Remember, remember, the 6th of November…No, really, REMEMBER!

It’s the 6th tomorrow. 

ELECTION DAY! 

If you haven’t vote, if you haven’t gotten involved…WAKE UP!!!

It’s time to get out to your polling place. Commit to voting.

As busy as the president is he’s gotten around to voting.

Yeah. He’s traveling the country, talking to everyone, dealing with natural disasters, AND…voting.

Michelle Obama does a beautiful job breaking down the numbers. A few votes on one block could tilt this election. Every vote matters. You matter.

And remember all the people affected by this election and benefiting from President Obama’s leadership. Including, but not limited to…

LGBT:

Women:

College students:

Latinos:

Republicans:

Those concerned about foreign policy:

Every tax payer:

Get out and vote by tomorrow. It matters. You matter. And to continue through recovery, and protect and guarantee the rights of all Americans, vote for Obama and help hold back a roll back of progress, reform, and rights.

We need you tomorrow.

VOTE.

Debate 2: Obama talks to America, Romney talks out of his ass.

As I noted in my last post, I over tweeted myself and got booted.

eh

So let's look at this debate we had tonight between President Obama and Mitt Romney. This time we had a town hall format debate. Which means that the candidate stand up, occasionally sitting on a stool (Word out is Romney practiced this hard the last few days.) and receive questions for different people and answer. The idea is to be more informal and offer more back and forth, which we got. This format was not, it seems, well suited to Romney, who became quite pissy and grouchy, with people calling him out on lies and bad math.

Also, following on Martha Radditch, Candy Crowley finely proved herself as a moderator. While both candidates at times went longer than they should have, or (Mitt) had added goes at the other (Obama), overall, she kept them on point, and worked to keep them reasonable. She even took a blatant attempt to lie about a major foreign policy issue and put it straight.



Quick and simple. Obama did talk about acts of terrorism. Romney and the GOP may want to pretend otherwise, but no.

Of course. The Right Wing is eager to fight over this, like with Fast and Furious, the minutia of the issue is all they have to hope can, in some way, smear and bring down the president. It is pathetic. But, look who leads this charge:

They just want to quibble. "Obama didn't really really say it right. For shame."

But this is what they have, and what Romney brought. And Obama gave a sober answer the question of who takes responsibility when deaths happen as president. And it was bad for Romney, who clearly looked like a man never without someone to shift blame onto.

And I could go into the discussion that went into women's health, but the President blew Romney out of the water on that.

And he pulled out the Apology Tour BS. Who does this work with? Are the undecided impressed by it? He just flung it out sadly. Last gasps of that line? Maybe? Please?


Other oddities:

Binder of Women. 
To explain how Mitt really got the issues of women in the workplace and the trouble of getting fair pay, Romney hearkened back to when he was hiring as governor. I knew as Obama was talking this would be tricky for Romney, he has so little connection to people trying to get paid properly. So instead he just talked about, gosh, trying to get some women into government.

And that, apparently, required a binder of women who he could pick from. Flattering, right? Also, apparently neither he nor his advisers had any women around them that seemed like immediately obvious choices to work with Mitt. Odd that (No it isn't.).

Also imagine did he also need binders to figure out if any Hispanics, Blacks, or Asians were available to serve. And what about at Bain and the Olympics? No binders then? No interest in that sorted diversity business at the time?

Source - http://gifwich.tumblr.com/post/33748343150

And, yes, Romneys Binders (at @RomneysBinders on Twitter) now exists. The wonder of Twitter.

Gun violence arises from single parent homes.
Another weird bit from Mitt. He seemed to go off when talking about gun control and gun violence and point at single parent homes as a major problem. Also education. Weird. And easily critiqued.

It may seem odd that Romney tried to point at the under educated and single family kids here, unless you remember my previous post on dog whistles. To the GOP, and the people that think like Romney, the problem is "those people" who come from broken homes and get themselves a good education...you know, those...urban folk. Those...type. ...Romney is talking about black people! He thinks the problem is among blacks, and his friends at the NRA would like you to think that as well...regardless of how many white guys shoot up groups of people.

Oh, yeah, he also tried desperately to pivot on to Fast and Furious.

Remember that? It was the go nowhere conspiracy/scandal that the GOP was trying to foist on the president, before they got around to trying to turn the assassination in Libya into the new one.

Wow. He tried to plop out 2 scandals over 90 minutes, and got big fails on both accounts.

Answer to jobs going overseas? Make us more desirable to business -- Which want cheap labor, low regulation on safety, and an easier time dumping waste. Paradise.

