Foreign Affairs - Put 'em Up!
Believe me, you will again see a post from me that does not revolve exclusively around politics, and I want to think possibly even before November 4. Certainly I do not lack for material, even if options were limited to those recently hinted at, but now getting a little dusty: jury experience, volcano-circuit trip, oats, peas, beans, and etc.
But this isn't that. However, as concession, I will pause to limn a few of the great dinner treats over the last few nights, ranging from lentil-sausage soup a la Ina Garten I whipped up when left unsupervised, improvised excellent pinto bean/chicken "chili" we assembled over the weekend, citrus/tamarind/ginger/garlic-marinated pork tenderloin, and ham/provolone/onion roll-ups. Oh yum, I'm getting hungry again.
And Uncle Tupelo is serenading me ("still feel gone").
There is a debate coming up Friday, on the subject of Foreign Affairs. As usual, the rovelican "machine" has managed to toss numerous bright shiny frivolous chaff in the air of late to distract us from their party's absolutely appalling oh-for-nearly-everything record in this particular venue.
Isn't it "amusing" (well, only in the most limited sense) that "domestic issues," i.e., the self-destructive down-spiral of the WS(j) and WH greedy-boys, suddenly also resembles a septic system that "Needs Work"! How's that workin' for ya, Sarah, you of the foreign affairs Black Spot on resume?
But dday at Hullabaloo has some good coaching and reminders for Lehrer and viewers as to some of the current foreign affairs hot topics. I excerpt here more than I would prefer - dday brings up numerous other quite critical international issues that also deserve attention. The link, wink, wink! The extent to which issues like these are even asserted by moderator and forthrightly addressed by the candidates may tell us volumes:
The first Presidential debate is scheduled to focus on foreign policy, and I imagine those tuning in, whose knowledge of the subject is limited, would rather hear the candidates talk about the current economic mess. But the past week or so has also revealed a series of crises in global hotspots around the world. This includes but is not limited to Iraq, and I would hope that Jim Lehrer understands the full spectrum of global decisions that the next President will have to make, and really make a sustained effort to force the candidates past simplistic slogans and into the heart of what they would do in foreign policy.
First we have the Marriott bombing in Islamabad, Pakistan, the second big suicide attack in the Muslim world in the space of the week (along with the bombing of the US embassy in Sanaa, Yemen). Given that the Marriott is typically home to international businessmen and Western dignitaries, so those similarities exist as well. This was a signal from the Taliban in response to the recent spate of US forays into the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) region. Given that the Pakistani Prime Minister was due at the Marriott, it could have been worse.
Clearly there's a real problem with Pakistan. At least 300 have died in suicide attacks just this year. We've launched something approaching a shadow war in the FATA region, without any partnership and in fact increasing resistance from elements in the Pakistani government and the military, which is actively repelling raids. It threatens a split between the Army and the leadership of Prime Minister Zardari, and that has potentially disastrous results. In short, the country is on the brink.
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My impression is that Pakistan may be Problemo Uno right now, "axis of evil" be damned. In reality, this was probably true when timmy the misfit from that sandlot in texas made his famous "speech." How could he have known? It didn't come up in his comic books (no offense Stan et al). From what Mr. Suskind writes (Way of the World), Musharruf implanted numerous zealous, ideological Muslims with axes to grind throughout his military and intelligence operations. Not to say they would all necessarily be full-on Taliban and/or terrorism supporters. Many might take any measures they could to support anti-American activities. More importantly, some in the military/intelligence established by Musharruf might be willing to actually target ideologues and terrorists and support the same-minded goals of the US of A.
If they had any reason to trust us.
And there's the rub.
To review, this administration has had at least one consistent pattern. They have lied, cheated, and bullied even when it was superfluous to what rational folks would have seen as their abberrant goals. There are a good half-dozen of them at the top who definitely deserve a "path" somewhere on their resume. The prefix for that might be "merely" socio. In a few cases I believe it is clinically "psycho." Anyone who would trust, rely on, or - deity-of-choice-forbid - trust the cheney cabal would be seen by wizened, savvy foreign policy sorts (actually no wize or sav needed, merely a working brain) throughout the world as total rubes, since they testify to their individual pathologies so routinely.
