The "Commander-in-Chief"

From Greenwald, an invaluable recap of the significance of the constant and consitutionally innacurate references to Bush as the "Commander-in-Chief".

He links to an equally insightful Op-Ed by Garry Wills in today's NYT, making the related argument that, since the beginning of the cold war, American politics has become increasingly 'militarized', and the President has subtly metamorphosed from a public servant to a military commander. As the former he is answerable to his employers (we the people); as the latter, we are his subordinates and are expected to follow his commands without question.

Wills mentions as one example of this shift a seemingly inconseqential detail of protocol most of us have glimpsed on TV -- that whenever the President disembarks from the presidential helicopter after a journey (in wartime or peacetime), he is greeted by the salute of a Marine, which he returns. This practice was apparently initiated by Reagan.

An Overview of the Iraq War

Via TPM, the testimony of Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (ret.) before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on January 18.

Odom begins by outlining the initial goals for success in Iraq as stated by the Administration (elimination of WMD, overthrow of Saddam, and creation of a Western-style democracy in Iraq, to be exported throughout the region). He then discusses the high-level political and military strategies that would best accomplish those goals, and finally compares them to the actions that have actually been taken.

It's very clearly written and argued, and as TPM points out, it serves to put in proper perspective the current daily controversies over how precisely to proceed, with how many or how few troops, and to what degree disagreement with the President constitutes aid and comfort to the enemy. It's well worth reading in full.

The Very Bad Idea

Tom Tommorrow explains it all for you.

ABC-Disney's KSFO radio

ABC recently tried (with but fleeting success) to suppress blogger Spocko for launching a campaign to notify advertisers on KSFO, an ABC radio station in SF, of the unbelievably vile hate speech and death threats against public figures being spewed by talkshow hosts thereon.

Daily Kos has the text of Spocko's fantastic letter to AT&T's VP-advertising (primly censored, I assume by Spocko), as well as much background. Some examples of statements broadcast recently over this ABC/Disney owned radio station:

[Talking about a criminal with a lengthy rap sheet arrested in Nebraska for car theft:] Now you start with the Sear's Diehard the battery cables connected to his testicles and you entertain him with that for a while and then you blow his bleeping head off.
...
Lee Rogers: I say they catch the person, tie 'em to a post and burn 'em. Set 'em on fire.
Officer Vic: Yeah.
Lee Rogers: Let 'em know what it feels like.
Melanie Morgan: Hog tie 'em first. That would be good.
...
Whoever did that should have been stomped to death right there. Just stomp their bleeping guts out.
...
We've got a bulls-eye painted on [Nancy Pelosi's] big laughing eyes.
...
Indonesia is really just another enemy Muslim nation. ... You keep screwing around with stuff like this we are going to kill a bunch of you. Millions of you.

ABC and Glen Beck

Media Matters has a very useful summary of ABC's accelerating spiral down the neoconservative drain. This is somewhat old news, but worth remembering: ABC has recently hired Glenn Beck as a Good Morning America commentator.

Beck was apparently wooed in person by Diane Sawyer, who gushed, "It's nice to watch someone you think you're going to disagree with ... but at least there's some common sense behind it."

Some of Beck's common sense:

"...you know it took me about a year to start hating the 9-11 victims' families ... I had such compassion for them, and I really wanted to help them, and I was behind, you know, "Let's give them money, let's get this started." All of this stuff. And I really didn't -- of the 3,000 victims' families, I don't hate all of them. Probably about 10 of them. And when I see a 9-11 victim family on television, or whatever, I'm just like, "Oh shut up!" I'm so sick of them because they're always complaining..."

"... I didn't think I could hate victims faster than the 9-11 victims. These guys -- you know it's really sad. We're not hearing anything about Mississippi. We're not hearing anything about Alabama. We're hearing about the victims in New Orleans. This is a 90,000-square-mile disaster site, New Orleans is 181 square miles. A hundred and -- 0.2 percent of the disaster area is New Orleans! And that's all we're hearing about, are the people in New Orleans. Those are the only ones we're seeing on television are the scumbags..."