So Romney had a ready answer to address job loses to other countries. Make America more palatable to business.

What business likes in China, currently, is the very low wages they have to pay. They also don't have to give health care support. Also, they can work people quite hard for longer periods of time.

Sweat shops. That is the Romney America. We either work cheaply  with little free time, and low a standard of living, or we get, as Romney apparently sees it, what we deserve. Lovely, isn't it?

He also wants to take on China (snert). He'll take on their currency. He'll shake his finger at them. He'll really shake things up...He'll get nothing done.

As well, apparently, now the Chinese currency is growing closer to parity to the US dollar already. There's a long way to go, but the shift is underway.

And, noted by Think Progress, the tax plan that Romney has presented makes it easier for business to exit the United States. And, as we stand, our effective corporate tax rate is the lowest in the developed world.

Also, Trickle Down Government? I know Frank Luntz loves his little terms. And going after the all too accurate description of their economic philosophy, Trickle Down Economics, must be so fun for them. But is this resonating with anyone. The only people who probably remember it's origins are bitter Reaganites who are already sold, and those that remember how telling the original term was. Odd desperate choice.

Immigration, if only Obama cared.
Romney tried to sell the idea that Obama has been silent for four years on immigration. That is patently false. In 2009 he had a immigration bill in Congress. But Republicans were staunchly opposed, and some Democrats joined in, killing the bill. And with the efforts now with the DREAM Act, it got to the point where Obama just had to act on his own, thanks to the feet dragging of Republicans.

Also.

Fake sympathy from Romney. That isn't winning plan for the Hispanic vote.

To end the night, Mitt tried to share what voters don't know about him.

And to start off, he, for some reason, started to list off his resume to the audience. ...Honestly, it made me flashback to the last episode of The Thick Of It, when two advisers to the DoSAC minister are being made to justify why they shouldn't be forced to resign in the wake of a scandal. And one, Phil Smith, just starts rattling off, in a distracted panic, his job description.

It was kind of sad to watch...I mean in the episode of the TV show. Here it was almost funny.

Then he kept saying we don't have to settle. Again and again. Because, a vote for Mitt Romney isn't settling at all.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

So?

Are We Better Off Now Then We Were Four Years Ago?

Think Progress has some charts to remind us how things have changed for the better over these last four years.

Here's one chart:

Under Democratic leadership a steep fall has been shifted. After heavy losses, economically, we are returning. We have a distance to go. But the turnaround and success we've had so far comes from Democratic efforts, despite Republican roadblocks. Turning things back over to those that drove us into the red, who promise now they've learned their lesson...That is mad.

We are coming back, as we'll see with Barack Obama and Four More Years.

The standard Mitt Romney Foreign Policy Get Together

Amazingly, some people are still unaware how laden Mitt Romney is with advise and advisers that carried over from the George W Bush administration. If you didn't know before, you do now. John Bolton and many others are pushing and filling Mitt's heads with dreams of unfunded mandates, and glorious, world shaping, war.

Here's some secretly taken video from one of Mitt's Foreign Policy sessions:



They are still dancing and singing about it right now.

WMD's and Belief

Weapon's of Mass Destruction. Those were popular for awhile. Early part of the last decades it seemed to be all we would talk about. Not so much now.

But still, after all we've been through some are interested in the topic. No, I'm not talking about people all jacked up on the idea of bombing Iran into oblivion (...Though, there is some overlap.). Nor do I mean the people who still remember all the eager talk of WMD's and the need for wars (Thankfully some remember and try to keep the rest of us from forgetting.). Rather, I mean the lot who still believe and want to make other's believe that Iraq was a success for the US on the WMD chase topic.

Yes, many people, mostly Right Wingers, believe the antiquated dilapidated hype of the Bush PR team. Of course, they are largely FOX News watchers so they believe plenty of naff things. But this is particularly interesting as the continued embrace of this tenuous point makes them more reassured of the idea of the preemptive Iraqi invasion and claims of WMD threats in other places.

Lessons must be learned.

Let us remember just why we went in. We were DAYS from getting nuked by those mad Iraqis. They were mass producing nukes and other horrors, and we had all the proof we needed. So we got shaky intel, we got dubious sources, we got vials of talc to shake in people's faces, and we got all the King's Men in a line to say, "Yes. Freedonia must go to war." (Sigh...I know, obvious joke.)










Then they lined up the allies.

And off we all went, whether we liked it or not.

WAR.

And the results, on the WMD front, were bupkus.