No, I'm wrong there. Pattern two is Never Admit to Any Mistake, No Matter How Small (I guess I just violated that credo). That may have proven to be a valid short-term political (or maybe just face-saving for amazingly insecure ???-paths?) strategy. However, (a) that does not make it morally or ethically right, (b) it is pathetic that these guttersnipes have so routinely suborned actual governance to politics, and (c) as a perhaps clinically optimistic sort, I am convinced they have subjected the "death to democrats and democracy - republicans rule" hegemony an extremely serious setback.
May the setback be quite serious and very long-lasting. That's where we come in. I signed up a new voter recently. One small step.
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Ehud Olmert has been forced to resign as Israeli Prime Minister resulting from a bribery scandal, and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is set to take over as head of Kadima and the favorite to be the next leader. Needless to say, any turmoil in Israel impacts the greater Middle East. Livni has been the chief negotiator with the Palestinians, but if she can't form a government, there will be early elections, and a return to Likudnik power would be a disaster for any hopes for peace. Yet polls are showing that Bibi Netanyahu would be the victor if elections were held today. That's genuinely scary.
-clip-
And then there's Iraq, of course. We now have a fair bit of proof that the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad is what led to the drop in violence, not the surge. There's more to Iraq than Baghdad, of course, but there are also more explanations for the security gains in those outlying areas (the Sunni Awakening in Anbar, for example). Meanwhile the political situation remains stalemated, as legislation for the provincial elections has failed for the fifth time. And the Awakening forces are growing more violent, which will get worse if the Maliki government follows through on locking them out of the security forces. As long as the debate here is played out over whether the surge was a success, we won't be having a real argument about the future of Iraq. It's dishonest.
It's time to get serious. The belligerent Bush foreign policy is making a dangerous world more dangerous. Our shrinking moral authority and lack of cooperation with allies has enhanced this. I don't know if we're losing the war on terrorism because I have no idea what a war on terrorism is, but the public thinks we are. And the choice in this Presidential election is between the same old neocon know-nothingism or a measured approach that recognizes both the challenges we face and the best way to combat them. That is more than important enough to fill 90 minutes on Friday night. I just hope (against hope) that the debate is about the real issues.
We'll do this Emptywheel in toto:
Hidden in an article reporting that Cheney's going to go hunt up some support for the $700,000,000,000 bailout is this admission that the Bush Administration has been sitting on it for some time:
Which raises three questions for me:
A) First, as we'll discuss today in the book salon on Woodward's War Within, the Bush Administration refused to admit Iraq was FUBAR even while, for seven months, they were drumming up a new strategy because it was FUBAR. They did so because they didn't want to affect the mid-term elections. So has the Bush Administration been formulating a plan to bail out their buddies, in secret, because they didn't want to let the voters know how badly they had fucked up the American economy before November?
B) And if that is true, how much worse has the economy gotten--and how much more expensive will the bailout be--because the Bushies were trying to hide yet another colossal Republican failure?
C) Or, did they simply not tell us about their fuck-up so they could spring the $700,000,000,000 surprise on us on a Friday and demand results by Monday? The Shock Doctrine at work!
Apparently someone by the name of Max Boot has been conscripted by the McPalin/Shame campaign:
My old boss Josh Marshall notes that Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations is now an official McCain campaign surrogate. Gleefully, Josh asks:
Why, so would I! But I'm going to be lazy and stick to the locus classicus of Max Boot batshittery: "The Case For American Empire," from the Weekly Standard's October 15, 2001 issue. I hear you objecting -- Yeah, yeah, we know all about that one. But do you? Do you? Sure, you remember this quote:
But it's a shame, really, because the baroque foolishness of that line -- no Englishman, for instance, would be ahistorical enough to engage in such unironic empire-nostalgia -- has obscured the less-florid-but-still-barking-mad bits of the essay. For instance, let's take my favorite:
Pretty much every clause of that paragraph has been, uh, overtaken by events. It says oh so much about John McCain that he'd pick such a paragon of insight, curiosity and sagacity as a foreign-policy surrogate.
