;)
Wednesday
Mar202013
The Commentariat -- March 20, 2013
That's it for today's links. Pesky "other obligations" are swamping me for the next several days.
Matt Spetalnick of Reuters: President Barack Obama arrived in Israel on Wednesday without any new peace initiative to offer disillusioned Palestinians and facing deep Israeli doubts over his pledge to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. Making his first official visit here as president, Obama hopes to use the trip to reset his often fraught relations with both the Israelis and Palestinians in a choreographed three-day stay that is high on symbolism but low on expectations."
** CW: A letter from Andrew Bacevich to Paul Wolfowitz, published in Harper's, which contributor cowichan recommends, is absolutely fascinating. Every bit of it rings true to me. ...
... New York Times Editorial Board: "Ten years after it began, the Iraq war still haunts the United States in the nearly 4,500 troops who died there; the more than 30,000 American wounded who have come home; the more than $2 trillion spent on combat operations and reconstruction, which inflated the deficit; and in the lessons learned about the limits of American leadership and power.... Yet none of the Bush administration's war architects have been called to account for their mistakes, and even now, many are invited to speak on policy issues as if they were not responsible for one of the worst strategic blunders in American foreign policy." ...
... Jessica Stern, in a New York Times op-ed: "That the war on terror, which created the political environment for invading Iraq, ended up exacerbating terrorism there and in the region is only one of the many tragic consequences of this ill-fated American escapade." ...
... "Decade of Despair." Ahmad Saadawi, in a New York Times op-ed: "The contradictions that had been contained under Saddam Hussein burst forth into the open. Lives were uprooted in the process. It is no surprise that, a decade later, some people find themselves yearning for the '90s."
Ed O'Keefe of the Washington Post: "Senate Democrats are preparing to move ahead with consideration of several proposals to limit gun violence, but prospects for the controversial ban on hundreds of specific weapons and parts are diminishing, according to lawmakers and aides familiar with the process. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), the chief sponsor of the ban, said Tuesday that her proposal won't be included as part of a bill encompassing several proposals that the Senate Judiciary Committee approved last week and that the Senate is expected to begin debating when it returns from a two-week recess in early April." ...
... Harry Reid, Gutless Wonder. David Firestone of the New York Times: "... the dismissal of the assault weapons ban shows the power that gun lobbies like the National Rifle Association continue to hold over senior Democrats, including Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, who made the decision. The contrast to the political courage displayed by the governor of Colorado, John Hickenlooper [D], could not be more clear." ...
... BUT Steve M. of No More Mister Nice Blog: "After all of Wayne LaPierre's paranoid ranting and raving..., 48% of Americans still saw the NRA in a positive light, according to one poll; 46% said the NRA better reflected their views on guns, as opposed to 41% who said President Obama did, according to another poll; yet another poll said that 44% of Americans trust Republicans on gun policy, vs. 42% for the president. And yes, this was even as poll after poll showed overwhelming support for universal background checks, and broad support for other gun control measures. I'm not angry at Harry Reid because he can read a poll -- as, presumably, can the seven Democratic senators running for reelection in 2014 in Romney states."
Ashley Parker & Michael Shear of the New York Times: "Republican opposition to legalizing the status of millions of illegal immigrants is crumbling in the nation's capital as leading lawmakers in the party scramble to halt eroding support among Hispanic voters -- a shift that is providing strong momentum for an overhaul of immigration laws." ...
... BUT Rick Klein of ABC News observes, Rand Paul's vague speech on immigration reform "suggests a party that's wrestling deeply with how to address issues around illegal immigration without alienating either Latino voters or a GOP base that continues to deride notions of citizenship for illegal immigrants as dangerous for both the party and the country." CW: obviously, it would be impolite to thumb one's nose at deranged racists. ...
... PLUS, Matthew Cooper of the National Journal: Paul "sees Hispanics as natural Republicans but for the immigration issue. But all of the polling data suggest otherwise. The Pew Research Center notes, 'Latinos have often been characterized as more socially conservative than most Americans. On some issues, such as abortion, that's true. But on others, such as acceptance of homosexuality, it is not. When it comes to their own assessments of their political views, Latinos, more so than the general public, say their views are liberal.' ... When asked if they backed President Obama's position that 'health insurance organizations should be required to cover contraception,' 68 percent of Hispanics said yes; only 11 percent said no." CW: might be a mistake at this point to tell Republicans they're delusional.