Despite what some want to claim, we found nothing new. What was there is what we already knew of. All the weapons and facilities were in place (Yes, chemical, biological, and nuclear.). They were in place and unused since 1991. That's when we first made them close up shop.

And some want to go, "AH HA!!! Vindication!" ...No. We knew about this stuff. It was no threat. Hell, alot of it was 80's mustard gas, from back when Iraq was our ally. What about the deadly (but sounding, oh so, delicious) yellowcake? Packed up in barrels way back in the day by inspectors. And no sign of the passionately promised Nigerian buys (Looking at you, Powell.).

But people tried and still try to move the goalpost. We can call it WMD's, so they are everything we claimed. So Iraq had them, and the Neocons were right. ...No.

Oh, no. We were told of active work being done. Nuclear warheads, ready to go. Deadly toxins, ready to deploy. But none of that was found. Just the tracks that showed where the goalpost was moved from. From fantastical pristine research labs to the reality of rusting bins in a storage facility.

Whatever the reason we want to say we went into Iraq, and it's impact on our nation, Iraq, and the world, we did not go in and preempt any genuine immediate threat.

That should be a part of the legacy of the Iraq War never forgotten.

But some try to convince us we can forget, and move on to the next war.

When did hating America become patriotic?

When did it? As I have been watching conservatives mouth off and rant in the last month they have veered further and further into attacks they once called unamerican and traitorous. But now it is all virtuous and true.

You have the John Voight's declaring the president a new Caesar (w/ vid). Apparently Bush's marching the legions into 2 countries, and cracking down on liberties in this one don't count that way. Then he says he is too weak and naive. He makes no sense. But this guy is a tool, and an actor, so who really cares.

But you have Orrin Hatch who reminds us how we can all get along. Just do as he and the rest of Republicans demand. How nice of him.

Cause as Glenn Beck likes to remind us, progressives are the problem with the country.

And as Dr. Tiller's murderer promises, more violence is coming. How nice of the conservative nut jobs.

And the Secret Service seems to be quite busy dealing with a number of ongoing threats to the President...and conservatives love America...?

So why are they angry. Apparently Newt knows. Gingrich has warned the pious...those PAGANS are everywhere...LOOK OUT!!!

As Crooks and Liars, among others, have been chronicling, the right wing has been passionately decrying day after day march to socialism. They seem to love to announce and decry it time and again, as Chris Wallace was on his show (w/ vid).

Better yet we have Rep. Kirk of Illinois. He is advising the world to not trust the government financial numbers...so...he is warning the world away from doing business with the US...WTF?

Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL) now appears to have taken a bold step in the debate over the budget deficit: Openly telling a foreign government not to trust the administration in Washington.

The Straits Times reports that Kirk spoke to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, and discussed a meeting he had with Chinese leaders. ...

He's telling the Chinese our number are not to be trusted, particularly if we make changes to health care. Nice. Remember when a female politician wearing a scarf while visiting the Middle East was a betrayal of American ideals?

And then there are others in Congress, actually have been disclosing dribs and drabs of our intel secrets. What patriots. Remember when this stuff was supposed to be wrong?

What further damage could these America loving patriots do to the country? Oh yeah! Rush and others are calling for boycotts of GM and its cars and services. So they want to destroy one of the countries large businesses...

Geez, these people are such tools. Let us see, disrupt the economy, reveal intel secrets, foment revolt and violence, disrupting our diplomacy with other nations, and we are supposed to be more worried about an old man in a cave on the other side of the world? I mean, really, conservatives in power the last eight years and out of power now seem far more capable and active doing far more damage.

Anything else? Oh right. Republicans want to keep the Supreme Court seat held up for a couple of years.

Republicans are now suggesting that they need a pro-rata allotment of days before Sonia Sotomayor's hearings based on the time she's served on the bench. Which, we did the math, would come out to waiting 610 days before the senate can hold hearings on her confirmation. How does that make sense? Eric Kleefeld got their spokesman on the phone to see if they're really going to hold out for the full two years.

Netroots is on

And TPM is covering it.

Here is a coversation they had with Richard Clark on foreign policy.

Ready to Lead?

McCain in 2002.

AMERICAblog:

...

In January of 2002, John McCain was also speaking out. McCain was warmongering to attack Iraq ten months before he voted for the war. McCain already wanted another war before the first one was finished:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) visited the Roosevelt yesterday and shouted, "Next up: Baghdad!" from the carrier's bridge.

McCain has been pushing the administration to make Iraq and its dictator, Saddam Hussein, the next targets in the war on terrorism.