"MITCH" [caller to Beck's show claiming to be an 'intelligence officer' who has personally tortured detainees]: ... you can use high-water pressure into one ear, and when that first ear drum is broken with, you know, 14 or 15 hundred pounds of water pressure going in, the don't -- they will talk before that second ear drum is broken. ...

BECK: Mitch, I've got to tell you I appreciate your service ... I, you know, I have to assume that, because we wear the white hats that we're not doing this at the drop of a hat.

The Enemy at Home

Via James Walcott, advance excerpt from a review in next week's NYT Book Review of D'Souza's The Enemy at Home:

Like his hero Joe McCarthy, he has no sense of shame. He is a childish thinker and writer tackling subjects about which he knows little to make arguments that reek of political extremism. His book is a national disgrace, a sorry example of a publishing culture more concerned with the sensational than the sensible.

Bush on the Lehrer Newshour

Bush on the Lehrer Newshour (via Dan Froomkin):

1. Bush on what, if anything, Americans (other than the military and their families) are sacrificing. Turns out our sacrifice involves watching TV and feeling bad:

MR. LEHRER: Let me ask you a bottom-line question, Mr. President. If it is as important as you've just said - and you've said it many times - as all of this is, particularly the struggle in Iraq, if it's that important to all of us and to the future of our country, if not the world, why have you not, as president of the United States, asked more Americans and more American interests to sacrifice something? The people who are now sacrificing are, you know, the volunteer military - the Army and the U.S. Marines and their families. They're the only people who are actually sacrificing anything at this point.

BUSH: "Well, you know, I think a lot of people are in this fight. I mean, they sacrifice peace of mind when they see the terrible images of violence on TV every night. I mean, we've got a fantastic economy here in the United States, but yet, when you think about the psychology of the country, it is somewhat down because of this war."

2. Bush on democracy, American style (comments after the quote):

MR. LEHRER: But when - but when, Mr. President, does the skepticism and the criticism become so heavy and so prevalent that it becomes a factor? In other words, simply put, how in the world does any president of the United States run a war without the support of a majority of the American people and a majority of the Congress of the United States, no matter what the ins and outs are?

PRESIDENT BUSH: No, and no question about that. And that's why I'm having this interview with you. I'm trying to do my very best to explain to people why success is vital. In other words, people have got to understand that if we decide and we grow weary of - and there's a lot of war weariness in this country, and I fully understand that -- and we say, okay, well, let's just leave; we can leave in stages, but let's just leave, or let's just pull back and hope that the Iraqis are able to settle their business, the consequences of that decision will be disastrous for the future of this country. And therefore, we got to keep working on ways to succeed, as far as I'm concerned.

This is a great question that needs to be asked by a much more adversarial and dogged member of the fourth estate than Mr. Lehrer. First of all, Lehrer frames the question in terms of public opinion, asking when it beomes a 'factor' in the President's decision making. In other words, he's asking how far the President will go before listening to his subjects and deciding, on his own, to change course because they've complained loudly enough. But the question must also be framed (although not necesarily put to Bush himself) in terms of the legality of Bush's authoritarian behavior, and what legal tools (if any) the American people have at their disposal to stop him before he drags this country any further down the rabbithole.

As for Bush's answer (typically unchallenged by the always cheerful Mr. Lehrer), it begins with a typically irrational 'No' answer to this 'How' question -- a 'No' that he further amplifies ("no question about that"). I suppose he means "No, no question about that -- I can't run a war without majority support", but his proposed solution is simply to explain (once again) to the passive citizens of this country why he's forging ahead ("people have got to understand"). I think it's safe to assume that he'll keep 'explaining' until January 20, 2009.

The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11

Dinesh D'Souza's The Enemy At Home is released today. Here are excerpts from the book's catalog page at the Random House web site:

“In this book I make a claim that will seem startling at the outset. The cultural left in this country is responsible for causing 9/11."

...D’Souza contends that the cultural left is responsible for 9/11 in two ways: by fostering a decadent and depraved American culture that angers and repulses other societies—especially traditional and religious ones— and by promoting, at home and abroad, an anti-American attitude that blames America for all the problems of the world.