Igor Volsky of Think Progress: "Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) said he would not support revenue increases in budget negotiations with Democrats during an appearance on Bloomberg TV Tuesday morning, explaining that the nation must reform the tax code by lowering rates and 'plugging loopholes' and achieve a balanced budget with spending cuts alone.... spending cuts have so far outnumbered revenue by nearly 3 to 1, which is why economists believe that 'the next installment of deficit reduction should reach $2 trillion and about half of it should come from higher taxes.' Ryan, meanwhile, has told voters for more than three years that he would pay for his massive tax breaks by closing tax loopholes without ever specifying which deductions or credits he plans to eliminate." CW: meanwhile, President Obama refuses to lead. ...
... Steve Benen lists a bunch of stuff about the budget & other matters which Paul Ryan accidentally forgot: "Everyone can be forgetful once in a while, but the Republican Budget Committee chairman seems to forget rather important details and developments so often, it's rather unsettling. The alternative, of course, is that Ryan's memory is fine and he shamelessly lies when it suits his purposes...." ...
... Former Very Serious Intellectual Golden Boy Not So Golden Now. Rasmussen Reports: "Even Republicans have a lower opinion these days of Congressman Paul Ryan.... A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 35% of all Likely U.S. Voters now view Ryan favorably. That's down 15 points from 50% in August just after Mitt Romney chose him as his running mate." Via Alex Rogers of Time.
Fifty-four percent (54%) have an unfavorable opinion of the Wisconsin congressman.
Simon Romero & Emily Schmall of the New York Times: "... behind the scenes, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who led the public charge against [Argentina's plan to approve gay marriage], spoke out in a heated meeting of bishops in 2010 and advocated a highly unorthodox solution: that the church in Argentina support the idea of civil unions for gay couples. The concession inflamed the gathering -- and offers a telling insight into the leadership style he may now bring to the papacy.... The approach stands in sharp contrast to his predecessor, Benedict XVI, who spent 25 years as the church's chief doctrinal enforcer before becoming pope, known for an unbending adherence to doctrinal purity."
AND C-SPAN callers seem to be penis-obsessed:
... Andrew Kaczynski of BuzzFeed with 10 great C-SPAN moments.
Congressional Race
Bruce Smith of the AP: "Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has advanced to a runoff in the Republican contest for an open congressional seat along the state's south coast. Meanwhile, the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert has won the Democratic primary for the seat. Elizabeth Colbert Bush on Tuesday handily defeated perennial candidate Ben Frasier and will face the winner of the crowded GOP primary in the May 7 general election. In early returns on Tuesday evening, it was unclear who Sanford would face in the April 2nd GOP runoff. Fifteen other Republicans were running including Teddy Turner, the son of media mogul Ted Turner."
Right Wing World
"Left Behind." McKay Coppins of BuzzFeed: "Some leaders of the religious right are openly worried this week after a sprawling 98-page report released by the Republican National Committee on how the party can rebuild after its 2012 implosion made no mention of the GOP's historic alliance with grassroots Christian 'value voters.' Specifically, the word 'Christian' does not appear once in the party's 50,000-word blueprint for renewed electoral success. Nor does the word 'church.' Abortion and marriage, the two issues that most animate social conservatives, are nowhere to be found. There is nothing about the need to protect religious liberty, or promote Judeo-Christian values in society.... To many religious conservatives, the report was interpreted as a slight against their agenda and the hard work they have done for the party."
... CW News for Religious Fundamentalists: The GOP party bosses really weren't that into you. P.S. You're part of the problem, not the solution.
Paul Bedard of the Washington Examiner: "The catfight between former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele and his replacement, Reince Priebus, has reached screech level, with Steele belittling the party's new focus on minorities as old news. Appearing on the 'Andrea Tantaros Show,' a nationally syndicated radio show, Steele said the GOP's $10 million minority outreach effort ignored his plan instituted four years ago and was the latest example of a bloated party apparatus."
Josh Israel of Think Progress: "A day after ThinkProgress and others reported that Joseph D. McDonald, Jr. (R), Sheriff of Plymouth County, Massachusetts, told a 'joke' at a Republican St. Patrick's Day breakfast suggesting the nation would be better off if President Obama were assassinated, McDonald stood by his joke and compared his critics to Nazis." Here's the original story, from Blue Mass Group, which contributor Akhilleus linked yesterday. ...