That is stunning, in ever so many ways. I am invoking the "what he said" clause.
And I can't resist sharing this from Eli at FDL (how can you resist "too many barbs, not enough barbeque"?!!):
Steve Schmidt has achieved the impossible, something Obama could only dream of: He has actually made the media fall out of love with John McCain. He curtailed the Fauxverick's informal interaction with reporters on the "Double Straight Talk Express," and instituted a strategy of attacking the media every time they criticize his candidates or point out that they're chain-liars.
This was really not a good idea. The media's love for McCain and his phony Straight-Talking Maverick image was the best thing he had going for him, and it's falling apart at the worst possible time. McCain picked a running mate with more skeletons than substance, and he needs to look presidential and credible in the midst of a financial crisis. Both very risky propositions when you can't count on the media to report your version of reality.
T-Rex says it best:
The media are not a filter, they're an amp... but only if they're on your side. Now that McCain has so cruelly spurned his erstwhile lovers, his shiny new running mate is getting tarnished by stories about her dodgy record as mayor and governor, and he has to explain how he can be trusted to do the right thing on the mortgage meltdown when one of his top advisers was getting $15,000 a month from Freddie Mac until the government had to take it over. Not. Helping.
Schmidt and McCain will find it much harder to pull off a successful smear-and-mirrors campaign without the kind of media assist that Dubya got in 2000 and 2004. But they're going for it anyway, because it's all they know, and it's all they've got.
But this isn't that. However, as concession, I will pause to limn a few of the great dinner treats over the last few nights, ranging from lentil-sausage soup a la Ina Garten I whipped up when left unsupervised, improvised excellent pinto bean/chicken "chili" we assembled over the weekend, citrus/tamarind/ginger/garlic-marinated pork tenderloin, and ham/provolone/onion roll-ups. Oh yum, I'm getting hungry again.
And Uncle Tupelo is serenading me ("still feel gone").
There is a debate coming up Friday, on the subject of Foreign Affairs. As usual, the rovelican "machine" has managed to toss numerous bright shiny frivolous chaff in the air of late to distract us from their party's absolutely appalling oh-for-nearly-everything record in this particular venue.
Isn't it "amusing" (well, only in the most limited sense) that "domestic issues," i.e., the self-destructive down-spiral of the WS(j) and WH greedy-boys, suddenly also resembles a septic system that "Needs Work"! How's that workin' for ya, Sarah, you of the foreign affairs Black Spot on resume?
But dday at Hullabaloo has some good coaching and reminders for Lehrer and viewers as to some of the current foreign affairs hot topics. I excerpt here more than I would prefer - dday brings up numerous other quite critical international issues that also deserve attention. The link, wink, wink! The extent to which issues like these are even asserted by moderator and forthrightly addressed by the candidates may tell us volumes:
The first Presidential debate is scheduled to focus on foreign policy, and I imagine those tuning in, whose knowledge of the subject is limited, would rather hear the candidates talk about the current economic mess. But the past week or so has also revealed a series of crises in global hotspots around the world. This includes but is not limited to Iraq, and I would hope that Jim Lehrer understands the full spectrum of global decisions that the next President will have to make, and really make a sustained effort to force the candidates past simplistic slogans and into the heart of what they would do in foreign policy.
First we have the Marriott bombing in Islamabad, Pakistan, the second big suicide attack in the Muslim world in the space of the week (along with the bombing of the US embassy in Sanaa, Yemen). Given that the Marriott is typically home to international businessmen and Western dignitaries, so those similarities exist as well. This was a signal from the Taliban in response to the recent spate of US forays into the FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) region. Given that the Pakistani Prime Minister was due at the Marriott, it could have been worse.
Clearly there's a real problem with Pakistan. At least 300 have died in suicide attacks just this year. We've launched something approaching a shadow war in the FATA region, without any partnership and in fact increasing resistance from elements in the Pakistani government and the military, which is actively repelling raids. It threatens a split between the Army and the leadership of Prime Minister Zardari, and that has potentially disastrous results. In short, the country is on the brink.