...We are accustomed to thinking of the war on terror and the culture war as two distinct and separate struggles. D’Souza shows that they are really one and the same. Conservatives must recognize that the left is now allied with the Islamic radicals in a combined effort to defeat Bush’s war on terror. A whole new strategy is therefore needed to fight both wars. “In order to defeat the Islamic radicals abroad,” D’Souza writes, “we must defeat the enemy at home.”

Notice this last paragraph, located on a page at the web site of no less prominent and mainstream an institution as Random House.

This publisher is actively promoting a book by explicitly accusing millions of Americans of treason and mass-murder. By conflating these Americans with radical fundamentalist murderers, Random House and D'Souza imply that the tactics of the war on terror -- imprisonment without trial, torture, and all the rest -- can and should be directed against every leftist.

Bush Admin firing US Attorneys investigating Republicans

From TPM:

...[T]he White House has now taken the unprecedented step of firing at least four and likely seven US Attorneys in the middle of their terms of office -- at least some of whom are in the midst of corruption investigations of Bush administration officials and key Republican lawmakers. We also know that they're taking advantage of a handy provision of the USA Patriot Act that allows the White House to replace these fired USAs with appointees who don't need to be approved by the senate.

Bush: American opposition to the war traceable to insufficient thank-you's from the Iraqi people

From Dan Froomkin:

PELLEY [60 Minutes]: Do you think you owe the Iraqi people an apology for not doing a better job?

BUSH: That we didn't do a better job or they didn't do a better job? *

PELLEY: Well, that the United States did not do a better job in providing security after the invasion.

BUSH: Not at all. I am proud of the efforts we did. We liberated that country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude, and I believe most Iraqis express that. I mean, the people understand that we've endured great sacrifice to help them. That's the problem here in America. They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq. **

* "Are you asking me to apologize to the Iraqis for mistakes they have made?"

** Freed from the burden of any real accountability for any statement he makes, Bush effortlessly flip-flops from "most Iraqis express [gratitude]" all the way to "[Americans] wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq" in the same paragraph.

Civilians now subject to court-martial

From the Houston Chronical (via Kos) -- Lindsey Graham slipped a provision into a spending bill that allows civilians in war zones to be tried by military courts-martial:

The provision, which was slipped into a spending bill at the end of the last Congress, is intended to close a long-standing loophole that critics say puts contractors in war zones above the law. But the provision also could affect others in the field, including civilian government employees and embedded journalists...

... Civilians prosecuted in military court don't receive a grand jury hearing and are ultimately tried by members of the military, rather than by a jury of their peers. The Supreme Court has struck down civilian convictions under military law, and no conviction of a civilian under the UCMJ has been upheld in more than half a century.

Try and stop me.

Bush claims Congress is powerless to stop him in Iraq:

60 MINUTES: If you have the authority to put the troops in there no matter what the Congress wants to do.

BUSH: I think I’ve got, in this situation I do, yeah. I fully understand they could try to stop me from doing it. But I’ve made my decision. And we’re going forward.

The Center for American Progress has compiled a report listing the many occasions in recent decades when Congress has enacted funding and/or troop deployment caps or limitations.

Michael Ledeen -- alas, we hardly knew ye

During the last two weeks the loony core of the neocon blogroll has been hyperventilating about the stunning news of the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader. This story was broken by Michael Ledeen two weeks ago, and raised a swirling firestorm of excitement among the likes of Michelle Malkin and other Pajamas Media regulars.

As a journalistic coup of the most dramatic geopoliticial nature, it was unmatched by any other thunderbolt of the recent news cycle, lacking but one small, tangential virtue (any remote basis in truth) but otherwise earth-shattering in its implications.

Until now. Blogger Jon Swift (not his real name) reports on the sudden passing of none other than Michael Ledeen himself.

In all seriousness, Swift's pseudo-obit (nobit?) is an invaluable summary of Ledeen's writings and contributions to our current state of affairs. The most amazing thing about it is that it's all true (except -- you know).