... More from Blue Mass Group: after national media picked up the story, people began posting criticisms on the Sheriff's official Facebook page. Someone almost immediately took down the comments & has now disabled the comments facility. "... by removing these comments, McDonald might be violating the state public records law."
News Ledes
Denver Post: "The executive director of the Colorado Department of Corrections, Tom Clements, was killed in his home Tuesday night, according to a statement from Gov. John Hickenlooper."
Reuters: "Afghan President Hamid Karzai and NATO-led forces have reached an agreement on the departure of foreign troops from a strategically key province near the capital, coalition forces said, but it was unclear if U.S. special forces would leave."
AP: "A mortar shell explosion killed at least seven Marines and injured several more during mountain warfare training in Nevada's high desert, prompting the Pentagon to immediately halt the use of the weapons until an investigation can determine their safety, officials said Tuesday. The explosion occurred Monday night at the Hawthorne Army Depot, a sprawling facility used by troops heading overseas, during an exercise involving the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force from Camp Lejeune, N.C."
AP: "Computer networks at major South Korean banks and top TV broadcasters crashed en masse Wednesday, paralyzing bank machines across the country and prompting speculation of a cyberattack by North Korea."
ABC News: "In a study that's sure to shake up the soda ban debate, Harvard researchers have linked the sugary drinks to 180,000 deaths a year worldwide, 25,000 in the United States alone."
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Reader Comments (16)
A letter from Andrew Bacevitch to Wolfowitz re the rational behind the Iraq fiasco.
http://harpers.org/archive/2013/03/a-letter-to-paul-wolfowitz/?single=1
Re: Take a letter, Marie; address it to Wolfie; The letter could have stopped at; "From five years of listening to these insiders pontificate, I drew one conclusion: people said to be smart — the ones with fancy résumés who get their op-eds published in the New York Times and appear on TV — really aren’t." Wolfie and his mentor have their five foundation statements. They forgot one, "Better know before you go." The arrogance of these guys blinds them from establishing good policy. Sadly, I'm quite sure Obama has a room full of the same type of "intellectuals" guiding his foreign policy. Why not ask a man like Barbarossa if starting and fighting a civil war in a country you don't understand is a good idea?
I imagine Wolfie bouncing the globe around like Chaplin in the "Dictator"
"Ah, world dominance!" Dumb mothertruckers.
Too bad someone can't say; " Oh Wolfie, Here's the tab." That would be his big surprise. Asswipes.
Thanks to Cowichan' recommend and Marie's post. Fine article; rings true to me, too.
Neo-conism possesses the weakness of any self-referential belief system. It contains some truths but exists within a bubble of belief impermeable to intractable fact. If it doesn't fit, it doesn't exist. We all have a tendency to filter everything we encounter through our preconceptions. But the more narrow the beliefs, the more we leave out, the more we miss, the more often we are prone to mistakes, sometimes great and tragic ones like Iraq.
Looking for another book on my messy shelves this AM, I came across the Modern Library abridged edition of Spengler's The Decline of the West, which I read with great interest and remembered enthusiasm in my undergraduate years. It answered so may questions about the course and meaning of history. Of course, Marx had done the same thing in a different way, and Toynbee as well. I skipped the Toynbee. More recently Fukuyama announced the end of history, only a few years later to recant. I concluded long ago that the only mistake-free reading of history was/will be accomplished by Hari Seldon in Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. I have read the series was inspired in part by Toynbee.
But Asimov, unlike the neocons, was a very smart man. He knew he was writing fiction.
On page one of the GOP “Guide to Fucking with Liberals” one can see a long list of disparaging descriptors that might be applied by ambitious, Breitbart leaning candidates-to-be, to their Democratic opposition. Among the list of preferred slurs will undoubtedly be some that can be used to separate the down-home folksy wisdom of REAL Americans (teabaggers, fundamentalists, science haters, climate change deniers, drooling imbeciles, the intellectually inert, etc.) from egg head liberal academics out of touch with the real world.
There is never a concern on their part about what their own out of touch conservative academics are up to. Now, the left certainly has its share of egg heads but I can guarantee that none of them have made it their life’s work to start wars that murder hundreds of thousands and cost trillions just to test a fucking theory.