Pentagon officials and Powell have cautioned against focusing on Baghdad, but McCain said yesterday that Iraq poses "a clear and present danger" to the U.S.

"I think Iraq is going to have to be considered," he said.

McCain couldn't wait to start the next war.

And now...

AMERICAblog:

Using the vernacular of the GOP, I believe that this is called a "flip-flop":

After months of saying additional troops were not needed in Afghanistan, McCain changed position Tuesday and called for an additional three brigades -- or roughly 15,000 troops -- to be sent to the country. It was unclear if those troops would be redeployed from Iraq or come from NATO forces.

In other words, McCain is not only flip-flopping. He's not even sure how far he's actually flopped. Clearly, McCain's hand has been forced because of the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. But, that situation has been deteriorating for years. Where's he been?

...

Huh?


Crooks and Liars has more.

While talking about the war in Afghanistan yesterday, John McCain predictably went after Barack Obama, saying Obama “has no strategy.” It was an odd attack, given the fact that McCain had just flip-flopped on his Afghanistan policy, and embraced Obama’s strategy as his own.

...

The key quote, of course, was pretty straightforward: “[O]ur commanders on the ground in Afghanistan say that they need at least three additional brigades. Thanks to the success of the surge, these forces are becoming available, and our commanders in Afghanistan must get them.”

What’s important to realize, though, is that while Obama has been arguing for a year that he wants to send additional troops to Afghanistan, McCain has always held the opposite position, opposing the deployment of more U.S. troops, and arguing that any additional troops come from NATO.

Yesterday, however, McCain reversed course, change his position, and embraced Obama’s policy as his own. As Josh Marshall explained, “So let’s all say it out loud: McCain is now copying Obama’s position on Afghanistan. And with troops that he doesn’t have since he’s against pulling any out of Iraq.”

But it gets worse. McCain has actually held multiple positions on Afghanistan in the last seven days.

...

So McCain is all over the place and making bad arguments for how to move policy and the armed forces.On to Baghdad indeed. A bit of that old bomb bomb Iran gusto. Is this guy ready to lead?

McCain's hard work on the trouble in Afghanistan

Crooks and Liars:

ABC reports tonight that McCain is 0-for-6 when it comes to Afghanistan...

It turns out that presumptive Republican nominee Sen. John McCain, has attended even fewer Afghanistan-related Senate hearings over the past two years than Obama’s one. Which is a nice way of saying, McCain, R-Ariz., the top Republican on the Senate Armed Service Committee, has attended zero of his committee’s six hearings on Afghanistan over the last two years.

...

The fact that ABC even bothered to question McCain's claims here surprises me. But then again, I doubt there will be any followup or further coverage from other networks.

But where is McCain? Chatting with the press instead of in the meetings.

McCain Diplomacy

Crooks and Liars:

A couple of months ago, Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, one of John McCain’s conservative Republican colleagues and a man who’s worked with McCain for years, raised serious doubts about McCain’s temperament. “The thought of him being president sends a cold chill down my spine,” Cochran said. “He is erratic. He is hotheaded. He loses his temper and he worries me.”

The number of examples to bolster these concerns keeps going up.

Not surprisingly, after the speech last week at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, McCain’s campaign could not talk enough about international cooperation—what McCain had called a “new compact.” “He has such a deep relationship with so many Europeans and those in other regions, including Asia and the Middle East,” said one adviser, Rich Williamson, who added that McCain has kept up his global profile by “going each year to the Munich Security Conference.”

It was all very reassuring. There’s just one problem: John McCain doesn’t always behave according to his own statesmanlike script. In fact, while attending that same Munich conference in 2006, the Arizona senator had another one of what have come to be known as McCain Moments. In a small meeting at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof, McCain was conferring with Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the foreign minister of Germany — one of America’s most important allies — when the others heard McCain erupt. He thought the German was being insufficiently tough on the brutal regime in Belarus. Raising his voice at Steinmeier — who’s known for speaking in unclear diplomatese — McCain “started shaking and rising out of his chair,” said one participant, a former senior diplomatic official who related the anecdote on condition of anonymity. “He said something like: ‘I haven’t come to Munich to hear this kind of crap’.”

McCain’s old pal Joe Lieberman jumped in. “Lieberman, who reads him very well, put his hand on McCain’s arm and said gently, ‘John, I think there’s been a problem in the translation.’ Of course Lieberman doesn’t speak German and there hadn’t been any problem in the translation … It was just John’s explosive temper.”