Impeachment

The Bush administration has moved so far outside the sphere of normal American democratic activity that impeachment should no longer be gloomily dismissed as an impossibility.

It seems frightenly likely that Bush is seriously considering widening the War on Terror by attacking Iran and/or Syria, and his popularity with Americans across the board (including within the military) is at its lowest.

He seems to be protected from the consequences of his actions only by two pretty obvious factors: first, the distracted, unfocused TV news media (some of whom, including Chris Matthews, appear to be waking up slowly), and second, by the general lack of follow-up I mentioned a few days ago.

I found the articles linked to below (via Hullabaloo) to be exciting and invigorating to read, because they cut through the fog of gloom and impossibility. I don't know, of course, how accurate they are, both as to the likelihood of the actions of the New Mexico State Legislature to succeed, or as to the legal details, but it's good to see this sort of thing being discussed.

Even though Congress has the power of the purse, they are less likely to use it to defund troops already in the field (not should they), and obviously any such measure would fall victim to one of Bush's signing statements. (Congress makes laws, and this administration is above the law.) But impeachment procedings would be difficult to ignore.

From www.afterdowningstreet.org, an impeachment-info clearing house that looks very comprehensive and coherent, The Best Reasons Not to Impeach, And Why They're Wrong.

Also, how easy it apparently is to introduce a bill of impeachment in the U.S. House of Representatives, which the New Mexico State Legislature may be about to do.

War with Iran II

Greenwald today: The President's power to attack Iran, with links to previous posts highlighting language Bush has used in the past to indicate that he has unilateral authority to wage war without Congressional approval.

See also the Update at the end of this Washington Note post, wherein Condi Rice lengthily refuses to answer direct questions about the President's ability or intent to attack Iran and/or Syria.

Afghanistan: Secondary Priority

The Bush Administration will reportedly be shifting troops from Afghanistan to Iraq despite fears of a major Taliban offensive to be lauched in the near future. This has become necessary because the war against the Taliban, the group that sheltered and assisted the terrorists who attacked the United States on 9/11, has become a "secondary priority" behind the war in Iraq.

Baltimore Sun:

Radical Islamist Taliban forces, shattered and ejected from Afghanistan by the U.S. military five years ago, are poised for a major offensive against U.S. troops and undermanned NATO forces, prompting American commanders here to issue an urgent appeal for a new Marine Corps battalion to reinforce the American positions.

NATO's 30,000 troops in Afghanistan are supposed to have taken responsibility for security operations across the country. But Taliban attacks have risen sharply, and senior U.S. officers here describe the NATO operation as weak, hobbled by a shortage of manpower and equipment and by restrictions put on the troops by their home capitals. ...

As a last-ditch effort, President Bush is expected to announce this week the dispatch of thousands of additional troops to Iraq as a stopgap measure, an order that Pentagon officials say would strain the Army and Marine Corps as they struggle to man both wars.

Already, a U.S. Army infantry battalion fighting in a critical area of eastern Afghanistan is due to be withdrawn within weeks in order to deploy to Iraq.

According to Army Brig. Gen. Anthony J. Tata and other senior U.S. commanders here, that will happen just as the Taliban is expected to unleash a major campaign to cut the vital road between Kabul and Kandahar. The official said the Taliban intend to seize Kandahar, Afghanistan's second-largest city and the place where the group was organized in the 1990s.

"We anticipate significant events there next spring," said Tata. ...

Conway said U.S. commanders understand that the Afghan war is an "economy of force" operation, a military term for a mission that is given minimal resources because it is a secondary priority, in this case behind Iraq.