But the right has a bevy of such war mongering pig fuckers. And Paul Wolfowitz is right at the head of the line along with assholes like Richard Perle.
Many thanks to Cowichan for pointing us to that Harper’s piece by Andy Bacevitch. It’s as clear a presentation of the unbridled hubris and ignorance at work on the part of the Neocon architects of the Iraq debacle as I’ve ever read.
Of all the possible types of human encounters, war is the most vicious, most destructive, most chaotic, most expensive, and most unpredictable. So to start a war as part of a field experiment, a kind of empirical laboratory in which to test one’s theories demonstrates a sensibility so immoral, so obtuse, so inhumane, and stupidly, unnecessarily dangerous as to beggar belief. And even worse to do so surrounded by the amoral, grandiose, egocentric, delusional, fact-hating fantasists that populated the Bush Cluster Fuck.
Wolfie might see war as a largely antiseptic exercise in international dick flashing, but others in the Bush circle, especially Bush himself, attached themselves quickly to that exercise, each with their own self-serving agenda in mind. None of which included things like protection for the troops, defining achievable goals, fixing the country once they had broken it, or an explication of exit strategies.
I’m tempted to describe the Iraq debacle as a flock of Black Swans waiting to fly over and shit on the entire enterprise, but Black Swan Events describe situations with enormous impacts far beyond the ability of anyone to predict. That was not the case in Iraq. The events did have enormous impacts but anyone (like Condi Rice and Perle and just about everyone else from the Bush Cluster Fuck) who whine now about not being able to predict the multitude of horrific problems on such gigantic scales deserve perdition, or the next available form of eternal punishment.
Thinking the prosecution of a poorly planned and immoral war can be clean and anodyne (Insurgents? What insurgents? Abu Ghraib? What’s that? Fallujah? Never heard of it…) is the absolute apogee of idiocy and the perigee of rationality.
Does that describe the Bush Cluster Fuck?
The most effective solution for dealing with the Iraq problem (which was already in place and working well) was outlined succinctly by Leo Tolstoy in War and Peace. General Kutosov, bemoaning the rash actions of hotheaded generals during the Russo-Turkish war declares that “…the strongest warriors are time and patience.”
Wolfowitz cut these fine warriors off at the knees so that he could
TEST
A
THEORY.
Wonder how all those dead, limbless, sightless, psychologically damaged American servicemen and women and Iraqi citizens feel about that?
Don't know how I missed this gem, which explains quite a lot;
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/bernprop.html
I see that Reince Priebus and Michael Steele are going at it over in Never Never Land (home of the Lost Boys).
I'm guessing Steele is upset because the latest proposals for redirecting the GOP don't include side trips to lesbian bondage strip bars.
Damn!
David Vitter was sooo wanting to check that out.
One thing I neglected to mention (or to make clear) in my previous post on the Harper's article was why there were no real plans, no defined goals or exit strategies in Iraq.
That's because none of these people were really interested in the war as a conflict to resolve fractious international disputes.
It was ALL about testing theories.
Wolfowitz wanted to test his theory of pre-emptive war. Rumsfeld saw it as a way to test his theory of a lighter, more mobile military (so no need for armored vehicles to protect troops), Cheney wanted to protect oil for his buddies in the states. Bush wanted to prove that he wasn't the a deserter pussy. Condi wanted to prove that she could play with the boys. Powell wanted to prove that he could play with the white guys.
The rationales for war were manufactured. Ways to get in the door.
Victory in a limited war with achievable, necessary goals was, at best, an Ultima Thule.
Still is.
Whyte,
In many ways, Ed Bernays is one of the most influential men of the 20th century that most people have never heard of. Just ask T.A. Edison. Thanks to Bernays most people take it on face value that Edison invented the light bulb.
He didn't.
The original spinmeister.
Ken,
Looks like we're both in literary mode today.
Asimov was a true polymath. I read somewhere that he published books in all categories of the old Dewey Decimal system. Now that's impressive.
Gotta go back and re-read Foundation one of these days.
Tuck Chodd, ace reporter and his ever expanding chipmunk cheeks attempted to monopolize the questions at the Obama/ Netanyahu presser. Channeling the comedic stylings of Luke I-am-such-an-asswipe Russert, he mused that Obama wasn't as popular as the "last 2 Presidents". Chodd's question was why? Ahem...I got this one. Because Bibi is the big daddy of neo-conia and George Bush was his bitch. Bibi and others were jumping up and down in the op ed pages in 2002 urging Bush toward Iraq, not that it would have taken much. Unfortunately for Bibi, Lord SB lost in 2012. His Lordship would have worn the special stilettos and a leopard thong if Bibi or Sheldon told him to.