As Newsweek noted, this didn’t amount to an international incident, and “the Germans later said all was forgiven.” It was, however, just McCain being McCain. He’s an equal-opportunity hothead, berating Republicans, Democrats, the powerful, the powerless, and anyone who annoys him in this country or any other.

Just the kind of guy we want leading the most powerful military on the planet during a time of war, right?

We people start looking more closely at what the Surge has meant

Crooks and Liars looks at the new Rolling Stone article on the surge. Seems we aren't seeing full reportsd on the situation.

...

This article by Nir Rosen is a long read, but it’s well worth it. Rosen describes in detail how the situation on the ground in Iraq is tenuous at best, a powder keg ready to ignite at any given moment. We haven’t been getting much honest or detailed reporting from Iraq in quite some time and this article unveils much of what many of us have assumed for some time. The successes of the surge amount to trapping people in run down neighborhoods turned to rubble, imprisoning thousands and creating millions of refugees. Freedom is on the march…

More McCain

Well, with Romney towing the line now (And, say...What do you think? With the fate of America's future on the line if Democrats win the White House...Do you think he wants McCain to win? Or lose, so he can run in 4 years? Hmm, tough choice.) time to look some more at that hero and defender of democracy, that straight talker, John McCain.

Maverick? Moderate? Independent? Harumph!

Old habits die hard. The media has had a tough time coming to grips with the reality of John McCain 2008 — The Maverick is dead. Chris Matthews is probably the worst offender, but the media narrative that McCain is the darling of Independents has run its course and needs to be put to bed. Arianna Huffington writes the Dear John letter:

I hate to be the one to break up a love affair, especially with Valentine’s Day just around the corner, but I can no longer stand idly by and watch the media and independent voters continue to throw themselves at the feet of John McCain.

The John McCain they fell in love with in 2000 — the straight-shooting, let-the-chips-fall-where-they-may maverick - is no more. He’s been replaced by a born-again Bushite willing to say or do anything to win the affection of his newfound object of desire, the radical right.

So, please, stop pretending that McCain is still the dashing rebel that made knees buckle back in the day — and stop referring to him, as the New York Times did this weekend, as “moderate” and a “centrist.” Read on…

McCain stands against torture, except when he doesn't.

The Senate voted today to ban the CIA from using torture on suspected terrorists and the most famous POW in the Senate voted against the bill. The Maverick is now most assuredly dead and the betrayal is complete. The blogosphere was all over this issue, and thankfully the measure passed, but for McCain, it was a show of pure cowardice. In other words, the Senator who himself was tortured for years and has previously spoken out against it, voted to allow the use of torture on others to save his political hide and pander to a party base that despises him. Shame on you, Senator. Is this the sort of weakness you want from your Commander in Chief?

Tell me again how this no jobs, more wars, pro-torture, pro-Bush tax cuts, anti-choice, pro-surge Republican is going to draw Independents and Democrats to his side this fall? As a side note, would it surprise you that alleged Democratic caucus members Senators Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman also voted for torture today?

McCain knows all.

Speaking to reporters in Richmond, VA last night, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) attacked “anyone” who points out that he is “fine” with keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for 100 or more years. “Anyone who worries about how long we’re in Iraq does not understand the military and does not understand war,” said McCain.

He then added that it is “really almost insulting to one’s intelligence” to question “how long we’re in Iraq” because he believes the current “strategy” is “succeeding.”

...

Just once, I’d like to hear McCain get confronted by this notion of the “surge succeeding”. Are we to consider the deaths of 75 people and the 83 people reported injured on Sunday alone successful? How about the threat to disband Iraqi Parliament–ostensibly the justification for the surge, to allow the government to establish itself by curtailing violence? Where’s the success, McCain?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but there’s a lot here insulting our intelligence, but it isn’t from questioning how long we should be in Iraq.

Good to know he understands war and the military for us poor dumb citizens. Isn't he so brave, strong and manly? RETCH!

And, really, let us see Blitzer or Matthews actually ask him, "How do you judge this Surge a success, especially as generally a surge recedes quickly after and not meander on...that' a flood!

We flooded troops into Iraq to try to put out the fires of insurgency. We have temporarily staved some of it off, but it remains and it ripe to grow to the old heights. How are things going to be getting better...But Old Man McCain understands these things better than use peons...


More war and rhetoric?

Why is the neocon crowd so excited about the Arizona senator? Max Boot, an unpaid foreign policy advisor to the McCain campaign, explains.

It is hard to see how Bush could reverse this decline in America’s “fear factor” during the remaining year of his presidency. That will be the job of the next president. And who would be the most up to the task?