Now the Shias

Apparently it's pretty clear that the new troops Bush pours into the meat grinder will be targetting the Shias, or helping Maliki target them, or whatever. This article at TPM Cafe (via Eric Alterman) details how bad an idea that is:

New troops will be in Iraq not to police the streets and hold the line against the creeping violence, but to expand the war by taking on the Shia militias. This is an escalation strategy. Will it work; maybe, maybe not. But it runs the risk that it may very well provoke a Shia insurgency—something Iraq has not so far witnessed. Thus far the U.S. has faced a Sunni insurgency (which by most estimates continues to account for 80% of U.S. casualties), and sectarian violence in which Shias and Sunnis are killing each other. Shia militias are violent, destructive and radical, but Shia militias are a very different problem from the Sunni insurgency. Shia militias, unlike te insurgency, are not targeting American troops. But it looks like the administration is set to change that. Over the past year Washington and its Baghdad embassy have alienated the Shia and undermined the authority of the more moderate Ayatollah Sistani. Anti-Americanism has grown in Shia ranks as they accuse U.S. of favoring Sunnis by focusing on Shia militias rather than Sunni insurgency. By going to war with the increasingly popular Sadr Washington runs the danger of losing the Shia altogether.

No fourth estate

The term 'fourth estate', applied to the press, refers to its role as the fourth branch of government, unelected, but truly representing the people, a group of experts and professionals whose job is to impartially report on the activities of the government, and to ferret out information about that activity when such information is not forthcoming.

"Asking the tough questions" is only the first step -- "getting clear answers" is the second and equally imortant job. The act of phrasing the 'tough question' in person to the government official (or whoever may be expected to have a difficult time answering it honestly) is very telegenic and doubtless satisfying, but it has been packaged by the TV news/entertainment shows as the end of the process. Any half-assed answer, evasion, non-sequiteur, or counter-accusation is lazily accepted as a response.

Without a fourth estate that actively and aggressively holds out for valid answers to those questions, and reports those answers (or the lack thereof) to its public, there can be no healthy democracy -- especially when two of the first three estates have been stripped of power by the first, which has taken for itself the unilateral power to drag this country down to hell to satisfy the adolescent whims of its sociopathic leader.

War with Iran

DICK CHENEY, 11/06: It may not be popular with the public. It doesn't matter in the sense that we have to continue the mission and do what we think it right, and that's exactly what we're doing. We're not running for office, we're doing what we think [is] right.

We're responding to the Bush administration the way Mark Twain described our response to the weather: Everybody complains about the administration, but nobody does anything about it. There is much protesting and many 'tough questions', but no consequences or follow-up.

This morning Glenn Greenwald lists the series of actions by the Administration and others in the last several months that suggest their intention to attack Iran. The last item describes an assault this morning by US troops on an Iranian consulate in northern Iraq. Six staff members were seized.

Sadly, we may have to kill them all.

Courtesy of James Wolcott:

A choice example of the faux-agonized tone of some of the sicker neocons, easily parodied: As painful and difficult and contrary as it is and always will be to our Western mores, we may, with heavy heart, be forced to reluctantly dust off our extremely powerful network of ICBM's and use them to, sadly, exterminate every Muslim man, woman, and child on the face of the earth; not that we enjoy this one little bit, but heavy lies the weight of true responsibility as the only civilized nation on earth (etc., etc.)

If that makes you sick, here's another offering, the best that can be said of which is that it's somewhat more honest and straighforward. It closes with this advice:

Your Curmudgeon exhorts you all:

Learn all you can about Islam. Read the Qur'an, and at least one of the authoritative hadith. Make use of the learning of Robert Spencer, Dainel Pipes, Bat Ye'or, and Steven Emerson. Familiarize yourselves with the travails of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Wafa Sultan, and other apostates from Islam. Familiarize yourselves with the lives of Muslims in Islamic states, and with the sufferings of non-Muslims in lands such as Pakistan and the Philippines where Muslims are a militant force. Don't allow the just-another-harmless-Abrahamic-faith propaganda to condition you to inertia.

Arm yourselves as heavily as you can. If yours is a right-to-carry state, get a concealed-carry permit and buy a handgun. No matter where you live, stock at least one long arm for every adult member of your household. Instruct your children in firearms discipline, and invite them along when you go to the range. Try to interest your neighbors as well; shooting sports are a way to build both the sense of community and the sense of obligation to community defense. And make sure everyone you know is familiar with the citizen's obligation, as a militiaman, to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.