thing about the Wes Clark incident is how it has obscured the rather remarkable statement uttered by a different guest on the very same episode of Face The Nation yesterday, Joe Lieberman.

Joe Lieberman, appearing on Face the Nation today, made the case for McCain with a blunt reminder.

"Our enemies will test the new president early," said Lieberman. "Remember that the truck bombing of the World Trade Center happened in the first year of the Clinton administration. 9/11 happened in the first year of the Bush administration."

The White House, by the way, endorsed this today. Being the kinder, gentler party of the two, I don't think a single important Democrat went after Joe Lieberman for these comments. But they are procedurally similar to Charlie Black's statement that a terror attack would unquestionably help Republicans. This is the comment that the Beltway press navel-gazed last week, only to come to the conclusion that it was probably true. Therefore, when Lieberman says something like "Presidents get tested early by Al Qaeda" (as if Al Qaeda ties all of their potential attacks to the American political calendar) there's no doubt how the media receives that, how it colors their reporting, and how it's fed to the public - there will be more terrorist attacks, and we can't have on-the-job training, and so we must stick with the same failed policies, etc.

Sen. Barack Obama and his surrogates continued to criticize Charles R. Black Jr., a top adviser to Sen. John McCain, on Tuesday for saying a terrorist attack before the November election would help the presumptive Republican nominee. But behind their protests lay a question that has dogged Democrats since Sept. 11, 2001: Was Black speaking the truth? [...]

McCain has distanced himself from Black's comments, saying, "If he said that -- and I don't know the context -- I strenuously disagree."

But radio host Rush Limbaugh said aloud what other Republicans have been saying privately for months. Black's comments were "obvious," Limbaugh said yesterday on his program as he criticized McCain for distancing himself from them.

Limbaugh said in no uncertain terms that Obama would be weak in the face of terrorism. "We know damn well it's Obama who would seek to appease our enemies. We know damn well it's McCain who won't put up with another attack," Limbaugh said.

A propagandist like Rush Limbaugh is allowed to present the dominant opinion in one of the nation's paper of record on this question of whether terrorism helps Democrats. If you wonder why media stars flub Obama and Osama over and over, this is the reason. They're subliminally meant to conflate them.

Importantly, the substance of the argument here is never discussed - it's always about who among the political parties terrorism or a more dangerous world benefits, not which political party can bring about less terrorism or a less dangerous world. Because given the primary evidence, there is no possible way that answer can be Republicans.

Late last year, top Bush administration officials decided to take a step they had long resisted. They drafted a secret plan to make it easier for the Pentagon’s Special Operations forces to launch missions into the snow-capped mountains of Pakistan to capture or kill top leaders of Al Qaeda [...]

But more than six months later, the Special Operations forces are still waiting for the green light. The plan has been held up in Washington by the very disagreements it was meant to eliminate. A senior Defense Department official said there was “mounting frustration” in the Pentagon at the continued delay.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush committed the nation to a “war on terrorism” and made the destruction of Mr. bin Laden’s network the top priority of his presidency. But it is increasingly clear that the Bush administration will leave office with Al Qaeda having successfully relocated its base from Afghanistan to Pakistan’s tribal areas, where it has rebuilt much of its ability to attack from the region and broadcast its messages to militants across the world.

The Keystone Kops would actually be an IMPROVEMENT from these clowns. The most basic initiative in this so-called war on terror, to any reasonable individual, would be to seek out those who actually committed the act. Seven years later - seven years - they have been allowed to escape, rebuild, launch attacks, nearly take over large towns in Pakistan and most of the Afghan countryside, and generally return their operation to roughly the same level of force as it was before the 9-11 attacks. There has been no comprehensive strategy in seven years to counteract this.

And I'm supposed to believe that's the party who ought to benefit from a future terror attack?

But we're too focused on whether or not a distinguished retired general hurt John McCain's feelings to grapple with this. And Democratic fecklessness in the face of the hissy fit just ensures that such a conversation never takes place. Joe Lieberman, who will speak at the 2008 RNC, probably in a starring, prime-time role, will never face pressure for the comment he made. Wes Clark, who worked to elect his opponent and is as credible a national security voice as there is in the Party, gets the legs cut out from him by its leaders.

I'm going to need a new laptop. This one's acting all screwy from the 18,000 I've banged my head against it today.

The Sad State Of Hissy Fit Politics

I know it's almost become a cliche to say that the worst thing about such and such Republican brouhaha is the hypocrisy, but it is. Four years ago every conservative in America claimed that, since John Kerry made his war service the "centerpiece" of his campaign that it was completely justified to attack it. He actually didn't, and while his service was a component of the campaign it didn't compel the conservative noise machine to lie about it. But that was their argument.

Fast forward four years, McCain actually is making his POW status a centerpiece of his campaign, and now it's completely beyond the pale for any Democrat to even so much as whisper about John McCain's war record. Never mind that Wes Clark was completely factual, anything he said would have been construed as an "attack." They flip on this every four years with Timex-like precision.

Continues to boggle my mind what a difference 4 years can make to the conservatives.
1996: Bob Dole is a war hero! Clinton is a draft dodger! WORSHIP THE WAR HERO!