To answer that question, ask yourself which presidential candidate an Ahmadinejad, Assad or Kim would fear the most. I submit it is not Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or Mike Huckabee. In my (admittedly biased) opinion, the leading candidate to scare the snot out of our enemies is a certain former aviator who has been noted for his pugnacity and his unwavering support of the American war effort in Iraq.

Kevin makes quick work of Boot’s painful perspective.

There you have it. If you think the most important aspect of a president is the ability to “scare the snot out of our enemies,” then McCain’s your guy.

Now, you might think that after seven years of trying exactly this, with only the current collapse in our fortunes to show for it, the neocon establishment might at least pause for a moment to wonder if there’s more to foreign policy than scaring the snot out of our enemies. But no. The real problem, apparently, is simply that the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld administration wasn’t good enough at it. Not bellicose enough. Not unilateral enough. Not warlike enough. What America needs is someone even more bloodthirsty than the crew that got us into this mess. Time to double down, folks.

This, in a nutshell, is what McCain is offering by way of a foreign policy.

More scares and ratcheting up...maybe he'll give up another rendition of Bomb Iran, maybe he'll just order more RENDITIONS.

What has the Surge really given us?

Informed Comment:

Andrew Bacevich eviscerates the Iraq War party with this passionate and clear-sighted essay on 'the Surge to Nowhere' in WaPo. He points out that the real motivation behind last year's troop escalation was to avoid popular outrage building in the US electorate to the point where the troops were pulled out. He observes that the argument for the 'success' of the 'surge' is purely a tactical one. When viewed from the vantage point of grand strategy, the Iraq War is as much a failure as it has always been.

If someone came to you six years ago and said that for only $2 trillion, you could have for your colony a burned out country, a failed state, and a semi-permanent incubator of terrorism and hatred against the US, would you have ponied up the money? That's what you've got, and that is what it cost you. Detroit could have used some of that money. New Orleans could have used some of that money. Appalachia has lots of schools that need to be painted.

...

Canada not so happy with the States

Canada goes to the trouble of illustrating for America what the flaw in a casual torture policy.

AMERICAblog:

Our neighbor to the north had added the United States to its list of nations that torture:

In Canada, the United States has joined a notorious group of countries -- Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Afghanistan and China, among others -- as a place where foreigners risk torture and abuse, according to a training manual for Canadian diplomats that was accidentally given this week to Amnesty International lawyers.

The manual is intended to create "greater awareness among consular officials to the possibility of Canadians detained abroad being tortured." Part of the workshop is devoted to teaching diplomats how to identify people who have been tortured. It features a section on "U.S. interrogation techniques," including forced nudity, hooding and isolation.

...

The president has no need for or belief in intelligence. No one is surprised.

Slate:

President George W. Bush hasn't accomplished much on his voyage to the Middle East, but he did take the time to inflict another wound on the entire U.S. intelligence community—and on the credibility of anything he might ever again say about the world.

...

In the latest Newsweek, Michael Hirsh reports that, during a private conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Bush "all but disowned" the agencies' Dec. 3 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. A "senior administration official who accompanied Bush" on the trip confided to Hirsh that Bush "told the Israelis that he can't control what the intelligence community says, but that [the NIE's] conclusions don't reflect his own views."

This remark has three baleful consequences. First, it can't help but demoralize the intelligence community. NIEs are meant, ultimately, for only one reader, the president; and here's the president telling another world leader that he doesn't believe it because, well, he doesn't agree with it.

Second, it reinforces the widespread view that the president views intelligence strictly as a political tool: When it backs up his policies, it's as good as gold; when it doesn't, it's "just guessing." This result is that all intelligence is degraded and devalued, at home and abroad. Let's say that six months from now Bush publicizes an NIE concluding that Iran has resumed its nuclear-weapons program or that, say, North Korea is reprocessing more plutonium. Given that he pooh-poohed an NIE that rubbed against his own views, why should anyone take him seriously for embracing an NIE that confirms them?

Third, by telling Olmert that it's all right to ignore the NIE, Bush is in effect telling him that Israel should go ahead and behave as if its findings had never been published. Hirsh reports that, when Olmert was asked whether he felt reassured by Bush's words, he replied, "I am very happy."

...

A look back at a year of Surge

Crooks and Liars looks at the anniversary of the short term surge of US forces.

Today has been the anniversary of Bush’s surge in Iraq. Clearly there is no political reconciliation in Iraq so the surge is and always will be a failure no matter how many times Joe Lieberman and John McCain proclaim it so. This has been an immoral war started by neocon warmongers and the end result at this point is that the Iraqi people have suffered dearly for our sins.