-clip-
My impression is that Pakistan may be Problemo Uno right now, "axis of evil" be damned. In reality, this was probably true when timmy the misfit from that sandlot in texas made his famous "speech." How could he have known? It didn't come up in his comic books (no offense Stan et al). From what Mr. Suskind writes (Way of the World), Musharruf implanted numerous zealous, ideological Muslims with axes to grind throughout his military and intelligence operations. Not to say they would all necessarily be full-on Taliban and/or terrorism supporters. Many might take any measures they could to support anti-American activities. More importantly, some in the military/intelligence established by Musharruf might be willing to actually target ideologues and terrorists and support the same-minded goals of the US of A.
If they had any reason to trust us.
And there's the rub.
To review, this administration has had at least one consistent pattern. They have lied, cheated, and bullied even when it was superfluous to what rational folks would have seen as their abberrant goals. There are a good half-dozen of them at the top who definitely deserve a "path" somewhere on their resume. The prefix for that might be "merely" socio. In a few cases I believe it is clinically "psycho." Anyone who would trust, rely on, or - deity-of-choice-forbid - trust the cheney cabal would be seen by wizened, savvy foreign policy sorts (actually no wize or sav needed, merely a working brain) throughout the world as total rubes, since they testify to their individual pathologies so routinely.
No, I'm wrong there. Pattern two is Never Admit to Any Mistake, No Matter How Small (I guess I just violated that credo). That may have proven to be a valid short-term political (or maybe just face-saving for amazingly insecure ???-paths?) strategy. However, (a) that does not make it morally or ethically right, (b) it is pathetic that these guttersnipes have so routinely suborned actual governance to politics, and (c) as a perhaps clinically optimistic sort, I am convinced they have subjected the "death to democrats and democracy - republicans rule" hegemony an extremely serious setback.
May the setback be quite serious and very long-lasting. That's where we come in. I signed up a new voter recently. One small step.
-clip-
Ehud Olmert has been forced to resign as Israeli Prime Minister resulting from a bribery scandal, and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is set to take over as head of Kadima and the favorite to be the next leader. Needless to say, any turmoil in Israel impacts the greater Middle East. Livni has been the chief negotiator with the Palestinians, but if she can't form a government, there will be early elections, and a return to Likudnik power would be a disaster for any hopes for peace. Yet polls are showing that Bibi Netanyahu would be the victor if elections were held today. That's genuinely scary.
-clip-
And then there's Iraq, of course. We now have a fair bit of proof that the ethnic cleansing of Baghdad is what led to the drop in violence, not the surge. There's more to Iraq than Baghdad, of course, but there are also more explanations for the security gains in those outlying areas (the Sunni Awakening in Anbar, for example). Meanwhile the political situation remains stalemated, as legislation for the provincial elections has failed for the fifth time. And the Awakening forces are growing more violent, which will get worse if the Maliki government follows through on locking them out of the security forces. As long as the debate here is played out over whether the surge was a success, we won't be having a real argument about the future of Iraq. It's dishonest.
It's time to get serious. The belligerent Bush foreign policy is making a dangerous world more dangerous. Our shrinking moral authority and lack of cooperation with allies has enhanced this. I don't know if we're losing the war on terrorism because I have no idea what a war on terrorism is, but the public thinks we are. And the choice in this Presidential election is between the same old neocon know-nothingism or a measured approach that recognizes both the challenges we face and the best way to combat them. That is more than important enough to fill 90 minutes on Friday night. I just hope (against hope) that the debate is about the real issues.
We'll do this Emptywheel in toto:
Hidden in an article reporting that Cheney's going to go hunt up some support for the $700,000,000,000 bailout is this admission that the Bush Administration has been sitting on it for some time:
Fratto insisted that the plan was not slapped together and had been drawn up as a contingency over previous months and weeks by administration officials. He acknowledged lawmakers were getting only days to peruse it, but he said this should be enough.