Recovery from the pundits basking in the afterglow and all the "warmth" between Netanyahu and Obama required an entire roll of Tums to get the nausea under control. Now everyone feels sooo much better that the boys are making nice. Fuck the actual state of the world.
Really interesting piece on King Abdullah II of Jordan in the Atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg. Abdullah's take on surrounding states and other Arab leaders and Israel is well worth reading. http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/04/monarch-in-the-middle/309270/
Re: Wolfowitz/Wohlstetter: Apparently, morality never entered into their evil designs. And St. Ronald of Reagan gave Wohlstetter the Presidential Medal of Freedom! Whose freedom? The Wingers are always bleating about how morally superior the US is. Superior to whom?
The German staff officers drawing up the Schlieffen Plan must have considered the fact that Belgium was a neutral country a mere trifle. A century later we know how well that plan worked out. As Santayana said "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." The American officers drawing up the Iraq invasion plan must have considered the fact that Iraq had done nothing to us a mere trifle. They had to have known that Iraq had done nothing to us. While we're at it, let's not let Tony Blair and the British off the hook.
Barbarossa,
The use of the word "freedom" by right-wingers is so obfuscatory and Byzantine as to befuddle an entire convoy of French semioticians and deconstructionists led by Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida, in person. Their recondite usage requires a chainsaw and laser to separate the wheat from the chaff, the bull from the shit.
Diane,
You crack me up no end. Thanks.
The Bacevitch letter to Wolfie is superb and powerful and never once does he mention that his own son was killed in that disastrous war.
The Vietnam War: Notes taken from Barbara Tuchman’s The March of Folly
: )1945-46 In Embryo
"Ignorance was not a factor in the American endeavor in Vietnam pursued through five successive presidencies, although it became an excuse….The folly consisted not in pursuit of a goal in ignorance of the obstacles but in persistence in the pursuit despite accumulating evidence that the goal was unattainable, and the effect disproportionate to the American interest and eventually damaging to American society, reputation and disposable power in the world.
The question raised is why did the policy-makers close their minds to the evidence and its implications? This is the classic symptom of folly: refusal to draw conclusions from the evidence, addiction to the counter-productive. The “why” of this refusal and this addiction may disclose itself in the course of retracing the tale of American policy making in Vietnam."
The question, of course, is have we learned anything? Will there continue to be people with those closed minds that will take us into other forms of hell called wars and if so will we be able to say like ole Charley Pierce–-"Whoa, Cowboy, get them big boots on solid ground here"––and be able to stop them before they start. The fact that we seem to be bogged down on getting decent gun control laws implemented doesn't bode well for us having wise heads controlling our fate. I can smell the stench already.
From the Dept. of the Koch's are still in charge.
In case you're wondering about the book he wrote, seems he has an interest in end times.
We are so screwed.
Many posters here have noted that the typical conservative would seem to lack even a weak sense of empathy. Expressed on the global stage Tuchman terms it 'folly'. Had Nixon been president in '62 I think there might well have been WW3. Were it up to the military geniuses missiles would have flown. It was a liberal president with the empathy to view the situation thru Russian eyes that managed to cool the fears and defuse the impasse. Iraq was planned and initiated with the conservative blindness that could not see that Saddam would not respond to ultimatums from America, aside from a lack of sense of the America's resolve, because to do so would be seen locally as weakness and he would risk revolution from within and invasion from without. Nor could they accept that Saddam had unilaterally destroyed his stockpiles of chemical weapons, quit attempts at biological and nuclear weaponeering and replaced them with a Potemkin armoury because they wouldn't have. As for crowds of grateful Iraqi's greeting their saviours how would Americans treat a liberating Canadian army after day 7? And on and on ad nauseam.
@cowichan
Don't kid yourself. They knew exactly what they were doing. They knew SH was a paper tiger trying to keep the neghbors at bay, and they did it anyway. It was always about the oil. Richard Perle on NPR this morning had me shouting at the radio. Rumsfeld had the balls to send out this Unrepentant bastards all of them.