2000: Forget the war! Ignore the potential Vietnam-era AWOL-ness of our candidate, and his complete lack of foreign policy knowledge! He's got integrity!

2004: So what your candidate actually fought and was injured in the same war during which our candidate was so very much NOT AWOL! We mock his service and question the legitimacy of his injuries! Have a purple band-aid to wear at our convention!

2008: Only a certified war hero can lead this country! WORSHIP THE WAR HERO!

All Clark did was question the premise of McCain's campaign that his war service alone makes him somehow more qualified to serve as President. And make no mistake, John McCain has explicitly said the exact same thing.

McCain Said Military Service "Absolutely" Didn't Make Someone Better Equipped To Be President. During an interview with National Journal, John McCain was asked if "military service inherently makes somebody better equipped to be commander-in-chief." McCain said, "Absolutely not. History shows that some of our greatest leaders have had little or no military experience- Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Harry Truman was in the artillery in World War I, which was magnificent. Ronald Reagan did most of his active duty in the studio lots in California. It might be a nice thing, but I absolutely don't believe that it's necessary. [National Journal, 2/15/03; emphasis added]

McCain: "I've Never Believed That Lack Of Military Service Disqualifies One From Occupying" The Oval Office. In an address to the American Legion in 1999, John McCain said, "I believe that military service is the most honorable endeavor an American may undertake. But I've never believed that lack of military service disqualifies one from occupying positions of political leadership or as Commander and Chief. In America, the people are sovereign, and they decide who is and is not qualified to lead us." [McCain Speech to the American Legion, 9/7/99]

The fact that they used one of the Swift Boat Liars to defend McCain on this thing just brings it all full circle.

The only thing we can count on here is that Clark himself won't back off his comments.

There are many important issues in this Presidential election, clearly one of the most important issues is national security and keeping the American people safe. In my opinion, protecting the American people is the most important duty of our next President. I have made comments in the past about John McCain's service and I want to reiterate them in order be crystal clear. As I have said before I honor John McCain's service as a prisoner of war and a Vietnam Veteran. He was a hero to me and to hundreds of thousands and millions of others in Armed Forces as a prisoner of war. I would never dishonor the service of someone who chose to wear the uniform for our nation.

John McCain is running his campaign on his experience and how his experience would benefit him and our nation as President. That experience shows courage and commitment to our country - but it doesn't include executive experience wrestling with national policy or go-to-war decisions. And in this area his judgment has been flawed - he not only supported going into a war we didn't have to fight in Iraq, but has time and again undervalued other, non-military elements of national power that must be used effectively to protect America But as an American and former military officer I will not back down if I believe someone doesn't have sound judgment when it comes to our nation's most critical issues.

Democrats are idiots not to get behind this guy. They muted Paul Hackett and now they're in the process of muting Wes Clark. What a bunch of tools.

The Return Of Rudy

You'd think that when you embarrassed yourself so totally as a Presidential candidate, possibly running the worst campaign in modern history, you'd spend the rest of the year in hiding, dodging the laughter of children on the street. But not so for Rudy Giuliani, who has decided to reappear as a surrogate for John McCain on national security. The ensuing reaction from the Obama campaign and the DNC almost makes me wish that St. 9-11 had won the GOP nomination.

The Obama campaign and the DNC struck back at Giuliani for criticizing Obama for pointing out the handling of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing trial as an example of how to deal with terrorists in American courts.

In an e-mail, entitled, “Giuliani v Giuliani: 1993 World Trade Center Bombing Case,” the Obama campaign points out that in 1993, Giuliani said at the time, per the New York Times, March 5, 1994: “Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani declared that the verdict ‘demonstrates that New Yorkers won't meet violence with violence, but with a far greater weapon -- the law.’”

Also from that day’s Times: “Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani said he hoped that the verdicts would lessen tensions rather than increase them. ‘It should show that our legal system is the most mature legal system in the history of the world,’ he said, ‘that it works well, that that is the place to seek vindication if you feel your rights have been violated.’”

The DNC takes its shot at Giuliani with an e-mail with a title, parroting Joe Biden’s Greatest Debate Hits: “Rudy, ‘Noun, verb, 9/11’ Giuliani returns.”

“Democrats are not going to be lectured to on security by the mayor who failed to learn the lessons of the 1993 attacks, refused to prepare his own city’s first responders for the next attack, urged President Bush to put his corrupt crony in charge of our homeland security, and was too busy lobbying for his foreign clients to join the Iraq Study Group,” DNC spokeswoman Karen Finney said. “Rudy Giuliani, can echo the McCain campaign’s false and misleading attacks, but he can’t change the fact that John McCain is promising four more years of President Bush’s flawed and failed policies on everything from energy security and the economy to the war in Iraq.”

TPM Election Central has been digging up quotes all day from McCain advisers who repeatedly suggested during the primaries that he failed New York City on 9-11 and that he has no revelant national security experience whatsoever. It's been fun.

I don't think the McCain camp expected Rudy to get pounded so effortlessly. But since the campaign, the bloom is WAY off that rose.