Which raises three questions for me:
A) First, as we'll discuss today in the book salon on Woodward's War Within, the Bush Administration refused to admit Iraq was FUBAR even while, for seven months, they were drumming up a new strategy because it was FUBAR. They did so because they didn't want to affect the mid-term elections. So has the Bush Administration been formulating a plan to bail out their buddies, in secret, because they didn't want to let the voters know how badly they had fucked up the American economy before November?
B) And if that is true, how much worse has the economy gotten--and how much more expensive will the bailout be--because the Bushies were trying to hide yet another colossal Republican failure?
C) Or, did they simply not tell us about their fuck-up so they could spring the $700,000,000,000 surprise on us on a Friday and demand results by Monday? The Shock Doctrine at work!
Apparently someone by the name of Max Boot has been conscripted by the McPalin/Shame campaign:
My old boss Josh Marshall notes that Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations is now an official McCain campaign surrogate. Gleefully, Josh asks:
I'd be interested in seeing a list of all the completely insane things Max has said and written over the last decade.
Why, so would I! But I'm going to be lazy and stick to the locus classicus of Max Boot batshittery: "The Case For American Empire," from the Weekly Standard's October 15, 2001 issue. I hear you objecting -- Yeah, yeah, we know all about that one. But do you? Do you? Sure, you remember this quote:
Afghanistan and other troubled lands today cry out for the sort of enlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confident Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets.
But it's a shame, really, because the baroque foolishness of that line -- no Englishman, for instance, would be ahistorical enough to engage in such unironic empire-nostalgia -- has obscured the less-florid-but-still-barking-mad bits of the essay. For instance, let's take my favorite:
Once Afghanistan has been dealt with, America should turn its attention to Iraq. It will probably not be possible to remove Saddam quickly without a U.S. invasion and occupation--though it will hardly require half a million men, since Saddam's army is much diminished since the Gulf War, and we will probably have plenty of help from Iraqis, once they trust that we intend to finish the job this time. Once we have deposed Saddam, we can impose an American-led, international regency in Baghdad, to go along with the one in Kabul. With American seriousness and credibility thus restored, we will enjoy fruitful cooperation from the region's many opportunists, who will show a newfound eagerness to be helpful in our larger task of rolling up the international terror network that threatens us.
Pretty much every clause of that paragraph has been, uh, overtaken by events. It says oh so much about John McCain that he'd pick such a paragon of insight, curiosity and sagacity as a foreign-policy surrogate.
That is stunning, in ever so many ways. I am invoking the "what he said" clause.
And I can't resist sharing this from Eli at FDL (how can you resist "too many barbs, not enough barbeque"?!!):
Steve Schmidt has achieved the impossible, something Obama could only dream of: He has actually made the media fall out of love with John McCain. He curtailed the Fauxverick's informal interaction with reporters on the "Double Straight Talk Express," and instituted a strategy of attacking the media every time they criticize his candidates or point out that they're chain-liars.
This was really not a good idea. The media's love for McCain and his phony Straight-Talking Maverick image was the best thing he had going for him, and it's falling apart at the worst possible time. McCain picked a running mate with more skeletons than substance, and he needs to look presidential and credible in the midst of a financial crisis. Both very risky propositions when you can't count on the media to report your version of reality.
T-Rex says it best:
Maybe the McSame stooges think they can run a successful campaign against the media. Somehow, I doubt that. The media carries your message as srely as the soundman in a club engineers your sound.
The media are not a filter, they're an amp... but only if they're on your side. Now that McCain has so cruelly spurned his erstwhile lovers, his shiny new running mate is getting tarnished by stories about her dodgy record as mayor and governor, and he has to explain how he can be trusted to do the right thing on the mortgage meltdown when one of his top advisers was getting $15,000 a month from Freddie Mac until the government had to take it over. Not. Helping.
Schmidt and McCain will find it much harder to pull off a successful smear-and-mirrors campaign without the kind of media assist that Dubya got in 2000 and 2004. But they're going for it anyway, because it's all they know, and it's all they've got.
posted by Sir Gumbo at 10:11 PM
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