...

Remember what the plan was to start. Curbing violence was important, but not an end. It was to give the leaders in Iraq time and space to get the real work done. It is not being done. Some local work is happening. People are standing up. But many are looking ahead to very narrow ends on the ground in Iraq. They are waiting to grab at power, resources, and "justice." And what about Kirkuk and the Kurds, these have been divisive and dangerous issues, and continue to be so.

Rape in the Green Zone.

Crooks and Liars points to a disturbing reminder of what this government has tied itself to.

A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.

Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court against Halliburton and its then-subsidiary KBR, Jones says she was held in the shipping container for at least 24 hours without food or water by KBR, which posted armed security guards outside her door, who would not let her leave. Read on…

Getting deeper into the NIE

More on what is going on with the Iranian NIE


Crooks and Liars: (with video)

It was a year ago this month that Seymour Hersh wrote in the New Yorker that the White House (ie: Cheney) was pushing back against the release of a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran that had failed to find any evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons program. Once again I guess you could say Sy is the polar opposite of ‘the boy who cried wolf’.’

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It’s little wonder why Seymour Hersh is so often the target of fierce criticism from Bushco as he’s been a thorn in their side just as he has many an administration before them. Sy has earned his place as one of the US’s greatest investigative reporters/muckrakers ever after his exposing many of the greatest scandals of our time. He broke the My Lai massacre, the torture at Abu
Ghraib, and the CIA’s “Family Jewels” that led to the Church
hearings, and even Clinton’s bombing of a pharmaceutical factory in Sudan, just to name a few of his more well known.

UPDATE: (Nicole) Marcy has a great NIE timeline…

Huckabee on the NIE

From the Politico.com:

This is from a dinner tonight.

Kuhn: I don’t know to what extent you have been briefed or been able to
take a look at the NIE report that came out yesterday ...

Huckabee: I’m sorry?

Kuhn: The NIE report, the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. Have you
been briefed or been able to take a look at it —

Huckabee: No.

Kuhn: Have you heard of the finding?

Huckabee: No.

Not too comforting. By the end of this day you think he would have had someone...I don't know...mention it to him...let him know that intel on Iran was shifting and that what he had to say may be affected. Course it hasn't changed most of the rhetoric on the right so...

Of course then with little knowlege on the topic, except what Khun shares we get this.

Huckabee: I’ve a serious concern if they were to be able to weaponize
nuclear material, and I think we all should, mainly because the statements of
Ahmadinejad are certainly not conducive to a peaceful purpose for his having it
and the fear that he would in fact weaponize it and use it. (He pauses and
thinks) I don’t know where the intelligence is coming from that says they have
suspended the program or how credible that is versus the view that they actually
are expanding it. … And I’ve heard, the last two weeks, supposed reports that
they are accelerating it and it could be having a reactor in a much shorter
period of time than originally been thought.

But this is a different issue. The difference between weaponizing and power generation. How far can we go denying nuclear power research? Who will back us up, besides Israel? Russia and China, with proof of no weapons research have less pressure to be hard on a trading ally.

I'd like to see him consider and talk on that, but I am worried it is outside of his realm understanding at this point.

But at least he says:

But I think probably so because there is going to be a real anxiety for us to
take any type of action without there being some very credible and almost
irrefutable intelligence to validate our decision.

But would the lack of intel keep him from following his gut? I wonder.

Not to worry, their is a way to spin the Iran story

From TPM:

Yep, Rudy's Mideast Advisor Norman Podhoretz says the CIA is fibbing about the Iranian nuclear program to protect the Iranians from an attack by Bush or Rudy.

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Fmr ambassador John Bolton is on CNN calling the report wrong and inaccurate, and that other reports support the great Iranian threat position.

Condi? Have you met Sir Humphrey Appleby?

The new story about Secretary Rice is funny, except it is a bit disturbing.

AMERICAblog:

Okay, I'll admit it. I often get my news from reading the crawl on the t.v. while I'm working out. But, I'm not the Secretary of State during major international crises, including a war I helped start. But, in fact, your Secretary of State also gets news about major world developments from the t.v. while she's working out. And, bad news does not interfere with her exercise regimen.

Just in case anyone still wonders why U.S. foreign policy is such a disaster, this passage in Maureen Dowd's column is illustrative:

In 2006, when Israel invaded Lebanon and many civilians died, including children, Condi and W. drew Arab and U.N. ire for not forcing Ehud Olmert to broker a cease-fire faster.

That same year, in another instance of spectacular willful ignorance, she was blindsided by the Hamas win in the Palestinian elections.

As she described it to Bumiller, she went upstairs at 5 a.m. the morning after the Palestinian elections in 2006 to the gym in her Watergate apartment to exercise on her elliptical machine. She saw the news crawl reporting the Hamas victory.

“I thought, ‘Well, that’s not right,’ ” she said. She kept exercising for awhile but finally got off the elliptical trainer and called the State Department. “I said, ‘What happened in the Palestinian elections?’ and they said, ‘Oh, Hamas won.’ And I thought, ‘Oh, my goodness! Hamas won?’ ”

When she couldn’t reach the State Department official on the ground in the Palestinian territories, she did what any loyal Bushie would do: She got back on the elliptical.

“I thought, might as well finish exercising,” Rice told Bumiller. “It’s going to be a really long day.” It was one of the few times she was prescient on the Middle East.

Wow.

This is like something out of comedy. It is almost exactly like the old brilliant and classic British comedy series, Yes, Minister/Yes, Prime Minister. It poked fun at incompetent, corrupt, and uncertain politicians and the entrenched and self-serving Civil Service. Quite fun.

In one episode we saw this very idea played out, but they were making an exaggerated joke!

In it, a major crisis is breaking out somewhere in the world, the main character, Jim Hacker, tries to find and talk with the Foreign Minister (the equivalent of Secretary of State) to find out what is really happening. But is shocked to learn he is clueless as his TV is broken and he can't watch the news to learn what is happening. Shocked, Hacker asks to be informed if he learns something, and the FM counters and ask that Hacker tell him as he has a TV tuned to the news.

It's supposed to be a punchline!

How come this administration is working so hard to live up to so many old punchlines? If they ever try to make a serious movie about this administration, it will be impossible. It will be the Wizard of Oz of political pictures (see Imperial Life in the Emerald City). Historically, it will be hard to believe it is real...but it is and we have to survive it.

US in Iraq

Informed Comment:

The Korean Model

Bush is now talking about a "South Korea" model for Iraq. He likely got this nonsense from John Gaddis at Yale, who I heard talking it last November at the Chicago Humanities Fair.

So what confuses me is the terms of the comparison. Who is playing the role of the Communists and of North Korea? Is it the Sunni Arabs of Iraq? But they are divided into Iraqi/Arab nationalists and Salafi Sunni revivalists. (The secular Arab nationalists are the vast majority according to recent polling). So they are not a united force. They are fighting with one another in al-Anbar. And, the Arab nationalists and the religious Sunnis cannot both play the role of the Communists. Some Arab nationalists are allied with the United States (Egypt, Tunisia, etc.) Others are not (Syria). Some religious Sunnis are allied with the US (Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan). Others are not. So where is the analogy to International Communism? Who is China and who is the Soviet Union? Is it Syria and Iran? But both are ruled by Shiites, not Sunnis!

But let us say that the Sunni Arabs are North Korea. Who is South Korea? Is it the Shiites of Iraq? But they are allied with Iran (isn't it playing the role of China?) And the vast majority of them don't want US troops in Iraq according to polls. There is zero chance that the Shiites of Iraq will put up with a long term presence of US bases in their areas of Iraq. The British base in Basra takes heavy fire all the time.

The only place in Iraq that looks at all like South Korea is maybe Kurdistan. But it is also allied with Iran behind the scenes, and it is in a troubling way giving asylum to Turkish-Kurdish terror groups that are infliction harm on the US's NATO ally, Turkey.

Even as we speak, in Iraq's north, Turkish military forces and now 20 tanks are massing on the Iraqi border, apparently poised for "hot pursuit" of Kurdish guerrillas of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), who have safe harbor in Iraqi Kurdistan but go over to Turkey and blow things up. There is some danger that the US will be in the middle of all this, though it is allied with both the Kurds and the Turks. Last week US fighter jets based in Iraq made an unauthorized incursion into Turkish air space that the Turks are protesting.

Do we really want to be in the middle of that?

(But see the next, translated, item, below).

So, no, Iraq isn't like Korea in any obvious way, and in fact the analogy strikes me as frankly ridiculous.

Expanding into Kurdistan

Although it is expected that today responsibility for security will be handed over to the Kurdistan authorities, exclusive military sources have told Hawlati that the US forces intend to open three huge US military bases in the Arbil, Duhok, and Al-Sulaymaniyah areas. Meanwhile, senior peshmerga forces' officials expressed their pleasure at such a move.